David Farland - The Sum of All Men

Dewynne screamed “Ah, by the Powers, it hurts!” and struggled away from the burning rune. Sweat poured from her as if she had a raging fever. Her face contorted in pain.

Her jaw quivered, and her back arched off the cot. She began panting, sweat streaming from her face.

Iome held the woman, forcing her down, forcing her still. A strong soldier took Dewynne's right arm so that she couldn't break contact with the forcible, spoil the spell.

“Look at my father,” Iome said, trying to distract Dewynne from the pain. “Look to your lord! He'll protect you. He loves you. My father has always loved you, just as you love him. He'll protect you. Just keep looking at your lord.”

Iome shot a fierce glare at the facilitator, so he moved a bit, opening Dewynne's view.

“Ah, and I thought having a child hurt!” Dewynne sobbed, yet she turned and looked fondly at King Sylvarresta. It was necessary. It was necessary for her to remember why she had to pass through this pain. It was necessary for her to want this, to want to give up her stamina more than anything else in the world. And the only way to keep her focused on this desire was to put the object of her devotion before her eyes.

King Sylvarresta, a strong man in his mid-thirties, was stripped to the waist, and sat on a stone in the courtyard. His long auburn hair fell down round his shoulders, and his wavy beard was neatly trimmed. At the moment, his armorer was trying to get him to put on a leather underjerkin in preparation for the full mail, but Sylvarresta needed to keep his upper torso bare so that the facilitator could apply the runes of power.

The King's chancellor, Rodderman, was demanding that Lord Sylvarresta go out to the walls now, to bolster the courage of his people, while the King's old sage, Chamberlain Inglorians, urged him to stay, to get as many endowments as possible.

King Sylvarresta elected to stay. He glanced Iome's way, caught Dewynne's eyes, and just held the suffering woman with his gaze.

For that moment, nothing else mattered. The King ignored his counselors, his armorer, the resounding tumult of an impending war. There was infinite love in the King's eye, infinite sadness. His look told Dewynne that he knew what she was giving him, that she mattered. Iome knew that her father hated this, hated having to suck others dry in order to protect his vassals.

In that second, something must have changed in Dewynne; she must have reached that necessary moment of yearning, that moment when the transfer of attributes could take place. The facilitator's growls turned to demanding shouts as the full force of his spell came unleashed.

The white-hot blood metal of the forcibles trembled and twisted, like a snake in the facilitator's hands.

Dewynne shrieked from a pain unimaginable. Something within her seemed to collapse—as if a great crushing weight pressed down on her, or as if she had become diminished, had grown smaller.

The smell of burning hair and seared skin rose on wisps of smoke.

Dewynne writhed, tried to squirm away. The sergeant held her, a man of inhuman strength.

Dewynne turned from Lord Sylvarresta, teeth clenched. She was biting off the tip of her tongue, blood and spittle flowing from her chin.

In that moment, Iome thought she could see all the pain in the world in that good woman's eyes.

Dewynne collapsed into unconsciousness. The stamina had gone from her, so much so that she could no longer keep her eyes open, could not resist the fatigue of the day.

Instead, the blood-metal runes glowed white hot and throbbed. The facilitator, a narrow-faced man with a crooked nose and a long gray goatee, studied the molten rune of power for a moment, its light reflecting in his black eyes; then his shouting turned to a song of joy, of triumph.

He held the forcible over his head with both hands, waving it, so that a trail of white light held in the air, like a meteor's trail, but did not fade. The ribbon of light hung in the air, tangible. The facilitator inspected it carefully, as if judging its width, its heft.

He broke into a piping song and ran to Sylvarresta, trailing the ribbon of light. Everyone stopped, no one daring to come near that light, to risk breaking the connection about to be forged between lord and Dedicate.

At his lord's side, the facilitator bowed, placed the white-hot blood metal beneath the King's breast. The facilitator's song softened now, coaxing, and slowly the small forcible in his hand began to disintegrate, to crumble and blow away like white ash, even as the white umbilical of light faded.

Iome had not taken a vassal's endowment since childhood. She had no way to remember how it had felt. But just as giving an endowment caused unspeakable pain to the giver, so the receiver felt an inexpressible euphoria.

Lord Sylvarresta's eyes widened, and sweat poured from him. But it was a sheen of excitement, an almost demented thrill. His eyes glowed with joy, and every line in his face, every muscle, relaxed. He had the decency not to sigh, not to make a great show of his pleasure.

Binnesman rushed up beside Iome, leaned near. His breath smelled of anise. His robe was a garment of darkest green, woven of some strange fabric that looked like mashed roots. It had the rich, clean scent of herbs and spices, which he kept in his pockets. His hair had grasses woven into it. Though he was not a handsome man, with fat cheeks as red as apples, there was a certain sexual quality to him. Iome could not have him so near without feeling aroused, a distinctly annoying sensation. But Binnesman was an Earth Warden, a magician of great skill; as such, his creative powers tended to affect those around him, whether he willed it or not.

He knelt down and with dirt-stained hands felt the pulse in Dewynne's neck, his face looking grave, worried.

“Damn that worthless facilitator,” Binnesman muttered softly, fumbling for something in the pocket of his mud-stained robe.

“What's wrong?” Iome breathed, not daring to speak loud enough for others to hear.

“Hyde's using the Scorrel version of chants, draining these people too much, hoping I can mend them. Dewynne would not live another hour if I weren't here, and he knows it!”

Binnesman was a kind man, a compassionate man. The kind who took pity on fledgling sparrows when they fell from a nest, or who would nurse a grass snake back to health after it got crushed by a passing oxcart. His sky-blue eyes studied Dewynne from under bushy brows.

“Can you save her?” Iome asked.

“Perhaps, perhaps. But I doubt I'll save them all.” He nodded to the other Dedicates, who lay on their cots, some fighting for their lives after giving up an endowment. “I wish your father had hired that facilitator from the Weymouth school last summer.”

Iome understood little of the various schools of facilitators. The competing masters could be quite vociferous in proclaiming the superiority of their schools, and only someone well versed in the various breakthroughs and ongoing experiments in each school could really judge which was best on a given day. Some master facilitators excelled at processing certain kinds of endowments. Hyde was an excellent man for taking endowments of hearing and smell—endowments her father considered most valuable in a forest kingdom. But his work on major endowments—on taking stamina and metabolism in particular—suffered in comparison. At least, unlike some facilitators, he did not spend a fortune in blood metal to do research on dogs or horses.

Finally Binnesman found something in his pocket. He pulled out a fresh camphor leaf, bruised it between his fingers, and set each half beneath Dewynne's nostrils. The sweat on her upper lip held the leaf in place.

Reaching in the same pocket, he pulled out petals of lavender, several brown seeds, and other herbs, applying them to Dewynne's sweaty body, placing some under her lips. It was a marvel to behold. The old magician had only two pockets, each filled with a tangled glut of his loose herbs, yet he didn't bother even looking in those pockets, just seemed to recognize by touch the herbs he wanted.