Blood Witch (20 page)

Barruch clomped
along with her, avoiding the cairns and sidestepping neatly to the
left when she bent to inspect the mounds of rock. She should have
asked Aislin if Yenic had put his sister in a marked or unmarked
pile, but then she supposed he would have no need of such markings
to remember which was hers.

To bring water to
this landscape would require a witch with incredible power, she
realized. If there was some liquid somewhere, perhaps she could
manage it, but the amount she had pulled from it had been so great
it had collected and released in a flash flood that ran across the
land too fast to seep in.

She glanced
sidelong at Barruch.

"I don't think it
can be done, old man."

He gave her a
baleful stare that she thought could be a look of challenge.

"You might be
better off back at the oasis. Just in case."

He pressed his
nose beneath her hand and she stroked it affectionately, letting
her palm linger on his white patch.

"Go my man," she
said, then slapped his rump. He whinnied in protest.

"Go you stinking
bag of wind. What are you waiting for?"

He took a sidestep
but didn't canter off. She placed her hands on her hips and faced
him. "You can't stay. You know that."

She slapped him
harder and he reached around and nipped her on the arm. She yelped
in surprise and smacked him again.

"What was that
for? You're acting so strange. Peaches. There's peaches. Go."

This time he did
go. He shot off as though he couldn't wait to get away. She knew
she'd hurt his feelings; he was such a sensitive beast, that one.
She watched the dust whorl behind him. Listened to the sound of his
hooves beating earth. She told herself she'd make it up to him,
take him for a good run in a soft plain when she could, when this
was all over.

She sucked in a
bolstering draft of air. How should she go about it, should she try
to think of the river that wound past her father's city, should she
imagine the clouds pulling together into one large billowing
mass?

Giving to instead
of taking from. That might not be something she could do. But she
had to try.

For long moments
she stood, afraid to let the power so much as seek out a droplet of
dew. In those long moments she counted her heart beats, thinking it
would distract her enough to avoid doing the usual sniffing
divination she always did before letting the power take her. She
always went somewhere when the gift came. It came; she went.
Perhaps that was the reason she had no control; she wasn't truly
and fully present when she psyched. The guilt of killing forced her
to distance herself.

No matter how long
she stood, nothing happened. She remained on her feet for so long,
she got a cramp in her calf and had to bend to rub it out.

She knew then that
she'd have to give in. She'd have to back off and let the psyching
come forward, but she wouldn't travel the paths, no. Not into the
pores of grass or that short bit of cactus. There wasn't enough
water in any of it to take anyway. There wasn't enough water
anywhere to pull from. She wasn't sure why she was so nervous; no
water existed near enough to thirst from. No water except the broad
body to the east, the river so wide they said it had no other side.
So wide it had no end and so deep it had no bottom.

She felt hot, and
she felt so cold, she could swear she had fallen into that broad
river. A curtain of water could have cascaded over her in those
seconds she felt so wet. It was then she knew she had done it.

She had brought
the rain.

And no finicky,
sparse drizzle either, but a deluge only accompanied by wind and
lightning, and only in the rainy season during the rare times when
the air was too hot to breathe.

A rain so heavy
she could barely see. So hard it landed on the earth and sent
plumes of dust in the air until the dust became mud and the water
started to collect in the hollow places.

A rain so fierce
it gathered itself into a river much the same as the one with no
end and no bottom.

A rain so
commanding it raised the level of panic within her chest. Yes. She
brought the rain, all right, but she brought too much, too soon,
too hard, and she had no idea how to stop it. Too late, she
realized there had been other water she could have recalled, pulled
from. A body of water much smaller than the broad river: the
waterfall in the oasis. But she'd not thought of that, only the
bottomless, endless river and so now the deluge had begun.

It had already
started to sweep past her calves and even as it ran, she felt the
strength of the current and knew it was rising fast. All too soon
it was to her knees and she saw the leg of one of the leathered
crones, the one she and Barruch had freed, go floating past. As far
as she could see in each direction, the rain beat against the
surface of the shallow lake that used to be a plain. Everywhere she
looked.

Barruch.

She stole a
frantic and harried glance toward the oasis. It looked like an
island from where Alaysha stood, fighting the current. She'd never
make it to him in time. She knew he could swim, all horses could,
but if the oasis got swallowed by the ever-growing lake, he'd never
be able to swim far enough to save himself.

And neither would
she.

A sob broke
through her throat. She couldn't tell if she was crying because her
face was streaming with the water the heavens were unleashing. She
forced her legs to move against the weight of water and current. To
get to Barruch, she had to go parallel to the movement of water.
Perhaps if she could get to him, then they could ride the current
to dry land. The water would have to meet an end sometime.
Somewhere.

The thought made
her think of the river she'd imagined. They said it had no end. No
bottom.

If she'd psyched
the water from there and brought it here, it was very likely there
would be no end.

She could barely
see even if she squinted into the rain, and the only thought that
would come to her was that she couldn't even psych the land dry
again because the water would just collect in clouds above her and
ultimately let go when they grew too heavy.

The only other
thought that came after that, before she started paddling
desperately toward the oasis, was that she'd rather lose control
than risk bringing such devastation again.

One hundred mount
strides to the oasis. She'd counted them that first day. How many
arm strokes in water would that be? She was already waist deep, the
water roaring in her ears. She thought in the distance she could
see a blur of black. She struggled to hear anything besides water
slicing into water. No sounds of whinnied protest or fear met her
ears, but she knew it was Barruch. She knew he would come for her.
To be with her.

She forged on. It
was him. She knew it. He was coming closer, but he was struggling,
she could tell. Off course and working hard to stay in line, the
current was doing its best to bring him where it wanted. Forward.
To the north. Away from her.

She shouted at him
but she didn't think her throat was even able to make a sound. She
certainly couldn't hear her voice to the fierceness of the storm.
She watched, helpless, as he went under, came up again, and then
began to move so quickly north with the current that she knew he'd
filled his belly with fruit.

It was possible
his stomach was twisted.

It was very
possible the pain would keep him from being able to swim.

It was possible
he'd lost his energy.

And it was very
possible he was going to die.

Chapter 19

She thought she heard a shout, but she knew she'd
been too paralyzed to open her mouth. She was treading water,
sobbing soundlessly and watching him stream away.

Then another shout
sounded and ripples appeared in the water, large circular waves
that made her think foolishly that a mountainous finger had dipped
itself into the lake. The oasis shivered like a heat wave and then,
between her and Barruch, a movement.

Her mount seemed
to be gliding backwards against the current; Alaysha found herself
standing again. Her toes reached into the mud, feeling small cracks
that reminded her of the veins across Theron's nose.

Then she wasn't
fighting the current anymore. The water everywhere began to ease
up.

She imagined she'd
somehow managed to stem the power, stop it somehow. Her fear for
Barruch, her worry at causing worse devastation than draining. The
elation of it filled her chest and spilled out in laughter as she
saw Barruch stop moving altogether. He found his legs.

And it seemed the
water was obeying her.

She felt like a
goddess in the moment. She believed she was capable of
anything.

And then she saw
the cracks in the earth where the water was draining away. A score
of crevices so many she couldn't count them, and at least a dozen
chasms so wide a man could lie in them and still have headroom.

The Earth had
split itself apart to save her and her trusted beast. And she knew
the power had not come from her spirit. The land around her was a
sodden mess of new muck and fissures filled with water. The rain
was still heaving itself downward, and it seemed the cracks were
deepening to accommodate the volume. Her only hope until the power
waned was to get Barruch to the mound of Earth that once was the
oasis. If the rain kept coming she wasn't sure even if it would be
able to withstand the torrent of matter how deep the cracks went.
They would have to fill some time.

She tried to
whistle for Barruch, but found doing so in the rain more difficult
than she'd expected. She settled for shouting and waving her arms.
She hoped he could find a way through the muck.

When he finally
swung his long neck in her direction, she thought it moved a little
too slowly. Fatigue beyond measure, she realized. The oasis for now
was out of the question.

She had to work
each step to pull her feet through the muck and against the sucking
draw of each step forward. Focusing on the movement, she was able
to ignore the way the rain felt striking her skin. Twice she
reached fissures too wide to step over and had to put all her
strength into jumping across them. The closer she got to Barruch,
the wider they grew.

When she finally
made it near enough to her beloved mount, she could tell how
exhausted he was. He stood on the opposite side of a chasm wide
enough she'd have to swim it to reach him. Alaysha noticed far
fewer crevices on his side. For some reason, this wide channel had
opened near enough to him that it drained the water without need of
further splits.

She was grateful
but thoroughly confused.

"We are lucky, old
man," she shouted to him and felt relief rush over her when he
neighed in return.

"I'm coming."

She plunged into
the newly rent and swollen river and swam, hand over her shoulder
for several minutes before climbing with effort onto the other
side. She couldn't stand straight away; her legs and arms were
trembling from exhaustion. All she could do was stretch her hand
forward on the ground so she could touch his hoof. She could have
wept when she felt his nose against her fingers.

"I couldn't leave
you, could I?" Alaysha felt her eyelids close from tiredness, not
the need to block out the rain.

In fact, if she
thought about it, the raindrops did seem less intense.

"I think the rain
is stopping."

Barruch blew air
on her arm and she could swear it was the last thing she felt
before her face grew warm and her eyelids bright enough she had to
shield them.

She'd fallen
asleep, obviously. The sun had found its way through the mist of
old humidity left over from the torrent. She rolled over, still
sore, but grateful. The ground was oily from the wet surface and
she could see, as she sat up, that muck covered her from head to
toe.

She sent a
thoughtful glance to the river next to her, but shrugged. She'd
just get filthy again. Maybe she'd wait the night at the oasis and
head back to Sarum with the new sun. Her stomach growled
irritably.

"Did you save me
any food, old man?"

Barruch stomped.
She was pleased to see he'd recovered enough to do so. "You must
have had a good nap, too. Shall we?"

She stood shakily,
but decided against lifting herself to his back. Instead, she
reached for his lead and sent her feet in the direction of the
oasis. He came with her almost reluctantly.

"I know. I can
think of no better place than our little cavern or Saxa's cottage
or Yuri's stables where you have so many fillies you enjoy, but it
will have to be the open stars tonight."

They would get a
decent rest, some honey, and maybe a few eggs if the rain hadn't
washed the oasis clean of food. A quick wash in the waterfall, and
then sleep through the night.

She doubted
anything would wake her.

Twice through the
night she woke to the sense that someone was watching her. Each
time she grumbled to Barruch in the dark to go to sleep. When she
woke with the sounds of birds filtering their song through the
branches, she doubted her trusty mount would have been so
sentimental as to watch her sleep, but she couldn't find anyone
lurking close enough to warrant the belief that someone else had
been there.

"Leftover magics,"
she decided aloud. The crones had wrapped this place in spells to
keep Yenic safe even as they sacrificed themselves to Alaysha's
power.

The thought made
her freeze midstride. Three powerful women letting themselves be
murdered, knowing their lines would disappear with them made no
sense. As it turned out, Yenic's mother had been secreted far
enough away that she could continue the line and so the sacrifice
of the fire crone was successful. The babe who controlled the air
was smuggled too, no one knew where; that made the elder of air's
sacrifice assured if not totally impractical. It made sense that
the elders had made provisions, yes, but it didn't make sense that
they would only protect two of the three.