Servant of a Dark God (40 page)

That made no sense, no sense at all. But River wouldn’t listen to him. She brought a candle near to get a good look at his eyes and mouth. Then she began peppering him with questions: when did the thirst start, how many cookies did he eat, what did Da do when he tied the charm on his arm, had he been hearing a ringing in his ears? Talen struggled to answer them all. Twice she had to repeat a question.

Finally, he held up his hand. “My leg. It’s sucking the life out of my leg.”

Then he saw something at the window.

The shutters had not been closed tightly and pale twigs seemed to shoot in over the sill. From his position on the floor, he couldn’t make any sense of them, but there they were. Tree roots on the window. Then a twisted head appeared, followed by a long body. Another fright, smaller than the one about his leg. It pulled itself up onto the sill.

“There’s another,” he said.

“Another what?”

“Nasty little thing,” he said and motioned at the window. “It’s got cold fingers.”

River looked up and followed his gaze. “There’s nothing there.”

“There is,” said Talen. “And there’s another wrapped about my leg. Right there by your hand.”

The creature about his leg didn’t move. It just sat and watched them.

River put her hand on Talen’s leg, partially covering the thin fingers of the fright. Her hands felt warm.

“How many are here, Talen?”

“Two,” he said.

She cursed, then she calmly picked up Talen’s godsweed charm, took it to the hearth, and thrust it into the fire. “And thus a portion of my life goes up in smoke,” she said. Which made no sense to Talen. She picked up a bowl and put the smoking weed in it. Then she took a pair of tongs and removed three hot coals from the fire and put them in the bowl as well. The weeds smoked.

“Where are they now?” she asked.

“The little one’s at the window. The bigger one is right here.” Talen moved his leg.

River approached, blowing on the smoking braid. She blew it on his face. Then she blew it on his leg.

“Don’t worry,” said Talen. “Nettle says it’s just the come-backs.”

“Be gone!” said River. She blew again on the smoke. Godsweed was not a sweet herb and Talen did not like the taste of its smoke.

The knobby creature on his leg eyed her.

“It’s not afraid of you,” said Talen.

River blew again and waved the smoking bowl around him.

The creature turned as if trying to avoid the smoke. But River blew again and the thing released Talen’s leg and jumped to the floor.

“There it goes,” Talen said. The thing only shuffled a few steps then stopped. But the little one at the window was gone.

River followed Talen’s gaze. She waved the smoking bowl around in the air. Blew more smoke. Then the fright that had been attached to his leg scuttled up the wall and out the window. However, River kept moving about as if it were still there.

“You got it,” said Talen. “It’s off to torment the chickens.” Then Talen wondered why it would do that. Was this the reason Da’s last batch of hens died off? It seemed reasonable. “They’re the ones killing the chickens,” he said.

“You’re babbling,” said River. She went to the window and waved the smoking bowl there. Then she closed up the shutters and brought the bowl back and placed it in the middle of the room on the floor. There was no fire to it anymore. Just coals and smoke.

Nettle and Sugar opened the door and bumped their way through with the empty trough. They set it close to the hearth.

“Stand over that bowl,” she said. “Smoke yourselves.”

“Goh,” Nettle said. “Are you kidding? A real fright?”

“Just do it.”

When Nettle and Sugar finished, River said, “Now get the water going.”

“With a fright out there?”

“Move!” said River.

Nettle growled, and Talen couldn’t tell if it was in frustration at River or to muster up his courage to face the fright. Then he marched out the door, the girl right behind him. River walked over to the wall where their five white ceramic plates hung. She took down one plate, brought it to the table, and broke a cookie upon it. Then she lit four more candles and turned them on their sides about the plate to give the cookie more illumination.

She dug at it with the point of a knife, examining the crumbs. “I see nothing.”

She held one up and sniffed it. She took a bite. After savoring it for a while she shook her head and swallowed it. Then she ate the other two cookies and drank a cup of water. “Sometimes certain herbs magnify the effects of the charm. But I can detect nothing of that sort in these,” she said. “If there’s anything in them, we will shortly know. In the meantime you need to soak. Take off your clothes.”

All this time Nettle had been hauling in water, first to fill the large pot Sugar had put over the fire and then to fill the trough. The thought of moving daunted him, and Talen found he couldn’t do more than look at that trough.

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll do it. Sugar, is that hot yet? We don’t want to freeze him.”

Talen wanted to protest, but it was no use. River had him out of his tunic and pants in moments. Mercifully, she left his linens on.

The trough was slick with slime and the freezing water just about sent him into shock. But he soon didn’t care. The cold meant nothing. He didn’t even care when the girl dumped the boiling water in too quickly and scalded his legs. The hatchlings were in control now. It was too late for all of them.

His eyes were heavy. They itched with sleep and he tried to close them, but River kept slapping his face.

“Let me alone,” said Talen. Then he drifted off into no thought at all.

“Listen to me,” said River. “You will die tonight if we do not change the course of what’s happening.” She felt his chest again as she had done at first. “This isn’t come-backs. Some herbs can heighten the effect. But there was nothing in those cookies. If there had been, I would be feeling the effects by now.”

“Effects,” repeated Talen. Something about that struck him funny and he giggled.

River stood and addressed Nettle. “You keep him awake. Use whatever it requires—don’t let him sleep.” She moved to the table and began unraveling her weaving of Da’s hair.

Nettle first tried to make Talen talk. When that failed, he began with slapping, pinching, and poking.

But Talen didn’t care. He just wanted to close his eyes.

That’s when Nettle retrieved a stick from the fire and burned Talen’s arm with it.

Talen started and yelled.

“Aha,” said Nettle. “It’s fire that will keep him awake.”

But soon Talen’s eyes began to droop, and Nettle had to burn him twice more before River returned.

“Put your tortures away,” said Talen. He looked at Sugar. “She can perform her depradations after I’ve rested.”

But River said nothing. She tied what she’d been weaving to his arm where Da had tied his charm.

“I’ll give it a few minutes,” she said. It sounded as if she were trying to reassure herself.

“There’s no virtue in hair,” said Talen.

“There isn’t?” asked River.

“I’ve never heard of it,” said Talen.

“What about Atra’s hair?”

“She’s given me up,” said Talen.

River made him relate the whole story of what happened at the glass master’s until Talen realized all she was doing was trying to keep him talking so he’d stay awake.

“I’m going to sleep,” he said. “Burn me if you like. I don’t care.”

River put her hand to his chest again. She looked desperate. She took him by the head then, her two hands clasping the back of his skull. “You need to help me,” she said.

“I can’t get up,” he said. “You’ll have to kill her yourself.”

“Talen,” said River. “I can’t stop the flow. You’re bleeding Fire. Your days are rolling off you like smoke. You must help me.”

“Fire?” asked Talen.

River glanced at Nettle and Sugar. Then she faced Talen. She’d decided something. He could see that by the set of her brow.

“You’ve been multiplied,” she said. “Da has begun your awakening. But it’s all gone wrong. You need to close it off.”

That made no sense to Talen. Only dreadmen and Divines could do that. Then through the fog of his mind he began to feel at the edges of a horrible idea.

“You’re going to feel an intrusion,” said River. “Fight it. Push with all your might. You’re leaking through a thousand holes. You’ve got to close every last one of them.”

Suddenly he felt something enter him. It was crushing, and he gasped.

Push!
a voice in his mind said.

He’d been caught once in a tumble of earth, and this was what it had felt like. A panic began to rise in him.

He could feel her. He could feel River in him. It terrified him. The weight of her presence began to bear down.

Talen tried to flee, but she was everywhere. A crush of sand.

Fight me, you fool.

He struggled against her.

Fight!

“I don’t know how!” he shouted.

All about him the sand of her presence pushed at him, coming in through his ears, his nose, his mouth. She was the very air he breathed.

Talen struggled in panic, and then in one part he felt her recede.

Was it his imagination?

He tried again, but whatever he’d done fell to pieces and River’s presence swallowed him. He was trapped, pinned, a man under a ton of grain. He couldn’t breathe.

His panic rose to a pitch, then he did something—he couldn’t explain it—he pushed, and he found he could breathe again. He pushed again. And she moved farther.

That’s it! Fight!

River rushed at him with renewed force, but he held his space and withstood her. He did not know how long he struggled, managing only to keep her far enough away to breathe. Then he closed a small rent in his fabric.

Another
, she said.

But there were so many.

Close another!

Talen was so tired, but he fought. He fought and lost track of time. It was only him and the suffocating sand of his sister.

After what seemed like hours he found himself facing the last hole, one rent in his fabric that separated him from the rest of creation. It was like trying to stop the sea with his hand. Talen fought to no effect.

“I can’t do it,” he said and did not know if he’d spoken this aloud or just in his mind.

You will
, said River.
Mother didn’t save you only to have Father kill you with his reckless ways.

It’s just one hole.

Close it!

Talen mustered the last of his strength and tried to close the rent. And to his surprise he felt it narrow and then shut up as tight as boiled leather.

He slumped in the tub. Tired. He was deathly tired. And thirsty. But the ragged edge of his weariness was dulled, if only a little.

Talen opened his eyes. Most of the water had sloshed out of the trough to the floor. River’s tunic and pants were soaked all down the front. She slumped alongside the trough, and heaved a sob of relief.

Behind her stood Nettle and the girl, their faces slack with confusion or shock. Which it was he could not tell. Talen started to say something to Nettle, but his exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he closed his eyes.

Talen woke and found himself in River’s bed. Someone had slipped small heated sacks of grain under the covers next to him to keep him warm.

He could see through the shutters that it was still dark outside. On the floor beside the bed stood a jug of water. Talen slowly sat up. His head swam, and he clutched it until the dizziness passed. He grabbed the jug and took a long drink.

When he finished, River stood in the doorway.

“I don’t know that I want to hear it,” said Talen. They were caught, all of them. In a black web of Slethery.

“It’s too late for that,” said River. She walked in and sat beside him on the bed. “How do you feel?”

“Awful,” said Talen. “But not as bad as before.”

Nettle came to the doorway. His ear had been stitched and cleaned. “So he’s not dead yet? There goes my wager.”

“Ha,” said Talen.

Nettle grinned.

“Are you well enough to travel?” asked River.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. We have to leave tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ke has come and gone since you slept. They’re holding Da in Whitecliff.”

“The Council?”

“He’s been accused of being Sleth.”

Talen recoiled.

“Talen,” said River. “I need you to listen to me. I need you to be calm and listen.”

He looked at her.

She took a breath then said, “You know how Mother died.”

Talen nodded. She’d died in the pox plague year. Died of stress and worry.

“You think you know: laid into the ground, she was, without a blemish upon her. Perfect and whole, broken with grief for her little boy who was covered with the ugly rash, all blisters and pus. This is what you think, but grief did not break her, brother. Grief could not have broken that woman, not in a million years.”

She paused.

“It was love that broke her. Your little body was consumed with sores. Da called every healer he knew; we tried every herb known to have any effect. We danced and sacrificed to the ancestors. But the disease only grew. And so Mother and Da did what any loving parents would do. They gave their Days to make you whole.”

Surely, she was talking about a Divine’s gift. “They went to the temple?” he said.

River shook her head, and dread came over him.

“You were broken in body and soul. Da could not see how to heal you and steeled himself to losing you. He had given up. After all, many families lose one here or there. But Mother would not give up. She saw possibilities invisible to him.

“You struggled a week, then two. Everyone marveled at your spirit. But then Da discovered one night it was more than your tenacity keeping you alive. He caught Mother pouring her life into you. Her Fire flowed through you and held you together. And when you finally vanquished the disease, she was spent. A whole lifetime spent in two weeks.”

River smiled, but her eyes glistened in the dim candlelight.