16 Yellow Spot and Black Rot

WITHIN HER GURD, the old woman tended to Podral Pole. He lay on a bedding of moss over an earthen floor. Threadfin sat close by, watching. The healer’s gurd was made of wood, dried mud and twigs, and a dung fire burned in the centre below a smoke hole, emitting a sweet odour, which mingled with the lesser smells of fish oil and citrus spice. Threadfin preferred open space, or at least the fetid stink of a city’s streets. He found the hut confining, his own mysterious sickness gnawing at him.

Pole was unconscious, though he mumbled at times. Two clay lamps on a wooden chest, each with three wicks, smoked and sputtered along with several tallow candles on the floor.

‘You know that’s a poison you’re using, right?’ Threadfin said at one point. ‘I mean, just saying, since you’re supposed to not kill him.’

Before him on a wooden plate were pieces of half-chewed crusty bread and the remains of a roasted pigeon. He’d watched her eat not an hour earlier, spitting out thin bones, wiping greasy fingers on her rags. She’d refused to answer his questions, forcing him to wait, while Pole sweated and groaned. Her name was Shakti; that much he’d gotten out of her at least. When she moved, she did it with speed, despite looking as battered and wrinkled as a wintered apple.

Presently, Shakti sat on a low three-legged stool. Her shrunken head bent, she crushed yellow blotched leaves and reddish orange berries with a stone pestle and mortar. ‘The barbs are poisonous, yes, yes, but the leaves drive out poison. You know nothing. You shouldn’t talk, no, no.’

‘Are you sure?’ When he was ten, a paytor had instructed him in the various poisons. There was always the risk of assassination. Odd, that a man of the Church was an expert in such things. His pasty complexion had suggested he’d experimented with his own concoctions on occasion, but he’d taught Threadfin about antidotes. Ewsannec rebels were too ignorant and crude in their methods, but Paldanar terrorists and Aidari fanatics were another matter. Not to mention the cult of Zorast, a centuries-old enemy of the Church. They had assassinated three paladins in history.

Knowledge of such things was essential. What Threadfin remembered was that yellow spot was lethal, the plant found near marshland. Apothecaries extracted the poison, yellow bliss, from it. The paytor had told him there was no antidote, a favourite of assassins.

Shakti lifted her head to scowl and then resumed her work. A bitter odour rose from the mortar, adding to the symphony of smells. She tossed several leaves onto the coals.

‘Will he live?’

‘Yes, yes, live, yes.’

When she went outside, Threadfin moved closer to Pole. He felt restless. He didn’t want to remain there, but neither did he want to abandon the man. Felps was hunting him, and worse, a Valtari lunatic with fire for blood.

The healer returned clutching odd plants in her knotted hands. ‘Step back,’ she spat, leaning over her patient. ‘Are you deaf or an imbecile? Back, back, yes, yes.’

She forced shreds of dark blue leaves into Pole’s mouth.

‘Hey,’ Threadfin cried, ‘that’s black rot you’re stuffing into him. Do you even know what you’re doing?’ It was possible she was insane. ‘Are you even registered?’ Rogue healers fell through the cracks all the time.

Shakti hissed. ‘What do the dead know of healing, eh?’

‘Why do people keep saying that? I’m half dead. Is that so difficult for you hell-accursed pulsers to grasp?’ She knew he was Plagueborn but seemed unafraid.

‘Quarter dead, half or full, undead yes, but dead is dead, yes, yes.’ Closing Podral’s jaw, she forced him to swallow. He struggled, spluttering, and choking. Water followed from a wooden bowl. Most of it spilled down his neck and across his chest.

She’s trying to kill him, and it was his fault for bringing him there. Not that he cared. Pole was a breather. It was just that he might need help getting to Icarthya. That was all. Of course, it was.

Armour, cloak, and weapons lay heaped in a corner. The healer had cut a hole through the tunics, and removed old bloodied bandages to expose in Pole’s left side, a narrow gash. The wound appeared discoloured about the edges and aflame.

Threadfin had visited the medicary, a low wide building close to the River Sulk in Icarthya. He’d seen the amputees, heard the moans and ravings of men doped with opium or scopolamine. What he noticed about Podral’s wound was that it was unnatural. Fiery webs radiated outwards from its edges and they appeared to be spreading. He recalled the shining dagger that Pen Luthus had held and shuddered.

‘Do you know,’ he asked in a quiet voice, ‘what caused his wound? What type of weapon it was?’

‘Poison, it tries to run deep, but this man is protected, yes, yes. Lasted longer than he should, oh yes, yes. No ordinary guardian you have, dead one. The soul shard is vicious, carried by them, but this time it hasn’t taken hold, not yet, not yet.’

‘Carried by who?’ Threadfin pressed, but she ignored any further conversation. What, in the pit of Grim’s unholy bowels, was a soul shard? Threadfin had also begun to wonder why Pen Luthus hadn’t stabbed him, why he’d waited. The ritual, sure, but what was it for? What did they want from him?

The healer claimed to use those leaves to drive out poison. A soul shard suggested the blade contained a soul, but what sort of one? Then a terrifying thought occurred to him. Perhaps it hadn’t contained a soul but was meant to take one. It would explain the ritual. The bastards want my soul, or what there was of it.

The healer chewed leaves into pulp and stuffed the wound. Aside from the discoloration and flamed webbing, there was no blood, though it looked bad. Maybe she knew what she was doing. Time would tell.

‘Aeysth al Creek,’ she chanted. ‘Adal, Nageyiy al cas yisdar.’

‘Will he be alright?’

‘Aeysth al Diron. Adal, Nageyiy al cas yisdar lorum ... eh, what? Oh, we’ll have to sit and wait, sit, sit.’

He sat. It was the one space not cluttered with leaves and herbs or candles. He possessed little knowledge of such rogue healers. The Church’s paytors mistrusted them.

‘Ancient hags,’ he’d heard old Paytor Deel say of them, ‘ingrates who know little of healing, plenty of suffering. A wise man stays clear of them unless in dire need.’

Shakti rattled on in her strange tongue as she sat opposite, then her words trailed off. She placed her knotted face close to his. Her breath smelled of old fish and garlic. ‘What were you doing out there, eh, eh? Shakti is no fool. Shouldn’t you be in the palace? Exile, yes, yes. What were you doing out there?’

Threadfin felt unnerved being this close to her. ‘You never mentioned how you found us.’

She sniffed. ‘The dead always stink. What was he doing with you?’ She gestured towards her patient. ‘He’s no ordinary man, this one.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Warded he is, yes, yes, but why’s he with you? Are the dead returning to rule the living?’ She cackled and clapped her bony hands. ‘Now, that would be a fine thing, yes, yes.’

‘I told you, I’m half, half!’ Perhaps she’d been to Icarthya but she seemed, to be blunt, nuts. Wrapped in filthy borderlands garb, he shouldn’t have been recognisable. He’d never ventured far from Icarthya since he was a boy. It’s my face, he thought. Who hadn’t heard of the sickly son and his deformities, but no, that wasn’t it. This woman had seen his kind before, but when? Tezcat had been the one other viral he’d known of. Could there be others?

She gripped his wrist in a vice of bone. Her strength and speed shocked him, or was it just his own recent onset of weakness? ‘Let go of me,’ he blurted.

‘You were not alone out there.’ She was looking at him, anger in her ancient face. ‘You are not alone in here.’

As he suspected, off her wrinkled nut. ‘I’m warning you, let go.’ He would hurt her, he would. I’ll do what I need to. Although a viral with meagre powers, and a thief, Threadfin had avoided harming others. He’d lived a non-violent life and was proud of it, though most breathers didn’t deserve the courtesy.

‘It was many years ago’, she intoned, expression blank. ‘Ah, Arla, the silly old crow. I was the younger one and she knew more, but not enough, eh? Your father was the bigger fool in the end. He let you live. A black birth it was but you live. The dead live, hah! Shakti knows everything, oh, yes, yes, but perhaps a fool’s choice will save us all. Twice, not once, but once was all.’

The story of the black birth had spread throughout the city despite his father’s efforts. Did the entire world know of his vile beginnings? No, the exemplars would’ve descended upon him long ago. How did this woman know anything then?

The Icarthian people, guided by the Church, revered the Holy Spectrum. The catechism contained in the White Daemoni, a dreary ancient text, taught that angels were goodness and light. A man casts a shadow and thus has an evil soul. Therefore, the product of such a birth had to be a product of the Grimstyx – or Hell, as it was commonly known as – and its master the Grim, a prominent evil character in the Daemoni.

Shakti let go of his wrist and gripped his face. Threadfin said nothing, with effort, as she wrenched his skull from side to side, examining him as though he were a chunk of meat. She licked her lips. ‘You should not be here,’ she said with a dismissive jerk of his head. ‘Much better if you were in the grave and not up here with the rest of us, yes, yes.’

‘What do you know, witch?’

‘Shakti knows. Oh, yes. Poor old Shakti knows but foolish Arla didn’t. You were a babe in arms then. Shadows watched over you. They marked you from the first. They hid you from all but those who could see. Shakti sees, yes, yes. Look at your hands. Open your eyes. Sight is blind and blindness is sight.’

Threadfin examined them in the sputtering light. For a moment, he saw through them as though they’d faded. He pressed them together, making sure they were solid. Perhaps he’d imagined it. Yes, the old witch was putting ideas in his head.

‘You have too much to learn, but no time to learn it, no, no.’ Shakti turned back to her patient, prodding the skin around the poultice. ‘You need to learn and quick.’

The witch fussed over her charge, bandaging the wound. She sat back on her haunches with a satisfied look. ‘Black rot will dissolve the poison in his blood, oh yes, yes, but that in his soul is for him alone. The poultice will heal the flesh, yes, yes. Not to remove that bandage, no, no.’  

With a bony finger, she prodded the edges of the wound several times. Felps groaned, and she gave a satisfied grunt.

Who is he? Threadfin wondered. No ordinary common thief it appeared. She’d said he was warded, which meant magic didn’t it?

Shakti moved to a cot in the corner. After wrapping herself in a blanket, she fell asleep. Her eyes remained half open, staring at him, and for a long time he didn’t look in her direction. She snored louder than a grolg with a head cold. He felt that gaze on him, condemning him for reasons he didn’t understand.

When he awoke, it was with a start. He didn’t remember falling asleep, didn’t know how long he’d been out. Virals slept a couple of hours a night and some nights not at all.

Outside, a screech sounded in the forest. It was long and inhuman. It seared him to the bone.

‡

THE FIRE IN THE GURD had burned low. Shakti scooped up and scattered the ashes. ‘Al Diron, hand and ear. Nibor, nibor. Nageyiy, hand and sight, my dear, oh my dear.’ She stared at Threadfin. ‘What did you bring with you, dead one? You bring death, oh, yes, yes, but what else?’

‘What are you doing, you daft hag?’ Threadfin snapped. ‘That mumbo jumbo isn’t going to help.’ The screech had animated the old healer into a strange ritualised act. Shakti sprinkled ash over Pole and herself. She stared at Threadfin across the dim interior. He received none.

‘What was that sound?’ He felt certain she knew something and wasn’t telling him on purpose.

She fussed over her patient, who moaned and twitched as she mopped his brow. ‘A hag, am I? I knew they’d come. Summoned to the palace, Arla was. “No choice,” she said. “Fool imperialists don’t know how to handle such a birth,” she said. Now they are here. We’re doomed because of you.’ That last sounded like a statement of fact rather than an accusation.

‘What are you talking about?’ His father would never have summoned a pagan healer to the palatium.

‘The Fallen Ones, yes, yes, they’ve come. They don’t know I know, but I know, yes, yes.’ She continued speaking to herself. ‘A dead birth, it was. I’m too old for this, too old. A hundred and eight and he asks me what I’m talking about. How dare he ask. In my dreams, oh, my terrible dreams. A hag, am I? Yes, I am, yes, yes. But what is he?’ She glared at Threadfin with that last.

A wail shook the gurd, sending Shakti to her knees with a cry. Pole opened his eyes and looked up at him.

‘We need to get out of here,’ Threadfin said, gripping the man’s hand. He was delighted to see him conscious. The woman had mentioned the, ‘Fallen Ones’. He’d never heard of them, but they didn’t sound the cheerful sort. He fiddled with the silver crucifix, the dull metal cold against his flaking skin.

He received a weak smile. ‘Not sure I’m able, lad,’ whispered Podral. ‘Got you this far. Others will see you the rest of the way.’

I’ll leave him. Let him die here with the crone. He felt the urgency growing within him.

As though reading his mind, Podral said, ‘Go without me. Get out of here.’ He tried to sit up but fell back with a groan.

The wail sounded right outside. He cursed them both with equal passion. He’d left it too late. The door was of thick wood with bronze hinges, a wide crossbar. It looked sturdy. Threadfin wasn’t so sure.

‘Keep them out,’ screamed Shakti. ‘Aeysth al Diron. Linuncia, dear goddess of light and life, save me. Fakir, god of fate and fortune, watch over me. Adal, god of fire, burn your enemies in eternal flame. Manic and Mania, gods of chaos, remember your servant. Al Diron, deliver me.’

Setting the oil lamps aside, Threadfin manoeuvred the wooden chest. He shoved it against the door, placing the armour and other items on top. Screeches erupted; nightmarish, like thousands of babies scalded at once.

Whatever was out there, he’d keep it out. He added his own weight to the blockade. ‘Hell’s Teeth, what’s after me? Who are these, Fallen Ones?’

The fire died to glowing embers, lamps and candles sputtering out. The air turned frigid. He didn’t suffer from cold like breathers, but he could feel the temperature change. The door rattled, as though a storm brewed outside.

Whoever they are, what did I ever do to piss them off?

Another screech shook the gurd. The wooden door split asunder, and Threadfin fell back. A silhouette stood in the shattered portal. ‘Give me your hand.’ The voice sounded disembodied, female, the thick accent of southern Adalalcas, possibly Hatavan. The forest beyond was aflame. Burnt winds from Keel carried screams and smoke. The figure kicked at the flimsy blockade, and extended an arm. ‘Your hand.’

‘Who are you?’ He couldn’t make out the face. The gurd vibrated, hard mud cracking and flaking.

A gurgling cry caused Threadfin to whirl. Shakti floated upward. Coils of flame entwined her arms and legs, illuminating the interior. They seeped from the mud walls in the form of grasping hands, which appeared human in form.

The healer’s face contorted into a scream, but there was no sound. It turned colder, which was odd considering the flames. The dirt walls blurred then extended backwards as though made of molten tar. They stretched into the distance forming a fiery spiral. With them went the healer. Her face remaining, her body extended out thinner behind her. The vortex was devouring her, but in slow motion as though pulled out of time.

‘You must come with me,’ said the Hatavan voice.

Threadfin heard, but instead looked at Podral where he lay motionless on the floor below the healer. He scrambled over to him, grabbed an ankle, and dragged him towards the doorway. He grumbled about all that muscle and fat on breathers, which made them awkward for lugging about.

What am I doing? he thought. I’m an idiot. Father always said I was an idiot. He swore as he dragged the barely conscious man. ‘Help me,’ he yelled at the figure in the doorway. A weakness seeped into him. Instinct told him it was his illness. It couldn’t have had worse timing.

Something grabbed hold of him.

As his feet lifted off the floor, the stranger kicked over the patchwork barricade, grabbed Pole, and carried him outside. Threadfin was powerless to cry out or do anything. His body stretched out behind him in a spiral of flame. He couldn’t see it, but felt it as a numbness that spread upwards from his feet.

The woman returned with a dagger in hand. The iron reflected the ruddy gold of flames. Threadfin’s vision turned skewed as the scene became warped and dislocated. He saw double as a second woman stood below, and then a third, a fourth, before they began to meld. Reflections in those iron blades beckoned to him. He was losing consciousness.

A voice sounded in his head. Fight, Threadfin, it whispered. Fight back! It made a lot of sense, and he fought, becoming angry as he did. They’d ridiculed him for being different, spat at him, ignored his existence. They had shoved him aside, worthless, a dead thing. They’d murdered all his kind, and they’d murdered Tezcat too, and now he was the last.

He struggled and felt a little give. He swore, anger turning to rage. They’d laughed at him, dismissed him as nothing. They killed little Cat. The rage reached a climax. He reached out to that iron blade in the Hatavan’s hands, to another world within. The floor beneath began to split. He willed it to open and devour the fiery tentacles holding him. Wisps of ash rose from his arms and hands, his face.

‘Let me go,’ he shouted. The dark fibres formed into a shadowy aura that held his shape. It seeped from his shoulders down his arms to entwine his fingers. Pain lanced through his body.

Then, he was falling.

Moments later, he spewed onto the dirt a black ichor, which passed for vomit for the undead. Fissures crisscrossed the hard earth. A lone figure stood between him and the darkness, holding an iron blade. Cold he’d never known before coursed through him. Shadow wrapped his body from chin to toe, like a living cloak, protective.

Shakti remained within the grasping weave of flame, though there was little left of her. The stranger made no effort to help the healer. Instead, she tried to grab Threadfin, but then halted, taking a few steps back as though wary.

His shadow aided him, energising his body, and he crawled out through the door. Outside, flames licked the sky over Keel and much closer within the forest.

A wind filled the gurd. Rolling over, he glimpsed Shakti through the doorway as the blaze ripped her face from sight. He got to his feet and stumbled away. In the light of the forest flames, he noted several people surrounded the gurd. Two bodies lay close by. He recognised the face of Ludwole Felps, his throat cut. At the exact spot where, whatever it was, had broken through the wall, lay the female exemplar he’d seen in Lame. Her legs kicked as she bled out. Golden hair plastered her face, her body a riven mess. Perhaps, Felps had been standing guard while she’d attacked, or whatever it was she’d done. For a moment there, he’d thought he had freed himself, but of course not.

The Hatavan woman, who’d entered the gurd, shouted at others. Against the backdrop of flame, she was a blotch as she stalked towards Threadfin.

She dragged him to his feet. ‘We have to go.’

Threadfin resisted, fighting clear of her. He felt belligerent and confused. ‘What was that? Who were those people? What do they want from me?’

‘There is no time.’ She grabbed his arm again, and this time her grip was stronger. Against the backdrop of flame, she was hard to see. ‘You must listen to me.’

‘The Grim piss on you,’ Threadfin snarled. ‘Who are you? What is going on?’

She let go of him and paused for a moment before answering. ‘They are called thraels, sent by someone ... dangerous. We are here to help you. The one that hunts you is not far behind. I’ve sent others to run interference, but you must come with us now.’

No, he did not want to encounter Pen Luthus again, at least, not until he found a way to kill him. He owed him that, for Cat.

‘Listen to her, lad,’ said Podral, who was on his knees. He tried to stand but fell over. A man and a woman were at his side, aiding him.

Flame now lit the woman’s face as the fires spread. She had dark skin, her hair long and black, with a narrow face. She wore a short sword on her left hip, sheathed in black leather.

‘What do you want?’ he demanded. It was her skin. It reminded him too much of Pen Luthus and she did carry a dagger. Well fine, it was a sword, but still. A viral needed to be extra careful these days.

‘I am called, Scatter,’ she announced, stepping closer. She placed both hands together interlocking her fingers, and made a curt bow. ‘We have been searching for you, Threadfin Todralan.’

‘I no longer use that name. It’s just Todder these days. A good plain old borderland name. Nothing wrong with it.’

She smiled. Her teeth were white against her skin. It was then he realised he knew her face. She was the woman from his vision. ‘You will come with us.’ It was a command rather than an invitation.

Threadfin took a step back, wondering how or if he could escape. He gave up on the idea of running once he noted several other armed individuals surrounding him. They’d found him once, twice if he counted Pole. So much for his abilities. He couldn’t get two leagues without the living tripping over him.

‘You misunderstand.’ She held out both hands in a placating gesture. ‘We live for one purpose.’ She gave him another smile, ‘To serve the viral mage.’

Oh, right, thought Threadfin as she led him away, the others close behind. This woman wasn’t all well in the skull either. ‘And who, is “we” exactly?’

‘We are Aidari.’

Oh, I see, captured by Aidari extremists, just to make things interesting. He had to find a way to escape.

He noticed Scatter remained wary of him by the way she threw him sidelong glances. A shadowy power resided inside of him, and she knew it. He didn’t understand it. He wasn’t certain he wanted to. He did remember the first time he’d seen it though, like it was yesterday.