by Lynn Abbey
Tredik pulled his torn tunic back on over his head. “I’ll be a man, all right. What do I owe you?” His face turned red again. “I haven’t got much money. Everyone’s been telling me they’re broke and asking me to wait. It’s getting so my father is telling me to ask for goods to settle the bills.”
Pel sighed. Actual cash had been growing very short for him, too. Admittedly, the quality of wares offered in exchange for his services were becoming more interesting since the wrecked ship had been found, but there were items for which he must pay in coin. Bezul had been kind about exchanging some of the oddities, but none of the merchants could hold out indefinitely. Pel felt as though there was a wall somewhere, and all of the money of Sanctuary was disappearing behind it. The wall must be broken down, or the economy, key to rebuilding this wounded city, would collapse. He slapped Tredik on the back.
“My next workday is this coming Shiprisday. Percaro traded a patch of land he inherited to Bezul for a new plow blade. I took it off his hands for a herb garden. It’s full of rocks in all the wrong places, blocking the sun. There’ll be at least three of you helping me to lay out the plot. If you haul the stones out, you can have them, trade them to Cauvin if you wish. I don’t need them. I need the space for plants.”
Tredik gave him a grateful glance, both for finding a non-cash solution and for treating the debt seriously. He was of a man’s size, but still remained a boy in so many ways. Pel couldn’t remember having been that innocent. Tredik tucked the small bottle into his torn tunic, and made his escape.
He was the last of the brawlers to seek out Pel’s assistance. Mioklos’s son Nerry wouldn’t lose his left eye, but it had been a near thing. He was going to have one impressive scar, though it would never look as though it belonged upon the round and cheerful face that bore it. His sister Las was probably to blame for the entire mock tournament, whipping up their newfound patriotism into a frenzy. She had come out of the battle without a wound, and, Pel was sure, was lying her heart out regarding her involvement. The boys half admired and half resented her, seeing her as a pesty younger sister, but also, maybe, a future Tiger in her own right. Pel had known plenty of brave and fierce women who had fought for the Bloody Goddess. Please, he thought, may Las be a force for goodness—real goodness. He admired the Irrune for calling such a tournament, allowing any fighter to come forward and try their skill.
Pel had had few dealings with the Irrune since his return. The largely Rankene and Ilsigi population of Sanctuary had gone on with their lives as usual, trading and cheating, raising children, making love, building, eating and drinking, gossiping and arguing. It was splendidly normal in his eyes, a life he would never have foreseen taking joy in. Blasphemers, brutes, thieves, philanderers—so many would have merited death or punishment by Dyareela, but Meshpri—Meshpri loved them all. Pel had to work hard to live up to his new goddess’s altruism. But that was why she was a goddess, and he a poor, flawed mortal.
Maybe a roughed-up mortal if he didn’t pay attention to his potions! He went over to the altar where he had a beaker simmering over a candle. This medicine relieved the tightness of a weakening heart. It took two long days to prepare. Two pinches of heart root into the potion caused the liquid to foam up the sides of the ceramic beaker. As the bubbles subsided, the brew turned a bright red. Pel breathed a sigh of relief.
An answering exhalation made him jump. Heart root dust flew everywhere. He had been so intent on his preparations that he had not noticed the muffled shape just inside the door of the temple.
“Forgive me!” he exclaimed, hastily putting down the bottle of powder.
He glanced down into the beaker. A miracle that he had not accidentally dumped in more of the powerful ingredients. An over-measurement would have caused the potion to thicken and overflow spectacularly; plus, the stain would have been difficult to get out of the smooth stone surface of the altar. All was well. He turned his attention to his visitor.
The shape stirred slightly, and a pair of deep amber eyes rimmed with kohl looked out at him through the shadow cast by a fold of silky bronze cloth.
“You concentrate so deeply,” a husky female voice said. Pel didn’t recognize it. This was not Kadasah dressed up in camouflage. “I have been watching you. You are very careful.”
“Not so careful,” Pel said, with rueful humor. “I don’t normally ignore customers, M’sera … ?”
But no name was forthcoming. She was an Irrune; the accent was unmistakable, and she was tall. If he had been standing beside her, the top of her head would have been level with his mouth. The eyes studied him deeply.
“We … I … need someone who takes care of others. I hear you can keep a secret. Is it true?”
“I promise it,” Pel averred. “If you ask for my services, I will not tell anyone what passes between us. You pay for both treatment and confidentiality.”
“Under pain of torture or death?”
Pel eyed her, but the amber gaze didn’t waver. She wasn’t joking. “I have vowed to care for the sick and injured, though I hope not to have to suffer to help others. How may I aid you?”
The honey-colored eyes held steady for a long moment, as though making a decision. “I am not your patient. If you choose to come with me you must tell no one where you have been or what you have done. Do you swear?”
“Not to you,” Pel said. “To my patient, whoever he or she may be, and whatever it is the patient wants kept secret.”
A nod. “Then, come.”
“Wait,” Pel held up a hand. “I can’t bring my entire pharmacopaeia with me. What am I to treat?”
Another hesitation. “Infection.”
The sun had fallen behind the buildings. Long shadows dropped cool darkness upon Pel’s shoulders as he followed the woman between buildings. The last legitimate deliveries were being made, such as beer and provisions to the taverns. Pel caught a tempting scent of roasting meat wafting out of the door of one establishment. A patient of his, a fragile young woman whose persistent cough he had cured, raised a hand from the table she was clearing in greeting to him. He waved back, tilting his head toward her with an unspoken question. Before the young woman could respond his escort shot out a long, narrow hand from inside the folds of cloth, and grabbed his arm, pulling him into the shadows.
“Please do not speak to anyone,” she whispered. “No one must know where you are bound.”
Pel forbore to remind her he didn’t know where they were bound. “They will think I am behaving oddly if I don’t pass the time of day with them,” he told her, reasonably. “Walk ahead of me a few paces so we’re not seen together. I’ll keep an eye on you.”
The woman fell silent, then nodded. “All right.”
Pel hefted his sack of herbs and medicines, and wondered whether he was walking into a trap. His guide was not a young woman, and the rich fabrics spoke of someone who was well-connected at court. Everything about the silent shadow who flitted ahead of him in and out of lantern-light made him believe she was a noble, even royal. She was intelligent, too. She had picked a moonless night, one cooler than the last several, ensuring that most of the folk who would otherwise be sitting on their doorsteps or on stools outside of the inns moaning about the heat would have fled indoors.
His guess had to be at least partly right. Though the alleyways and narrow streets through which they passed were not ones Pel normally traveled, he knew they were approaching the palace. Naturally, she did not advertise their arrival by marching up the long approach to the well-guarded gate. Instead, she joined the slow-moving queue of suppliers and workers who trudged toward the dimly lit postern gate and the kitchens. Pel would have thought that one among them would have turned to notice the bundle of bronze silk among them, as distinctive as a jewel on a burlap sack, but not one of them looked up from his or her burdens. Either they were well schooled with beatings or threats to ignore the sudden presence of their betters, or she carried some magical device on her to conceal herself. No, it wasn’t magic,
he realized, as he shuffled forward in between a barrowload of cabbages and a herd of goats hoping to get at the sweet-smelling green globes ahead of them. It was fear. He’d heard of the Irrune response to those who failed to heed their customs. Pel could almost scent the waves of dread as the silk-clad figure pushed by, heading for a corridor that led off the main passageway to the right. He was well-familiar with the smell, having inflicted it on hundreds, if not thousands, of sinners during his life as the embodiment of Wrath.
A flash of gold in the flickering torchlight, and his guide slipped out of view around the corner. Pel pulled his satchel out of the mouth of a flat-faced goat, who was chewing vigorously on the strap, and hurried after her. He had taken only a few steps into the sudden darkness when the door behind him shut with a loud clang! All light was cut off. Pel spun back and tried to pull it open. The heavy latch had snapped behind a heavy bar. His fingers fumbled over a sharp-cut keyhole, but no key. He was trapped!
For a moment the events of his past life shot through his mind like an evil children’s picture book. Had he been lured here to join his former associates in humiliating and painful death? He fumbled in his satchel for the vial of poppy. He might have time to down it, and float off to eternity in peaceful oblivion, before they dug out his eyes and sewed him into a sack.
In that moment, he became aware of a soft blue light beside him no brighter than the phosphorescent glow of rotting fish. The glittering eyes regarded him above a palm-sized globe from which the gleam emanated. They looked amused.
“Stay close,” she said. The blue glow floated away into the blackness.
Willing his heart to slow down to a normal pulse, Pel obeyed.
Rumors of secret passages riddling the many levels of the ancient palace were proved true as the quivering light led Pel along narrow corridors of stone, up unexpected flights of stairs, and down ramps with low ceilings he never saw until his forehead impacted with one. Blinking stars of pain out of his eyes, he hurried to catch up with the will-o’-the-wisp who guided him. Far away he could hear noises and hollow voices like ghosts, but they never encountered another living creature. The rats avoided these passages as much as humans did.
After an eternity in the cold, damp darkness, he emerged suddenly into a warm, stifling blackness in which smoldered the red-gold coal in the heart of a single brazier. The blue glow vanished. Another smell, that of putrefying flesh, caught at Pel’s throat and made him cough.
A low voice, near to the fire, chuckled.
“Makes you sick, eh? I’m attached to it, can’t get away from my own stink.” The accent was Irrune, coarse and hearty.
“Who … ?” Pel began, but his own voice failed him.
“Call me … call me Dragonsire,” the man said. The joke appeared to please him. He chuckled some more. A pair of slender, fair-skinned hands appeared near the faint light and poured dark liquid from a slender-necked pitcher into a heavy goblet. Another hand, dark in contrast to the woman’s, reached out. The cup disappeared into shadow. “Ahhh! Wine, ser?”
“Er, thank you,” Pel said, realizing how dry his throat was. A cup was pressed into his hand by the unseen server. It was surprisingly heavy. Pel guessed that it must be made of gold. The rough shapes of stones studding the bowl scraped his fingers. He hesitated before drinking. “Er, how may I serve you?”
“Right down to business? Good.” The figure sat up. Pel thought he knew what to expect as the firelight touched its face, but he still gasped out loud. Arizak. “Do not fear me. Heh! If anything, I have more to fear from you.”
“What, ser?” Pel asked. Sweat filmed his face and palms. He had to grasp the big cup in both hands to keep it from squirting away from him.
“I don’t fear pain. No Irrune does. I don’t fear death. We welcome a good death. But this!” Arizak gestured at his leg with a disgusted hand. “This is not a good death. I am disgusted by it. It’s not a clean battle wound, an ax through the neck, a sword in the belly, a dagger tearing out your heart. No! It’s like being eaten alive by slugs. Look!”
He pulled a cloth off his lap. Beneath his left leg lay outstretched, the end propped up on a painted stool. There was no foot.
As nervous as Pel felt suddenly facing the ruler of his city he was taken even further aback by the limb the Irrune chief now revealed to him. The original wound must have been a fearsome one, but it had disappeared in seeping pillows of flesh that had been a healthy pink and had turned an angry red, even going black in small patches that Pel knew would grow. He sucked in his breath. The rot would have to be cut away if the limb was to be saved—if it could be saved at all. The leg must have been very painful. When he looked up, Arizak’s gaze held his, strong, confident, and weary.
“I have three sons,” the Irrune lord said. “Each wants to rule after me. My eldest is the strongest. He is not often here. He does not like Sanctuary. I don’t like it much myself. He came here at my behest this week—you may have heard. The greatest product of this place is talk. Everyone talks to everyone.”
“Yes, lord, I knew.”
Arizak slammed the heavy goblet down on the arm of his chair. “He did not show decent respect. I will not take that, not while I draw breath. I want to be whole again, healer, as whole as I can be. I want to ride out and teach my miserable offspring the truth about the name he bears. If he survives, well, maybe I’ll let him rule one day. When my time is over. But my time is not over yet. Not yet.” The face grew more craggy as from a throb of pain.
“Why me, my lord?” Pel asked, full of pity. “You have healers and magicians in plenty. The best in the land.”
The shrewd gaze met his eyes and locked them in place. “You must have been born in a basket, man,” he said. “They are all corrupt in this city, men and women alike. It comes from living inside these rotting walls. If you had the clean air all around, you’d have to be an honest man. Here, you can hide your sins.”
“He is honest,” said the soft voice of the woman who had guided him. Pel looked around for her, but the brazier’s light fell short. The shapes he saw beyond it could have been curtains or pillars or tapestries. The blue light reappeared, rising until it was between Pel and the unseen woman. “The stone affirms it. No great faults here—fewer than most men, as though he was a young child. I wonder why. Perhaps he was born in a basket.”
Pel opened his mouth and closed it again. To correct her he would have to explain his rebirth, and that admission would cost him his life. He knelt over the wound and prodded it gently. Every poke made the flesh twitch, but the Irrune lord said nothing. He had impressive self-control. He had to be in agony. Most of Pel’s patients moaned and cried over splinters in the thumb.
“Can you do anything?” Arizak asked, after a time. “You can say no, man, and leave here with your skin. I just want truth, that is all and everything to me. If you can cure me I will reward you well. If you cannot, I will be glad of your candor. I am so weary of the shite-eating hypocrites in this city, it would be worth a bronze wristlet to hear an honest answer.”
“I can try, lord,” Pel replied. The stink of the rotting flesh made his throat tighten. “Such a wound has to be treated inside and outside. If your constitution is hale enough, you may be cured, with Meshpri’s aid.”
“Pah!” The Irrune ruler spat a wine-tinged gob on the floor. “Keep your false godlings to yourself, Wrigglie. If you’ve got any skill in your fingers Irrunega put it there.”
“I apologize,” Pel said, and went back to his examination. Meshpri aid him, indeed! He had never seen such decay in a wound on a living being. Yet, he felt the flesh. In spite of the cold he felt warmth in them, and when he pinched a patch of intact skin down near the tortured ankle, the color rushing back to it was visible even in the poor light. Automatically he felt behind him for his pouch. Without his having to ask, the unseen serving woman came forward with the blue ball in her hands. Its illumination increased to a pure blue like a cloudless sky, easy for Pel to distinguish which herb packet was whi
ch.
“What do you need?” the soft voice of his guide asked from the shadows.
“Water and wine,” Pel replied, untying packets. “This will take more than one treatment, probably many. Best would be water drawn from an open stream under a waning moon, to assist in closing the injury. But we must heal the infection first, not shut it away inside your flesh.”
“Shut away, like me in this frog-filled city,” Arizak growled. “Go ahead, then.”
He sat back in the big chair. Pel could now see that it had been carved out of a single piece of wood, a master’s work. Dragons reared their heads under each of the ruler’s big hands, and another loomed up to form the chair back. From all accounts that was the way Arizak lived: surrounded by dragons, not one as benevolent as the wooden ones who supported him. Perhaps his truest supporters were here: the silent serving woman and the gold-eyed lady who waited in the dark.
The serving woman brought him a small table, and set the pitcher of wine upon it. A small metal pan, bronze by the glints of light the fire struck off its sides, was placed on the brazier to heat. Pel willed himself to concentrate, to allow his mind to step away from this dark and troubled place, to the hamlet where his life had started over. Instead of the Irrune ruler, he pictured a farmer whose leg had been sliced by his plow blade, and had been too stubborn and too busy with the planting to come in to have it seen to until his wife forced him. He glanced up into the golden eyes of the woman waiting by the wall, and guessed that this case was much the same.
Pel stood up and exercised his long back. Arizak had drained the cup of medicine he had mixed and was watching him with speculative eyes.
“What do you make of it, healer? You’ve eased some of the pain. Good start. Can you cure my frog-rotting leg?”
Pel opened his mouth to speak.
“Yes,” a woman’s voice interrupted him, at the same time a young man’s voice said, “No.”