Dream thief

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Here was the reason they had been brought. The chief of the brigands wanted them to heal his son-that much at least needed no words. The look of the thief's face told as much as he gazed upon the boy's limp form. Likewise, his curt order to them left no doubt about their fate should their combined medical art fall short of curing the boy. A leisurely, painfully protracted death would commence immediately. That Spence also gathered without an interpreter.

  Gita fell to his knees and began untying his linen sacks and rummaging through them. There were bags within bags, but he found one he wanted and opened it and drew out an old-fashioned stethoscope which he put on and immediately displayed his best doctorly manner, hovering over the boy and listening through the obsolete instrument.

  Chief Watti seemed pleased and left them to their business.

  "I hope we have enough medicine between us to do some good," remarked Spence when they were once again alone.

  "It seems we have no choice," replied Adjani.

  "His breathing is shallow and very light." Gita frowned. "He may be beyond help."

  Adjani knelt over the patient and placed a hand on his forehead. "He's on fire! The boy is burning up with fever."

  "What else do you have in your sack, Gita? Any drugs? Medicine?"

  "Nothing much -novocaine, aspirin, a few antibiotics. I'm a dentist, remember."

  "The antibiotics might be some help," said Adjani. "If we could only figure out what's wrong with him."

  "We can try to get his temperature down in any case," said Spence. "Let's have the aspirin."

  Gita reached his hand in and fished around and withdrew a small plastic bottle. "Here. Sixty tablets. Maybe enough, eh?"

  "Let's give him some antibiotics, too, and a sponge bath and see if that will help." To Spence's amazed look Adjani replied, "Yes, antibiotics are still quite useful in this part of the world. Now then, Gita, go and tell Watti we need some water in a basin and clean cloths." Gita gave him a pleading look. "Yes, you. For all they know you're the only one that speaks Hindi. You'll be our spokesman."

  Gita went out and came back in a few moments. They sat looking at the boy helplessly, desperately trying to recall the medical knowledge they possessed. Their lives depended upon such stray information now.

  In a while a young woman in a yellow and orange sari entered the tent with a large bowl of water and several washcloths and towels. She spoke to Gita shyly and then withdrew a few paces to watch with folded hands.

  "She is Watti's wife; the boy's mother, at least. I think Watti has more than one wife. She will get us anything we need."

  Adjani moistened a cloth and proceeded to bathe the boys fevered limbs. Spence took four of the aspirin tablets and crushed them while Adjani opened several blue and white capsules." Get us some drinking water. And make sure it's clean," said Spence. Gita relayed the request to the woman who disappeared into the speckled shadows.

  He took up a small cup and poured a swallow of the water into it and stirred in the powdered mixture. Adjani administered the medicine, lifting the boy's head and pouring it gently down his throat. Spence saw the boy's ribs poking out of his flesh and wondered how long it had been since he had eaten.

  "We've got to get that fever down and get some food into him or we're sunk. He hasn't eaten anything in weeks, by the look of him."

  "Very likely," said Adjani, and he went back to bathing the unconscious boy.

  The day progressed with aching slowness. The three impromptu physicians took turns administering tepid baths and dosed their patient with aspirin at proper intervals. They dozed and checked the sick boy for signs of improvement and encouraged one another that they were doing the right things.

  By evening the youngster seemed a little better, though it was hard to tell precisely. His temperature seemed to have fallen somewhat and he moaned slightly when Adjani started the baths again.

  "Should we try to feed him?" wondered Spence.

  "I don't know," said Adjani with a worried look. "I think tonight will tell."

  "Meaning?"

  "If he makes it through the night he'll get better. If not…"

  "He's that bad, do you think?" Spence looked again at the prostrate form. The boy was pale and sunken-eyed; death did indeed seem to hover at his shoulder.

  Gita rose from listening with his stethoscope. "I fear Adjani is right. His heartbeat is but a flutter. We may lose him."

  "If we lose him we lose our ticket out of here." Spence turned and knelt over the boy as if to shake him awake and reason with him.

  "Come on," said Adjani. "We'll take a walk if the guards will let us. I could use some fresh air."

  They stepped from the tent and were met by the stern faces of the guards. Adjani motioned that they wanted to walk, and one of the guards nodded and pushed the other one to his feet to accompany the prisoners on their stroll.

  The people of the bandit village eyed them curiously. Clearly, white men were a novelty to the younger ones, and a dark-skinned man dressed as a white man was perhaps equally unique. The pair drew long, unguarded stares wherever they went.

  Neither spoke for a while. They just walked side by side among the crazy-quilt tents and listened to the raucous clatter of brilliant scarlet-and-yellow birds flitting among the treetops and swooping down from time to time in bold slashes of color.

  "What are our chances, Adjani?" Spence broke the silence at last, saying what they both had on their minds.

  "I don't know. It depends on the boy."

  "What's he got-some kind of paratyphoid?"

  "That's my guess. We'd need a lab set-up to know for sure. The point is we can't do much for him. The fever is in its third week, at least."

  Spence was suddenly angry. "Why didn't they get help sooner? What's wrong with these people?"

  "They are backward, ignorant. The same with poor people the world over. It is the way they have lived for centuries. They are not likely to change over the death of one small boy."

  "On Gotham we would have had him cured and on his feet in less time than it takes his father to plunder a caravan. But here! What can we do? It isn't fair."

  "Fair or not, this is the way it is-the way it always will be."

  They had reached the extent of the village and the jungle stood before them a green wall. Their guard grunted and motioned them with the rifle to turn and start back.

  The slanting rays of the afternoon light shone amber through the trees. The tops of the trees glinted gold among the green. Blue smoke from cooking fires began to thread into the air and the smells of strong spices scented their passage back through the bandit hideaway. The men, most of whom had slept all day, recovering from their night's work, stirred from their tents to gather in groups, talking loudly.

  "Evil has many faces, does it not?" said Adjani, gazing around him. "This one is not particularly frightening. But it is evil nonetheless."

  Just then a shout from the far end of the camp reached them. Spence saw Gita standing in front of the chief's tent waving to them and calling, "Come quickly! He speaks! Come!"

  Spence and Adjani raced to the tent and found the boy, eyes hard and black in a face the color of old parchment, lolling his head from side to side moaning in weak delirium.

  "Is he awake?" asked Spence. The boy's eyes, though open, had a dull-glazed shallow look.

  "He is slipping into coma."

  "We've got to do something," Spence said frantically. He fell to his knees beside the thin body, placing his hand on the frail chest. "The fever's worse." He looked at Gita and then Adjani with urgent expectation. "We've got to do something," he repeated.

  "What would you have us do?" said Adjani.

  "Anything is better than letting him die like this. Gita, get your pills."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "The only thing we can -megadose him with the antibiotics. He's dying before our eyes. At least this way he may have a chance."

  Gita handed him an assortment of plastic bottles containing variou
s drugs. Spence selected the antibiotics and emptied the contents of a handful of capsules into a small bowl.

  "Gita, find the boy's mother," instructed Adjani. "Tell her to bring us honey or sugar water-anything sweet to drink. Lots of it. And hurry!"

  "Don't die yet," whispered Spence as he worked. "Hang on, kid. Hang on."

  Gita returned and handed Spence a vessel of liquid. Spence smelled it and said, "Smells like flowers; what is it?"

  "Jasmine water. They drink it like tea. It is heavily sugared. Very sweet."

  "Good, that's what we want." He poured some into a bowl with the crushed pills. "I'm no medic or I would have thought of this hours ago. The glucose will boost his metabolism. He's got to fight that fever."

  The boy's mother entered and brought a jug of liquid which she handed to Spence. He smelled it and coughed, "Phew! What is that?"

  Gita sniffed the jug and diffidently placed a tip of his little finger in the liquid and brought it to his tongue. "Mmm, it is puyati-nectar of the gods. Fermented palm sap. One develops a taste for it."

  "Yeah? Well, we can't give him this."

  "Why not? Undoubtedly he drinks it already, and the alcohol might do him some good."

  "You're quite a country doctor, Gita. But I have a better idea." Spence grabbed the basin Adjani was using to bathe the boy and dashed the water out of it. He poured it full again with the palm liquor.

  "Now we have an alcohol bath. That ought to cool him off quicker."

  Adjani nodded and dipped the cloth into the reeking brew. When he had finished he turned to Spence and took the cup from his hands, swishing the liquid around the rim several times. He lifted the boy's head and administered the medicine. Then he turned to the others.

  "Well, that's done. Now we wait. We'll take turns watching him and bathing him round the clock."

  Spence looked at the weak, pathetic figure wasted painfully thin by fever. Their lives hung by the slenderest of threads, as fine as the breath which raised the little chest slowly and regularly and all but imperceptibly. Will any of us live to see another morning? Spence wondered. The next few hours would tell.

  11

  … WHAT ARE YOU DOING here?" Ari had become aware of unseen eyes on her; she whirled around and met Hocking gazing at her with an unhealthy leer on his bony face. She had not heard him enter. Her father was asleep on one of the couches across the room and she thought of waking him, but decided not to.

  "I have only come to see how my charges are getting along," Hocking said with oily civility. "Have you everything you need?"

  "Let us go. You can't hope to gain anything by keeping us."

  "Letting you go would be somewhat awkward at this point, I'm afraid. We've gone to an enormous amount of trouble to get you here. But maybe we can strike a bargain."

  There was a slight whirring noise and the pneumochair slid closer. Hocking dropped his voice and his obsequious manner. "I want to talk to you. If you cooperate I might be able to help you. I have a plan."

  "A plan for what?"

  "For resolving this messy affair once and for all," whispered Hocking slyly. He glanced around as if to make certain no one overheard him.

  "How do I know you'll live up to your part of the bargain?"

  "You don't. But you'd be foolish to pass up any chance you might have to secure your freedom. I'll tell you something, Miss Zanderson. There are forces at work here that stagger the imagination-far beyond your comprehension. You are but an infinitesimal part of a design greater than men dare dream. That I am offering you a chance to save yourself should be enough for you."

  As much as she distrusted the loathsome being before her, she wanted to believe there might be a way to influence him to release them.

  "I don't know if I should."

  "Listen, you little fool! Ortu wants you dead. You're a nuisance to him. But if you help me, I'll get you out of here safely. You have no choice… I won't ask again." Hocking glared at her fiercely. "Well?"

  "All right. What do you want me to do?"

  "Come with me. Now. And be quiet. Ortu has eyes all over the place."

  Ari slipped after the floating chair as it flew along darkened corridors and down spiraling stone steps, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the palace. It was all she could do to keep pace with the egg gliding before her.

  Finally they reached a large wooden door at the bottom of a flight of steps. Hocking paused before the door and it swung magically open before them, closing on them again once they had entered.

  The room was large and dark, rank with the musty smell of age and silent as a tomb. There was a soft hum and a click, and instantly the room was washed in white light. Ari blinked and threw a hand to shield her eyes.

  In a moment she lowered her arm and saw that they were in a room with stone walls at the very roots of the palace. The light came from two huge lamps set in the ceiling, but otherwise the room had no distinguishing features-save one: the enormous apparatus glinting coldly before them.

  What it looked like, she could not describe. It seemed insect -like to her-as if it were a construction of nature rather than human engineering-but it had a strong, metallic appearance. The gleaming black thing stood on tall legs over a small platform with a sling chair on it. The chair she recognized as being a more or less common variety, but it was strangely out of place among the protruding knobs and convolutions of the sleek machine. Altogether, the thing had a vague, spidery appearance.

  "What is it?" she asked. Her voice quavered, giving away her anxiety.

  "This is merely a simple communication device-a sort of radio, you might say. It amplifies and projects brain waves. It won't bite you, my dear. I've used it myself many times. It's quite harmless, I assure you."

  Ari was not assured. She liked her collaboration with the enemy less and less with every passing second.

  "You're going to put me in that, aren't you?" she stated.

  "I'm going to ask you to assist me, yes. That is, after all, why you came. Shall we begin?"

  Hocking indicated that she was to take her place in the chair. Ari mounted the platform uncertainly and settled herself in the chair, perching on the edge of the fabric seat.

  "You may as well make yourself comfortable," said Hocking as he went about readying the machine. "This will take some time." "What are you going to do?"

  Hocking could not resist a smirk at her weakness. Humans, he thought, were all alike: scared children in the presence of things too vast for their puny intellectual powers. "You will not feel a thing. There will be no sensation whatever. See? We are already beginning."

  Hocking lied. There was an immediate sensation, and an unpleasant one.

  Ari suddenly felt dizzy, as if the room had shifted, and the feeling in her fingers-which she held clasped together in her lap-faded away. For a long moment she could not focus her eyes.

  But the feeling diminished and she felt, rather than heard, a deep vibrant thrum moving up through the platform, through the chair, and into her very bones. She clamped her teeth shut to keep them from vibrating.

  Two long pincerlike claws came down over her head; Ari closed her eyes so she would not have to look. When she opened them again she was bathed in a shimmering blue aura. It covered her like a gossamer gown.

  The light in the room had dimmed and Hocking was nowhere to be seen. She sat motionless and gazed into the flowing light. It seemed a part of her, and she thought she had never seen anything so beautiful. It sparkled with unearthly radiance, flecked through with silver beams which burst like tiny comets as they played over her form.

  She relaxed and centered her mind on the dancing light. As she did a numbness overtook her, starting at the base of her neck and working upward over her scalp. The feeling was unusual, but not unpleasant. She let it creep over her until it seemed that her head had become isolated from her body-there was no longer any connection between the two that she could feel. But at the same time this did not alarm her. She accepted it calmly and noted it somew
here in the back of her mind.

  Ari's breathing slowed and she felt herself drifting. It reminded her of those last waking moments just before sleep overtook her-that delicious nether region between wakefulness and sleep when the body relaxed and the waking mind gave itself over to the subconscious.

  In a moment, with eyes wide open, as if stargazing on a starfilled night, Ari began to dream.

  She heard a voice nearby. It was the voice of her father and she was a little girl playing with her doll on the porch of an old house. The voice said, "Ari, where are you?"

  "I'm here, Daddy," she replied. She looked around but her father was not there. She continued playing with the doll's frilly pink dress and heard again her father's call.

  This time she rose from her play and looked out across a green lawn. The lawn was newly mown and smelled of cut grass. A light summer breeze blew clippings across the walk. Her father stood out on the grass and she saw him and waved to him.

  "Come along, Ari. Follow me," he said. But he did not look at her. He seemed instead to look beyond her. This frightened Ari. She could not think why her father would not look at her.

  "I'm coming, Daddy," she called as her short little legs scrambled down the porch steps.

  Her father turned away and was walking quickly across the lawn in long strides toward a dark wood which grew near the house.

  "Daddy!" the young girl cried. "Wait for me!"

  The figure of her father reached the wood and stopped. He looked back and motioned her onward and then stepped in among the trees. Ari reached the place a moment later and stood outside, hesitant and frightened.

  "Daddy, come out! I can't see you!" she shouted. Her tiny voice fell away among the trees.

  No answer came from the dark wood. The afternoon sun stretched the shadow of the old house across the lawn and Ari drew away from it. She stepped lightly into the forest and was immediately immersed in deep blue shade and black shadow.

  "This way, Ari," she heard her father say. The voice came from just ahead of her.