Flesh and Bone

by Robin Lythgoe

  “Hello, little Spirit spawn,” Healer Tylond greeted. His voice oozed into Sherakai’s ears like a slippery worm. He fought harder to free himself from Teth’s implacable grasp. “I trust you rested well this week?”

  A week? Surely only a day. Two at the most.

  “I see you are ready and eager for your next procedure. Look at all that energy!”

  He stopped dead. “Teth, don’t do this,” he whispered.

  The beast shifted its grip and pressed a comforting nose against his leg. Fesh slinked close, reluctance in every line as he too took hold of Sherakai.

  “Please, let me go,” he begged them, and dared to use his Voice.

  They both whined and writhed and snapped at the air—but they did not release him.

  Tylond held the torch up, shining its light on them. “Interesting,” he decided.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Or what? You’ll compel me, too?” He smiled. “I’d like to see you try, boy. You do know that a healer uses the same Gift you claim? Forgot, did you? It is unfortunate I cannot increase the proportions of your brain the way I can your body. It doesn’t matter. Without the means to apply it, the effort would go wasted.”

  Sherakai jerked hard against Fesh and Teth. He might as well have tried to break a tree with his bare hands.

  Tylond moved down the passage. “Come along. It takes a lot of work to turn lead into gold, and time is fleeting.”

  Fesh and Teth chittered as they half dragged, half shoved him after the mage. He had no doubt of their sympathy, and no doubt either of the magic that controlled them. He bucked and twisted until Tylond bade the pair hold him down on the floor. It took only a moment to apply a spell that stilled Sherakai’s body if not his mind.

  “I am beginning to think you enjoy terrible, constant pain,” he observed. “Else you would save your energy for what is to come. I rather like that about you. I’d let you go on with your struggling, but the jansu is waiting for us, and he’s brought a Fire mage along for fun.”

  Sherakai whimpered. The beasts carried him to the surgery and lifted him onto the wooden bench. Bairith appeared at his side, crooning senseless words. The beasts removed Sherakai’s clothing. Hot tears scalded his skin when the jansu held him and instructed Fesh to pour a potion into his mouth.

  “Hush, little dragon,” he soothed, massaging Sherakai’s throat and coaxing him to swallow. “This is for your own good. Trust me.”

  “It is not,” he protested. “It is for yours.”

  “Ours. You have a way to right an old wrong.”

  “How?”

  “Be my heir, my son. Join with me to bind our two lineages and create a new legacy.”

  He licked his lips and tasted the bitter brew. “Will you kill me if I refuse?”

  Bairith eased him down again. Tenderly, he brushed Sherakai’s hair away from his face, but he did not answer. Bit by bit, his features blurred, and no matter how many times he blinked, Sherakai couldn’t clear his vision. This was how the pain had started before, with this gentle, blissful warmth.

  The two men tied him down with the leather straps fastened to the wood. A third figure came to stand above him, peering down. Either its eyes glowed or the potion warped Sherakai’s mind.

  “Will you help me?” he asked.

  The figure spoke, the words garbled. Cold caressed his ears. Shadows stroked his skin. He pulled away, but had nowhere to go. A harsh grip on his jaw connected his attention to Bairith.

  “Do you remember your lessons about pain? Now is the time to put them to use. You will feel a pressure in your chest. A sharp stinging. Embrace it and pull it into you until it is yours completely.”

  Sherakai’s lips moved, but no sound came from them.

  Hands like brands pressed against his chest. Light grew around them.

  Then he burned…

  Chapter 12

  A strange, brilliant light made it difficult for Sherakai to see. A hazy figure moved nearby, but he could not judge the distance until a hand pressed against the skin of his arm. The cool contact brought a singularly wonderful relief. The touch left him, and an even cooler rag draped across his forehead. Bliss.

  It disappeared far too soon.

  “Yes, he lives, but at what cost?” a woman asked. “He is burning up.”

  “The Fire will catch or it will fade,” a man replied.

  “Or it will consume him. Then what will you do?”

  “It will not. You told me he would live.” Accusing, suspicious.

  Sherakai quivered. Quivering made the flames flare higher.

  “Where are the creatures? They need to put him in the bath again.”

  Something caught hold of his limbs, stripping skin in the process. The movement wrung a shriek and a searing blaze from him. Surely he must perish within it, but after a time, blue and brown diminished the flames. Milky white sucked at them and they shrank a little further.

  “You twist my words,” the woman continued. “Will you blame me when he dies, and you have lost this one brilliant chance to live again?”

  “Are you questioning my judgment?”

  “I am questioning your impatience. This was reckless, Bairith.”

  She should not question him at all. It would put her in danger. Who was she?

  “How dare you criticize me?” The awful light shuddered, run through with shades of purple and black and starlight.

  Shadows roiled up and sped toward her. Wrapped around her throat.

  “Do it.” She lifted her chin, daring him. “Kill me, and then who will see for you? Who will guide your steps on this twisted, bitter path you have chosen?”

  The shadows receded. “My path was laid for me a long time ago.”

  Sherakai did not think she agreed with him. Bairith chose. He chose…

  “Either way, you cannot afford to waste something so precious as this. He will be your answer unless you break him too hard or twist him too far.”

  “I cannot afford to step daintily and wait for a woman’s tender sensibilities.”

  Fabric rustled, loud as leaves in the wind.

  “Ignore me at your own peril.”

  “Do not threaten me,” Bairith growled, and the shadows surged forward again.

  “I threaten no one, my lord. You do. You hold in your hands the reins of many destructions, not least of all your own.”

  “Name them, that I might recognize my danger.”

  You are not the only one whose safety matters! Sherakai cried out, but the flames snapped and crackled, burning his words. A new cloth settled on his forehead. Droplets of water cascaded down his face, sizzled, evaporated.

  “Very well, they are these: You utterly destroy your dragon. You cripple him and he either ruins your dream or he ends you. Or you grant him more power than you can control and he rises so far beyond you that you cannot even see him.” She breathed the last with a dreadful wistfulness.

  “You’re seeing this future now. What is it?”

  Her breaths moved in and out of her lungs, giving life to the images in her vision. “The dragon. I see the dragon…”

  “You’ve seen him before this.” A whip crack of chastisement. “What is changed?”

  She shook her head and each hair cascading over her shoulders rang together like bells. Sherakai tried to clap his hands over his ears, but all he could do was splash ineffectively.

  “He is the same. Like copper in the sunlight. Magnificent wings lifted, ruination and healing in every line and motion.” She whispered, awed.

  “You speak gibberish, woman. Look at me. What does your dragon symbolize? Victory? Promise? Destruction?”

  “Yes…”

  The sound of a slap startled Sherakai, made him jerk and cry out. Another cry echoed his, nearly drowned in the clamor of a million tiny bells.

  “What does it mean?” The demand was as hard as iron.

  Sherakai put a hand to his burnt cheek. Cool, soothing water dripped down over his face, the drops crashing i
nto a heaving sea.

  “It means all those things, my love. Your choices carry you, but…” She considered in silence as she bathed Sherakai’s neck and chest. “Yours is not the only voice.”

  Bairith sucked in a breath and let it out again with exaggerated patience. “Explain.”

  “Have you ever heard a dragon sing?”

  Cloth rustled again, like a storm, and trees moaned. “I will leave you to nurse him since it seems to strengthen your visions. While you do, think on this image of yours. Find a way to put it into words I can understand.”

  She did not answer him. The very air shook as Bairith left. The door thundered behind him, leaving a stillness of spiny brambles and spiked promises.

  After a little, the woman began to sing. She dipped the cloth in the water and pressed it to Sherakai’s skin. “Fesh?” she called out after an eternity of honeyed melodies. “It is time to change the water again.”

  Fesh chittered softly in response.

  A crash of water buffeted Sherakai. His blazing eyes could not see it or the source, and he whimpered.

  “Hush,” the woman murmured as she and the beasts worked. “I know it is terrible, but we will make it less so. Together. You need not fear Fesh. He’s scooping the hot water out of the bath. Here, move your legs, easy, easy…”

  It was not easy. It stirred the flames.

  “Here is cool water now. Fesh is pouring it in, and Teth is here with another bucket full, fresh from the well. It is good, is it not?”

  It was better than good, it was delicious. Words as light as flower petals fell over him, whispering. Stay away from the Fire, Sherakai. Do not touch it. It is terribly beautiful but terribly dangerous. Stay away from the Fire, Sherakai…

  The cool water eased him, but it did not last. Still, it became part of a pattern that ever-so-slowly grew easier to bear. The light became less fierce and the volume of sounds softened.

  A gentle fingertip applied balm to his lips. He licked them instinctively and pried his eyes open. It reassured him immensely to find himself lying in a bath of cool water and not an ocean, to discover his skin reddened but not charred.

  Lavender-colored eyes regarded him, shadowed and serious.

  “You,” he whispered.

  The woman who had tried to save him and his sister gave him a sad smile. “Would you like to drink? I have clean water. Chilled.”

  “Yes.”

  She rose and disappeared from his view, but returned to press a simple wooden cup to Sherakai’s lips. When he finished, he leaned his head against the edge of the tub, too weak to hold it up.

  “Am I dying again?”

  “No, love. I wish you could.”

  He puckered his brows. What a strange thing for her to say, and yet it comforted him. “So do I.”

  “I am sorry.” She eased a comb through his damp hair, the repeated motion drawing him back to the depths of sleep. He woke again when Fesh and Teth carried him from bath to bed, weeping for the agony of skin and bone. They tucked him in with tender care, and the woman gave him another drink. It tasted of sweet flowers and he slept.

  In and out of wakefulness, he tolerated Fesh and Teth as they bathed him or rubbed his limbs. He endured the attention of Tylond with less ease.

  “You do not need to hurt him,” the woman insisted, remaining close.

  “You do not need to hover.” Though his voice was full of acid, the woman remained undaunted. “Which of us is the healer?”

  “Not you. Healers mend, they do not rend, shader.”

  “Be careful of your tongue, woman,” he hissed.

  “Better my honest tongue than your foul magic. You cannot see where your interfering will lead. You are a fool to ignore me, Tylond Corlyr, and you will die for it. I pray to the gods I am there when he kills you.”

  Sherakai squinted to make out the mage’s mocking face.

  Tylond snorted indelicately. “This? I do not fear him. He is as much my creature as he is Bairith’s.”

  “Today perhaps.”

  Tylond took Sherakai’s wrist and straightened his arm, ignoring the groan it produced. With his thumb against the bone, he held the end of an ink-marked ribbon and stretched it to Sherakai’s shoulder.

  “Listen.” She combed his hair back from his brow the way his mother used to do. “Sherakai, open your eyes and listen to me.”

  He opened his eyes. They were heavy and he didn’t want to fight the weight. But Tylond was gone, and the woman sat on the bed next to him. She smelled of flowers and grass, and her voice was too soft and sweet to ignore.

  “You have slept for many days, and my time with you is at an end.”

  “What?” Awareness slapped him. His pulse leaped. “Where are you going?”

  “Not far, but I will not be able to talk to you. Listen and do not forget these words. You are so strong. Here, and here.”

  She touched his temple, then his chest, then held his hand, so gentle Sherakai wanted to weep. So much about his existence had become harsh and unrelenting.

  “On the days when you are tempted to disbelieve in that strength or leave it behind, trust that it is there inside you. It is yours, Sherakai, and yours alone. It will be your salvation.” She fell quiet for a moment as she rubbed the back of his hand. She spoke again in a voice little more than a breath. “It will be your burden as well.”

  “How? What do you mean?” Such portent hung in the air, he feared to disturb it.

  “Hear me and remember. Protect your great heart. It is the ultimate source of your strength. Without it, there is no promise. You are not yet finished, Sherakai, but if you remember that one thing then even those who now stand against you will not prevail.”

  They were the grand sort of words that came with mystic prophecies. They looped around like graceful swallows in flight. Sherakai’s pain- and drug-fuddled senses found them beautiful and incomprehensible. He shook his head, and the woman bent to put her lips against his ear. She repeated the words over and over until he mouthed them along with her.

  “When will it save me?” he asked when her voice faded.

  Fesh whined and leaned on the bed, peering at him.

  “Where is she?” Pushing himself upright dizzied him and made his arms hurt, but he persisted. “The woman with the gold hair and the purple eyes. Was she here?”

  Fesh chittered in the affirmative.

  “At least it wasn’t just a dream.” He pulled his legs free of the covers. The potions Tylond and Bairith gave him had dulled the experience of being stretched to a greater height, but they hadn’t erased it. Remembrance of the cruel violence brought up the sour taste of bile. The pair of them were utterly insane. Instinctively, he looked down at his chest. Rippled, red skin in an uneven oval shape proved that the burn had been real, too. Stay away from the Fire, Sherakai. The words went round and round in his head. Had he?

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  Chapter 13

  He stood in a beam of rich sunlight streaming through the window of the tower room. The panels were closed but for one, which let in the sweet scent of spring. Bairith walked around and around him, fingers trailing across chest, shoulders, back… The youth didn’t move but for his breathing, hands relaxed at his sides, face neutral. The jansu’s magic dug at him, curious at first, then more painfully. Sherakai countered with a silent repetition of one of the simple meditations. As a youth he’d thought them a stupid waste of time. Now they were a lifeline he could never hold onto tightly enough to save himself. Bairith would eventually wear through his control. He had done so every day for the last seven. Which was the better choice—to resist as long as he could and build his ability to withstand the trial and protect some small part of himself, or to give in and let Bairith believe he’d won?

  He opted abruptly for the latter and released the words that supported him.

  Bairith came to a stop before him. “You were very far away. Where do you go?” The sense of curiosity resumed though he did not ask the
accompanying question. How do you leave me?

  Sherakai could not admit the truth, but he could not lie, either. “In search of strength.”

  “To defy me?”

  Sherakai met his gaze. “Is this not a test? A practice?”

  The mage inclined his head in assent, then cupped the youth’s jaw. “Such eyes you have… When you are calm they are like the first buds of spring. When you are angry, they darken to jade. But they are always arresting.”

  Uncomfortable with the attention, Sherakai strove not to flinch. Flinches showed weaknesses. Bairith exploited weaknesses.

  “Come. Let us begin.”

  He was glad to be released. Glad not to be looking into those doorways to Bairith’s soul.

  Today a bowl of water sat in the center of the floor. Before this, Bairith had presented various combustibles: wood, dry hay, cotton, paper. His inability to set them aflame had frustrated Bairith and given Sherakai courage.

  “We have tried what amounts to violence. Now I want you simply to heat the water.”

  Scrunching his brows, Sherakai knelt, holding the bowl between his knees. The dish was thin beaten metal. It was decidedly unimpressive considering the jansu’s preference for beautiful things. Instead of giving Bairith a dubious look and earning a caning, he bent his attention to the magic.

  He did not expect Bairith’s hands on his shoulders.

  The mage crouched behind him and leaned close, his mouth next to Sherakai’s ear. “Let me see what you do, little dragon,” he whispered. “Show me.”

  Sherakai swallowed several times before he could calm himself enough to focus again. Bairith’s own energy ran through the link connecting them. Sherakai recognized it as a prickle, brown but shaded with gray. Extending his senses, he drew bright, delicate aro inward until it filled him. Gently, he pushed it toward the bowl.

  Nothing happened. Biting his lip, he continued to encourage the water to warm. Instead, it shifted unevenly, splashing droplets over the rim onto his hands and knees. Still, still, he ordered it, soothing the commotion. When it calmed, he began again.