“Close your eyes, Rolduth. Stand firm, no matter what you hear or feel or touch. No matter what pictures form behind your eyelids. Your strength, added to my own, will make this task easier, leaving me more for healing your mother.”
He looked about the clearing, which seemed very innocent, now, in the morning light. He nodded and closed his eyes. His warm, grubby hand held mine tightly.
I took a deep breath and held it. The Power surged, and I sang. As if a ground mist sprang into being, a haze filmed over the wood. In the mist walked the shapes of men and women. Some held up their hands, pleading; many cringed as if from blows; all seemed hunched and twisted with fear or pain. The sounds of whips cracking popped dimly in my cars. Ragged cries and tortured screams wove pale echoes through the wood. Murders were done before my eyes...and things more atrocious. I knew that I stood in a place unhallowed by ancient cruelties, and I sang more strongly still.
The Power leaped in me until I saw its dim haze stand out from my body as an aura. I sang sleep. I sang peace. I sang the death that ends all cruelties. By little and by little, the shapes became fewer, the sounds thinned to nothing, the haze drifted away on a little breeze that came wandering through the leaves. We stood, after a time, in a peaceful hollow where blue flowers peeped from hanging vines, even in this autumn season. Above us, where the sun shafted through, a shadow flickered, and I looked up in alarm. It was only a bird...the first one, I had no doubt, in years beyond counting.
The boy opened his eyes and again looked about the place where we stood. “Is it done?” he asked, and I nodded.
“Now we will go to your mother,” I said, loosing his hand from mine. “Your strength was of much help to me, Rolduth, son of Rellas. I am proud to have had you beside me.”
He flushed with pleasure, and we walked to the road, leading the still-winded Cherry. The morning was not far advanced, though to me it seemed to have been long indeed. Still we made good time, though I was a bit fatigued after cleansing the wood. His young legs outpaced mine, his impatience speeding my own efforts.
Truly it was not far to the house of Rellas. Well before noon we topped a slow rise of land, and Rolduth touched my arm, pointing down into the wide valley that lay below us.
“There is my home. The Watchers will see us and tell my Grandam that we are coming. Do you mind, Singer, if I ride ahead and tell her first?”
I waved him on and kept my even pace, for too much haste disorders the mind and heats the blood. So I was taught, and so I have found it to be, when one must put forth much energy in one’s work. As a result, I found myself met, at some distance from the village wall, by a lady of fine aspect and searching eyes.
She was tall, and though her hair was streaked with gray, it was still dark, matching her eyes. She strode out with a long, free gait, more like a boy than a grandmother. When we met, she clasped my hands in her own and smiled down at me.
“Well come, Singer. The gods, pardoning our doubts and our fears, send us aid at the hour of our greatest need. Enter our village and be at peace.”
I returned her clasp and moved with her through the silent and staring folk, up the well graveled street, to the house of Rellas. It was no castle, nor even a Great House like that of Razul.
Yet it was large and airy, made with some eye to grace and nice proportion. There were a few servants but they were not cowed or fearful, and they met me with warm water for washing.
We ate the noon meal in cheerful talk of the road and the weather. So well-mannered was my hostess that she made no more mention of her worry until all my needs were met. There she led me into a small chamber, hung with embroideries and furnished with cushioned chairs and low worktables strewn with handwork and carefully copied books.
“Rolduth has told you of our trouble,” she began, as we sat. “Some skill I have in soothing disordered spirits, for Raz is a disorderly place, with much head-cracking among the low, and more subtle wounds in those higher on the social scale. But my daughter has a wound I cannot heal. The blow to the head may be the sole cause, yet I believe it to be more. The accursed wood plays some part in her delirium. Unless she can be helped, she will escape our care and throw her life away.”
I nodded. Looking her in the eyes, I said, “I have never tended such a case, being young in my profession. You may know that our training lies mainly in the direction of calling up the consciences of the powerful into the scrutiny of their subjects. But a spirit is a spirit, be it born or unborn, living or dead. The wood was filled with uneasy spirits and soaked in old horrors, yet I was able to sing it to rest. With the gods aiding me, I may be able to do the same for your daughter. But will that be enough, Lady? Will the villagers accept her assurances? Think on it, while I go to see her.”
I went through the door she indicated, leaving the Lady Meltha with a thoughtful look on her face. The inner chamber was cool and dim, for thick draperies were drawn across the windows, though I could see by their motions that the shutters were open to the mild fall day. In a large bed against the unwindowed wall lay a young woman... almost too young, it seemed to me, to be the mother of so big a boy as Rolduth.
Her eyes turned toward me as I entered. Even in the darkness, I could see that she possessed a glory of red-gold hair and large eyes that seemed bottomless, as gray eyes often do. Without speaking, I went to the window and opened the curtains, letting the glow of the noon sun pour into the room.
She turned away with a protesting gesture. I went to her and took her hand. “Lady Felisa, I am a Singer of Souls. I have come to help you determine if the child you carry is or is not what you fear it may be.”
Her breathing eased, and the wild look left her. She stared at me searchingly, and I could feel her relaxing, bit by bit. “Can it be done now?” she asked, and there was desperation in her voice.
“It can. But you know that there is unrest among the people in the village. Would it not be better to go out into the Mother Chapel there, and in the presence of all who can enter to sing the soul of your unborn child?”
“If I were certain of the outcome, I would say yes. If I should, indeed, be carrying a demon-child, I fear for your life and those of my mother and son. The folk are ignorant, though we try to teach them. They cling more to the earth-demons than to the teachings of the Mother and the beings of the gods. When they are filled with fear, they are most dangerous.” Her voice carried away as a weary whisper, but I nodded again.
“Then we must first make a determination here. Do you want your mother and your son?”
“My mother. I fear to have my son...see....”
So, with the Lady Meltha at my side, I stood for the second time in the same day and called upon the Power. My weariness seemed to be no obstacle, for the pulsing tensions built within me to override any failing of the flesh. My long breath, held for a heartbeat, came forth in a note so soft that it was barely within range of hearing. A crooning melody took me, and I sang.
I had never sung the soul of a child. I expected it to be small, but it was not. It was, perhaps, more tender, but there was no difference in the size of the impulse I felt.
On a spot on the wall, a shape appeared. A sad shape, it seemed, tentative and uncertain. Its short history shone within it, from the first pulse of life when it was only a mote of matter within its mother. Shadows appeared and disappeared. I guessed that these were stresses that had troubled Felisa and were conveyed to her infant through her own system. Then a tremendous shadow rose up and engulfed that glow of life, almost extinguishing it. As if a dark hand had twisted it, its shape changed, and a blot of darkness seemed to grow within it.
I reached out my hand and took Meltha’s. She gripped firmly, and her warm strength was added to the Power and my own faltering energies. Again I breathed deeply. Then I sang a note of exultation, of triumph over darkness, of affirmation of life. A song of joy gripped me. As I sang, I saw the dark blot fade, slowly, and the twisted shape grow round and complete again. The glow brightened to glory, and as the