Heart of Light (49 page)

“May I help?” Nigel said. “Your baby is sick?”

A confusion of words left the man's mouth, and it took Nigel a few moments to realize they were actually very badly spoken German.

“I'm sorry,” Nigel said. “I don't speak—”

Another confusion of syllables, these unmistakably another language. Nigel spoke slowly and clearly. “May I help? Can I help?” He used all the courtesy, all the clearness of voice and expression he would have used with a peer. The man might be naked save for neat rolls of copper wire around his middle, but in his grief, looking at the small, pale child upon a soiled mattress, he was every father in the world who'd ever been on the verge of losing a child. He was Nigel's own father, grieving over Carew's disappearance.

“He says the baby has had diarrhea,” Nassira said from the entrance. “He hasn't been able to feed or keep any sustenance within him for four days, and they fear he'll die of dryness.”

“Oh, you speak his language,” Nigel said in relief, turning to Nassira.

She shrugged. “It's a trade language. Many tribes speak it and it's spoken in the group I was with.”

The Hyena Men. Remembering them reminded Nigel that if he helped the little boy, he would be risking the Hyena Men's vengeance. He would risk being . . . worse than killed. He would risk being destroyed and eliminated, while his body still would walk the land, a slave to whoever commanded it.

But he looked at the boy's face, eyes half-closed, the dark skin gone grayish, the eyes full of childish incomprehension when a catastrophe that could barely be understood threatened. And the father looked at Nigel, too, with an intent expression, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, or at least vigilant against unwarranted hope. He spoke hesitantly.

“He asks if you can heal his baby,” Nassira said. “He said he'd be grateful to you and do whatever you want.”

Nigel nodded. He knelt by the filthy mattress and extended his hands toward the child.

“Mr. Oldhall,” Nassira said, managing to sound exactly like Nigel's first tutor, “they touched you when you tried to rescue Mrs. Oldhall, and once when you tried to activate the compass stone. If you do this, you will be risking—in fact, you will almost surely be consigning yourself to mind-vacant slavery.”

Nigel wasn't sure what to do or what to say, but he found a part of him knew very well, and that part of him spoke with an unwaveringly firm voice. “If I don't do it, then the child will die.”

“But—” Nassira started.

“Please tell him I'm going to heal his son and that he should not be alarmed. If I . . . If the Hyena Men get me, please ensure that no harm comes to these people.”

“Mr. Oldhall!”

“No, please. Children shouldn't die of stupid illnesses when there is someone who can heal them.”

He heard Nassira speak, the same words the man had used, but sounding more liquid and assured in her voice. The man emitted a muffled sob and expressed his gratitude with words that needed no translation.

But Nigel was already entering a trance, his mind looking for the invaders in the small body, to stave off their work, to heal the ravaged child.

And he suddenly felt the spectral hyena form in his mind and smelled its horrible stench.

BETWEEN ROCKS

Emily could feel the power in the shields faltering. It
was worse than that. She could feel the power faltering and she was thirsty. Ten hours between the two rocks, much of it under the unforgiving sun of this region, had drained her of moisture and seemingly of life.

She'd had no more than two swallows from the only beverage available—Peter Farewell's brandy flask. Worse, she could see, amid the enemy who surrounded them, jars that she knew contained water from their encampment.

She held on to the powerstick, ready to shoot everyone she could when the shields failed.

“They will get us once the shield goes,” Farewell said. He and Kitwana also clutched powersticks, and they sat with their backs to the cool rock, turned toward Emily. “They will come at us then.”

His voice shook slightly as he spoke, and Emily knew he was tired from his effort at keeping the shield going. Now it was Kitwana's turn, and from his half-closed eyes, his look of high concentration, it was easy to tell that he, too, would falter soon. Even if she didn't feel the shield above them, thinning with each breath.

“There are sixteen of them,” Kitwana said. He swallowed, as though attempting to get more moisture to his parched throat. “Sixteen of them and two shooters among the three of us. We have enough power-sticks. If only we could . . . If I hold them, Mr. Farewell, can you get Mrs. Oldhall to safety?”

“How can I get her to safety past all of them?”

Kitwana looked up at the reddened sky, past his failing shields. “It will be night soon and their shields are going, too. I can feel it. Their power for magic shields has to be smaller than ours, since none of them are a . . . one like you. When their power goes, if I can just keep them busy,” he said, “perhaps you can change? While I hold their fire?”

Peter cackled, and Emily couldn't decide whether it was a sound of amusement or just a lament. Emily thought suddenly and with unwavering clarity of the beast trapped in Peter Farewell's mind. His eyes were narrowed and looked like a stormy sea as he said, “You know, I haven't had anything to eat in . . . twelve hours at least. I haven't had anything to drink but alcohol in ten. I couldn't guarantee . . .” He looked over at Emily and touched his parched lips with the tip of his tongue. “I couldn't guarantee Mrs. Oldhall's safety, Kitwana.”

Kitwana took a deep a breath and he, too, shook his head. “Something we must do,” he said. “When darkness falls and the shield goes. Two of us. Can we each get eight of them? Wound them so they can't rise again?”

“Three of us,” Emily said, shocked as she heard her voice. “Three of us. I might not be a man but, by heaven, I can shoot.”

The two looked at her for a moment, then Kitwana said, “Are you any good? We can't stand to waste power.”

Emily took a powerstick. She knew that she could not hit the enemies, who were all gathered in a knot, behind some trees a ways back. If she squinted at them, she could see light glinting off their shield, like the sun shimmering on water.

But Emily could hit objects. “Pick your target,” she told him. “Not the enemy, of course. Some small target, difficult to hit. I will only use one charge.”

Kitwana nodded once, then said, “The hanging branch in that tree,” and pointed near the enemy. “That will be about as far as we'll have to shoot.” He looked very matter-of-fact. Farewell was looking intent.

Emily gathered her dress under her knees and knelt down, rising just above the top half of the rock to look at the parched landscape bathed in red by the sunset. As she appeared—still protected by the shield—a few men in the group behind the trees moved. She couldn't tell what they were doing, and though it seemed to her that a white man had risen behind the trees, dressed in khakis with the light glinting red off his pale hair, she knew it must be an illusion.

Instead of looking at them, she concentrated on the branch Kitwana had chosen, pointed her power-stick at it and, her tongue protruding between her teeth for concentration, let the power fly. The branch exploded in myriad pieces.

“By God,” Peter said, sounding very amused. “By God, she can indeed shoot.”

“Yes,” Kitwana said. “Perhaps Mrs. Oldhall would care to dispatch them while you and I make our getaway.”

Emily, who had never before thought Kitwana had a sense of humor—and who, at any rate, did not know if his culture had any tradition of protecting females—turned around in shock. To meet with unholy glee dancing in his tired eyes.

She was trying to think of a suitable reply when a voice called from behind them, in the direction of the enemy, “Mrs. Oldhall?”

It sounded like Nigel's voice, but much deeper. Emily scrabbled again, to look between the rocks.

Just in front of the trees stood a tall Englishman. One would say he looked like Nigel, only he truly didn't. The features might have some similarity, but where Nigel was long and elegant and pale, this man was hearty and broad of shoulder and chest and looked like he'd lived his life on the playing fields. His face was tanned, the color fair people acquire from long exposure to the sun. And his hair was darker than Nigel's—a dark gold-red, with a curl that made it stand in waves on its own.

He was smiling confidently, a grin on his handsome face. “Or should I call you Emily? Since I can claim you as my sister?”

FOR THE SAKE OF A CHILD

Nassira didn't know whether to laugh or cry: in her
many years of playing protector to the helpless, she'd never had one of them turn around and try to help the yet more helpless. And if anyone had told her just days ago that the fussy, mannered Englishman would try to save a child's life at the risk of his own she would have said that person was crazy. Yet here Nigel knelt, pale and battered-looking in the remains of his silk pajamas with their careful monogram on the pocket.

He was risking his life—no, almost surely giving up his life—for the sake of a skinny, hapless urchin, whose family, from its unremitting poverty, must be of low enough status even among their own people.

She could see him opening his hands, lifted above the child, and she could see the blue light of European magic forming between his fingers and spiraling toward the child, to envelop him. She had seen this in England, when doctors came to look after the sick, and she knew that Nigel Oldhall's power was not as strong as that. But this illness would also be as nothing to British healers, who had conquered most childhood illnesses and a lot of adult ones.

Waiting, braced as she was for the Hyena Men's attack, it still surprised her when it came. She felt it hit—the spectral hyena's impact mostly on Nigel, but making the sign on her arm flare as though someone had pierced a dagger through her flesh. She gave a whimper of despair and went to her knees, her eyes closing in momentary pain. When she opened them, she expected to see Nigel Oldhall on the floor, utterly consumed. Instead, he knelt, upright, with blue light pouring out of his hands onto the child, whose complexion had changed to a more healthy hue and whose sunken eyes now seemed normal, fluttering on the edge of wakening.