Faces by E.C. Blake

horse . . .” She snorted. “Keltan, first of that name. But I utterly failed to harm him. And the counterblow . . .
    â€œI saw it coming. I could not stop it. I had no magic left, no one and nothing to draw on for more. So instead I retreated, deep into the cave in which I had taken shelter, deeper within it than I had ever gone before. I heard the ravine hurled to destruction behind and above me, tons of rock and ice and shattered trees choking the secluded glade where I had stood just moments before.
    â€œI had no choice but to plunge even deeper into the darkness of that cave. I found a little black lodestone there, and enough magic that I could illuminate my way, but not enough to do anything else.
    â€œI wandered for hours, and for a time I thought I was lost forever. But then I realized I was seeing things around me as deep black on lighter black, and then as shades of gray, and at last I emerged into sunlight . . . to find myself in another ravine, one that seemed to continue indefinitely through the range.
    â€œThe ‘impassable’ mountains were not impassible at all. I had found a way through . . . and a new lease on life.”
    Mara looked toward the head of the column, where Hamil and the Lady’s other followers continued to break a trail through the deepening snow. “But if the cave was blocked behind you, and you had to go through it to find the pass . . . how did the villagers follow you?”
    The Lady laughed. “They didn’t. There was a village I had come across during my travels that had clearly been abandoned. I couldn’t figure out where the people had gone. But I found out when I reached the end of the pass . . . which those villagers had discovered long before me, and used to make good their escape from Aygrima.” Her laughter ended, and the accompanying smile faded. “I was half-dead,” she said. “
More
than half-dead. The top of the pass was far below the peaks, but high enough. The air was thin and cold, the snowdrifts higher than my head. I had no magic to protect me. I came close to death; would have died, if a hunting party had not found me.” She nodded toward the men and women struggling through the snow ahead of them. “Hamil’s grandfather, a young man then, was the one who spotted me, half-buried, unconscious, slipping past shivering to the deadly stillness of freeze-to-death. He warmed me, bore me back to their village.
    â€œI still might have died had I not, though barely conscious of it, sensed the magic all around me and tapped into it. I Healed myself.”
    â€œYou took magic from them?” Mara said. “Without pain? Without harming them? And they were all right with that? What about the Old Religion? Everything that had terrified the villagers south of the mountains?”
    The Lady made a dismissive gesture. “Of course it frightened them. But my youth protected me: they were not the sort of people who would kill a young girl just because she had done something alarming. And once I was Healed, I showed them just how useful my Gift could be. I helped them build stronger, warmer houses; helped them find food; helped them grow their crops. I even created for them a grand grotto in which they could practice their religion, though I have never been an adherent. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. And so it has been ever since.”
    â€œBut the pain,” Mara said. “The nightmares . . .”
    â€œAs I already told you, they were bearable,” the Lady said. “And soon enough a thing of the past, as I continued my study of the precious books and scrolls my father had obtained.” She touched the amulet around her neck, and then turned toward Mara. “It is something you can learn, too, Mara. Something I can teach you.” She placed her gloved hand on Mara’s forehead. “I can sense the strength of