“Shit, oh shit,” Shade muttered and added more speed to their climb. He couldn’t add too much without risking losing the wreckage entirely but then if he didn’t add enough the beast would likely pull them back under. He was a strong mage, but not stronger than a serpent of that size.
“Oh bloody hell, why is it following us?” Charm gasped, eyes flicking from the back of the ship to the view screen and back again.
“They aren’t the smartest of creatures. The ship moved, he thinks its food,” Shade said through clenched teeth. His eyes were locked on the view screen mapping the serpent’s progress. It was amazingly fast for such a massive creature. His breath caught in his throat as the immense jaws snapped down on the wreckage sending shards of wood scattering into the air. The serpent twisted its head, breaking a large portion of the wreckage away and let out a wail of frustration as it began to drop back into the waves. Swallowing heavily, Shade watched it disappear back into the murk and glanced at Charm. He gave a nervous chuckle and smiled. “I really didn’t expect that,” He said quietly.
“I can’t believe it went after the wreckage like that,” Charm said, his voice a bit shaken. With a shake of his head, he leaned back into his seat and stared at the image of the wreckage rocking behind them. “Now what?” he asked Shade.
“Now we get to the coast of Morcath as quickly and quietly as possible and get this smelted down. I have a few ideas of what I can do with Barllen and I think I know someone who can help,” Shade said, his voice returning to normal. Letting out another nervous chuckle, he shook his head ruefully and flipped the controls for the chains. It was better to have less distance between the wreckage and the spell hawk so it wouldn’t sway too much as they flew.
“Who?” Charm asked cautiously.
“You are so paranoid and that’s bad coming from me. I’m usually the most paranoid in a room,” Shade said with a shake of his head. “There is a smith I know in Southern Morcath. Remember, I told you I helped my father with a goblin issue a while back? Well his village is one that I helped. He is a decent man and he has helped me in the past. Actually he supplied me with most of the parts for this ship.” Shade ran a hand across the dash of his ship with affection and grinned at Charm. “Trust me,” he said, his grin widening with the words.
“You say that far too often,” Charm replied with an exasperated sigh.
“Almost as often as you say I’m insane,” Shade agreed with a wink.
Chapter 8
Sanctuary
“I’ve known Rose for about five years now. She has healed at all of the Spring Games that I can remember,” Wisp said over her shoulder as they headed up the stairs of the large stone building. It was set just south of the Arena in the center of Sanctuary and by the look of the building, the Healers within did very well for themselves.
“Are you sure they are going to be willing to work in my district?” Jala asked, her eyes trailing across the shiny brass fixtures on the door and outside lamp. “And will I be able to afford them?” she added, just before Wisp pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“Rose herself won’t be going. This is her building, but she said she had two apprentices that would be more than capable of handling the work,” Wisp replied, pulling her cloak off and hanging it on a wooden rack near the door. As usual, the small Fae was dressed in tunic and trousers in the Faydwer house colors of green and gold. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail with only a few strands coming loose to frame her delicate face.
“Ahh, I was hoping you would make it by today,” a woman’s voice called from the back of the room. Jala looked over from the painting she had been admiring and bowed her head to the woman. While she didn’t look old by common terms, she had a matronly appeal to her. There was no grey visible in her short golden curls and her smooth face was wrinkle free but the way she held herself and watched them, bespoke of age.
“It’s luck that we managed it. Jala is always busy,” Wisp said with a smile and waved a hand toward Jala. “Rose this is Jala, my friend I spoke to you about, and Jala, this is Rose, the best healer in Sanctuary,” Wisp said in introduction.
“From what Wisp tells me, you could be a formidable healer yourself. Repairing an eye is no simple trick,” Rose said with a warm smile. “Follow me and I’ll introduce you to the two I told you about yesterday”
“Thank you so much.” Jala bowed her head to the woman and moved to follow as she headed down the well-lit corridor.
The entire building had a pleasant scent to it, reminding her of fresh country air - crisp and pleasant. The hall was brightly lit with paintings on either side depicting various landscape scenes. She glanced at various doors curiously as they passed, but remained silent.
“It’s not often that I would let an animal into my hospital,” Rose said quietly as she stopped beside a brightly polished door and looked down at the Bendazzi. “I will make an exception this time, however, just for the chance to see a Bendazzi closer. They are such fascinating creatures, aren’t they? Kali is truly a genius with her work if only she would try to do more good.”
“I can barely stand to be away from him. I’ve gotten so used to having him beside me that when he is gone it feels as though a limb has been removed,” Jala said with a smile and ran a hand through Marrow’s coat affectionately.
“He is incredibly clean too, never makes a mess and hardly ever makes a sound,” Wisp added in smiling down at Marrow.
The first one to say good boy and pat me on the head loses a hand, Marrow warned her.
“Are the apprentices inside?” Jala asked, shifting the conversation from Marrow quickly. He had a fickle sense of humor and it was difficult to judge when he was serious, even for her.
“Yes, of course. You probably are in a hurry aren’t you?” Rose nodded and smiled before pushing the door open and waving them in.
The interior had the look of a study room about it with large bookshelves lining two walls. In the center of the room rested a table with two people seated there, staring down at open books. At the sound of the door they both looked up and bowed their heads in respect to Rose. One of them, a young man whose true age Jala couldn’t begin to guess, stood and offered a chair to Rose. He had reddish blond hair and a few scattered freckles. A half-blood she guessed by the thick glasses that rested on his nose. On others the frames might have looked awkward but on him they seemed to lend a scholarly air. The other healer stood as well, though more slowly. She was thin and dark of skin with her dark hair cut very short. At full height she was taller than Jala by several inches and built like a whip. Her features were perhaps a bit too sharp to be considered beautiful but the combination of her dark skin and pale grey eyes certainly made her exotic.
“Wesley, Kendry, I’d like you both to meet Jala. She is the one we spoke of earlier, seeking help for the Merro district,” Rose said sweetly. “Jala these are two of my best students. Wesley has a natural knack for working with patients that show fear and Kendry is very skilled in the more delicate procedures. I’m sure the two of them will be a great help to you.”
Wesley stepped forward with a smile and offered a hand. “Nice to meet you and good that someone is finally going to do something about the slums. The plague last year was barely contained.” His voice was rich with a slight accent.
“I have to wonder why you are helping them, though,” Kendry said, not moving from the table and eyeing Jala with a bit of suspicion.
“Her bedside manner is wretched but she is a good healer,” Wesley said with a grin before Jala could answer.
“I’m doing it for several reasons. The most important reason being that it should be done,” Jala said, her voice firm yet polite.
“The reason does not matter to us. What matters to us is what she requires of our services,” Rose said quietly, looking at Kendry with a slightly raised eyebrow.
“That would be a good thing to know,” Wesley agreed, glancing at his fellow student with what looked like a note of pleading.
“The first thi
ng I intend to do is either repair a building or build one, depending, to use as an orphanage. There are far too many children living in the gutters there. I can section part of it off to use as a clinic but I need to know what you will require in the clinic to work,” Jala explained.
“I can write up a list of the most common necessities,” Rose offered, and Jala nodded with a smile.
“That would be very helpful, thank you. That will take me a day or two, I would guess, and then you both will be able to work directly in the district. What kind of fee am I looking at?” Jala asked, guessing there was no point in dancing around the subject. It would be better to know in advance if she could even afford to pursue this.
Rose raised an eyebrow at Jala and then looked to Wisp and back to Jala. “The payment has already been made by Wisp. You have their services for a full year,” Rose explained, sounding a bit confused.
“Surprise!” Wisp said with a grin when Jala turned to look at her in shock. She gave a slight shrug and smiled wider. “I still had a lot of money left over from winning the archery at the Spring Games and you are right, it does need to be done, so I went ahead and hired them.”
Returning the smile, Jala gave the Fae a light hug. “Thank you so much, Wisp, I was a bit worried. You could have at least warned me.” She let the smile fall a bit and looked back to the two healers. “Well then, I guess all I need to know is what you want in the clinic and once that’s done we can get you both moved in.”
Nodding slightly, Wesley moved back to the table and took a piece of paper from his book. Leaning over he quickly scrawled a list and handed it over to Rose for inspection. The older woman read over it, nodding slightly, and then handed the list to Jala. “This is a good start. If they require more, they can let you know, but for now that should be more than sufficient,” she said.
Jala nodded absently and read over the note in her hands, relieved that most of the items seemed to be fairly common: various herbs, clean bandages, disinfectants, and such, all of which should be simple to get in Sanctuary. “I’ll see to gathering these then,” she agreed with a nod and smiled at both students. “It was nice to meet you both and I look forward to working with you. I don’t want to seem rude but I’m coming very close to being late for an appointment.” Bowing her head to them again, she smiled at Rose. “Thank you as well.”
“If you ever get time in your training regime and decide you want to learn more about healing, come see me. From what Wisp says, you have a lot of potential and that shouldn’t be wasted,” Rose said and escorted them from the room.
“I truly hope I can find time to take you up on that offer. I thought about transferring one of my classes to take a basic healing course at the Academy but I simply can’t. I need all of the classes I’m in,” Jala said, already trying to mentally rearrange her schedule to work in time to train with Rose.
“Don’t even think about it, Jala. I can see your gears turning. You have enough on your plate now,” Wisp said with a shake of her head. “Shame on you Rose. She barely finds time to sleep as it is,” she scolded and smacked the healer lightly on the arm.
Laughing, Rose smiled at Wisp. “I had to offer. Talent like you described shouldn’t be ignored.”
“If I find time, I promise I will be back,” Jala said sincerely as they stepped back out onto the stairs. Rose smiled and nodded before silently closing the door behind them. Feeling almost ecstatic at the prospect of having healers in her service now, Jala made her way back down the stairs with a bit of a bounce to her steps. “You know, I don’t think Kendry liked me at all but I’m still thrilled to have her working with us,” she said to Wisp with a grin. “And Wesley seemed nice.”
“Kendry will come around. Give her a bit of time. She doesn’t care much for the High Houses crowd. It took me weeks before she didn’t think I was pure unholy evil. From what I understand, both she and Wesley are from a lower merchant class and they had to work their butts off just to be able to get trained by Rose. Neither one of them had a shot of being able to train at the Academy,” Wisp explained, looping her arm lightly through Jala’s as they walked. “I wish you didn’t have training with Neph today. It’s so pretty out we should go for a ride or something. It won’t be long before the weather is all rainy cold and nasty,” she sighed wistfully, her head tilted back as she walked.
“I know, but I really need to learn, Wisp. If I had been training with Neph before we went to the Tolanteer, it would have gone much differently in that fight. My incompetence almost got all of us killed,” Jala said with a bit of disgust. “I couldn’t even cast a dispel right and Finn paid for it. I won’t let that happen again.”
Wisp eyed her for a moment with a raised eyebrow and sighed. “I suppose telling you to avoid getting into fights is rather pointless. You are married to Finn. Even if you weren’t as special as you are, you would be getting into fights, regardless.”
“It does seem that people either love him or hate him. I haven’t seen any middle ground at all,” Jala agreed.
“There isn’t much of one,” Wisp agreed with a sigh, then turned to look at Jala as she froze in mid step. A commotion to the side of the market had caught her attention and she watched in mild fascination as a woman scolded two young children outside a coach.
“I don’t care if you hate each other right now you will both be riding home in the coach, so I suggest you learn how to get along,” the woman was saying in a voice filled with annoyance.
“But he pulled my hair,” the little girl beside her screeched, nearly in tears and her lower lip trembling.
“Baby,” the boy shot back and stuck his tongue out at what must have been his sister.
“What brats,” Wisp whispered, sending Jala into peals of laughter. “What?” Wisp asked in confusion as Jala put a hand over her mouth and began walking again.
I’m a little curious as well. What? Marrow asked looking from her to the children and then back to her.
“It’s nothing. I’m sorry,” she said to Wisp and smiled down at Marrow. It made me think of Jail’s question. Those two children just gave me my answer, she explained to Marrow. The Bendazzi looked at her with the same look of confusion in his eyes that Wisp now held. Sighing, Jala looked at Wisp and then down to Marrow. “Do you remember the question Jail asked Me?” Jala asked Wisp.
“Why did the Guardians make our prison the way they did,” Wisp said with a nod.
“The answer is the same one those children just got. We have to sit behind the same barrier. We had better learn to get along. It’s not a prison so to say. It’s the corner we were made to sit in,” Jala explained with a smile. “If they truly wanted us to die off they wouldn’t have given us the means to provide for ourselves. Why create a bountiful land full of life and magic if they want us to die? They want us to learn to live together. But the older ones that were locked in here are still upset about being tricked so they call it a prison and teach us to call it that as well.”
“It does make sense,” Wisp agreed, then looked at Jala with a raised eyebrow. “I can’t say that I think it’s very funny though,” she said slowly.
Jala shook her head slightly, smiling at the Fae. “It’s not. I was just wondering how many of the Guardians looked at our forefathers and said, ‘What brats?’”
Smirking, Wisp nodded and chuckled lightly. “I’ll have to tell my father he is a brat in a corner. I’m sure he will love that.”
Glancing over at her, Jala grinned again. “Just don’t tell him who said it first, OK?” Glancing up at the sky she sighed and the grin faded. “I’m going to be late to meet Neph and he is going to complain half of the lesson over it,” she said with a sigh. Leaning over she gave Wisp a light hug and sighed again. “Thank you. I’m sorry I’m always in such a hurry. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” she spoke quickly and was already moving away as the last words left her mouth.
“She didn’t notice me at all,” Emily said quietly from beside her.
Jala gave a quick nod an
d tried to smile. “Now let’s see if Neph does,” she said with forced cheer and silently prayed to Fortune that Neph would notice the Blight child. It wasn’t that she wanted to endanger Emily. It was simply growing more and more unsettling as she realized no one could sense these creatures. She wouldn’t even have known Emily was there if the child hadn’t told her. If no one at all could sense them then they could be hunting in the streets even now, and no one would know. A shiver went up her spine at the thought and she shook her head to clear it.
“They are hunting here. I can sense them. I just don’t know where they are exactly,” Emily said quietly.
Stumbling to a halt, Jala leaned against a garden wall and let out a long slow breath. “You sense them in Sanctuary?” she asked quietly, her face paling as she spoke. With the reminder that Emily could scan her thoughts as easily as Marrow, Jala forced herself to remain calm. The thought of other Blights in the city had her near panic though.
“I do,” Emily replied, her voice sounding cautious. “They aren’t close to us here, though. They are far off in the city. You don’t have to be scared of them, either. I can sense them and I’m here.” The Blight spoke in soothing tones as if to a spooked animal and Jala felt a small hand grip her own.
“But you aren’t with Finn or my other friends. I’m not scared for me, Emily. I’m scared for everyone else,” she explained. “I’m going to have to tell them about you and the other Blights. I would have told them later anyway but knowing Blights are here now means I have to tell them now.” She paused and sighed. “This is very bad for all of us,” she said after a long moment, her voice barely a whisper. With a silent prayer to Fortune to keep her friends safe, she pushed off the wall. She moved quickly with Emily’s small hand still clutched in her own. Knowing for a certainty the Blight was with her was almost as reassuring as the immense Bendazzi pacing at her side. Between the two of them, Jala felt almost invincible. She knew how dangerous Marrow could be with his claws and spines and she had no doubt at all that Emily could be just as deadly.
The Elder Blood Chronicles Book 2 Blood Honor and Dreams Page 11