Mortalis

'Thought,' Janine said firmly, fixing the man with as determined a stare as he had ever seen. 'Now I'm knowing better, knowing a way to fight back and to live.'

Shamus continued to match her stare, his skeptical expression hardly relenting.

Janine gave a great belly laugh. 'Thought!' she said again. 'But then Pony-no, she's wanting to be called Jilseponie now-came to us and showed us the truth.'

Shamus winced, thinking, perhaps, that his old friend Jilseponie might have seen too much of the dying and the suffering, that she, like the Brothers Repentant, might have discovered some false insight into the causes of the rosy plague.

'She cured Dainsey Aucomb, she did,' Janine insisted against his unrelenting stare. 'Took the plague right out o' her.'

Shamus didn't blink. He knew that a person could be cured of the plague with the gemstones, but he knew, too, that such cures were rare indeed. While he was glad to hear that his friend Jilseponie was still alive, he did not dare to believe that she had become all-powerful with those gemstones. No, Shamus knew of the fate of his cousin Colleen, who had died in Jilseponie's arms. He knew better.

'And she has cured you, as well? ' he asked.

Janine gave another laugh. 'She chased the plague back a bit,' she explained, 'but not cured, no.'

'Then you are still sick.'

Janine nodded.

'But you just spoke of a cure,' the increasingly frustrated man blurted.

'So I did, and so Jilseponie found one,' Janine quietly and calmly explained, 'but not here. No, here she can give ye a bit o' rest from the fighting, but to get yerself truly cured ye must be walking, me friend, all the way to the Barbacan and Mount Aida, to the hand o' the angel and the healing blood. We're readying for just such a journey- the whole town's going north-and the three Timberland towns're already on the road to Aida.'

'What?' Shamus asked helplessly, shaking his head and screwing his expression up into one of pure incredulity, as if the whole thing sounded perfectly preposterous. 'Where is Jilseponie? '

'Went to Landsdown to help 'em out over there and to get them ready for the road,' Janine replied.

Shamus was on the road in a few minutes, riding hard for Landsdown, the sister village of Caer Tinella, a cluster of houses but an hour away.

When he entered the town, he saw a great gathering in the central square, where a tent had been hastily erected. A line of plague victims had formed in front of it, while other people, apparently healthy, rushed about, loading wagons with supplies.

Though he certainly had no desire to go anywhere near the plagueridden victims, Shamus suppressed his revulsion and his fear and walked along the line until he could see the front of it, where a woman, a familiar face indeed, worked on them, one by one, with a magical gemstone.

Shamus moved up beside Jilseponie, who was deep into the magic, working on a young boy, and patiently waited. A few minutes later, Jilseponie opened her eyes, and the boy smiled widely and ran off. The next sickly plague victim shuffled forward.

Jilseponie glanced to the side, and her expression brightened considerably when she saw her old friend. She held up her hand to motion the next victim to wait a moment, then stood up-with great effort, Shamus noted-and came forward to offer a friend a hug.

Shamus stiffened at the touch, and Jilseponie pulled him back to arm's length, laughing knowingly. 'You have nothing to fear from me,' she explained. 'The rosy plague cannot touch me now.'

'You have become the great healer of the world?' Shamus asked with more than a hint of sarcasm.

Jilseponie shook her head. 'Not I,' she explained. Shamus looked to the line of the sick, to the boy Jilseponie had Just apparently helped, who was working hard with some others loading a wagon.

'I do nothing that any brother trained with the gemstones could not do,' Jilseponie said.

'I have seen their work against the rosy plague,' Shamus corrected. 'They can do little or nothing, and are so terrified that they hide themselves behind their abbey walls.'

'They have not kissed the hand,' she answered, and she took her seat, motioning for the next sufferer to come forward. She glanced up at Shamus once more, to find him wearing a perfectly incredulous expression.

'Why do you doubt?' she asked him. 'Did not you yourself witness a miracle at the arm ofAvelyn?'

'But not against the plague.'

'Well, I have so witnessed such a miracle against the plague,' Jilseponie answered firmly. 'I brought Dainsey to Avelyn, and she was as near to death as anyone I have ever seen. There is blood on his hand-perpetually, I believe-and the taste of that blood brought life back into her body. I saw it myself, and knew that when I, too, kissed the hand, I needed no longer fear the rosy plague.'

'And so they are going, all of them? ' Shamus asked.

'All of them and all the world,' Jilseponie answered.

'But how do you know?' the man pressed. 'The blood? Will it continue? Will it truly heal?'

Jilseponie fixed him with a perfectly contented and confident smile. 'I know,' was all that she answered, and she went back to her work, brushing her hand over the feverish forehead of the woman patiently waiting, then lifting the soul stone to her lips.

'We must talk later,' Shamus said. Jilseponie gave a slight nod, then fell into the magic of the stone.

A very shaken Shamus Kilronney walked out of the tent, straight to the tavern across the way. The place was empty, but Shamus went to the bar and poured himself a very potent drink.

Jilseponie joined him there later, looking quite exhausted but quite relaxed.

'They should all survive the journey,' she explained, 'or at least, the plague will not take any of them on the road to Aida.' She turned down her eyes. 'Except for one,' she admitted. 'He is too thick with the plague, and even if I were to work with him all the way to Aida, which I cannot do, he could not possibly survive.'

Shamus stared at her, shaking his head. 'You seem to have figured it all out,' he remarked.

'I was told,' Jilseponie corrected. 'The spirit of Avelyn, through the ghost of Romeo Mullahy, showed me the truth.' Shamus hardly seemed convinced, but Jilseponie only shrugged, too tired to argue.

'So, you can now help to heal the people? ' Shamus asked. 'Because you tasted the blood and are now impervious to the plague? '

Jilseponie nodded. 'I can help them,' she said, accepting the glass Shamus handed her. 'Some of them, at least. But so could any other brother who has kissed Avelyn's hand. I need not fear the plague anymore, and that freedom allows me to fight it back in most people.'

'But not in those terribly afflicted,' Shamus reasoned.

Jilseponie shook her head and swallowed the drink. 'For many it is too late, I fear,' she explained, 'and every day I tarry, more will die.'

Shamus' expression turned to one of horror. 'You accept that responsibility? ' he asked.

'If not me, then who? '

He still just stared at her.

'I will not go north with them-they leave in the morning,' she went on. 'But you should go. Indeed, you must-both to help protect them and to kiss the hand yourself.' She looked deeply into Shamus' eyes, her pleading expression reminding him of who she was and of all that they had gone through together. ' Bradwarden leads the Timberland folk. Shamus should help lead the folk of these two towns.

'And Shamus should remain in the northland,' Jilseponie continued. It was clear to him that she was making up plans as she went. 'To stand guard with whatever force he can muster. To keep the road to the Barbacan clear for those who must make the pilgrimage.'

Shamus Kilronney, who had traveled the long, long road to the Barbacan, scoffed at the notion. 'You will need the King's army for that!' he insisted.

'I intend to enlist the King's army,' Jilseponie answered, her tone so strong and grim that Shamus rocked back in his chair and found, to his absolute surprise, that he did not doubt her for a second. But that only reminded him of another pressing problem.

'Palmaris,' he said gravely. 'The people are rioting, and Duke Tetrafel encourages it. For he, too, has contracted the plague, and Abbot Braumin can do nothing to help him.'

Jilseponie nodded, seeming hardly surprised, and not overconcerned.

'The folk are being prodded, too, by the Brothers Repentant,' Shamus explained, 'a group of wayward monks