Darkwell - Douglas Niles [30]
"Mafro, karelius doniti… arum!"
She whispered the words to her spell, and the healing magic spread through her shoulder, into the length of her arm. She felt the torn muscles mend, and even sensed the bonding as the shattered ends of bone fused again into one. For precious seconds, the curing spell tingled within her.
But then the magic faded, dying away in a last flutter of healing. She grew weak and dizzy, finally slumping against her rocky seat. For a moment, her world went black, and then she awakened with a start. She moved her arm experimentally, and pain again lanced through her shoulder, but it was more bearable now, and the arm answered the commands of her brain in its movement, however begrudgingly.
The healing spell of a druid was not potent, but it did help. And after a brief period of prayer, she could use it again. Closing her eyes and forcing herself to ignore her pain, Robyn relaxed. The familiar sensation of peace came over her, and she called upon the mother to restore her spell to her.
She awaited the smooth flow of power that would be the answer to her prayer, but there was nothing. Again, and a third time, she prayed for her spell, but she could get no response from her goddess. A chill sensation of fright and loneliness closed about her, and she found it impossible to concentrate any longer on prayer. Grim and afraid, she tried to move.
She found that she could stand up and did so. Carefully lifting the scrolls, she looked for a pouch or pocket in which to place them. Settling for her apron, Robyn carefully wrapped the tube in cloth, binding it against her back. She found that she had on the garments she wore at the time of her casting – robe, apron, belt and boots – along with her staff and scrolls.
But nothing else. She had neither flint to spark a fire nor dagger to strike it on. Her clothing was woefully inadequate to face a chill night, even one not spent atop a craggy, snowswept peak.
She turned, once, to look at the rolling foothills to the south, falling away to the green moors of central Corwell. The sun still beamed there, dancing among white clouds to illuminate a low hill or small copse of brilliant oak, blazing with the colors of late autumn.
But overhead roiled heavier, more ominous clouds. The snow became thicker by the minute and soon began to gather in the cracks among the broken rocks. The clouds lay like a leaden quilt across the breadth of the vale, casting the huge valley in a pall of shadow. Though the snow seemed to be falling only among the highest mountains, Robyn could see no sign of encouragement or comfort in the entire brooding vista.
Struck by a thought, she looked in the scroll tube for the parchment of wind mastery, but it was not there. She was not surprised, for she knew that a druidic spell written upon a scroll would vanish as soon as it was cast. She suspected that the clerical spells worked the same.
But there were other ways to travel, and many of them did not require her to walk down the side of this mountain. Once she had flown from Gwynneth to Callidyrr in the body of a hawk, and she could certainly cross a narrow band of foothills in the same form.
She closed her eyes, calling the birdlike image into her mind, preparing for the familiar shifting of her form. And then a blinding pain flashed behind her eyes and she sat heavily upon the jagged rocks. Reaching to either side, she balanced herself upon her hands – not wings, as she had expected – and opened her eyes. The same weakness that had caused her to faint after casting the healing spell drained her muscles of strength and caused her head to spin.
For an awful moment, she felt a horrible surge of panic rising in her stomach. What had happened to her powers? She shook her head, banishing the fear, and sought a logical explanation. It must be fatigue, she told herself – the weakness caused by her wounds and her lack of sleep. Certainly it would pass.
Resolutely she started toward the north on foot. Holding her staff in her right hand as an aid to balance among the treacherous rocks, she started