Death of a Darklord

TWENTY-EIGHT

They entered the inn to the sounds of ringing steel and snouting. Elaine ran for the stairs. "Caution might be wiser, child," Gersalius shouted at her back. Elaine ignored him. Everyone she had left was up there. She wouldn't lose anyone else.

Her ripped skirt tripped her on the stairs, and she fell heavily, striking her knee. The pain immobilized her leg, freezing her in place. Voices, shouts, a great bellowing roar of a voice. She'd never heard his battle cry, but it sounded like Fredric. The paladin wouldn't be lightly roused.

Elaine crawled upward, dragging her stunned leg behind her. On hands and knees, she neared the top step. The hallway was a mass of people, struggling. A tall man fought with shield and sword from the doorway where Averil had been. Elaine couldn't see who he fought, but she could hear it.

"Back, damned villains, back I say, or I will slay you all." It was Fredric's voice.

Elaine used the banister to climb to her feet. She stood there for a moment, testing her leg. There was a spot of fresh blood on the step where she'd fallen. She didn't bother looking for the wound. It could wait. The leg would support her now. She limped up the last few steps, leaning heavily on the banister.

Gersalius was behind her. "What is all the fuss?"

She shook her head, staggering down the hall toward the fight. Jonathan's voice came from the open door; he sounded calm enough. "Silvanus, all dead in Cortton rise as zombies. All who die here. You don't want that for your daughter."

Fredric stood in the doorway, his great two-handed sword weaving back and fourth. The armed man who faced him said, "Here, good sir, I am doing my duty as sheriff of this town. I don't want to hurt you. We've all lost someone to this plague. We don't wish to make your grief worse, but we must have the body."

"You will have Averil over my dead body," Fredric said.

"That is a possibility, sir, but I would rather not."

Fredric laughed, a great roaring sound that held enough scorn to draw blood. "It will be you lying dead on the floor, sheriff. And you know that."

Elaine was close enough now to see a line of sweat on the sheriff's forehead. The knowledge of his own death was in his eyes, but he would not back down. His pride meant more than death.

"If you kill me, I want them to burn my body. I don't want to come back as some dead thing. You don't want that for your friend, either-to watch her rot before your eyes night after night. Let us have the body, and she'll just be dead. Dead is better, good sir, much better."

Fredric hesitated. The tip of his sword wavering. Doubt showed on his face.

Silvanus spoke from the room. "They cannot have her."

The sword came back up. "You heard him."

"Silvanus, she is gone, let her go." It was Jonathan's voice.

"You should have sent Elaine to us. She can raise Averil. I know she can."

"She cannot. Thordin says that is magic for a great healer. She has barely begun to learn," Jonathan said.

Elaine pushed through the crowd until she stood beside the sheriff. He glanced at her for a second, then back to Fredric. All his attention was on the big warrior.

"I am Elaine Claim. I believe Silvanus is waiting for me."

"Elaine," Fredric said, "these fools want to burn Averil's body."

"Will that make it impossible to raise her from the dead?" Elaine asked.

"Elaine," Silvanus called, "come in past these fools."

The sheriff and Fredric eyed each other. Neither seemed to want to move. "Let me in, sheriff. Either I can do what Silvanus wants, or I cannot. But until I try, you won't get this body." He still hesitated. "Night is coming," she said softly.

He moved back, sword and shield held in place. "Go in, but we won't wait forever."

Fredric moved back just enough to allow her inside. Gersalius waited at the door. Elaine glanced back, but the wizard said, "I will gather a digging party and get started on our little project."

"I should be there."

"I can do everything you can do and more. Only you can do this, Elaine Claim. Only you."

She nodded. He was right, as usual.

The room was crowded. Silvanus huddled with Averil's body on the bed; Randwulf stood at the foot of the bed; Jonathan stood near the window; Fredric guarded the door. One more person, and she couldn't have walked through the room.

Elaine sat on the corner of the pallet. "How do I do it?"

Silvanus moved off the bed, laying Averil gently on the wrinkled covers. Someone had closed her eyes so she looked almost asleep, but there was a looseness to her body that nothing but death could bring. Sleep, or even unconsciousness, could not imitate it.

Silvanus knelt beside the bed. "Place your hands on her body, either over the wound that killed her or over the center of her life, where you feel her life-force was most strong."

Elaine dropped to her knees, wincing. There was a smear of blood on the bed covers.

"You are hurt," he said.

"It is nothing."

He raised her skirt to look, and she let him. It was a deep gash that bled freely. "You can heal this first. Otherwise, it might damage your concentration."

Somehow, Elaine didn't think so. She shook her head. "No, I'll use the pain. It will help me."

He looked at her strangely, but nodded. "As you like. Every healer is different. If you start at her wound, you may begin by healing that, then the other."

"How do you heal death?" Elaine asked.

"You heal the injuries that killed her, and the body will function again. It will hold life again." He shrugged. "I know of no better way to explain. Either you will understand or you will not."

Elaine knew what the "will not" meant to them: it meant Averil dead forever; it meant Blaine dead forever, even if they could find his body. She would do it. She had to do it. She wanted to do it.

"I will leave you to your healing, Elaine," Jonathan said. He moved to the door.

She wanted to call him back but didn't. They had agreed to disagree on this subject. They could be a family as long as Jonathan didn't have to watch her work magic. It seemed a small price.

"Talk to Gersalius. We may have found something," she said.

He nodded, not quite looking at her. Fredric let him out the door, and he was gone.

Elaine tore the bandages from Averil's neck. The flesh was red with infection, greenish round the edges of the bite. Gangrene had already set in. That wasn't right. A wound didn't go bad that quickly. Was it the poison?

She traced the ragged edges of the wound. The skin was hot to the touch. Elaine touched Averil's face. It was cool. Why was the wound hot? It was as if the wound were still alive, and only the body dead.

Elaine pressed her hands back over the wound. It didn't matter. All that mattered was the feel of ruined flesh, the rough hole in her skin. She sank her fingers to the wound, digging in the flesh as she had in the grave dirt. This was a dead body, no one to hurt, no flinching. Elaine could do what she wanted with the body. It would not complain. She could not think of it as a person. It was a neck wound; it was blood loss; it was dead.

She smoothed the deeper injuries, as she had before. The clay of ruptured arterioles, a ragged vein, healed perfectly. Elaine smoothed her fingers over the throat wound until the skin was whole. But still the body was dead. She sat back on her heels, staring, hands still lightly touching.

"I've healed the wound." She let her hands fall back into her lap. "I don't know what else to do."

Silvanus touched her shoulder. "She is empty, you must fill her up again. Fill her up with life again."

"How?"

Silvanus gave a ragged sigh. "I cannot explain this to you, Elaine. Many healers never learn to raise the dead. I do not think it is a matter of ability. I think it is a failing to understand, to visualize death, as just another injury."

"The body is perfect. I cannot heal anything more than I have already. The body is whole."

His fingers dug into her flesh. "Elaine, please. You must see this for yourself. I cannot do this for you." There was something beyond panic in his eyes.

She tasted her pulse in her throat. If she could not save Averil, Blaine was truly dead. But try as she might, she could feel nothing but death. The body was dead, there was nothing to heal.

"Please," Silvanus said.

Elaine tried. She put her hands on the body and searched. She smoothed a scar she found on a kidney, a bit of scar tissue left from some illness. Invisible fingers kneaded and fixed until Averil was better than new-perfect. Still, it was a body. Elaine could not fix what was simply not there. The spark, the soul, whatever word you chose, that which made Averil alive-made her more than just flesh, bone, and nerves-was missing. And Elaine did not know how to put it back.

She realized she was enjoying exploring the body, caressing the internal organs. Enjoying it the way a sculptor did, but no longer as a healer. Elaine was playing with the body, nothing more.

She knelt back; her knee stabbed at her. The pain was raw and fresh. Without looking, Elaine knew it was bleeding again. She explored the pain, not to heal, but to gather. She took the tiny rawness of every scrape on her hands; the greater pain of torn fingernails; the throbbing injury of her knee.

The last thing she gathered was her grief. She found the raw, screaming pain in her heart, her head, her body. She wrapped her loneliness in her hands and mixed it well with the pain. She sent it all into the dead body. She could not give it life. She did not know how, but she could give it pain, rage, sorrow.

The body bucked under her hands, flopping wildly. Elaine fell back to the floor. The body sat up, golden eyes wide and staring.

Silvanus stood, holding his arms out to her. "Averil, Averil." He enfolded her against his chest, hugging her. She was stiff and unresponsive in his arms.

He drew back from her. "Averil, can you speak?"

She opened her mouth wide, wider. The sound that came out was a shriek, wordless, mindless-pain given voice. One scream followed another as fast as she could draw breath.

Silvanus shook her, but she did not see him, did not hear him. "Averil, Averil!" He slapped her. The screams continued. He slapped her hard enough to rock her back against the bed. She screamed lying on the bed, hands curled into fists, body tightened as if with pain.

"What have you done?" Silvanus asked. "What is this?"

"You said to fill her up. I did."

"With what!"

"Pain."

Silvanus dropped to his knees by the bed and the screaming thing that wasn't quite his daughter. "Kill it."

Randwulf said, "What did you say?"

Silvanus screamed, "Kill it, kill it! Oh, gods, kill it!"

Randwulf stood, hands at his side. He had to scream to be heard over wordless shrieks. "No."

Fredric turned from the door, sword point collapsing to the floor. "Silvanus, no."

"Look at it. This is not Averil. This is not human. Kill it, please."

Fredric stood over the bed. Elaine stared from one to the other. She hadn't meant to do anything wrong. She hadn't known what else to do. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

The men ignored her. For them the room held only their family. Elaine was not a part of that.

"Fredric," Silvanus reached up and clutched the big warrior's hand. He stood, using Fredric's arm to steady himself. "We will do it together," Silvanus said. His grip on the warrior's wrist tightened. Elaine could see the fingers whiten.

Fredric raised the sword up, with Silvanus's hand on one arm, Randwulf's lighter touch on the other. Tears ran down the young man's face. There were no tears for Silvanus or Fredric.

Elaine crawled backward out of the way. She huddled on the floor, helpless. The only help she could give had been worse than no help at all.

The sword flashed downward, straight through the heart, pinning the fragile body to the bed. The body lay still, blood pumping out of the wound in a thick fountain. It was heart blood, black and rich. If Elaine could have given the body true life, Averil would have lived.

The three men stood over the corpse. Their hands had fallen from the sword hilt. The sword stood upward like an exclamation point, a silver stake through her heart.

Silvanus was the first to turn away. He spoke to the shocked crowd that stood in the doorway. "You may have the body in a few moments. First we need some privacy."

The sheriff himself closed the door without a word.

Silvanus looked down at Elaine. She was huddled on the floor, unsure what to do or where to go. Running away had seemed like cowardice. Staring up into his eyes, she wished she had run.

"Now, Elaine Claim, we will see to your other healing. Let us find out what other differences there are between your healing and mine."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Fredric, show me your arms where Elaine healed you."

Fredric unfastened his sleeves and rolled them up without a word. His face was still blank with shock.

"As I feared," Silvanus said.

Elaine stood, slowly.

Fredric's face was no longer blank. A dawning horror painted his features. She stared down at his bare skin. The bite wounds were gone, the skin smooth, but it was no longer perfect. Something that looked like heavy green scales was growing over his flesh.

Elaine reached out to touch it. No one stopped her. The scales were slick, almost sharp on the ends. They covered the entire area she had healed on his arm.

Randwulf struggled to unlace his own sleeves. His skin was smooth, unblemished. His sigh of relief was loud in the silence.

"Let me see your neck," Silvanus said.

Randwulf's eyes widened. He turned, hands tight at his sides, as if he wanted to reach up and touch his neck, but was afraid to.

Silvanus brushed his hair out of the way, tucked the collar back, and hissed. There was something growing out of the top of his spine. It looked for all the world like a tiny human figure-perfect in every detail, but small enough to fit in Elaine's palm. As they watched, it opened pin-sized eyes and looked at them.

Elaine screamed, backing away.

"What is it?" Randwulf asked, fear raw in his voice.

"A growth," Silvanus said. No one corrected him. No one wanted to say it out loud.

Silvanus stared down at the stump of his arm. He untied the sleeve. "Help me," he said. Fredric cut open the sleeve with his dagger. It was an arm just below the elbow, golden skinned and whole, but its end was black and wormlike. The underside of it was white as a fish's belly, with huge suckers on it.

"What's on the back of my neck?" Randwulf asked. "Tell me."

There was a tiny wailing sound. A thin, high-pitched screaming. Randwulf turned this way and that, trying to see what was behind him. The growth's miniature mouth was open and screaming.

Randwulf started grabbing at it, tearing at it. A minute arm fell to the ground; blood sprayed in a threadlike stream. The arm crawled and flopped. Randwulf was staring at it, mouth wide, screaming silently.

"Cut it off," Silvanus's voice brought them all back from the brink of utter madness. "Cut off the thing," he said to Fredric, pointing to his malformed arm. The paladin slashed at the tentacle. Blood poured onto the floor, green and thick, not human at all.

Randwulf dropped beside the blood, clawing and tearing at the thing on his neck. The tentacle flopped and slapped at Fredric.

Elaine broke. She flung the door open and ran down the empty hallway. The sheriff waited at the bottom of the steps. He looked up. "Are they ready for us?"

Elaine pushed past him and ran for the outer door. One thought ran through her head: Jonathan was right! Jonathan was right! She was corrupt. She was worse than corrupt.

Elaine ran out into the street, ran into the winter cold and welcomed it. She didn't know where she was going, just away. Away from that room and what she had done. The memory of how good it had felt to do all the healing. Even raising Averil to be a thing of pain had felt good. And some small part of her had wanted to touch the little figure, caress it, enjoy it. To touch the thing growing out of Silvanus's body. She forced herself to be horrified, but in truth she was attracted to all of it. Some part of her would have enjoyed it all, if she had allowed it.

It was that, that more than anything else that sent her running down the street. Part of her wanted to be back in that room playing with the things she had created.