Talen looked for the hatchlings and saw the door to the cellar lay flat, shut up tight.
When River looked up, Talen saw her face go from annoyance to concern. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“It’s an overdose of come-backs,” said Nettle. “Or worse. Earlier, he’s a picture of liveliness—blinding fast, wrestling Fabbis to the ground, leaping to the tops of the trees. Now look at him. Nothing more than smelly dishrag. And he’s seeing frights.”
“I need something to drink,” said Talen.
“He’s drunk a barrel today. I’ve never had to stop so many times waiting for a body to relieve himself.”
River cleared the table. “Put him here.”
“Did the Fir-Noy come here?” asked Talen.
Nettle dumped him on the table.
“I haven’t seen any Fir-Noy,” said River. She began pulling up the sleeve of Talen’s tunic. “Where did Da tie the charm?”
“How did you know he gave me a charm?” asked Talen.
“Where did he tie it?”
“Here,” said Talen and lifted the other sleeve. He looked down at his leg. The fright was there, squatting all knobby and hideous, staring at him with one of its raisin eyes.
River fingered the braid and cursed. Her face turned grave. “And he talks about risks.” She removed the charm and cast it to the floor.
“Who?” asked Talen.
“Nobody,” said River. She slid her hand into the collar of his tunic. She had no sooner put her hand to his chest than she gasped and withdrew it.
“He’s got the plague,” Nettle said. “Doesn’t he?”
“Do you have any of the baker’s goods left?”
“Three small cakes,” said Nettle. “I’ll get them.” Then he went back outside.
“Has he poisoned me?” asked Talen.
“No,” said River. “And it’s not Nettle’s plague either.” She looked at him, and Talen could tell something had happened. She was deciding if she should share some secret with him.
“Goh,” he said. “It was the kiss. That girl!” He’d been wrong; they would have to kill her after all. Talen’s weariness pressed down upon him even more. “And her familiar has attached itself to my leg.”
River said nothing, but of course she wouldn’t. Not if the girl had magicked her. He thought of the girl kissing him, and of kissing Atra, and then about being married, and that idiot that was courting River, and then he realized his mind was wandering. He focused on River, and it all came back to him in a rush.
“We’ll have to be quick,” he whispered.
“What?” said River.
“Quick,” said Talen more loudly. “Quick. Kill them, the boy and girl, quick.”
At that moment he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned and saw the girl standing in the doorway to the back room.
River followed his gaze. “He’s out of his mind,” she said to her.
“I’ll divert her,” said Talen. “You clobber her with the pot.”
“Be still,” River commanded.
Talen looked at the girl for a while, waiting for her to spring. “Playing us like a cat? Is that your pleasure?”
“Sugar,” River said. “I need you to fill the mule’s watering trough. We’re going to need to lay Talen in it. Have Nettle help you drag it in here.”
Sugar looked at the two of them, a storm brooding on her face. Talen thought she was going to say something, but she must have decided against it, for she strode across the room and out the door.
“Now’s the time,” said Talen.
“Will you shut up,” said River. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. This isn’t her doing. It’s Da’s.”
That made no sense, no sense at all. But River wouldn’t listen to him. She brought a candle near to get a good look at his eyes and mouth. Then she began peppering him with questions: when did the thirst start, how many small cakes did he eat, what did Da do when he tied the charm on his arm, had he been hearing a ringing in his ears? Talen struggled to answer them all.
Finally, he held up his hand. “My leg. She’s sucking the life out of my leg.”
Something moved at the window.
The shutters had not been closed tightly, and a pair of pale twigs seemed to shoot in over the sill. From his position on the floor, he couldn’t make any sense of them, but there they were. Tree roots on the window. Then a twisted head appeared, followed by a long body. Another fright, smaller than the one about his leg. It pulled itself up onto the sill.
“There’s another,” he said.
“Another what?”
“Nasty little thing,” he said and motioned at the window. “It’s got cold fingers.”
River looked up and followed his gaze. “There’s nothing there.”
“There is,” said Talen. “And there’s another wrapped about my leg. Right there by your hand.”
River froze, her expression changing from puzzlement to dismay. The creature about his leg didn’t move either. It watched them, extending its fingers in a slow crawl.
River put her hand on Talen’s leg, partially covering the thin fingers of the fright. Her hands felt warm.
“You’re touching it,” Talen said. “Did you not feel it?”
She pulled her hand away. “How many are here?”
“Two,” he said.
She cursed, then calmly picked up Talen’s godsweed charm, took it to the hearth, and thrust it into the fire. The godsweed smoked, then caught fire. “And thus a portion of my life goes up in smoke,” she said, which made no sense at all to Talen. Then she pulled the weed back out of the fire, blew out the flames, and tossed the smoking remains onto the ash pan. Then she took a pair of tongs and removed three hot coals from the fire and put them in the pan as well.
“Where are they now?” she asked.
“The little one’s at the window. The bigger one is right here.” Talen moved his leg.
River picked up the ash pan and then approached, blowing on the smoking braid. She blew smoke into his face. Blew it on his leg. Godsweed was not a sweet herb and Talen did not like the taste of its smoke.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Nettle says it’s just the come-backs.”
“Be gone!” said River. She blew more smoke about his leg.
The knobby creature on his leg eyed her.
“It’s not afraid of you,” said Talen.
River blew again and waved the smoking pan around him.
The creature turned as if trying to avoid the smoke. But River blew again and the thing released Talen’s leg and jumped to the floor.
“There he goes,” Talen said. But the thing only shuffled a few steps, then stopped.
River followed Talen’s gaze. She waved the smoking bowl around in the air. Blew more smoke. Then the fright scuttled up the wall and out the window. The little one lingered a few seconds longer, then followed the first.
“You got him,” said Talen. “He’s off to torment the chickens.” Then Talen wondered why it would do that? Was this the reason Da’s last batch of hens died off? It seemed reasonable. “They’re the ones killing the chickens,” he said.
“You’re babbling,” said River. She went to the window and waved the smoking bowl there, and then she closed up the shutters and brought the bowl back and placed it in the middle of the room on the floor. There was no fire to it anymore. Just coals and smoke.
Nettle and Sugar opened the door and bumped their way through with the empty trough and set it close to the hearth.
“Stand over that bowl,” she said. “Smoke yourselves.”
“Goh!” Nettle said. “Are you kidding? A real fright?”
“Just do it.”
When Nettle and Sugar finished, River said, “Now fetch the water.”
“With a fright out there?”
“The smoke’s in your clothes. Move!”
Nettle growled, and Talen couldn’t tell if it was in frustration at River or to muster up his courage to fa
ce the fright. Then he marched out the door, the sleth girl right behind him. River walked over to the wall where their five white ceramic plates hung. She took down one plate, brought it to the table, and broke a small cake upon it. Then she lit four more candles and turned them on their sides about the plate to give the small cake more illumination.
She dug at it with the point of a knife, examining the crumbs. “I see nothing.”
She held one up, sniffed it, and then took a bite. After savoring it for a while, she swallowed it and shook her head. She ate the other two small cakes and drank a cup of water. “Sometimes certain herbs magnify the effects of the charm. But I can detect nothing of that sort in these,” she said. “If there’s anything in them, we will shortly know. In the meantime you need to soak. Take off your clothes.”
All this time Nettle had been hauling in water, first to fill the large pot Sugar had put over the fire and then to fill the trough. The thought of moving daunted him, and Talen found he couldn’t do more than look at that trough.
“Never mind,” River said. “I’ll do it. Sugar, is that hot yet? We don’t want to freeze him.”
Talen wanted to protest, but it was no use. River had him out of his tunic and pants in moments. Mercifully, she left his linens on. Then she helped him over and slid him into the trough.
The trough was slick with orange slime, and the freezing water just about sent him into shock. But a second later, he couldn’t muster enough energy to care. The cold meant nothing. He didn’t even care when the girl dumped the boiling water in too quickly and scalded his legs. The hatchlings were in control now—it was too late for all of them.
His eyes were heavy, so itchy with sleep. He closed them.
A moment later River shook him by the shoulders. “Talen!”
“Let me alone,” Talen said and drifted off into no thought at all.
River slapped him. Then slapped him again.
He opened his eyes.
“Listen to me,” she said. “You will die tonight if we do not change the course of what’s happening.” She pressed her hand to his chest again as she had done at first. “This isn’t come-backs. Some herbs can heighten the effect. But there was nothing in those small cakes. If there had been, I would be feeling the effects by now.”
“Effects,” repeated Talen. Something about that struck him funny and he giggled.
River stood and addressed Nettle. “Keep him awake. Use whatever it requires, but do not let him sleep.” She moved to the table and began unraveling her weaving of Da’s hair.
Nettle first tried to make Talen talk. When that failed, he began with slapping, pinching, and poking. But Talen didn’t care. He just wanted to close his eyes.
The next moment a searing pain ran up Talen’s arm. He cracked an eye and saw Nettle standing there with a stick from the fire. “Are you trying to roast me!”
“Aha,” said Nettle. “It’s fire that will keep him awake.”
But he was wrong. Talen’s eyes drooped close again.
Nettle burned his other arm.
“Aagh!” Talen said and almost came out of the tub.
“You can’t sleep,” Nettle said.
“Put your tortures away,” said Talen.
“No,” Nettle said and poked him with the burning stick again.
“Goh,” Talen said. “You and that sleth girl can perform your depredations after I’ve rested.”
But then River finished braiding Da’s hair and tied what she’d been weaving to Talen’s arm precisely where Da had tied that godsweed charm.
“I’ll give it a few minutes,” she said. It sounded like she was trying to reassure herself.
“There’s no virtue in hair,” said Talen.
“There isn’t?” asked River.
“I’ve never heard of it,” said Talen.
“What about Atra’s hair?”
“She’s given me up,” said Talen.
River made him relate the whole story of what happened at the glass master’s until Talen realized all she was doing was trying to keep him talking so he’d stay awake.
“I’m going to sleep,” he said. “Burn me if you like. I don’t care.”
River put her hand to his chest again. She looked desperate. She took him by the head then, her two hands clasping the back of his skull. “You need to help me,” she said.
“I can’t get up,” he said. “You’ll have to kill her yourself.”
“Talen,” said River. “I can’t stop the flow. You’re bleeding Fire. Your days are rolling off you like smoke. You must help me.”
“Fire?” asked Talen.
River glanced at Nettle and Sugar then faced Talen. She’d decided something. He could see that by the set of her brow.
“You’ve been multiplied,” she said. “Da began your awakening, but it’s all gone wrong. You need to close it off.”
That made no sense to Talen. Only dreadmen and Divines could do that. Then through the fog of his mind he began to feel at the edges of a horrible idea.
“You’re going to feel an intrusion,” said River. “Fight it. Push with all your might. You’re leaking through a thousand holes. You’ve got to close every last one of them.”
Suddenly he felt something enter him. It was crushing, and he gasped.
Push! A voice in his mind said.
He’d been caught once in a tumble of earth, and this was what it had felt like. A panic began to rise in him.
He could feel her. He could feel River in him. The weight of her presence began to bear down, and it terrified him.
Talen tried to flee, but she was everywhere. A crush of sand.
Fight me, you fool.
He struggled against her.
Fight!
“I don’t know how!” he shouted.
All about him the sand of her presence pushed at him, coming in through his ears, his nose, his mouth. She stole the very air he breathed.
Talen lashed out, and in one part he felt her recede.
Was it his imagination?
He tried to push her again, but whatever he’d done fell to pieces and River’s presence swallowed him. He was trapped, pinned, a man drowning under a ton of grain.
His panic rose to a pitch, then he did something—he couldn’t explain it—he pushed, and he found he could breathe again. He pushed again. And she moved further.
That’s it! Fight!
River rushed at him with renewed force, but he held his space and withstood her. He did not know how long he struggled, managing only to keep her far enough away to breathe. Then he closed a small rent in his fabric.
Another, she said.
But there were so many.
Close another!
Talen was so tired, but he fought. He fought and lost track of time. It was only him and the suffocating sand of his sister.
After what seemed like hours, he found himself facing the last hole, one rent in his fabric that separated him from the rest of creation. It was like trying to stop a river with his hand. Talen fought to no effect.
“I can’t do it,” he said and did not know if he’d spoken this aloud or just in his mind.
You will! River said. Mother didn’t save you only to have Father kill you with his reckless ways.
It’s just one hole.
Close it!
Talen mustered the last of his strength and tried to close the rent. And to his surprise he felt it narrow and then shut up tight as boiled leather.
He slumped in the tub. Tired. He was deathly tired. And thirsty. But the ragged edge of his weariness was dulled.
Talen opened his eyes. Most of the water had sloshed out of the trough to the floor. River’s tunic and pants were soaked all down the front. She slumped alongside the trough, and heaved a sob of relief.
Nettle and the girl stood behind her, their faces slack with confusion and shock. Talen started to say something to Nettle, but his exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he closed his eyes.
* * *
Talen wo
ke and found himself in River’s bed. Someone had slipped small heated sacks of grain under the covers next to him to keep him warm.
He could see through the shutters that it was still dark outside. On the floor beside the bed stood a jug of water. Talen slowly sat up. His head swam, and he clutched it until the dizziness passed. He grabbed the jug and took a long drink.
When he finished, River stood in the doorway.
They were caught, all of them. In a black web of slethery. “I don’t know that I want to hear it,” said Talen.
“It’s too late for that,” said River. She walked in and sat beside him on the bed. “How do you feel?”
“Awful,” said Talen. “But not as bad as before.”
Nettle came to the doorway. “So he’s not dead yet? There goes my wager.”
“Ha,” said Talen.
Nettle grinned.
“Are you well enough to travel?” asked River.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. We have to leave tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ke has come and gone since you slept. They’re holding Da in Whitecliff.”
“The Council?”
“He’s been accused of being sleth.”
Talen recoiled.
“Talen,” said River. “I need you to listen to me, and I need you to be calm.”
He waited.
She took a breath, then said, “You know how Mother died.”
Talen nodded. She’d died in the pox plague year. Died of stress and worry.
“You think you know: laid into the ground, she was, without a blemish upon her. Perfect and whole, broken with grief for her little boy who was covered with the ugly rash, all blisters and pus. This is what you think, but grief did not break her, brother. Grief could not have broken that woman, not in a million years.”
She paused.
“It was love that broke her. Your little body was consumed with sores. Da called every healer he knew; we tried every herb known to have any effect. We danced and sacrificed to the ancestors. But the disease only grew. And so Mother and Da did what any loving parents would do. They gave their days to make you whole.”
Servant: The Dark God Book 1 Page 33