Chapter forty-five

In Melloreis

 

Hardacre recovered quickly from being bounced by his own spell. A few hours lying down and a reasonable supper at their extramural camp site was enough to bring his jaw back into full working order. It also gave him a chance to sew his buttons back on his shirt.

‘You managed to find them all’ said Kath, impressed.

Hardacre smiled at her.

‘Well, actually, no. I always keep a couple of spares’ he said, indicating a small pouch in his tunic pocket.

‘Just in case that happens, you mean? ‘

‘That’s just one of many potential accidents, Dr Fielding, and one, I would imagine, that normally has a fairly low probability’

‘You’re extremely good at needlework’

‘Thank you’ said Hardacre absent-mindedly.

‘I can’t sew for toffee’

‘Really?’

 said Hardacre, surprised, ‘didn’t your mother teach you?’

‘No,’ admitted Kath, grinning, ‘she really wasn’t that sort of mother’

She paused in recollection for a moment.

‘Who taught you?’

‘My mother’ Hardacre said, with a very faint arch of his eyebrows.

The light was failing over the butchered city. None of them were at all keen on the idea of sleeping so close to the ruins but Rem had decided that the best place to rest was here, among the rubble rather than out on the flatter less-strewn ground where they might be easily spotted.

They sat around the largest fire that Rem would allow – it was miserably small, but Hardacre had managed to produce a palatable stew, made from things that Rem had eagerly fished out of the four-dimensional bag.

After they’d eaten, and after the dark had completely covered them, Rem had begun to quiz Viola again about the skins that she’d found over the hollows in the ruins.

‘Could you smell anything?’ he asked her.

‘Not really’ said Viola, ‘what sort of smell do you mean?’

‘Blood’

She made a face.

‘Do you know what it is – the membrane?’

‘I may do,’ he said, ‘it is possible to be a trigger for a taint’

‘I wondered about that too’ said Viola, with a look of revulsion on her face.

‘What’s that?’ asked Kath, half fascinated but half really not wanting to hear the answer.

Hardacre, who had been packing things back into his sack, looked up with interest.

‘Yes, it might be a good idea to learn what you know about taints’ he said.

Rem shivered.

‘The Cloaks – they make magic with dead things – they fill them with blood… and the blood taints everything it touches – burns, blinds, confuses, sometimes drives insane…’

Viola nodded but couldn’t bring herself to add anything else.

‘What do they look like?’ asked Hardacre

‘They take on many for – like creatures half-made, full of flesh, but no heart. Often like human, or goblin or horse ’

‘How can we counter them?’ asked Kath

‘Run away…’ whispered Viola

‘They are very hard to heal,’ answered Rem, a flash of remembered pain distorting his face, ‘but they exhaust self eventually. Best do as Viola say. Avoid blood; let them die’

‘So, stay clear – if we can’ said Hardacre, calmly.

Rem and Viola nodded emphatically.

‘What sort of a plan is that?’ grumbled Kath

‘You not like – you find another one’ said Rem

‘You can heal them, can’t you?’  Kath said, jabbing a finger at him, ‘you just can’t be bothered’

There was a brief strained silence while Rem and Kath had a glaring match. But Rem seemed determined to say nothing else at all. 

‘I can see that tomorrow may be a difficult day’ said Hardacre, ‘Perhaps we should get some sleep’.

Kath wondered how Hardacre always seemed to stay so calm, but she also noticed that he had a long conversation with Rem, just before he went to bed. She wanted nothing to do with it – she felt guilty about Rem at the same time as feeling disappointed by him.  

Everyone was on edge, but they tried to sleep. In fact, Hardacre was the only one who seemed to sleep very well at all. At the change of every watch they all woke up and shared nervous whispers before falling back into their uneasy slumbers.

 

                                                                    ***

 

‘Is it here?’ asked Rem, staring down at one of the dark spaces in the ground

Viola knelt down and examined the surface of the hole.

‘Yes’ said Viola, ‘go on, have a look…’

 Rem put his face as close to the membrane as he was able. They could all see it now, a rippling skin, like a translucent hide pulled tight across a drum.

‘Well…’ Kath said, her skin prickling, ‘we’re not going to get anywhere unless we can get past those things’

Rem glared up at her.

‘Not all of us want to get past anything’ he said

Kath frowned and looked at Hardacre, pleadingly.

Hardacre took a step closer and peered into the hole. He was clearly uncertain.

‘Well, I can try to disrupt it’ he said, clearly reluctantly, ‘but I think that will just trigger it, anyway’.

They all stood there staring, undecided. Kath stared at Rem.

 ‘Come on Rem – can’t you do something?’

‘Why should I?’

Hardacre stared at him..

‘Because you might be able to save us a lot of trouble and pain’ he said

Viola murmured her agreement. Kath kept quiet.

‘And because if there were ever a job for a healer, it’s now…’

Rem gave a very large and audible sigh.

‘I help because I must, it seems,’ he said, ‘you all stand back. Below here is taint – when I break surface it will attack’

They did as they were told. Everyone else retreated behind a large pointy bit of rubble.

 Rem stood over the hole and reached into his leather bag. He fumbled for a moment and pulled out a small green rag, about the size of a child’s pocket handkerchief, and held it in his left hand.  He then extracted a tiny phial of liquid from the bag and removed the stopper with his teeth. It smoked slightly, but that didn’t seem to worry him. He flicked a single drop of the yellow liquid onto the green cloth, re-stoppered the phial, and then began singing – a low catch that hinted at words but never actually voiced them. It was a  melody that seemed to be extendable forever without the need of a cadence. He began to stroke the membrane with the cloth and his chanting song became louder and faster. He waited, constantly rubbing and humming. The others wondered, with anticipated horror, what it was that he was waiting for.

The skin over the hole began to groan, a low rumble responding to Rem’s song. The sound was almost unbearable, a cry of pain and struggle that seemed to grow out of the ground. Rem began to sweat and the muscles in his face went into spasms. He closed his eyes. The groan began to get higher in frequency and then hardened into a scream. The three onlookers fell to the ground, with their hands covering their ears, unable to bring themselves either to watch or to hear as fear overcame them. 

By now Rem’s face was a pasty green-white and he staggered back. The centre of the membrane began to push outwards, and something, like an ill-formed hand, emerged, pushing out through the red skin, deforming it but not yet breaking it. Rem sang out five clear words in his own language, to the same pure melody. The membrane broke and out through its tatters staggered a strange creature made of blood and sinew – red and raw, like an anatomist’s dissection model. It was vaguely humanoid but looked insubstantial, a being distorted out of flesh and crystallised into hatred. Still screaming, and with blood beginning to leak from its porous surface, it flayed at Rem. He steadied himself, locked his thumbs and held his two hands up, palms outward, towards it. It came within a foot of him but was then held in place, struggling to move towards him. It grew bright scarlet with its accumulated blood.  Then Rem blew, through the space above his inter-locked thumbs, so that his breath fell softly upon the creature.  Stationery and unmoving, the taint began to dissolve, its scarlet body turning ash grey as it fell like cinders on to the ground and was no more.

Rem, breathing heavily, but unhurt, walked to the spot where the little grey patch was now fading away and ended his melody.  At last he sang a perfect cadence, and then it was all over. He sat on the ground, cross-legged, rubbed his eyes and fell asleep.

The others approached his slumbering body cautiously but with a sort of reverence. They stood over him and no-one could think of suitable first words to say. Hardacre placed his hand tentatively on the ground where the grey patch had been. Now there was nothing.

‘Master Healer, you live up to your name…’ Hardacre whispered, almost to himself

‘I don’t think that he can do that at every hole, though’ Kath said.

Viola was staring in wonder at Rem.

‘Should we wake him up?’ she asked

Hardacre shook his head. They waited patiently while Rem snored his way through the morning. In this patch, just where Rem sat, for just this moment, they no longer felt the power of the curse.