by Roland Green
The wizard's eyes were normally even more youthful than the rest of his face. Now it seemed that a thousand years of watching folly and suffering looked out of them.
"That is Aston Tanak's belt of office," Hellandros said. His face set hard. "I fear our quest is done."
"No-o-o-o-o . . ." It was more a rasping sigh than a word, and it broke off in a gasp of pain. Ohlt looked wildly about him, half-expecting to see something from another plane taking shape out of the mist.
It was Elda who snapped, "The man's alive!" first, without taking her eyes off the mist-shrouded land about them. Ohlt started, then looked down.
Aston Tanak's lips were moving. They were also caked with blood, from inward hurts that would have been his doom even without the broken limbs. Yet somehow, the spirit within the fast-fading body was still determined to face off death for a little while longer.
M'lenda knelt beside Tanak, and put a hand to one bloody cheek, like a mother consoling a fevered child. Ohlt remembered that she had some healing skill, and this time she would be oathbound to use it.
The ranger's lips moved now, faster and more surely but making even less sound than Aston Tanak's. She was gripping her amulet with one hand as she spoke, and held the other over the man's abdomen. For the first time, Ohlt saw that on the middle finger of that hand, M'lenda wore a thin ring of something brown and flexible intertwined with silver wire.
Ohlt looked meaningfully at Hellandros, who seemed ready to stand back and let M'lenda do what could be done for Tanak. The wizard shook his head. The sorrow on his face quelled Ohlt's anger, but not his need for an explanation.
But that could wait. The prophet seemed to be resting more easily now, as if he had swallowed a strong potion against pain.
"Abominations," he said. It was as much a gasp as a word, and the word was in a voice that might have come from some plane beyond knowledge or order.
"Abominations," he repeated. "From the comet... a flying ship of abominations." He was silent for a moment; M'lenda bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, but not enough to stop her tears.
Ohlt saw Hellandros flinch, and went cold inside himself. It seemed that both of them had suspected as much.
"They steal souls . . . bodies. Turn them into ghouls. Give them—give them evil fire. Fire .. . burns everything. Smoke . . . poison. Like—like dragon . . . breath .. ."
The breath Aston Tanak used to utter that very word was his last. His eyes did not close, for they had never opened, but a curious bonelessness seemed to overtake him. Ohlt would not have been surprised to see the old monk dissolve into a liquid,
and soak into the rocky ground.
Instead, M'lenda remained on her knees beside the dead prophet, and now tears were streaming down her face. "You heard?" she asked. "Abominations from the stars? Stealing souls? Turning our folk into fire-wielding ghouls?" She sounded as if she wished someone, anyone, would tell her that Aston Tanak had uttered no such words, that his pain had befuddled his wits so that he spoke nonsense.
She found no comfort in anyone's face, but Elda took more practical measures. She stepped forward, and gently lifted M'lenda to her feet. Then she drew out of one of her pouches a large patch of cloth, dampened it from her water bottle, and started wiping the ranger's face.
"I'm sorry," M'lenda said, her mouth half muffled in Elda's cloak.
"Don't be," Elda said. "Is this the first time you've seen someone die? Or is it something else?"
M'lenda combed mist-dampened hair out of her eyes with her fingers and nodded. "It was . . . under the Patriarchy, it was peaceful in the forest. The Chosen did not come to judge, and kill elves. When I blessed or healed, it was mostly animals.
"I gave him a blessing to ease his pain. I couldn't have healed him, not if I'd been a goddess, or the Great Druid.
"He turned the blessing away from the pain, toward strength. I don't know how he did it, but he went through torments to speak to us. 1 blessed him to end the torment!"
The last words were hardly more coherent than those of Aston Tanak. Now it was Ohlt's turn to step forward, to M'lenda's other side.
"Dear friend. Think that perhaps Tanak wanted to warn us, and blesses you for giving him the strength to do it. Also, don't ever hold back from easing pain."
Ohlt's voice broke. "I did not weep, the day my wife and daughter died. Not at first. Not until I learned that Marfa screamed for ten minutes before she lost her senses. She screamed for me, for her mother who was already dead, for an end to the pain. Had you been there, M'lenda, I would not still be having nightmares about those ten minutes."
M'lenda shuddered. So, again to Ohlt's surprise, did Elda. Or was he surprised? Amidst his own efforts not to weep, he remembered how much lay hidden under Elda's appearance of a lithe, lusty brawler.
Elda stepped back, and Ohlt thought he saw her wiping her eyes with the back of one hand—a hand that was not without scars, he now saw. "I'd best go back on watch," she said. "The Shieldmaster only knows what I'm to do if the fire-ghouls do come, but I won't die surprised!"
She walked off with a firm tread that still did not keep her hips from swaying. Ohlt decided that nature had so made them that they could not do otherwise. He also decided it was time to summon those three monks. They had followed Aston Tanak; they had the right to be heard when it came to dealing with his remains.
Ohlt cupped his hands, and took a deep breath. Shouting might warn enemies as well as monks, but he could not command
his feet to carry him, barebacked and alone, out into the mist.
• • •
"Monks of Aston Tanak!" Jazra heard. She could have heard it with her bare ears. Indeed, she had to turn down her helmet audio.
"Monks of Aston Tanak! The gods have taken your prophet to themselves. He is dead, but with honor. Come, and help us give him rest."
Jazra had heard enough to not be surprised at the identity of the dead man. She had even heard enough to have to blink hard at the human's words. Anyone who had held as many dying comrades as she had could not do otherwise. The humans had not done ill in making this one their leader.
Jazra rose to her feet and stepped forward. This was not the time she would have chosen to meet the humans, even with her holographic disguise, but if she did not come forward, she would need a whole new disguise for meeting them. If it appeared that three of this old prophet's followers cared nothing of his death, the others would surely grow even more suspicious. Since she could imitate a monk of the temple better than any other kind of human she had met so far, things could be worse.
She changed the position of the two projections so that they would be just barely visible to the humans. Their staying back could be explained as meditation, or keeping watch, whichever seemed more likely to persuade. Jazra strode forward, striking her staff vigorously on the ground to provide warning of her approach.
Before she was ready, and almost close enough to touch, the human leader loomed out of the mist. Jazra bowed her head.
"Thank you for your kindness to our prophet," she said, raising her head to see if her greeting was intelligible.
Apparently it was. "I wish we could have done more for him," the man said. "He was dying, but he spent his last breath warning us of a most disturbing danger."
Jazra listened to the description of soul-stealing abominations from the sky, and the fire and poison spread by those whose souls they stole, with a sobriety that was not at all a pretense. The Secondary Director must have both assimilators and replicators hard at work to be sending out patrols this far, this soon.
The peril for this world was more dire than she had expected. Its people were already facing the nightmare of seeing friends, comrades, even beloved kin, advancing on them as Doomed. They would soon face the whole arsenal of the Overseer—made out of Fworta's substance—until there was hardly anything but scrap left of the ship.
The one meager hope left was to recapture Fworta before the Secondary Director could repair the gate. If not, the Rael
survivors would be stranded on a primitive world, with strange dangers all its own, but at least it would prevent the Overseer's hordes from flooding onto this otherwise innocent world.
Jazra knew that she, and every other Rael on this planet, would gladly spend the rest of their lives here, rather than allow it to fall to the Overseer. The leader of the search party ought to have the chance to take another wife, and raise another family. The healer-woman should have the chance to learn more of the healing arts, by magic or any other method. The sibling warriors—
"Where are your friends?" the big man asked.
Jazra's heart stayed out of her throat, so she replied swiftly. "They were keeping back, for fear that you might be bandits. Shall 1 ask them forward, or let thein keep watch in the place they are?"
Something in his eyes told Jazra that she had not expressed that as perfectly as she could have wished, but he had taken the sense, even if he doubted the sound. He shrugged.
"We'll want them to help us carry the body out, or build the cairn, in a little while. Which do you think your master would have wanted?"
Jazra did not dare sigh with relief at the human's suspicion setting her a test that she could pass. She had heard it said, loudly and even angrily, that Aston Tanak was the "prophet" or the "teacher," not the "master."
"You are from far—" although not as far as she was "—so I will not say harsh things about you for calling him 'master.' Yet he was not. He taught, and he prophesied. We learned, and we listened. We were not the slaves of a—"
Her imitation of a monk's indignation seemed to be persuading the human. He had started to smile when he suddenly turned his head and put a hand on his long knife.
jazra had heard it too. Head turned, he didn't see her trembling with the effort not to draw her blaster.
It was the sound of feet approaching from uphill. Heavy feet, moving slowly and unsteadily, in a manner that Jazra doubted was human, and knew could not be Rael.
Ohlt turned his back on the senior monk without a qualm, though it was plain that the man was not at home this far into the hills, nor was Common his native tongue.
He did not recognize the monk's accent, but that hardly mattered. Aston Tanak's prophecies might have quietly spread so far that folk came from lands Ohlt had never heard of to follow Simplicity, and learn at the feet of the prophet.
That was a better monument than Fedor Ohlt would ever have. After that thought came the hope that word of the comet's fall would spread even faster, so that folk bound for Aston Point would turn back in time to avoid whatever dangers it had unleashed. There were paladins and mages, wizards and clerics, to fight abominations from the sky or the Abyss. The world would not fall to the comet-spawned horde. But for a while, these mountains would be the wrong place to gather, for those who wished to die in bed.
The two monks must have also heard the footsteps. By the time Ohlt and his companions rejoined the circle around Tanak's body, they were completely invisible in the mist. He briefly wished that they were armed, but then realized that two untrained fighters in a battle on broken ground would hardly even the odds.
"If we are attacked, tell your brothers to flee, and tell the tale," Ohlt said. "Warn people to stay out of the mountains."
Now the footsteps sounded close enough that Ohlt expected something to burst out of the mist at any moment. Instead, he heard the footsteps halt suddenly, in a flurry of clatters and scrapings followed by curses.
Ohlt recognized the deep, harsh quality of the voice, even if he did not recognize the words. It was a dwarf.
So he was not surprised when one stumbled out of the mist, hauling a human male on a cloak tied between two saplings. Ohlt saw that the man was young, dressed in what was left of a soldier's garb and many bandages. He was, mercifully, unconscious.
Then Ohlt recognized Erick Trussk.
Ohlt stood as if turned into a tree, until the dwarf tried to brush dust off his ragged, stained clothes without letting go of the litter. He failed, but caught the litter before it fell.
"I am Chakfor Stonebreaker," the dwarf snarled, "and you are the bastard sons of drunken grimlocks who stand there, not helping me."
The dwarf and his burden had so much help all of sudden that the would-be helpers were nearly knocking one another down. Even the monk hurried forward, when Ohlt had expected him to kneel and pray beside Tanak's body.
Erick Trussk was alive, but only thanks to his youth and health. One did not need more than a seaman's knowledge of common injuries to know that he had broken ribs, a broken arm and leg, and severe burns that had mercifully halted clear of his face.
Hellandros took command at once, and Ohlt did not dispute it. Hours at most, minutes perhaps, would decide if Gredin would have her lover back, even if scarred and lame, or put on a mourning veil at an age when she should be putting on her wedding dress.
"M'lenda. Do you command weather—any at all?" Hellandros asked.
She shook her head. "I could not drown or blow out a guttering candle."
"Then bless him as you blessed Tanak, and use your healing of light wounds."
"If any of those wounds are light, I. . ."
Hellandros could see that she was flustered, and managed a good imitation of a smile. "Pardon," the wizard interrupted. "The blessing may ease his pain, or at least keep him from using up his last strength trying to tell us what we now already know.
"He also has cuts, bruises, and sprains, as well as the broken bones and the great burns. Any healing you can give him will ease more pain, and halt bleeding. A burned man must keep all his natural moisture in his body."
M'lenda nodded, but Hellandros had already turned to his other comrades. "I need some water."
"How much?" Elda asked.
"A whole bottle, if you have it, and it's clean."
"1 have it, but as to clean—"
"We can boil it," Brinus put in. Hellandros shook his head.
"It has to be cold. Icy cold, fresh from a spring would be best, but. . . ."
"Wait," the monk said. He seemed to hesitate, then held out a flattened bottle that seemed to be made of finely-glazed pottery. "I filled this from a spring not far back, one that we know runs clean."
Hellandros snatched the bottle from the monk's hands like a wolf snatching a goose. The monk recoiled.
"Your pardon," Hellandros said, struggling with the cork of the bottle. "I don't mean to seem like a wizard in a comic tale, with no manners and no common sense, but. . .."
"Let me open it," the monk said. He took it in one hand, and twisted the cork with the other. It popped out; Hellandros held his hand flat while the monk poured a few drops on it. The wizard licked them off, then actually grinned.
"Now, if this spell actually works outside the walls of the school or the grove. . . ."
The monk had knelt beside Aston Tanak's body. Now he seemed to start at Hellandros's words. Ohlt saw the monk shift position, so that he was still kneeling but could now look at Hellandros, Trussk, and M'lenda.
Hellandros waited until the half-elf rose from beside the soldier, then took her place. He put his ear on Trussk's chest, and listened, for all the world like the most common sort of street healer.
"Good, strong heart, but then he's young. That means the bones should heal well enough, and I don't hear any inward bleeding. But those burns . . . this works better with the druids' salve, but they never taught me the formula for it. One of the others at the school may know—"
"Hellandros," the dwarf interrupted, in a voice like distant thunder. "My clan is the Stonebreakers. Are you of the Talks-
When-There-is-Work-to-be-Dones?"
Hellandros went beyond grinning. He actually chuckled. "Stay your axe a while longer, my friend. I think I may do your friend some good."
Hellandros would doubtless do his best, however good that was. Ohlt did not think highly of Erick Trussk's chances for life, but he would certainly pray, along with Elda, to the Shieldmaster.
More practically, he
would also do something about his reawakened suspicions of the monk. He stopped by Elda and whispered in her ear, his mouth as close as if he had been whispering intimacies:
"If that monk moves from beside Aston Tanak's body before Hellandros is finished, put an arrow through his gizzard."
"I will, if my arrow can strike before my brother's spear."
"Just as long as the bastard is dead."
She shifted, and suddenly kissed him on the ear, letting her tongue play briefly inside it, just long enough for Ohlt to know that a woman's touch still brought pleasure.
He felt no guilt. Wylina had been in the habit of surprising him that way, also.
e © ©
Jazra missed some words of the exchange between Ohlt and Elda, but filled in enough gaps from the tones and facial expressions to take an invaluable warning. She doubted that an arrow or spear could even scratch her armor, but the breaking of the peace would likely enough end in the slaughter of thousands.
In spite of the danger, she had to force herself to sit still. The dwarf Chakfor Stonebreaker began his story, and Hellandros began his healing of Erick Trussk.
Jazra quickly recognized from Chakfor's story that he had been one of the two dwarves she had seen fighting the Secondary Director's first patrol. His cousin Ithun Stonebreaker was the one she had seen sleep-gassed and carried off, just before her courage snapped.
It would not snap now. She would not let it. Chakfor told of the stark horror of seeing his cousin among the Doomed. But he also told of seeing as many as thirty Rael, many of them in fighting condition, escape Fworta before the enemy took control of the area. Some of them, at least, were still alive. They had to be.
Chakfor went on to tell of finding Erick, and learning his tale. It was the tale of an experience that had sent Rael veterans fleeing into the wilderness, madness, or suicidal charges.
Erick Trussk was with the second patrol of soldiers to march upcountry from Aston Point. The first one had not reported back, or even sent.a message. The second had gone to learn the fate of the first.