He turned his head, and saw a large black bird, sitting on the sill, peering in through the window at him. Marco waved his hand at the bird, but it did not react at first, then proceeded to tap its beak against the window pane. The bird flapped its wings and hopped up and down, then sat and stared directly in at Marco.
He slowly stood up, then walked towards the window. The raven spread its wings wide as it faced him, and bobbed its head up and down. Marco banged on the window to try to chase the black bird away, but it only remained on the sill and started pecking at the glass in return, as if mocking him. Exasperated, Marco picked up a towel and hung it in front of the window to block his view of the bird. It responded by cawing harshly and repeatedly, making Marco angrier, so that at last he opened the window and swung his hand at the bird, tired of its inexplicable behavior.
The situation deteriorated from there. The raven sidestepped his wave, and flew into the room, making Marco try to raise both arms in a panicked response to the creature’s sudden movement in the confined space. Marco’s shoulder burst into a new wave of agony, and he bent over in response, a fortunate move, as the bird dove at his face, and only raked his forehead with its talons and not his eyes.
He swung a fist with his head still down, and felt contact. The bird gave a squawk, and Marco looked up to see the black creature shoot out the window. He stretched his good arm and slammed the window shut, then hung the towel in front of it again, and slumped back onto Mirra’s bedding. There was blood in his eyes from the deep scratches on his forehead, and he removed his purloined shirt to wipe his face clean.
It should have been unsettling; it should have been shocking. Yet Marco felt almost numb to any increase in horror over the attack. After the battle with the sorcerer, after the infection by the evil energy, after the appearance of the priestess Folence, an attack by a determined and driven bird was not anything to cause him to flinch with further fear. It was simply another sign of how his life was spiraling downhill, out of control, his destiny invisible in a dark future ahead of him.
And the murmuring voice was changing its words, he realized dejectedly. “You will go to him, you will go to him. You will go to the dark master,” the voice was now chanting in its nearly inaudible croon.
He sighed and flung his arm over his eyes, and tried to imagine how a master alchemist would tell him to respond to his misfortune. What would Algornia tell him, he wondered. The old master would tell him something about sanctity and purification of the impure infections and stains, he knew. He had heard the lectures so many times before, when life had been so simple, and his future had not been so dark.
There was a knock at the door, and Marco realized that his doom was at hand. The raven had gone off to alert someone to his presence, and they had come to find him.
“Marco?” Mirra’s voice called, and then the door pushed open, and he saw her eyes looking at him before she pressed the door wide, and entered the room. She carried Sybele in one arm, and had a sack of belongings flung over her other shoulder.
“How are you, my love?” she asked, setting the awake baby girl down to sit on the floor as she crouched down next to Marco. “What happened to your face?” she asked in dismay as she looked at the raven’s scratches across his forehead.
“There was a bird at the window, a big black bird. I tried to chase it away, but it flew into the room and scratched me,” he said, as she got up and dampened a rag from a pitcher of water, then gently washed his face. She looked down at his wounded shoulder, and her face turned pale.
“It looks so bad, Marco,” she said. “Why don’t you want Folence to treat you?”
And so, in a long monologue that was a relief to tell, Marco told an abbreviated version of the story of his experience on the isle of Ophiuchus, the hatred of the women and the effort to take him back captive once again. “The dolphins brought me here to safety,” he said, “and now it looks like the only way I can get healed is to turn myself over to the women who will lock me away.”
There were tears in Mirra’s eyes as she listened to him.
Sybele began to cry, and Mirra absent-mindedly lifted her blouse and began to feed the child, then looked at Marco and blushed as she realized what she had done without thinking. “I’m sorry; I was too busy listening to your story to think about what I was doing,” she said. “And in some ways it doesn’t matter, since you’ve seen every inch of my skin anyway, the time we went swimming with your dolphin friend,” she rationalized, as Marco averted his gaze and pretended not to notice.
“What are you going to do? You’re purely in trouble now, my sweet,” Mirra asked him.
“Pure? Pure! That’s it!” Marco exclaimed energetically. “Maybe there’s something I can concoct to purify this evil out of my body,” he said recollecting the lessons of Algornia once again. “Do you know what happened to the gorgon’s blood that I rescued from the sorcerer? Did Folence get it?” he asked anxiously.
“Do you mean this?” Mirra fished with one hand in her bag of belongings, and drew out the small dark container. “You still had it in your hand when they brought you to the palace, and I thought it must be important to you, so I took it and kept it for you.”
“Oh Mirra!” Marco said joyfully.
“I think there must be a way to use the strength of the gorgon’s blood to purify my body and expunge the evil that the sorcerer put in me,” he beamed a smile at the girl, happier than at any time since just before he had seen the Corsairs arrive in the city.
“Here, let me open it up so you can get started,” Mirra said, placing the container on the floor and then beginning to unscrew the lid.
“No! Stop!” Marco said loudly, making Mirra look up in surprise, as Sybele momentarily stopped her suckling at the sound.
Mirra looked up with large eyes in surprise.
“No,” Marco repeated more softly. “It’s a very dangerous element. Just to touch it will burn your skin off. We shouldn’t open it until we’re ready, until I know exactly what to do. Keep it closed,” he warned her.
They sat together quietly until Sybele competed her nursing, and fell asleep in her mother’s arms, and was then tucked into her basket to rest.
“Would you like something to eat?” Mirra asked as she adjusted her blouse.
Marco looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?” he asked, turning bright red as he misunderstood her question.
She looked at him in confusion. “Do you want me to go get something from the shop down the street?”
He smiled and gave a chuckle. “Yes, if you can. I haven’t got any money to give you though,” he warned.
“I have a silver that Captain Kilson gave me,” she assured him. “It’ll be enough to feed us.”
“Why did Kilson give you a silver?” Marco immediately asked, looking at the earrings that Mirra still wore.
Mirra blushed. “He said it was just for being so pretty,” her eyes avoided his. “I told him no, but he said I could give it back if I didn’t use it. And now it looks like I need to use it.”
“As soon as we get some of my money from Gabrielle, you can pay him back,” Marco told her.
“Of course,” she agreed. She stood to go. “I’ll be back. Sybele should sleep for a while now,” she told him, and then she was gone. Marco looked at the closed door, and wished he could take back the jealous words that had escaped his mouth.
Mirra returned in only a few minutes, carrying a skin filled with fruit juice and a pair of meat pies. She smiled warmly as she re-entered the room, and they ate their meal by the light of the setting sun, as red rays reflected in through the window. Mirra broke off bits of Marco’s pie and fed them to him, as she told him about how beautiful and glamorous the palace had been while she had stayed in the room next to the one where he had been cared for.
“It was so luxurious,” she told him. “They even brought in a crib for Sybele, and a nurse to help watch her,” she told him as she fed his last bite of pie. She stood up and went to Glaze’
s side of the room, and pulled the makeshift curtain closed between the two sides, then emerged moments later wearing a nightgown, as she carefully hung up her day clothing on a hook. “Gabrielle gave me this,” she told him, regarding her dress. “If I sleep in it there will be more wrinkles than you can imagine.”
She lay down carefully next to him. He lay still, feeling both pain from the sorcerer’s infection, and tranquility from having Mirra by his side, until the murmuring lump in his chest suddenly raised its level of sound – the nasty siren call that invited evil powers to come find him – and he felt the evil energy move itself slightly, closer to the center of his chest.
Marco screamed in pain as the evil settled down in a new location, farther from his shoulder, and closer to his heart.
“Marco! What is it?” Mirra asked anxiously, instantly rising up and standing over him.
“It’s the evil part; it moved in my chest,” he gasped.
“We have to get you to see Folence,” Mirra responded, placing her hands over his, which were on top of his chest.
“No, not yet,” Marco told her. “I think I know how to treat this,” he said.
“We need to start right away!” Mirra said emphatically. “I can’t bear to see your pain.”
No, let’s wait until morning,” he told her. “I don’t want to try to battle the evil until the sunlight is shining, and there are a couple of things I’d like for you to see if you can get from Gabrielle’s shop, in the morning.”
They both slept uneasily that evening, and when Glaze returned at sunrise, they both sat up with dark circles under their eyes. The brother and sister had a happy though muted reunion, and then Mirra got dressed and left to get some food for all three of them to eat breakfast.
Later that morning, as Glaze fell asleep, Marco told Mirra what items he needed from the shop. She dutifully left him to watch Sybele as she went to Gabrielle’s shop on the square. When she returned an hour later, she was using both hands to carry a basket full of the things Marco had asked for.
Under his direction, Mirra used the small mortar and pestle to grind together soil from the banks of the Nile, dust from Calvary Hill, and oxidized sands from the top of Mt. Olympus. She added a small amount of sanctified water, then waited while Marco suffered through another painful seizure, as the evil spell within his body moved again.
Glaze awoke at the screams, and watched silently as Marco recovered, then gave the final instructions.
“Take a needle, and carefully poke it into the container of the gorgon’s blood crystals,” he directed. “Place the crystal you stab into the mixture you just created, and let it rest there while you close up the container again tightly.
Mirra cautiously did as instructed, then raised her head, startled, when a puff of smoke arose from the mixture of the gorgon’s blood crystal and the thick potion in the mortar. She closed the container.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now give me that bottle of distilled spirits,” Marco instructed, and when she did so, he took a long drink from it and shuddered in disgust.
“What are you doing?” Glaze asked.
“I’m trying to get ready to dull the pain,” Marco answered evenly.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” Mirra protested.
“I’ll be hurt worse if you don’t do this for me,” Marco gently reminded her. “I need you to help me with this.”
“Take the needle, and press the flake of gorgon’s blood against the skin on top of the evil,” he told her, then took another drink.
“I think the cure you mixed up will be a cleansing cure; it will drive the evil energy away. Just keep pressing the needle against the, the, uh, the infection,” Marco felt the liquor starting to affect his mind, making his attention wander and his focus grow fuzzy.
“Press against it for me, Mirra,” he looked up at her. “You are so beautiful!” he smiled at her, happy to see her with him, happy to know that she had voiced her love for him.
She smiled a somber smile at him momentarily, as she looked from his chest to his eyes and back to his chest. “Are you ready for this, Marco?” she asked hesitantly.
He took another swig of the fast-acting liquor.
“You fix me up here, and then we can run away and get married,” he told her in slurred tones.
Glaze laughed from where he crouched behind Mirra.
“You get down here and hold his arms down!” she whirled on her brother and immediately ordered him.
He suppressed a smirk and bent down beside her.
“Are you ready, Marco?” she asked gently.
He failed to respond, and Glaze carefully removed the bottle of spirits from the limp fingers of the wounded apprentice, and set it aside before he grasped both wrists and pinned them carefully to the floor.
Glaze looked at Mirra and nodded. She positioned the needle, with its tiny flake of the extraordinary medicine, above Marco’s chest, then began to tentatively lower it closer to the surface of his skin. It was undoubtedly her imagination, she was sure, but it seemed that as the gorgon’s blood approached Marco’s skin, the bump of evil upon his chest seemed to flinch.
Marco’s eyes popped wide open, just as the tip of the needle reached the last fraction of an inch before it made contact with his skin.
“It says to stop!” he blurted out.
And then the medicine touched him.
Marco arched his back with a spasmodic response, his legs and arms flailing violently. The thrust of his body upward drove his chest against the needle that Mirra held, and as contact occurred, there was a puff of smoke and the foul odor of burning flesh. The evil occupant of Marco’s body was driven away from the gorgon’s blood, and the purifying agents that it strengthened; the lump shot back to Marco’s shoulder, and then beyond, moving down his arm to come to rest near his elbow, diminished and harmed by the medicine Marco had prescribed for himself. As it went it destructively tore through his flesh.
Mirra did not immediately grasp all that happened though, for the initial thrust of Marco’s body was driven both by the pain he felt, and by the pain and fear the evil energy felt. His body’s reaction knocked Glaze against one wall, and thrust Mirra against the other, sending her flying through the air to strike the wall so violently that it knocked the breath out of her.
There was a pounding sound, and the door burst open.
“What are you doing?” Marco heard a woman’s voice shouting, as his own body continued to flail and Mirra rested against the wall where his reaction had tossed her. He was too stunned to understand what was happening. He turned his glazed eyes, his body in shock from the pain and the reaction of the evil, and saw that Folence and Kilson had entered the apartment.
“My God, my lady!” Kilson spoke loudly. “There’s so much blood! Is he dying? Did she stab him?”
“It would have been simpler if she had,” Folence said. “You check on the girl and the boy,” she directed the guardsman as she bent over Marco.
He tried to look down at himself, then looked away. His flesh was ripped open across his chest, revealing the gleam of his ribs, and blood was splattered everywhere. He looked up and saw Folence’s eyes, drilling down into his own, and then he passed out.
Chapter 20 – Deadly Dance at the Palace
Marco awoke, and he saw a dark ceiling somewhere far above him. He felt pain all across the right side of his chest, in his right shoulder, and in his right arm.
“Mirra?” he asked groggily.
There was a spat of whispering, and then a quick shuffling of feet, followed by the sound of a door closing. It slowly dawned on him that he could not move his arms or legs.
“Mirra? Glaze?” he asked again. “Folence?” he asked in desperation, hoping that someone would answer him.
He heard the sound of the door again, and more footsteps, then Folence appeared above him. “Do you know who I am?” she asked, looking down at him.
“My second worst nightmare,” he said groggily.
&n
bsp; Her lips flickered in what might have been the beginning of a smile.
“Where are we? Where’s Mirra?” he asked.
“Don’t you want to know if you’re going to live?” she asked. “That should be your first question.”
“If you’ve got me captive,” he wrenched his left fist fruitlessly, “it doesn’t matter so much whether I live or not. Where’s Mirra? Is she alright?”
“So worried about your ward, are you young Pygmalion?” Folence asked. “Even after she tried to kill you?”
“What’s Pygmalion mean? She didn’t try to kill me! She tried to heal me – she did what I told her to do,” he said, then grimaced in pain from his over-exertion.
“Captain Kilson has her and her brother under guard back at the duke’s palace; she’s in no immediate danger, so don’t worry about her just now, her keeper is very sympathetic,” Folence said. “We need to worry more about you.
“You’re lucky to be alive. If Kilson hadn’t taken me in search of your pretty young prodigy as a means to track you down, I wouldn’t have been there when you were dying,” Folence said. “And all I’ve done is kept you alive. You’re a mess, a terrible mess, even without that abomination that is trying to eat your soul.”
“Am I strapped down? Will you release me?” Marco asked.
Folence looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Not right now, not yet. You need to rest and heal. I’ve sent a message to Lady Iasco to let her know your condition, and if you grow healthy enough to move, I’ll put you on a ship and send you to her so that she can heal you completely.
“If I take those straps off, there’s no telling what you might try to do, or what damage you’ll do to yourself,” she concluded.
Marco closed his eyes, defeated.
“Mirra only did what I told her to. I thought I could destroy the sorcerer’s evil that was in me, and she was following my directions. She and Glaze shouldn’t be held captive. Please release them,” he begged.
“I’ll look into the matter. Captain Kilson certainly feels that they’re better off at the palace where he can keep a close eye on them,” Folence told him. “And for their own sake, we shouldn’t let them go back to that squalid home in any event.”
The Gorgon's Blood Solution Page 25
