A Cast of Stones

by Patrick W. Carr

  Errol cudgeled his memory as he ran, trying to recall any detail, no matter how insignificant, that might help. But aside from their gray, clammy skin and the sudden onset of fatigue, he could think of nothing.

  Sudden pains shot through his calves, and he grimaced, struggling against unaccustomed weariness. He shouldn’t be tired. He’d run this trail and others as difficult a thousand times. The days when the pathways around the Sprata could challenge him were long past. Sweat blurred his vision. When he raised a hand to wipe it away, the chill of his skin surprised him. With a shock he stared at the back of his hand. His mind recoiled at the pallor of his flesh.

  The poison was in him too. He stumbled, stubbed his foot against a rock. Keep moving. Adele would know what to do. He ran on, forcing his legs to obey his will.

  The twists and the turns of the trail conspired against him. The rocky pinnacles, so often his friends when he needed to flee his thoughts or memories, now hindered his path. Sweat poured from him. When it ran from his forehead, down his face and into his mouth as he sucked in great gasps of air, it gagged him with the taste of sulfur, its saltiness hidden by the unfamiliar odor.

  His vision swam. The terrain distorted, became strange and unfamiliar. Where was he? Adele. He was trying to reach the old healer, but was this even the right path? He couldn’t be sure. It looked strange.

  He ran ten paces past the fork that led to her cabin before he stopped and reversed course. By the time he reached Adele’s hut, dark spots filled his vision. He wanted ale. Weaving on his feet, he stepped under the worn, dirty thatch of her roof and up onto the gray stone threshold. His legs, surprised by the sudden lack of motion, stopped, then buckled, dumping him. His head fell against the rough oak planks of her door, sounding the first knock. He lay on the stone like a village girl’s discarded rag doll, beating his fist against the door like a pendulum.

  “Adele. Please be home.”

  The door opened and he flopped inside, lying on the packed earth of her floor. The smell of woodsmoke filled the hovel. Adele knelt beside him with a groan and lifted his head.

  “Thorns and thistles, boy, you look awful.” He pried his lids open. Her eyebrows, thick and iron-gray like the wild strands of hair that peeked from under her head cloth, knit in accusation. “What did you do, drink some bad ale?” Her hands stroked his sweat-stained hair back from his face.

  He looked into her eyes, old and gray like the rest of her. “Poison. Pater Martin and Luis are on the trail.”

  Her glance sharpened, and her voice became curt. “Tell me, quickly!”

  Errol cast back, trying to remember everything. The room spun, and it felt good to lie on the cool floor. A scent of earth ghosted through his nose, beckoning him to sleep. Yes, that was it. He’d sleep a little and then he’d tell Adele. He blinked, working to open his eyelids again. What was he going to tell her? The thought died. It could wait, he needed to sleep.

  Cold water splashed across his face, and his head rocked to one side, his cheek stinging. He opened his eyes to see Adele’s face over him, contorted with anger, her hand raised to strike him again. “Wake up, boy. I don’t care for folks dying in my home.” Her voice rasped across his ears.

  Errol nodded, or tried to. His head didn’t seem to want to move. “Poison,” he said.

  “I know that, boy. Now, tell me the manifestations.”

  Breathing, speaking, took a concentrated effort. “They got tired, so tired, and then they fell. By the time I got to them their skin was gray.”

  The herbwoman grimaced. Errol wondered how long it would take him to die. “I need more, boy. Any number of poisons could do that; yellowthorn, hemsting plant, bracken root. All of them attack the muscles and the skin.”

  Errol sighed. Slow waves of dizziness pulled him downward. Then he remembered. “Sulfur,” he breathed, hoping Adele could hear. “Sweat . . . smelled . . . like sulfur.”

  Adele’s mouth pinched, and she tugged at a stray lock of hair, thinking, as Errol had seen her do countless times before. “Sulfur? Are you sure, boy?”

  Errol tried to nod. Had his head moved? “Yes. Strong smell. Sulfur.”

  She went to all fours and sniffed his skin, like a dog going to scent. “Phew, boy. You smell like an alchemist’s shop.”

  His awareness blurred. Moments later, she was gone but he heard voices coming from behind her hut. One of them he knew as Adele’s, her speech soft now, yet surprised as well. He didn’t recognize the other voice, couldn’t have recognized it. It thrummed with authority, and the air breathed tones that encompassed and surpassed human hearing with the barest pauses. If the wind could have conspired to whisper its will through the stones and trees, he imagined it would have sounded like that.

  Adele’s astonishment drifted to him. “Him as well?”

  The response dipped, lulling him. He closed his eyes and drifted. . . .

  And woke to a presence in the hut that was not Adele’s. An impossible wind, like the exhalation of earth, moved along him, registered his feeble movements with eddies that fanned out over his skin, tracing its way down his torso to his stomach.

  Struggling, he opened his eyes, but there was nothing to see. His awareness of Adele’s hut, the earthen floor, even himself faded to wispy insubstantiality. The rush of air filled Adele’s hut as she mixed powders from earthenware pots, her ear cocked—listening, nodding.

  Errol floated or slept, but when he opened his eyes he was alone with Adele. She knelt, lifted his head, and poured a draught that tasted like liquid earth down his throat. He coughed once, twice. A spasm shook him, and a sudden chill spread from his stomach outward until he shivered. His head cleared.

  The herbwoman smiled, showing crooked teeth. “Nice to see you among the living, boy. You nearly killed yourself, running here with that poison working through your veins.” The squint in her eyes warred with her smile. Adele considered him as though he’d become a stranger.

  He rose, wondering if his legs and feet would obey him. “What about Martin and Luis?”

  The healer’s face clouded. “It was a miracle you survived, boy. It takes a young heart to survive moritweed poisoning. They are surely dead.”

  4

  TIDINGS

  ERROL HUNCHED OVER, tried to protect himself from the blow of Adele’s words. Her simple, emotionless pronouncement of death struck him. Not again, not again.

  A light hand touched him, the back of Adele’s fingers tracing the curve of his jaw. “I’m sorry, Errol. Moritweed works slow, it does, but still too quick to save your friends.” She turned toward the door, her movements as birdlike as her appearance. “I’ll go get Nurl. Killing is mayor’s business.”

  Memories surged from somewhere deep inside him, and he reeled. No. He grabbed Adele’s arm as she passed him. “Crimsonweed,” he said. “I gave them crimsonweed before I left.”

  Adele’s face met his, shock and anger written on it. “You gave two old men crimsonweed, boy? What were you trying to do? Make sure they didn’t survive?”

  Errol ducked under her gaze. “You’re telling me they’re dead anyway. When Martin said they’d been poisoned I knew I had to do something.”

  “But why crimsonweed, boy?”

  “It was all I had.”

  The woman snorted, a wisp of iron-gray hair floating at the gesture. “Well, I’ll give you this much. If the weed didn’t kill them right off, it might have bought you enough time to take them the cure. Here.” She stumped back to her shelves and their containers. Soft grunts and wheezes whispered through the hut as she jerked several containers from their place. A handful of scents blended and filled the room before she gave a crisp nod and placed the powder in a bag and cinched it. She grabbed a waterskin from the shelf.

  She gave both to Errol. “Fill the waterskin from the barrel. Mix a handful of powder with water and get it down their throats.” She shook her head. “Though I don’t know how you’ll do that with crimsonweed in their systems. They’ll look dead, even if they aren�
��t.”

  The old woman frowned, then fetched one last jar, poured a handful of dirty white powder into a square of cloth, and returned to thrust it at him. “Mix that in as well. It’ll counteract the weed. Off with you now.”

  She wasn’t coming?

  “Don’t give me that look, boy. You know how the church feels about herbwomen. Martin is better than most, but he’s still a churchman.” She motioned her chin at the door. “Now go. I’ll leave it to you to tell Nurl if they’ve died.”

  The door clattered shut behind him as he left.

  Errol flung himself down the trail, fighting against the nausea that sapped the energy from his legs. An hour later he found Martin and Luis as he’d left them. Martin lay as if dead, the skin of his face slack and gray beneath his white hair. Errol put his head to the priest’s chest, struggled to hear the telltale beat that would indicate Martin lived. The sounds of the forest, though muted, prevented him, so he covered his exposed ear with his hand and waited.

  Twice he thought he’d heard the pulse of the old man’s heart, only to discover with a pang that it was his own beat he heard, thrumming through his eardrum with the effort of his return. He sat back on his haunches, fought back tears. He couldn’t hear the priest’s heart. Errol put the back of his hand to the priest’s neck, just below the jaw. Martin was still warm.

  His fingers fumbled the string of Adele’s pouch before he ripped it open. He took a handful of both powders and poured them from his shaking hand into the neck of the waterskin. Clenching the neck, he shook it, then held the opening to Martin’s mouth and poured.

  “C’mon, Martin,” he breathed. “Just take a little.”

  Most of it—maybe all of it—spilled on the ground. He tried again with the same result. With a sob, he rose and repeated the gesture with Luis, with no better results. Not knowing what else to do, he shuttled back and forth, poured medicine into their unresponsive mouths, and waited for Martin and his servant to grow cold.

  Then it happened.

  Luis coughed. The gurgle was so weak Errol wasn’t sure whether he’d heard it or hoped it into existence. He left Martin’s side with another useless trail of wet running down the priest’s shirt and ran to Luis. Did he imagine it, or did he look less gray than a moment before? He knelt, placed the mouth of the waterskin between the man’s lips. There. Luis’s mouth clenched ever so slightly. Errol tilted and poured. Luis coughed louder this time, and his arms twitched feebly at his side.

  Errol left him and ran back across the path to Martin. “Please, Pater. Luis is waking up. Just take a sip.” He shook the priest and begged as he poured, but Martin’s mouth remained slack and unresponsive and the pallor of his skin refused to change from its gray hue.

  Errol flopped on the dust and pebbles of the trail. He’d failed Martin. For certain, the crimsonweed had slowed down the priest’s body and delayed the killing stroke of the moritweed, but he’d given too much. One of the poisons was killing Martin. It didn’t matter which and Errol had no way to get Adele’s potion into him.

  Without it, Martin would die.

  Now nothing remained for Errol except to tend Luis and wait.

  Martin’s servant lay on his side, his arms pushing at the ground, trying to lever himself up. Errol pulled him to a sitting position. His eyes fluttered open and pawed without strength at Errol’s arm. “Water.”

  Errol lifted the skin with the potion in it to Luis’s mouth and watched as he drank. After two swallows he pushed it away.

  “Ugh. What is that?” he whispered.

  Errol lifted the skin back to Luis’s lips. “Drink some more. Someone poisoned you, us, with moritweed. Adele made the cure.”

  Luis drank again, then raised trembling hands to force the skin away, his eyes burning into Errol’s. “What about Martin?”

  Errol shook his head. “I can’t get the potion into him.”

  Luis clutched at his arms. “Try again.”

  His frustration and fatigue boiled over. “I’ve been trying! Don’t you think I’ve been trying? I gave him too much. He’s going to die.”

  Luis closed his eyes, and Errol watched as he drew several breaths, his chest expanding a little more each time as strength returned.

  “Martin is tougher than you think. He’s not dead. Try again.”

  Errol crossed the dusty path and sat in front of Martin where he lay shaded by an outcropping of gray limestone. He could detect no sign of life from the priest. His chest did not rise or fall, and Errol could feel no pulse within the priest’s neck. Errol desperately did not want to sit and watch the priest die. A thirst, an aching need for ale, overcame him, and he half rose to begin the walk to Berea and its inn. He still had the half crown he’d received for delivering the churchman’s message. Its weight, cold and heavy like lead, still filled his pocket. He could keep it. Martin had said so. Surely the nuntius would not require its return after all he’d been through. It would buy enough ale to last him a week.

  He let the thought of a week’s worth of ale roll over him. He could almost smell the malty light liquid. A seven-day would be his, no washing dishes, no gathering plants for the herbwomen, no shoveling out Braen’s stables. Just one crisp tankard of ale after another. And then sleep. Sweet, dreamless sleep after that.

  “Errol,” Luis called to him, breaking his reverie into pieces. “Try again.”

  With a slump of his shoulders, Errol lifted the potion to Martin’s mouth one more time. Nothing changed.

  Or maybe it did. Had he seen a bubble between Martin’s lips? He lowered the skin, poured a bit of the watery elixir over his hand and then held his palm to Martin’s mouth. There. For a moment he thought he felt a hint of breath across his skin. His hands shook as he poured a tiny amount into the priest, hardly more than enough to wet his lips. It disappeared. He poured again, a little more this time. It too disappeared, and now he could see the priest’s throat tighten and loosen the smallest bit as he swallowed.

  Errol whipped around to face Luis. “He’s alive!” He levered the skin again, the tremble gone from his hands.

  Minutes and uncountable sips of potion later, Martin’s hand twitched, then rose to rest on Errol’s. His lips and tongue worked as if they labored to remember their purpose. At last he spoke, his speech a mere burble of sound. “Enough.” As though a dam broke with that word, his face turned a shade less gray, and color began to return.

  Errol felt a hand on his shoulder, turned to find Luis on shaky legs behind him. He looked up into brown eyes that crinkled at the edges and a gaze that returned his with warmth. “Thank you, Errol. Help me get Martin up and moving.”

  They each took an arm and pulled. Errol grunted under the priest’s weight. They tottered back and forth before Martin gestured toward an outcropping of rock. The priest seated himself and eyed Luis and then Errol before he rubbed one hand down his forehead and across his heavy jaw. “I think it would be good if someone told me what happened.” His gaze rested on Luis, who shook his head and nodded toward Errol.

  The priest’s brown eyes locked with his, and Errol felt the tug of the man’s ecclesiastical authority. He ducked his head and answered as briefly as he could. “Moritweed.”

  The word’s effect on Martin and Luis was immediate. The two men stared at each other for a long moment, their eyes unreadable. Luis started to speak, but Martin forestalled him with one raised hand and turned toward Errol.

  “How do you know it was moritweed, Errol?”

  “Adele told me.”

  Martin’s eyes tightened at the mention of the herbwoman’s name, but he nodded, chewing on the corner of his lower lip. “And why did you go to Adele?”

  Luis cleared his throat and grimaced, looking embarrassed. “I sent him.”

  Martin nodded. “Well, we’ll leave that discussion for another time.” He paused, eyeing Errol as if trying to choose which question to ask next. “Errol, moritweed is rare, especially in this part of the world. How do you think Adele knew we’d been poisoned
by it?”

  For a moment, Errol thought Pater Martin accused Adele, but that didn’t make sense. She had no reason to poison the priest or his servant, and no one had a reason to want Errol dead. Besides, the old woman didn’t have access to the priest or his servant. No, Martin sought something else. With a flash of insight, he knew. Martin knew about the presence Adele talked to, the one that spoke like a rush of wind. But Errol could not speak of it.

  “I don’t know, Pater.” He shrugged and tried to look away. “By the time I got to her hut, the moritweed had done its work on me. I passed out on her floor.”

  Martin pursed his lips, as if digesting Errol’s evasion. “We’ll come back to that later. Maybe you could tell Luis and me how we managed to survive. Moritweed is slow acting, but once it starts to take effect, it’s nearly impossible to stop. Luis and I should be dead.”

  Errol’s throat tightened, locking away his answer, but Martin refused to be denied. His eyes bored into Errol like an awl going through leather. Errol scuffed the dirt of the trail with one worn shoe. “I gave you and Luis crimsonweed, Pater.”

  Martin’s eyebrows climbed in surprise until lines of strain showed on his forehead beneath the white of his hair.

  Luis laughed.

  “I don’t see the cause for amusement, Luis,” the priest admonished. “The boy could have killed us.”

  Luis shook his head. His smile under the broad prow of his nose showed even, white teeth against olive skin. “Let it go, Martin. We were dead anyway. The boy saved our lives. I’ll warrant nobody’s ever thought of slowing the effects of moritweed with crimsonweed before. The healers in Erinon would be most interested, I believe.”

  Martin grunted. “I don’t think it will become normal medical practice. However, you have my thanks, Errol.” He turned to Luis. “Throw away the bread.”