Ghost Fields - Book One of The Fields of Mendhavai Trilogy

Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

I spent only a few candlemarks working in the triage tent in a daze of exhaustion. I healed men, and a few women, young and old, until I fainted away. The burst of energy I’d received after healing the Quilbai, Torsten, no longer fueled me. Perhaps the Goddess had taken it back after I had defied the wishes of my talent to stop fighting and start healing; certainly I deserved that, but wasn’t losing Lundir enough punishment?

I was shaken out of a deep and dreamless sleep about a candlemark before noon by Veyga, who had a very annoyed crease in his brow. He looked exhausted and he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The inside of the tent had grown hot in the spring sunshine and stank of the injured and ill, and it was filling quickly with new casualties.

“RindaLady, your Messenger is here. I asked him to wait and let you rest but he says he feels it is of the utmost importantance.”

I groaned as I sat up. All my muscles felt hot and achy and throbbed with every movement. Shouting, the clash of swords and screaming drifted to my ears from the field at the base of the hill.

“Thank you, Veyga. I’ll see him.”

He waved at someone standing just inside the triage tent flap. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as he handed me a cup of water which I drained instantly. He poured me a second and I cupped it between my hands as Selanne approached. Gingerly, I rose to my feet from the cot someone had moved me to after my un-ladylike collapse.

“My Lady,” the scrawny youth bowed deeply and I shook my head at the gesture. “I apologize for interrupting your rest.”

“What is it, Selanne?” I asked, my sleepiness and sore muscles making me irritable.

He looked hurt and I gave him a grimace of apology, draining the second cup of water and reaching to set the empty vessel on the table near the cot.

“The mage, I think you called him Mivius… Well, I was returning from Khallad… I spotted him as he left the woods at dusk last night. I didn’t think he was up to any good so I followed him. It took him all night to make his way down the road to his apparent desination; he went to those ruins on the hill at the crossroads…”

I straightened as apprehension filled me, turning to face him again and grabbed him by his shoulders. “What happened?”

Selanne flinched and I loosened my grip but left my hands where they were.

“I… I’m not sure, my Lady. He stood under the arch and started chanting in a language I’ve never heard. Soon, the air within the arch started shimmering and an image of another place appeared there. It was similar to ruins he stood in. Then, he stepped through the arch but he did not reappear on the other side! He was just… gone!”

“Did the image remain between the pillars, Selanne?” I hoped he could remember the details of the place, with his superb memory, but he may have been so awestruck that he had not observed them.

“Aye, my Lady. You understand what he did?”

I nodded as I saw Collum enter the tent and I waved him over when he made eye contact with me.

“The archway is a portal to other places,” I told Selanne, hoping that was enough an explanation as the falconer approached. “Selanne, please describe the place you saw on the other side of the archway.” I wanted Collum to hear this, so that if it sounded like anywhere in Navora we could be forewarned.

But what Selanne described was not Navora. The image that grew in my mind as he spoke matched every detail that Danu had given me of the area around the arch and temple to the south of Jakhar, his home city.