"Payesha, child, you must rest for a day."
Payesha opened her eyes and squinted up at her mistress, who was clad once more in tight-fitting silver armor that clung to her like a glove.
The day of the firestorm, she had performed the rather taxing work of raising the wards about the citadel. As the month grew hotter, she and the other enchanters would be required to do it again, and none of them would know respite until the clouds broke and the rains began. Payesha had been selected for the task because she was what the Haradrim called mazduj-ayesha, endowed with twice the strength of a normal woman. A mazduj was exceedingly rare among children, for the only women who could give birth to one were those who died after delivering a healthy girl. After the mother's death, her life-force would pass to the child, while the soul went on to its peace. It was not necessary to be mazduj to learn spell-work, and indeed, some never attempted it; but they were born with a raw power that could aid in performing the most draining of song-magicks.
"I am sorry, Anjana," said Payesha, making an effort to raise herself up on her elbows. "I...I did not know that it would be so wearying the first time."
"You will grow used to it before long," said the queen consolingly, patting her apprentice's arm. "I have heard from the maids that the bathing pools are splendid this morning. Go and tell Lady Nisa and her daughter that I shall have two other maids sent to them, and to let Ninitha and Khala go with you."
"Truly?" Payesha sat up, her eyes shining. "Oh, my lady, thank you!"
"Go, then," laughed Anjana, swatting Payesha's shoulder. "Get a draft of sweet wine from the kitchen and take a day off. It will do you more good than stewing at your books for another day."
Payesha delivered the message to the two members of Anjana's entourage and returned with Ninitha and Khala by her side. Lady Nisa and Lady Liya were rather easy-going, and had not been at all difficult to persuade. The three girls flew through the lower levels of the citadel until they reached the bottom-most, deep below the burning sands that surrounded the city. The cool subterranean chambers were softly lit by candles burning in lamps of rocky salt, rose and peach and golden in hue. The bathing pools, fed by pipes that passed cool water through the hot earth above, were illuminated from within by unearthly bespelled globes set into the floors and sides. The three girls bypassed the warm pools for the cooler ones, stripping off to their chemises and sinking gratefully into the cold water.
"Lady Payesha?" came a voice from the pool beside theirs. The girls peered over the surface of the water and laughed at the sight that met their eyes.
Glorfindel was standing upright in the coolness, while a determined-looking healer dipped water over his golden hair, cleaning the elf's wound with precise and gentle hands. The healer shot a long-suffering look at Payesha, who laughed.
"Why, Khalim," she said, "I didn't know you had become a practicing healer."
"Promoted last week," Khalim beamed, scrubbing so enthusiastically that his patient winced. "It surely wasn't my intention to bring Glorfindel down here. Hakim thought it would be easier for him to bathe upright."
"Is it?" Payesha asked.
"Certainly," nodded Glorfindel, closing his eyes and tilting his head forward slightly to allow his caretaker to tend the base of the wound. "My Lady, the under-ground pools of your land surpass even the crystal springs of Lorien."
"Nothing in Aksha can rival the Haradwaith," laughed Payesha. "Our folk are strong and our lands enduring, guarded from the west and the north by a desert nigh impassable."
Glorfindel turned toward her as best he could. "How is it your people dwell within the desert in comfort?" he asked, curiosity evident in his tone.
"By a force that would drive peace even when others may not will it," explained Payesha. "Trade. We in the East are more warlike than you in the West, and had our dominions not been so terribly different from one another, Rhun, Harad, and Far Harad should all have destroyed one another long ago, with the realm of Khand claimed by the victor among the three."
"What prevented it?"
"The Halath desert is rich in iron and gold and precious gems," said Payesha, not noticing the exasperated glances Ninitha and Khala were exchanging behind her back. "While Far Harad is rich in fire-plains where stone and marble can be found, and fertile farmlands and jungles which yield the food we require. They cannot endure without our metal and jewels and tools of mumak-bone, as we would starve without the nourishment for which we trade our own produce. Under this agreement, Harad was brought under one set of colors, under the rule of our krigsherre, Lashanth."
"And Rhun?" asked Glorfindel, having fought the Easterlings many times over the course of his life. "What of the Variags?"
"They are fiercer than most," said Payesha. "They stir unease at the border every so often, and expel their strength in skirmishes. Yet they too depend upon our gold, and have long since given up trying to invade Harad to claim the mines for themselves."
As the conversation continued, Khalim traded sly looks with the other two girls, who giggled and climbed out of the pool, wrapping their dry things about them and making their way to the staircase that led to the upper levels.
"Your friends have gone," said Glorfindel softly, furrowing his brow in pain as Khalim parted the golden locks and set about bandaging the wound again. "Khalim, I...I fear that the wound has not healed as it should."
Hearing the suddenly weakened state of his voice, Payesha lifted herself from the pool and went swiftly to his side and looked into his face.
"Khalim," she said, her throat suddenly thick with fear. "Glorfindel, you must control your breathing."
The elf's knees buckled, and Khalim hoisted him from the pool and onto the tiles that lined the floor. Payesha dropped to her knees beside him, noting with trepidation that the elf's breathing had lost its measured pace, and that his hands had begun to tremble slightly.
At that instant, Glorfindel cried out in pain, one hand gripping at his damp hair. "Khalim-" With the broken plea, his eyes rolled up into his head and his breaths slowed to an almost immeasurable rate, and Payesha reeled back against the wall in terror.
"His wound is nearly healed," said Khalim, fright hoarsening his voice as he looked up at Payesha. "The skull is sealed-"
"Levitate him to the healing halls," cried Payesha, "Now! I-I shall fetch help. Go!"
Payesha pelted up the stairs, passing an astonished Ninitha on the third flight, and made for the healing halls. Khalim was close at her heels, rapidly tiring from the work of levitating the elf behind him. Once they had reached the first level aboveground, Khalim made for the patient wards while Payesha turned into the passageway that held the Head Healer's quarters. At that instant, a thought pierced her mind with such intensity that she nearly staggered where she stood.
Anjana.
With that, Payesha turned tail and went up the stairs to the royal chambers, leaving a trail of water as she ran. Pounding upon the door of her mistress's quarters, she was greeted at once by the Queen herself.
"Payesha," said Anjana in astonishment. "What-"
She stopped as she caught sight of the fear upon her apprentice's face, and ran down the corridor the way Payesha had come.
Twenty minutes later, Anjana, Payesha, and Khalim stood in a nearly empty healing room with the unconscious Glorfindel lying upon the pallet before them. Anjana had conducted a thorough examination of the elf, measuring his breathing, prying open his eyelids and examining his pupils, and drawing a small vial of his blood. She lifted his hands and observed the veins, which resembled bruises stamped upon the pallid skin.
"His brain is swelling against the inside of the skull," she said in some confusion, "but there is no sign of infection in the slightest."
Frowning, the queen dipped her finger into the phial of Glorfindel's blood and put it to her tongue. Her eyes widened in shock and she spat to the side, wiping her tongue clean with her sleeve.
"What is it?" asked Payesha.
"Poison," snarled Anjana, making for the rack of jeweled surgical daggers that hung ready upon the wall. "Fresh."
Payesha and Khalim exchanged frightened glances. "Who...who could have done such a thing?" whispered Khalim, his eyes filling with guilt as he looked upon his silent patient.
"Not orcs," hissed the queen, warding her skin and plunging her hands into a trough of near-boiling water to clean them. "One of our own. The poison is fresher than three days old."
"Do you know what it is?" choked Payesha.
"Aye," said Anjana, looking suddenly old. "And it does not bode well." She straightened up suddenly and turned a gleaming eye upon Payesha, who gulped.
"Go fetch fresh mold and skeins of silk thread," she commanded. "Quickly. And find someone to bring needles and buckets of hot water."
"What are you going to do?" asked Payesha. Anjana had thoroughly numbed Glorfindel to any pain by pouring a vial of sleeping-potion down his throat and muttering a sibilant incantation over his head.
"You'll see."
Anjana took up a slender razor-tipped knife in one hand and poured hot water over Glorfindel's head with the other. She then lifted a lock of sodden, dismal-looking golden strands and cleanly shaved them away from the elf's white scalp. She placed them gently on a table beside her and then lifted another lock of hair, pulling it taut; Anjana lifted a dagger with serrated edges and sliced clear through the scalp and the flesh beneath. She repeated the process twice, until she was able to peel away skin and a thin layer of muscle, baring the white bone, crisscrossed with tiny scarlet blood vessels.
Payesha silently fetched water, cloths, or slim knives at Anjana's bidding. She had seen bloodier operations carried out before; and Anjana had stopped the bleeding with a simple spell. But now, as Anjana whispered another incantation to soften the skull and sliced into the bone, Payesha felt as though she might faint. Her own knives had cut briskly into the mangled flesh of her friends time and time again, but she had never felt so torn at the sight of a comrade unconscious before her as she was now.
She saw Anjana lift away a square chunk of bone about two inches long, and place it in a bowl of some clear fluid beside her. Payesha picked up a thick syringe and filled it with a pale liquid meant to stop infection, and pressed it into the skin of his pale elbow. Anjana, meanwhile, was sewing the flap of shaven skin closed over the incision.
"What now?" asked Payesha, her voice strangely hoarse.
Anjana sat down heavily beside her, wiping her freshly-cleaned hands with a soft cloth. Glorfindel lay prone and still on the table as three younger healers entered. They removed his wet things with a charm, replacing them with a warm white tunic and breeches. They dried his hair and turned him onto his side, immobilizing him where he lay so he would not roll backward onto the gaping hole in his skull. They made to carry him onto a stretcher, but Anjana shook her head.
"Leave him," she said in exhaustion. "Don't move him, Lissa. Let him stay there at least until he regains consciousness. If we must perform another procedure before he wakes, and I doubt we will, I'll set up a room in the east wing for it."
"What now, my Lady?" Payesha repeated her question.
"His brain will have room to swell now, and I can return the bone to his head once the inflammation has reduced," sighed the queen, sagging against the back of her chair. "Never have I attempted such spells in close succession before. So many spells...took quite a bit from me," she admitted with a low laugh. Payesha started up in alarm; Anjana's usually ruddy cheeks were white beneath their coppery hue, and her breath came slowly and heavily.
"You ought to have let me!" she cried. "I'm stronger, and you must have done more than fifty spells while cutting the bone."
"Seventy-three," rasped Anjana. "I counted. But I am the head healer...I could do no less."
"You're also the captain of the guard and the queen of Harad to boot," hissed Payesha, summoning another healer, whose eyes widened at the sight of Anjana slumped in her chair. "Go and-"
"No need," came a strong and quiet voice from behind them. Payesha bowed her head as Lashanth lifted his wife into his arms as easily as if she had been a kitten.
"My Jana, what have you done to yourself?" he asked, settling her head upon his shoulder.
"Cut open the elf's skull and poured strength into him to do it," she answered. He clearly intended to reprove her for her speech, but stopped short in horror as Anjana's eyes rolled upward and a thick trickle of blood snaked out of the corner of her mouth and down her cheek. Lashanth bore her away to the main ward, calling out for a healer, and Payesha was left alone in the room with the sleeping Glorfindel. She made her way to his side and glared down at his smooth, unlined face.
"You had better recover as quickly as you can," she hissed in angry Westron. "My mistress and dearest friend has put her own life at risk for yours."
As she left the room, she did not notice the nearly imperceptible flutter of the elf's eyelids.
