by J M D Reid
Her lips were open, caked and cracked, the edges turning blue dull like they were made of candle wax. He gritted his teeth, forcing the vitality to flow out of his hand and into the officer’s. He slammed into that barrier. While thicker than Chaylene’s, it still felt only as thin as a cloth curtain hung over a window.
It rebuffed his healing with more strength than a masonry wall.
He pounded on it anyways. He sent his fire forward, assaulting the barrier. His hand squeezed tighter and tighter on Chemy’s, his forehead scrunching tight. His guts writhed, the woman’s earlier wheezing, gasping breaths echoing over and over through Ary’s head from when he walked by her without a thought.
She couldn’t die.
“Ary,” Chaylene said, her hand gripping his shoulder. “She’s gone.”
“No!” The word growled out of him. “I have to try harder.”
Sweat broke out across his forehead as he warred with the barrier. Again and again, he sent forth his fire to battle it, to burn that barrier. It was thin. The lieutenant-captain lay just on the other side. He just had to reach her. He just had to batter through the cloth. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t hold anything back.
Twigs snapped in Ary’s hand.
“Ary!” Chaylene hissed. “You have to stop. She’s dead.”
He wouldn’t.
The twigs cracked as his hand crushed hard about cold flesh.
“There are others you can save, Ary.” She hugged him from behind. “You have to let her go. You’re breaking her bones. She doesn’t deserve that, does she?”
Ary’s hand flinched open. He stared in horror at the woman’s fingers mangled and twisted by his crushing grip. Acid churned in his stomach and burned up his throat. His breath came fast, mighty inhalations sending dizziness through him. The hold reeled about him.
“I . . . I . . .” He struggled to master himself. “I saved Guts.”
“You had to choose who to heal first.”
“Guts wasn’t as bad as her. He could have waited.”
“Ary . . .” Chaylene said, a plaintive catch to her voice.
Wheezing, gasping, chocking coughs surrounded him. He couldn’t sit here while someone else died. He would save them all. He flexed his fingers and broke free of his wife’s embrace as he rose. He threw his gaze around. Who was the sickest? Who needed him the most?
His gaze settled on the captain. Weakened by losing her leg, she looked almost dead, her face waxy. He didn’t remember making the decision to move. He just appeared over her, grabbing her hand. Still warm.
The fire flowed unimpeded.
“Thank you, Riasruo,” he said before he winced. Habit had ingrained giving thanks to the Sun Goddess. Did she shine down on the crew while Theisseg’s Blessing delivered salvation?
He wouldn’t let anyone else die. He poured his vitality into the captain. A shiver ran through his body. His left hand rubbed his right arm through his shirt, muscles trembling. Captain Dhar’s eyes flicked open. She let out a sigh without a wheeze. He detected that her leg was swollen, poison nibbling at the end of her stump.
He gave her some healing there, too. Not enough to fix her leg, but enough to let her recover swifter and to keep gangrene from ravaging her body.
“There you are, Captain,” he said, standing up and casting his gaze round.
His vision fell on Chaylene standing over Chief Sharene. His wife looked up at him, shook her head, and then drew the blanket over the carpenter’s face. Ary sucked in a breath. I made the wrong choice again!
Fear almost paralyzed him. What if he chose wrong a third time? What if someone else died because he healed someone not as ill? As his mind grappled with it, his body moved. His training—drilled through him over and over by the Sergeant-Major so he could act while exhausted or too numb from hours upon hours of fighting—propelled him forward. On the battlefield, you couldn’t freeze. He moved to the next person, blinked at the sight of a sailor named Charlim, and poured heat into the man.
His wife moved through the room with him, tending to them while he mended Charlim. She covered another another sailor, a cook named Shayis, then the man Ary had half-beaten to death. His stomach churned as he looked away from Sharthamen’s corpse.
He drifted from sick person to sick person, pouring his heat, his life, into them. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t let another one die. His heart bled from four cuts already. He shook as the autumn chill leeched into his flesh. He rubbed himself with his left hand, massaging his muscles.
Chaylene covered a fifth sailor, Carpenter’s Mate Thosh.
“I’m sorry,” Ary whispered to the dead man, voice hoarse as another slash cut deep into his heart.
He couldn’t stop. Shivering, he moved to the next hammock.
*
“You need to sleep,” Chaylene told her husband. “You’re pushing yourself too hard.”
Ary healed through the night. Each one took more and more of his vitality away. His power, like Riasruo’s Lightning, had a finite reservoir. Unlike his charge, Ary could feed this Blessing with his own heat. Shivers wracked his body. He trembled like an old man as he healed Chief Fossein. Worry played with Chaylene’s guts.
“I can’t stop.” With a grunt, Ary rose from the chief of the boat’s side. “They’ll die.”
“Maybe. But so will you.”
Ary gritted his teeth, as stubborn as an osprey digging into coral after a fish. He stumbled forward, losing his balance. She seized his arm and gasped, his weight almost dragging her to the floor. His skin felt cool to her touch. He shivered in her embrace as she steadied him.
“You’ll die, Ary,” she whispered. “You need to take a break.”
“I can’t let another one die,” he said, raw eyes meeting hers. His jaw trembled, teeth chattering.
“It’s not your fault if people die.”
“No one else will die!” He wrenched away from her and almost fell as he stumbled towards the next hammock.
“Theisseg’s scrawny feathers!” She seized his arm again, straining to pull him short as he went to kneel beside Zeirie. “Ary! Stop!”
A bullish snort exploded from him. He jerked his arm from her grip and fell across Zeirie’s body. The half-Agerzak coughed and shuddered, groaning in pain as Ary struggled to get off her swinging hammock.
“You’re so stubborn,” Chaylene hissed. She helped him get off the woman and sink to the floor. “If you die, who’s going to heal the other sick?”
“I’m fine.” He grasped Zeirie’s hand.
Chaylene snarled another curse. She didn’t want her husband to die saving Zeirie. The woman was a rotten fish stinking up the ship. Xoshia may have died, but her friend Zeirie still gossiped.
Her husband grew colder. He shivered. Chaylene groaned as she supported more of his bulk. Exhaustion made her dizzy. He’d healed her, but she still felt weak. Hours moving through the hold had only sapped more strength from her. She felt hollowed out, her stomach growling.
He wouldn’t stop. For a moment, admiration surged through her before the fear swallowed it. He cared enough to heal even a piece of sow’s dung like Zeirie. To push himself to his limits for others. So she had to protect him.
She grasped his cool, free hand. “If you’re going to be so stubborn, take some of my heat.”
But Ary didn’t. Maybe he couldn’t, or maybe he didn’t want to endanger her. Chaylene’s heart thudded in her chest. Time ticked by as he trembled over Zeirie. Her scout training gave her a good measure of its passage. Ary shook harder as a quarter hour approached. She stared at Zeirie. Some of the color returned to her cheeks. Her breathing eased while the swelling diminishing in her throat.
“That’s enough, Ary,” she whispered. “She’ll be fine.”
Zeirie’s eyes fluttered open for a moment. “Mmm, that’s nice,” she whispered. “It’s getting cooler.”
“She’s healed, Ary!” Chaylene hissed. “Stop before you kill yourself!”
Groaning, Ary crashed onto the
deck. Convulsions shook his body. He curled inward like a baby, hugging himself. Terror crushed her heart into a bloody pulp. She fell to her knees beside him, rolling his broad form onto his back.
“Ary!”
“I’m . . . fine,” he said through chattering teeth. The shaking slowed. “Just need a moment . . . Then I’ll . . . heal the next one.”
“Briaris Jayne, no!” It was more than stubbornness, she realized. More than guilt flagellating him. He wasn’t thinking coherently. He’d pushed himself beyond even his endurance, his thoughts confused. In his exhaustion, he fixated too much, unable to comprehend the danger he was in.
“Just need help up,” he slurred.
“I’m not helping you.” She stood up, folding her arms before her. “Rest, Ary.”
Ary tried to stand up, pushing up with his left elbow, but he fell back on the floor. His hand thrust up at her. “Lena.”
“If you can’t stand on your own, then you can’t heal anyone.”
He shook his head, his eyes fluttering. He collapsed, his struggles ceasing. “Is the ship spinning?”
She sank beside him. “You need to sleep.” She stroked his brow. “You need to replenish those fires of yours.” She stretched out beside him on the hard decking and pressed her body against his. “Take some of my warmth, Ary.”
“Lena . . .” He sighed, his eyes closed, and his breathing slowed into a measured rhythm.
“That’s it,” Chaylene nodded, resting her head on his chest, hearing his heart drumming strong. “Sleep, Ary.”
She rested there, feeling his chest rise and fall, the heat building back in his body. The tightness in her guts relaxed. She closed her own eyes, his life’s beat lulling her into sleep. She felt on the edge when a presence loomed over her.
She opened her eyes. Vel spread a blanket over her and Ary. She frowned. Vel didn’t stare at her with that feverish heat. No anger or hatred curled his lips. He gave her a soft smile—a friend’s smile—as he adjusted the covering.
“Thank you,” she said, too tired to feel her usual disgust.
Vel shook his head. “He needs his rest. The downyheaded idiot never knows when to give up.”
“That’s why he’d follow me anywhere. If I had fallen down into the Storm when the mast fell . . .”
Vel’s smile faded. His gaze looked distant, like he pondered something. “I bet he would.” He swallowed. “I wouldn’t. I realized that. I thought I loved you, Chaylene, but . . . I’m starting to wonder if I even know what that word means.” His gaze panned around the hold, pain breaking across his face. “All this . . . it’s . . .” He cleared his throat.
“What are you saying, Vel?”
“Nothing. I don’t know what I’m saying any more.”
“You should rest, too.”
“Not until this over. Rest. I’ll tend to the sick.” He drifted away, shoulders sagging. As sleep pulled at her, she thought he looked like a fish that had flown too far from his school and couldn’t find his way back.
*
Lheshoa 2nd, 399 VF (1960 SR)
“Set me free!” Theisseg howled as she shone in the dark void, bound by twelve lightning chains.
“I can’t,” Ary muttered as he drifted around Her body. He neared the one wrapped around Her right leg. He knew it. He’d touched it before. A song whispered through his mind. “It doesn’t just bind you.” He brushed it. Agony coursed through his non-body. His skin melted, his bones burned.
Ary jerked his finger away.
“It holds up the skylands, Theisseg. If I free you, I’ll kill so many people.”
“End the pain!” the Goddess sang, fighting against Her suffering.
“Do you even listen to me?” Ary demanded.
“Why did you betray me? I did everything for you!”
“I have no idea. Tell me what Iiwroa did that was so monstrous! How could she even betray you? You were enemies!” It didn’t make sense to Ary. Iiwroa had opposed the Wrackthar, the Tyrant King Kaltein, and Theisseg herself.
“Free me!”
“I can’t!” he roared back.
Ary circled her body, examining her from every angle. She was immense, dwarfing him. He soared to her beak. Her golden feathers shone, the radiance growing more brilliant as he neared. He flinched, or he imagined he flinched.
“You have to stop pestering me, Theisseg. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“Free me! Please! End the pain!”
Ary growled in disgust as he settled before her face. “I don’t understand you, Theisseg. Do you want me to kill all the people in the skies? Do you know that’s the cost? Or do you want to kill us? Do you hate that we live in the sky so much?”
“Why did you betray me, Iiwroa?”
Ary seized the tip of her beak. Heat poured into him. “Why did you give me the power to heal when you want me to kill everyone to free you?”
Her golden eyes focused on him. “Who are you?”
Ary blinked. “What do you mean? Don’t you know? You’ve been summoning me here for years. You’ve been talking to me. I’m Ary. Briaris Jayne.”
“Will you end my pain?” she asked.
“I can’t. I’ll kill so many people. Your chains are tied to the Dawnspires. They hold up the skylands. Do you want me to kill everyone to free you?”
“No,” Theisseg answered.
“Then I can’t free you. I’m sorry. It’s not fair. I know. Whatever Iiwroa did to you was monstrous.”
“Please,” begged the Luastria Goddess. “Please, Ary Briaris Jayne. End my pain! Set me free.”
“But I’ll kill people.” Ary wrenched away from her and tumbled backward through the void.
“Don’t leave me in this darkness,” Theisseg begged, her voice growing smaller as he fled back to his body. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“I’m sorry.” Tears trickled down his metaphysical cheeks. “I’m sorry. But it’s not possible. I won’t crash the skylands to free you. Enough died the last time one of your chains broke.”
“You just need to find the right Song!” she said, her voice dwindling as the darkness swallowed her. “Sing it from the Heights! Then you’ll end my pain!”
“What Song?” he groaned as his eyes opened, his soul returned to his body. He sat up, shaking his head, a blanket falling off of him. He frowned, confused at why he lay on the hold’s floor.
Chaylene knelt nearby, wiping at Velegrin’s forehead. The scout coughed and wheezed. Ary stood up and moved to his side to heal him more. He had to work slow. He remembered that much from the blur of memories. He couldn’t restore them all to full health like he’d done for Chaylene.
“You look better,” Chaylene smiled.
“I spoke to Her again.”
Chaylene nodded. “You were moaning in your sleep. Not as loud as usual.”
“She said I had to find the Song to free Her.”
“What does that mean?”
Ary shrugged and poured his fire into Velegrin. “How long was I asleep?”
“Six hours.”
Ary steeled himself. “How many died?”
She hesitated. “Three. Veldith, Thevin, and Petty Officer Rlosh.”
“Okay.” Ary took a deep breath, surprised the guilt wasn’t crushing him. He remembered drowning in it, compelling him to push his body further and further and . . . He trembled as he realized what he’d done, his head clearer. It had been so hard to think with the fatigue smothering his thoughts. “You were right, Chaylene.”
“I know,” she nodded. “About what?”
“I’m not good to anybody if I kill myself.”
He took Velegrin’s hand and healed him some more, pushing back the vermin nesting throughout his body.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I can taste how much you despise me,” Szuuwz nsk Zthug hissed.
Chaylene hesitated as she knelt beside the hulking lizardman. He lay on his back on a small pallet. The Zzuki were too large for the hammocks, and they didn’t
mind sleeping on hard decking. Like Humans, they were susceptible to the chocking plague. Szuuwz nsk Zthug was the sickest of the three.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Chaylene said, her words frosty. She dipped her cloth into the bucket of water, soaked it, then held it above the thing’s scaled snout. Her skin prickled coming so close to the creature.
She squeezed. Water rained onto a pink mouth full of sharp, needle-like fangs. He sighed, slitted eyes flicking shut for a moment. His forked tongue darted out and almost brushed her arm.
She jerked back.
“Yes, yes, you despise us, and yet you nurse me,” the creature continued, speaking in a half-sibilant hiss that almost mangled the Vionese words. “Why?”
Chaylene swallowed. She should lie, pretend she didn’t despise their whole foul race, but the last day had left her too exhausted to fake her loathing. They killed her father and destroyed her mother, but . . .
I killed that Vionese sailor . . . Does he have a daughter who will grow up cursing me?
“I really don’t know.” she finally said. She squeezed again, wringing out the last of the water.
“You are too young to have lost broodmates in the contest,” Szuuwz nsk Zthug said.
Chaylene’s face tightened. An offended anger rippled through her. “Contest? That’s what you call the war? A contest?”
“Yes, yes, we pitted our skills against your Autonomy and found ourselves lacking. It was a mighty struggle. My broodmother crooned to us while we still lay in our eggs, telling us about the bravery of our fathers.”
Fathers? How do you have more than one father?
“I lost my father,” Chaylene said. “One of your kind killed him while I was still in my ma’s womb.”
“A good reason to hate,” agreed Szuuwz nsk Zthug.
“What? That’s it?” Her anger deflated. He just. . . accepted it. “You think it’s right that I hate your kind?”
“Of course.” The pink tongue flicked out into the air. “We caused you pain. It is only right that you hate us. So why do you tend to me . . .? Unless . . . Were you ordered? But, no, with so much of the crew sick, who would order you, Warrant Officer?”
