no way to tell how much time had passed, and no way to sort what he knew had happened from what the voice was telling him.
Except that, bit by bit, the words being spoken over his head became more intelligible, as if the language was slowly seeping into his fever-ravaged brain. This tongue—this arcane language—was like nothing he could have imagined. The syntax was all wrong, for one thing; these people spoke—backward, sort of. Not that he was any kind of a linguist, but for a long time he was confused as much by the order of the words as the words themselves....
He must be in Valdemar. The language was as twisted about as the Demon-Riders and their Hellhorses, with the verbs coming in the middle instead of properly at the end. How could you tell what a sentence was truly about if you stuck the verb in the middle? The meaning could be entirely reversed by what came afterward!
How was he learning these things? What demonic magic was putting them inside his brain? Or was this all a fever dream, and was he lying in the embers of the chicken-shed, dying of his burns, conjuring all of this up? He had saved the village with his witch-power, he had been condemned to burn by a Voice, he had been imprisoned and his prison set afire. But after that?
Madness, illusion, hallucination, delirium.
Surely.
But the voice in his head told him otherwise, and as the moments of his lucidity came more and more often, it began to tell him things he could verify for himself—little things, but none of which he could have hallucinated for himself. That, for instance, the reason why he was not able to open his eyes very often was because they had been bandaged shut—at first, the skin of his face hurt so much he hadn't actually felt the bandages. And the skin of his hands was in such agony that he tried not to move them to touch anything, much less his face, which he wouldn't have wanted to touch anyway, given how much it hurt. The voice warned him when he was to be fed, and what they were going to give him—all soup, of course, and juices, and very, very often. The voice warned him when his bandages were to be changed—long before one of those Healer-people even got within hearing distance. And the voice told him about a great many other things.
:There is a large crow outside your window, Chosen,: it would say. :It is about to sound an alert, so do not be startled and jump, or you will hurt.: And sure enough, a crow would burst out with a raucous shout, but since he'd been warned, he was able to keep still. Or— :The Healers have come with a new potion for you, to soothe your burns. They think this will hurt so much that they intend to give you an especially strong dose of pain- medicine.: And indeed, he would then hear footsteps, feel himself tilted up, and he would drink what was put to his lips quickly, because the last time they had come up with a new potion for his burns, the pain had been excruciating.
He had always been a great believer in empirical evidence, and here it was. Slowly, and with great reluctance, he began to sort through his confused memories. With even greater reluctance, he had to accept that what he thought was madness and delirium was nothing of the sort.
So during one of his moments of relative lucidity, he steeled himself, and confronted the voice.
Relative was the operative term—he felt that he should be angry, embittered, but there were drugs interfering with those emotions, keeping him oddly detached. Perhaps that was just as well. He needed to think clearly, unemotionally, and this was as close to doing so as he was likely to manage. He coughed, hoping to clear his throat, but the voice in his head forestalled his attempt to speak aloud.
:Don't, Chosen. You don't need to actually say anything. Just think it.:
Think it. Well, he talked to himself in his mind all the time; this shouldn't be any different.
:It isn't, except that when you get an answer, you needn't be concerned that madness runs in your bloodline. Not that it's likely that it was true madness that struck your father, all things considered. If it were my case to judge, I would have looked very carefully at his wife's family, and considered all the reasons they might have had for saying he was mad....:
He'd have winced, if he hadn't known how much wincing would hurt. How had this voice—
:Kantor, Alberich. My name is Kantor.:
Kantor, then. How had this being known about his past?
:You've been quite generous in sharing your memories.: A hint of dry irony. :Actually, you've been shoving them down my throat. I know that your mother was not married, that your father was a prominent man in your village and she anything but. I know that he was her only lover and that at some point when you were very young, he was sent away with your priests, supposedly mad.: Alberich would have been flushing, had his face not been so painful. He was embarrassed—but embarrassed because he had been essentially blurting out every detail of his past life to a stranger, like the sort of drunk who would sit down next to you and begin telling you everything you didn't want to know. The very idea made him a little sick. :Not that I mind, truly,: the voice continued earnestly. :It's only that Herald and Companion usually grow to know each other in a more leisurely manner—and as yet, you know very little of me.:
