The Banished of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood, #1)(67)

She opened her eyes again, feeling the sweet temptation of sleep. She rubbed her forearms with her chin. “Thank you for answering truthfully.”

“I have told you before, Maia. I do not deserve your pity. I still have no qualms about killing you if the need arises.”

“I imagine one cannot be a kishion if one has too many qualms,” she said. She looked him firmly in the eye. “There may come a day when you are called upon to fulfill your duty.” She paused. “Perhaps I will even be the one who asks you to do it.”

He looked at her with confusion.

She stared down into the fire and began stroking Argus’s head. “Something happened to me at the lost abbey. Something I had not expected. Do you remember when I came out of the tunnels? You were fighting off the wolves.”

“I remember,” he said.

“One of the soldiers tried to strangle me and I unloosed the magic of the kystrel. I fell unconscious. I do not know how long it lasted, but I fear it was quite a while. When I awoke, you were watching over me and had already tended your wounds.” She stared at the fire. “When I am asleep . . . I am not myself. Am I?”

The fire crackled and snapped, sending off a plume of fiery sparks.

He was quiet for several moments, though he still shivered fitfully. Finally, his words came out as a whisper. “It is at night when I fear you the most.”

“Why is that?” she asked, continuing to stroke the boarhound.

He was cautious in his answer. “I have seen you rise in your sleep. Your eyes are open, but you do not respond to anyone. At first I thought you were sleepwalking, but it is different. You mumble in your sleep in many languages. Mostly gibberish to me. You walk the camp, gazing around as if everything is strange to you. Even your walk is different. You examine your arms as if they are not yours. You stare at the sky and smile . . . in a dangerous way. The Dochte Mandar teach that we, each of us, is reborn from a past life. Seems to be some color of truth in that when I see the changes that come over you at night. In truth, you frighten me more than the Fear Liath.”

The sleepiness fled from Maia’s eyes. She knew about the Dochte Mandar’s preoccupation with past lives. She had read about it in their tomes. They believed souls were endlessly born and reborn. A king in the past could become a peasant in the future. But more interesting, at least to her, was the fact that their doctrine was a corruption of the legends of the Myriad Ones—spirit creatures who so longed for a body, they would take any form they could get, even an animal’s. She rested her cheek against her arm again and said nothing more to the man her father had sent to kill her.




The mountains were vast and endless. Had Maia not been so utterly exhausted, she would have relished the climbing and descents. Jon Tayt had pointed out to her the vast variety of plant life and vegetation that existed on the high mountain trail. There were occasional majestic waterfalls that poured never-ending cascades down jagged bluffs. The trees were dark green and towering, but they could not overtake the size and stone of the peaks.

Maia and Jon Tayt helped the kishion walk, each of them taking one of his arms around their necks to bolster him up. When he grew too weary or sick to walk, they dragged him. His skin was flushed with fever, the wounds oozed putrid smells, and ghastly coloring showed how much his body was ravaged by his injuries.

When Maia finally saw the abbey, she was surprised at how small it was compared to the steep cliffs it was nestled amidst. The abbey had been built into the side of a cliff, only this cliff was infinitely taller and broader than the one supporting Roc-Adamour. A huge swath of evergreen trees nestled up against the lower reaches of the abbey, offering a colorful contrast to the steel-colored stone. Only a few scattered firs clung to the crags and seams of the mountain. The abbey was built along the bend of a ridge, and behind it, Maia could make out four other ridges. The mountain trail led beyond even that, and her mind filled with wonder at the distant sight. The abbey was four levels high, made of pale stone with gently sloping roofs and walls of varying heights. It was not a grand abbey like those she had seen in Comoros, but it was impressive—if only because the workers had needed to hammer rock so high up in the mountains to build it.

Unfortunately, they had to hike down to hike up. At the floor of the canyon rested a tiny village set beside the river, impossible to avoid for any who traveled to the abbey. There were small outer buildings, one with a waterwheel that dipped into the river gorge. The locals spoke a blend of three languages, though mostly the tongue of Mon. Maia did not know that language, but she was able to communicate as though they were Dahomeyjan travelers, and the locals did not understand whether her dialect was true or not. They seemed surprised to have visitors from Dahomey, but not enough to probe into the circumstances.

There was a healer in the village named Dom Silas, a wizened man with graying hair that had once been black, and he set to work on the kishion at once, clucking his tongue and chattering on in his native tongue. The hamlet was small, with only twenty or so structures. Dom Silas indicated that the kishion’s injuries were severe and that he would need time to know whether he could be cured. Jon Tayt had passable knowledge of his language.

“I will stay with him,” Jon Tayt said. “Go to the Aldermaston and perform your errand.” He took another look at her. “You can barely stand, lass. Do you want to rest here first?”

“I dare not,” Maia replied thickly, gripping his meaty shoulder before leaving the healer’s chamber.