Stone of Tears

He expected a scowl. Instead, it was a look of disquiet. “There be wood. I used magic, to try to light the fire from where I be in bed. But there be a big puff of smoke and sparks. I opened the window to let out the smoke. When I looked to the hearth, the logs be gone.”

Zedd stepped closer to her. “Gone?”

She nodded and went back to brushing. “something be wrong. Wrong with my gift.”

Zedd stroked a hand down her hair. “I know. I had a similar problem. It must be the taint.” He sat and took the brush from her hand, setting it down. Adie, what can you tell me about this taint, about the skrin? We must have answers.”

“I have already told you all I know. The skrin be force on the cusp between the world of the living and the world of the dead.”

“But why won’t the cut heal? Why won’t my magic work to heal it? What made the logs disappear when you used magic?”

“Skrin be from both worlds. Do you not see?” She shook her head in frustration. “skrin be magic, magic of both worlds, so it can work in both worlds. Additive and Subtrac-tive. We be touched by that force. The taint be Subtractive.”

“You mean that you think the taint of Subtractive Magic is corrupting our magic? Our gift?”

She nodded. “It be like you have just cleaned ashes from a hearth with your bare hands, and without washing them clean you try to hang up freshly washed white sheets to dry. Your hands be tainted with the ash, and it gets on the clean, damp, white sheets. Sticks to them.”

Zedd silently considered the problem for a time. “Adie,” he whispered, “we must somehow clean our hands. Wash the taint away.”

“You have a talent for stating the obvious, old man.”

Zedd checked his tongue and took a different tack. “Adie, I hired us a coach to take us to Nicobarese, but you’re getting weaker, and I’m not going to be long behind. I don’t know if we can wait. If there’s another way, maybe someone else closer who can help us, I must know.”

“There be no other way. There be no one else.”

“Well, what about this woman who had the three daughters? Perhaps she studied somewhere closer to learn some of these things. Maybe we could go there, instead.”

“It not be a help.”

“Why not?”

Adie considered him a moment, and at last yielded. “she studied with the Sisters of the Light.”

Zedd shot to his feet. “What!” He paced back and forth between the bed and the fireplace. “Bags and double bags! I knew it. I knew it!”

“Zedd, she studied with them to learn. Then she returned home. She not be a Sister. The Sisters not be so… unreasonable… as you think.”

He halted to peer at her with one eye. “And how would you know that?”

Adie gave a resigned sigh. The round skrin bone, the one that be given to me just before the woman died, the one I told you be important, the one we lost back at my house… the gifted woman who gave it to me be a Sister of the Light.”

“And what was she doing in the New World?” Zedd asked in a level tone.

“She not be in the New World. I be in the Old World, at the time.”

Zedd put both fists on his hips as he leaned toward her.

“You crossed the Valley of the Lost? You went into the Old World! You’re just filled right up full with little secrets.”

Adie shrugged with one shoulder. “I told you I searched out women with the gift, to learn from them what I could. Some of them be in the Old World. I used my one passing through the valley and back to learn what I could of what I needed to know.”

Adie snugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders. The Sisters, some of them, taught me the little bits they knew. Important little bits. The Sisters view it as their province to know about the Keeper, the Nameless One as they call him, in order to keep souls from his grasp.

“I did not stay at their palace long; they would not let me stay unless I wished to be one of them, but for a time they let me study with them, study things in their vaults. There be Sisters in the palace I would not trust to cook me breakfast, but there be some who were great help.”

Muttering, Zedd started pacing again. The Sisters of the Light are misguided zealots. They make the Blood of the Fold look to be reasonable men!” He came to a halt. “And when you were there, did you see any of their boys? Did you see if they even had any with the gift?”

“I had my own learning to attend to. I not be there to argue theology with the Sisters. That not be a wise thing to do. They did not let me have anything to do with their charges, if indeed they had any. I be sure that if they had any boys, they be ones from their side.

They know better than to risk violation of that truce. They strongly fear what wizards on this side would do if they did. They let me learn what I could from them, and let me study in the vaults, but they never let me see any boys, nor would they tell me if they had any.”

“Well, of course they don’t have any!” he snapped. There are almost never any born with the gift, anymore. Too many wizards have been killed in the wars. We are a dying breed.