Sharon Lee: Adventures in the Liaden Universe

No.

He had already lost Fen Ris.

“I might say,” Fen Ris murmured, “that I was the most blessed of men, save for this one thing—that when I emerged from the unit, Endele—my lady, my heart...” His voice faded.

“She does not remember you.”

Silence. Mil Ton opened his eyes and met the bleak gray stare.

“So,” said Fen Ris, “you did read the file.”

“I read the summary Tereza sent, to entice me back to the Hall,” he corrected. “The case intrigued her—no physical impediment to the patient’s memory, nor even a complete loss of memory. Only one person has been excised entirely from her past.”

“Excised,” Fen Ris repeated. “We have not so long a shared past, after all. A year—only that.”

Mil Ton moved his shoulders. “Court her anew, then,” he said, bitterly.

“When I did not court her before?” the other retorted. He sighed. “I have tried. She withdraws. She does not know me; she does not trust me.” He paused, then said, so low Mil Ton could scarcely hear—

“She does not want me.”

It should have given him pleasure, Mil Ton thought distantly, to see the one who had dealt him such anguish, in agony. And, yet, it was not pleasure he felt, beholding Fen Ris thus, but rather a sort of bleak inevitability.

“Why me?” he asked, which is not what he had meant to say.

Fen Ris lifted his face, allowing Mil Ton to plumb the depths of his eyes, sample the veracity of his face.

“Because you will know how to value my greatest treasure,” he murmured. “Who would know better?”

Mil Ton closed his eyes, listening to his own heartbeat, to the breeze playing in the leaves over his head, and, eventually, to his own voice, low and uninflected.

“Bring her here, if she will come. If she will not, there’s an end to it, for I will not go into the city.”

“Mil Ton—”

“Hear me. If she refuses Healing, she is free to go when and where she will. If she accepts Healing, the same terms apply.” He opened his eyes, and looked hard into the other’s face.

“Bring your treasure here and you may lose it of its own will and desire.”

This was warning, proper duty of a Healer, after all, and perhaps it was foretelling as well.

Seated, Fen Ris bowed, acknowledging that he’d heard, then came effortlessly to his feet. “The terms are acceptable. I will bring her tomorrow, if she will come.”

Mil Ton stood. “Our business is concluded,” he said flatly. “Pray, leave me.”

Fen Ris stood, frozen—a heartbeat, no more than that; surely, not long enough to be certain—and thawed abruptly, sweeping a low bow, accepting a debt too deep to repay.

“I have not—” Mil Ton began, but the other turned as if he had not spoken, and went lightly across the grass, up the path, and away.

Mil Ton had stayed up late into the night, pacing and calling himself every sort of fool, retiring at last to toss and turn until he fell into uneasy sleep at dawn. Some hours later, a blade of sunlight sliced through the guardian cedars, through the casement and into his face.

The intrusion of light was enough to wake him. A glance at the clock brought a curse to his lips. Fen Ris would be arriving soon. If, indeed, he arrived at all.

Quickly, Mil Ton showered, dressed, and went on slippered feet down the hall toward the kitchen. As he passed the great room, he glanced within—and froze in his steps.

A woman sat on the edge of the hearth, a blue duffel bag at her feet, her hands neatly folded on her lap. She sat without any of the cushions or pillows she might have used to ease her rest, and her purpose seemed not repose, but alert waiting.

Her attention at this moment was directed outward, toward the window, beyond which the busy birds flickered among the cedar branches.

He took one step into the room.

The woman on the hearth turned her head, showing him a round, high-browed face, and a pair of wary brown eyes.

Mil Ton bowed in welcome of the guest. “Good day to you. I am Mil Ton Intassi, builder of this house.”

“And Healer,” she said, her voice deeper than he had expected.

“And Healer,” he allowed, though with less confidence that he once might have. He glanced around the room. “You came alone?”

She glanced down at the blue duffel. “He drove me here, and opened the door to the house. There was no need for him to wait. He knew I did not want him. You did not want him either, he said.”

Not entirely true, Mil Ton thought, face heating as he recalled the hours spent pacing. He inclined his head. “May I know your name?”

“Bah! I have no manners,” she cried and sprang to her feet. She bowed—a completely unadorned bow of introduction—and straightened.

“I am Endele per’Timbral, Clan—” her voice faded, a cloud of confusion passed briefly across her smooth face.

“I am Endele per’Timbral,” she repeated, round chin thrust out defiantly.

Mil Ton inclined his head. “Be welcome in my house, Endele per’Timbral,” he said, seriously. “I am in need of a cup of tea. May I offer you the same?”

“Thank you,” she said promptly. “A cup of tea would be welcome.”

She followed him down the hall to the kitchen and waited with quiet patience while he rummaged in the closet for a cup worthy of a guest. In the back, he located a confection of pearly porcelain. He poured tea and handed it off, recalling as she received it that the cup had belonged to Fen Ris, the sole survivor of a long-broken set.

Healers were taught to flow with their instincts. Mil Ton turned away to pour for himself, choosing the lopsided cup, as always, and damned both Healer training and himself, for agreeing to...

“He said that you can Heal me.” Endele spoke from behind him, her speech as unadorned as her bow had been. “He means, you will make me remember him.”

Mil Ton turned to look at her. She held the pearly cup daintily on the tips of her fingers, sipping tea as neatly as a cat. Certainly, she was not a beauty—her smooth forehead was too high, her face too round, her hair merely brown, caught back with a plain silver hair ring. Her person was compact and sturdy, and she had the gift of stillness.

“Do you, yourself, desire this Healing?” he asked, the words coming effortlessly to his lips, as if the year away were the merest blink of an eye. “I will not attempt a Healing, against your will.”

She frowned slightly. “Did you tell him that?”

“Of course,” said Mil Ton. “I also told him that, if you wish to leave here for your own destination, now or later, I will not impede you. He accepted the terms.”

“Did he?” The frown did not disappear. “Why?”

Mil Ton sipped tea, deliberately savoring the citrus bite while he considered. It was taught that a Healer owed truth to those he would heal. How much truth was left to the Healer’s discretion.

“I believe,” he said slowly, to Endele per’Timbral’s wary brown eyes, “it is because he values you above all other things and wishes for you only that which will increase your joy.”

Tears filled her eyes, glittering. She turned aside, embarrassed to weep before a stranger, as anyone would be, and walked over to the terrace door, her footsteps soft on the wooden floor.

Mil Ton sipped tea and watched her. She stood quite still, her shoulders stiff with tension, tea cup forgotten in one hand, staring out into the garden as if it were the most fascinating thoroughfare in Solcintra City.

Sipping tea, Mil Ton let his mind drift. He was not skilled at hearing another’s emotions. But the Masters of the Hall in Solcintra had taught him somewhat of their craft, and sometimes, if he disengaged his mind, allowing himself to fall, as it were into a waking doze — well, sometimes, then, he could see...