by Fran Jacobs
"But I-I thought that you had. All those healers you sent for ... some of them were so famous and from so far away ... what else can you try?"
"There is someone else," my grandfather said quietly. "And I know she can succeed where others have failed."
"Then ... then why didn't you send for her before? Why would you hold something back from me if you thought that it could save me?"
"Not me, Candale." Sorron soothed my hair. "Your father. He doesn't like this person, he doesn't trust her and he fears what will happen to you if we let her near you, but I don't think that we have a lot of choice." I nodded. I was feeling weary now, so I let my eyes flicker shut again. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes, sir," I whispered. "You know I do."
"Then trust me on this, I'm not going to let you die. Now, can I get you anything else before I go?"
"No," I whispered. "I'm all right, but will you stay, please? J-just until I fall asleep?"
"Of course, Candale." The hand left my hair and moved over to grasp my wrist. His fingers were warm and strong against my own. I felt his touch comforting me as the darkness swarmed around me and pulled me down.
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Chapter Two
MAYRILA
I woke to the sound of angry voices, harsh and controlled, speaking in my bedchamber. This was new to me. Everyone who usually came to my room was quiet, well-behaved and gave tactful responses to the things that I asked, as though angry voices and telling me the truth might hurt me and make me sicken further. It was interesting to hear the argument now, especially as it was about me.
"I have sent for her, Gerian." That was my grandfather; I could recognise the cold, curt tone of the voice he used when he was angry. "I'm sorry. I know how you feel about her, but I'm not going to let the boy die because of your fear and hatred of her."
"Candale is not going to die." That was my father's stubborn voice. Mother would always joke that my father could be harder to move than a mountain when he wanted to be. "The boy is just unwell. He will get better. He will be fine." He gripped my hand, squeezing so hard that I was afraid he would break my fingers. I bit down on my lip, hoping that they would not see that I was awake, and stop talking about me. No one had told me anything about my illness and, now that they were talking about me, I wasn't going to do anything that might make them stop. "My boy will be fine."
"Saying it over and over isn't going to make it happen, Gerian. We have to do something about this. I let you bring in those healers and I watched them prod and poke him and force different coloured drinks down his throat, and I watched him worsen. He's barely alive now. Look at him, lost in a fever, unaware of anything going on around him. Look at him, Gerian. Just look at your only son!" There was a long pause and when my grandfather spoke again his voice was heavy with sorrow and fear. I had never heard him sound like that before. "I hate to see him when the pain takes him, Gerian. That look in his eyes, the way he moans and weeps, I can't stand to see it. He fears that he's going to die, he's terrified, and I fear it, too, and I will not let that happen just because you're too stubborn to do what you have to do to save him!"
"I won't let her near him, Father," Gerian said. "You know what she said about him. You know what she wanted to do. I won't let that happen to my son. I rather he die than that happen to him."
"Don't be ridiculous, Gerian." I heard the sound of a chair being scraped back. "Mayrila is our only choice. We have left it too late to send for someone else; the boy might be dead before they could get here. Mayrila is the closest and, despite everything, we know that we can trust her with Dale." There was another long pause and then I heard my grandfather sigh. "I'm sorry, Gerian. I hate to do this to you, but I don't have a choice. I won't let you stand in the way and, if I have to, I will ban you from coming into this room. I will keep you away from your only son until Mayrila has done what she has to." I started at that. I had never heard my grandfather speak that way to my father before, threatening to ban him from my bedside? Sorron had never come between us, even when he thought that my father was wrong about something, as in the way that Gerian had chosen to punish me, more often than not, but he had never interfered, and I never thought that he would. "It will be done, Gerian, and I'd much rather that you're here, to hold your son's hand, than locked away in your suite like a naughty boy."
"You wouldn't-," my father began.
"Yes, I would," Sorron replied firmly. "And I know that it won't look good, to have my only son locked in his suite, but it will be much worse if Candale dies and it's learnt that we could have saved him."
"Fine," Gerian snapped then. "Do what you want to, but you take responsibility for this. If Dale's life is ruined, it's your fault."
"I rather that he have a life for me to ruin, than he die at seventeen," my grandfather replied. I heard the sound of his footsteps and the closing of the door as he left my room.
I heard my father sigh, it was a sound full of pain and exhaustion. His grip loosened on my hand and I felt his fingers in my hair. He sat beside me, for a long time, soothing my hair and then he left me and I was alone.
Soon afterwards I tumbled back into sleep.
***
Everything became a blur to me, a sea of faces and voices that I couldn't focus on properly. I was vaguely aware of at least one conversation, in that mad, dizzying rush of noise, between my sister and my father, discussing me. My father was berating Lara because she had taken me outside and now I had a fever. My sister was arguing that I had wanted to go outside, that I had enjoyed it, and that there was no proof that taking me outside had given me the fever, that in the last three months I had had several bad fevers, and how could anyone be sure that I just hadn't been due for another one? I knew from my father's tone of voice, as he replied, that he didn't believe her.
Over my head they bickered. The voices seemed so loud that they grated on my ears and I feared that they would deafen me. But all too soon it became a blur with other conversations, with other noises going on around me. I lost track of everything in that mad rush. I lost track of myself.
***
The silken pillow under my head felt warm. Everything around me was hot and dark and I felt as though I was suffocating in the heat. I moaned, struggling to throw off the covers, and hands held me down. "No arguing," I said. "None at all."
"No arguing," a voice agreed. Male I think.
"I want to go outside," I said. "Feel the sun. I miss the sun."
"It's night, Candale. There is no sun."
"It's too hot. Everything is hot." Something cold and wet touched my forehead and I felt something drip down my face. I gasped, it was so cold against the heat of my body, the heat that was holding me. "Just let me go," I breathed. "Please?" I could feel pain, somewhere, distantly, in my stomach. It felt, in a detached sort of way, as though an iron vice had gripped my organs and was twisting and crushing them inside me. I moaned and struggled against the pain, but it felt faint, separate from the rest of me. It was another part of me that was feeling this pain, it wasn't the real me. The real me was burning up, lost in the hot darkness. "I hurt. I-I just want to go." A hand held mine and I seized it as tightly as I could, clinging to it, the only thing that felt real in the heavy world of shadows and distant pain.
"Go where, Candale?" the voice whispered. Another hand covered mine and the contact burned against my skin. This was more real than the pain I felt inside me and I flinched, trying to draw away, only my body didn't want to move, it didn't want to obey me, and I couldn't release the hand that a moment ago I had seized so tightly.
"Just go," I said faintly. "I just want to go."
The darkness took me again.
The next thing I knew I was lying on the floor and I was in pain, with a tight knot in my stomach and my head pounding. It was dark all around me, I couldn't see anything, but I could feel the hardness of the wood beneath me. It was comforting, as it felt solid and real, far better than the deep, soft bed in which I ha
d felt myself drowning. There were voices above me, moving around, making me feel dizzy and I could hear footsteps vibrating through the wooden floor beneath my head. I wanted to just lie still and listen to them walking, enjoying the feel of the floor and the sound of the footsteps which felt more real to me than anything had for a long time.
But the pain was so intense.
I whimpered and struggled to turn onto my side, to draw my knees up to my chest, only I couldn't. My body felt so numb and heavy, I couldn't move it. There was nothing on top of me, no covers to hold me down, so why couldn't I move? "Help," I begged. "I can't move. I can't see!"
"Candale," I heard my father whisper. There were footsteps and a lantern was brought near to me. I saw my father's face, his strong face and broad forehead cast in shadows, with dark rings of sleeplessness around his blue eyes, as he leaned over me. His blond, slightly wavy hair hung limp around his face. In the sickly yellow light he looked so strange to me. "You're awake."
"Of course he is," said a woman in a curt, cold voice. "I told you that he would be. You still don't listen to me, do you, Gerian? Or trust me. How many healers did you bring here to try and break the boy's fever? How many remedies did you try? I have been here less than an hour and I have already broken it."
"We tried everything that we could," my father said, in a tight voice, "to avoid having to send for you!"
"That much is evident," the woman replied. "But if you had been able to get over your foolish pride and had sent for me as soon as the boy took ill, then he wouldn't have wasted his summer dying slowly in this claustrophobic, stinking room." I heard movement and then a flash of cold as a light breeze suddenly swarmed around me. "There! The window is open, as it should have been before." I heard the sound of more footsteps and slowly the light grew around me as the room was lit up. I gasped and blinked. The light hurt my eyes.
"Help me," I whispered. "I want to sit up."
"No," the woman told me. I heard her draw near to me and then she was kneeling beside me. I stared up at her face. Violet eyes met mine, framed by black curly hair, like mine, like my mother's. She was very pale, with a sharp, pointed face, not really pretty, and she was very tall. Dressed in black, it made her pale skin seem even paler. Lady Death. I swallowed back fear and moaned again, seeking to move nearer to my father, but I don't think I moved at all. "I'm going to help you, Candale. I'm going to save your life."
"Too late," I said. "Am dying... I just want to go."
"Not too late," she said. "Nearly too late. That fever nearly took you from us. Seven days you lay in that bed, your body burning up, but within an hour of my arrival I had broken your fever. I promise you now, Candale, that by morning, you will be well again. You'll be weak and the process will hurt you a lot, but you will be well. You won't die." She reached out to touch my face and I shied away from her white fingers. She smiled at me. "If your father wasn't so stubborn, this would not be so hard on you, or on me. I just arrived, Candale, do you know that? Six days in the saddle, I have barely slept, barely eaten, and as soon as I arrived here, before I could even change my clothes, I was dragged in to see you. And what did I find when I opened the door? A claustrophobic room, heavy with the scent of death and sickness and a wasted, shrivelled body lying on the bed. Barely a boy. Barely even human. I should have been sent for months ago." She lifted her eyes to meet my father's gaze. "As much as you hate me, Gerian, you should never have let this to happen to your only son." She got to her feet. "Sire, please, will you kneel at the boy's feet. I need him held down. This will hurt."
"It does already," I said. "My stomach ... my stomach hurts." I started to cough, choking. My father lifted my head to make it easier for me and I coughed hard, struggling to draw air into my lungs through my nose. I felt wetness in my throat and coughing miserably, to bring it out of me, I saw blood spray across my white nightshirt.
"See?" the woman said, in her cold voice. "His organs are dying. He will slowly start to cough them up. If I had been sent for any later, if I had arrived any later, even a day, I think that it would have been too late to save him. As it is, it's going to take everything that I have and cause the boy much pain."
"Can't we drug him?" I heard my grandfather ask.
"No," was the reply. "He has been drugged enough. There is a lot of poison in his system. We need to flush it out, we don't want to add to that with medication."
"Poison?" my father said.
"Are you sure about that?" Sorron asked.
"As sure as I can be," the woman replied. "Lie him down." My father obeyed, lowering my head back against the wood. I heard my grandfather move as he sat himself down at my feet. "But we can deal with those who have poisoned him after we have dealt with their victim. Hold him firm. Though he has no strength, he will fight this, and you would be surprised at how strong even the dying can be when they're in as much pain as I'm about to put him in."
I felt hands grip my ankles; the touch burned me and I kicked feebly against the contact. Then the woman was kneeling beside me again, leaning over me with her violet eyes nearly all pupil in the dark.
"You have eyes like mine," I told her distractedly.
She smiled at me. "You have eyes like mine," she corrected. I sensed my father stiffen as he drew his breath in sharply. The woman gave him a withering look. "Just hold him down," she said. "Firmly. Don't worry if you bruise him." My father leaned over me, his strong hands gripped my shoulders, while my grandfather seized my feet. It felt as though there was a mountain on top of me. Two mountains, one holding down my feet, the other my shoulders. The pain in my stomach was intense and I started to cough again, but this time no one moved to let me up and for a moment I feared that I would drown lying flat on my back while they held me down.
"Gods," I moaned. "Drakan help me."
"Drakan won't help you," the woman told me. "I don't remember the last time a god helped anyone. But I will help you. If you'll just lie still and let me." She laid her hands on my temples; her fingers were hard and hot, and it filled me with a sudden sense of panic. Then the heat began to grow, a brilliant, sharp sensation, as though she had taken a piece of metal and stuck it into my temples, and then slowly heated it so that the heat flowed down it and into my head.
"It hurts," I said.
"Yes," the woman replied.
The pain began to grow.
At first it was just isolated to my temples, sharp, burning pain, like white lightening, flashing into my skull. I could feel the heat, red agony, behind my eyelids, burning, as though my eyes were on fire. My face felt tight, hot, and inside my head it felt as though a fire was raging, a wild inferno. "It hurts," I whispered again, and I started to struggle, shaking my head, trying to dislodge her hands. "Stop!"
"Hold him," the woman said. I felt the pressure increase on my ankles and my shoulders as my father and grandfather bore down on top of me.
"Please," I whispered. I tried to meet my father's eyes, but he was staring ahead, not looking at me. The pain was growing now. It flowed through me like a tidal wave of flames, starting slowly and gradually, increasing steadily as it went. Wave upon wave of unceasing white fire slid down my spine and along my body, passing through every nerve, burning through every cell. I could feel the intense heat of it from the tip of my hair through to my toenails. I could feel it deep inside every part of me, white heat searing every organ. I could almost smell my own flesh burning and hear the skin popping.
I cried out and struggled more erratically, desperately striving to throw off the hands that held me, those heavy mountains that were pinning me down, so that I could escape this endless sea of intense pain. "Please," I panted. "You have to stop!" But the pain kept on growing and the weights that held me down now felt as though they were crushing me. Beneath me the floor was hot and my nightshirt was burning me where the cloth lay against my skin, but no amount of wriggling could get me out of it, out of my skin, to allow some cool air to ease the pain.
And through it all the white light ke
pt on coming and my loved ones held me down, keeping me at its mercy.
I started to scream.
***
There was silence and it was so loud it deafened me. Everything was cold, my body was covered in drying sweat, the pain had gone, but my body ached as though I was covered in bruises. I was lying on my side on the floor, it was a hard presence beneath my face, and my throat was raw. I licked my lips.
"Can I have some water?" I whispered.
My head was lifted up into my father's arms and my grandfather held a glass of water to my lips. Greedily I drank it down, letting it ease my sore throat and spill over my chin. There were tears in Sorron's eyes, but he smiled at me. "How do you feel?"
"As though a mountain fell on me," I said. "It hurts to breathe."
"It will do," the woman said, "for a while. Why don't you take him into the other room, Gerian? Sit him on the couch while some servants clean up in here and strip that bed of his."
"Yes," my father whispered. "All right." While my grandfather held me upright, my father got to his feet. He lifted me easily into his arms. "Will you tell Aylara and Silnia that Candale is awake, Father? That his fever is broken?"
"Not just his fever," the woman said. "The boy is fine now. Weak, will need to rest, but he won't die. I have driven the poison out of his system and repaired the damage to his organs, something that no healer would ever have been able to do."
"I will tell your wife and daughter about your son," Sorron said. There was an odd look in his eyes as he looked at me. "And Mayrila, perhaps you would like to rest now? It's been a long journey for you and you've worked hard tonight."
"Thank you," the woman replied. She swept out of the room in a rustle of her skirts.
My father took me through into my sitting room and settled me down onto my blue cushioned couch. He swept a blanket over me and knelt on the floor beside me.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Sore," I said. "It ... it hurt so much." But the pain was fading from me, as though it had just been a bad dream. Had it really been so bad that I had been forced to scream? My throat was sore, a good indication that I had been screaming for a while, yet none of that pain felt real to me now. My whole body just felt numb. Then I saw the look in my father's eyes and the bruise that was forming on the side of his face. "What happened to you?" I asked.