"Where's my sword?" I asked. All of a sudden I was sure someone had taken it while Shiara and I weren't paying attention.
"In your hand," Shiara said. She sounded a little exasperated. "You wouldn't let go of it."
I looked down. My left hand was still clenched around the hilt. When I relaxed my hand, the fingers started to tingle. I'd been holding on so tightly that my hand had fallen asleep.
Well, at least I hadn't lost it. I started to shift the sword back to my right hand, then stopped and swallowed hard. The hand was burned black.
I couldn't even feel it. I looked away, feeling sick. Shiara was staring, too.
"Daystar, I didn't notice, I was so worried about waking you up I didn't even see-" She stopped. She tilted her head back until she was looking up the tree trunk, and her eyes flashed. "I'm going to find somebody who can fix this," she said grimly. "And then I'm going to find that stupid elf and make him sorry he ever mentioned that wizard's staff." The way she said it made me very, very glad I wasn't an elf, particularly the elf she'd be looking for.
"It doesn't really hurt or anything," I offered. As soon as I said it, my arm started to throb. Not the hand; it was my wrist and arm that hurt. As far as I was concerned, that was more than enough.
"That's bad," Shiara said. She looked worried. "I know a little about burns, from the times when I… Are you sure you can't feel anything?"
"Not in my hand," I said. "And I'd really rather not talk about it.
It might help me not notice the way my arm feels."
"Well, let me look at it, then, and I won't have to ask questions," Shiara said.
I stuck my right hand out in her direction and stared at my sword for a couple of minutes. I didn't succeed in ignoring the sensations that were coming from my arm, but I tried awfully hard. Finally Shiara said, "You can put it down now." I looked back in her direction.
"It's bad," she said. "I don't know what to do for it, either. We have to find help, and pretty soon, too. There has to be someone in this forest who knows something about healing. Can you walk?"
"My legs are all right," I said. I started to stand up and discovered I was very dizzy. I made it on the second try, but only by using the sword as a prop.
Shiara picked a direction and we started walking. After about twenty steps I stopped worrying about which way we were going and concentrated on walking and hanging on to the sword. It was hard; I really had to work at it. I was still dizzy, and I was beginning to feel cold, too-all but my arm, which felt as though it were on fire, and I wondered whether the wizard's staff had done more than just burn my hand.
I don't know how far we went before we stopped. By that time, Shiara was holding my good arm, trying to help me walk. She couldn't help as much as she might have, because she had to keep out of the way of the sword. As soon as we quit walking, I sat down.
"Daystar, are you sure you can't put that sword away yet?" Shiara asked. "It gets in the way a lot."
"The sheath is still wet," I said hazily.
"Well, can we at least put the sheath in the sun so it'll dry faster?"
I looked around, feeling sort of light-headed as well as dizzy. On top of everything I was getting thirsty. "We can't do that," I said. "The cat has the only patch of sun around here."
"What cat?"
"That one." I pointed at the large, dignified, black-and-white cat that was cleaning its face in the middle of a puddle of sunlight. It didn't even strike me as odd that I hadn't noticed it until I started talking about it.
Shiara turned her head. As soon as she looked at it, the cat stopped washing itself. It stared at her for a minute, then stood up. The tip of its tail twitched three times, and it turned around and started walking away. After a minute, it stopped and looked back over its shoulder. It was obviously waiting.
Shiara jumped up. "Come on, Daystar. We're going to follow the cat.
I think somebody sent it."
"That doesn't make sense," I said, but I wasn't in very good shape to argue. Eventually, Shiara got me back on my feet. The cat was still waiting for us, but as soon as we moved in its direction it started walking again. I decided Shiara was right and concentrated on walking.
I don't know how far we followed the cat. It seemed like a long way, but anything would have seemed like a long way at that point. My arm hurt, and every muscle in my body felt shaky. I never quite dropped the sword, but a couple of times I came close. After a while I stopped thinking about it. Finally Shiara stopped moving.
"I was about ready for another rest," I said fuzzily. "Is the cat still around?"
"This isn't a rest," Shiara said. "We're here."
I looked up. We were standing in front of a neat gray house with a wide porch and a red roof. A wisp of smoke was coming out of the chimney, and whatever was cooking smelled delicious. Over the door was a black-and-gold sign in block letters that read, "NONE OF THIS NONSENSE, PLEASE."
I'm going to like whoever lives here. I thought The door of the house was closed, but the black-and-white cat jumped up on the porch and scratched at it. A moment later, the door swung partway open and the cat disappeared inside.
We stayed where we were for a minute, waiting. I don't think either one of us really knew what to do next. A few seconds after the cat vanished, the door opened the rest of the way and the owner of the house appeared.
She wore a very loose black robe with long sleeves and a small pair of glasses with rectangular lenses. She was considerably shorter than I was, though she obviously wasn't a dwarf; she managed to look down her nose at both of us anyway. Standing on the porch helped, I think.
"It's about time you got here," she said.
"Do you know anything about healing?" Shiara demanded.
"Of course I do, or I wouldn't have sent Quiz out to get you," said the woman.
"Quiz?"
"The cat. Do you plan to stand there all day? I certainly can't do anything for you while you're outside."
So we went inside. The porch steps didn't creak. Neither did the porch, and the hinges of the door didn't squeak at all. I didn't think they would dare.
The inside of the house seemed to consist of a single large, airy room full of cats. I counted five before I stopped. Several of the cats had furniture under them, and there was a table in the middle of the room and another door next to the stove in the corner.
The woman in the black robe shooed two cats off of chairs, and Shiara and I sat down at the table. Shiara looked at me. "You can put that stupid sword down now. No one's going to take it."
"No." I didn't know why I wanted to hold on to the sword, and I didn't have enough energy to explain it if I had known. I just knew I wanted it in my hand.
"Sword?" said the woman in black. "Oh, that sword. It's quite proper of you to keep it for now. If I may see your hand?" She came over next to me and examined my right arm while I carefully didn't watch.
Oddly enough, it didn't hurt when she touched it. After a minute or so, she nodded.
'Just as I thought. This could have been very bad, but you got here in plenty of time." She went over to a cupboard by the stove and took out a piece of something that looked like dried vine. She brought it back to me and tied it around my arm, muttering something as she did.
Suddenly my head wasn't fuzzy anymore.
"That should take care of things for the time being," she said, "and in a little while I can take care of the magic. Then we can pack the burns with salve. Would you like some cider while you wait?"
I nodded.
Shiara frowned. "Can't you do anything right away?"