Strange Attractors - Kim Falconer [74]
Can I do it? Jarrod glanced at his thought form, an outline in his mind’s eye. At this rate it would take him close to a full lunar cycle to create a functional tulpa. The lad’s body could be healed in less than a day. If the previous owner isn’t about and I can keep the crows away in the morning…
He tuned into the energy of the grove and expanded out over the field. It was a mess, filled with maimed bodies and their sundered spirits. Some ghosts sat next to their corpses, the driving rain forming septic pools of blood and sludge at their feet. They didn’t appear to notice him. They didn’t know they were dead. He scanned beyond the battleground in all directions but nowhere could he find an echo or hint of this lad’s consciousness. It was gone. In the time it took him to blink he made a choice based on myriad possible outcomes in as many branching worlds. He entered the body of the boy and attempted to bring it back to life.
Pain. Incredible pain.
He rolled over and coughed until he threw up, bile burning his throat, his lungs turning inside out. On hands and knees he crawled out from under the cloak, untangling it from the roots and branches, and collapsed on the grass. He felt his neck, tugging the arrow and screaming as the splintered shaft came free. He threw it aside and clamped the wound with the palm of his hand, pushing hard. That seemed important, like something he had told himself to do as soon as he awoke. Had he been passed out for long? His body felt like wagon wheels were parked on it. He blinked, sensing part of himself hard at work, racing to make something happen. It felt urgent but he couldn’t think why. He pulled the cloak over his head and curled into a ball, shivering until he fell asleep.
When he woke again, the sun was shining on his face, the warmth of it coaxing him back to consciousness. His head pounded and his guts were in knots. For a brief moment he had the strangest feeling of satisfaction, as if he had achieved exactly what he had set out to do. Perfect. Now I can just…
He frowned, pulling twigs from his hair. There was something he was meant to do. He was sure of it. There was a sense of significance to his life that felt bigger than anything he’d remembered. Bigger than the memory he had of living on the streets with his sister, Shaea. Bigger even than an apprenticeship to the Stable Master—which was the biggest thing he could ever imagine. On the edge of his mind were all the answers and for a flashing moment he glimpsed them. And then they were gone.
Like a cliff face breaking free of the mountain, awareness dropped from the boundaries of his mind, sliding away. The moment passed and all he could remember was the last thing he was told to do.
‘Mind the horses, Xane, and don’t get shot.’
Propping himself up on his elbows, he realised he’d managed neither. The horses were gone and he’d clearly been wounded. He touched the hole in his neck, glad the scab had formed and stopped the bleeding, though his head felt caught between a hammer and an anvil. He needed a stimulant, strong tea or coffee, before the hemlock set in. Judging by the pain in his guts, it already had. Maybe they botched the job and the arrow had been underdosed. That was the only explanation for him waking up at all. Hemlock, administered properly, was lethal, and fast. It caused an ascending paralysis that…How in the course of the Five Rivers would I say a thing like that? Ascending paralysis? I don’t even know what that means.
He was about to chastise himself for carelessness—getting shot, losing the horses—when he studied the surrounding fields. They were littered with crows, squawking and squabbling over chunks of flesh still sporting bits of uniform—Corsanon uniforms. The whole place was choked with bodies and as the death wagons rolled towards him, he realised he’d actually done all right. He was alive, which was more than