The boy swayed. 'Why?' he asked distantly.
Heckram's fingers found a tiny crack in the rock. He wriggled them into it. The sight of the boy standing so boldly on the edge of the fall rocked him with dizziness. 'How did he get there?' he demanded of the inscrutable stone.
The question engaged the boy's mind. Kerlew's eyes suddenly met his and a faint smile touched his dry lips. 'I saw the bone najd waiting for me. He had come here, so there was a way for me to come. So I stepped across.'
Heckram tried to take deeper breaths. Fear had been an abstraction when he was climbing the Najd's Steps alone. Danger had been behind him, a thing he could cheat by clinging to the cliff face. But now that he saw the boy, fear boiled through his veins.
Should Kerlew slip now, he could do nothing. But he knew he would reach for the falling boy, tumble alongside him, feeling his stomach lift into his throat, the wind past his eyes. He closed his eyes, squeezed the images away.
Slowly he opened them. He forced himself to look from his ledge to the alcove. Yes, there were lips of stone, cracks, and knobs that an agile boy could use to get across. He doubted he could squeeze his toes onto those minute ledges or wedge his thick fingers into the narrow cracks. But Kerlew had. And Kerlew could.
He licked his dry lips, felt the wind snatch the moisture from them and crack the skin. He took a breath and steadied his voice. 'Why don't you show me how you did it?'
he suggested. 'I'll move back out of your way. and you come across to me.'
The boy stared at him. The wind blew long between them. 'You want me to come down with you.'
Heckram hesitated. If Kerlew came across, he would have to come of his own will.
He could not seize the boy and drag him down the narrow path. It would be all both of them could do to get down safely. 'Only if you want to.'
'And if I don't?'
Heckram pressed his sweating forehead against the cold stone. 'Then I'll wait for you until you're ready.'
Kerlew smiled suddenly. 'Did you think I would be afraid of you? You are already mine, for I've held you in the palm of my hand. I will come. Let me gather the things.'
Heckram watched but saw little. Most of the tiny cave was out of reach of his eyes.
He heard a rustling, and muttering. A shiver ran up Heckram's back and he edged himself down the trail. There. There was room for the boy now. In a few seconds he heard the rasp of his shirt against the stone, and Kerlew edged into view. His bundled shirt bumped against his back. His bared arms were thin and pale. He spidered over the rock until he was beside Heckram. His eyes were boyishly bright and alive as he said, 'I see it is not the first time you have come this way.'
Heckram grinned at the humanness of his words. He felt dizzy with relief, and warm with sudden comradeship. 'Shall we make your mark beside it, to show you that you, too, have come this way?' he suggested.
Kerlew grinned with mischief. 'Are you trying to trick me? Do you think I don't know we are of one and the same? One mark is enough for us both.' He lifted his hand free of the wall, and pointed a thin finger. Blazoned slightly above Heckram's eye level, it glowed red against the black stone. The five spots of Wolfs track.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
'Where is Kari?'
Joboam's demand boomed across the distance between them. Tillu felt her body wince, but refused to let it cow her soul. She continued walking doggedly toward Capiam's tent. Busy folk paused, their eyes darting curiously from Joboam to the healer.
She ignored them, her deep pain and anger driving her to the confrontation.
She had left Lasse sitting in Stina's hut. The boy was in shock, shaking and pale. But Stina had understood Tillu's brief explanation, and had immediately begun to warm tea for him and make up a soft bed. Tears had run down the old woman's seamed face. 'If only she had come to me,' she said once, brokenly, and then turned aside to her grandson. 'To think that herdfolk could come to this. What is Capiam thinking of?'
There was anger in her voice then, and it ignited the anger in Tillu's soul. She had left then, knowing Lasse would be all right again, given time and Stina's care. Tillu was not sure about herself. She wished she could slip into that distancing trance, could stare sightless until her soul had absorbed the impact of Kari's death. Instead her pain was a wound gushing blood, a thing she must cauterize. She went straight to Capiam's tent.
She would be heard.
But Joboam guarded the tent, arms crossed on his chest. His flung question had drawn eyes. Folk were already beginning to gather. Tillu didn't care. She lifted her voice, careless of the shrill, hysterical note that rang through it. 'Kari is dead, Joboam!
Dead at the base of the Cataclysm, as you have probably guessed. Didn't you find her this morning and chase her up the Najd's Steps? Aren't you the one who taught a little girl that death was preferable to the touch of a man?'
Joboam stood still. Women spilled from Capiam's tent and milled behind him, anxious to witness this confrontation but not to become part of it. Other folk, attracted by the raised voices, drew closer. Tillu ignored them. She saw only the fury in Joboam's eyes, and the careful way he cloaked it.
'Healer, you rave!' he observed calmly. 'I have not seen Kari today. I have just come from Ketla's side. She weeps, for you have hidden her daughter away on what should be a joyous day for her whole family. She asks why you have done this, when the herdlord's family has shown you only kindness?'
Tillu knew that she should meet his calmness with cold composure. But her outrage gushed hot words, an unquellable flood of grief and anger. 'NO! I did not take Kari away! She took herself away from a joining she did not want, and then took herself out of a life she could not face. She is dead, Joboam! She leaped from the Najd's Steps. Can you look shocked? How safe you must feel now, knowing she can never speak of the things you did to her when she was a little child trusted to your safekeeping!' Tillu's voice broke on a sob. She clutched at her throat, forced the weeping away.
Joboam turned calmly to the women behind him. 'Telna and Kaarta. Please go to the base of the Najd's Steps and see if there is truth to this tale.' He let his eyes roam over the assembled folk. 'I fear it may be true. For since this 'healer' and her son joined our herdfolk, we have seen nothing but death and misfortune. Elsa died under her care, a death that so outraged the forest spirits that they sent a killing storm upon our new calves. The najd that sought to intervene for us lies trampled to death by our own reindeer. And the family of our herdlord is sickened to death, or driven to madness. It is no secret that Kerlew hated Rolke and was jealous of the najd's attention to Kari.
Everyone has seen his strange tempers, felt his cold stares. There is no najd now to control him. Poor Kari. Her dreams of a joining poisoned by the wild words of a stranger. Ah, Capiam, Capiam! You were a good herdlord in your time, but too trusting. I wish you had listened to me. I marked her and her boy as demon spawn the first time I saw them.'
Tillu could not find words to reply. She saw the people drawn to his steady words and calm manner, listening to his solemn tale, and murmuring agreement. Surely, Capiam's folk were sorely afflicted with troubles and woes. For a herdfolk's najd to die was the worst of bad luck. And where was their najd's apprentice, this woman's strange child? Where had he been when his master died? Tillu took a deep breath.
'No healer can cure everything. We can but help the body find time and strength to heal itself. Elsa's body was too broken. Her head was ... damaged. Inside. Do not blame me for her death, but blame the one who beat her. ...'
'And where is Heckram?' Joboam broke into her words. The deep timbre of his voice, his proud stance as the wind ruffled his soft hair drew the people to him. Tillu was the stranger, wild haired and dirty, blood upon her clothes. Joboam they had known since he was a boy, a sturdy, charming boy. Words were futile. They could only be turned against her.
