Embarrassment—and the fear that his hands and arms were about to burst into leper’s sores or swollen boils—rendered him speechless. He turned and bolted headlong into the wind, running toward the pine trees, intent on reaching the pond and the stream again. When he reached the weeds of the shore he flung the deathrise flowers as far as he could out into the water, then dropped to his knees, plunged his hands into the pond, and dug his fingers into the sand. He scrubbed and scrubbed his palms, his fingers, the backs of his hands, his wrists, all the way up his arms. He frantically tried to remember any place he had touched with the deathrise flower. He filled his cupped palms, and was about to splash water in his face, but he didn’t dare go near his mouth or eyes.
Even when his hands looked clean, he plunged them into the sand again, scrubbing and scrubbing. He scoured his skin a third time and a fourth, until even his fingertips were raw, his palms pink, his knuckles sore. Finally, he stepped away, breathing hard, still afraid that the poison had gotten inside him.
He swallowed. What more could he do? He would find no antidote here … if an antidote even existed.
Heart pounding, pulse racing, he struggled to regain his composure. Finally, he left the pond and ran to catch up with Nicci and Nathan.
*
At dusk, four dwarf deer crept out of the eucalyptus forest where they had rested in the tangled shadows throughout the day. They ventured forth, their delicate hooves stepping on twigs while they worked their way along a faint game trail.
Though there were few large predators here on the coastal headlands, the deer possessed natural caution on their journey to the freshwater pond where they drank each night at sunset. The deer approached the shore, uncertain and skittish. They took several steps, then paused, their ears flickering to detect any threat, then moved forward again. One hung back as a sentinel while the other three stepped to the pond’s edge.
The deer sensed something amiss. The water was smooth and clear as always, but they noticed, without comprehension, the glimmering silver shapes that drifted on the surface of the pond. Hundreds of the small fish that had darted like small mirror flashes in the last sunlight now floated belly-up like a stain on the water.
The deer struggled to understand what had changed. Frozen like statues in the forest, they waited for long minutes, but nothing approached, nothing attacked. Finally, one of the deer dipped into the water and drank. The next two joined her, drinking their fill. When it was his turn, the sentinel buck also drank, and the twilight shadows deepened around them.…
By the next morning numerous fish still drifted on the surface, though some of the bodies had begun to sink. On the shore, four dwarf deer also lay dead.
CHAPTER 21
They camped in the shelter of thick cypress. During the night, the maddening, mournful breezes died down, which allowed a thick fog to settle in. The cold wet swaths made the three miserable while they huddled near a small fire, adding more moist twigs in an attempt to keep the blaze going. Nicci used her magic to maintain the fire, but the flames gave out too little heat.
Nicci had never been overly concerned with her personal comfort, so long as she could function. Now that they’d been shipwrecked on the unknown coast, despite the unexpected rock cairn reaffirming their destination of Kol Adair, she could not guess how many miles they might need to walk before they found a settlement in this wild coastal wasteland.
Despite the solitude, Nicci reminded herself that this land, bleak and untamed as it was, was now part of the D’Haran Empire. Nicci was doing what she had promised Lord Rahl, and she would, in fact, walk from one end of the world to the other for him, if that proved necessary. But neither she nor Nathan could continue their quest until they actually found a village or city.
Finally, morning brightened the murk, and Nicci stopped wasting effort to keep the useless fire going. “We should get moving. That will generate heat.”
Nathan used the tortoiseshell comb to untangle his long white hair. “I don’t know if even running will keep us warm enough.” He looked in disappointment at his moist and rumpled shirt. “I never realized how many ways I relied on my gift. A little internal magic could always keep me warm on a blustery, miserable day like this.”
Nicci shouldered her makeshift pack. “We won’t be any colder than we are now, and at least we’ll cover distance.”
Bannon squinted into the fog. “But can we see where we’re going?”
“We’ll see when we get there,” Nicci said.
Nathan tucked away his life book in the leather pouch and fastened the flap. “I doubt I can add much detail to my map today.”
They headed out. Guided by the rush and boom of the ocean off to their right, they walked far enough from the edge to stay safe. “I’m not so much worried about falling off a cliff, as I am of reaching the edge of the world,” Bannon said, panting. “Then we would just fall forever.”
Nathan lifted his bushy eyebrows. “You believe we’ll find the actual edge of the world, my boy?”
“I’ve seen maps that cut off.…”
“If we find the edge of the world, then we will know that we’ve come to the boundaries of Lord Rahl’s empire.” Nicci did not waste time or effort worrying about such things. “Then we will turn and explore in a different direction.”
“I hope we find Kol Adair before then,” Nathan said.
Ever since offering her the deathrise flowers, the young man had seemed subdued. Before she rebuffed him, Nicci had noted the bright gleam in his eyes, recognizing that he was probably smitten with her—and those feelings were woefully misplaced. His imagination was already too active.
Nathan had a certain fondness for the young man. Despite the thousand-year difference in their ages, the two had much in common, since even the old wizard had a flash of naiveté about him.
The fog thinned for an hour as they continued, but the chill deepened. Bannon shivered. “Maybe we should go inland to the thicker forest, where at least the trees will shelter us.”
Nicci shook her head and kept going. She walked in a straight, determined line, defeating the distance as if it were an enemy. “If we follow the coastline, we’ll be more likely to discover a river outlet or a port. And we can see farther ahead, once the fog clears.”
Nathan kept his eyes to the ground, preoccupied with finding berry bushes, wild onions, or bird’s nests and breakfast eggs. Bannon ranged ahead like a dutiful scout.
The wind went quiet again and the fog closed in, so that Nicci didn’t see the young man until he was right beside her. He looked sheepish, smiling for the first time since the debacle of offering her deathrise flowers. This time, Bannon held a handful of orange lilies on long stalks. “I found these for you, Sorceress. I hope you like them better than those poison blossoms.”
Nicci regarded him coolly. “But I valued the deathrise flower. I told you in great detail about all its uses.”
“These are pretty flowers, though,” Bannon said, extending them toward her. “Grass lilies. They used to grow all over Chiriya. They won’t last long after they’ve been picked, but I wanted you to have them.” When Nicci did not reach out to accept them, his expression faltered. “Are they not to your liking?”