The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [14]
“I’d say you remembered it. The door led to your memory of such things.”
“From a life lived before, mean you? It could well be. I remember naught of this, but my mother does assure me that I was the lady of this isle once before. Avain did recognize me, Mam tells me, on the very day I was born.” She looked at him with her head cocked a little to one side, and her eyes wide, as if she were expecting him to challenge or dismiss her tale.
“I’d believe it of Avain,” Laz said. “She’s got a dweomer air about her.”
Marnmara smiled, perhaps relieved that he’d accepted her tale so easily.
“It’s a great honor,” Laz said, “to have such gifts.”
“That’s what my mam does say. I get a-weary of it.”
“What? Why?”
“The gods have blessed you, she does say, so you must repay them and use your gifts as they wish. If I be the Lady of Haen Marn, then I have many a burden to take up.” Her voice turned unsteady. “Whether I wish to lift them or no.”
“I see. Well, no doubt you’ll be given the strength when you need it.”
She scowled at the surface of the water, then shrugged, as if she’d hoped for a different answer. Laz wanted to ask more, but he hesitated, afraid she’d resent his prying. She touched the surface of the water in the kettle with one finger, then dipped her hand in.
“Just cool enough,” she said. “Here, stretch out your hands, Tirn. We’ll have the bandages off.”
Laz gritted his teeth and did as she asked. Her touch was so light that pulling off the thin cloth caused him no pain, but the sight— both his hands were a mass of shiny pink scars. On his left hand the little finger had burned down to a stub of scar tissue, permanently fastened to the finger next to it, both of them useless. On the right hand the last three fingers formed one throbbing mass that he’d lost the power to move. In between the remaining fingers, and between each thumb and the meat of his hands, the flesh oozed a clear fluid as if it wept for its loss.
“They heal, they heal,” Marnmara said. “But not yet can we leave them be. We’ll do the left hand first.”
Laz plunged his hand into the water. The herb brew stung the oozing wounds like a liquid fire at first, then numbed them, though not quite enough. Marnmara put her own hands in the kettle, caught his, and pried the good fingers apart, one pair at a time, deliberately cracking open the scars to keep the fingers free and usable. As he always did, he swore under his breath the entire time, running through every foul oath he knew in the Gel da’Thae language to keep from fainting and disgracing himself. The right hand took less time and caused him less pain than the left, but by the time she finished, his head was swimming, and the skin of his face felt ice-cold and damp, especially around his mouth.
Marnmara laid his hands on top of the bandages and considered them. A trace of blood oozed between each treated pair of fingers.
“Not much blood,” she announced. “We’ll leave these open to the air for now.” She patted his right arm just above the wrist. “Go rest.”
“Gladly.” Laz got up, steadied himself, and forced out a smile. “My thanks.”
He felt like an old man, hunched and staggering, as he made his way across the hall and up the stairs. His small chamber, bare except for a mattress on the floor and a basket for the extra pieces of clothing the women had made him, stood near the head of the stairs. The dragon book lay on the floor by the basket. He went in, shut the door with a nudge of his foot, then lay down and crossed his arms at the wrist over his chest.
“That’s done for another