Chapter Eight: Whispers Of the Ibis

Chapter Eight: Whispers Of the Ibis

How swiftly might an owl fly, and how many miles would pass beneath its wings in the span of a single day? Could it be trusted to press on through hunger, weariness, and weather, carrying a message of importance? Would it bear straight for home or, having been kept waiting for so many days, pause to indulge in meandering swoops of abandon before fixing on its final destination? And even if it launched into the skies in absolute devotion to its goal, where might that realm of magic be? Sheltered in some sequestered valley -- perched atop a brooding mountain -- surrounded by sweeping tides of sand -- lost beneath a glassy sea -- or hidden on the dark side of the moon? How distant was this place of wizardry and how long to reach it? Ten days, if memory served him well, since Gareth had sent the tawny homeward, his singular request secured to its leg, and where in bloody hell was the witch, much less her companion? Did neither of them mean to return? And if not, what of Neirin Maldwyn?

~~ /// ~~

After the owl's liberation, as Gareth had come to think of it, the siege of Neirin's body had fallen into a numbing regimen. The barbarous armies of venom and addiction had pulled back from their first assault to wait, but he was wary of their retreat, knowing such conquerors would not break camp so easily. Still, he abhorred the necessity of forcing any patient into submission with restraints, and he'd chosen to unbind the wizard's searching hands, though he kept them loosely bandaged against a return of their desperate violence.

Neirin had begun to surface from his nether state into opaque twilights of consciousness, flickering awake barely long enough to unknowingly accept careful offerings of water or honey gruel before sinking again beneath the dark waters of his oblivion. His wounds no longer seeped black blood and showed no angry evidence of infection. The mundane needs of his body had become the hourglass for an endless cycle of replacing linens, bathing and shifting his sparse weight, keeping him from harm whenever he struggled in the grip of his silent terrors. Gareth -- Tess, too -- stayed vigilant, but there had been no more slashing arcs of light, and in the torpid depths of Neirin's eyes, whatever agents of magic lurked there remained covert.

All of this, the seasoned healer knew well, could become the pattern of Neirin's life, a constant journey of monotony towards an unobtainable horizon. And the campaign to free his shackled mind from its dungeon of flesh and bone? Heartsick from isolation and conflict, Gareth could no longer carry that battle flag alone. Under a pall of resignation when the far-distant help he'd petitioned did not come, he'd altered the flame on his hearth to send a plume of vermilion-tinted smoke into the late-day sky, conveying a new message to the waiting Valley.

My patient lives, but help is still needed, and someone's company even more so.

~~ /// ~~

To lift his leaden head off his pillowing arms at that same eventide and see Delyth Morgan standing just inside his infirmary door had been the balm to ease Gareth's battered spirit. If the Lady chose to answer his prayers by sending Delyth, he could ask for no better ally.

"Good health to you, Gareth Islwyn, and let all here be blessed." It was so like her to remember how much he'd always loved the older ways of greeting. Few her age still knew such things and even fewer chose to honor them. "And how are you, then?"

Peering through the thin illumination of the bedside lamp, she studied him in calm appraisal, assessing the entirety and, he was certain, missing little, as he rose to welcome her. He was a bit unsteady on his feet from his dozing, but if she was startled by his disheveled appearance, she managed to keep her dismay well-masked. For days, he'd not taken any time at a mirror, but he was sure his face was a stony field of exhaustion, and if his eyes were anywhere near as sunken as they felt, he knew he must look more than a little mad. But Delyth had never been one to be easily rattled, and that, he noted approvingly, had apparently not changed.

"You've made a casting, I see," she observed mildly, nodding towards the curve of salt at her feet, citing the extraordinary with a comfortable familiarity.

"Ie," his smile was wan in reply, "there was the need."

"For protection, was it? You've not done that in quite a while," she responded, the lift of her straight, dark brows revealing only a measured curiosity as she shifted the cloth-draped tray she carried. "May I enter your circle or would you rather I come back another time?"

Hurriedly taking the heavy tray from her to place it on the floor, Gareth bent to trace a thumbnail passage through the fragile barrier between them. As Delyth stepped across, careful of smudging the outline, he gathered her into a warm embrace, his voice roughened by the sudden tightening of his throat.

"Ah, we've all missed you so, darlin' girl. I'd a notion it was you tending things for me these last few days, and then I spied you from the window, down by the paddock." He reached up to cradle her face between his care-worn hands. "It's a blessing you've come home to us just now."

"A small enough one, maybe," she whispered, as though the air in the room had somehow become too scarce for her to find enough breath for any other reply.

Rescuing her tray from the floor to set it on a nearby table, she folded back the cloth and began to lay out plates and utensils, making no comment when she glanced up and noticed Gareth closing his protections carefully behind her. With firm hands on his shoulders, she steered him to take a seat and was rewarded with his happy sigh when he realized what she'd brought.

"Brithyll and koushari, both? Delyth, you're truly the treasure of two worlds," he exclaimed with delight, breathing in the enticing scents of trout and lentils, lemon and cucumber.

"I've been watching to see if you'd finally have a mind to let me in here," she scolded with a grin and a slight shake of her head. "There's been nothing but fussing from thada about you keeping yourself closed off this long." Her expression slipped from wry to wistful. "Besides, you know ummi would have no peace if she ever believed I'd not looked after you the way she always did..."

Watching Delyth ladle food from a small clay crock, Gareth sighed, drifting into a sweet nostalgia, recalling Jendayi's darting cinnamon-scented hands and laughter-creped bright eyes. Too soon gone, their Jenny. If only she'd been spared just a little longer to see the fine woman her daughter had become...

Content that she was even there, Gareth studied Delyth with a healer's eye, noting that her strong frame carried a few more pounds than when he'd last seen her, but that she was still much thinner than he felt was good for her. There was strength, but a careful reserve, to the manner in which she moved -- an aftermath of her absence, he suspected. The body has its own language with which to speak of pain, and he was troubled by the silent oration that hers was delivering.

She'd let her heavy black hair fall loose around her shoulders in a wiry abundance, but whether out of freedom from the veil, or in its place, was still unclear. The high sweep of her cheekbones, the long straight nose with its delicate hook at the tip, the generous mouth -- those were her Theban mother's, a profile worthy of some proud pharaoh's concubine. Her milk-pale skin, flushed with high color, her amber eyes flecked with jade, the firm chin and determined set of her shoulders, the lyric in her speech -- those were her father's, testament to an undaunted Celtic nature. The traces of suffering and sorrows borne -- of battles hard-fought and peace newly won -- sculpting her face and faintly smudging the skin below her eyes -- those all seemed very much her own. Gareth knew what had taken her from Gwaun, and when she was ready, he trusted she would tell him what had brought her home again.

Pretending not to notice his quiet assessments, Delyth occupied herself with pouring a mug of tea and pushing a laden plate in front of him. "Thada caught those trout just at sunset and insisted you were the only one to have them," she teased him with a soft slap on his shoulder. "He says you're to know he's very annoyed that you've not been out to fish with him in nearly a month. Now, eat, and while you're at it, tell me who it is that's kept you such a prisoner for so damned long." She cocked her head in the direction of the alcove across the room.

"He's called Neirin... Neirin Maldwyn," Gareth answered from around a mouthful of food, keeping a guarded eye on Delyth as she quickly washed and toweled her hands at the earthen basin before approaching the bed. "Poor lad's had quite the rough go, so mind yourself. Snake's venom laid him low... That and other things." At the mention of snakes, Delyth threw a perplexed glance in his direction. None of the little zigzagged adders that frequented the rocky outcroppings of the valley could have so serious an effect on a fully-grown man.

"He's been blinded, as well -- very recently, I'd say, though it's not clear just how -- and he's a tendency to fight a bit whenever he first comes round. Doesn't last very long, and he's usually only with us a few minutes at best. There's strength in his hands if he takes hold of you, though -- more than you'd think -- so it's that you need to keep your eye on." Gareth found himself relieved to be able to list the traits of his patient without needing to resort to detailed explanations. Delyth would take what he'd given her and fill in the rest on her own.

"Two fine names, and both of them the old Welsh? That's not heard so much, these days. He's from away, though, I'd think?" she puzzled softly. "And doesn't he have a last na..."

Her question fell silent as she stepped into the lamplight and first saw Gareth's patient. If she'd been asked to craft an image of the dream that had pulled her awake three days ago, weeping from a loss she could not name, no rendering could have done the task more justice than the face of the man before her. For a moment she closed her eyes, unwilling to witness such raw desolation on any living face, but she quickly opened them again. Not to look at him was cruel, as though she were denying him existence. He needed to be seen. It was his right.

"You said he's 'called'? Not 'is', but 'is called'... You named him, didn't you, Gareth?" She turned to see his reluctant nod, a spasm of movement, really, more than an open admission. "How did he come here? There's been no one new about that might have brought him -- not even a lorry or a rover around that we don't already know, and he certainly doesn't look as though he could have made it here on his own, especially being blind." She searched the healer's face, wondering why he abruptly lowered his eyes and seemed so reluctant to answer. Her old friend was usually so forthcoming, particularly if the welfare of someone under his care was in question.

"He looks flayed to the bone, but he's really not all that old, is he?" She read the man's face intently, seeing not so much the ravages of years passing but of a life hard-spent within them. "Gareth, his voice..." She hesitated for a moment, turning her face towards the shadows so that he was unable to see her expression. "Have you...? Has he spoken since he's been here?"

Gareth set his mug down noiselessly, concentrating on his hands as though they might betray him.

"Only a few words... but not spoken... Not aloud, anyway," he faltered to a whisper, an icy spear of memory piercing his chest. "There was an Accord -- twice -- between us... No one... He tried to tell me there was no one..."

"You've made a casting and a Joining." She turned to confront him, her expression keen with interest, now. "All for the same man? Gareth, what's this about?"

"Come sit here by me, Delyth, and I'll tell you what I know, or at least what's been said." He pushed back the chair opposite him. "We'll want a drop of the cymreig to keep us company, and you must promise not to think I've gone daft when I tell you that man is of the wizarding folk."

For a moment Delyth stood so still, he wondered if she'd even heard him. He was ready to call her name again, but held his breath when he saw her brush her fingers lightly along the sharp ridge of Neirin's nose and softly remark, "You do have something of Thoth about you, don't you?"

Gareth leaned forward, tensed and ready, blood pounding in his temples, awaiting some abrupt reaction to her unfamiliar touch. When there was none, he accepted with a twinge of shame that he was relieved. The Lady could fault him if She chose for his lapse in courage, but he simply wasn't up to doing battle with the darkness tonight, and he wasn't quite ready for Delyth to see evidence of what he was about to share with her.

As calmly as though he'd told her the weather would be rainy in the morning, she took her place at the table to pour two ample tumblers of whisky, her only response to his assertions of a wizard in the room being to raise her glass in solemn salute.

"Gareth, of all people, why would I be the one to think you daft? You know ummi taught me every story of the djinn she could remember, and you're the one showed me where to look and how to speak respectfully to the Tlwyth Teg, as soon as I was old enough to toddle along after you. Maybe even before that, I don't know. Besides, haven't I tended every standing stone and mound in this valley with you and thada? I've not forgotten and I've not lost my way, so tell me, please, and I'll make my own conclusions about your addled brain... and your blinded wizard. And who knows." She drained her glass. "Maybe our Tess and your little cat over there will listen as well, if your story's a good enough one."

"Cat? You're mistaken. There's no cat in here, my girl. Tess wouldn't abide it, would you, old pup?" Gareth smiled fondly, reaching down to ruffle the dense hair behind the dog's ears as she sprawled at his feet, hoping for a treat from his plate.

"Look again, old Healer, or I'll think it's your eyes that have gone dark," Delyth retorted. "She's just there, in the shadows beside the bed, watching us. She's not one of yours from the yard? She seems quite settled."

"There was no cat in here when I laid my head down to rest. I'd take an oath on it," Gareth rose to peer into the shadows near the bed, barely glimpsing golden eyes mirroring the lamplight "Are you sure she didn't slip in before you, Delyth? I don't believe I know her, and you've always had a way with such." She shook her head. "Well, no matter," he chuckled, "the little thing seems content enough over there, so let's leave her be. No harm done, though I wonder where she's come from. Tess doesn't seem to mind her, though that's not the usual. Maybe my old girl's just glad for company, too, as much as I am."

The heat of the whisky igniting a tiny sun in her belly, Delyth sat in patient expectation, idly watching Gareth roam about the room. For a moment, he lingered near the alcove, having assured himself that his patient was settled deeply into herb-induced sleep. Eyeing the cat which had ventured out of the shadows to crouch just inside the pool of lamplight, he seemed to think better of making its acquaintance, stooping instead to select a long block of wood from the tidy pile of kindling on his hearth. Rummaging on a nearby shelf, he soon located a short-bladed knife and whet stone. A sure sign, Delyth knew, that he had a great deal on his mind if he intended to anchor his thoughts by carving while he talked.

When he sat back down, she pushed his glass of whisky across to him and watched him empty it in one sure swallow. The block of wood and the sharpened knife were in his hands soon after, and in a moment more, the tale began.

"I've said the man's a wizard. It's true. You asked if I named him. I did. I took what the witch who brought him told me and chose what seemed to suit him. I've made the Joining with him, twice, and either could have left me mad as a March hare if I'd not backed away soon enough." Gareth's attention never strayed from the long spiral of wood curling off the tip of his knife blade. "There's been times since they left him, I've thought it was the greater kindness if I helped him to die, but I couldn't bring myself to it, and I don't know that he's even able to make the crossing."

Delyth paled, shaken by such a testament from a Knowing One so dedicated to the sanctity of life's natural ebb and flow. Gareth did not meet her eyes as he continued. "There's something holding him between, an awful, ugly darkness..."

For the next hour, the old healer told his tale of the stalwart witch and her attending giant, of torturous potions and malevolent serpents, an entrusted wand and a dark-cursed war -- and Delyth listened. Only once did Gareth lay down his knife, his veined hands suddenly palsied and hesitant.

"I've told you that the man is cursed, but there's something I should show you, Delyth. Not as proof... There's no proof for any of this... But someone besides me should know what's kept hidden here, in case no one's able to come back for him."

When he retrieved the marble box from its concealment and removed the lid, she spent a long moment gazing at the stark black wand that lay secreted inside. Though it might have seemed a simple matter of caution, she felt no desire to touch the wand but covered it again, letting her fingers trace across the carvings of the box, lingering on the tiny snake and the slender flower that it encircled.

Drifting on the fog-damp air from the moors, raising another dream wraith to graze the edge of her memory, she imagined she heard a wild, fierce ululation, a bedouin wail of torment and loss that made her tremble. Looking to Gareth, seeing how abruptly he pulled the box out of her hands, his face the color of ashes, she knew. He'd heard as well.

"There is no one... That's what he told you?" Delyth forced herself to speak, wanting only to silence that forlorn echo of endless separation.

Gareth nodded, turning the wand box slowly in his hands, remembering every image he'd coaxed onto the blank surface of the marble in the course of almost twenty years.

"He's, indeed, the stranger in a strange land, Gareth, isn't he?" He thought she sounded disembodied, as though she'd left the room and only her voice remained to mark her presence.

He bowed his head, unwilling to answer, remembering the grasping, swirling void of the Joining where he'd been unable to summon any image at all.

"So, it's really not a matter of who he is. He's a refugee of war." Delyth sat hunched, the firelight playing other memories across her face. "I do believe you that there's lledrith here, but could you put that box away now? Please."

Gareth tore his focus from the box, and his heart leapt and crashed in the same moment as he watched Delyth stand, twisting her explosion of hair into a knot and pushing her sleeves to the elbow. She would stay and she would help him -- and she would never be the same.

~~ // ~~

While Gareth returned the wand box to the sanctuary of the birch chest, Delyth's attention wandered to the cat which had jumped silently onto the bed to curl close beside Neirin, one paw outstretched to touch his bandaged throat. As the hours crept on towards dawn, the low mantra of her purring became the counter-point to the rest of Gareth's telling. Pouring herself another measure of cymreig to dispel the chill that had settled on her, Delyth continued to watch the cat and was not surprised to find that she was being watched as well.

~~ /// ~~

"I've asked them to come, lad. I'd look you straight in the eye and swear to it if I thought you could see me, even a little. Seems damn near forever since I sent that owl back." Gareth scowled as he turned from the open window where he'd stood searching the outline of the verdant hills for some hint of unfamiliar movement, straining to hear the whip-crack of magical arrival.

"I thought at least your Hagrid would check on you, even if the professor... Minerva... couldn't," he muttered, leaning across the bed, straightening tangled bedclothes with a grunt of frustration and effort. "Where do you suppose they've got themselves off to? That war of yours maybe wasn't quite so finished as they thought, or is this more the 'out of sight, out of mind' sort of thing? Either way, it's a pity for you."

Shaking his head at his own disgruntled speculations, the old healer laid his calloused fingers against the pulse of Neirin's neck above the pitted wounds slowly scarring from the cruelty of fangs. Far better today, more's the blessing -- heart beating in steady cadence, skin not scalding with heat, breathing no longer ragged, hands quiet at his sides as he slept -- this might yet be a good day after all.

"Still keeping any comments to himself, is he?" Delyth asked from behind the half-open door of the cupboard where she'd just stowed a pile of clean linens. "We can always hope he's just wanting to chat with herself, there, when we're not taking any notice." Her tone was bantering enough, but the pensive look on her face spoke differently.

Surveying the freshened room with a small nod of satisfaction, she joined Gareth at the window, easing one arm around his slumping shoulders. With a firm hand she pushed back the wisps of grizzled hair trailing into his face, concern tracing tiny tributaries of worry across the smooth delta of her wide brow.

"Anwylyd chyfaill, you look about as spent as I've ever seen you. Haven't I already said this is wearing on you far too much? Will you listen to me, please, and take a real rest?" she urged, giving him a quick squeeze. Gareth shook his head, moving away from her to busy himself with straightening the already tidy ranks of jars and bottles on the bedside table. "No." Her frown followed him. "That's really not the right answer." Stepping around the end of the bed to face him, she blocked his path, reaching to capture his fidgeting hands.

"You're being a bit stubborn about this, you know, and it doesn't suit you." Though she sounded vexed, he could see the fog of fear clouding her eyes. "You, my friend, have to stay out of this room for more than an hour, or you'll be no use to any of us, least of all yourself." Cutting off his protest with a lift of her chin, she began to angle him out of the alcove and towards the door that opened onto the hallway.

"You've said yourself, he's come through the fever well enough, and right now he's calmer than he's been since... well, at least since I've been here. I'll handle whatever's needed just fine, you know that, but I'd rather not have to be nurse to both of you. Tess and our friend, there, aren't leaving, I'm sure of it, so I'll have more than enough company, if that's your worry."

She was afraid for him -- he knew that -- afraid that perhaps he was too old, that his health -- or his wits -- would fail him.

"Go visit your bees for a while; they miss you -- or better yet, go to your bed and get some proper sleep." Delyth's eyes softened with affection. "Off with you, now. I'll not want to see you for at least the four hours, and five would be better." Releasing his hands from one last gentle tug, she leaned in to kiss him lightly on his stubbled cheek.

He was afraid for her, too, but she'd already know that. She couldn't help but know if he so much as said a word.

Friend, she'd said? What on earth... did she mean to say Neirin? Reluctant to leave her alone and puzzled by her odd remark, Gareth stood fisting the grit of toil and tedium from his eyes. No, of course not Neirin. She meant the cat, but that made little sense. Of course the cat would stay... Such a fierce devotion...

~~ // ~~

"Arhosa! Look what you've done, little djinn. You've got him bleeding again and a lot this time... Why do you keep on with this?"

The open vial of sandalwood oil slipped from Delyth's fingers, shattering against the side of the porcelain cup in her other hand, splashing milk and oil across the fresh bed sheets, as the dregs from the broken vessels flooded the room with rich scent. With one hand she snatched up a towel to sop up the mess, and with the other tried to banish the cat from the bed. The work of an hour destroyed in a minute, just when all was peaceful.

Her compromise with Gareth had been working well, once they'd reached a stalemate they could both accept -- four hour shifts, equally shared within the span of daylight. If it was his time away, he was to leave the infirmary, tend his hives, visit his greenhouse, read, eat, sleep for at least half the time, and he was not to find some random excuse to come back and hover. She, in turn, was to keep Tess near her, leave the door open and the circle closed, and be ready to raise the dead with her shouts if anything the least bit out of the ordinary occurred. The hours between moonrise and sunrise, they would remain inside the room together, keeping watch over Neirin -- and each other.

Their odd agreement with the cat, on the other hand, had proven considerably more one-sided, her terms having been clearly defined by a judicial use of her claws. They were evidently free to care for Neirin in any way necessary, without interference, but they were not to hinder her attentions to him -- and they were not to touch the mark on his left arm.

Delyth had first noticed the thing in the clear light of their first morning. Gareth had quietly cleaned away the detritus of dignity left by a helpless body at the end of a long night, while she'd bundled off the soiled sheets and prepared a simple breakfast. When she'd hurried back, the old healer had been ready enough for the aid of her strong back. Turning and settling an unresponsive patient was never an easy task, even if he was as thin as a rake.

From the corner of her eye, as she moved to the far side of the bed, she'd noticed the cat, poised near the headboard, pedestaled on tightly-tucked paws and tail, with her back perfectly erect. Nothing moved, not her coin-bright eyes, not a single black or silver hair, not one rapier-straight whisker. When Delyth looked across at Gareth, he'd only shrugged.

"There was no shooing her out of here this morning, not a bit of it. Wouldn't budge and kept looking back and forth, from him to me, sizing up both of us, I expect. There's a little bauble at her neck, so she's not a wild one."

Nested deep in the tabby's fur, Deltyth caught a wink of sunlight and a glint of silver. Who would give a cat such a lovely trinket to wear and then leave her to roam about the countryside? Could she belong to this man whose name was his out of need and kindness only? He didn't look the sort to have a devoted companion.

Careful not to move too suddenly, her feet well planted, Delyth slid her arms under Neirin's body, pulling him towards her before gently rolling him onto his side, facing away from her. Bolstering his narrow back with pillows to hold him steady, she watched the cat shift silently to settle closer to him.

As she reached across to place another pillow, his left arm, which had been stretched along the length of his hip, slid down to rest against the sheets, the palm of his bandaged hand turned upwards, fingers cupped like a leper's begging bowl. For a moment she stood staring, the random image of a bruised and broken lotus flitting through her thoughts, but then her gaze traveled further up his arm and stopped.

She must have gasped, or perhaps she'd held her breath or bit down hard on her lip. Maybe, she'd even cried out. She wasn't quite sure, but she would always remember Gareth's voice in that moment, tight with revulsion and dread.

"Be careful, Delyth. As I told you -- an awful, ugly darkness. He's carried that mark for years, I'd say, and it looks to have faded some, at least on the surface. Maybe not so much under the skin, though. It's why I keep his hands wrapped, so he won't gouge and tear at it. He's tried... More than once."

She'd wanted to lift that arm, to turn it over, telling herself that it must be painful having it twisted so. Nothing to do, she'd reasoned, with not wanting to see the banner of dark death burnt into it. She should simply move it, tuck the pillow under for support, make their patient more comfortable, but when she'd cupped her hand around the elbow, the tips of her fingers grazing along the scar, her hand was immediately swatted away by a needle-clawed paw and a warning hiss.

"Damn it all, what was that about?" She pulled back from the shock of the stinging scratch.

"Let it be, Delyth. It's clear enough, she doesn't want you to touch that brand," Gareth's voice was insistent. "I've not, the whole time's he's been here, except with a flannel and never with my bare hands. Didn't care to risk it. See... what she's up to...?"

Unsheathed forepaws pressed against the scar -- kneading, prodding, leaving tiny scratches -- the cat began to softly yowl, her war song low and threatening in the air, her golden eyes narrowed, focused on her attack.

"She'll hurt him," Delyth protested, but Gareth only shook his head.

"She means somehow to call him back, I think. For now, at least, we'll leave her to it. She's no fondness for the thing, that's plain enough."

"I've a feeling she might fight us tooth and claw if we tried to move her, so perhaps you're right. Cats have always kept the oldest magic for themselves, or so ummi used to say. Well, then, da cath, what name should we give you" Delyth puzzled, "since we seem to do well with choosing names around here?" A twitch of a smile from Gareth told her the point was taken. "Shall we call you Maftet, little slayer? That might please you, do you think?"

~~ // ~~

And so, their agreements had held, the compromises had been maintained, until now.

Not caring at that moment whether things were set in magic or not, Delyth surveyed the damage done. The brisk spring breeze from the window had carried off most of the cloud of scent, but there were still wet sheets and towels to deal with, a floor to mop, and a sedated man with rivulets of blood sluicing down his arm to stain his bandaged hand.

And the cat, as motionless as well water -- murmuring her feline wisdoms into the wizard's ear.

"'Be careful of his hands, don't touch his arm, Maftet has her own magic'. Well, maybe you do, but you've done some real damage here and I can't help if I'm expected to handle the man like a canopic," Delyth fumed, feeling the need to challenge the unblinking scrutiny of those golden eyes. "I'll deal with your work first, shall I? Gareth should be here in a minute to help me with the rest. You'll supervise, no doubt?"

Settling herself on the edge of the bed, she leaned across to open the drawer of the bed table, pushing aside a small worn pouch and an oblong box that looked as if it were made of old bronze, searching for scissors. Finding a small pair tucked in one corner, she bent over Neirin, cradling his hand in her lap as she began to cut away the bloodied gauze.

~~ // ~~

The passage of time is only a conjuror's trick, a distortion of reality An hour can vanish in a heartbeat, a moment can seek the boundaries of eternity.

With a flourish, time delivered Deltyh's eternal moment.

A crack sharp as pistol fire, rising from the yard below.

Maftet bolting from Neirin's side like a shot with Tess barking pell-mell behind, eager to give chase.

Gareth's footsteps echoing in the hallway, his anxious voice demanding answers for the noise. The vexed thought flashing through Delyth's mind that wasn't it just the fine thing for the cat to start a mess and then desert her post.

And then... the other sound.

Words struggling to form on fever-blighted lips, the voice a scrap of shredded silk, slashed by bloodied swords.

"Tell... me... where..."

Her wrist grappled by the pale shards in her lap. Plunging headlong into a firmament of midnight eyes, their suns extinguished.

"Is this... night? I am... cold..."

Shafts of bright mid-day, rich with heat, slanting from the open window straight into unblinking eyes.

Her answer -- scarcely breathing.

"No... This is not night. Safe... This is safe... This is the day..."

The face of Thoth, black ibis feathers frenzied on the pillow -- clutching talons tearing tiny rubies from her palm to fall crimson on the blankets -- a whisper of dust in her ears, pleading for the light -- a scream of pewter in her mind, raging in the darkness.

"TELL ME WHERE I AM... TELL ME WHERE... My Lord... you have done... NO... I beg you let me... Let me go... TELL... ME... WHERE I... AM..."

A mountain of wood smoke and hay, towering beside her, speaking in soft thunder, lifting the talons with massive hands, wrapping the ibis in oak and warm rain...

"Ah... now... yeh can't be doin' that, 'ol dragon, yeh can't..."

Gareth, smoothing black feathers into calm -- singing strong and sweet.

"Holl amrantau'r sêr ddywedant -- Ar hyd y nos... As I to thee, Neirin. Hust, now, hust."

"VOICE... WHERE... is... voice..."

A woman -- clothed in royal robes, sun and silver at her throat -- bending to whisper to the ibis.

"I am sworn..."

Thoth, falling through the stars, black feathers trailing, wrapped in oak and rain, searching for the whisperer, calling... calling...

"VOICE... TELL ME WHERE... Tell me... Tell... me... where I... am..."

~~ // ~~

Safe in the conjuror's pocket, time resumed it's proper pace.

With silence shrieking in her ears, dreaming of a cage of stars, Delyth Morgan sank into the waiting arms of the witch.