Expulsion

Muld is helplessly sick as his body attempts to expel the poison.

24.

Expulsion

 

She was hugging him close when he threw up and there was no place to turn or time to do it.    To his absolute horror, he violently vomited all over her, the bed and himself.

Tangled in the cover that she had wrapped them in to help keep him warm, she could not escape in time.

Worse, it kept coming as his belly finally rejected the toxic poison.   He frantically tried to unwind from her proximity, clawing wildly for the room’s chamber pot.

Again and again he retched, heaving terribly from the bottom of his toes.    His head swam, his ears rang and he swayed, lightheaded after each time.   

But he had no time to apologize to Syndi or to even speak and he bent over the chamber pot, puking until his throat burned and every muscle in his body ached from the effort.

Syndi didn’t abandon him, but yelled for servants and had them bring her towels and a basin of water.

“Sorry…”  Muld finally gasped an apology in a hoarse voice, “How horrible… go wash off… I don’t want you to be poisoned by my vomit.    Oh, Lord, here I go again…”

Another wave of nausea overwhelmed him and his muscles all tightened as he could only expel stomach bile into the chamber pot.

Dear God, let it end, Lord!   I threw up all over her!   My life is absolutely over!    It can’t get any worse, he thought as he nearly passed out from the effort of the dry heaves.

But as a servant girl arrived with a stack of towels and a basin of water, Muld found that it could indeed get worse.

At the other end of his digestive tract, he suddenly sensed movement.   He had no time to do anything but quickly pull down his pants and squat on the chamber pot in front of Syndi and the servant girl.    For several minutes he had to hold the position and both women had to leave the room, gagging from the putrid odor.

Just kill me, Merciful Yesh, I can’t stand it, I am absolutely ruined.    I’ve humiliated myself and disgusted that lovely girl.    There is no way to apologize or make amends for vomiting all over someone!   What if the poison is strong enough to sicken her?   Yesh, please keep her well!

Finally devoid of fluids to expel, Muld felt faint and weak.     With great effort he pulled up his pants and could do nothing else but slide off the chamber pot onto the floor, covered in a clammy sweat and his own vomit.

“What shame could be worse than this?”   He mumbled, his muscles too weak to pull himself up on the bed.   It was covered with vomit as well, so what was the point?    Months of hard work, becoming a respectable magician and businessman in Westmark, and he had sank down to this.

 How could he make things right after this, he thought over and over, confident that his life was ruined.    

He sat there on the floor, closed his eyes and tried to will his pounding head to stop hurting.

A few minutes later he heard the soft chanting of a woman casting a spell and looked up at the doorway in time to see a hand slipped through the opening, waving in the motions of casting.

Maybe it is an assassin and she’ll throw a fireball in here and put me out of my misery and shame, he thought gloomily, watching the unseen woman finish her spell.

For a moment nothing happened, then, suddenly, the terrible smells caused by his digestive distress vanished, replaced by the clean smell of a spring meadow.

Muld breathed it in deeply.    Syndi’s face popped around the partially opened door and she took several cautious sniffs, which were amusing to see.    Then she turned and said something to someone with her.    A moment later she entered, with three maids, all carrying cleaning supplies or bed linens.

When she saw him sitting on the floor, she rushed over to him.

“Are you alright?”  She asked anxiously, squatting down beside him.   She had removed the clothing that he’d soiled with his vomit and had a plan white robe on.

“I think it has passed,”  He responded without even meeting her eyes, for shame shrouded him.

“Praise Yesh for that!”   She took his arm, “Can you stand?”

“I’m really weak, but I’ll try.”   She helped him get to his feet.   His head pounded terribly at the effort, but he said nothing about it.

“What time of day is it?”  He asked as he stabilized.

“Early evening.”

“Evening?!   It was morning not long ago!”

Syndi smiled, “You were out of your head with fever for seven hours, Muld.”

“Seven hours?   Really?   It didn’t seem that long… only about… I don’t know… maybe an hour or so.”

“You probably don’t remember the times you fell asleep, right in the middle of a conversation with your old master.”

“Oh… It was so strange… like he was here.   Everything was strange, but at the same time, made sense.”

“You thought I was your mother,”   Syndi told him gently as she led him across the room away from the bed.

“Sorry about that.    Syndi, I am so disgusted with myself.”

“Why?”  

“Surely you know why!   I threw up all over you!”

“Well, that was disgusting, yes, but it wasn’t your fault.”

“It was horrible!   I had no control of it!  I’m so sorry-“

“Don’t let it concern you, Muld!   It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?!   Syndi, I vomited on you!   What if the poison was still in my vomit?   You could be poisoned too!”

“I’m fine, Muld.   I wiped off most of it and I don’t feel sick… well, except from having someone throw up on you, but that is just a reaction to action, not to the poison.”

“No-one should have to endure being thrown up on!    You are a princess and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy!  I can never make it up to you.”

“It isn’t anything to bother you, Muld.    Now come with me.”   She took his hand.

“Where are we going?”

“To clean you up.   The palace has a private bathhouse for our family.   It is heated by warm water from the hot springs that bubble up from the volcano’s vents.   It is quite pleasant.”

Muld hesitated.   “No, Syndi, that wouldn’t be right.   Your mother would be appalled.”

“They’ve already used it for the evening, which is why I waited.  Now come on!”   She pulled him out into the hallway and led him down a side passage.

He resisted her pulling, forcing her to pause in the hallway.

“Muld-“  She protested.

“Syndi, I’ve got to talk to you about something.”  He said nervously.

“It’s about the dream thing that we shared when you were unconscious, isn’t it?   I’ve been expecting you to say something about that.”

“You have?”

“It has you upset, doesn’t it?”

“Upset?   Well, I-I…”

Syndi sighed and took both of his hands, “Muld, I’m not exactly sure what happened to both of us.    To be honest with you, for several months I’ve felt a certain… bond… with you that seems to be growing stronger.     I was really scared of what was happening, but I realized something after our little dream experience.”

“What?”

“I realized that a lot of the faerie tales about ‘soul mates’ and all that stuff is probably simply misunderstood interpretations by bards and poets.    I’d heard of Aleiryid before - how two people are drawn to each other until they begin to share dreams and thoughts- but no one in my family ever experienced that.”

“Do you think that is what happened to us?”  Muld asked in amazement.

“Oh, absolutely!   But I don’t think it is what all the stories say it really is.   They always say that a man and a woman experience it, sometimes as little kids, and grow closer and closer until they end up getting married when they are adults.    I don’t think that the stories have it quite right.”

“So what do you think it means?”  Muld asked her, befuddled over it all, upon hearing her skepticism. 

Syndi paused for a moment, then with a deep sigh said, “Well, I think it is just a closeness of two like-minded elven people,    Humans don’t think like elves think, or at least their ways of looking at things are different.   I think Aleiryid is simply a deep bond of friendship - that’s all.”

“Oh.”  It was like cold water thrown into his face again.   First she downplayed everything to her mother, now she was again trying to push aside something that had seemed very important and personal to him.    If he hadn’t embellished the experience in his fever dream.   “Syndi, do you remember the dream that we shared when I was unconscious?”

“Muld, I’m ashamed to admit it, but really I don’t.   I remember bits of it - little flashes of memory of the experience- but I can’t recall the exact conversation between us in that dream… why?”

Muld just shook his head, “I just was wondering what you remember happened.   I was feverish and you can’t trust memories when you are out of your head - as you saw today when I thought you were my mother and that Master Hofflis was talking to me.”

“Sorry, but I can’t honestly tell you.   I just felt very close to you then… and I still do, actually.   I’ve never had a close friend, and now I feel that you have taken that role.    That is how I’m interpreting what has happened.    I’m still young and I don’t understand about all these sorts of things, but it is easier for me to look at it this way… I hope you understand.”

“Yes, I understand,”   He replied with a forced smile, for his feelings for her were much stronger.    But she obviously could not handle or accept it at a level deeper than friendship.     He certainly wouldn’t refuse that.    At least he would still be around her and could share some of her life, even if he longed for more.

“I knew you would.”  She squeezed his hands with a sweet smile, then turned and resumed pulling him down the hallway.

 

Worn out, weak, and his muscles hurting from an afternoon of vomiting, he found his mind just too exhausted to contemplate what he should (or could) do about Syndi.   If what he was experiencing was the fabled Aleiryid, he knew next to nothing about it.    It was the stuff of romantic tales.    He’d never heard of Aleiryid existing between just two friends.    But it wasn’t a subject that had interested him, so clearly he did not know anything.

Hopefully he’d have time to figure it out and grow to accept Syndi’s definition of it.

 

At the end of the hallway were some stairs downward and she pulled him after her down the stairs.   His sore, stiff muscles nearly caused him to fall as he tried to keep up with the girl.

“Sorry, did I hurt you?”  She asked with a look over her shoulder.

He shook his head, unable to reply as he gazed upon her gorgeous face.    How could he simply look at her as just a friend when he felt so much more for her in his heart?   Why was he feeling such strong feelings for her, yet she didn’t feel the same for him?

Of course, he couldn’t blame her, for certainly he wasn’t the heroic type like good ol’ Derych.   Beautiful girls like Syndi weren’t attracted to the pale bookish type of men.    That is why she considered him her friend.   It was a polite way of telling him that she felt a bond with him, but was repulsed at him physically.

After throwing up on her, he could understand that, for that was certainly a deal killer.

 

Down another short hallway she led him and he noticed now that the walls, ceiling and floor were carved out of a grayish black stone that he knew to be volcanic rock.

Stopping at a pair of double doors lacking any knobs or handles, she placed her hand on each door and spoke, “I am Synthaeia, daughter of King Eiolmoel.”

The doors glowed white for an instant and then clicked open.

“Fascinating!”  Muld commented, “A nice safety feature.”

Syndi smiled prettily and replied, “I knew you’d appreciate that.   It is about the nearest thing to Practical Magic found in this kingdom… until you introduced it here.”

Still holding his hand, she pulled him inside and the doors closed slowly behind them.  

It was a large cavern but carved with Elven skill to be an open and somehow warm and inviting bathhouse.    Most of the room was part of a large rectangular pool, about waist deep, with warm water that steamed and smelled of pleasant minerals.    All along the edges of the pool were stone benches and pegs with a multitude of towels, washcloths and robes - all soft and white in color- lined the walls behind the benches.    Near the water’s edge were ceramic buckets that held pure white sand.

“This is our family’s private bathhouse.   The water is fed by hot springs that come from far below the crater of the volcano and the minerals in the water are very soothing for the skin.    Don’t drink any of it, though, for it will upset your stomach, and we certainly don’t want to do that with all that you’ve been through today.”

Syndi pointed to the buckets of sand, “That is what you wash with - it works very well.    That isn’t actually sand, it is minerals extracted from this water by boiling.     Rub yourself with it and when you rinse off in the pool, the minerals will dissolve back into the water.    There are wash cloths, towels and robes to wear after you are done.”

“Okay… thanks.” He replied, waiting for her to leave.

“I forgot to get something, so you go ahead and bathe and I will be back shortly.”  

She rushed over to the doors, placed her hands on them and repeated the phrase, which opened them again.   “Don’t worry, everyone has bathed already, so no-one will disturb you.”

He nodded and she exited, the doors closing behind her.

Muld took a deep breath and let it out in a long weary sigh, then began undressing, alone with his thoughts.