Mirror, rorriM
Chapter 8
The extent of the injuries that Zelgadis came across spoke of far higher levels of magic than just a simple Fireball spell, perhaps even more magic than Lina was willing to use herself. Saki quietly led him to the most severely injured first, and Zelgadis had to fight to keep his reactions neutral.
The child in front of him was undoubtedly dying. She'd been pinned by a part of the house that had fallen on her, Saki informed him in a hushed voice. Three men had managed to pull the wall off, but both of the child's legs had been crushed by the sheer weight of the stone in the wall. She'd lost a lot of blood, he noted, and he doubted that he could do much to aid her. Instead, he cast a simple spell, blocking her pain, allowing her to ease into a sleep that she would wake from, but would not heal within.
One after another, he healed the injuries that he could; masking the pain for those who were injured beyond his ability to aid. He needed Amelia and Sylphiel for the higher healings, and he wasn't sure how he could get to them.
Brynn was pacing back and forth in the doorway to the makeshift tent. Had Davin used too much of the sleeping liquid? He had the strange impression that the mysterious man's wrath would be fierce if the sorceress didn't wake soon, and the survivors had dealt with enough hardships. To bring more onto them… if it came to that, he'd accept full responsibility. He should have died anyway, not his young Lord.
As he paced, scarlet eyes tracked his movements back and forth. He was too inattentive to be much of a captor, and she was still too weak to be anything but a captive. A faint flicker of magic-sense caught her attention, however, and she paused. She might not be able to cast magic yet, but she could still sense it. With a shock, she recognized the magical print: Zelgadis.
Sitting up, she cleared her throat and looked expectantly at the brunette man. "Would you mind explaining exactly what is going on?"
Brynn turned and paled to see her sitting up and looking at him. Zelgadis' last words to him echoed in his head, and he stammered incoherently for a moment at her.
She stood, hiding her own injuries and weakness, walking towards the door and looking at him. "Zelgadis is here, isn't he?"
A mute nod was her only answer.
"Good. I'll go find him," Lina said, and then walked past the very surprised man and off towards where she'd felt the glimmer of magic.
Wherever she walked, people scrambled to get out of her way. It made no sense to her, to think that the entire village (if she could call this decrepit collection of shelters a village) was afraid of her. Finally, as she walked, a woman hesitantly approached, asking her if she sought the shaman. Recalling that Zelgadis was just such a magic user, Lina nodded curtly, and the woman indicated the sorceress should follow.
Even as she approached the cloaked figure kneeling beside someone on the ground, she could see that he was tired. He'd expended much of his magic, and while he had more magic than the average shaman, she could tell that he was wearing thin.
"What's going on, Zel?" Lina asked as she walked up to him, still trying to hide the limp. Hopefully he was too tired to notice it.
He cast a glance her way and sighed. "They were supposed to come get me before you woke. I didn't hear anything explode, so I assume you took pity on them."
A blush rose to her cheeks, unbidden. "Well… now that you mention it…" Her voice trailed off. Why was she telling him after he'd been so nasty? "It's nothing. What's going on here?"
He brushed dust off of his hands and stood slowly. "They say you destroyed the town back there." His voice, normally quiet, was so low she had to strain to hear.
"Me? How could I? I mean… I wouldn't do that! Even if I would, I couldn't… I mean…" Her blush intensified and she stared hard at the ground, recalling the last time they'd had a discussion similar to this.
He put it together in less time than it took for her to blush. "Oh." And then, he too remembered what had happened the last time he commented on it, so he wisely kept his mouth shut about it. "Then you are not the culprit. But why do these people think you are the one who destroyed the town?"
"Because the one who destroyed it looked just like her," Brynn replied from behind Lina.