by Cathi Shaw
Brijit felt her cheeks redden.
“No,” she denied.
“No?” her grandmother raised her white eyebrows and looked at her skeptically. “Your words sound false to me. Are you being honest with yourself, my granddaughter?”
Brijit stood up angrily. Rufus fell the floor with an angry snarl.
“I don’t have time for this. Weylon is dying. Can you help me or not, Grandmamma?”
Her grandmother looked hard at her.
“So this is the way it is,” she said after a few moments. Her shoulders slumped in defeat, then she began to chant quietly to herself. Brijit watched her, feeling ill as the woman who raised her continued to recite incantations that Brijit knew had to be invoking her dark magik. But Brijit didn’t care – she would do anything to save Weylon.
“In the dead forest, you will find a red mushroom growing. Take three of them. No more, no less. Brew them over your fire until the broth turns golden. Too long and it will be ineffective; too short and it will kill him. But he is dying anyway. So I wouldn’t worry too much.”
Brijit breathed out in relief, suddenly realizing that she had been holding her breath for too long. She hadn’t been sure her grandmother was going to help her after all.
“But Brijit,” the old woman said.
She looked at her grandmother.
“Be sure this is what you want, my child. Choices you make now will affect the destiny of your life in this realm.”
A sudden sense of foreboding filled Brijit. Her grandmother was always talking in riddles. What could she mean? Weylon’s groan suddenly filled the small house. Brijit could feel herself being pulled from the vision.
“Your choice is made. We shall not see one another again.” Her grandmother bowed her head. “I love you, my child. Be at peace.”
As her grandmother and her house began to fade from view, Brijit could hear Rufus hissing and yowling. And then she was back in the camp, with Weylon tossing violently on the sleeping roll in front of her.
#
Two of the Elder knights stayed with Weylon while Beriadan accompanied Brijit into the forest. The vision of her grandmother was still with her, making Brijit tremble slightly. She could feel the pendant hanging heavily between her breasts where she had tucked it back inside her tunic, still out of sight even though she knew the Elders had seen her use it.
Her eyes scoured the ground looking for the red mushrooms her grandmother had said would heal Weylon. Not cure him completely but heal him. She hadn’t given up on a cure but for now she would be satisfied with healing.
Her grandmother’s words haunted her, and yet the urgency to do something to save Weylon’s life took precedence over the old woman’s warnings.
It was clear that Weylon was nearing the point of no return. He had been thrashing violently on the bedroll when she left him. His gray skin filled with a webbing of black veins. Brijit feared that even if she found the mushroom her grandmother had talked of, by the time she prepared the brew it would be far too late for Weylon.
“Time is ebbing, Healer,” Beriadan suddenly said, voicing her worries aloud. “I fear you may not be able to save him.”
Suddenly a patch of red near the exposed roots of a dying tree caught her attention.
“There!” Brijit pointed and sprinted to where the mushrooms were growing. They seemed to glow iridescently, as if they were from another world. Gingerly she reached down and picked three of them. The rest of the fungus instantly vanished and Brijit gasped. But the three vibrant-colored stalks in her hand remained.
Shaking off the strangeness, Brijit made her way back to camp with Beriadan. Weylon looked much the same as when they had left him, but his groans were becoming louder by the second. Ignoring his increasing moans, Brijit set to brewing the mushrooms as her grandmother had instructed. The Elders didn’t question her. They left her to her work.
Brijit watched the brew closely and was surprised at how quickly the fungus broke down. She kept stirring it, remembering the instructions her grandmother gave her. She was used to making tinctures and other remedies. She had trained for years doing this and had been the best student at the Academy. If ever there was a time to put her skill set to work, it was now.
As she watched, the brew turned a soft yellow color, not yet golden. She kept stirring and pondering her grandmother’s words. She was shocked that the old woman had suggested she might leave Weylon for dead. Her grandmother, while she acknowledged that death did happen, always fought hard for her patients, particularly young ones. It went against the grain for her to suggest that one should die. What that could mean filled Brijit with a sense of terror that she didn’t want to examine too closely.
But what else had Grandmamma said? That the poison would never leave Weylon. Brijit looked around the forest, noting the dying trees. This had not happened quickly. Could a similar thing happen to a person if they were infected as the forest had clearly been? The thought was terrifying. What about the creature that had attacked Weylon? Brijit could not help wondering what it had been before it had become the evil beast that she had seen. She looked over to where its body lay on the ground and shuddered.
It was impossible to think that Weylon could become like that. Her grandmother must be mistaken.
The broth started to turn from yellow to a deep gold. Brijit held her breath and stirred it three more times and then removed it from the heat. She poured it into a wooden bowl and then looked over at Beriadan.
“I will need you to hold him still, while I try to get some of this down his throat.”
Beriadan nodded and came over to where Weylon lay on the ground. Suddenly Weylon’s eyes flew open, and he snarled at Beriadan, striking out with his arms.
The Elder seemed unperturbed by Weylon’s aggressive response. He easily pinned Weylon to the ground.
Beriadan looked at Brijit. “This is the best you will get. Try not to drown him.”
Irritation prickled at Brijit, but she knew better than to argue with Beriadan. She knelt beside Weylon.
“Weylon, this will help.”
He snarled at her, spittle gathering at the corners of his now black lips. Brijit swallowed hard. This had to be done.
She took a spoonful of the liquid and tried to put it in his mouth, but Weylon spat it out at her.
“They will win,” he hissed, his eyes rolling manically. “They will win. They are coming, and you all will bow to them.”
Brijit looked at Beriadan, who shook his head at her.
She was not going to get any of the remedy into Weylon while he was in this state. Desperate, Brijit reached out for his mind as she’d done earlier, hoping to be able to send calming thoughts to him. But she gasped as the darkness engulfed her. Come play with us, little one. The voices filled her head. We like the innocent like you. Come along, he has led us right to you. Be our plaything while you can last.
Brijit tried to sever the connection but found she was held firm to Weylon’s diseased mind. Try as she might, she couldn’t let go. Blind fear overtook her, and she began to fight in earnest.
Breathing hard, she pushed against the veil of darkness that was covering her eyes and saw Weylon’s face. In desperation, she took the bowl and held it to his lips. She poured all the contents down his throat, ignoring his choking and what splattered down his chin. She kept pouring until it was gone, her only aim to break free of the evilness that had filled her thoughts.
The darkness engulfed her mind and then suddenly she was thrown back on the ground.
Brijit lay there, looking at Beriadan in dismay. Weylon began convulsing violently and then lay still, not breathing. She knew now what her grandmother had been trying to tell her. Weylon was beyond her help. And as she stared at his lifeless form in front her, she knew she had failed.
Chapter Ten
Beriadan stared at Brijit.
“You have killed him,” he said.
The two other Elders crossed the clearing to where Weylon was lying and looked do
wn.
Brijit sobbed quietly. She may have killed Weylon, but after being in his mind she couldn’t help wondering if he were better off dead. No one should have to live in the grip of such darkness.
“He is not dead.”
Brijit looked up blindly through her tears. The second Elder knight was looking down at Weylon, his eyes alit with interest.
Almost against her will, Brijit looked over. What she saw was unbelievable. The black veins below Weylon’s skin were receding, and his color, while still gray, wasn’t as pale as before. As Brijit watched, his chest began to rise and fall. He was, indeed, alive.
“Well done, Healer. Well done.”
Brijit nodded. But as she watched life returning to Weylon, her grandmother’s warning returned to her and her heart began to fill with fear. She asked herself, What have I done?
#
Brijit worried they would be stuck in the Dead Zone until Weylon recovered enough to travel, but the Elders surprised her by putting him on a horse the very day after the attack.
“We cannot linger here,” Beriadan told her when she protested.
“But he is not in any way fit to be moved yet. You wanted me to save him, but what you are suggesting will kill him.”
He ignored her completely and continued to prepare for departure. When they lifted Weylon’s now unconscious body to his horse, he threatened to slide off the other side.
“See, he can’t sit up.”
“He doesn’t have to,” Beriadan told her, and he proceeded to tie Weylon to his saddle. “We cannot linger here,” he repeated, his green eyes nervously shifting to the dying trees surrounding them. “We have been in this forest too long already.”
Brijit followed his gaze and felt a darkness enter her heart. Beriadan was right. They needed to leave.
They tied Weylon’s horse to the back of Beriadan’s and then set a brisk pace that had Brijit’s teeth chattering. She didn’t want to think about how badly Weylon was being jarred on the back of his mount. A part of her was grateful for the Elders’ pace.
When they finally stopped for a rest, she was dismayed to see blood running down Weylon’s side again. The riding had reopened his wound. While the wound was troubling, Brijit was relieved to see that his blood was red and healthy looking. Only a small bit of the foul black discharge remained. He was still unconscious, thankfully. Brijit didn’t want to re-enter his mind, even in the name of pain control. At least not for some time.
After she had redressed Weylon’s wound, she suggested they break for the day, pointing out that more riding would just aggravate the bleeding. Beriadan was adamant in his refusal.
“You have ensured that he will not die from his wounds. Now we must ensure that we get out of this forest before the rest of us succumb.”
Her experiences of the previous day had left her shaken and exhausted. She rode automatically, thankful that the Elders’ horses were so accommodating to their riders.
Brijit had no choice but to follow the Elders far into the night. Finally, under a full moon, they broke from the forest and emerged in a desert where no vegetation at all grew. Brijit was so tired she feared that she would fall from her saddle, and she was relieved when the Elders halted, once they’d left the dead wood some distance behind.
“We will rest here until the sun rises. But that is all,” she was told. “If you need sleep, I would suggest you take it now.”
Brijit did just that, pulling out her sleeping roll and collapsing into it. She marveled at how the Elders themselves did not seem to need any sleep. She remembered Weylon saying that they weren’t human so they didn’t need rest in the same way, but she didn’t dwell on that thought for long. A black, dreamless sleep soon overtook her, and before she knew it she was being shaken awake.
She changed Weylon’s dressing and was happy to see that the bleeding had, for the most part, stopped. The blackness that had originally oozed from the wound had also decreased. Now there was just the faintest ring of black around each of the puncture marks.
When she mounted her horse, Brijit was surprised to see how far the desert stretched. As far as she could see in every direction, there was nothing but dull brown sand. The dead forest had been swallowed up by the night, and she could not guess the direction they had come from the previous evening.
It was early afternoon when something finally appeared on the horizon. It looked like a massively tall structure. Brijit squinted into the distance but couldn’t be sure.
As they got closer, Brijit saw that the building was a fortress of sorts. She realized that it must be Tèarmann, the fortress they had seen on the map. But this didn’t look like the ruin Weylon had described. This was a working fortress, clearly maintained and used by the Elders. With a shiver, she wondered how close The Rift lay on the other side of the fortress.
They came to a twelve-foot-high stone wall that encircled the structure. Beriadan greeted the guards at the gates, who were obviously expecting them. They were led into the courtyard.
Weylon hadn’t regained consciousness yet, and Brijit was starting to get worried. Would he ever wake? But even as she asked herself that question, part of her wondered if she wanted him to wake up.
The Elders dismounted. A stretcher was brought from the fortress by two young Elder men. A tall woman trailed them, giving instructions on how to unfasten Weylon from his mount.
“Tying him to his horse? Really, that was the best you could do, Beriadan?” the Elder woman turned on the knights, her dark green eyes blazing with anger. “You know better than to treat a patient like that!”
Beriadan stared at her stonily and then said, “We did what we had to in order to bring them here alive.”
“Alive. Just barely. Yes, you did a good job of that. Next time perhaps we should specify in good health, as well.” She didn’t wait for a reply but motioned the young Elder men to carry Weylon inside.
Brijit scurried after them, hurrying to keep up and barely noticing the winding stone hallways that they strode down. Finally, they stopped and carried Weylon into a bedchamber that was both spacious and clean. A fire was already burning in the grate, and for the first time in a long time, Brijit felt the comforts of civilization wash over her. A wave of exhaustion hit her so hard she actually swayed on her feet.
“You can go and get some rest now, child. I can see to what he needs.”
Brijit turned around in surprise and saw the Elder woman watching her. She was tall and Brijit could clearly see that she was very aged. Brijit couldn’t help staring. She was the first Elder Brijit had ever seen who had lines on her face or showed any sign of aging at all.
The woman smiled at her, and Brijit realized that she had been staring too long.
“Truly, child, I can look after Weylon. You, Brijit, look dead on your feet.”
Brijit froze, wondering how she knew their names but before she could ask, the woman moved to her side. Brijit instinctively blocked her access to Weylon, placing herself between his prone body and the Elder woman.
The older woman smiled at her. “We need to work together. We might as well start now.”
Brijit just looked at her unmoving. There was no way she was going to leave Weylon alone with this Elder. Not after what had happened to Ana and her baby in that village. Not until she was sure she could trust her.
The woman sighed. “I suppose they’ve told you nothing?” She paused and studied Brijit for a few moments. “Of course they didn’t. It is this ridiculous tradition to keep the Coimirceoirí in the dark. Well, I can’t go against their wishes completely but they can’t control what I tell you of myself.”
She smiled encouragingly at Brijit. “I won’t hurt Weylon. In fact, I am utterly not able to hurt a living being. I am Nestariel. I have many duties and roles to play. In time, you will learn of many of them. For now, you only need to know that I am a healer, like yourself.”
Brijit looked at Nestariel for a long moment, still wondering if she could trust her. Could there be an Elder
on their side? She wanted to think so, but she wasn’t ready to believe it. She would start with something small and see how Nestariel reacted.
“I’ll show you his wound,” Brijit said and reached down to remove the dressing.
She heard Nestariel suck in her breath as she exposed Weylon’s wound. Brijit was surprised. To her eyes the wound was looking much better. The black circles around the puncture wounds were almost completely gone. Brijit was pleased with the progress, even though she was still concerned that he hadn’t awoken yet.
She turned to Nestariel to ask her if she had any theories as to why Weylon was still unconscious and was surprised to see the horror on the Elder’s ancient face.
“What did this to him?” An expression of fear and fascination lit up Nestariel’s lined features.
“I’m not sure what it was. A creature from Jirgen Forest. It looked almost like a forest cat, but it was different, altered in some way.”
Nestariel murmured something in the Elder language. “How is he still alive?” she asked, and Brijit recognized that anger was making her voice raspy. “What did you do to him?”
She stared at this Elder. Who was she to question her? Brijit had done what she could to save her fellow Coimirceoirí. She was a healer. Did the woman expect her to simply let him die?
She ignored the little voice inside that was reminding her she had been acting on more than duty when she had saved Weylon. She had been acting out of love.
Brijit pushed those thoughts aside. She wasn’t ready to confront her own feelings yet, and she certainly couldn’t let Nestariel even guess how close she had become to Weylon on their journey out.
When Brijit kept her lips pressed together, Nestariel sighed and then moderated her tone.
“Tell me, child, did you perform magik on him?”
“Magik?” Brijit asked vaguely. “No, I don’t know how to do that.”
Nestariel looked confused. “Then how did you manage this? No one can heal from a bite of the Aptrgangr without it.”
