“Does it matter?”
“Of course, it matters! What if it’s a trap?” Having shorter legs, Reia worked harder to keep the swift pace.
“Then, we’ll deal with it,” Terosh replied.
“We should at least approach cautiously!” Reia got the impression he used anotechs to augment his breathing, allowing him to talk normally.
Cheater!
Even as she thought it, she asked the anotechs to do the same. Suddenly, the effort of running disappeared. She had never felt so alive, so free. Not having to struggle for breath made one feel invincible.
No wonder he wants to race.
The land flew past beneath them. Their legs never tired. Viewed from afar with their travel cloaks streaming behind, they could have been mistaken for low-gliding cannafitch. Their legs moved in a blur too swift for eyes to track. A pack of korvers chased them for three kilometers but eventually stopped to find easier prey. Wallays popped their heads above their holes to watch them.
Reia and Terosh came across a large section of graveground, and simply ran on, letting the ground collapse in their wake. By the end of the tenth kilometer, Reia had to concentrate to maintain the pace, but she stuck with it, knowing they neared their destination. When they got within a hundred meters, a burning sensation soared through her muscles, as the anotechs reached the limit of their ability to help her.
“We should slow down,” Reia said.
Terosh looked at her impatiently but slackened his pace. Then, he pitched forward like he had taken a bullet.
Too startled to call his name, Reia stopped running, and thus, stopped instructing the anotechs to augment her muscles. All at once, she felt every one of the kilometers covered. Prior to their stay in Resh, she would have been able to pull off such a sprint and still stand, but the recent rest had made her soft. Her legs gave out, and she landed in a heap. By the time she checked on Terosh, he had struggled to a sitting position.
“Well, that answers that,” he muttered.
Reia opened her mouth to question his health and sanity.
“The anotechs.” Terosh still wasn’t making a lot of sense.
“You’re obviously having a conversation with yourself,” Reia remarked. “Care to share?”
Terosh gave her a patient, princely grin.
“They’re not perfect, and they take a toll on your body.”
“Really? Never would have guessed.” Reia rubbed at a sudden cramp torturing her lower left leg. “Didn’t you learn that lesson in the zalok caves?” She didn’t expect an answer and wouldn’t have heard one if it were offered. Emotions she couldn’t understand gripped her. Her mind flew back to the korver attack. Images zipped through her head, slamming to a stop on an unconscious Terosh.
“Don’t frown. It doesn’t suit you,” Terosh whispered.
Reia had never heard him use that tender tone before. It sent a tingle down her spine and simultaneously raised her defensive hackles.
“I—we still have a purple fire to check.” The prince held a hand out to help Reia to her feet.
They covered the last few dozen meters at a slow walk, expecting to be spotted at a distance.
Nothing happened.
The night sounds went on as usual. The larger creatures hunted smaller ones with moderate success, and the smaller ones did their best to leave the universe as loudly as possible. The insects cheered on both sides, sending their buzzing, chittering, and clacking cries up in soothing ascending and descending waves.
Prince Terosh tripped over a body and landed near the fire.
“Ah! What’s that? Who’s there?” cried a man.
Reacting instinctively, Reia drew her banistick and brought one end up under the man’s chin.
“Ranger! Please! My family is ill! Even the youngest! Especially the youngest.” The man’s last statement was barely audible.
“Show me,” Reia ordered, snapping her banistick closed.
Semon McNoughten introduced himself and explained the situation as they hurried toward his home, which lay approximately two hundred meters from the fire. His wife and seven children had come down with cornada after the last round of unexpected storms about a month ago. They had seemed on the mend when a stranger came. The man’s words initially poured out in an agitated stream, but gradually, they softened until Reia strained to hear.
“Our farm is the only one out here, so when a stranger showed up three nights ago, I gave him food and insisted he stay the night. I awoke around midnight to find him standing over my wife breathing into her face. Before I could rise or speak, he was gone, and it was too late for my family.”
Reia’s exhausted legs protested movement, but she plodded on. The man’s name amused her for it meant “seven” in Kalastan, and she would bet anything the man was his parents’ seventh child. The amusement gave her something to focus on besides Semon’s disturbing story.
“Who was he?” asked Terosh. “The man who did this?”
“He gave no name and only said he had far to go. Aside from weariness, he displayed no signs of disease.”
“What signs do your wife and children show?” Reia queried.
They were almost to the house now, but the man’s steps faltered.
“Bloodshot eyes, weariness, fever, aches, skin cracks, pain—”
Reia stiffened and stopped.
“Heskrin!” She spat it like a curse.
She felt the prince’s eyes upon her. Under the moonlight, she figured she must look as white as a Gegi arcghost. A breeze billowed her cloak, reinforcing the image of a tormented specter said to haunt ships lost to ice storms in the Asrien Sea.
“What is it?” Terosh and Semon asked as one.
Rage filled her.
“A disease.” She drew a deep breath and raised her chin. “But it can be packaged, swallowed, and breathed as a weapon.”
“Poison,” Terosh concluded.
“Can it be cured?” Semon’s voice was tight with terror.
Reia bit her lower lip.
“Sometimes.” She didn’t want to tell him how because the ingredients they would need were far out of reach.
Chapter 24:
Amrita Tears
ZERI (JUNE) 7, 1538
Ninety-six days into Prince Terosh’s Kireshana journey
McNoughten Farm House, Kesler Plains
Reia’s throat felt like she had swallowed half the Felmon Desert and washed it down with saltwater. She wanted to say something hopeful, but the words got stuck. Her eyes narrowed as she marched into the McNoughten home. Following Semon’s directions, she found the master bedchamber. She didn’t realize the men trailed her in. A short examination of Semon’s wife, Kira, confirmed Heskrin. The woman submitted to the scrutiny without comment, but her expression spoke of misery in a universal language. Reia’s breath refused to come out, and she fought back waves of helplessness.
Who did this? Can these people be saved? She didn’t even realize she sought answers from the anotechs until they spoke.
Dark Ones—Dalonos—control the one responsible. Amrita Tears can save them.
“Amrita Tears,” Reia said. A spark of hope flared, wavered, then faded. She’d known that all along, but Amrita Tears were nowhere around here.
“What?” Terosh demanded. “You had hope for a second.”
“Amrita Tears could cure them. It’s a sap you get from amrita plants, but they only grow on Mount Amri, high in the Ridens. We’re too far away, even if we could find them this time of year.”
“Can you ease their pain?” Semon asked.
Reia got her first good look at the man. If she stood on tiptoes, she might come up to his shoulders. A short, bushy beard and a trim mustache softened his blunt face. His deep blue eyes were flecked with yellow specks, indicating Bornovan blood.
“I can,” Reia assured him.
More than three hours came and went, while Reia mixed broths and teas. As she prepared the elixirs, Reia questioned Semon about his family. Kira favored i
ra flowers. The youngest child, Teven, was only two and already had his own specially carved chair. The next older child, Dable, turned four last week. His body had always been frail. Kesella, five-and-two-twelfths, and Arel, five-and-eleven-twelfths, proudly shared an age. Semon had gotten them each a doll from Rammon on his last trip. Nicella, Azer, and Torkrin, respectively seven, eight, and nine, freely shared a collection of wooden animals imported from Tareb amongst themselves but guarded them from the “children.” The two boys, though older, deferred to Nicella because she made them rielberry tarts and pies.
Reia had never treated Heskrin before, so she ended up treating the individual symptoms. She answered pain with corlia and cormea, aches with sannin, and fever with ira petals. In addition, she tried to slow the poison with ristal leaves. After administering the broths, she made some mintas tea with a bit of wuzle root, but only Kira and three of the children drank it. The others had already fallen asleep, and Reia didn’t wish to awaken them. After the tea, those four patients also drifted off to sleep.
Sitting by young Teven McNoughten’s bed, Reia held the boy’s hand long after he drifted off. Her remedies helped, but her caydronan sack ran short on sannin and corlia. If the Heskrin was as entrenched in their bodies as she suspected, there would soon be nothing she could do.
They’re so young.
Alas, the innocent perish beneath Ill Fate’s heavy hands.
She ignored the anotechs.
“Reia,” Terosh called from the doorway. “We need to talk.”
Something about his cautious tone warned Reia she might not like this conversation. Nevertheless, she released the boy’s heated hand, rose, and followed the prince to the common room. No one was around since Reia had forced Semon to drink some mintas tea and rest.
Reia sat on the couch and let her gaze wander the cozy room. A plethora of detailed wooden creatures spilled over the sides of a small box. A pair of well-loved dolls leaned against the legs of a child’s wooden chair, looking as haggard as Reia felt. Trying not to cry, she went to right the dolls.
Kesella and Arel will need you again.
Then, she slowly walked back across the care-worn rug to the couch. The braided rug’s muted red and brown tones gave the room a warm flavor. Evidence of Reia’s healing efforts littered the ground around the fireplace along the back wall.
Terosh seemed troubled.
“We can save them, but not without a price.” He paused for a slow breath. “Are you willing to try?”
“How?” she demanded.
“Anotechs.”
“That seems to be the answer to everything.” Reia was surprised by the bitterness she felt. “How can we use anotechs to save them?”
Terosh responded with a question.
“Do you know the conditions amrita plants need to grow?”
Reia’s mind latched on to the thought, and she sucked in sharply.
Can you make amrita grow rapidly?
Maybe. It takes much energy. The conditions here are not good. You might not live through the process.
Yes or no?
Yes.
“They can do it, if you know how,” Terosh said. “Their best estimate was five days and enough strain to almost kill us.”
Reia shut her eyes, seeking and receiving confirmation from the anotechs. She cupped her head in her hands, trying to ward off a headache brought on by lack of sleep and worry that Terosh might actually talk her into this craziness. Teven’s pitiful cries echoed in her skull. She remembered feeling his sweat-stiffened blond hair and limp, burning arm beneath her fingertips.
“I—I want to do this, Reia,” Terosh confessed. “My father and tutors would call me a fool. My advisers would say I have higher duties, but this feels right.” Terosh drew his shoulders back. “We must help them.”
The last vestiges of resistance crumbled in her.
“If it can be done, it will be done,” Reia promised, rising to wake Semon.
He argued with them but agreed to let them use the barn, which currently lay empty, since the grain was already packed and stored in underground cellars to protect it from windstorms.
WHILE REIA TUTORED Semon on preparing remedies for the Heskrin symptoms, Terosh prepped the barn. Following instructions from both Reia and the anotechs, he heaped dirt in the center of the barn. Next, he patched the few weak spots in the walls and gathered several buckets of water. The McNoughten house connected to a waterline from underground streams from Lake Ceree, but an outside pump existed for the barns. Finally, Terosh returned to the house, ate a huge meal, and forced Reia to eat as well.
Torn between fear and excitement, Terosh entered the dirt-filled barn, knowing he would either exit triumphantly or not at all. The anotechs had explained their plan at least four dozen times, but he turned it over in his mind again and again.
Get amrita seeds from Mount Amri, carry them back here, plant them, and care for them.
Their care included creating a frigid atmosphere, giving them an occasional touch of acid, adding lots of fresh water, and periodically zapping them with heat. Simply getting the seeds would take several days. The job fell to Reia, since she knew where to find Mount Amri. Terosh would concentrate on creating and storing water. Then, he would prepare the small amounts of acid and practice chilling everything to the proper temperature.
As they lay down on the freshly mounded dirt, Terosh impulsively caught Reia’s left hand. It felt small yet strong. A lump foiled an attempt at speech, but he forced a smile.
“Alosoolsonana.” Reia squeezed his hand and closed her eyes.
To success on our journey, the anotechs translated.
ZERI (JUNE) 8, 1538
Ninety-seven days into Prince Terosh’s Kireshana journey
McNoughten Farm, Kesler Plains
The small bits of Dr. Atien Belcross that still existed within Dalonos ached to know what went on in that barn, but the presence of so many Light Ones made him sick. His confidence had been shaken enough to make him fear tangling with those other anotechs. Instead of fighting the gut-twisting sensation, he checked on his experiment.
The smallest child still barely clung to life. The disease was obviously thriving. The man who had served as a reluctant vector deserved a reward. Dalonos would kill the man swiftly later. A closer examination via anotechs revealed remnants of herbal remedies that kept the symptoms at bay. Two of the children seemed slightly better but the rest had worsened, though not to the point they should have. The woman struggled against the disease and grew stronger by the minute. Dalonos was tempted to declare the experiment a failure, enter the house, and clean up the mess.
“They grow amrita,” the figure of False Jalna reported, appearing at Dalonos’s side.
“Will it work?”
“That is unknown,” False Jalna replied.
Dalonos cursed.
“Stop sounding like a machine.”
The girl chuckled and disappeared. Dalonos braced for the inevitable sensation of ten thousand needles pricking him as the anotechs entered him simultaneously.
“Should I kill them?”
We no longer want them dead.
“Not them, though it would be easy now. I meant the family. Should I kill the farmer and his family?”
An excruciatingly long silence followed, but eventually the anotechs answered.
No. Leave scouts to report on their success or failure. There is no time to wait. We must warn the master that the Light Ones grow stronger. It may affect his plan.
“You know he wants me dead, right? I can feel that skulking Ranger haunting my shadows.”
Lord Kezem is momentarily misguided. He will see reason soon enough.
ZERI (JUNE) 13, 1538
102 days into Prince Terosh’s Kireshana journey
McNoughten Farm, Kesler Plains
Terosh and Reia stayed in the McNoughten’s barn for six days. They lay side-by-side locked in unnatural slumber, connected to the dirt by thousands of threads. The anotechs inside th
em weren’t enough to accomplish their mission, so they constantly drew new ones from the ground. They didn’t know where they came from, but each time they needed new anotechs more answered their call.
The days were paradoxes: long and short, safe and perilous, peaceful and strenuous, fascinating and tedious. Reia’s presence disappeared for two days so she could personally direct the anotechs in their seed-retrieval task, leaving Terosh feeling empty. To blunt the edge of slowly passing time, he practiced his parts endlessly. He spent some energy maintaining their sleeping bodies, but most of his effort went into manipulating the air. Molecule by molecule, he formed water and stuck it to the back wall. When that filled, he started a new sheet. He willed the anotechs to spread over the barn and draw heat away until the temperature hovered just above freezing.
The acid was the hardest part. Terosh soon discovered it would have to be fetched from the Talmeth Mountains, volcanoes tucked in the southwest corner of Reshner’s habitable continent. The volcanoes spew molten metals and acids approximately every three months. Knowing he couldn’t retrieve the acid and continue working in the barn, Terosh sent Reia soon after she returned with the seeds. He sensed her weariness as she planted the first two seeds and instructed him on planting the other eight, but if he asked her to stop, they would fail.
She returned two days later, bearing the precious acid. Her life force trembled with fatigue, which coupled with the cool temperatures to make her physical form shiver.
Terosh concentrated on feeding the amrita plants water, acid, and proper jolts of heat but remained aware enough to go half-crazy staring down upon their bodies. Seeing Reia’s deathly pale cheeks made him angry.
When the amrita plants were finally ready, the anotechs informed them that they could return to their bodies. The task of withdrawing control slowly, while still maintaining the right temperatures, took a lot of patience. Terosh had gathered too much water and could not release it all at once for fear of flooding their work. Reia helped him slowly return the water to the air, then return to his body.
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