by J M D Reid
She marched forward past the leader. The thug spat vile words at her, but she didn’t care. Her dark-brown skirts rustled as she tromped across the scarlet grass and reached the dying man. She knelt down to aid him.
The easterner looked up in shock as she pulled out the fist-sized healer from her skirt’s pocket.
*
Ōbhin stared in surprise at the woman as she knelt on the other side of Carstin, her dark skirts rustling. She pulled something out of her pocket. A topaz the size of her fist and wrapped in gold wire. Ōbhin frowned at it. A healing jewelchine? Here?
“I don’t know if this will help,” the woman said. Her face was young, but she had a fierceness about her. She brought the topaz toward Carstin’s stump. Her hand brushed his wounded leg with a gentleness that belied the hard set to her eyes. “He might be rising to Elohm’s light soon.”
“Hey!”
Ust appeared. The bandit leader’s hand flew.
The woman gasped as he cuffed her across the jaw, snapping her head back. Anger surged through Ōbhin as the topaz fell from her hand. It spun through the air and hit dead Jimet’s helm with a brittle snap. A chip of orange spun off.
“My orders were to bring Dualayn alive,” Ust spat. “I don’t need yo—”
“You Truth-blinded idiot!” hissed the woman, her head snapping around, her jaw already beginning to swell.
“Truth-blinded?” Ust growled, black flashing across his face.
“Do you know what you just did? That was a topaz! Do you want your man to die?”
Ōbhin rose. His hand fell on his resonance blade, smearing Carstin’s blood across the emerald and its wiring. The pulse in Ust’s jaw throbbed. His jaw tightened. “I will keep an eye on her, Ust. She won’t cause problems.”
Ust’s nostrils flared. “Good. See that she does.” He whirled. “Hook, I want this camp looted fast.”
Ōbhin tightened his jaw and drew in a breath.
“Your belt, Tethyrian,” the woman hissed. “Now!”
*
Jaw throbbing, Avena pressed her hand over the bubbling wound on the dying bandit’s chest.
“For a tourniquet?” asked the Tethyrian as he pulled off his sword belt.
She nodded, glad he understood. “Father, I need your help!”
Ōbhin’s chainmail coat hung loose as the heavy leather slipped off his waist. He unclipped his scabbard and set it on the scarlet grass. His black-gloved hands worked fast. She frowned at the color. Was he a criminal? Of course, he’s a criminal. He’s with these Black-filled men.
Only the sons of the rich would wear pure black, reveling in their blasphemy against Elohm and his Seven Colours. She kept glancing at him, the shadows she’d seen in his eyes lessened as he wrapped the belt around his comrade’s leg and pulled tight.
A faint groan came from the man.
“Bring your surgical tools, Father!” she called again.
“Can you save him?” the Tethyrian asked, his accent a strange blend of foreign harshness with a hint of Onderian lilt.
“Doubtful,” she said. “This wound to his lung is bad. I fear it’s collapsed. I hear air sucking out of him. And he’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Another healing jewelchine?”
She shook her head. “We only brought the one.”
“Now, see here, good sir,” Dualayn said, “I am hardly at risk of flight if I am attending to your comrade’s life.”
“Let him,” said Ust. “Loot the camp. Let’s see what we got.”
“Are you just brigands robbing us?” Avena hissed at the foreigner.
“Not today,” he said. His jaw set. “We’re your . . . escorts. Our boss wants to speak to you.”
“He could have sent an invitation.”
The man shrugged. “I suspect it was refused.”
Avena swallowed. She glanced at the tent. Dualayn rushed out with his leather satchel, dyed orange, the hue of Compassion. A good color for a healer to have. Her shoulders squirmed as she glanced at the rough men around them. They were all Lothonians. A few were picking up their dead and carrying them off while trading coarse jokes.
Life was cheap for them, but for the foreigner . . .
“What will your boss do with us?” she asked, still pressing down on the dying man’s chest. His blood welled between her fingers. Anger pulsed through her still. She wanted to slap this boss.
“Talk. Maybe he’s after ransom.”
Greed. Selfishness lurked at the root of all men’s dark desires. Craving more wealth. To satisfy desires. To steal what belonged to others because you wanted it. All the woes men inflicted upon each other stemmed back to that one fact: putting yourself before others.
“Okay, child,” Dualayn said, “what do we have?”
“Collapsed lung, Father.” She looked up at the older man; there was concern in his eyes. He grunted as he lowered his rotund form to his knees.
“Not good,” he said. “And that leg . . .”
“Why are you helping?” the foreigner said.
Avena’s brow furrowed. “Do you think because you killed our bodyguard that we have to forsake Elohm’s teachings? No life is so dingy that it can’t be polished to a shine.”
The foreigner’s brow tightened. The scar on his cheek flexed. He pulled tighter on the belt, shoulders bowed by more than the weight of his chainmail. Despite the darkness, he possessed a nobility about him. Something almost crushed beneath an unseen weight.
Who are you? Avena wondered, her anger disrupted by this man’s actions. The bandits were weeds, but he was something else. Whether good or ill, she couldn’t tell.
“Okay, child, step aside,” Dualayn said, a glass tube held in one hand, a sharp scalpel in the other. “Let’s save this poor man’s life.”
Chapter Three
It was strange that Avena’s nervousness increased after she finished assisting Dualayn in the most stressful surgery of her young life. The bandit, Carstin, hovered close to death, to Elohm’s light summoning him to the heavens.
Unless the Black in his soul weighed him down to be gnawed on by the darklings.
As she washed the blood from her hands in the small stream meandering through the back of the camp, she felt eyes on her. Ust’s eyes. The source of her growing unease, that slippery writhe in her guts. The greasy, odious man bristled as he chewed on the thick Tethyrian root, his eyes bloodshot from the energizing herb. The brown liquid stained his beard, clumps of half-masticated pulp tangled in the wiry strands. He spat dark phlegm onto the blood-red grass.
“You done?” he growled. “Day’s wearing on.”
She glanced at the horizon. The sun was perhaps two hours from setting. Maybe three. “It’s almost over.”
He grunted.
Her jaw ached from where he’d struck her, tender and swollen with a bruise. She kept probing her teeth. They all felt firm. Her inner cheek flared with pain when she brushed the cut.
“Strap him to a horse and let’s go,” he growled.
“The wagon,” she insisted, her stomach tightening. She was so aware of Ust’s size. The foul Hook lurked nearby, always in the bandit chief’s shadow. “Unless you want him to die.”
“He’s worthless without his leg. Shoulda let him die.”
She shook her hands clean of the cold water, the beds of her fingernails stained rust. An insult hovered on the edge of her tongue, but she swallowed it. “We need the wagon anyways. Unless you plan on abandoning our property.”
While she and Dualayn worked on Carstin, the bandits had ransacked the tents. They had scattered all her clothing across the grass, her petticoats fluttering in the breeze, exposed to their dirty, pawing hands and leering gazes. Fresh anger poured through her like hot blood spurting from a wound.
“Not much worth taking,” he said. “‘Cept that big gem.”
She tensed.
“Lucky you, the Boss wants to see whatever you dug up. Shame, bet that’d fetch a fortune.”
“Big fortune,” Ho
ok said. “Gonna be rich. Boss’ll pay us.”
“Shut it,” snarled Ust. “Go get the men up. We’re leaving.”
Avena’s skirts whisked as she crossed the red grass towards the surgery site. Ōbhin still knelt, rubbing dried blood off his black gloves. Beside him, the wheezing sound of Carstin’s breathing echoed. The bandit’s body had a pale cast to it. A thick bandage crossed his chest, another, soaked in blood, covered the stump of his leg. He was lucky Ni’mod’s flaming sword had half-cauterized the femoral artery. A glass tube thrust out the side to drain his lung. It went into a bottle half full of water. Air bubbled in the liquid. It was a one-way valve developed by Dualayn a decade earlier.
“You could take off those gloves,” Avena said as she knelt down by Carstin. “I imagine it would be easier than rubbing off the blood.”
“Would not be proper,” Ōbhin said, his eyes flicking to her face. His shadowed eyes tightened.
The man glanced back to his gloves. The darkness around him seemed to dim the light as he rubbed more dried blood off, the rusty flakes falling to the grass. It vexed her that pity stirred in her. She hated seeing pain. It was why she was here, helping Dualayn in his research. He’d invented the topaz jewelchine, like the one shattered by Ust earlier. They were miraculous but had limits with how much and what they could heal. They could only hold so much power, taking a day to fully recharge. Finding better ways to heal was vital.
It made the Recorder priceless. We can’t lose it.
“We have to place him in the wagon,” she said to Ōbhin. “With care. I’ll hold the valve if you can get one of your ruffians to help.”
“They’re not my ruffians,” he said, the Onderian in his accent rolling the R’s. A Tethyrian by way of Ondere? The country to the south had long been a thorn to Lothon.
“Stone,” Ōbhin called to a man as large as Ni’mod. She drew a deep breath against that pain. She’d known Ni’mod and felt she should mourn more for the man. He’d worked for Dualayn for nine years. She should feel more anger towards his killer, but . . .
Ni’mod had seemed more statue than man, like the flames burning in him had consumed the humanity out of him.
Stone, the big bandit, lumbered over, his face paling. “He’s not gonna bleed on me, is he?”
“You’re afraid of blood?” Avena asked, not hiding her scorn.
Stone shrugged. “Why I use a maul. I just break bones. Don’t hack ‘em apart like . . .” His eyes flicked to Ōbhin. “Well, just don’t like it, okay?”
“Just be gentle,” she told the giant. She grabbed the glass and cradled the stiff tubes, prepared to move them without breaking the connection. “Okay, lift.”
They hefted the blanket Carstin lay on, using it as a makeshift stretcher. She tightened her jaw, feeling Dualayn watching their progress. She couldn’t mess this up. When you chose to heal someone, you took responsibility for their life. For their care.
“Careful, careful,” she said.
“Bein’ careful, girly,” the big man grunted.
They crossed the red grass for the wagon, the other bandits gathering up the scattered possessions. She tried not to wince as her clothing was shoved into her traveling chest, one slip half-hanging out as the lid was slammed shut.
“Slow,” Ōbhin said. He shifted, his black gloves gripping the blood-stained blanket. “Let me get in.”
“Don’t jostle him,” Avena gasped as Ōbhin sat down on the wagon’s bed. He worked back, the leather jerkin he wore beneath his chainmail rasping.
“I won’t harm him,” Ōbhin said, the darkness lessening as he stared down at his friend. Life almost kindled in the Tethyrian’s dark eyes. “Trust me.”
She nodded, tension relaxing on her squirming guts. He kept a firm grip as he gained his feet beneath him and, bent over, pulled Carstin over the wagon bed, the man’s pallid face swaying. She reached over the wagon bed, stretching to keep the glass tubing, joined by pig gut joints, intact. Ōbhin and Stone set him down with care.
“Stay with him,” she said and hurried to Dualayn. He hovered over his medicinal trunk. The man rubbed his hands. “He’s clutching to the Colours, Father.” The man was nearly dead, clinging to life.
“His heart is strong, child.” The man shook his head. “I’ve been dreading this. I thought Ni’mod would be enough protection . . .”
“The bandits?” she frowned, opening the trunk.
“Their boss.” He sighed. “He was not happy when I parted ways with our partnership in exchange for other benefactors.”
Confusion rippled through Avena as she pulled out the herbs she needed, measuring with care. Powerful men played their games, wrestling for influence throughout the kingdom. The crown, the church, the merchants, and, in the last few decades, the inventors all jostling for wealth. Jewelchines were revolutionizing the world. Powerful men would be greedy to uncover long-dead glories like how the Recorder was constructed.
She never thought Dualayn soiled his hands in politics. He must have his reasons.
The bandits hadn’t ruined the ruby jewelchine in their camp kettle. She filled it with water from a sapphire aquifer. Swiftly, the glowing gem heated water to a boil. She poured it into the cup and added the herbs and a large dose of honey to it. She let it cool as the bandits finished their packing, loading everything on the wagon around Carstin.
“Careful! Careful with that,” Dualayn shouted as two ruffians manhandled his discovery. He marched over, rubbing at his dark waistcoat. “I know your boss, and he’ll skin your hides if you break that.”
Avena returned to the wagon with her treatment. She cradled the earthenware cup. It was cooled to the warmth of her skin. The scent of honey and the herbs filled her nose. She mounted the wagon and found Ōbhin continuing to clean his gloves.
“Give him sips of this,” she said.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Beetroot to strengthen blood production, garlic and oregano to fight infection, turmeric to give vigor to his heart, and honey to give his body some nourishment.”
He nodded and held the cup to the man’s lips. As he did, he glanced at the Recorder. His brow furrowed.
“That will change the world,” she told him. “If he can unravel its secrets.”
“If he gets to keep it.” He tilted the cup, pouring more of the drink with tender care into the wounded man’s mouth.
A shiver raced through her body. The hand clenching her stomach tightened. Dualayn’s wife needed that knowledge.
*
“You drive the wagon,” Avena said, her face set as she settled down by Carstin.
Ōbhin cocked his head. “Me?”
“Do you think I trust any of your red-blinded compatriots to do it?”
His eyes flicked to the fuming Ust shouting orders. They would all go on foot. None in the band owned any horses. They were too valuable not to sell when the troop captured them. “Your Tone resonates with Raleth.”
Her forehead furrowed. Two years living with bare-faced women, and it still shocked him to see the emotion playing across her features. Sometimes, it brought warmth to his cheeks at the intimacy of seeing Avena’s face. She covered the rest of her body like it was holy, but the most personal part of her she left exposed for any man to see.
“Raleth?” she asked. “Sounds like Reylis, the Archon-Supreme of the Devas.”
“The Tone of Truth,” he said, moving to the wagon.
“Oh,” she said, her voice tight. “One of the pagan gods you worship.”
“I suppose,” he said. He’d seen what the Onderian and Lothonians called “worship.” Lots of kneeling and bending over and muttering words to some remote entity up in the heavens. Their Elohm. The Tones just . . . existed. They vibrated through all of creation.
How else would jewelchines work?
“Go slow,” she said as she climbed over onto the wooden driver seat. “No bumps. Lose time if you must. Jostling him is the worst thing you can do to him with that glass tube in his lung a
nd how weak he is.”
“She is quite right,” the older man said. He grunted as he climbed into the back. “But never fear, we shall do for your friend all we can.”
Ōbhin shook his head. It still stunned him that the two would help Carstin. He’d expected defiance, even anger. He’d killed their companion. He occasionally caught annoyance from Avena. Her emotions were so free on her face.
“Get that Black-damned wagon moving,” barked Ust. “I want to be out of these cursed woods before we’re all stained red.”
“Good sir, I can assure you that the month we spent here has done nothing to dye our skin,” Dualayn said.
Ust spat juices laden with what the locals called Tethyrian weed. The plant came from across the sea, grown in the vast fields of Tethyr. It was prized for its energizing effect, but it could make a man erratic, even violent.
Ust pushed more into his mouth, his cheek bulging with it.
Ōbhin flicked the reins, the leather of his glove creaking.
He followed Avena’s advice. He went slow, watching the darkening cotter’s path. He guided the horses, one a pure dun and the other a deep black save for the splotch of white on its right flank, to avoid this rut or that divot. When he had no choice, he slowed them to a crawl while Ust spat brown on the road, his beard bristling like a thorny bush.
The sun sank to Ōbhin’s left, peeking through red-stained trees. The road led south. The croak of frogs echoed as twilight deepened. Red foliage gave way to green as the sun’s last flickering rays bled through gaps in the trees. A mist curled along the mossy ground. A chill settled in as Ōbhin slowed the wagon again, navigating around a puddle with slow care.
Ust spat again.
“We should stop,” Ōbhin said. “It’s about to be blacker than a gem mine.”
“What would you know about black mines?” the leader muttered.
Ōbhin’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like to think about the mines beneath Gunya. His gaze flicked down to his gloves. He’d cleaned off Carstin’s blood, but some crimes soaked so deep they could never be scrubbed away.
