To Storm Heaven - Esther Friesner [55]
“Your blessing, Bilik oberyin,” he said, mimicking Kinryk.
The oberyin took Data’s face in his hands as he had done for the innkeeper’s son, but he did not repeat the words of the blessing right away. Instead he gazed into the android’s eyes and said, “You are one of the pilgrims. Be welcome. A hard welcome, I fear, but what the Lady holds in her sacred Balances is often hidden from our sight. They tell me that you and your friends have been helping us in this time of trial. For that you have our thanks and my special blessing, given with joy. May you have no cause to regret your goodness of heart.” This said, he let Data go.
The android didn’t know whether or not he was expected to thank the oberyin for his blessing. He settled for making a second bow before leaving the storeroom. Outside the inn, he found Lelys in deep conversation with the innkeeper’s wife. The two women were seated on a bench set against the inn wall. Between them, his small body crumpled with misery, the child Herri wept.
“mrnust eat,” the innkeeper’s wife was saying. She tried to put her arm around the boy, but he jerked away.
“Yes, listen to Bava,” Lelys urged. “You must not allow yourself to weaken. You will fall ill.” “I wish I would!” the child wailed. “I wish I’d get sick and die and be taken up to Evramur with Shomia! But I won’t go there. I can’t. Not even the Sixth Mother would speak for me. This is all my fault.
I got mad at Shomia and I told her I wished she’d die, and she did, axtd now everyone else is dying too, and—and—and—” He broke into fresh sobs.
Lelys took the boy into her arms. “Hush, child, hush,” she said, stroking his hair. “None of this is your doing. Was this the first time you ever ill-wished anyone? I do not think so. And yet no evil times came after those ill wishes, did they? Did they?” she insisted, making him look up at her.
“N—no,” he admitted, gulping down the tears.
“There, then. You see? Not your fault at all. Now do not make a hard time harder by letting your strength go and falling ill too. We have enough sick ones to tend already. Eat something so that you can help the others to get well.” The boy stared into her face for a while, then nodded solemnly. He made Lelys a brief, awkward sign of respect and turned to the innkeeper’s wife.
“I’m sorry. I’ll eat now.” “Good child.” Beaming, the woman led him away.
Lelys watched them go before addressing the patiently waiting android.
“Was it necessary for that poor boy to believe he was the cause of all this?” she demanded. “His mother is already among the dead, Bava told me, and his father is ailing. She has taken charge of him and his siblings until this is over, this—this epidemic of stupidity/He may survive, but his childhood is dead, lost forever. Needlessly!” She looked up into the sky with a scowl on her face that could kill. Though it was still daylight and the bright disc of Ne’elat was not visible, there was no question as to the object of her rage.
“If we wish to help these people, I would suggest that we implement whatever plan it is that you have in mind as soon as possible,” Mr. Data said.
“Yes, of course.” Lelys composed herself and picked up the basket that she had left under the bench. “Let us go.” She led the way up the village street.
The path leading through the center of Kare’al to the upland slopes of the mountain was no longer the busy, lively route it had been just days ago, when V’kal and Misik first conducted the Away Team to Ma’adrys’s old house. No housewives chatted with their neighbors while they peeled vegetables for the evening meal, no children played in the dirt, no doors stood open to welcome friends and release the rich scents of homely cooking. The street was deserted, the doors all shut, the only sounds the muffled echo of sobbing or prayer, the only scents the burning of incense and the sour reek of sickness.