Ryld used what he'd learned that day. Focusing on his breathing, on the drawing in of air, the slow filling of his lungs, and the slow exhalation that followed, he slowed his racing pulse. He drove the heat from his skin, imagining it flowing from him with each breath. Slowly, his body returned to normal, and he shivered.
His eyes, however, continued to see the fantastic images the bel-ladonna had limned on the world. The trees remained grayish-white against a sky studded with impossibly bright stars. The moon, trail-ing brighter stars in its wake, hurt to even glance at. Wavering shad-ows danced in the forest. One of those shadows stepped out from the others and coalesced into the form of a woman.
"Halisstra . . ." Ryld breathed, then he saw that he was mistaken.
The woman was a drow but was not Halisstra Melarn. She was naked, her white hair hanging well past her hips. As she moved closer to Ryld, his fevered eyes saw that her skin was covered in evening dew. Drops of it covered her body, sparkling in the moonlight like stars against the sky-black of her skin.
She stood before him a moment, staring down with eyes that re-flected the light like twin crescent moons. Then she touched the hilt of the sword he'd accidentally speared into the earth. Slender fin-gers traced a lazy circle around the leather-wrapped hilt. To Ryld's eyes the fingers looked as if they were dancing. Her lips parted, but insteadof speech Ryld heard the notes of a flute. Its tune was some-how both welcoming and harsh at the same time, as if the flautist was of two minds about what tune to play and was able to play both at once. All the while, the woman stared deeply into Ryld's eyes, as if she was trying to see into his soul. Her hand closed around the hilt of the sword.
Something crackled in the forest. Startled, the woman looked up, just as a small black wolf burst from the underbrush. Teeth bared, snarling, it leaped for her chest. When it struck, the woman exploded into a million motes of starlight. The wolf continued its leap as if she had never been there. Watchingit disappear into the forest once more, Ryld confirmed his earlier thought. It was all just an hallucination. The woman, the wolf. . . neither were truly there.
Something warm and moist nuzzled his ear. It was a nose. Then a warm, furry body lay down next to him. A tongue licked his cheek, and dark eyes stared into his.
Ryld didn't move and didn't speak. Instead he continued to con-centrate on his breathing, forcing the last of the belladonna's poison from his body with each slow breath.
Eventually, he fell into Reverie.
When he became aware of his surroundings once more, it was daylight. He heard a crackling noise and smelled roasting meat, and rolled over to see Yarno squatting beside a small fire. The boy was holding a stick on which had been impaled the body of a small, four-legged animal. It had been gutted and neatly skewered, but Ryld could identify it by the tail. It was a rat. Yarno lifted the stick from the flames.
"You'll need strength," he said. "Eat."
Ryld sat up, shaking away the last of his lethargy. Rising to his feet, he moved his shoulders, his arms, his fingers. All were in work-ing order; the poison was gone from his body. He squatted and ac-cepted the rat.
"Thank you," he said. "I haven't eaten rat since I was a child."
Yarno studied him through narrowed eyes. Ryld realized the boy was trying to decide if he was being mocked. Ryld smiled and bit into the fire-seared meat, chewing it with gusto.
Yarno flicked back the lock of black hair that hung across his forehead and smiled.
"It's good, isn't it?" asked the boy.
"It is indeed," Ryld answered, wiping grease from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
Yarno stood and scuffed soil over the fire with a dirty foot, turn-ing his back to the fire and scraping the ground like a dog.
"Grandfather is feeling better now," he told Ryld.
"My masters taught me well," Ryld answered. "That - and I've had lots of practice binding wounds." He eyed the smudges of dirt that covered Yarno's pale, naked body, then added, "The first thing you need to do with a wound is clean it with hot water, as I did for your grandfather. Then bind it in a clean, boiled cloth. Remember that -