The red clouds began sluggishly to stir over the square, crimson patches silently appearing and disappearing, streaks of blood and fire swirling at the touch of no breeze felt below. The elders crouching each in his corner might have been so many fantastic statues, the "woman" and the feathered man hardly less so. Outside the square, the onlookers also stood motionless. All the workers had gathered at the southern corner, the challenger as if by chance keeping out of sight behind them. At the northern corner, in solitary splendor, even the big Merikit had lapsed into an expectant if morose silence.
Kirien wondered what they were waiting for. How much did any Kencyr, even Index, know about these wild hill-folk who had occupied the Riverland before the Kencyrath, before the old empires? If knowledge was power, surely this was its opposite. Therefore, she must also wait—for the Merikit to start, for Mount Alban (please, God) to escape, for the healing to finish.
"Why is it taking so long?" she burst out, speaking despite her anxiety barely above a whisper. "Obviously, no major muscles or arteries were cut. Early attention would have healed it without a trace. Even now . . . ! How long does deep healing usually take?"
"How long . . . is a dream?"
"Ashe, please: no riddles."
"Rather, a metaphor . . . as are all dreams and soul-images. To a healer at work . . . time is subjective."
"Not entirely," said Index, screwing up his clever, monkey's face. "How long can a dream seem to last—a minute, a day, a lifetime? Sometimes, a healer ages accordingly. Why, I know one young chap who gained a century overnight."
As he spoke, he shot Kirien a malicious, sidelong look—his revenge, she thought, for having scared him so badly before. Not that she blamed him. What had possessed her, to have been so tactless? Oh, it had been exhilarating at the time, as debate so often was, but afterward . . . !
Still, the old bastard would raise a subject about which she had been trying very hard not to think.
Facts before theories, practical needs before speculation. She had said as much before to Ashe in conference, and had acted on it in pressing Kindrie to deal with Jame's injury. Still, a healer and a nemesis . . . .
Should she have forced two such people together, against the wills of both? What if they could only be mutually destructive? She wished she could see Kindrie's face, but his hair hung down over it, stained by the sullen light to a bloody fringe. His thin, sensitive fingers rested on the other's masked face with a moth's trembling touch. That fragile contact reminded her how precarious the balance between them must be. She flinched as Jorin whimpered and twitched, as if he were straining to plunge as deeply into sleep as his mistress. This time, however, she and the healer had gone where he could not follow.
"Listen," said Ashe softly.
Outside, at a distance, someone was shouting. That voice, although faint, carried as across a battlefield, an insistent rally-cry: "K-north! K-north!"
Back in the shadows, the breathing changed.