Tales From the Crucible

by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

  Except of course something was wrong – Jani wasn’t here. And right now, Taryx remembered just how much he missed Jani’s whistling, and his jokes, and his fearless grin. Apparently, all their time together meant more to Taryx than it had to him.

  One day, thinking about Jani wouldn’t hurt, Taryx promised himself. He just wished that day could be today. He wished he could instantly compost all of the memories that made him ache for Jani into nothing more than fond, old memories of someone he’d once known.

  Burble stroked Taryx’s face with a sympathetic tentacle. The tightness in his chest eased and his pain became watery and indistinct. Yes, he’d liked having Jani around. But Jani was gone. Taryx was just scared of being alone. Nothing more.

  “Thanks, Burble. Having you around cheers me up.”

  Burble’s wings buzzed with excitement. He flew loops around trees, burning stray cobalt mushrooms with gusto as he passed over them.

  Taryx leaned back and watched Burble in action. Minerva had been right the first time – the Crucible sometimes looked after its own. He’d been more than lucky that Burble had found him.

  For the next three weeks, Taryx worked seamlessly with Burble, treating everything from blisters to bronchitis, in patients ranging from chameleon foxes to a giant sloth. Burble really did have a gift, taking away their pain and suffering. And in turn, Burble grew stronger. It could fly higher and smoother, and it could flame brighter and bigger than before.

  Minerva hadn’t had anything to worry about. Burble had found its niche.

  With all the good Burble was doing, Taryx should have realized that sooner or later Gaalm would come by to complain about it. He pounded on Taryx’s front door, then called, “I’ve heard you’re still harboring that unnatural thing!”

  Thankfully, Burble was off hunting down stray cobalt mushrooms to incinerate. Taryx had been knitting spider silk bandages, using his own long fingers as needles. Reluctantly, he set the delicate work down and stepped outside. He didn’t invite Gaalm in. “We live on the Crucible, Gaalm. Nothing’s exactly natural on this world, is it?”

  Gaalm had the unique talent of glaring up at people and seeming taller for it. “Don’t play word games with me. Do you think you’re more in tune with the forest, just because you bear a superficial resemblance to some of its trees? The forest requires balance. The forest requires harmony.”

  The forest certainly wasn’t what had dragged Gaalm’s self-righteous backside over here. Gaalm’s only joy in life seemed to be annoying his neighbors.

  “And to find balance, everyone needs to listen to you and do what you say? Is that it?”

  Gaalm quivered like a leaf in a gale. “You can’t play with an æmber imp without getting burned. You have to take care of that thing, or everyone who lives here will pay the price.”

  “Like the improved medical care Burble’s providing?”

  Gaalm’s golden eyes went wide. “You named that abomination?”

  “It’s a creature. Not an abomination.”

  “Fine. It’s a predator, and it eats souls. A jackalope wouldn’t welcome an æmberspine mongrel into its burrow, now would it? You’re doing the same thing here. Bringing that monstrosity into everyone’s home and pretending it’s here to help keep house.”

  Taryx’s jaw tightened as he curled his toes into the dirt. The disrupter from Minerva hung heavy in his pocket. He hadn’t thrown it away yet. But he should have – long ago. “The only being that needs to leave my property is you.”

  Gaalm spread his hands wide in a gesture of peace. “Taryx, Taryx. Do you remember when you welcomed Jani into your home? When I told you a skyborn elf had no place in the forest? That he belonged with his kin? I was right. He followed the nature of an elf, and returned to his tribe. Your imp will follow its nature, too. I know you’re sad about losing Jani. But that’s no excuse to endanger all of us with that abomination.”

  Taryx blinked. Had he been sad? He remembered Jani on that rope ladder, climbing aboard the airship, high above the trees. He remembered Jani waving goodbye. Watching until Jani was a dark purple speck. Until the ship was nothing more than a dot on the horizon, indistinguishable from the birds. He’d stood there for three days, just staring up – until Minerva found him and brought him back to his house.

  But he didn’t feel any pain thinking about it. He felt… nothing. Nothing at all. “Sad?”

  “Heartbroken. Morose. I’m not a thesaurus, Taryx. The point is, that imp will hurt everyone. It’s not enough to send it away. We need to put it down.”

  Anger rushed into the space where the hollow not-sadness had been. “I won’t put up with threats, Gaalm. You should go, now, before you say more things you’ll regret.”

  Taryx took a step forward. He only meant to show he was serious and chase Gaalm away, but Gaalm went blotchy white, like cumulus clouds had suddenly covered his blue skin. He scuttled backward. “You- you keep that thing away from me!”

  Taryx glanced over his shoulder. Burble hovered behind him. How long had it been there?

  “We have to kill it! Stop it, Taryx, before it eats us all!”

  Burble darted in front of Taryx and blasted a dart of fire at Gaalm. The elf stumbled back and raised an arm, shielding his face. He screamed. Even from this far back, Taryx could see that his sleeve had turned to ash and his arm was red and blistering.

  “Burble!” Taryx thrust Burble back, putting himself between it and Gaalm. “That stupid elf was just leaving! I’m not going to let him hurt you!”

  Gaalm screamed, “See! It’s dangerous! I warned you!”

  “Of course it is!” Taryx snapped. “If you threaten a creature, don’t be surprised if it bites you! Burble, you stay here. I’m going to see to Gaalm’s arm, then he’s leaving. All right?”

  Burble bobbed sulkily lower to the ground. Taryx sighed. Burble had actually hurt someone. Gaalm would never shut up about it now, never mind that he’d instigated the whole mess. Taryx turned and strode toward Gaalm.

  The elf tried to scurry to his feet, but fell in the underbrush. “I don’t want your help. Stay back! I’ll leave. Please. Please keep it away. Please–”

  “I don’t force anyone to get treatment. If you want to leave, you can.” Taryx reached a hand to help Gaalm stand, but a tentacle reached Gaalm first.

  Annoyed, Taryx turned to find Burble just behind him. “Burble. I asked you to stay back.”

  Burble touched Taryx’s face with his other feathery tentacle. Taryx’s annoyances, worries, and fears all dissipated. It probably helped that Gaalm had stopped screaming. Taryx glanced at him. “Are you sure I can’t bandage that arm?”

  “I… I suppose you can. Why did I think that was a bad idea?”

  Because he was a stubborn fool, but Taryx wasn’t about to say that out loud. At least with his pain gone, Gaalm was starting to think straight. “Come on.”

  Taryx got him to his feet, put an arm around Gaalm’s shoulder, and led him to one of the cots inside the house. Burble followed. Without Taryx even asking for help, Burble moved the kettle to the side, opening up the æmberflower roof for the best light.

  Usually, Taryx worked slowly and carefully. Usually there was a knot of empathy in his gut, worrying over the wellbeing of his patient. Today, that didn’t seem so important, not with Burble rubbing his back.

  Taryx washed the wound roughly. He slathered on a poultice, not taking care to mind the blisters. Then he wrapped it. Analytically, he knew that Gaalm should be screaming and thrashing at such hasty treatment. But he didn’t. Burble was touching Gaalm’s shoulder, its wings beating faster and faster. Occasionally, it let out a satisfied, “Brrm, brrm.”

  Taryx was glad Burble enjoyed assisting him. Burble was such a helpful creature. Gaalm left without any further harsh words, he was so touched by Burble’s efforts.

  Taryx woke in the middle of the night. He hadn’t moved the kettle, so part of the roof remained open, letting him see a swath of stars.

  Jani was out there som
ewhere. Along with uncounted interdimensional bats. And æmberdrakes. And clouds. None of those things seemed especially more important than the others. Thinking about it left a sour taste in his mouth, and he wasn’t sure why.

  He hoped Gaalm wouldn’t return. Taryx could deliver the salve to the elven village and let Gaalm treat himself.

  Only then did he think about the way he’d cleaned Gaalm’s wound. The way he’d bound it without pity.

  Taryx had unnecessarily hurt a patient.

  He thought he might be ill. Burble lay in the cot next to him, its round form gleaming in the starlight, its knitted hat hanging askew. It would be so easy to blame Burble, to call it a monster like Gaalm and Minerva had insisted he should.

  But this was clearly all Taryx’s own fault. He’d been upset. Burble had tried to help. Taryx had never explained that it was vital to only numb the injured person, not the healer.

  Blaming Burble would only be a frail attempt to shift responsibility and numb his own guilt. He didn’t want to be numb to that. Taryx needed to take responsibility for what had happened so it didn’t happen again. Next time, he would be more careful. Next time, he’d make sure to be clear with Burble. He could and would do better for his patients – even patients like Gaalm.

  Taryx stared back up at the stars. Jani had come from that sky. Taryx wanted to mourn him. He wanted to feel like Jani had been special and that his loss was something special, too. He wanted to curl his heart around that aching sorrow. But there simply was no pain any more. Inexplicably, and without warning, that grief had left him, just like Jani had left him. Here one day, gone the next.

  Taryx’s stomach turned. He glanced at Burble laying in the dark next to him. Minerva’s words echoed back to him: Has it been feeding off you?

  Today, Burble had eaten his emotions. Taryx could feel the strange emptiness where his shock, horror, and concern over Gaalm’s injures should have been. And it was the same kind of emptiness he felt when he tried to think about Jani. If Taryx had actually composted that pain, he ought to feel something in the space where his sadness had been. Peace. Acceptance, perhaps. But there was just a gaping nothingness inside him. Only the fear of being alone remained.

  Burble had just been trying to help, Taryx told himself. It had wanted Gaalm to stop being afraid, not hurt him further. It had wanted to ease Taryx’s heartbreak, not leave him empty. Tomorrow, Taryx would clearly explain that Burble should only take away the pain of patients in dire need of help. Then there wouldn’t be any more problems. Burble hadn’t acted out of malice or greed, after all – because if it had, Taryx would have to send Burble away. And then he couldn’t fall asleep to the soft whirr of Burble’s inner workings. He couldn’t wake up to a happy flurry of tentacles. No one would bob along beside him as he worked.

  Before Jani came, Taryx had never been lonely. He hadn’t known what it meant to be alone.

  The second time Taryx woke, it was to the smell of smoke and the screams and bleating of wounded, frantic creatures. The sun shone red through his skylight. Burble rolled upright, balanced on its tentacles.

  “You stay right there,” Taryx said and ran outside.

  More than a dozen beings crowded in the clearing in front of his home. Two elves – part of Gaalm’s tribe, though Gaalm himself was nowhere to be seen – along with tri-deer, briar grublings, an angora spider, and a number of other forest creatures.

  All of them had burns. On arms, on faces, on flanks. Taryx swallowed, his bark going papery-dry. Burble couldn’t have. Burble had been home all night. Hadn’t it?

  “There’s a fire,” one of the elves said. “Gaalm’s got crews organized fighting it. But plenty of us have gotten caught. You’ll help, won’t you?”

  “Of course.” A forest fire. Just an ordinary forest fire. This had nothing to do with Burble.

  Though Burble could have easily have started such a fire, creating a feast of pain for itself to devour. Surely Burble realized though, that if it injured its hosts too badly, they’d get rid of it? Burble could be fed for a lifetime as Taryx’s assistant. It didn’t need to cause a catastrophe.

  But Taryx had never met an imp before. He knew practically nothing about them. He wanted to find excuses for Burble simply because he liked the creature. Animals in the wild exhibited similarly destructive behaviors – like a halacor, inciting a stampede near a cliff so it could climb down and gorge itself at its leisure.

  Gaalm had just told him yesterday that if he kept an ember imp around, they’d all get burned. And here were so many of his neighbors carrying burns on their bodies. Burble had maneuvered him to hurt Gaalm yesterday. It had stolen his feelings for Jani so he couldn’t even compost his grief, leaving a gaping, hollow hole Taryx wasn’t sure would ever heal.

  Burble nudged the door open, wings buzzing. It gave out an excited coo. At least, it sounded that way to Taryx. Excited and hungry.

  Taryx had no proof that Burble had caused this. There was every likelihood that it had. But he didn’t have time to think about that – not with so many patients to treat. He’d keep Burble away from everyone and decide what to do afterward. “Go fetch more water, Burble. We’ll need plenty of water today.”

  Its tentacles drooped, but it grabbed a bucket and flew off toward the stream. Taryx quickly surveyed the group. Despite the frantically flashing horns on the tri-deer, it was the cracked carapace of a briar grubling that demanded immediate attention.

  Taryx picked the creature up, speaking softly to it. He washed out the wound with quickbalm tea. Then, with his thin, dexterous fingers, he painstakingly dripped oil infused with blood-blooming mushrooms into the crack, to encourage the cuticle to clot. Bandages didn’t do this kind of injury much good, so he finished up by boiling the resin of a darkwater tree and painting a thin layer over the wound. The stuff dried quickly, cementing the carapace together. That would give it some stability as it regrew from the inside out. In about six weeks, the resin would wash away on its own.

  “All done. Let’s find you a shady spot to rest while I help the next patient,” Taryx said. His fingers were cramped, but it was reassuring to know that he was still a competent healer. One unfortunate mishap with Burble didn’t change that.

  Burble, for his part, obediently hauled buckets, never touching the patients. It could – and would – listen to him.

  He treated an elf for a nasty wound on her leg that had only gotten worse with waiting. Taryx popped blisters and drained the purple pus from them. Gently. Delicately. With fingers that were only growing more cramped as his bark turned papery-dry with anxiety. Two patients down. But four more had arrived and joined the waiting crowd while he was tending them.

  He set wings and treated burned-raw skin, fur and scales. A half dozen elves arrived from the crews Gaalm had arranged to fight the fire. The fire was out, they reported, but they’d still suffered from its effects. All of them needed to inhale medicated steam for their lungs and get slathered in balm for their chapped skin. At least he had the ever-hot kettle. He got the herbs and mushrooms for the steam going, tossed one of the elves a jar of balm, and set to work on a young elfin man with a burned foot.

  By then, Taryx’s hands shook so badly he dropped his jug of quickbalm tea. It crashed to the ground, cracking open and dampening the dirt with its contents. The blisters on these feet were like the blisters on the tri-deer, on the elfin woman, on the chameleon fox who’d turned purple-red all over to match her wounds.

  Taryx stared down at the broken pieces of the cup. He needed to get a new cup. He needed to make more tea.

  But he felt rooted to the spot, his fibers as slow as the actual trees around him. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t help everyone.

  Just then, Burble appeared through the roof with a bucket of water for the kettle.

  If Burble took his exhaustion, worry, and frustration away, Taryx could keep functioning. Not perfectly. But that was better than not functioning at all.

  Burble extended one of his feathery tentacles,
as if in question. Taryx reached out and took it. The horror of the injuries and the stress of having so many more to treat was siphoned away. Taryx picked up the pieces of the broken pitcher, chucked them out the skylight, and got another one.

  The elf watched Burble, his golden eyes wide. “Can that thing really take away my pain?”

  “Yes. After a fashion. Though there’s a chance it’s not a wise idea.”

  “Please,” he begged in a voice as frail as a wind-battered autumn leaf, “please, let it help me.”

  Taryx didn’t stop Burble when it reached out for the elf. Why had he thought this was a bad idea? Almost immediately, the pain drained from his patient’s face. The elf looked a bit dazed, yes, but that was better than being twisted up in agony.

  Taryx kept working, numbly plodding through treatments. It was not careful, skilled, caring work. But it was getting done, bit by bit. After the elves, he got the tri-deer buck laying on its side, revealing a nasty gash it had probably gotten trying to run away from the flames.

  “Burble. The quickbalm, please.”

  Burble passed him a jug. Taryx splashed it on. The buck spasmed, but before any sound could escape its mouth, Burble was there, eating up the pain. Taryx sniffed at the jar.

  “Burble. This is vinegar. I need quickbalm,” Taryx grumbled, and fetched it himself.

  Burble made the same mistake with the next patient. And the next. Correcting its mistakes every time was annoying.

  At least Burble was always ready to soak up the excess pain, so no one felt the mistakes for long.

  By the time everyone was finally treated and sent on their way, evening was coming on. Taryx sent Burble to fetch more water for tea – just for drinking, this time. Then he slumped into his cot.

  Taryx knew he hadn’t been the best healer today. He needed to thank Burble for allowing him to function. Or condemn it for starting the fire in the first place.

  Keeping Burble around felt like betraying the forest. But sending it away felt like second-guessing his own feelings. Burble might not be the most skilled assistant, but it had stayed to help the entire time, even if it had sometimes handed him the wrong thing.