Free A Hero's Tale by Catherine M. Wilson Page B

had grown too heavy. At last I freed one arm, and I was enjoying the touch of cold air on my fevered body when someone wrapped me up again.
    "Too hot," I said.
    My voice sounded strange to me, as if it came from far away.
    Someone brought me water. It stung my lips. Although I was thirsty, my throat was so sore and swollen that I found it difficult to swallow. A part of my mind knew that I was ill, while another part seemed not to care. It let my painful body drift away and lost itself in pictures like those we see in dreams. Green hills and blue skies reminded me of home, where in my memory it was always summertime. I drifted there, dreaming of a life I might once have lived, but when the sky began to darken, I looked for the way home in vain. There was no path to guide me. This place was strange to me that had put on for a little while the guise of home. Soon the light was gone.
    I floated weightless in the dark. I drifted, light as thistledown, carrying a tiny seed of life that might fall either on good earth or barren ground. I neither hoped for one nor feared the other. I lay upon the air and let it carry me, until a breath of wind wafted me over the abyss, where in the depths there stirred some nameless thing, an ancient power that knew me not at all.
    As I drifted over the abyss, too light to fall, I felt it reach for me. I was not afraid, just curious, and my mind filled up with wordless questions. The nameless thing that dwelt there in the dark had questions it would ask of me, and promised, if I answered them, to whisper me its secrets.
    Above me a bird of prey glided through the sky and cast the shadow of its outstretched wings over the abyss. The power, like a hunted thing, withdrew. The hawk's soft-feathered wings embraced me. Sharp pains pierced my shoulders where its talons gripped me, as it flew with me, up into the light.
    I woke to the touch of feathers on my naked skin. Smoke tickled my nose and made me sneeze. With a fan made from a raven's wing, Sett wafted more of the sweet-smelling smoke over me, until I had sneezed twice more. Then he leaned close to me and looked into my eyes, looked past my eyes, and his were cold, as sharp as flint. Hawk's eyes.

69. A Bargain
    As I grew strong again, my journey over the abyss seemed more and more unreal, but as we dream of places that we recognize, I knew I had dreamed of someplace so familiar that for days my waking mind wandered in the dark, searching for a landmark that would help me find my way through this forgotten landscape.
    Sett came to see me often. He never spoke about my journey, though I knew that he had shared it, and I knew better than to speak to him of things that can't be spoken of. Instead he told me winter stories. He mimed the sleeping animals and made me see their dreams, as each created for himself the world that he would live in, a world of warmth and light. Squirrels in the treetops, rocked by winter winds, might dream of soaring leaps from tree to tree. Did they ever dream of falling?
    Worr came to see me too. He seemed to think it was my battle with the wolf that made me ill. Perhaps it was. I didn't think too much about it. Winter sickness can come to anyone. Then I thought of Merin, whose illness had almost let her fall into the soft dark of midwinter's night, and I knew why I remembered the abyss.
    Throughout my illness, Maara stayed beside me. When dreams troubled me, she held me fast. When I woke she fed me, bathed me, carried me outdoors, well wrapped up in furs, to use the privy. She cared for me with a tenderness that told me of her love more than there are words for. In fact she spoke very little. At first I didn't notice. While I was ill, I slept. When I was stronger, she made me sit up with the others around the fire. During the day we were seldom alone, and when I lay in her arms at night, she soothed me to sleep with her caress, though she refused my touch with the excuse that I was not yet strong enough.
    As the days went by,