Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [54]
“Yours were beyond repair,” she said. “Those should fit.”
The shirt was button-less. I slipped it on, tucked it in my jeans, then sat in the cane chair and began to tug on the boots. The right went on easily but the left was a tight fit over my bandages. After a few moments of listening to me curse, the woman came over and knelt to help.
“Thank you again,” I said when the boot was on.
She shrugged, rising. “There is no use for them here anymore. And you will need them where you are going.”
I looked up at her. There was some meaning behind her words of “here anymore,” but that meaning sounded personal and I did not wish to intrude.
Instead, I said: “I am Ruenn Maclang.”
“Ahrethane,” she said. I took that as her name, wasn’t sure if it was one name or two.
“And where is it that you think I’m going, Ahrethane?” I asked, responding to her earlier comment.
“The heart of the jungle,” she replied. “And below.”
I blinked. “How do you know that?”
Her cheeks hollowed a bit. Some shadow of past pain flitted across her lips and was gone. “I know the forest,” she said. “I know what happens in it. Who comes and who goes. And why.”
She added: “Your friend is no longer under the tree where he collapsed.”
I started in my chair. “Diken Graye,” I said. I looked at her...hard. “Then where? What happened to him?” For a moment, I paused. “How long have I been here?”
“I do not know where...Diken Graye is. He is not in the forest, though. I imagine he was taken below. As for you, it is the afternoon of the third day since you were brought to me.”
Nearly three days lost,” I thought. But I said: “Who carried me to you? And,” I held up my bandaged arm, “how is it that my wounds have healed so quickly?”
“There are those in the forest who aid me,” she said. “They brought you here.”
“And they healed me?”
“No,” Ahrethane said.
She turned her attention back to her table. Taking up the old helmet with its cargo of bird nest and chirping occupants, she placed it on a shelf to one side. Then she began to stack swords and daggers and books to make a space that she immediately filled again with two large wooden bowls. She placed thorn-forks beside the bowls and began to shred into them greenery and bits of dried fruit.
“Who then?” I insisted. “Who healed me?”
“No one,” she said. “It was the moths. I merely poulticed your wounds with herbs to continue what they began.”
Lifting handfuls of shelled nuts from a small wooden keg, she dropped them into the bowls with the greenery and fruit.
“The moths?” I asked, incredulous.
She filled two wooden cups from the water basin and set them on the table.
“Eat.” She motioned to one of the bowls.
She pulled a chair up to the other bowl and began to fork food to her mouth. I hesitated. Getting information from this woman was a little easier than plucking a scorpion-hawk’s tail barb, but not much. I felt an intense urge to shake her, but was quite sure it wouldn’t do me a bit of good. In fact, judging by the way she handled edged weapons it might well do me some harm.
I drew my chair up to the table. Sat. Ate. The greens were tastier than they looked; the fruit was filling; the nuts were delicious. I hadn’t realized how ravenous I was.
After a bit, I chuckled.
Ahrethane stopped eating and frowned. I met her gaze, smiled innocently as I plucked out a nut and crunched it between my teeth.
She put down her fork. “The moths weave,” she said. “It is what they do. To the forest.” She flicked a finger toward my cloth-wrapped arm. “To those who are injured in the forest. You thought they were hurting you but they are incapable of harm.”
I put down my own fork. “Some healing balm in their saliva, perhaps,” I said.
“Yes, perhaps” she agreed. “And more.”
“I appreciate you telling me.”
She watched me. After a moment she nodded, and I felt that nod as a victory.
“What will you do when you go below?” she asked.
“Find my