The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice) (19 page)

And he stopped immediately, so close to the trail that he was still visible to the three people who watched from above, despite the sunlight all around them,

“She’s right here, right below these bushes,” he reported as he flew back up.  “It’s only twenty feet or so down to a rocky ledge she’s lying on.”

“Can we get down there and bring her back up?  Is she awake?” Marco asked.

“Pesino!” Cassius immediately called down over the edge.

“She wasn’t moving, and her eyes were closed,” Gawail told them.  “You can climb down on the rocks and bushes, but I cannot tell if you’ll be able to get back up.”

Marco looked at the other two.  “If we use the rope from the tent, I can go down and check on her,” he told them.  “You get the rope ready,” he instructed them, “and I’ll start climbing down.”

He shed his pack and his bow and sword, then took off his cape as well so that he’d have more freedom of movement.  The cold air started instantly to penetrate through his clothes, as he hung his legs over the edge of the cliff, then flipped over and began to slowly climb down the slick embankment.

Marco held onto rocks and plants, and soon stepped on the woody stems of the bushes that hid Pesino from view.  He remembered the climb down the rock chimney in the island of Ophiuchus, and realized that the climb down to rescue his friend was far, far shorter than that ordeal had been.  And as soon as he realized that, he descended below the bushes’ shiny green foliage, and found Pesino on her ledge.

She was unconscious, and a reddening on her forehead showed Marco that she had hit her head hard against something when she fell.  He gently stroked her cheeks, then placed his face down right next to hers, and felt her breath on his cheek, a confirmation that she was breathing.  He called her name as he placed his mouth closer to her ear, and she gave a faint moan.

“Pesino, can you hear me?” he called repeatedly, then stood up.  His head rose above the top of the bushes when he stood on the narrow ledge that had caught the girl, and he looked up to see Cassius and Kate looking down anxiously at him.

“She’s right here, and she’s alive, but she’s unconscious,” he informed them.

“Do you want us to let the rope down?” Cassius asked.

“Not yet.  Let me awaken her, and find out what injuries she has first,” Marco answered, then he knelt back down, disappearing beneath the bushes again.

Pesino’s eyes were open, but unfocused when he returned to her.

“Do you know who I am?”  Marco asked her.

“Yes,” she said faintly.

“Can you move your legs?” he asked,

“I can, but I’d rather not.  One of my ankles hurts,” Pesino answered.

Marco reached down and gently touched each leg.

“Yes, that one,” she said sharply as he touched her left leg.

“How does your head feel?” he asked.

“It hurts too; thanks for reminding me,” she finally smiled at him.  With a groan, she sat up and closed her eyes.

“Since you can move about, we’ll get you up on the trail again as quickly as we can,” Marco told her.  “But first I’ll try to help relieve some of your pain.”

“If you do, maybe I’ll decide to keep you around when all of this is over,” she gave another wan smile.  “I’d appreciate that.”

Marco had Cassius toss his pack down, then he got the alchemical elements out and quickly mixed a pain killer, using melted snow for the water he needed.

“This will taste awful,” but then you’ll feel better.  You’ll fall asleep in about ten minutes,” Marco explained.

“This does taste awful!” Pesino said after the first sip, making a face that nearly made Marco laugh.

“Drink it all – fast,” he urged her.  “Drop the end of the rope down here now,” he called up to Cassius.

He helped Pesino stand up, then tied the end of the rope around one wrist.

“Start pulling,” he called to the top, as Pesino tried to climb, and he lifted and pushed from below.  Within five minutes Kate grabbed Pesino’s hand, and helped drag her to the trail, just as the accident victim began to grow unconscious.

“Drop the rope back down,” Marco directed with chattering teeth, as he packed up his bag.  He was feeling extremely cold, and wanted to return to the trail so he could put his cape back on.

Ten minutes later he was back on the trail as well, and wearing his cape.  Pesino lay unconscious, propped up against the mountainside.

Kate carried Marco’s bow and sword, while Cassius carried his pack, so that Marco could sling Pesino over his back to carry their sleeping partner down the trail.

The afternoon was one of slow progress as they waited for Marco to keep steady footing while carrying the awkward load of Pesino’s weight.  Marco began to feel worry gnaw at his mind as he began to consider what such a slow pace would mean for their arrival at Boheme. Though they had repacked food supplies from the thieves’ cave, they wouldn’t be able to last indefinitely

By late afternoon Marco was exhausted, and he and Cassius traded roles.  The sun started to set as they followed the winding trail down the mountainside, and their snowy surroundings turned red with the reflected rays of the setting sun.

“We’ll have to stop and find a place to pitch the tent,” Marco declared as they started to turn around another curve in the trail.  Kate was leading, Cassius was in the middle with Pesino, and Marco brought up the tail of the group.

“I think I found the place,” Kate’s voice came back, sounding happier than Marco though was reasonable under the circumstances.

“What do you mean?  Is there a clearing?” he asked as he tried to speed up his careful placement of his feet so that he could catch up.

“Better than a clearing,” Kate said as Marco approached her.  “It’s an inn!” she said, and Marco arrived to see that just below them stood a stone and timber structure, a complete building, with smoke rising from a chimney, and light shining through a window.

Chapter 13 – A Mountaintop Interlude

“Hello the inn!” Marco called out loudly five minutes later as they approached the front steps of the inexplicable building.  They walked on towards the inn, and Marco called again.

As he set his booted foot upon the first step, the door swung open, and an enormous man stood framed by the doorway, nearly filling it from side to side with his girth.

“Where in blue blazes did you come from?” he asked as he looked at the unexpected party.

“From the Lion City,” Marco said, stepping up onto the porch, with the others close behind.

The innkeeper looked at them all momentarily, and saw the figure of Pesino on Cassius’s back.  “Is she hurt, or just drunk?” he asked.  He stepped out of the way and ushered them into the hallway of the inn.

The three conscious travelers all gave a collective sigh of relief as he closed the door.  The interior of the inn was relatively warm.  The wind didn’t blow, though they heard it outside, and there was light from a pair of lanterns.

“Rocko, get in here,” the innkeeper shouted.

“She’s injured.  She took a bad fall.  I gave her some medicine to dull the pain and put her to sleep,” Marco answered the question.  “Is there someplace we can put her to rest?” he asked.

“Is there someplace to rest?” the innkeeper echoed.  “There’s a dozen places!  We’re an inn; an empty inn.  We thought the last travelers of the season were already over the pass.  We’re closing up.  But we’ll provide hospitality for one more night, especially for someone who needs it as badly as all of you look to.

“Bring her in here,” he motioned them to follow as he led the way to a different hallway that had multiple doors.  “Which room do you want?”

Marco looked into a room that had a single bed, then closed the door in rejection.  “We need a room with two beds,” he said, “so I can stay with her and treat her.”

The innkeeper spoke as he opened a door on the other side of the hall.  “Try this room.
Lucky for her she’s traveling with a doctor!”

Cassius carried Pesino into the indicated room, and Kate helped lay her on the bed, as Marco threw his pack on the other bed in the room.  “If we could have some privacy, I’d like to examine her condition.”

“She’s lucky to have been traveling with a doctor, if you call trying to cross the Glacials in the winter lucky,” the innkeeper said.

“I’m not a doctor,” Marco said absent-mindedly.  “I’m an alchemist.”

A youth arrived in the room just then.

“What took you so long, Rocko?” the innkeeper asked, making the boy blush.  “Never mind.  You go to the kitchen and put some extra food in the skillet,” he told the rail-thin youth, who looked to be a couple of years younger than Marco.  “Then go tend to the dogs for the night.”

“Let’s all get out and let Marco carry on,” Cassius said.  “Will you show us to our room?” he asked the innkeeper.

“Are you a doctor or an alchemist too?” Marco heard the innkeeper ask as the door shut behind the departing covey.

“Are they all gone?” Pesino’s voice asked, making Marco whirl around in surprise.  “I thought they’d never leave.”

“How do you feel?” Marco asked, walking over and sitting on the edge of her bed.

“My head hurts and my ankle hurts and my back hurts,” she replied.

“Let’s get you in bed and under the covers, then I’ll fix some medicine for you to sleep tonight.  Do you want to undress yourself?” he asked.

“I’ll let you tend me.  You’ve seen me before, and I know you’ll be gentle.  You will be gentle, won’t you?” she asked with a weak smile.

Marco put her to bed, then went to the kitchen in search of some hot water.  He followed the aromas of frying food and found everyone else gathered around a table in the dining room, eating cooked sausages and hot potatoes.

“Rocko and Slim have the best meal I’ve had in weeks,” Kate told him, looking guilty as she wiped grease from a bite of sausage from the corner of her mouth.

Marco promised to return after he medicated Pesino, then took his hot water back with him to their room.  He mixed the sedative as Pesino listlessly watched him, then he cooled it and served it to her.

“You go to sleep now,” he kissed her on the forehead as though she were a child, just the way he remembered his own mother kissing him when he was a small boy, and then he returned to the dining room to claim his own share of the flavorful, hot food.

“I was just telling your friends that if you’d come one night later you’d have found the inn empty.  We were planning to head down south tomorrow.  If your lady friend needs a day to rest, we can wait, and we can all go down together.  You might be better off traveling with us,” Slim told the trio at the table.

Cassius and Kate both looked at Marco, and he could see the expression in their eyes – they wanted to rest an extra day in the inn, and they wanted to travel with these two experienced guides.

“We don’t have to think twice about your offer.  That’s generous, and we’ll gladly accept,” Marco answered.  “And do you have a large tub, one that Pesino could soak in tomorrow?” he asked.

“We do have the laundry tub; you can look at it tomorrow and decide if it’s big enough.  I need to go bank the fires for the night,” Slim said as he stood up.  “You all get a good night’s sleep.  Wake Rocko up when you want some breakfast,” he said, drawing a snort of protest from the young boy.

Marco also stood up, and looked at his two companions.  “We’re living lucky to find this place,” he told them.   “Good night, and get a good sleep.”

He left them and returned to his room, where there was no light, and only the sound of Pesino’s steady breathing as she slept.  He kicked off his boots and pulled his covers over himself, then quickly fell asleep.

He woke up in the dim light of morning to find Kate in the room sitting next to Pesino.  He looked over at her quizzically.  “Is she okay?” he asked, sitting up.

Kate stood and motioned him out into the hall, then spoke.  “She seems fine.  I knocked, but no one answered, so I was just looking in to see how she’s doing.   She tries so hard to be strong and durable, but I think she’s really fragile on the inside, and I don’t just mean her leg,” Kate said, as the two of them walked to the dining room.

“She’s both proud and puzzled by her relationship with you,” Kate told him as they walked through the dining room and into an empty kitchen.  Marco fetched an armload of firewood for the stove, as Kate reached for a basket of rolls.  They each took one and sat down to eat.  “She’s proud that she isn’t trying to seduce you, and she respects you so much for resisting her, but I think she’s afraid she’s losing her ability to charm and attract men.  And she may feel a tiny bit of a wish that she could give that up, and just turn into a regular woman.”

“Or mermaid,” Marco said absently.

“Or mermaid,” Kate agreed.  “But no matter what.  She’ll be happy to learn that you have thought enough to fix a hot bath for her!”  She said with a smile.

“I guess we better go find this laundry tub,” Marco said.

They found the tub, conveniently placed in a corner of the kitchen, and by the time a bleary-eyed Rocko came into the room, Kate already had water starting to heat up on top of the stove.  Marco convinced Rocko to help them carry the tub to his room, where Pesino still slept soundly, and then Marco began to repetitively carry buckets of hot water to the room, making slow progress as the tub’s water level inched up little by little, and the room grew warmer with steamy air.  His arms grew tired from the constant carrying, and after he felt the tub was reasonably full, he happily stopped and brought a platter with two cups of tea, two bowls of oatmeal, some of their dried fruit, and more sausage to the room.

“That smells interesting,” Pesino spoke when he entered the room.  She had already arisen, then lowered herself into the tub, and laid back with her eyes closed.  “And this feels heavenly,” she added.

Marco carried the tray of food over to her.  She tried a bite of sausage, but spit it out, and took one of the bowls of oatmeal instead.

“I have some news that will make you happy,” Marco said.  “We’re going to spend today and tonight here, before we move on.”

“You are making such wise choices, my lord!” Pesino laughed with some energy, and Marco felt confident of her healing.

“But you can be sure than Kate will expect to have a turn relaxing in the hot tub,” he warned.

“Kate is a good friend.  I suppose it is a sacrifice I can make for her,” Pesino reluctantly agreed between spoonfuls of oatmeal.  Marco prepared a dose of painkiller for his patient, and gave it to her.

Minutes later there came a distant sound of hammering, and Marco left the room to find out what was happening.  He found Rocko and Cassius outside, nailing broad planks of wood over windows.  “This is part of how we close up the inn for the winter,” Rocko explained.  Marco stayed to help lift the boards up to the two workers while they stood upon ladders to reach the upper windows.

When the task was finished at midday, he went inside and passed Slim, who was throwing large sheets over most of the furniture.  “How much do we owe you for staying here?” Marco asked.

“Well, the overseer left two days ago, seeing as how we thought there weren’t any more customers coming over the mountain, so, we don’t really have any easy way to give your money to him,” Slim said haltingly, implying more than he said.

“So,” Marco began, speaking after a moment’s hesitation to consider the comment.  As a former apprentice, who had been friends with many other former apprentices, he understood what Slim wasn’t saying.

“Well then, we don’t really owe the inn anything, and I’d like to pay you and Rocko for your kindness to my friends and I,” Marco pulled out several coins from his purse and handed them to Slim.

“Well thank you kindly, young sir,” Slim said gratefully, his fingers closing around the coins.  “The masters of this inn don’t hardly pay what they should, but it’s a job, and one that gets me away from my missus for a few months each year when she’s a bit peckish, so I accept what they pay and get by.

“And we really appreciate the help you’ve given with closing up the building.  We’d have helped you of course for no payment at all, seeing as how you and your friends were in need of help, and your two lady friends are so pretty and all,” Slim said as his hand surreptitiously deposited the money in a pocket.

Marco moved on, glad to have helped his host, and opened the door of his room to find Kate soaking in the tub, as Pesino lay in bed.  The room had grown much darker, with boards across the outside of the window, letting in only slender rays of light.

“Oh Marco, where have you been?  We’ve needed you,” Pesino said as soon as he opened the door.  “Kate needs some more hot water.  Would you fetch some please?” she asked as she pointed to the empty buckets on the floor, as Gawail floated overhead.

Marco gave a snort, and looked at Kate in the tub, who responded by languidly waving her fingers at him.  Nonetheless, he took the buckets to the kitchen and returned with the hot water that he carefully poured in the tub a little at a time so as not to scald the girl who sat within.

“You do that so well.  You could make a wonderful maid with a little practice, and maybe some make-up,” Kate complimented him.

There was a knock at the door, and Cassius opened it.  “Have you seen Kate?” he asked, then realized who was in the room.  “I guess you have,” he said as he entered the room.

“Rocko was just telling me about how we’re going to make the rest of the trip!” he said excitedly as he sat down on the floor next to the tub.  “You’ll never guess!”

“The blessed one will make a bubble of warm air all around us and we’ll roll down the mountains,” Gawail spoke up.

“If he can do that, he should have started a long time ago,” Kate said ominously.

“No, that’s not it, but I agree with Kate,” Cassius said.

“We’ll fly down,” Pesino said.  “It will almost be like swimming in the sea again!”

“No,” Cassius told her.

“There are a dozen slaves who will carry us in chairs,” Kate guessed.

“No, no, no,” Cassius told them all.  “We’re going to go on dogsleds!”

The room was totally silent.

“What are dogsleds?” Marco asked in bafflement.

“Rocko showed me one.  They are wooden, and they have flat wooden boards that he called skids,” Cassius explained.  “And the dogs pull them over the top of the snow.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Marco shook his head in astonishment.

That afternoon, while Pesino remained in bed, Rocko and Slim showed the other three guests the stables where the pair of dogsleds and the pack of dogs were prepared for departure.  “We’ll put your injured lady on this sled with the supplies we’re packing down, and a couple of you can ride on the other sled if you want to,” Rocko explained.  “We stand back here,” he showed the footboard at the back of each sled, “and the dogs pull us down to the end of the snow, which may be all the way down to Boheme by now.

“Then we’ll just walk the rest of the way into to town,” Slim said.