Owlknight

In this case, the Healers tried to keep as many family members together as possible. It was already traumatic enough, to find themselves depending on total strangers for a cure - to separate sick family members would have put too much stress on them.

Now that the weather was warm, there was no need to heat the buildings, but in the winter charcoal braziers or tiny fireplaces filled that requirement. Although the walkways connecting them were all of wood, the buildings themselves were not; they had been built partly of stone, the better to keep them clean. Their thick walls kept heat in during the winter, and out in the summer; windows covered with netting and flawed silk to prevent insects from entering were closed by glass windows and wooden shutters in the worst weather. At the moment, the windows were propped open and the shutters open wide to let in the fresh air.

Keisha found one of the Healers working in the third building she checked.

It was Kandace, someone Keisha knew quite well, a Healer with a great deal of experience and expertise with children. Her middle-aged, motherly face and figure tended to make children relax and trust her; she looked as if she had at least a dozen of her own - though, in fact, she was single and childless. With brown eyes and hair and a medium complexion, she could have passed as almost anyone’s relative. This made her perfect to deal with frightened, wary Northerners.

Keisha stood just outside and caught Kandace’s eye, then waited outside, rocking on her heels just beside the ladder leading down from the walkway. Kandace must have been nearly finished anyway, as it wasn’t long before she came out, and jumped down to give Keisha a welcome hug. “It’s been too long!” Kandace exclaimed. “I didn’t get nearly as much time to talk to you at the celebration as I would have liked?”

“Neither did I,” Keisha replied warmly. It was impossible not to like the exuberant, outgoing Healer; she treated every child like her own, every adult like a friend. Furthermore, everyone in her family was the same way; Keisha had met them all over the course of a year as they came to visit. All but one of Kandace’s siblings were Healers, as was her father. Her mother and one of her sisters were skilled cabinetmakers. “I came with the new Heralds,” Keisha continued. “They wanted to see the Sanctuary.”

“That Anda wanted to see the Sanctuary, you mean!” Kandace laughed. “I have never seen anyone so determined to find out everything in the shortest possible time!” She shook her head in disbelief. “If he wasn’t so healthy, I’d be worried about him. That sort tends to drive themselves into heart trouble by working too hard.”

She and Keisha shared a conspiratorial look. “I think you can depend on Nightwind to see he doesn’t,” was all Keisha said, but they both knew what she meant. “Since Anda wouldn’t hear of not coming, I thought I’d better go along in case your current crop had anything different this time.”

Kandace brushed her short hair back with one hand. “No, nothing different this time - just the Wasting Sickness that comes with Summer Fever, and thank the gods, the mild form.”

Now they knew that the Wasting Sickness came in two forms - one that sickened and weakened, and sometimes left a victim with paralysis of a limb, and one that killed or left the victim totally paralyzed. With help, the victims of the weak form could recover much of what they had lost - but unless the disease was caught in its early stages, victims of the strong form could not return to their former healthy selves.

Keisha relaxed; Shandi was now immune to the Wasting Sickness, and even if Anda caught it - which was less likely, as it tended to attack children rather than adults - she and Nightwind could cure it in a few days.

“I’ve got one more set of patients to see. Want to help?” Kandace offered, knowing that Keisha would. Without waiting for her answer, Kandace skipped up the stairs and headed along the walkway, looking behind once to see if Keisha was following.

She didn’t see a case of Wasting Sickness at all anymore, and she was right on Kandace’s heels. They walked in single file with their footsteps sounding hollow as they headed toward the next building. Hung as decorations beneath the shelter of the roof were all manner of little talismans; there was no end to the variety of materials they had been made of - wood, bone, fabric, fur, stone - there were even some made of dried grasses or pine needles and twigs.

They all portrayed a single creature, the dyheli, and each one had been made as a thanks-token for a successful recovery. Some, made by the children, were crude indeed, but it was the thought that counted, not the skill. All of the walkways were hung with these tokens, which were never taken down or replaced, though wind and weather had rendered some of them pretty battered. The patients worked on their talismans as they recovered, and hung them themselves from the rafters of the bridges around the building they had stayed in.

“Ready?” Kandace asked, pausing on the threshold, and looking back at Keisha.

“Always!” Keisha said eagerly, as Kandace reached for the door to open it.

Now if only I could be so certain about the rest of my life. . . .

Ten