to take any more of his memories. The holes I’ve put in his mind will never heal.’
‘Then it will have to be enough,’ Mihn replied. ‘You did not promise anything more than that. If you have removed the worst of his experiences in Ghenna, then I am satisfied the risk was worthwhile. Some things no one should remember.’
The witch nodded and turned back to her patient. ‘Isak, can you hear me?’
The big white-eye turned his head fractionally at the sound of his name, but his eyes didn’t focus on the witch and after a moment he looked down again. If she was disappointed, the witch didn’t show it. Instead she pushed the bundle onto the bed beside him and carefully peeled the folds of the blanket open. Within was a bundle of floppy limbs and soft, greyish fur. She gently took Isak’s hand and put it down beside the bundle, and his touch was rewarded with a muffled squeak before the puppy lifted its head from the blanket and tentatively licked his fingers.
Isak recoiled. The witch could feel his body tense as he drew his hand back - but not all the way. His fingers remained outstretched, as though ready to reach again, waiting only for a cue. The witch stepped back and joined Mihn, who was watching.
The puppy, finding itself lacking the warmth of the witch’s body, lifted its head and looked at its new surroundings. Isak’s huge, heavy breaths made its flop-ears twitch and it started to snuffle its way around until it found the big man behind it.
Still Isak didn’t move, but both of them could tell he was more alert now than he had been since Xeliath had died.
The puppy took a while to get its folded limbs into some sort of order, then it bumbled its way forward towards Isak’s face, wriggling into the white-eye’s warm lee. It gave him a tentative wag, the tip of its tail brushing Isak’s fingers. After a moment they saw his fingers close a little, not grabbing at the tail, but letting the fur brush his flesh. The puppy edged closer to Isak’s face and pushed its nose against his shirt, snorting softly to itself as it breathed in his scent. Now Mihn could see it was a gangly bundle of grey-black fluff, all big paws and belly, with a ruff of dark fur around its neck. He couldn’t recall seeing any of its kind in Llehden before but he resisted the temptation to ask where it had come from.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Mihn whispered.
‘No,’ the witch admitted, ‘but Daima is. Before we can speak to the man we must remind his body of more basic things. The sensation of being alive is strange enough to him, but there are inbuilt needs - for warmth and comfort - that a pack animal might be able to coax out.’
Jerkily, Isak slid his hand forward on the bed and the puppy caught the movement and gently batted at his scarred fingers with a paw. Its ears pricked up. The hand didn’t recoil this time, and Mihn saw Isak had closed his fingers a little further again, as though reaching for the sensation of soft fur once again. The puppy flopped its head down beside his fingers and gave the nearest another lick.
Still not looking at the puppy, Isak drifted towards it, sliding his head off the makeshift pillow and laying it flat on the bed. The puppy twitched its ears in response, but didn’t raise its head again.
‘I spoke a charm over it as I walked,’ the witch explained. ‘It will be sleepy for a while longer - dogs need little encouragement there. I thought it best their first hours together were slow, rather than boisterous.’
Mihn nodded slowly. ‘I’m not chewing his food for him,’ was all he said before leaving to return to his wood chopping.
The witch gave a half-smile as she noted the flicker of hope on Mihn’s face as he left. ‘Which one?’ she called after him.
‘How much longer?’ Count Vesna growled, pacing around the mage and flexing his fingers impatiently. The scrape of steel-covered fingers sounded like knives being readied for murder.
‘Not long, I hope,’ the mage’s attendant replied in a hesitant voice. ‘Your presence will, ah, be a complicating factor. A distraction to his trace.’
The attendant was a man of forty summers, but he had been reduced to a nervous child in Vesna’s presence.
Can’t blame him now, can I? Vesna thought, halting to concentrate on