Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier Page B

it were full of stones. A veil of clouds shrouded the watery sunlight; it would rain again before nightfall. I could not stop coughing. I might just as well have rung a bell to let folk know I was coming. I did not stop to rest, for it seemed to me that if I sat down I would find it hard to get up again. I hoped my choice to stay awhile in Mara’s cottage had not cost me the chance to get across the bridge before dark.
    I had been lucky, and I knew it. Garret could have killed me before I said a word. Mara could have made him hold me captive while she called in the Enforcers. The fee she would have earned for that would have kept her and Garret in food all winter. Most folk would not have hesitated.
    I kept on walking. There was nothing I could do to help her, nothing anyone could do to turn Garret back into the healthy, whole man he had been before he was given over to a mind-scraper. Their official name was Enthrallers, and in a way that name was apt, because what they did turned folk into thralls, wholly obedient to the king’s will. Except when it went wrong and the person ended up like Garret, a fine man reduced to an infant.
    Mind-scraping was a scourge. Of all the terrors confronting the folk of Alban, it was the worst. And yet, Grandmother had told me, it was an ancient art, which once had been a power for good. I’d struggled to believe this. Long ago, she’d said, such work had been known as mind-mending. It had been a canny gift of unusual power, shared by only a handful of folk in Alban. As the years passed, fewer and fewer were born with the gift, and fewer and fewer learned the right use of it, until it was all but forgotten.
    A mind-mender could lay hands on a sleeping person’s head and make a way into their thoughts; in this, the craft was no different from an Enthraller’s. But a mind-mender’s purpose was not to exercise control. It was to heal. A mind-mender could comfort the troubled and bring solace to the grieving. He could provide balm to the dying, hope to the despairing. A mind-mender’s gift would come in the form of healing dreams, for as short or long a time as they were needed. The sleeper did not remember these dreams, Grandmother said, but their power to set matters right was profound.
    It became even harder for me to believe this when I saw Grandmother herself fall victim to the Enthrallers. That night showed me mind-scraping at its cruellest. I had known and loved my grandmother as a strong, wise old woman, the heart of our community. I had seen what was left of her afterward. If there was ever such a thing as mind-mending, it must have existed in a forgotten time, in a realm of light and goodness and courage. I wondered, later, if the story had been a fine imagining designed to comfort me. How mind-mending had become warped and debased into the evil art of mind-scraping, even Grandmother had been unable to explain. All she’d said was that Keldec used magic for his own ends, in his own way. I supposed that if even one mind-mender had still existed when he came to the throne, the king could have bribed or coerced that person into serving his ends. If so, that mind-mender’s spirit must surely be dark as the grave.
    I walked on and the path became even steeper. The river valley was narrower here. The main track was still visible as a pale ribbon, and the Rush was a swirling pathway, now close to the foot of this hill where I walked. The light was starting to fade. I hoped the bridge was not too much further. A spasm overtook me and I stopped to cough, bent double on the perilous track. Gods, it hurt! When the fit was over I took a moment to adjust my pack, and in the quiet I heard footsteps behind me. My heart performed a panicky dance; cold sweat bathed my face. I made myself breathe.
    The footsteps ceased. Not those of a man, I thought. Little, pattering steps. Let it not be Sage and her friends , I prayed.
    I pressed on. My legs hurt, my back ached, my head was dizzy. My feet were