Crucible Read online

  Shouldering his makeshift quiver, he gazed at the forest ceiling. The light fighting its way through the branches and leaves was fading into evening. :Let’s hunt,: he said. :There are only a few hours of daylight left.:

  Nwah shook herself and flipped her tail once again. The scent of the woods grew sharp, and she felt that immediate closeness to Kade she had grown to love.

  :Yes,: she said. :Let’s hunt.:

  • • •

  They were stalking a turkey when the sensations of civilization came to her.

  They were the unique tangs of human scent mixed with a touch of stew or other soup wafting on the slow-moving breeze. They were the distant sounds of bellows and the sharper rasp of blade on wood. She had been concentrating on her magic to create silence around them, but these sensations broke her pattern and, hence, broke the spell.

  Kade stepped too heavily.

  The undergrowth rustled.

  And the turkey spooked before he could get a good shot. He lowered his bow and grimaced.

  :What is it?: he asked.

  :People.: Nwah replied.

  :Hawkbrothers?:

  :Not sure. They don’t feel like brigands.:

  This was good, but Nwah and Kade had learned the hard way that brigands were not the only creatures in the woods who might mean them harm.

  They picked their way carefully through the woods and along a sloping hillside toward those sensations of humans, which soon became strong enough that Kade could follow them by himself. There was a power here, a sense of magic that tasted like an open field. It made Nwah’s mouth water and sent an excited chill over her skin as she padded toward it. Her thoughts intermixed with that power, and she used it to create an even stronger silence over Kade’s steps as well as her own.

  She smelled wild hare and dried moss, but mostly she felt this power that seemed to buzz so low, and that made hairs on her shoulders tingle.

  In the midst of this power, she felt more presences.

  More people.

  :It’s a civilization of some kind,: she said.

  They came to a clearing.

  It was a village built into rocky ledges of the hillside.

  A thick fence of elm and birch grew around the clearing. Great masses of thicket and a few lines of briar also protected much of the perimeter. Inside the fringe of trees, Nwah made out huts and a few small but sturdy houses built in haphazard rows that made her think this was more of a trapper’s waypoint than a true establishment. The ground at the center was worn to bare dirt, though, a patch that spoke to some degree of permanence. Around that patch sat a gathering of men and women, maybe twenty-five strong, all on benches or stools made of rough-hewn lumber.

  A voice rose.

  A hooded man dressed in a green robe cinched tight around his waist with a frayed rope stood in the middle of the hard-packed patch. A fire blazed beside him, under a hanging cauldron that smelled of greens and stewed meat.

  Nwah curled her nose. Why humans ruined good meat would always be beyond her ken.

  A frail woman, wearing riding breeches and a light-toned shirt, lay before the man, propped on one elbow. She was older, her hair still dark but beginning to show gray. Her optimistic gaze was lifted toward the man in a way that made Nwah uncomfortable.

  “Friends,” the man said to his subjects as he pulled his hood back. His face was thin, and his eye sockets were so deep that the fire cast shadows in them. His hair was as dark as the woman’s but without the gray.

  “You have each seen the extent to which this woman was injured. As I requested, I know that each of you has spent time at her side throughout this day. I know that each of you has applied your own potions and ointments. You have each attempted to remove her curse, each attempted to ward her illness. But, alas, none have succeeded.”

  The audience nodded and mumbled concurrence.

  He bent down, speaking poetic syllables in a language foreign to Nwah’s experience, and he wrapped one hand around the woman’s knee. Energy rucked at the fur across Nwah’s chest. The man’s gaze was challenging, and he raised his voice for one last stanza.

  “Behold!” the man said as he placed his other hand over the woman’s thigh. “By Agathan’s structures,” he said as flames kicked up around the cauldron, “I give you true power.”

  He then clapped his hands loudly over his head.

  The audience gasped as the woman rose to one knee and brushed dirt off her breeches.

  The man stood to tower over her once again, and as he rose, she too stood fully, testing her legs by kneeling and rising again, and again.

  “It’s better,” she said, leaning in to give the man a hug. “Thank you so much, Lord Pelten.”

  The audience roared with applause.

  “This is the power I am offering you,” the Healer said when the celebrations died down. “This is the power of the structures!”

  He paced back and forth across the hardened ground. The woman stood still by the cauldron.

  “You are each here because you are Healers,” he said. “Some came because I invited you, others came because rumors of the structures are spreading! But whatever your point of origin, you are all here because you are all frustrated. You are all here because, as we all know, while a Healer’s touch is a wondrous thing, there are times when it has not been enough! We have all found ourselves in powerless moments when we cannot save the poor or the downtrodden. And what does the Collegium have to say in each of those cases? Nothing! In these cases, as a patient lies comatose and dying, writhing in pain, the Collegium provides nothing but condolences and the platitudes of old religions.”

  Lord Pelten paused, and the hem of his robe swirled around his feet. He bent to peer at his audience.

  “But I have this new approach. An approach that the Collegium does not want to hear! And do you know why they will not hear of it?”

  He pointed at a young woman in the audience, who shook her head.

  “It’s because the Collegium fears people like us! It fears you and me because it does not own us! The dean himself banished me from the Collegium’s august halls for merely speaking the truth that you have now seen with your very own eyes! The Collegium fears the mere idea of Agathan structures, because these ideas are freely available for anyone who knows how to reach out and grab them!” He put his hand on the healed woman’s shoulder. “They will not hear of this woman’s new-found health because, and only because, the Collegium cares only to hold on to its traditions and wishes only to maintain its power!”

  He paused again.

  “So, who is with me?” Lord Pelten asked. “Who among you wants to learn the secret to the structures!”

  There came a moment of silence.

  Then.

  “I do,” said a voice from the woods.

  Nwah turned to see Kade step into the clearing. It had grown dark as nighttime had settled. Light from the fire made Kade’s face appear gaunt.

  :What are you doing?: she said. A whisker of fear made her stomach tighten beyond her hunger. She did not like surprises. She did not like feeling out of control.

  As Nwah spoke, Lord Pelten’s head cocked inquisitively to the left, and his gaze fell directly upon her. “And who have we here?”

  “I am called Kade.”

  :Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do this?: Nwah said, standing taller now that she was exposed.

  :Be calm,: Kade replied.

  But something in his voice angered her. He was acting without her. Dismissing her. It felt as though he was ignoring her, and it hurt.

  “Welcome, then, young Kade,” Lord Pelten said without hesitation this time. “What a pleasant surprise to have a visitor from the wild. Please come forward.”

  Kade motioned Nwah to join him and stepped fully into the healer’s ring.

  The audience fell sile
nt, and Nwah noticed that now other residents emerged from the huts and lean-tos that made up the rest of the village. They had not been prepared for an additional guest, and they looked at Kade and Nwah with an interest that made Nwah feel as if her underside were suddenly exposed.

  “I want to be able to heal again,” Kade said.

  “And so you shall,” the healer replied.

  :Did you catch the hitch in his voice?: Nwah said.

  :Don’t ruin this,: Kade replied. :He can help me. Can’t you feel it?:

  Anxiety clutched her stomach, but the desperation coming from Kade rolled over Nwah even more strongly. He needed this. He needed someone who could help him heal again, and if this man could help Kade get better, how could she argue? But still she hated what she felt. What would it mean if this man could help Kade where she could not? What would happen if Kade found that he didn’t need her? She looked at Kade as he stood before the Healer, and she felt a welling of jealousy that nearly blinded her.

  “What are Agathan structures?” Kade asked the man.

  “I’ll show you, my friend, but first you’ll need to go through my cleansing trials, just as all the others have.”

  “Indeed we did,” said a brushy-haired man from the ring of observers. “We paid our way, too.”

  Kade glanced from the man to Lord Pelten.

  “I don’t know that I’ll be able to pay anything,” Kade said.

  This clearly bothered the man. “This can’t stand, Lord Pelten,” he called. “I’ll not take second place to a freeloading newcomer fresh from the woods—and a foul smellin’ one at that.”

  Lord Pelten’s gaze slid from Kade to Nwah, and she felt hackles rise at the same time the corners of the Healer’s lips rolled upward.

  Stop it, she told herself. A jealous kyree is a nuisance, she thought, retrieving a saying from her mother so many moons before.

  The Healer looked at the man who challenged him. “No one will be left behind, my friend,” Pelten said. “It is uncivil to treat a young man of low position like that, don’t you agree? We all have to start somewhere, after all.”

  The gathering turned their stares to the man, and he backed down.

  “You will all get what you’ve paid for and more. But I will need a while to bring our new friend to proper readiness.”

  With that, the Healer gave a beatific smile and spread his arms wide.

  “New friend, Kade, will you undergo preparation as the others have?”

  “Of course,” Kade replied.

  “Then I will work with our friend for the rest of this evening, and we will begin to study the structures together at first light tomorrow. Until then, I suggest you enjoy your dinners and rest well.”

  The Healer took Kade by the arm and turned toward a building made of lumber and coarsely patched stone.

  “Come along, young Kade. Feel free to bring your animal along.”

  :Do you want to come?: Kade asked.

  Nwah hunched her shoulders. The building looked tiny and tight. The doorway was open to reveal pitch-dark like a cave inside. Just the idea of entering it made her lungs ache. And she didn’t like the expression on the Healer’s face, either. He seemed a loner, separate in some way, with the same aura as an alpha pup grown into a pack chieftain. It made her even more uncomfortable, though she couldn’t tell how much of this discomfort was due to fear for safety and how much was based on pure jealousy.

  The night had grown dark now, too.

  The wood smelled of dew and had begun to rustle with the movements of predators in distant hollows.

  The sky above glittered with the night’s first stars.

  Beyond that, she could feel Kade’s focus was on the Healer.

  Which meant it was not on her.

  :I prefer to be outside,: she said.

  The woman whom Lord Pelten’s healing had rescued spoke.

  “I can manage the beast if you want,” she said.

  Nwah grumbled. :Perhaps she can best manage a gashed thigh,: she said. :Perhaps that would test this Healer’s gift better?:

  “No,” Kade said to the woman, not rising to Nwah’s anger. “She’ll be fine on her own.”

  “All right, then,” Pelten said. “Let’s go.”

  The two disappeared into the room, and lantern light soon glowed from within.

  “Well,” the woman said, looking over the gathering. “All this being healed can make a lass mighty hungry. Who’s up for a round of ale and a little dinner?”

  The group clamored and stood in unison. Footsteps rumbled and voices rolled together. A short while later, the clattering of soup ladles and then the sounds of laughter and song filled the area.

  Nwah took a spot under the brambles at the edge of the clearing, watching and feeling pangs of hunger. Perhaps she should have gone and hunted by herself, but her gaze kept going to the hut where Lord Pelten had taken Kade.

  She wanted to see him return.

  She lay on the ground under the briars and put her chin on her front paws. The soil smelled thick. Her whiskers drooped to touch the ground.

  :Are you all right?: she finally brought herself to ask Kade.

  :I’m fine,: Kade replied. :But I’m busy.:

  The answer was like a claw to her gut.

  :I’m busy.:

  Those words were like coarse grindstone.

  :I’m busy . . . I’m busy.:

  The words echoed in her mind and became mixed with the sounds of laughter from the humans around the stewpot.

  She heard them discuss the lessons they were soon to take together. They spoke of dreams and hopes, of setting up apothecaries or serving to rid their homelands of disease.

  One man pulled out a fiddle, and a jaunty melody filled the evening.

  A pair did a jig.

  It all burned against her fears.

  She wanted so much to talk to Kade again, but she had seen him walk into the hut with this man, a man who could give him something she couldn’t, and she was afraid. She had felt the irritation on Kade’s voice when he said :I’m busy:, and she couldn’t bear the idea of hearing those words again.

  Nwah thought about her mother, then. She was doing that a lot these days. She remembered huddling up against her mother’s warmth with her siblings in their den.

  Then, for the first time, she admitted the full truth.

  Perhaps she only then had fully realized it.

  She was afraid to be by herself.

  And laying there in the isolation of her rejection, listening to heartfelt strains of music . . .

  A kyree does not actually cry.

  This is because a kyree does not have the same tear ducts as a human does.

  And so she cannot cry in that way.

  Nwah whined, though.

  Her eyes closed to shut off the world. The corners of her lips drew down, and she let a thin moan slide away from her like a puddle of blood that flowed straight from her veins to seep down into the soil beneath her. Kade had said he would not leave her, but he had done this thing without her thoughts. He had trusted this man without her ideas.

  She didn’t want to be jealous.

  She wanted it to all just go away. She wanted it to all just shut off.

  At that moment a line of magic in the forest around her nearly caused her to gag.

  It tasted of salt and the remnants of lightning over a damp field as it clogged her throat.

  She poured her anger and her jealousy and her pure fear into that taste, and power from the forest flowed into her. She breathed it in, and she let it mix with her own suffering. Then it was as if she were everywhere at once, as if she moved with everyone in the village—the fiddler, and the dancer, and a man at the cauldron slurping the disgusting remnants of his stew broth. She saw what everyone saw, and she heard every conversation that was be
ing held. The scent of food made her stomach clench.

  And she felt something else, too.

  It was the woman, now gone from the village proper, now slipping around the village in the dark shadows of elm and sycamore, carrying a bag full of gold and silver collected from the travelers here. She was picking her way toward the hut where Lord Pelten had taken Kade.

  Something was wrong.

  The tendrils of Nwah’s magic wrapped themselves around the woman, and she felt the ties the woman had to the Master Healer who had taken Kade into his offices. Nwah felt the plans these two had made, understood the deceit they had concocted. Then she sensed the pair of horses that were tethered to a tree behind the healer’s hut, already saddled and prepared for travel.

  Yes, something was terribly wrong.

  Nwah’s body rose as if on its own.

  She bolted across the open clearing, firelight reflecting from her tawny fur making her look like a blur.

  :Kade!: she called.

  There was no answer.

  :Kade!:

  The door loomed as the woman drew closer.

  Nwah took a last leap, focused her power onto the door, and clenched her shoulder as she crashed into it.

  The sound of splintering wood was intense.

  Nwah’s breath left her lungs as she hit the floor, rolling in shards of wood. Her legs slipped and splayed as she tumbled.

  Lord Pelten looked up from the table upon which Kade lay unconscious and flat on his back. The room was small, and lit by a pair of candle lamps at two corners. One of Pelten’s hands was on Kade’s skull, and he held a stiletto in the other, its blade poised over Kade’s temple in preparation for some horrific vivisection.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  Nwah growled, and tried to stand.

  Pelten smiled as he took her in, the stiletto still gleaming in the candlelight.

  “I knew it,” he said. “The two of you are special, aren’t you? I sensed it earlier. A rogue Healer of a boy and a Mage Companion kyree.”

  Nwah bared her teeth and gave a hopping limp. Her hip hurt from the impact, but she saw Kade’s body and gathered her wits.

  The woman’s form filled the doorway, the bag of coins slung over her shoulder.