There was a chill in the air now that the sun had gone down, a raw, lingering damp from the rain earlier that afternoon. The apothecarius stooped over an earthen workbench, tending to a small brazier atop which a ceramic still bubbled and dripped. If nothing else, the cold would speed the condensation process, and judging from the quantity of distillate collected, the water level in the alembic must already be quite low. He would need to remove it from the heat soon.
But not yet. Finn eased himself down beside the fire, grimacing as his knees protested. Time on the road was taking its tole and they were beginning to ache with each new genuflexion. Nothing that a liniment of wolfsbane wouldn’t put right, but all the same he would be glad when they were back in Ark.
Carbos would say he was getting old.
And he would be right, he thought with a wry smile, giving the pot on the fire a final stir before moving it from the coals to a flat stone nestled at the edge of the embers. A stew of sorts; dried meat from their supplies and fresh mushrooms they had found earlier that day, simmered in water and thickened with dried arrowroot. Not his best work, perhaps, but they would not go hungry.
He settled back onto the packed ground, allowing himself a moment to breathe for what felt like the first time that day. They would be heading down to Riverville tomorrow, and from there to Ark; everything they had gathered needed to be carefully prepared and stored and packed. The distillate would be the last of it, unless Carbos return with a few stragglers.
The quiet was broken by a the crunch and rustle of leaves, too loud and slow to be anything small.
The apothecarius raised his head, peering into the dark.
“Carbos? Is that you?”
Something moved in the darkness beyond the circle of firelight. “Sirius…” A voice warbled, thin and eery, and the apothecarius felt a chill go through him. He got to his feet, fingering the talisman around his neck.
“Who’s there?”
The ghostly sound came again. Closer this time. Surely if it were bandits they would have attacked by now?
“Carbos, if this is your idea of a joke--” He broke off as a shadow separated from the darkness of the trees and staggered into the circle of firelight.
“By the righteous path….” The apothecarius recoiled in alarm. The creature was ragged and bloody, its round, wild eyes goggling at him from beneath matted strands of hair.
“Please --” The figure took an unsteady step towards him, and fell forward onto its face.
---
Eska feels hands lifting him, but he has little awareness of the other man. His eyes dart hungrily around the small campsite, words falling from his lips in a desperate, half-conscious babble.
“Please. M-my friend -- Have you seen my friend? Have you seen anyone?”
The firelight flashes crimson and gold over the robes of the figure kneeling in front of him. Eska pulls away, craning his neck to see past him. “Sirius?”
“Sirius?” a voice repeats and for the first time the man before him snaps into focus. Warm, weathered face, heavy brows knit in concern. And for a moment hope floods through him like a drug.
“You’ve seen him? Have you seen my friend? I’m looking for my friend. I need to find him. I need to -- I need -- I --
---
The boy -- for he was little more than a boy -- had worked himself up into a state. Finn tried to steady him.
“Slow down, child. Here, sit down here by the fire. What happened to you? Your arm, is that--”
The boy stared blankly down at his arm, his gaze passing uncomprehending over the blood and torn flesh and back to the apothecarius’ face. “No,” he pulled away sharply. “No, that’s not -- I’m looking for my friend. Please! Have you seen him? He wasn’t on the beach and -- and -- and I can’t -- I need to find him. He was hurt. He was hurt and -- and….Please.”
“I’m sorry, lad. I haven’t seen anyone.”
“He’s -- he’s tall. L-light hair,” he pressed on doggedly, “Sirius. His name’s Sirius.”
The apothecarius shook his head. But their was a dangerous fragility in the boy’s expression that made him add,“But my companion will be back soon. Perhaps he’ll have seen something. Why don’t you wait here and you can ask him yourself?”
A faint hope at best, but it seemed to mollify him, enough at least that Finn was able to coax him over to a seat by the fire. He was soaked to the skin and shivering uncontrollably. Finn placed a blanket over his shoulders and the boy instantly huddled into it. “How did you come by this wound in your arm?” he asked, steering him away from the subject as he gathered water and linen and salve together.
---
The memory is blurred and out of joint. A flash of yellow eyes and sharp teeth. The brute force of jaws clamping around his arm and pulling his body to the ground. Sharp rocks, cold water. Nails digging into his chest, the deep bass chorus of snarls, echoing in his bones. He sees his hand in front of his face. In front of his throat.
He doesn’t remember the fire. He remembers the pitiful, yelping shrieks. He remembers the smell of burning fur and flesh. Remembers the one creature too injured to flee, its horrible, drunken stagger before it collapses in the shallows. Burning and drowning both at once.
He remembers the stillness, the silence when it finally stops. Remembers the taste of bile. Remembers sobbing until he is sick.
---
“I didn’t mean to.” His voice, forcefully insistent only a moment ago, had grown very small, a strange mixture of fear and bewilderment clouding his face. “The wolves….. They were hungry. I think? It wasn’t their fault.”
Finn shook his head. “I’m not surprised. The animals in these parts have been growing bolder. You’re lucky to have made it out with only the bite on your arm.”
Taking a closer look at the wound, he suppressed a grimace. Bite wounds were a nasty business. But it looked recent, perhaps -- No, there was already a feverish brightness to the boy’s eyes. Infection had likely already set in, but a clean dressing and a dose of gruntroot ought to buy him enough time to find a proper healer.
“I have some water here; I’d like to clean your wound. Is that alright?”
The boy did not respond this time; he only sat there, numb and unresisting as Finn began his work.
“You gave me quite the fright back there, you know?” Finn continued, keeping his voice gentle and even. “Thought you were a Lost One come out of the ruins.”
As it was the boy was little more than bones himself.
Once the wound was clean, he applied an ointment of calendula and honey, talking softly all the while as he wrapped the injury in strips of clean linen.
When he finished, he sat back with a relieved smile. “I don’t believe I introduced myself properly. I am Finn Dalires, apothecarius by my path. My companion, Carbos --”
“What the hell?” a familiar voice exclaimed, and glancing up, Finn caught sight of the other apothecarius approaching down the path.
A corner of his mouth quirked. “Speak of him and he appears…..”
“Blazes, Finn, you were supposed to be watching the camp!”
“And as you can see, everything is still in one piece.”
“And who the fuck is that?”
“He’s a traveller.” Finn’s tone was calmly matter-of-fact. “Attacked by wolves on the road.”
“And how do you know that? Damnit, Finn, he could be one of the bandits!”
“And am I supposed to believe he chewed those marks in his arm himself?” Finn waved a hand at Carbos’ drawn weapon. “Put that away.”
Carbos glared at him. “Next time, you call me when you see someone.”
He sheathed his sword and tossed his satchel down beside the drying tent on the opposite side of the fire, never once taking his eyes off the stranger. The boy wasn’t armed, at least, and there was little chance of him concealing a weapon beneath those scant rags. But there was something off about him that made Carbos’ hackles prick.
“He’s looking for a friend,” Finn explained, with that same infuriating calm. “I told him I hadn’t seen anyone else today. Have you?”
Oh for fuck’s sake.
“Did it occur to you that this might be another Red Madness victim? Look at him! He could have killed this ‘friend’ for all we--”
“No!” Carbos grabbed for his sword as the boy lurched wild-eyed out of Finn’s grasp, frantic and stammering, “I didn’t! I wouldn’t. The captain, she -- she -- “
---
She killed him.
The memory comes back all at once, the pieces his mind had been unable to hold, stained glass shards of sunlight and steel and blood, soldered together into something monstrous, and he crumples beneath the weight of it.
He is on his knees, palms clamped against his mouth. He sees it happen, like a reflection in a broken mirror, its image echoed in a dozen disparate shards of sense and memory. The flash of light on a blade. Sirius’ voice. The airless, gurgling whimper as he collapsed on the deck. Blood running over his lips, grey eyes turning empty. He remembers screaming. He remembers the bite of ropes and the shock of the cold water.
And there is suddenly so much less.
So much nothing.
---
Finn rounded on Carbos. “Was that really necessary?”
“It was a fair question!” Carbos snapped back, “One of us has to be cautious, since you’re clearly incapable.”
“Caution is not a stick for you to beat everything you don’t understand!”
“This isn’t the Ark bathing house, damnit! You were alone. You could have been killed!”
Finn opened his mouth to reply, then sighed and Carbos felt the warm pressure of a hand on his arm.
“And lo and behold, we are still alive.” The words themselves were taunting, but the tone was gentle.
Carbos let out a low growl, but relented, withdrawing once again to his spot by the fire.
“Did you find any sheer cap?”
Carbos gave his satchel a nudge with his boot. “Some. Not much pine this side of the -- What the hell are you doing?”
“Sheer cap, gruntroot, willow bark….” Finn muttered, ignoring the question as he plucked a mushroom out of Carbos’ bag and began to rummage through his own pack. “I could have sworn there was some -- Ah!”
“Oh, so we’re brewing potions for strangers now?”
“If the stranger is about to die of fever, then aye. We did swear an oath if you haven’t forgotten.”
Carbos retrieved his lute from their tent with a disgusted grumble and began to tune it with all the petty aggression the instrument would tolerate. “There wasn’t anything in my oath about taking in strays. You’ll be inviting him to dinner, next.”
“That’s a fine idea, Carbos. Very generous.”
“You know that’s not what I meant!”
“The stew should be nearly cool enough. Why don’t you give him a bowl.”
“Get it yourself, I’m busy.”
“Clearly.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who --” He broke off sharply, catching the scent of something charred and acrid. “Finn, the still!”
The other man’s eyes widened and he turned back to the bench with a frantic curse. He snatched up a cloth from the bench, folding it deftly before using it to lift the overheated ceramic vessel off of the coals and onto a flat stone. There was the quiet, but unmistakable sound of pottery cracking.
“Damnit, do I have to watch you every second?”
“I’m sorry, alright? We can pick up a new one in Ark.”
“Yeah, and you’re paying for it.”
The look of weary exasperation that Finn gave him spoke volumes, and despite his irritation, Carbos could not suppress a faint smirk. His path-abiding companion might rarely use obscenities, but it was entirely transparent when he meant them. That look said ‘bullshit’ clear as day.
Before he could reply, a strangled cry interrupted them. The stray, all but forgotten in the brief commotion, lay sprawled on his back in the dirt, wide-eyed and gasping for breath.
“What the hell is wrong with him now?”
Finn was already dropping to his knees beside him and Carbos stepped in closer, clutching his sword hilt. “Blazes, be careful, will you? They say their eyes don’t go red until the very end.”
“Carbos.” And that look said ‘shut the fuck up.’
Carbos crossed his arms, glaring sullenly at them both. The boy was gibbering. He couldn’t make out half of what he said, but he appeared to be calming at least. Finn had a knack for that.
“Explosion?” he heard Finn repeat, “No, the still just overheated, that’s all. No harm done.”
Carbos gave a bark of laugher. “That would have been something, wouldn’t it? Finn Dalires, died 8234. Cause of death: exploding still.”
Finn ignored him, helping the boy back to a sitting position and returning to their makeshift workbench. He was working more slowly than he had been a moment ago, Carbos noted, favoring his right hand.
“What’s wrong?”
“Delirious, I expect. Though the onset seems rather sudden for--” Finn reached for an empty cup and nearly dropped it, snatching his hand back with a stifled hiss of pain.
“With your hand, you idiot!” Carbos caught his wrist before he could turn away, turning it palm upward. In the light cast by the fire it was possible to see the discoloration of burns on the fingers. Not serious, not even enough to blister, but certainly painful.
“It’s fine. A foolish mistake. The cloth was still wet from the rain when I used it to move the still.”
Carbos’ hold on his hand lingered for several heartbeats before releasing. “It’s a bloody miracle you’re still alive, you know that?”
“How could I forget? With you here to constantly remind me.” Finn turned back to the bench with a show of mild exasperation. He added just enough water to the mixture in the mortar to make a paste, and then more to dilute it further, pouring the draught into a cup for the stranger.
Carbos snorted as he bent to rummage through his satchel and quickly withdrew a small, stoppered pot of salve which he set down on the bench. “Stop fussing over the stray and see to your hand. I’ll get the food ready.”
But as he began to turn back to the fire, something flickered at the edge of his vision and he stopped, peering into the dark. “Did you see that?”
“What?”
“I thought I saw a light. Just for a moment. On the other side of the river.” He moved to the edge of the firelight, willing his eyes to adjust to the dark. Nothing moved on the far bank. The only sound was the rush of water and the distant roar of the dam.
He must have imagined--
The first arrow struck him in the chest. He fell to his knees, fingers clutching uncomprehendingly at the wooden shaft protruding from his breast.
“Finn?” The word sounded wet and tasted like copper. “Finn, I --” He was choking on the words. Each breath was agony. Hands caught him before he could topple forward, holding him. Someone was shouting. Finn. But his voice was strange.
Across the river there was another flicker of light. He never felt the blast.
