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Pavek's sense of who he was and how he came to be was hazy. There was an odd, metallic taste in his mouth; his ears made their own ringing music. He guessed he'd been asleep for a long time, and an unnatural sleep at that. He remembered a boy, a long walk through darkness, and a sickening collapse. The boy-Pavek could not pluck his name out of the darkness-said they were going to a safe place, but he'd collapsed before they'd arrived. He remembered the boy sobbing and the sound of his feet when he ran away.
Had the boy been death come to collect his spirit?
Had death abandoned him to the dark, demi-life of the tomb?
Some sects said death was a beautiful woman; others said it was the Dragon. Pavek couldn't remember any sects that personified death as a wiry lad with dark eyes and tousled hair. But then, he couldn't remember much more about himself than his name.
He lay still and, after a moment, heard the steady beat of his pulse.
Tomb or no, if he had a pulse, he was alive and should try to remain that way. He thought about food and water, the prerequisites of remaining alive, and found that, despite a heartfelt conviction he'd gone days without eating or drinking, he was neither hungry nor thirsty.
So-he was not dead, not hungry nor thirsty, and not in pain, despite the stone around his left arm. He decided he could move his other limbs and, at the same time, discovered that he was stretched out on a thick, feather mattress that was softer than any bed he'd ever slept on before. He tried to coordinate his limbs: to use their strength to free his left arm from its prison. The fingers of his right hand scraped along a packed dirt wall when words that were not his own echoed between his ears.
Drink now?
The words had not been spoken aloud: he was as certain of that as he was of anything. His first thought was that he was not alone in the dark, dirt-walled chamber. His second, more cautious, thought was simply that he was being observed. The cool air swirling faintly over his face was no longer pleasant or comforting. He thought of ghosts, spirits and otherworldly haunting. An involuntary shudder racked the length of his body. A stab of remembered pain lanced the imprisoned elbow.
Not to worry. Everything is fine. Drink now? Eat? Rest?
The slender fingers of a smallish hand brushed gently against his forearm. The boy? Possibly, though the boy had seemed fully human, with eyes no better adapted to darkness than his own.
Ahalfling?
"Who are you?" he asked in an expectedly hoarse whisper. His throat was tight; it had been a while since he'd spoken. "What are you? Where are you? Where am I? What's happening to me?"
So many questions! The silent voice twinkled with bemusement. There was sickness throughout your blood and body. You were brought here to heal; you are healing. You are safe. Is that not enough, Pavek? What more do you need to know?
His head sank into the feather mattress. There was much he wanted to learn, but nothing more that he truly needed to know. He relaxed with a guilty sigh. "Water," he asked, then added, digging deep into memories of childhood before the orphanage, "if you please."
More merriment in his mind, like bubbles in the rare sparkling wines of Nibenay: I please.
The spout of a delicate glass pitcher pressed against his lips. A slight, but strong, hand raised his head. He had a momentary vision of his nurse: a halfling woman with an ancient child's face and dark, diamond-shaped tattoos framing her eyes. The vision faded as the cool, sweet water trickled down his throat, but not the memory. He'd know her, if he ever saw her again, especially if she smiled.
Rest, Pavek. Sleep quietly while your body heals.
He resisted because he was a man and did not like to be compelled, however gently or wisely. Then his eyes closed and he obeyed.
* * *
There were other awakenings, some when Pavek's left arm seethed with inner fire. His back would arch tight at those times, and he'd remember the words every drill-field instructor barked at the end of a training session: Heal quick or heal forever. Pavek had left his wounds malingering for nearly two weeks-had no choice, really. A competent healer could seal a cut with a finger's touch, but Pavek couldn't purge poison or regenerate muscle overnight. His body informed his mind that this healing wasn't finished a
nd sometimes it told him that he must open his mouth to scream.
There was never light, never a clear memory of the healcraft that must be taking place while he slept. And mostly he did sleep, without dreams, without time. He was grateful, but it wasn't natural; nothing about this underground chamber was natural. The water tasted pristine, but the broth could hide a dozen concoctions beneath its robust flavor, including one that left him in calm and blissful acceptance of very strange circumstances.
* * *
Pavek awoke again and found the chamber awash in the shadowy light of a small oil-lamp. The drowse that had insulated him from worry was gone, as was the stone weight around his elbow. He needed no help to raise his head or sit-though he regretted the latter. He'd been on his back too long. Blood drained from his head. The chamber spun in spirals, dimmed to a charcoal fog.
"Easy there, Pavek my friend. Be a bit more considerate of my hard work."
A man's voice, probably human and speaking with a familiar Urik accent, drifted through the fog. A man's hand, big-knuckled and callused, clapped between his shoulders, pushing his head forward and down until his forehead banged against his knee. Blood reversed its flow, and he got an odd-angled look at the cleric who'd healed him: unruly hair atop a round, soft-featured face, ropes of mottled clay beads clattering against a barrel chest, and a robe the exact color of the chamber walls.
Pavek shrugged free of the helping hand. He sat up with no further ill effects, looking straight into guileless brown eyes. "Are we friends? I don't know you. You know my name; what else do you know about me?" His neck was naked; the medallion was missing, where or when he couldn't begin to guess. The rest of him was naked, too, although a linen sheet allowed the pretext of decency.
"Everything mat's worth knowing." The cleric's grin was as merry as any Pavek had seen on a sober man. "Oelus," he added, offering his hand, which Pavek regarded with undisguised suspicion.
"You are a healer, a cleric bound to some temple or sanctuary? You aren't... hidden?"
