Gentry eased out from under the weight of the scaled
creature that had done him a final indignity and died right on top.
He groaned with the effort and felt a troublesome amount of blood
leak out from the gash on his hip. This little mess was going to
take him weeks to get over. A waste of time. He was loosing time
again.
Finally free of the thing he kicked it viciously and
cursed his luck. It was getting worse of late. Or maybe, it was just
this new project. Following that courier around had done nothing but
call every chaos sensitive beast in the vicinity to him. His latest
admirer had been dumb, but faster and stronger unfortunately. As
much as reality liked to bend and twist when he walked by he was
only human after all. Well, in the physical sense anyway.
He lay there for some time letting the early morning
breeze cool the sweat on his forehead and gingerly felt out the
throbbing wound that ran from navel to hip bone. Poison he worried
about but sensed nothing of the chaos that usually indicated
infection. Bleeding to death might rank next. Gentry was not
however, that easy to kill.
Sliding into a semi-sitting position he unwound the
scarf around his neck and pressed it into the bloody mess. He rose
to his feet, swayed once, then mastered himself. Moving carefully he
retrieved his pack and set off at a limping walk back the village he
had just left. More lost time. He’d just have to make it up when he
healed.
It was fortunate for the town that he had returned it
seemed. The changes he had stirred at the first passing had gone
bad, causing all kinds of grief. The water had become tainted,
ground level silt and noxious minerals mixing with the table. Two
villagers were critically ill and a horse had died. A scourge of
Willip’s fever had hit several children and two large fires had
gutted storage barns. Life in Tavim had undergone a turn of the odds
and they were going to change again.
Gentry limped into town with a rain storm on his
heels. It squalled and howled at him with incommunicable rage.
Probably some rain god’s offspring he had pissed off. The drops were
so large and heavy that they raised welts on his exposed forearms
and stung his eyes. Rivulets of freezing water soaked him through.
He shuddered and coughed, miserable and in a bit of shock probably.
Once inside the town proper he was greeted, much to
his surprise, with a kind of familiarity. Welcomed back, almost. It
seemed that people in Tavim weren’t the superstitious type and or
hadn’t connected him to the little misfortunes. An unusual town to
be sure. The innkeeper of the Blue Gill half carried him inside with
obvious concern and laid his quaking form out in front of the fire.
The local physician came promptly and made a terrible joke about the
weather. Both men agreed that it was unusual for the time of year.
Gentry pressed a clammy palm into his forehead and
squeezed his gold eyes shut. Those watching him took it for pain or
weakness, but when he bit his palm it was to keep from laughing. If
only they knew! If only they understood! How they would hate him.
The doctor, if he was indeed anything more than any
other man who did the village’s first aid or birthed babies, pressed
a bottle to his lips. He choked at first but there was no denying
that brandy was the one thing that he really wanted at that moment.
Well, maybe a hot bath, but that could wait. With quick efficient
movements they peeled him of his top clothes and exposed the full
length of the wound to the dry air. A quick flare of pain pierced
the alcohol haze he was working on but it faded into nothingness as
he blacked out.
Reaction. Effect. In dreams he lacked even those basic
facilities. It made everything bleed into a kind of soundless void.
It was nonexistence. He hated it with as much passion as he could
muster. True anger escaped him here though, as it did in the real
world. In this dream though, he did see something. The courier was
there. The spiky-haired anomaly and his abused-eyed partner were
standing together. Aden smiled broadly, white on tan. The mage stood
back, arms crossed, staring vacantly out past the fringe of dark red
hair. He turned suddenly, and Gentry’s dream presence started as
those cold gray eyes fixed on him. They narrowed. Ice formed around
the smaller courier in a rough bubble. A barrier. Against him.
Gentry growled and his staff appeared, flickered, and
then turned into a pike. He advanced on the mage who didn’t move,
only watched balefully.
“I will catch up with him, and when I do...” He said
more to himself than the other man.
The mage breathed insubstantial icicles. Gentry ‘felt’
them like tiny pinpricks from needles. He swept them away and thrust
the staff/pike forward. In checkered time it met the mage’s blue
robe, pressed into it and then buried up to the grip. Blood welled
from the wound. Gentry smiled a rare smile.
The mage smiled too, red spilling over the bottom lip.
“Not yours, not yet, not ever.”
***** (random sentence blip)
Guilt wasn’t something he could say with any certainty
that he understood, but debt, well, that lingered.
