James Clemens - Shadowfall

She didn’t know what he wanted.

“The door’s bar, little lass. We mustn’t let anyone wander in here.”

Dart jumped and passed him the length of stoutoak. He secured the door with a wink toward Dart. She found herself warming to the man, surprised at herself.

Voices drew their attention to the room’s center.

The woman lowered her charge to an empty bed. He sprawled boneless on the down mattress. “We need the healer’s attention,” she said. “He’s lost most of his blood.”

The woman stepped back and revealed a strange sight. The man’s robe had a blackened hole in the center, down to the bare skin. Centered in the hole, tattooed on the man’s chest, was a black handprint. A strange glow marked its edges. And if Dart stared long enough, she could almost see the surface of the print stirring, as if something rippled past, under the dark surface, disturbing the black well there.

Dart found it hard to look away. Her feet drew her closer. One of her hands even reached out.

“Who is he?” Yaellin asked.

The woman’s answer stayed Dart’s hand.

“He’s the godslayer.”

“Firebalm won’t stop the bleeding from a slash this deep,” the healer said darkly, plainly reluctant to touch a man with such a dreaded reputation.

Kathryn shoved the man. “Do it.” She’d already heard a threadbare account of Healer Paltry’s crimes and duplicity and had no time for his hesitation or tongue.

He stumbled to Tylar’s bedside. He bore a pot of firebalm in one hand. Yaellin kept a sword to the man’s back. Rogger had cut away Tylar’s old bandages, exposing the raw wounds. Blood again flowed from them, but pumping weaker than before. Tylar’s heart had fallen to a fluttering beat.

Paltry scooped a dab of balm.

“More,” Rogger said from across the bed. “Like you said, this is no scratch.”

The healer glowered, then dug a more generous amount. He cradled Tylar’s gaping wrist in one hand, then smeared the balm with the other. With its touch, a fierce glow erupted, shining with familiar Grace.

Paltry jerked his hands away in surprise. A soft moan escaped Tylar, sounding more pleasurable than the usual reaction to the sting of firebalm.

The glow quickly faded, vanishing away as the peeled edges of skin, muscle, and tendon drew together like so much molded clay. In a moment, the wrist had closed without even a scar.

“The other,” Kathryn said.

Paltry grabbed more balm, no longer reluctant. His eyes shone with natural curiosity. Monster or not, he was still a healer.

“Impressive, is it not?” Rogger said as the other wrist mended. “The gifted Grace in his blood does much to protect him. But it can’t replace what he left behind at the flippercraft.”

“Blessed bloodroot,” Gerrod said, straightening after studying the miraculous healing with keen eyes. “Its curative Grace will flush the bone’s marrow and encourage new humour to fill his heart and veins.”

Paltry nodded. “But it will only-”

Yaellin silenced him with a poke of his sword point. The healer needed no other encouragement. He crossed to the apothecary cabinet mounted along one wall of the circular healing chamber. He lifted the crystal lid and shook free a few dried stalks into a glass crucible.

“Where did you obtain this bloodroot?” Yaellin asked.

Paltry set about grinding the root with a glass pestle. A faint bluish glow rose along with a scent of copper and mint. “It comes from the Eldergarden. I harvested it myself.”

“Where?”

“From the healer’s garden. In the shadow of the sacred myrrwood.”

Yaellin knocked aside the crucible with the back of his hand. It shattered against the wall.

Kathryn frowned. “What?”

“It might be corrupted, like the tree in the garden. I don’t think it would be wise to expose the godslayer to it.”

Yaellin had already given an abbreviated account of his escape with the girls… and of Lord Chrism’s corruption. The world seemed to grow darker with each breath. Kathryn waved the healer away.

“Fine,” Paltry said. “I have some older vine from the Ninth Land. Is that far enough away from the Eldergarden?”

“Fetch it,” Yaellin commanded. “And be quick about it.”

As the healer set to work again, using a smaller set of wan-looking vines, Yaellin explained. “The corruption in Myrillia is more deeply rooted than any suspected, even my own father.”

Gerrod joined them. “Maybe we’d all best discover what each knows. It seems multiple threads are woven to this same spot. But where to begin?”

Kathryn nodded to Yaellin. “I think your story is the oldest, the closest to the beginning.”

He sighed. “Yes, my story may be the oldest… with threads that stretch even farther, back to before any of us. But what I know personally started twelve years ago.”

“What?”

“An emissary arrived in Tashijan, sent to my father in secret. Sent from the hinterlands. A call for help.”

“From whom?” Gerrod asked.

“From one of the rogue gods that roam that unsettled land.”

“A rogue?” Kathryn stirred. The gods of the hinterlands were little more than raving beasts, committing horrible acts upon those who should cross their paths. Few lived who ever met a rogue god. The Shadowknights themselves had first been established as border guards to keep the taint of the rogues from passing out of their lands and into the settled realms. Why would a rogue be contacting their enemy?

Yet even this curiosity could not keep Kathryn from watching the healer crush the root to a powder, then pour it into a cup of water. Her concern for Tylar weighed too heavily on her heart. With the elixir prepared, Eylan helped lift Tylar up while Paltry poured the contents down Tylar’s throat.

He did not resist. Half the elixir spilled over Tylar’s chin and down his chest. Once finished, Tylar was laid back to his bed.

Kathryn settled to the cot’s edge.

The talk had quieted. All watched.

“I can’t help more here,” Paltry said after there appeared to be no response. The miracle of the firebalm did not seem to be shared by the bloodroot. “He’ll have to be moved to the main physik in the Cobbleshores district. They have blessed swine in their pens for blood drafting. That’s where he should be.”

Kathryn watched Tylar’s chest rise and fall. At some point, she had taken his hand, but she couldn’t say when. Was he breathing slightly more deeply? Did his lips have a touch more color? Or was it merely her heart wanting it to be true?

“While we keep watch,” Gerrod said, turning back to Yaellin, “tell us more about this visitor to your father.”

Yaellin nodded. “The emissary came to my father’s room in the dead of night, bearing disturbing tidings. Three pieces of information that would set my father on a course that I believe has led us all here.”

Everyone gathered closer. Even the two young girls watched from the room’s corner.

“First, the rogue’s emissary was one of the Wyr,” Yaellin said, nodding to Eylan. “They of all people still occasionally made contact with the maddened ones. She came with a secret kept hidden for millennia, a secret known only to the rogues. Unlike our settled gods who are bound to their realms, unable to leave their lands, rogues still roam. It is such lack of rooting that leads to the raving found among the rogues. Their Grace burns through them. They have no outlet for release. No land in which to ground their Grace. It maddens them.”

Kathryn nodded, still focused on Tylar.

“But what the rogues have kept hidden deep in their hinterlands is a secret none suspected. Free to roam, both male and female gods, they have borne children.”