Liar's Oath by Elizabeth Moon

Author:Elizabeth Moon [Moon, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-03-04T15:40:16+00:00

So he told Arranha that evening, trying to cheer him up. Arranha’s thumb had swollen to twice its size, and a red streak ran up his arm. Suriya, the woman Aris had worked with in herblore, had come to poultice it, but so far without effect.

“She didn’t have to tell me it was a bad bite,” Arranha said. He sat with his eyes almost closed and the tense expression of real pain on his face. “I knew that, from the malice on his face, the way he ground his teeth on it, the way I felt.”

“I wish Aris were here.” Luap tried to sit still; he knew that Arranha needed quiet, restful companions.

“I, too. Young Garin has a lovely voice, but not a tithe of Aris’s healing power. He eased the pain awhile… suggested I have Bithya in, that girl Aris worked with… but I’ll wait. Perhaps I won’t need her.”

“Do you want us to send after Aris? Although I don’t even know for certain which way he went.”

“No… no, don’t trouble the lad. He needs this chance to show what he can do somewhere else, and if the gods don’t choose to send him back…” Arranha’s voice faded. Luap felt a stab of worry. The old man could die of this, and then what? He needed him; they all needed him. Mageborn and peasant alike, they needed his wisdom, his determination to find the light in any tangled darkness.

“Rest now,” he said to Arranha. “Is there anyone or anything… ?”

“No… don’t bother.”

Luap wondered if anyone else might help. Raheli, he remembered, had had a parrion of herblore. When he found her, she shook her head. “The woman Aris studied with knows more than I did, she and her daughter both. We talked about it.”

“There’s nothing more—?”

“Not without taking his hand off, and that’s chancy, as you know. Sometimes it saves lives, but some die anyway.”

“I thought of sending for Aris, but we don’t know where he went, and Arranha says not to.”

“Arranha’s getting feverish. But you’re right, we don’t know where Aris is, and we have no way to find him.” Rahi sighed. “It seemed like such a good idea, giving Aris his chance to travel and test his healing—and he and Seri might make a good partnership, if they had time together—but now I wish we’d waited.” She stalked restlessly about the room for a moment, then said, “Well—and when do you think you’ll start resettling your people?”

“I don’t know I’d—you know Arranha and I had talked about it?” She nodded. “I depended on his advice, but now—”

“Now you may have to make all the decisions yourself. I hope not, for your sake as well. What will you do first?”

“Take others to see it. Start thinking how to make it workable— we should grow our own food, for one thing, and not have to transport it from here. There’ll be plenty of work, hard work, to make it feasible.”

She nodded. “There’s something else: you need to think which mageborn to move first, and whether you want to gather them somewhere before you take them.

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