Maze of Moonlight by Gael Baudino (read with me TXT) 📕

Mirya looked at him as though she had heard his silent question as clearly as his utterance. Her eyes were bright, almost luminous. “We can,” she said. “Please go now.”

Gritting his teeth with worry and hope both, Christopher turned and left, herding an astonished Pytor out ahead of him. Shaking, he shut the door, bent his head, heard Mirya say from within the room: “Help me remove these bandages, beloved.”

A minute later, Terrill spoke: “Ai, Elthiai!”

Mirya, then—sad, grieving: “They have not forgotten.”

“Nor have we.”

Silence then. Christopher went down the hall hand in hand with Pytor. He was still shaking.

But if they could save Vanessa . . .

An hour went by, two hours. The light was fading from the sky and the little bell in the chapel was ringing compline before Christopher, his worry finally conquering him, climbed the stairs to the upper hall and found that the door to Vanessa's room was standing open.

Terrill and Mirya were waiting for him, but he went immediately to the bed. Vanessa had been freshly bandaged, but her breathing sounded normal—soft, regular, even—and she appeared to be sleeping rather than comatose.

Terrill spoke. “She will live.” His eyes had followed Christopher to the bed, and the baron sensed that his every move was being evaluated for reasons he could not even begin to guess. “Leave her bandages on for six weeks. This is . . .” He looked at Mirya, hesitating. Then: “This is essential for her to heal properly.”

Vanessa appeared to be much better. But, more than that, Christopher sensed that she was better. There was a feeling of health about the girl that glowed like a bowl of sunlight. “She's . . . she's well.”

Terrill bowed slightly. Mirya curtsied.

Christopher sagged into a chair, passed a hand over his face. “She's well.” He felt tears starting out. “My God,” he said. “I . . .”

Mirya came forward, knelt before him, touched him lightly on the shoulder. He saw grief in her eyes. “Be at peace, my lord baron. I understand.” And Christopher did not doubt that she did. “Vanessa is . . . precious to us, too.”

Christopher looked up. “To you?”

Mirya smiled softly. “But she is safe now, and therefore we must go. Thank you for letting us see her.”

“Ah . . .” Christopher stood up. “But . . . your fee . . .”

“We have been well paid already, my lord,” said Mirya. “Indeed . . .” She looked at Terrill, her eyes again sad, then turned back to Christopher. “I believe it is to you that we owe a debt.”

Terrill turned away.

Pytor, who had been waiting dutifully by the door, escorted the strange visitors down the hall. Faintly, Christopher heard him offering them supper and beds, heard also their polite refusals. They had to go. They had other tasks, other healings. . . .

Wishing that he could have convinced them to stay, trembling with relief, Christopher shut the door and knelt by the bed. Vanessa was sleeping soundly, and Terrill and Mirya must have cleaned up some of the oozing blood that had covered her, for the flesh that showed between the bandages was pink, healthy, unstained.

Voices outside. Pytor was escorting the visitors to the gate, thanking them for their help over and over in his genial Russian way. Christopher bent over Vanessa, touched, with a trembling hand, her bandaged face. His hope. His hope: rescued. She was alive. He was no doctor, but he could see that. She would be well, and regardless of her strangeness, regardless of what she saw or the fear that followed her, she had given him a sign of his own possible redemption. Vanessa had lived. She might continue to live. And so, therefore, might Christopher.

Gingerly, as though parting the curtains of a temple, he lifted an edge of the bandages on her face. Healthy flesh. Not a cut, not a scrape, not even a bruise. Baffled, he went so far as to push back the dressings that covered her jaw. No blood, not a sign of a wound.

He hesitated for some time, debating, recalling Orpheus as he had once contemplated Odysseus. Then, though he was now shaking badly, he uncovered Vanessa's head.

He looked into the face of a lovely young woman. Unmarred. Healthy. Whole. And he did not doubt that the rest of her body would exhibit the same profound and complete transformation from shattered to sound.

Pytor knocked suddenly at the door, and the baron nearly cried out. “Master, they have departed.”

Christopher found himself staring at the silver pendant that lay on top of the bandages about Vanessa's chest. Moon and star. It glittered at him. Another sign? Of what?

“Master?”

Quickly, Christopher replaced the bandages and tucked the pendant beneath the coverlet, feeling torn between mammoth fright and infinite thankfulness. He did not know what to think, but he settled for acceptance. Vanessa had lived. Maybe . . . maybe Christopher . . .

Pytor opened the door. “Master?”

“She's fine, Pytor,” said the baron. “Terrill and Mirya did it. Absolutely amazing. We'll leave the dressings alone, as the good . . .” He looked at the door, wondering frightened, but clinging to acceptance. “. . . doctors ordered, but please tell David to prepare something nice for Vanessa. I think she'll be hungry when she wakes up.”

Chapter Ten

The next morning, Vanessa opened her eyes for the second time in Castle Aurverelle. This time, Christopher was ready.

Ready for the light. Ready for the conviction that what Vanessa saw with her brown, luminous eyes was much, much more than any one human being ought to be allowed to see, or could, in fact, stand to see. Just as it was with himself.

But this morning, mixed with that light and knowledge, the baron saw fear. Not the paltry kind that came from strange surroundings and a concern for physical safety, but a fear that could only stem from an utter demolition of belief; and though he smiled to