ice cold, and concentrated her thoughts. Today she was due to go into the village of Yan and conduct her monthly healing sessions with whoever sought her services.
And then next year, in the season of honey-fruit, she would make a final journey to the Retreat of Verlaine and for the last two weeks of her life take to her bed, surrounded by Elders and acolytes, and slowly, painlessly, die.
Hers would have been an exemplary life, a life spent in the service of others, healing her fellow Phandrans, for she had inherited her mother’s talent for Healing and none of her father’s for Divining.
And when she had passed from this life, she would join her parents, and their parents, and everyone else who had ever lived on Phandra – and, who could tell, on the Helix and beyond as well – in the reality which underpinned this reality.
The realm of Fahlaine.
Her last duty before leaving her little hut and setting off for Yan was to feed the birds that gathered every dawn and awaited their handful of seed. She stepped from the hut, clutching the seed, and expected to be deluged in a twittering, feathered storm.
But this morning the birds did not come. She stood, almost stunned, and stared into the clear blue sky. There were no birds, no ice-hawks, redwings, or night-pippins in the air or perched in the yahn-trees.
She waited, then called out and whistled, but still they did not come.
This she took as an omen.
With heavy heart she returned to her hut, packed her bag with the medicaments of her trade, donned the red robe of her calling and set off down the rocky path to Yan.
She moved slowly, picking her way with care over the rocks which, over the years, her footsteps and those of Healers before her had worn to rounded smoothness.
She was troubled by the absence of birds, and no matter how hard she tried to fathom their non-arrival, she could think of no satisfactory explanation.
She was a third of the way to Yan, with the sun rising over the mountain peak and warming her back, when she felt the pain in her head. She stopped dead in her tracks and touched her temple. The vicarious pain of another throbbed in her forebrain like a migraine. A boy, no more than four seasons old, was approaching along the path. His thoughts, addled with pain, were a confusion of horror, fright and disbelief. She hurried onwards, anxious to find the boy and treat him and learn of the catastrophe that had befallen him and, if his desperate thoughts were to be credited, the rest of his village.
He came into view five minutes later. He was no longer climbing the path, but had collapsed beside the same stream that, higher up the hillside, surged past her hut. She hurried down to the stricken child, damping out the distress of his thoughts and his pulsing pain.
She stifled a cry when she reached him and saw the severity of his wounds. He was on his belly, attempting to crawl to the stream and slake his thirst. She turned him over, weeping as she did so, and saw the bloody hole in his chest. It was a miracle he had managed to drag himself this far from the village. With each ragged breath he took, more blood pulsed from his wound and stained his jerkin.
She touched his forehead, working to ease the pain, and he smiled up at her. “Healer,” he whispered.
She murmured consolatory platitudes, for that was all she could manage now. He would die, in minutes, and the only blessing was that he would now die without pain.
He was trying to speak, to tell her what had happened, but she whispered for him to rest and opened her mind to his, briefly.
She withdrew, catching her breath, having seen enough in just three brief seconds.
Someone had attacked the village of Sharah, half a day beyond Yan, on the main track to Verlaine. She had discerned fleeting images of otherworldly vehicles, mechanical things, and creatures in black uniforms firing weapons into dwelling huts.
She soothed the boy, and his breathing came easily. Five minutes later his eyes
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