Curt Benjamin - [Seven Brothers 03] - The Gates of Heaven

by Curt Benjamin

  With perfect timing that usually escaped the trickster god, Master Den chose that moment to enter the captain’s cabin. “We shall, boy, we shall,” he advised.

  “What?” Llesho bounded from his chair, finally secure enough to let his temper explode. “Where did you go, and why are you running around with a teapot in your hands when the crown prince of the Qubal clans—our allies against the South in the Harnlands, mind you—lies dying with no one but a grime-besmirched blacksmith to tend his wounds.”

  “You didn’t let—”

  Master Den had the good grace to look horrified at the mention of the ship’s surgeon, but Llesho had no intention of letting him off the hook.

  “Of course not! For all the good that it did Tayy. He needs help now and what do you do? You disappear, just like Habiba, who is off to Pontus to find too little help too late to do any good. I don’t know why I put up with any of you. For all that magic is supposed to have its benefits, it has done nothing from start to finish but cause pain!”

  His own cadre stared awkwardly at the deck under their feet, nervous to confront him while he raged. Master Den, however, smiled benevolently. “You’re getting better at that,” he said, and set down the teapot. “The tea is for Tayy. It will help with the pain until we get him to a doctor. If someone will bring me a clean basin and some clean cloths, I’ll see what we can do about the wound until we reach port.”

  Grateful for something to do that would take them out of Llesho’s way, his cadre scattered in search of the items Master Den had requested. All but Lling, who joined then at the table where their teacher had set the fat iron pot.

  “I brought this,” she said, and carefully unwrapped the jade cup.

  Her ladyship, the mortal goddess of war, had given Llesho the cup at the start of his quest, a gift from another lifetime with a challenge to repair the love and honor it represented. He had entrusted it to Lling while he rescued Tayy on the pirate ship. Now he took it in his hands, watching the bowl brighten with the diffused light that poured through the wide windows of the captain’s cabin.

  “I thought that, being magical, it might help,” Lling suggested. “I left Lady Chaiujin’s cup in my cabin. I’ll be happy when you take it back—I’ve had enough of the lady haunting my dreams. But this didn’t seem like the place.” That was for reassurance. The Lady Chaiujin had murdered Tayy’s parents, had poisoned Llesho himself once with a love potion in a cup very like the one he now held in his hand. Except that one had a spiral rune at the bottom of the bowl. Llesho looked anyway, but of course Lling was right.

  “Thank you.” He handed the cup to Master Den, who wiped it with a corner of clean cloth torn from the bandaging material Bixei had brought. He filled it, then poured an inch of the clear tea into the basin Kaydu set on the table.

  “First a drink to dull the pain,” he said, and lifted Tayy’s head, made him drink a sip, another, another. Then, when some of the tension went out of the muscles of arms and legs clenched with pain even in his semiconscious state, Master Den began to moisten the cloth that had lain on the open wound. Gradually, he was able to loosen it and remove it without causing more bleeding. “This is going to hurt,” he warned them all, but asked for no help to hold his patient down. Then, slowly, he poured the remaining tea into the wound.

  Llesho knew how that felt, like a knife slicing him open all over again, and his own gut fluttered with sympathy as Prince Tayyichiut screamed. Instinctively, he wanted to cover his ears, but he held his hands at his sides. If Tayy could live it, Llesho could listen. The herbs in the tea did their work, however, and soon the cries fell to murmurs and ended on a sigh. It seemed too much to hope, but Master Den confirmed his suspicion.

  “He’s gone to sleep,” the god said. “He’ll rest now.” With that he lay the dampened cloth over the wound and lowered his own considerable bulk into the chair that Llesho had pulled up by the bedside.

  “Sit down,” he instructed Llesho. His chair creaked when he moved, pointing to another at the table. “You look like you are about to faint and it is making your cadre nervous.”

  Llesho wanted to object that he was fine. He wouldn’t have fooled anyone, however. When Hmishi drew the chair over for him, therefore, he sank into it without further argument. “Habiba’s gone to Pontus,” he said. “When will he be back?”

  “He’s not coming back. He’ll be waiting for us on the docks. He trained in Pontus and says he knows a physician who will take us in.”

  “How much longer? He needs a proper surgeon now!”

  “It’s less than half a day’s journey,” Kaydu assured him, news that would, perhaps, have put a stop to his show of temper before it had begun. “I thought you knew—” She cast a reproachful frown at Master Den, who hadn’t told him as much.

  Again, a nod. Llesho heard her voice, but it seemed to be growing more and more distant with every word she said. The ship was on course, he’d done what he could, and there was nothing else to do but wait. With the need to keep moving gone, his eyelids wouldn’t be denied.

  Vaguely he heard some hushed argument, to leave something where it was or move it to a more comfortable location, but his weary mind wouldn’t process that they were talking about him. Eventually, the “leave him” faction won and a weight fell across his shoulders, his knees. Someone had covered him with a blanket. He realized from the fringes of sleep that while he didn’t need the cover for warmth, it made him feel safer somehow. Safe enough that he didn’t need even that much awareness anymore. So he let it go.

  The cry, “Land ho!” wove itself into his aimless dreams and left them again as fleetingly as it had come. When Llesho next became aware of his surroundings, it was to hear Habiba’s voice, and that of a stranger directing the off loading of their patient. The scuffling of litter bearers followed. In the silence that followed their passage through the hatchway, the rustle of heavy silks almost drew him to open his eyes. But his lids were so heavy . . .

  A gentle hand rested on his shoulder, “Llesho? Are you hurt?”

  Habiba’s voice, he recognized it even though the man whispered close to his ear. Not the voicing of a secret, but the calming of a wild creature. Llesho wondered what he must look like for her ladyship’s witch to take such care in his waking.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Habiba asked someone. “Why doesn’t he wake up.”

  “He’s awake,” a stranger’s voice said, “or nearly so. Give him a minute to think about joining us.”

  He didn’t know the voice, knew he’d never met the man who owned it, but it stirred comforting memories anyway. A warmth he hadn’t felt in a long time told him he could trust that voice, so he slowly let his eyes drift open. The magician crouched at his side, his brow furrowed in a worried frown. Standing at Habiba’s shoulder, the physician watched Llesho with warm and understanding eyes. He wore a white linen skirt both long and wide with a short square jacket. On his head he had a tall felt hat and on his feet slippers of the same color. In between, he wore a gauzy open coat with long, deep sleeves. His eyes were dark, his skin was pale and he wore a neatly trimmed mustache and a short, pointed beard. Between the two, a warm smile showed a neat row of even, white teeth.

  Llesho had seen a priest dressed the same way buying children in the slave market of Edris. Stipes had called the man a missionary, saving the children, not harming them. Which might have been the truth, or might have been a quick lie so that Llesho didn’t break their cover to do some rescuing himself. This man didn’t look like a slaver of children, but still he pulled away, groping reflexively at his side for his knife.

  “Welcome to Pontus.” The stranger gently plucked Llesho’s fingers from his belt and held them between his two hands. “My name is Ibn Al-Razi and I’m a doctor. My carriage is waiting on the docks to take you to my hospital. Do you need a litter, or can you walk as far as the carriage?”

  A doctor. That made sense. Adar used to hold his hand the very same way when he wanted to check his energy points for
vitality.

  “I can walk.” Llesho stretched and looked around, but his other senses hadn’t failed him. They were alone in the captain’s cabin. He remembered hearing the ordering of Tayy’s removal, but realized suddenly what had been missing from that scene. Tayy had made no sound, though he’d been jostled surely getting him out of the bed and onto the litter.

  “Prince Tayyichiut—”

  “Still alive,” the physician-priest assured him, though his expression took a downward course. “I make no promises for the future until I have had a chance to treat him. He’s had some syrup of poppy to put him to sleep until we settle him in my infirmary.”

  Llesho nodded, grateful for the update. He’d heard of syrup of poppy, how it dulled the mind to pain more surely than any of the other herbs he knew, but hadn’t seen it in use before. He felt all dull around the edges and curiously incapable of greater motion so that he wondered if he’d been dosed on poppy himself.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Habiba had noticed as well. He took Llesho’s other hand, found the pulse point at Llesho’s wrist.

  Ibn Al-Razi, more angry than concerned, denied any part in Llesho’s condition. “What did you expect? He’s been charming storms and warding hunting cats, all without proper training in the arts or any magical support.”

  Llesho didn’t realize that Master Den had returned until he spoke up from the hatchway. “That’s not entirely true. I may have miscalculated the resources he’d already expended in the galley, but Marmer Sea Dragon was with him when he worked the storm. No one knows these waters, or the working of them, better than the dragon-king himself.”

  Al-Razi glared at the trickster god, waiting for the part of the explanation he was unwilling to say. Habiba was the one who gave in, however. “Worse awaits him in the mountains. Her ladyship, whom I serve, had to know if he could do it.”

  “The fact is,” Master Den interrupted, brushing away the witch’s explanation, “We expected the boys to spend a few days as oarsmen on a pirate galley before their companions caught up and rescued them. It seemed a good experience for the Harnish prince, who had yet to be tried in adversity.

  “Weather working wasn’t in the plan at all. Markko should not have been able to raise a storm of that magnitude. We miscalculated the effect the dragon-prince would have on his abilities in the realm of the dragon’s birth, however. Fortunately for all involved, the boy proved adept at taming storms, or they’d all be dead of our miscalculation.”

  Throughout this telling of the secret plans of gods and magicians gone astray, the physician from Pontus was shaking his head. “For whatever reasons, he’s been working well beyond his capacity to protect himself for far too long.” Al-Razi chastised the trickster god and Habiba, the representative of the mortal goddess of war, as well. “It’s drained his resources to a dangerously low ebb. You will be lucky not to end this adventure with two dead princes on your hands.”

  “I know.” Master Den came forward then and swept Llesho up into his arms, blanket and all. “But talking about it isn’t going to keep them alive.”

  “No, it isn’t. Bring him.”

  Ibn Al-Razi swept from the cabin with Master Den following and Habiba in the rear. Llesho struggled to escape the trickster’s firm grip, but was shushed like a child. “Can you even feel your legs, let alone walk on them?” his teacher asked.

  When he thought about it, he found only pins and needles where his legs should be. With an ill grace to be caught at such a disadvantage, therefore, he settled into the massive arms and let himself be carried to the docks.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  IT WAS raining in Pontus, but wrapped in his blanket on the padded bench of the physician’s carriage, Llesho scarcely noticed. Somehow he was brought into a courtyard, and from there into a large airy room with a harmonious combination of architecture and furnishings to create a setting at once peaceful and conducive to healing. He rode in Master Den’s arms, but how he got there or why he traveled that way he couldn’t quite gather the energy to question. For whatever reason, the journey soon ended in a comfortable bed with a soft mattress and cool white sheets. Windows were open nearby, and curtains fine as gauze floated in the breeze that brought the smell of rain into the room.

  Master Den stepped away, but another form took his place at the bedside. “You’re safe now.” The man with the pointy beard crouched low so that his patient could see him clearly without straining his neck. “We are in the infirmary of the physician Ibn Al-Razi. I am that physician, and I will see that you are well taken care of.”

  “You told me your name before.” Llesho felt uncommonly pleased to have remembered, though the conversation had occurred no more than an hour ago. All his thoughts were light as butterflies, however, that skittered away whenever he reached for them. So he felt a certain satisfaction to have got his hands around this one. He knew the doctor’s name.

  “Yes, I did.” The physician smiled as if he’d accomplished some great feat. “And hopefully you will remember it again after your nap.”

  “I just had a nap.” Llesho struggled to rise, though it seemed every bone in his body rebelled against the act. “Where are my cadre? Tayy is hurt—”

  With a thumb to Llesho’s forehead, Ibn Al-Razi pressed him back down until he lay once again deep in the feather bed. “Your cadre is banished to the house until you’ve rested. As for the young Prince Tayyichiut, you did well to keep the smith away from his wounds. I go to tend him as soon as I am assured that you will not leave this bed. So, you see, your own promise will speed the healing of your friend.”

  Between the determination of the physician and the rebellion of his body, it seemed clear that he wasn’t going anywhere soon. “Very well.” Llesho gave in with as much grace as he could muster under the circumstances. “But please, keep me informed about Prince Tayyichiut’s condition. I owe him more than his life, and I’ve promised his uncle—”

  “More than you have the power to deliver without the help of a good physician. So go to sleep and let me prove my skills on your friend.” Ibn Al-Razi rose from his crouch with a final warning, or blessing. “I know of the one who guards the wandering of your sleep,” he said, brushing the backs of his fingertips across the silver chain at Llesho’s throat. “If your dreams carry you from your bed, instruct our mischievous friend that your doctor orders peaceful travels only.”

  Llesho gave his promise with a nod, almost too tired even to answer. “Why do I feel like this?” he asked, while the infirmary blurred around him. He hadn’t been injured, he’d shown no signs of illness. He’d just taken a nap in a chair by Prince Tayy’s bedside, and yet he still found it difficult to stay awake. “What potion have you given me?”

  “No potion,” the doctor assured him. “But a story. In the center of the town of Pontus there is a well. The water from the well pours out freely for all who come there, citizen, slave, or traveler. All their animals are likewise welcome to drink from this well.

  “From time to time, however, a great caravan comes through the town, or many pilgrims will descend upon the square at once. They draw and draw from the well, each according to his need and no more, but in so many numbers that the well runs dry. At these times our Apadisha, in his wisdom, builds a wooden house around the well. No one may draw until the water returns.”

  With a smile, the physician turned in a light-footed circle, his hands held out at an angle to indicate the walls of his infirmary. “Today you are this well, run dry from too many demands upon your inner resources. And this, my infirmary, is your wooden house. No one may burden you until your strength, like the water to the well, returns.”

  “How long?” Llesho asked around a yawn that cracked his jaw. He was, for the moment, willing to concede that perhaps he had drawn too often and too deeply from the well of his own inner strength. A nap couldn’t hurt, and Tayy needed the doctor . . .

  “We’ll see,” Al-Razi said, and laughter lurked in the voice that drifted away on sleep .
. .

  For a while, Llesho was aware of nothing. His sleep was deep and dreamless, like the bottom of that well Ibn Al-Razi talked about. And then, so slowly that he scarcely saw it happening, gray light crept in around his lashes.

  The moss under his nose gave off a familiar scent, and he curled himself into the lush velvety cushion of its embrace. Memories covered him like a blanket. He’d been here before, under this tree. Safe in the arms of his Goddess. His heart yearned for her while his body dragged him back into sleep. When he woke again, she sat calmly beside him, a book in her hands and a pitcher and cups at her side.

  “What are you reading?” he asked. It seemed a mundane question for one who had gone to sleep in a feather bed in Pontus and awakened in the gardens of heaven. He felt warm and sated with sleep, however, and distant from the cares that had propelled him across all the known world to collapse at a foreign doctor’s feet. He was safe and warm and cared for. That other life could wait.

  “It’s called ‘A Life of Prayer and Battle,’ by four teachers of Farshore Province.” She set the book aside as she gave the title, and Llesho knew without being told that the life in question had been his own, and that the book had not yet been written.

  “Water?” She poured from the pitcher and handed him a cup. The water was cold and crisp on his tongue, reminding him of another time when a yearning for home stronger than Master Markko’s poisons had brought him here.

  He returned the cup with an apology, “I am a sorry excuse for a husband. It seems I only find my way here when I need you, and never the other way around.”

  “Your every step since you left Kungol as a child has been in my service.” She brushed the hair from his forehead with fingers cool as the water he had lately drunk and smiled in spite of the tears in her eyes. “Through lives uncounted I have never had cause to doubt you, husband.”

  “My Lady.” He took her hand in his and held it to his cheek. He had never moved so boldly toward her before, but her palm, her fingers, felt perfect against his skin.