Chapter VII

Sweat. Apprehension. Terror. Screams. 

Nothing had changed. I doubt anything in military medicine will.

I walked through the rows of beds, taking care not to look at any of the patients. They hated the looks of revulsion that inevitably crossed passerby’s faces- they’d rather everyone act like they didn’t exist. And I was perfectly happy to oblige them. The only one that mattered to me in this place was Ayndre.

He was muttering as usual when I got to him, writhing and shaking in his bed.

“Nothing has changed,” one of the nurses said to me. “He keeps doing this.”

“I know,” I replied, handing her a few coins. The nurses hated keeping maniacs in their hospital, taking up valuable bed space. Luckily, most everyone would take care of Ayndre for a steady stream of coin. It’s one of the benefits of being almost completely without morals.

“Lire the liar, killing his brother for the power of fire,” Ayndre sang, an old child’s rhyme that I’d all but forgotten.

“Ayndre,” I whispered. As usual, he didn’t respond- just continued in his rhyme. “It’s me. Your brother.” I lifted my sword. “I have something to show you.” 

The blade left the sheath with nary a whisper, but the reaction from Ayndre was thunderous.

The moment his eyes fell on the blade, his face lost all color. Lire above, I’ve never seen such whiteness. If I hadn’t known how men react when seeing a ghost, his scream would have brought the entire army down upon us. As it was, all he managed to do was spit on the hand that was covering his mouth with his screams muffled. 

“Lire above, what’s wrong?” I hissed. “If you promise to calm down and be quiet, I’ll let you talk.” 

And wouldn’t you know, he actually nodded. Like there was actually some sort of human in there. I took my hand away from his mouth.

He leaned back, the bestial fear still in his eyes, but at least he wasn't screaming. 

“Lire to dust, Pytyr, why do you have that?” 

My mind went blank for a moment- he actually recognized me. He even said my name.

“Ayndre, it’s just a sword. What’s the problem?

“Hell of hells, Pytyr! It’s evil!” He started thrashing again, and I had to hold him in place. “Why does nobody bloody understand? They kill men to create that! They murder their children, grind them up and use their bones for blades!” 

Do you get angry at yourself when you look back on that? What you could have learned far earlier?

I suppose that’s a possibility. What you need to understand is that all of us thought at that point that Ayndre had gone mad. We didn’t know why- his time in Halivar was never spoken of, and he became what he was shortly after he joined our company. We knew so little, all we could assume was that his ramblings were the words of someone who had no mind. But prophets were often thought to be mad as well.

I left Ayndre, then, as I had done so many times. It’s impossible to describe how difficult it was to be with him for long stretches of time. It’s like my energy was the poison in a wound, and Ayndre was continually sucking it out- being there with him made me more fatigued than any Reclamation ever had. I made my way quickly back to the tent. Hym and Simun were there, in hushed conversation.

“Come now, boys,” I said. “You couldn’t be more suspicious if you tried. What are you trying to do- free Tomus tonight?”

“Of course not,” Simun said. He laughed. “That’s tomorrow night. No, we’re just speaking about Hym’s training.”

“Training?” I glared at Hym. “As if hiding a Jitdon Pontyff under your bed wasn’t enough, you want to display your talents for the purposes of practice?”

“Don’t sound so grave about it, Pytyr. We won’t be doing it anytime or anywhere so people would see us.”

“And that worked out so well last time.” The words came our more resentful than I had intended.

Hym looked down and said nothing.

“Look, mercenary,” Simun growled, turning and advancing on me. “He killed a man to protect himself. Not a man here should condemn him for that.”

“He killed a boy, Duster. Every single man here would condemn him for that. Killing a warrior who’s trying to kill you with an axe is different than killing a young man to protect the fact that you’re secretly a heathen.”

“What of it? Both, if not dealt with, would lead to his death- both are equally self-defensive.”

“Perhaps if he were an animal, yes-“

“Enough!” Hym shouted, slamming his fist onto his cot. “Simun, I don’t need you to fight my battles.” He glared at me. “And I don’t need you to remind me of things that are over and done with.”

“That’s exactly what you need me to do, Hym! The point of the past is to learn from it, and if you’re just going to go back and risk your life by playing with fate then you have learned nothing!”

“What’s all this shouting?” A voice came from under Hym’s bed. Tomus poked his head out from under it. “Sounds like squabbling housewives.”

“Great,” I sighed. “Another Duster appears magically under your bed. Let me guess- you’re a Pontyff, but you recognize the superior authority of Hym and you want to serve him for the rest of your life.”

“Pontyff?” Tomus let out a laugh and got up. “Please. I’m far too riotous to be chosen for such a stuff position.”

My lips curled in a half smile. “We may just get along then.”

“We just might at that.” He looked at Simun and smiled. “You realize they’re such helpless people, right? If you’re ever feeling hopeless, just go out and watch them. Never fails to make me smile.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The well,” he laughed. “They’re running around like hungry foxes because it’s dried up. Probably just a cave-in at the bottom. So funny to watch.” He looked at Hym and I, with our wide eyes and pale faces. “What?”

“You’re laughing about a dried well?” I said. “God’s decaying bones, man, how are we going to survive without water?”

“Don’t get all so worked up.” He waved a hand at us. “It’s not as if it’s a problem. I could have fixed it on the way here if I hadn’t been laughing so hard I almost inhaled sand.” 

“How?” Hym asked. “Seems like a fairly large problem to me.”

“You just put the sand back and hold it there until other sand settles on top of it and holds it in place without your help. We did it all the time in the Ring when the overseers would block our water holes as a punishment for laziness.”

Simun perked up and looked at Hym.

“This would be good practice for you.”

I stepped between them. “Absolutely not.”

“This doesn’t concern you, Pytyr,” Simun growled

“I’m not going to let you endanger my friends life for the sole purpose of practice. You do it.”

“Pytyr,” Hym whispered behind me, and he laid a hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at him.

“You’re seriously considering this?”

“What better opportunity is there? People think of me and my kin as monsters, Pytyr. I can use this to do some good.”

“Restoring one dry well isn’t going to change hundreds of years of indoctrination, Hym. The moment you do something, they’ll take a drink and then hang you then and there.”

“You think I’m stupid enough to do that without an alibi?” He laughed, but more bitterly than I had ever heard. “People already think I talk about Lire too much, Pytyr. At least acting like some sudden prophet is better than looking like a Duster. People may give me strange looks and whisper about me behind my back, but at least they won’t kill me immediately.”

I didn’t like it. This was risking far too much. But, it would also keep us alive. I suppose for Hym it was the choice of dying of thirst or possibly dying to restore it. There was no question to the decision, and I forced myself to recognize that.

“Fine,” I growled. “But you need to do it fast, before more people start to gather.”

Hym nodded and we headed outside.

“And you just let him?”

What else was I supposed to do? I would either go with him and try to save him when trouble started, or let him be and leave him without a friend. Lesser of two evils, as they say.

When we got to the well, there was a pretty sizable crowd of me gathered around it, murmuring.

“How did it happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“…. Cyphus…. fault….”

“…. Lire….”

Hym walked right through them, cut through the crowd like they were grass. He went straight to the head foreman at the well, a man named Nikadymys.

“What happened, foreman?”

“Something cut off the aquifer, way down in there.” Nikadymys wiped his forehead. “Those pools are always so deep in the ground that I can’t get to them. As far as I know, there’s no way to fix it.”

“No way for man to fix it,” Hym replied. “But Lire can do many things. Allow him to fix it.”

“Did the sun get to you, boy?” Nikadymys laughed. “Lire isn’t here- hasn’t been for a long time.”

“You may believe that.” 

Nikadymys, perplexed, stepped aside and let Hym through. The crowd hushed in waves as they watched Hym place his hands carefully but surely on the rim of the well.

“By the power of Lire!” He shouted, and I chuckled under my breath. Lire above, he could be a performer if he wanted to. “Where there is nothing, let there be water!” He slammed his hands on rim.

Nothing happened for almost a minute.

He smiles. I can see that you expected something more spectacular.

“I’ve heard so many stories, I fully expected a glorious fount of water, amber from the sun’s light, to spray onto the men.”

Trust me, we all did as well. The power and conviction in Hym’s voice, the way he held himself, all contributed to the image in our heads of that well to almost explode. For the first time, and certainly not the last, I half-believed Hym actually could be what he was acting as- a prophet. 

“What’s going on?” I heard behind me as Jems stepped forward. “What is he doing?”

“Just watch,” I said. “Watch Hym, and watch for suspicion.”

Jems gasped. “He’s not… is he?

“You better believe it. Simun convinced him to.”

“Is he insane? They’ll see through it in a second.”

A smile crept onto my face. “Maybe not.” I pointed. “Look.”

Hym had taken the bucket and seemed to be dipping it into the well, and we believed we could see a shimmering near the lip. He took the bucket and, with a smile and graceful movement, emptied its contents onto Nikadymys. 

“Just like that?”

Just like that. He laughs a bellowing laugh. You should have seen the men’s faces. Sheep, I tell you. They were like sheep looking at the shepherd’s shears. If the ghost of Kylian, the first Duster, had shown up at that moment they would have been less surprised than how they were then.

Hym, true to form, walked through them with a small smile back to his tent. And not a man said a word that wasn’t singing his praises.