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child. Younger images of Beliseth were fuzzed slightly by time, but even as a
young child, and before, as a toddler, there was never anything but love in
the memories Sahedre held of her daughter. Faia rummaged carefully, and found
Beliseth again as an infant, round and pink and dimpled, and even deeper,
located Sahedre as she concentrated on the movement in her belly, the first
delightful quickenings of life.
Faia backed out, and held her breath. An idea occurred to her, breathtaking in
its simplicity and in its cruelty.
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Could I do that, even to Sahedre?
she wondered.
She stretched a little, peeked out through the eyes Sahedre controlled, saw
what was left of the bodies of instructors and other women's small children in
piles around the Greathall all victims of Sahedre's mehevar and her pursuit of
the destruction of Ariss.
I could be that cruel, she decided grimly.
This time, to this woman, I could be that cruel.
She drew in passing surges of the power Sahedre had forgotten to guard, stored
it, hid it, squirreled it away. She waited until Sahedre's energy began to
lag, until the madwoman began to cast about for another sacrifice to increase
her strength. Then, with feigned amazement, Faia screamed a sudden mindshout
that tore across the Wisewoman's consciousness
:I am pregnant?! I am PREGNANT!
And she is a girl!:
She dumped her carefully tended images of Beliseth as an infant and Sahedre's
memories of pregnancy back at her.
Sahedre's concentration shattered. She paused everything and sent her
awareness careening into Faia's belly, into her womb and the shout came back,
am
I
pregnant! Oh, I am! Oh, Beliseth, I shall have you back! I shall!
And Faia's mind scrambled for her body, flowed back into the cells that were
her soul's home. She reached
deep into the center of the earth, and up into the sky and pulled
. She drew the earth's pure energy inward and expanded, forcing the dark and
sullied presence of Sahedre smaller and smaller and tighter and tighter, until
the other woman had no place left to hide.
Sahedre snapped out of her distraction, and still full of mehevar and hatred,
resisted. She pressed against the hill girl's spirit, attacked Faia's
determination to destroy her, shot insinuations of weakness and unworthiness
into Faia's heart.
But Faia's magic was not drawn from the malice of others, or from their
deaths. Faia drew her strength from the near-infinite energy of earth and sky,
and her confidence from the assurance, finally, that she was doing right.
Sahedre lost ground. She lost control of legs and arms, of eyes, of tongue and
her shield crumbled, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter,
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
and her mind-thralls broke free from their chains
Ariss rang with the Wisewoman's furious mindscreech, as her soul was forced
completely out of Faia's body
Into nonexistence.
There was silence.
And standing alone in her own body, in the sudden startling light after the
tenebrous gloom of Sahedre's soul, Faia was beset by niggling worries.
What did she mean, "I
am pregnant?"
Chapter 11: AFTER
IN the dark, cold water of the lake, Yaji's flesh and bones suddenly burned in
agony and her breathing became short and labored. She shrieked and chittered,
and floundered to shore. Dragging herself up the muddy bank, she collapsed.
Her black claws retracted and the fur on her short, twisted limbs thinned.
The limbs themselves began to stretch.
Human, she thought.
I'm becoming human again.
She watched the wonderful transformation through pain-blurred eyes.
When it was done, she lay drowsy and content for a few minutes. Then her
situation made itself apparent to her.
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She sat up. "I'm naked," she remarked in a conversational voice to the
overhanging woods and the lapping waters of the lake. "I'm naked. I, Yaji
Jennedote, have been lying in mud. I am on the far side of the lake, with
nothing between me and the University but more mud and woods with thickets and
brambles and snakes and gods-only-know-what else in them. And I can't swim!"
"The war is over, Medwind!" Nokar's voice in the room was jubilant.
Medwind Song, lying on the table, did not move.
"Medwind?" His voice dropped a whisper. "Medwind?"
He ran out of the room and grabbed the Healer. "She isn't breathing! Demphrey,
godsdammit, she isn't breathing
!"
Demphrey said softly, "The war is over, man. It's over."
"
Demphrey
," he shrieked, "
she isn't breathing!
"
The words penetrated the Healer's relief, and he snapped into action. They
raced back into the room.
"Force air into her lungs," Demphrey told Nokar. "Put your mouth on hers, hold
her nose closed, and breathe for her."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
He watched the old man while his own fingers felt urgently for a pulse. "Yes,
that's right. Keep breathing for her." He probed along her neck and at her
wrist a moment longer. "Nokar, I can't feel her pulse. I'm going to have to
jolt her heart with a lightning sprite. When I tell you to back off, do it, or
you and she are both going to end up dead."
Burly, ugly Demphrey rested his hands on Medwind's chest left hand on the
right side above her breast, right hand on her ribs under her left arm. "This
trick is as old as any we have sometimes, though," he confided to the
librarian, "it works."
Nokar kept breathing into Medwind's lungs. With every breath, he thought,
Live, damn you. Live, Song. Not to marry me. Not because I love you. Just
live.
Demphrey readied his firesprite, which hovered above his left hand. "Into the
left hand, through the heart, out of the right hand and wait above the bed,"
he told it. The sprite, blinding blue-white, flickered its comprehension.
"Ready," he said. "Get clear, Nokar! Now!"
The woman's body jolted on the bed, and the firesprite erupted into view
again.
Demphrey felt for the pulse. "Keep breathing her, Nokar," he said. After a
moment, he shook his head.
"Still no pulse. I'm giving the sprite more energy. We'll try again."
He's hands made passes in the air, and the sprite glowed brighter. He then
repeated the procedure he tried before. Medwind jolted again as the sprite
passed through her, but again there was no pulse.
"I'll try a third time and make the sprite still a bit stronger. If she's too
far gone for that, we'll have to quit."
On the third try, there was a faint puff of smoke, and the smell of burnt
flesh. Nokar watched with weary eyes as the Healer felt despondently for the
pulse.
Demphrey stood a moment, and his eyes widened in surprise. "Damn-all," he
whispered. "It worked."
Suddenly he was all blurring arms and legs. "Breathe her, breathe her, dammit,
or we're going to lose her," he snapped at the old man. He grabbed a box full
of dosing tubes and jammed the needle of one into the visibly pulsing artery
in Medwind's neck.
"What you doing?" Nokar asked between breaths.
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