‘There is one last measure I might try,’ he said, fingering a small pouch on his belt. ‘But it could as easily kill as cure. Ought I take the risk?’
‘It is not my decision alone,’ Stella answered.
The woman from the camel train—Fenacia, she gave as her name—supplied him with the answer when Stella called her over. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘None of us can bear looking at him like this. Supply him with some dignity, at least. Do what you can, physic.’
The long night hours dragged their feet as they passed reluctantly by. Eventually, as the pre-dawn glow began to enliven the horizon, Stella felt a sudden wave of nausea wash over her. The hollowness in her head returned; before she could react, she found herself on her knees, retching weakly, her mind blanking into unconsciousness.
She emerged from the blackness to feel hands touch her, then arms pick her up. A familiar voice called for assistance. Someone dripped water into her mouth and then laid a cold cloth across her forehead.
‘How is Phemanderac?’ she asked weakly. ‘How is my friend? Why won’t anyone tell me how he is?’ The heads gathered around her all spoke at once, but her ears rang with a buzzing sound and she could understand none of them. ‘Tell me, please!’ she cried, afraid that the hollowness she had sensed was Phemanderac’s passing.
‘He has…he has recovered,’ Fenacia said in a strange voice, motioning the others to silence. ‘He sits up in the wagon and asks after the man lost in the sandstorm.’
‘Recovered?’ Stella said, bewildered. ‘But he was dying. He will be in extreme pain. May I see him?’
‘Ah, lass, now there’s the mystery,’ Sauxa said. ‘One of many this night.’
Robal leaned over her, his soldier-smell reassuringly familiar. ‘Your friend is completely healed. There is no trace of the storm on his skin, and his eyes are clear. It is as though the injuries never happened. He does not understand what the fuss is about.’
‘There is a great deal you are not saying,’ Stella complained. ‘Where is Drew?’
‘So to our second mystery,’ Robal said grimly. ‘It seems we may have been sharing the desert trail with a sorcerer. Fenacia here says she passed by the wagon and saw Phemanderac damaged and near death, then returned a few minutes later to find her master healed and you lying unmoving at the foot of the wagon. We have searched the camp for Heredrew, but he is not to be found. We can only assume he healed Phemanderac. Some of us suspect you happened across the miracle and, for some reason, he rendered you unconscious and made his escape.’
‘But…if he has such powers, why not remain to accept our thanks?’ Kilfor said. ‘Why knock Ste—Bandy out? There is nothing criminal about sorcery.’
‘Ah, but there is,’ Stella said, as realisation swamped her in a bittersweet flood. ‘I recognise the signs. There is a kind of sorcery where the magician draws from others to effect his magic. It is a form of magic frowned upon in Faltha, if not exactly outlawed. I collapsed because Heredrew pulled strength from me in order to heal Phemanderac.’
Conal nodded. ‘To steal from others, even to do good, is against the teachings of the Most High.’
‘Why did he not ask? I would have surrendered everything I have to save Phemanderac.’
‘Bandy, I must ask you this,’ said Fenacia. ‘What is our master to you, that you would show him such devotion? This is to us tonight’s third and perhaps greatest mystery. None of us can remember having seen or heard of you before.’
Weary, swamped by a welter of emotions and tired of the deception, she sat up and locked eyes with the Dhaurian woman. ‘I am Stella, the Falthan queen,’ she said. ‘Now take me to Phemanderac. I have questions to ask him.’
A ripple of silence spread outwards from Stella.
‘With respect, I once visited the court of the Falthan king,’ said one of the Dhaurians, an older man. ‘I sat beside Phemanderac on the High Table, and spoke with the king and queen. You do have her look about you, I’ll grant you that. But she was much older than you, whoever you are.’
Ah, this will prove difficult.
She cast her mind back. Phemanderac had once been a biennial visitor to Instruere, but as he grew older had appeared but four times in the last thirty years. This man was perhaps sixty, and his use of the word once suggested the visit was not recent. She pictured the evening Leith had received Phemanderac in the Hall of Meeting, a night of great ceremony, the scholar having attained the rank of dominie, the first in Dhauria for a generation. Thought hard. Yes, she was almost certain who this man was.
‘You asked me a rather forward question, I believe,’ she said, looking straight at him and reading nervous corroboration in his eyes. ‘You wanted to know why I had served as the Destroyer’s Consort. As I remember it, I never got to answer you, which was probably just as well for you. Your master explained matters to my satisfaction, if not to yours. I don’t remember your name.’
The man opened his mouth, then snapped it shut.
‘I will say this, because others will think it,’ Fenacia said. ‘You look as though perhaps thirty summers have passed you by, no more. The Falthan queen is near as old as Phemanderac. How is this possible?’
‘You of Dhauria live long lives. Is it unlikely that someone who spent years in the company of the world’s most renowned sorcerers, people like Hal Mahnumsen, Deorc of Andratan and, yes, the Destroyer himself, might also be granted a long and hale life?’
The woman did not reply, but Stella knew her evasive answer had merely staved off further questions for a time. She stood, grasping the wide wheel of Kilfor’s wagon for support, and set out in the direction of Phemanderac’s cot, a procession of friends and onlookers in tow.
With a fluttering in her stomach she walked up to the wagon in which he lay and drew back the cover.
‘Hello, Phemanderac,’ she said lightly.
His eyes widened slightly in his long, deeply lined face. ‘You look far better than anyone has a right to,’ he said.
‘As do you, given what you’ve been through,’ she replied.
Then she could stand it no longer and threw herself into his bony arms, crying for all she was worth, as she never had since she was a little girl.
After the tears had ceased, Stella told Phemanderac her story, leaving nothing out. The old man, his long, horse-like face softened somewhat by his kindly eyes, smiled sadly at her when she had finished. The morning was well advanced, and preparations for a day’s camp continued as they talked.
‘Oh, my dear, you have suffered so,’ he said. ‘Pain and fear, such a combination to have been gnawing at your spirit all these years. I wondered about this the last few times I visited you. Dear Stella, will it embarrass you if I tell you I suspected something like this? More than suspected? Or if I ask why you did not trust me enough to share your secret earlier?’
‘I trusted no one,’ she said, turning away from his steady regard. ‘It seemed my burden to carry.’
‘You told Leith, of course.’
‘Yes, of course. When he proposed his marriage arrangement to keep me safe from those who accused me of treachery, I told him everything I suspected at the time.’
‘When did you know you were immortal?’
‘Phemanderac,’ she wailed, ‘how will I ever know? If the only proof I am not immortal is to die, then the only thing an absence of proof provides is evidence that I am not yet dead.’ She laughed weakly. ‘Does that make sense?’
‘Better to say, as did Symarthia in her treatise on the Fountain of Youth, that immortality is at best a hope even for the immortal, and not verifiable fact.’
‘But I did think it likely I was immortal, even back then,’ Stella said. She assembled her thoughts with care; Phemanderac’s logical mind would demand clarity. ‘I am almost certain he infected me with his blood. At least that is what the evidence suggests. The Destroyer often complained of the pain within him as a result of that one drink from the fountain. I suffered a similar pain when I awoke from the near-death from which he
saved me.’
‘“He will be tormented for the rest of time by the power in his body,”’ the scholar muttered. Seeing her puzzled look, he added, ‘From the Domaz Skreud, the Scroll of Doom that tells of the Destroyer’s rebellion against the Most High.’
‘“Tormented for the rest of time” about sums it up,’ she said wearily. ‘I found myself linked to him in strange ways. I could sense his nearness, his moods, and when he suffered pain. Phemanderac, on occasion I still can.’
His eyes widened at this, but he made no comment.
‘I do remember what he said to me when I awoke. He and I, he claimed, were the only ones in the world with the gifts of Fire and Water. The Water of Eternal Life comes exclusively from the fountain in Dona Mihst. I can only have received the Water from him, from his blood. It makes sense.’
‘Indeed it does,’ he replied, sighing. ‘Let us follow the chain, so there can be no doubt. The Most High set the fountain in the Vale and told the First Men not to drink from it. A thousand years later Kannwar, later named the Destroyer, challenges the ban and drinks from the fountain. The Most High drives everyone from the Vale save the few who resisted Kannwar. He tells the First Men something of his purpose, saying: “Do you not know that the very air of the Vale is laden with the spray of the fountain I set amongst you?” He explains the spray has preserved the First Men, granting them lives far longer than those who live in the outside world.
‘Now, here is the truth I am reluctant to share with you, but share it I must. “Your bodies cannot yet contain the undiluted Water of Life,” the Most High told the First Men. Symarthia and Hauthius both speculate on the meaning of the word yet. The Most High might have been using the fountain to condition the First Men. Perhaps in the future they might have been able to bear it. The Most High had a purpose for the First Men, interrupted by Kannwar’s rebellion.’
Stella nodded. ‘I own—owned—a copy of the Domaz Skreud. What you say conforms to my own thinking.’
‘Ah, then nothing I am saying is new to you. Good. The implication of the Domaz Skreud is that humans cannot bear immortality, not now, not yet. As the Destroyer himself showed. The Most High cursed him, saying: “He will be tormented for the rest of time by the power in his body, a power he cannot control, a power that will destroy his spirit and his soul and his mind while preserving his body forever.” This has been confirmed by what you say of yourself and of the Destroyer. I am so sorry, Stella.’
‘But I have begun to bear it,’ Stella said. ‘It is now more an ache than an agony. And my scars have healed over the years. Remember when I returned from his thrall, how I could not uncurl my right hand? Apart from some stiffness, it now works nearly as well as my left. Might even the aches and stiffness disappear in time?’
‘Alas, I will not be with you to see the truth or otherwise of that possibility.’
His words reminded her how sick he’d been. How close to death. ‘I will leave you to sleep now,’ she said. ‘But I have been travelling for months because I wanted to talk with you about these things. Might we resume when you are rested?’
‘I am an old man,’ he said. ‘It is well known that old men do not need sleep. However, perhaps it would be good to think for a time about what we have discussed.’
He waved farewell to her, then beckoned her closer.
‘Stella, I was sorry to hear of your loss,’ he said.
‘Our loss,’ she corrected.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Everyone’s loss. I set out to visit him one last time, you know. But when I heard he had died, I began to worry about you. I thought perhaps you might find the political situation difficult to manoeuvre through, as it proved. I’m only sorry I didn’t leave earlier.’
‘So am I, but who could have predicted he would die so soon? I am glad you are here now.’
‘As am I,’ he said. ‘Fenacia tells me I would have died if your travelling companion had not intervened. Where is he? I would like to thank him.’
‘I don’t know. I will send him to you when he is found.’
‘Then we will talk more,’ he said. ‘Of yourself, and of our memories of Leith.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and left him to rest.
That afternoon Stella found herself caught up in other duties, including a discussion about what road the travellers should take. Robal argued that, as the main reason for travelling to Dhauria was now here with them, they should join with the camel train and head back west. Stella offered her opinion that Phemanderac would likely order the train to return to Dhauria. ‘Now that Leith is dead and I am deposed,’ she said, ‘there is little to draw him to Instruere.’
‘Might he be able to help you reclaim the Falthan throne?’ the guardsman asked her.
‘That throne is gone forever,’ she replied. ‘In any case, as I’m sure I have said, Leith never intended it to outlast him.’
That night Robal took her aside and asked if she had seen anything of Heredrew. Only then did she remember her promise to Phemanderac.
‘I know nothing more than you,’ she said testily. ‘Less, in fact, as I was unconscious at the time.’
‘And I was asleep. I am sorry, Stella, but I do not understand what the fellow stood to gain from befriending us, using sorcerous power to heal a man he’d never met, then leaving without stealing anything or killing anyone. Makes no sense to me. It’s got my guardsman’s nose twitching, it has.’
Stella had not been able to spare much time to consider the mystery. ‘Since you show such interest in the man,’ she said, ‘I charge you to search out any information about him. Review with Kilfor and his father all your dealings with him. I must confess to feeling anger towards Heredrew. What he did, even if done in ignorance and given the good cause to which he applied my strength, is not easily forgiven. And, having drawn on me, he will now be somewhat aware of my—differences. Perhaps that frightened him away. Perhaps he guessed who I am.’
Robal asked her a few more questions, then left to pursue the matter with his friends.
Stella was not able to rejoin Phemanderac until the next afternoon, after the scholar had made the expected decision to turn back to Dhauria.
The wind had abated enough for most of the sand carpet to be left undisturbed, so the journey was easier in that one respect. But the sun did not stint in its efforts to drink them dry.
Stella settled in beside the scholar as he sat in the back of his covered wagon.
‘We were talking about the pain of immortality,’ she prompted him.
‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ he said. ‘I have been thinking about what you said. Your gradual recovery lends credence to Hauthius’s “Dosage” theory of immortality.’
‘There are theories? How many?’
‘Three, in fact,’ Phemanderac said. ‘Shall I list them?’
Stella smiled: the young Phemanderac would have disgorged every detail with little regard for the interest level of his audience. ‘Please,’ she said.
‘First is Symarthia’s “Indestructibility” theory. It is first because it is the earliest; Symarthia lived only a few hundred years after the rebellion. She maintained that the Destroyer simply cannot be killed, using as evidence the words of the Most High: “He who drank of the fountain will surely now never die.” But we cannot tell from the text whether this prediction is an inevitable result of the Water of Life or merely a reflection of the Most High’s knowledge of the future.’
Stella told him of her experiments with starving, then described in more detail what the Lord of Fear had done to her in attempting to claim eternal life for himself.
‘Hmmm. So your body is certainly more resistant to injury. Wounds heal more quickly, yet you can suffer gross trauma. To me this suggests you are not indestructible. Forgive me, Stella, but if I were to bind and burn you, then scatter your ashes to the world’s four corners, how could your body, let alone your mind, retain any sense of immortality?’
She smiled. ‘Let us hope it does not come to that.’
&nbs
p; His eyes narrowed for a moment, then he continued. ‘So Hauthius’s critique of Symarthia might well be correct. He would be pleased to know that, the old rascal. His own “Dosage” theory is the second major treatise on immortality. He took the position that the Water of Life was an entirely natural phenomenon, albeit a rare one, unaffected by magic. Given the fountain put out a steady supply of water, it was possible for anyone who partook directly of it, in defiance of the Most High, to take any amount they chose. Following me?’
Stella nodded. The camel train, followed by Robal and the others, wound its way along a well-used trail between huge black mounds of rock. She tried to let her understanding follow Phemanderac’s words in similar fashion.
‘So, Hauthius argued, the man who took a larger quantity of the water would be more greatly affected than one who took a little. This is supported by the words of the Most High, who said that everyone living in the Vale drank indirectly of the fountain, as its spray spread through the air. Your tale of damage and gradual healing offers further confirmation. You did not drink of the source, instead receiving your dose, as it were, via a second-hand source. Therefore it follows that you might—might, I say—have received a lesser infection. One which your body may be fighting. Perhaps you will overcome it one day, and your blood will return to normal.’
Her eyes wide open, she searched the scholar’s face. ‘Oh, Phemanderac, is it even possible?’
‘I don’t know, but it is at least cause for hope. And you do look older than you did when you were infected. Perhaps eventually you will grow old and follow the path of all men. Just more slowly than the rest of us.’
‘And the third theory? Does it offer even more hope?’
‘Perhaps. It is Phemanderac’s “Theory of Limited Immortality”.’ He coughed modestly. ‘An outgrowth from Hauthius’s work, actually. I argue that the soul or spirit of an immortal person may die, while the body lives on. It suggests immortality of the body only, you see. The immortal may choose to lay down her own life, letting it dry out like a desert stream, but life cannot be taken away from her. One’s spirit will eventually weary of life, so in practice no one will live forever, even if Symarthia is correct and their body is indestructible.’
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