to know about. I wrote them down because I knew I could never remember all those names.” She reached into her dress pocket and took out a much-folded slip of paper. As she opened it, my heart sank. “Are you ready?” she asked me.
I clenched my teeth to refrain from shouting at her. “Yes. Please, Epiny, just tell me.”
“Very well.” She cleared her throat, coughed, and then cleared it again. When she read the names, her voice was tight and choked. Tears brimmed and then ran down her cheeks as she recited the names. “Natred. Oron. Caleb. Sergeant Rufet. Corporal Dent. Cadet Captain Jaffers. Captain Maw. Captain Infal. Lieutenant Wurtam.”
The first three names stunned me. I lay back on my pillows, and as she went on, I felt each name like a fist blow to my heart. So many dead! So many!
“I’ll get you some water,” Epiny said abruptly. “I’ve been a fool. Father said you were too weak yet for such tidings. I judged that knowing these things would be less trying for you than living in suspense. I was wrong, and now you shall have a relapse and undo all your healing and my father will once more berate me about acting on my own with too little experience of the real world.”
I sipped from the glass she had poured from my bedside ewer. When I could speak, I said, “No. You were right, Epiny. Like you, I hate it when people try to make decisions for me. Tell me the rest. Now.”
“Are you certain?” She took the glass from my shaking hand and set it on my sick table.
“Very certain. Tell me.”
She again consulted the page she held. “Of your other fellows, Kort never caught the plague. Rory had only a mild case. Trist took sick and recovered, but like Spink, he will never be as hearty as he was. Spink thinks they will send him home. Gord and his family have still not returned to the city, so they have missed the plague. Colonel Stiet and his son Caulder were both sick for days. Both will recover but the colonel has given up commanding the Academy. Control of it has passed back to Colonel Rebin. Spink has heard rumors that Rebin is glad to have it back and intends to ‘put his house in order’ as soon as most of his cadets have recovered. There were deaths throughout the city from the plague, but it was worst within the Academy walls. My father says that it has depleted the ranks of up-and-coming officers substantially. He thinks that many soldier sons will now forgo the Academy and simply purchase commissions as they used to, for the competition for positions will not be as fierce as it was.” She cleared her throat.
“Spink spoke about that, too. He says that the distinctions between old nobles’ and new nobles’ sons have worn thin, for the sickness made all of them comrades for a time. And he also says that politically, the Academy can no longer afford to be choosy about students. He has already heard rumors that Rebin will recall many of the culled cadets from previous years, to try to rebuild a corps of officers for the future. Spink says there is talk around the Academy that if it does not take action to demonstrate that Academy-trained officers are superior to those who buy their positions, the existence of the Academy itself may be called into question. It is not a cheap institution to run.”
I was silent for a time, absorbing that. It was strange to hear Epiny speak so knowledgeably of the Academy and the long-term effects of the plague upon our military structure. I reflected regretfully that she would have made a good cavalla wife. “Spink must be heartbroken to have his career cut short before it started,” I said to myself.
“It might be easier for all of us if he were,” Epiny said. “No. He is not heartbroken. He is furious whenever anyone suggests that he will not recover enough to serve. He will go home, as he has small choice in that. But he says that he will recover his health, and when he does, he is determined to return to the Academy. He is a soldier son and will be a soldier, despite what others may do in this difficult time.”
“What others do?” I asked.
“Oh. I forget that you have been isolated. The Academy suffered, but so did Old Thares. A number of noble families lost their heir sons. In some cases, the lord died as well. The hole that creates in the Council of Lords is a gaping one. With the support of the priesthood, many families are naming a younger son as heir rather than bringing in a cousin to inherit. It has caused quite a bit of discord, for many a hopeful cousin is seeing an inheritance snatched right out of their jaws. But in every case that has been challenged, the priests have supported the families in naming a younger son as first son.”
“That’s insane!” I could not believe what I was hearing. “It flies in the face of the good god’s will! How can the priests allow it?”
“My father says we must trust that the priests know the will of the good god. But I think-” Epiny halted suddenly, and looked uncomfortable.
“What do you think?” I prodded her.
“I think that, perhaps, large donations were made to various priestly orders. And in a number of cases, priest sons have been elevated to the status of heirs. They will, by a special allowance, serve in both capacities in their lifetimes.” She frowned to herself for a moment. Thoughtfully she took up her whistle and put it in her mouth, much as a thoughtful man might light his pipe. She breathed through it, whistling softly, and then spoke around it, “I think it might be a matter of influence and power and wealth. Even priests are human, Nevare.”
I did not like to think on the implications of that. I gestured at the whistle. “I thought you had given that annoying thing to Spink.”
She gave another long, low whistle through it and then spat it out. She smiled at me oddly and then leaned closer to my bed. “And why did you think that?” she whispered to me.
“Because I saw him wearing it,” I replied in annoyance at her sudden air of mystery, and then suddenly recalled where I had seen him wearing it.
“I wondered how much you recalled,” she said thoughtfully.
I don’t know what you are talking about.That was what I wanted to say, and yet I could not bring my lips to shape the words. That denial, I suddenly knew, was a legacy of the division Tree Woman had inflicted on me. Idid know exactly what she was talking about. I was still reconciling the pieces of myself. Sometimes I woke deep in mourning that I had killed my lover and mentor. At other times, I almost wished I could believe it was all fever dream and hallucination.
Epiny smiled sorrowfully at my silence. “Is it still so hard for you to admit it, Nevare?” she asked me. “Then I will not force it from you. I will only say that you saved not only yourself, but also Spink and me. It was when you acted that I suddenly perceived that some items were links between this world and that one. For you, it was your hair and your saber. When you cut the bridge, you cut her off from our world, didn’t you? My task was different. Spink and I were already bound. I had to seize and hold fast to the link that bound us to this world. In our case, it was the imaginary whistle he wore in his mind. He held fast to it in that world, and when I came out of my trance, I was gripping the chain around my own neck. But Spink had come with me. I sat up from the floor and discovered, to my great delight, that both of you were breathing, though not well. The nurses were shocked. It was the second time they had declared you dead, you know. I think you had remained longer in the land of the dead than either of you could have survived in ordinary circumstances.” She leaned closer to add, “I think you did more than you intended. Prior to our return, several cadets in your ward also gasped in breath at almost the same time. I think your severing of the bridge sent the souls on it back to their bodies.”
“I find that story preposterous.” And I truly did. But I smiled at her as I said so.
She did not reply for a moment. Then she leaned forward, and before I could react, she gave the hair on top of my head a firm tug. “Not as preposterous as this!” she told me. “The scar was gone, Nevare, when you awoke. I noticed it immediately. What she took from you, you took back. And now, when I look at you, I see no trace of her aura. Only that your own has grown much stronger. And yes, stranger.” She leaned back and looked at me so consideringly that I almost expected she would tell me how much I’d grown. “Definitely a strange aura. But then, you are a strange person and you definitely had a strange experience. Or we did.”
I gave in and asked her. “Does Spink remember any of that?”
She pursed her lips. “Not that he admits. I wonder about it. I wonder what any of the others on that bridge remember-oh!” She thrust her hand back into her pocket. “I nearly forgot this. It is from Caulder. It came for you two days ago. I think perhaps he had a very strange dream that he wishes to discuss with you.” She smiled cattily as she handed it to me.
I took the envelope from her, noting that the seal on it was broken. “You already read it, didn’t you?”
“Of course. As it was from Caulder, I doubted that it could be extremely personal. And I had to read it, to be able to judge whether or not to pass it on to you. But I think you are as ready for it as you will ever be.”
The note inside was on rich and heavy paper, marred only by Caulder’s childish handwriting. “Please come
