The Gorgon's Blood Solution

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “No, Kieweeooee, my love,” Marco said affectionately, placing a gentle hand on the dolphin’s flipper. “You have to stay safe and ready to have all those baby mermaids someday, eh?” he laughed.

  She splashed her flipper in a soft burst of laughter, then turned, and Marco took a deep breath before he grabbed ahold of her and let her pull him quickly downward. He felt the pressure start to build in his ears as the water above them grew deeper, and they continued to descend, until Marco saw the abrupt ending of the glowing yellow dome beside him.

  He released his hold on the dolphin and grabbed the bottom of the dome, then pulled himself underneath it. He felt the slimy bottom of the harbor rub against his back, and his lungs began to burn again, and then he was on his way upward, back towards the sweet air he needed to breath, on the inside of the Corsairs’ dome.

  Marco reached the surface of the water, one hand still touching the yellow dome that protected the Corsairs. He looked at Kieweeooee, who was just inches away on the other side of the dome. He waved a quick wave at his friend to acknowledge and thank her, then he turned and swam quickly towards the pier that the sorcerer occupied. He stopped to breathe and catch his breath at the base of that pier, trying to prepare himself for his rapidly approaching confrontation with the sorcerer that stood just overhead.

  Carefully, holding his breath now in anticipation, Marco slowly raised his head above the surface of the pier, and spotted the sorcerer down at the far end, the end of the pier closest to the city and the warehouses. He stood among a group of Corsairs, and once again Marco saw that a crowd of the citizens of the city stood across from the protective dome, angrily determined to fight the invaders of their city. And once again there were piles of booty and captives laid on the planks of the pier, awaiting their turn to be roughly handled as they became the cargo that the Corsairs would carry away from the city.

  Marco crept around the side of the pier and edged his way over to one of the piles of booty. The sorcerer still had his back turned, confident in his security, unaware that the very same threat that had fought him before, hundreds of miles away, was once again creeping up on him.

  Marco crept up onto the pier, keeping the pile of stolen goods in front of him as a shield. He approached a young girl who looked at him with frightened eyes, and he held his finger to his lips as he gently sliced her ropes and set her free.

  “Go down over the edge and hide beneath the pier. Hide in the support beams,” Marco whispered to her, and then he set another girl free, one who appeared to be a nobleman’s daughter, judging from the jewels that still dangled about her, and he freed a very young boy, who he told to follow the girls.

  There were no others he could easily reach, so he settled in among the stolen goods and waited for the sorcerer to return towards his end of the pier. He sprawled himself among the goods, and hid his sword under his body, loosely holding severed ropes around his wrists to make it appear that he was a bound captive.

  And minutes later, the sorcerer came stalking down the pier towards him.

  It was the same man. He had the same penetrating eyes, and Marco kept his face averted to try to hide his identity; he was sure that the sorcerer would recognize him just as surely as he recognized the sorcerer. The only difference Marco noted between their last meeting and the current one was that a black raven perched upon the man’s shoulder, riding comfortably as the man strode forward.

  The man reached Marco’s pile of goods and stopped to look down at Marco’s body, a figure the sorcerer didn’t remember seeing before. And at that moment, Marco pressed himself upward, rolled forward on the pier, and thrust his sword into the chest of the astonished sorcerer. The raven on the man’s shoulder let out a squawk of pain, lifted itself off the shoulder of the sorcerer, then flew in a tight, quick circle, and landed back on the other shoulder of the injured man, looking at Marco with a baleful stare.

  The man remained standing with a horrified look, and Marco grabbed at the front of his robes and pulled the container of gorgon’s blood out, ripping the fabric of the robes as he jerked it forcefully. Then Marco pulled his sword clear of the sorcerer’s flesh, and fearfully back-pedaled several steps.

  The sorcerer did not topple over. The man stood stock still, his eyes shut, and his lips quivering as he mumbled some incantation.

  Then the sorcerer’s eyes opened, and he was enclosed in a wavering blue light. The yellow dome overhead began to dim and flicker, as the sorcerer redirected his will away from maintaining it. And then, as amazing as anything else he had seen, Marco saw the sorcerer’s skin change, the uniformity of its pale color faded, and Marco saw a clearly striped pattern appear on the deadly man’s face. It instantly reminded Marco of Lady Iasco’s identical complexion.

  “It’s you again?” the sorcerer struggled to say. “Has fate chosen you to be a champion?”

  The question resonated in Marco’s brain, as he remembered the voice in the cave on the Isle of Ophiuchus.

  The sorcerer’s eyes shifted to look at the flower tattoo on Marco’s shoulder. “You’re her champion, are you?

  “Then let my curse rest upon you. May my master be able to always find you, so that when the time comes that he wants the gorgon’s blood, he’ll be able to reach out and pluck it away from you,” the sorcerer’s voice was unsteady, and a drop of blood ran down his chin.

  “And then he will pluck away your very life itself, after he had used you in the ways that amuse him,” the curse grew in power – Marco could feel it building in the air. The yellow dome flickered completely out of existence, as the sorcerer vented all his dwindling energy into empowering the curse he cast on Marco.

  “Take my curse, since you have taken my life, and feel the curse – live with it, know that it will draw your own doom down upon you,” the sorcerer screamed the last words, then raised his left hand with a speed that Marco had not expected, and hurled a glowing ball of deep purple and black energy directly at Marco’s chest.

  With reactions that were inhumanly quick, Marco’s sword raised up in front of his chest and intercepted the ball of diabolical energy. The sorcerer’s powerful weapon hit the edge of the sword blade square-on, and split into two parts. One part flew to the left, while the other flew to the right.

  One half of the attack struck Marco directly on the tattoo that had been imprinted on him. He felt the force of the strike, and then he watched with amazement as the ball of energy bounced off the tattoo and rebounded directly back at the sorcerer.

  At the same time, the other half of the dark energy flew at Marco’s right shoulder and struck him squarely there. The energy blasted its way through his skin, creating a smoldering burn on Marco’s flesh, and something within the energy burrowed into his shoulder joint, creating agonizing pain as it took up residence in Marco’s body.

  Marco felt the pain, and felt his body hurled backwards by the blast, so that he landed on his back on the surface of the pier, one hand holding his sword while the other hand held the container of gorgon’s blood. He did not see the other half of the energy ball strike the sorcerer as it rebounded off of Marco. As soon as it struck its creator, the other ball burrowed into his flesh, and then appeared to move about beneath his skin, raising a lump as it moved, akin to a person burrowing beneath covers on a bed. The bulging energy’s movement caused the sorcerer to scream in agony for several seconds, until the power came to rest directly above his heart; for one second it held still in that location, and then suddenly dove through his body, deep into his chest. The next second the dying sorcerer erupted in a burst of greasy smoke and flame that instantly consumed him, sending a column of smoke and flame high into the sky. The raven launched itself into the air just ahead of the explosion, and disappeared into the darkness of the sky, making a raucous noise.

  The three captives that Marco had set free had watched the confrontation, and as one, they climbed back onto the pier and grabbed Marco’s body, so that they could pull it down into hiding with them beneath the pier. Their
rescue of the unconscious Marco was just barely in time, but they succeeded, for the dissolution of the yellow dome had allowed the enraged citizens of Barcelon to storm at the unprotected and outnumbered Corsair invaders, and sweep away the violent attackers who had tried to loot the plague-ravaged city.

  Chapter 18 – Folence of Ophiuchus

  Marco awoke in gradual steps, rising up through the screaming pain little by little. At first he was only aware of the horrible pain that throbbed in his shoulder. The wound created by the sorcerer’s powerful magic throbbed along in rhythm to his own heartbeat. As he awoke to a greater degree, he became aware of sound. There was the sound of his own labored breathing, and the occasional sounds of the scraping movements of others around him. And worst of all, there was the sound of an evil murmuring, another voice that was audible just on the edge of his consciousness, a voice that repeated something over and over and over again – a short simple phrase that he could not quite grasp, but that hovered on the edge of his awareness, as he lay subdued and overwhelmed by the pain he felt, with the banal murmur always present.

  He eventually became aware of light, and then he became self-aware.

  "Marco, do you hear me?" he heard the question, and his mind struggled to comprehend their meaning.

  "Marco, squeeze my hand if you hear me,” the voice told him, and he realized that there was pressure on his hand, his left hand. He squeezed the fingers of his hand and heard a sharp intake of breath.

  "He did it!" it was a familiar voice that spoke, he knew.

  Marco opened his eyes and focused his blurry vision. He could barely see the features of a girl’s face, though not in detail. There were sparks of light on the sides of her head, he noted.

  “Who are you?” he croaked. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s me Marco, Mirra. You’re safe, Marco. They’re trying to heal you. I mean, they are healing you,” she hastily corrected herself.

  “Where are we? What happened?” he asked the girl. He used his left hand to rub his eyes, and cleared his vision. He suddenly recognized Mirra’s lovely features, and knew who she was. He exhaled deeply, his heart relieved to see his friend, and memories started to roll back to the front of his awareness.

  “We’re in Barcelon,” he said.

  “Yes, of course,” Mirra said soothingly. “We’re in the Duke’s palace. One of the girls you rescued is the Duke’s niece, she had you brought here immediately from the pier.”

  All the memories came rolling back – his brief new career as an alchemist at Gabrielle’s shop, the plague, the attack of the Corsairs, the battle on the pier, and the frightening, diabolical powers that the sorcerer had thrown at him.

  “Mirra,” he said, and he looked at her, seeing the sparkle of bright jewelry on her ears, shiny dots that took the dim light of the room and made it seem magical. “What are those on your ears?”

  He could see her blush faintly. “They’re earrings; Captain Kilson gave them to me. He said he wanted me to look pretty for you when you awoke.”

  Despite all his other problems and pains, Marco felt a bolt of jealousy momentarily run through him. “You look pretty enough for me without them,” he blurted out, then regretted the comment as he saw a momentary pained look on her face.

  “Thank you for being here,” he said. “How long have we been here?”

  “Two days,” Mirra answered.

  “Marco! Are you okay?” she asked, as she watched his features suddenly grimace.

  “It’s that noise,” he answered, referring to the murmur. “It just keeps bothering me.”

  There was a movement in the shadows behind Mirra.

  “What noise?” she asked.

  “That noise – I think it’s a voice. Someone is talking somewhere; I don’t understand it,” he told her perplexed by her question. “You hear it, don’t you?”

  “She can’t hear it,” a white blur suddenly appeared behind Mirra, and he saw a woman dressed all in white, wearing a white scarf over her head even, though the scarf was unusually large and bulky upon her head. “I can’t even hear it, but I know that it’s there.”

  “Who are you?” Marco asked suspiciously. There was something about the woman that he didn’t trust, though he couldn’t think clearly enough through the pain in his shoulder to decipher the warning his instincts delivered.

  “This lady is from the temple of Asclepius,” Mirra told him, a grateful look on her face as she glanced at the woman. “She came to the palace immediately, and said that she would care for you with all the skill and power her temple has.”

  Marco’s eyes grew wide, and the woman stared intently at him, then slowly leaned over him, and reached down to touch the flower tattoo on his shoulder. “It saved you, for now.”

  “You know who I am, don’t you?” he asked quietly, then closed his eyes. “Are you going to take me back?”

  “What are you talking about, Marco?” Mirra asked in a confused tone.

  “He is speaking in pain and confusion,” the woman answered. “He needs some medicine to relax him and help that shoulder heal. Here,” her hand suddenly had a small wafer in it, and she pressed the item into his mouth, then cupped both her hands around his cheeks.

  “We have a few miraculous medicines of our own,” she said calmly, as Marco felt the wafer dissolve on his tongue, before he could even think to spit it out.

  “Go get some rest Mirra. You’ve been with him for hours now,” the temple priestess directed. “Go see Captain Kilson, and tell him that Marco woke up briefly. I think he may be able to take visitors in a day or two,” she said, as her hand shifted from Marco’s face to Mirra’s hand, and assisted her up into a standing position, while her other hand continued to hold Marco’s.

  The lovely girl leaned over and kissed Marco’s face. “I’m so glad to see you awake my sweet,” she smiled as she lifted her face. “I’ll come back tomorrow to sit with you.”

  Marco’s eyes shifted from Mirra to the other woman behind her, who gave a nod as an inscrutable signal to him.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow Mirra,” he agreed, then felt both a wave of sleepiness, and an urge to say one more thing.

  “Mirra, I love you,” he told her, and then he felt his eyes fall shut, and no effort on his part could make them open, though he did not fall completely asleep.

  He heard Mirra sharply inhale, then gulp. “Oh Marco,” she whispered softly, and he felt her kiss his lips lightly, and then she was gone.

  “I know you’re awake. I know you can hear me. Listen closely,” the other woman said several seconds later, after a door closed nearby.

  “I am Folence,” the woman said. “I am the head priestess at the temple of Asclepius in Barcelon. Several days I received an urgent message from the Lady Iasco on the Isle of Ophiuchus; the same message was sent to every temple we have in our order.

  “We were told to be on the lookout for a boy who had escaped from the isle, a boy who had been anointed by the spirit of the island to be the champion of the lady – a boy who happened to talk to the people of the sea. Lady Iasco wanted to see the boy, to talk to him and warn him about what might be about to happen, for his own good,” Folence told her tale.

  “We saw no evidence of any such fugitive boy, and we didn’t look too hard, because we are only Barcelon after all, not one of the great cities, like the Lion City, for example, where such an extraordinary boy might choose to go,” she lightly touched Marco’s eyelids, and he was able to open his eyes as he listened to her.

  “And then of course we had a little incidence of plague that took up all our time and effort for several days, as we tried to save as many patients as we could,” she continued. She reached up and unwound the scarf that covered her head, revealing a knife inexplicably hidden within the cloth. She placed the items on the covers of Marco’s bed, and shook her head as she ran her fingers through her hair.

  “The plague consumed every ounce of effort we had, but we barely made a dent in it. Yet somehow the plag
ue abated much more rapidly than it should have, with far fewer fatalities than we expected, and we heard rumors of a miraculous cure that was being given away in the heart of the city to all comers,” she continued her story. She began to unbutton the front of her white dress.

  “We dismissed it as impossible, but the stories continued,” she said. “And then the Corsairs attacked the city, and we were told that a great hero had impossibly defeated a mighty sorcerer in single combat at the docks, but had been wounded with dark magic, so I rushed here to the palace to offer our assistance.

  “And behold,” she pulled her dress up over her head, to reveal the thin shift she wore beneath it, a flimsy garment that nonetheless held two more knives in leather scabbards attached to the shift; and she also revealed her shoulder to Marco by thrusting it towards him. There was a tattoo on the shoulder. It was a tattoo of a flower, a tattoo that perfectly matched the one on Marco’s shoulder

  “I saw you when I was brought in to tend to you, and I immediately saw that you and I had this in common,” she paused, and Marco saw a droll smile upon her face, “and there is a very short list of males who have such a mark.”

  There was a noise at the door, and Mirra re-entered the room. “I meant to ask,” she began, then faltered as she saw the undressed priestess hovering over Marco.

  “What did you mean to ask?” Folence asked coolly.

  “I meant to ask,” Mirra said haltingly, “when Marco would be able to return to Gabrielle’s shop?”

  “Come here and look at this,” the priestess gestured Mirra over to the bed. She pointed at the torn flesh and lump that occupied Marco’s right shoulder. “This is a terrible wound, worse than you can imagine. There is not just damage and pain, there is evil at work here, evil I do not fully understand. I do not want him to leave my care until we can deal with this problem.

  “It would be best if we were to take him to our own temple, and care for him there,” Folence explained. She paused as she casually shrugged her dress back on, as though she need not take concern for anyone else in the room as she changed her wardrobe.