[Vlad Taltos 06] Athyra

by Steven Brust

  But if he continued associating with the Easterner, how would he continue to live here? There wouldn’t always be friendly jhereg to—

  He shook his head, shying away from wondering how it had happened that, just when he faced being beaten by his friends, out of nowhere there came ... No. He didn’t want to think about it, not yet.

  And so, naturally, it was just then that he noticed a rustling in the trees overhead, and, yes, of course there were two jhereg, arrogantly sitting in the branches, almost as if they were watching him. He stopped abruptly and stared back at them.

  They were the same size and color as the two he had seen—when was it? He’d been walking with Polyi, and then he’d gone to Master Wag’s, which was the day Dame Sullen’s arm had been broken, so that would be ...

  The same day Vlad had shown up.

  They were the same two, of course; it was silly to try to deny it. The same two who had rescued him, and who had rescued Vlad, and who he’d been seeing, again and again, since Vlad had appeared. Maybe it had even been one of them that had been sitting on the roof of Tem’s house, listening in on everything that was said.

  He tore his gaze away and covered the remaining twenty or thirty feet to the Curving Stone, breathing hard, and looked for traces of blood on the ground. He found them right where he expected; large red splotches.

  Where had the Easterner gone? He tried to find a trail of blood, but there didn’t seem to be one.

  He turned back to the jhereg, who were still watching him. If he spoke to them, could they understand him? Of course not. He frowned.

  “Well?” he said aloud. “What do you want? Why are you following me?” He swallowed, hearing the echo of strain in his own voice. In the back of his head he heard Master Wag talking about hysteria. The jhereg stared back at him impassively. He shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes again. He spoke again, this time slowly and carefully. “I’ve brought food for him. Where is he?”

  The smaller of the two jhereg spread its wings, then refolded them, looking hesitant. When folded and seen from the side, each wing formed an almost perfect triangle, as if nature had intended to give the beast a shield against the arrows of men. Yet seen from the front, it looked like there was a snake’s head bobbing up and down between the walls of two houses that had been built too close together.

  It spread its wings again, and this time left its perch. It dropped just a little until it caught the air, and then rose quickly and flew over Savn’s head. Its mate followed it, and Savn turned to watch them fly.

  They made a high circle, climbing until he thought they were going to vanish into the overcast; then they flew back down so quickly he thought they were about to attack him, but they landed some distance away. He could barely see them through the trees—about forty feet from the road.

  Savn plunged into the thicket after them. Just below the tree in which they rested he almost tripped over the Easterner’s sword; no doubt Vlad had dropped it as he’d stumbled along. He picked it up by the hilt, noticing that the blade was still stained with blood. He wondered what it was like to hit someone with it. His musings were interrupted by a hiss from one of the jhereg. He jumped, startled. They were, apparently, impatient for him to find Vlad.

  Very well, then. He looked further ahead, and at once saw a dark object, not far away at all, that looked like it didn’t belong. A few steps closer and he realized that it was the bottom of Vlad’s boot, toe pointed toward the sky.

  Savn knew, even before he reached Vlad, that the Easterner was alive, because his breathing was obvious—quick and shallow. Breathing like that meant something, he knew, but he couldn’t remember what. Or maybe there were several things’ it could mean. Was it blood loss? It wasn’t a concussion, he was sure of that. It occurred to Savn that one of Vlad’s lungs might have been punctured, in which case he’d be unable to do anything except watch the Easterner die.

  Savn came up next to him, knelt down, and studied his face, seeing at once that his skin had an odd grey tint and that his lips were blue, and, in fact, so were his eyelids and ear lobes. The colors meant something; he was sure of it. Savn shook his head and thought, He’s dying.

  And so he seemed to be. Not only did his lung appear punctured, but it looked like his neck had been broken—the veins and the windpipe stuck out horribly from the throat, and at a funny angle, down toward the Easterner’s left side.

  He was muttering as well, but only incoherent sounds, grunts and squeaks, as if his ability to make words were gone. His arms and torso were moving weakly, and without any apparent purpose. A terrible sorrow filled Savn—he was convinced that Master Wag would be able to heal him, punctured lung and broken neck or not, but Savn himself just didn’t know enough. If Master Wag were here, he’d ...

  Savn frowned. If Vlad’s neck was broken, could he move about like that? Savn tried to think of what the Master had said about such injuries, but he couldn’t remember hearing about them. The Master had spoken about the neck as the stream that fed the mind, and that if the spine were severed, the brain would starve from want of thoughts. Maybe this was what he meant; this was what a body did when there were no thoughts to guide its actions. It was horrible.

  And then, as if to underline the ghastly sight, Vlad’s delirious babbling ceased long enough for Savn to hear an awful sucking, bubbling sound that came from somewhere on his body.

  As Vlad began mumbling again, Savn wondered what could cause the sucking noise. If the lungs had been pierced, that might account for a wheezing, but would the escaping air sound like that? Probably, he decided. But still ....

  There was a dagger at Vlad’s belt. He removed it and one of the jhereg hissed at him.

  “Shut up,” said Savn abstractedly. He cut open Vlad’s jerkin down the middle and pulled it aside, exposing a chest full of dark, curly hairs. Was that normal for Easterners? He didn’t stop to give it further thought, because he saw the wound at once—about halfway down on Vlad’s right side. There wasn’t all that much blood—Savn almost wished there were more, so that he wouldn’t have to look at the pink tissue that was lying open—but what there was of the escaping blood bubbled and frothed.

  Vlad’s breath was still coming rapidly, and was very shallow. Oddly, though, only one side of his chest—the left side, away from the wound—was rising and falling. And what bothered Savn most about the queer chest movement was that he’d seen or heard of such a thing before.

  Where? When?

  He looked at Vlad’s face once more; it was grey, but seemed no more so than it had a moment before. He looked again at Vlad’s chest, watching the left side rising and falling rapidly, while the right side hardly moved. It was familiar, and it wasn’t. He closed his eyes, and tried to recall Master Wag’s words.

  “I found it because I was looking for it. It isn’t the sort of thing you can see easily....”

  That couldn’t be it, because it was easy to see.

  “I was looking for it because I found the broken rib. And I found the broken rib because it was hit in the side.”

  Wait, though. “It”?

  “... the sort of thing you can see easily in a pig.” Yes! Cowler’s stud-hog, butted by their goat. Cowler had spent ten minutes on his knees begging Master Wag to look at it, because Birther was off somewhere, and Master Wag had finally agreed only because he thought Savn might be able to learn something useful. “We’re a lot like pigs, inside, Savn,” he’d said, and refused to make any jest on the subject. Yes.

  Vlad was still mumbling. Savn tried to ignore him and remember what the Master had said. It hadn’t been that long ago. “... knocked a hole in the Cave of the Heart, so the lung collapsed ... no, not the heart, the Cave of the Heart, where the heart and the lungs live. Same thing can happen to a man, you know. You’ll learn about that some day. Now, go fetch a bottle with a plug, and you’ll learn what I can do with a couple of reeds. Good thing this was a hog; they have the same sort of lungs we have, which I told you half an hour ago,
though you probably weren’t listening, as usual. You’ll learn about that, too, someday. Run along now, before this smelly beast up and dies and makes a fool of me.”

  The procedure came back to him, and with the memory came the fading of hope. He had the water, which he’d brought for Vlad to drink and to repel the Imps of Fever from the wound, and there was even a wax plug in it, but he had no reed, nor anything that could be used as one; none of the plants that grew around here were both hollow and wide enough to work, and it would take hours to reach the river and return. Vlad didn’t look like he would live for hours.

  He glanced at the sword which he’d dropped next to Vlad. If it was hollow, it would be perfect; long and flexible ...

  He stared at the empty sheath at Vlad’s hip. How well-made was it? Savn had drunk from leather flagons; leather could certainly be made watertight.

  He had to hurry, but there was still time for thought. He’d waste less time if he figured out what he had to do, every step, before he did anything else. Finding the sheath was enough to give him hope; he began to think that everything he needed was here if he could just find it; what he had to do was get it right the first time. How could he make the puncture? No, he didn’t have to; the sword that had cut Vlad had made a fine puncture; all he had to do was to seal it up while he was working on it, and then again afterwards. How?

  Well, for the first step, his hand would do well enough, but how about later? The sheet he’d taken from Tem’s house certainly wasn’t airtight; could it be made so? Was something that was watertight also airtight? It had to be; how could air get through if water couldn’t? Well then, if he could find a candle, he could melt wax onto the cloth from the sheet.

  He took Vlad’s belt off, found his belt pouch, dumped it out, and looked at the contents. There was a piece of flint (why would a sorcerer need flint?), a few odd-looking sewing-needles (but no thread), a few scraps of paper, a purse with several gold coins in it as well as some silver, a bit of wire, a few small clay vials of the kind that Master Wag kept potions in, but no candles. Well, that made sense, why would a sorcerer need a candle? Then he frowned ... the wax plug on the water bottle? He’d have to melt it, but it might work. So he’d need a fire. Okay, there was plenty of wood around, and he could set the cloth near the fire, and then cut shavings from the plug and set them on top of the cloth where they could melt and make an airtight seal to put over the wound; it wouldn’t have to be very big; the wound itself was less than an inch wide.

  He should cut the strips first, before doing anything else, so he could have them ready. And he’d have to cut the bottom of the sheath.... What about the second tube? Oh, yes, there was the sheath for Vlad’s dagger. That was also leather. Would they both fit in the jug?

  He felt an instant’s panic at the thought that he’d dropped the food sack somewhere, but it was sitting next to him, where he’d set it down while he looked at Vlad. He took out the water jug he’d gotten from Tem. Yes, the mouth was good and wide. It would be hard to jam the leather sheaths through the wax plug though, and he’d have to be careful not to push the plug out, or rather in. Well, he had the dagger, he could cut holes in it.

  How much water should be in it? He wished someone would make a jug one could see through. Well, about half-full would be easiest, because then he could be certain that the long sheath was in the water and the short sheath was out of it—or was it supposed to be the other way around? No, that was right: “wound to water, air to air,” Master Wag had said. “Why?” Savn had asked. “Because it works,” the Master had replied.

  Savn went through the entire procedure in his mind, and when he was sure he had it right, he cleared a three-foot circle of ground, gathered a few twigs and leaves and struck a small fire with his own flint an arm’s length from Vlad. He got it going, added a couple of branches, and found a few rocks to set next to it. While they were getting warm, he cut several strips from the bedsheet he’d taken from Tem’s house and set them on the stones.

  The jhereg hovered around, looking interested; Savn tried not to think about them. Vlad seemed greyer. His arms and legs were still moving about without purpose, and he’d shifted his position slightly. The odd angle of his throat seemed to be worse, too. His speech was still unrecognizable. Savn remembered that Master Wag had said something about the heart being crushed if the Cave of the Heart became too small. Savn started working faster.

  The dagger was sharp enough to cut through the leather of the sheaths with little difficulty. Savn made the cuts at an angle, so there was almost a point on them.

  He took another look at Vlad. The process—whatever it was—was accelerating; he could almost see Vlad’s skin getting greyer. “Don’t die,” he said aloud. “Don’t you dare die. You hear me?”

  He took the water jug and made two holes in the plug with the dagger, then widened them as much as he dared. “You just hold on there and breathe, and I’ll fix you up, but if you die I’ll kick you in the head.” He measured the two sheaths against the bottle, and made marks on them with the dagger at the appropriate levels. “Breathe now, you Eastern son of a kethna. Just keep breathing.”

  The smaller of the jhereg watched him raptly. “Okay,” he told it, “here’s the first hard part.” The sword sheath slid into the hole with surprising ease, and the sheath for the dagger just as easily. He held a piece of hot wood near it to melt the wax, then blew on the plug; there was now a water jug with two leather sheaths sticking out of it, looking like the remains of a flower arrangement that hadn’t been very pretty in the first place.

  “Hmmm,” he told the jhereg. “That wasn’t bad. Now for the first test.” He blew into the open end of the sword sheath, and was rewarded by a bubbling sound from the bottle, and the feel of air against his left hand held over the other sheath.

  “Airtight,” he announced to the jhereg. “This might really work. I’m glad he has such well-made stuff.”

  He sat next to the Easterner and put a hand on his chest. Vlad didn’t react to the touch, so maybe he was too far gone to notice what was about to happen. This part was scary, and Savn was afraid that if he hesitated at all, his courage would fail. “Here we go,” he said to the jhereg, and opened up the wound with his fingers.

  The puncture was small but ugly, between the fifth and the sixth ribs, still not bleeding much, but still bubbling and frothing, and making a burbling sound that ought never to come from a body. The end of the sheath would fit over the puncture easily, but he’d have to get past the outer edge of the wound, which might be too big.

  Savn started to bend the sword sheath, but the bottle almost tipped over. He cursed, let go of the wound, and bent the sword sheath with both hands, putting a kink into it. That would never do.

  He felt himself trembling, and almost gave up the whole idea, but instead he gritted his teeth and played with the position and angle of the bottle until he could draw the long sheath smoothly all the way to the wound with no sharp bends in it.

  Once again he opened the wound with the fingers of his left hand and tried to put the point of the sheath into it. It was a tight fit, and the skin actually tore slightly, but he was able to cover the puncture while wrapping the outer edge of the wound over the sheath. He held it in place as tightly as he could, wishing he had thought of a way to secure it without using his hand. Well, with any luck, Vlad’s skin would provide the seal, and it wouldn’t have to be there long.

  It took a long couple of seconds to bend over to the bottle without changing the position of the sword sheath, but he managed, and, while he had the chance, exhaled.

  Then he put his mouth over the dagger sheath, made sure of the grip of his left hand, and inhaled through the sheath.

  The results were astonishing.

  There was a bubbling sound in the bottle and Vlad gave a twitch; Savn was only barely able to keep the sword sheath in place over the wound. But he held tight, and when he dared to look at the Easterner, he could hardly believe the change. Both sides of his body were n
ow expanding evenly, and his throat was no longer angled so oddly—Savn had thought that even if it worked, it wouldn’t happen so quickly. Since it had, he was suddenly fearful that he’d overdone it somehow, though he didn’t know if that was possible, or what the results would be.

  He wished he’d paid more attention to Vlad’s normal color, but his skin was certainly losing its ashen appearance, and his lips no longer looked blue. He had stopped waving his arms about, and his breathing was deeper and slower.

  “That was quick,” remarked Savn to the jhereg. The smaller one hissed, spread its wings, and was still, which Savn hoped meant that it was pleased.

  The next step, however, was the hard one: sealing the wound without letting Vlad’s lung collapse again.

  His left hand still held the sheath against the wound in Vlad’s side; he increased the pressure as much as he could, and took the dagger into his right hand. One of the jhereg hissed. “Shut up,” he said distractedly. “I’m trying to help him.”

  Manipulating the knife to shave off bits of the wax plug while keeping a firm grip on the wound was perhaps the hardest thing Savn had ever done—he would have been unable to do it at all if he’d had to hurry. As it was, he was concentrating so totally that he hardly noticed when Vlad began speaking again, this time in words, but with no apparent thought behind them. Savn heard him speak but paid no attention.

  When he had a shaving of wax on the flat of the knife, he set it on one of the cloth strips that was resting on the rock near the fire, then went back for another shaving before he could take the time to consider how difficult this really was. He dropped the next one, left it on the ground, and went back for another, which he managed to bring over to the cloth. Then a third.

  That should do it.

  The wax had melted, and what had been a cloth now ought to be an airtight patch. He picked it up by an end and waved it around enough to cool it off.