Owlsight

them to a place where they would find healing and an end to the sickness. And after he died, the Ghost Cat appeared, and led them south. That was when their lore-keepers recalled that we of the south reputedly have many powerful Healers.:

“Oh, really?” Eldan’s eyebrows rose, and he turned to Starfall. “Was this Cat a revenant, do you think? Or an avatar?”

Great minds follow the same path, Darian thought.

“It could be,” Starfall said cautiously. “But we shouldn’t discount either. Well, now we know why they avoid Change-Circles.”

:Before he died, their shaman declared that their own gods and magic were helpless against this “plague from outside” and that “they must look outside for help.” They aren’t down here purely by chance, following the Ghost Cat. They’ve heard of the Valdemaran-style Healers, as I said, and have come looking for some. Their initial intentions were to kidnap some and coerce them into helping, if they had to.:

“Huh,” Kero snorted. “They don’t know Healers very well, do they?”

Darian had to agree with that.

:However, confronted by our strong force . . . that doesn’t seem like too good an idea anymore.: Tyrsell’s sides heaved with an enormous sigh. :And that is all I can tell you.:

“I think we’d better bring the Healers in on this,” Darian put in, with visions of more crippled children in Errold’s Grove. “How do we know we won’t catch this fever?”

“We don’t, and that is a damned good point,” Kero responded. She rose - but halfway to her feet, was interrupted.

“Captain! Visitors!” One of the Guards entered the cave and saluted Kerowyn smartly. “Two to see you, urgently, Captain!”

“I didn’t send for anyone,” Kero began crossly, as she straightened. “And I’m certainly not expecting anyone.”

“I know you aren’t, Captain Kerowyn,” said a high, young, female voice. “I came here on my own.”

Around the edge of the cave stepped a young woman dressed in Heraldic Trainee Greys, and trailing her was her Companion - who had a distinctly hangdog and guilty look about him. Darian cast a quick glance at Kerowyn’s Sayvil, who was glaring at the new Companion with much the same expression that Kero was using with the Trainee.

Darian knew an incipient explosion when he saw one, and he was quite glad that he wasn’t standing in the footprints of either the pretty young woman or her Companion.

There was something about the girl that was naggingly familiar to Darian, even though he was certain that he had never seen her in his life.

“I also brought my sister,” the girl continued, undaunted. “And since you just now mentioned Healers, I can’t help thinking that my premonition was accurate.”

She beckoned, and around the same edge of the cave, looking nervous and determined at the same time, stepped Keisha Alder.

Keisha hadn’t had a moment to think from the time that Shandi scooped her up until the moment they both intruded on the war council. Much to Keisha’s relief, Darian rose and worked his way over to her, and both of them escaped from the council as quickly as they could. The fierce interrogation that Kero was putting Shandi Alder through was also an extremely uncomfortable and public grilling. No less public - though silent - was the similar set of coals that Shandi’s Companion was being hauled over by Sayvil.

“Your sister must be crazy. I can’t believe she ran away from the Collegium,” Darian said, shaking his head.

Keisha just sighed. “I can’t either - though to give her credit, she didn’t exactly run away.”

Darian gave her a quizzical look. “So what did she do?”

He found a place for them both to sit. Keisha was only too glad to sink down onto a cool stone and stretch her aching legs out. Riding pillion, even on a Companion, was about as uncomfortable as riding a dyheli.

“She bullied them into letting her come back, if you can believe that! She said she had some sort of premonition, and since she obviously wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, they gave in!” Keisha thought incredulously about the Shandi who had left Errold’s Grove, Shandi the peacemaker, Shandi the gentle, and