18. The Rain Path

In the morning, he may have felt full of energy and healthy, but after noon, he relapsed and went back to his coughing fits. Around twilight, he suffered fits of faintness so strong that, when Fayrah came to call him to eat dinner, he assured her that he wasn’t hungry and was not going to move. She made as if to comment something, but before her brother’s imperious look, she just said in a mild voice:

“Get some rest, brother.”

Dashvara closed the book he was holding. It dealt with the security measures the Senate had taken during the past century. It spoke about weapons licenses in the urban area and about hygiene rules to fight against rabies transmitted by rodents called sirelokes. Then it talked about the serious danger that the creatures coming from the desert of Bladhy were posing on the east border. The Dazbonish guards repelled every invasion of scale-nefarious, stopped aggressive orc tribes, and fought obstinately against the red nadres, which they also called “budrays”. Living in a land rich in resources had its advantages but also its disadvantages: everyone envied them, including the ever evilest creatures in Hareka.

Dashvara let out a sigh. His chest was a mess, and his throat was on fire. He didn’t manage to get rid of the blood metallic taste. As the light shining through the window wasn’t enough to read on, he had lit a candle, and even so his eyes got closed involuntarily.

I’d better recover, because if I’m going to be in this state for all my life, it will be kind of hard to stand myself.

He heard voices inside the house, and thinking better of it, he felt the need to join the others. Perhaps Rowyn was telling a story about the shepherd Bramanil and his cat. He sat up, more cheerful, and… an uncontrollable coughing fit shook all his body.

“Damn it,” he panted when it stopped.

He was clenching his fists, and he would have gladly freed himself of the coughing with some punches if only it had been possible. He heard a creaking, and the door opened. There was nobody in the doorway. Dashvara peered into the shadows.

“Fayrah?”

A soft voice answered:

‘It’s me—Tahisran. I bring you a remedy.’

The shadow moved forward in the room, a glass in his hand. The glass was flying. Flying… held just with some shadows.

Dashvara was a steppe warrior, and as befitted a steppe warrior, he wasn’t scared of a lot of things that would have turned the most valiant republican pale white. But seeing a shadow holding a glass… that was more than his mind was able to tolerate.

When Tahisran handed him the glass, Dashvara cringed back to the other side of the bed and jumped to his feet.

“Don’t approach.” His voice trembled. “You… er, you wait for me to calm down, okay?” They both waited some seconds in silence, and finally, Dashvara, not feeling the slightest relieved, spoke again with a tone of disbelief: “You have brewed this… for me?”

The shadow nodded, laid the glass on the bedside table, and turned to close the door while explaining:

‘Long ago, I was a disciple in the Gon School, in the Republics of Fire. I am not an endarsic celmist, I specialized in perceptism, but I know some tricks. My master suffered a cough similar to yours, and this remedy relieved him a lot.’

Never in his life had Dashvara heard of the Gon School, but naturally, as far as he knew, the Republics of Fire were far, far away from Dazbon, beyond the Desert of Bladhy. Dashvara shyly went closer to the small table.

“How do you do that?” he asked.

‘You mean the potion? The main ingredient is a plant with white flowers. A kalrea. I add a thimbleful of brulic energy. Drink up. It will soothe your cough,’ the shadow assured.

Dashvara swallowed saliva, sat down on the bed, near the glass, and he was going to take it when he confessed:

“I wasn’t talking about the potion. What I wanted to know was how do you do to hold a glass with your hands… Well, they are made of shadows, aren’t they?”

Dashvara clearly perceived Tahisran’s playful smile.

‘I am not only shadows, human. I am a shadow.’

Dashvara raised an eyebrow.

“Ah.” He paused. “That explains everything. So you expect me to drink this and to trust you not to poison me, huh?”

Tahisran nodded again, and Dashvara noted irony when it added:

‘After all, you are already poisoned.’

Reminding him of it wasn’t very kind, Dashvara thought, sighing. Deciding not to think more over the strange gift, he seized the glass and quaffed the contents. It not only smelled of kalrea—it also had its taste. Barely had he laid the glass back onto the table when a strong shiver went down his spine, and his teeth began to chatter. His sight darkened; his heart pounded, out of control… Fighting to stay conscious, Dashvara roared.

“You’ve poisoned me!”

The shadow took a pace forward with a surprised look.

‘That is not normal,’ it pondered. ‘You should be sleeping placidly now. It used to have marvelous effects on my master…’

Dashvara opened his mouth, sneezed, and a darting pain ran through his whole body, followed by an explosion of blind fury. He looked up at the shadow with a terrible glare.

“You’re a dead shadow… You’re going to pay for that!” he thundered.

Dashvara staggered to his feet and lunged at the shadow. This one slipped away, and Dashvara smashed into the wall like a berserk bull. Dismissing the throbbing pain that was running through him like an acid arrow, he spun around, and he was just about to charge again when the door burst open and Rowyn and the others rushed into the room, yelling.

Dashvara felt just as if an ice block had suddenly crushed him. Rowyn’s strong arms forced him not to move, and Dashvara struggled faintly.

“Damned shadow! I’m gonna kill it, Rowyn. I swear I will.”

His eyes were bugged out, and blood was gushing from his mouth—or at least that was the impression he had. The effects of that potion had been too immediate to doubt that it was a coincidence. This shadow had cheated him, telling him silly stories and even managing to make Dashvara feel compassion for it… and now it turned out that it had poisoned him! It had murdered him. Unless it had never existed; unless it had…

Dashvara collapsed, and Rowyn helped him to lie down on the bed.

“It doesn’t seem that he’s healing with time, Duke,” Azune’s gloomy voice commented.

Dashvara feverishly eyed the corners, searching for the shadow. He would have been so happy if only he could have struck it down with just one look!

A beautiful face distorted in worry appeared before his eyes. Dashvara instantly got furious with himself. He just couldn’t leave Fayrah alone now. It would be too ridiculous. He tried to force a smile, and he stretched a hand to take his sister’s.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled. A bloody gargle accompanied his words. Realizing he was lying like a rug, he laughed, and blood flicked in his throat. “I’ve never been better,” he added, laughing and coughing. “Oh, boy… Now I understand. This is the panacea for life, sister: Death.”

A light of fright gleamed in Fayrah’s eyes, and Dashvara, recovering a bit of good sense, upbraided himself severely.

“Don’t mind me, sister. I’m raving. But” —his voice sank to a mere whisper— “if I die, Fayrah, no matter how strong the wind blows, don’t give up the fight…”

* * *

He came back to his senses hours later, in the dead of night, hearing noise around him. Dashvara noticed he was still alive, although he could have sworn that he had died and revived, and even that he had been killed several times. He felt completely oblivious to what was going on around him. Why should he care about what might happen to him if in any case he was dying and reviving, and dying and reviving unceasingly?

Since when do I ask myself such stupid questions? a small voice reasoned in the back of his mind.

Dashvara weakly moved his head.

“He’s awake!” a voice whispered. It was Azune.

Dashvara blinked, and he saw Rowyn kneeling by the bed with a deep wrinkle on his forehead.

“How are you feeling, steppeman?”

“I feel alive, republican,” Dashvara answered. He even frightened himself when he heard his own voice, a mere dying croak.

Rowyn turned to Azune.

“Help me get him up, Azu.”

Dashvara let out a low, surprised grumble when Rowyn helped him to sit up.

“Where do you want me to go, republican?”

“Azu will take you to a healer in Dazbon,” Rowyn answered. “You’ll get in there in two hours at most. You can’t stay here.”

“I can’t?” Dashvara echoed, dizzy. Following an impenetrable reasoning path, he recalled what he had said to Rokuish: ‘A person who doesn’t believe that a feather can fight against the wind will be dragged believing that it’s impossible to fight against the impossible.’

“You mustn’t,” Rowyn affirmed lugubriously. “Otherwise you will die, I’m afraid. The poison is killing you.”

“Which of them?” Dashvara asked, not knowing exactly why.

Rowyn frowned, shook his head, and helped him to stand up.

“Azu, help me…”

“I can walk,” Dashvara protested. “I’m not dead yet.”

Nevertheless, both of the Pearl Brothers helped him shuffle out of the room and then downstairs. Only when they arrived in the living room, Dashvara thought of the shadow. He gave a blazing glare over his shoulder, convinced that the creature was following him, but he saw nothing but darkness. With a sarcastic smile, he flopped down into a chair. Azune was coming back with a pair of scissors, and a puzzled Dashvara stared at her when she handed it to Rowyn.

“Don’t move,” the Duke recommended. “I’m going to cut your beard.”

Dashvara couldn’t but gape at him, and for a moment his mind became sheer lucid.

“What? No way! You won’t touch my beard, republican.”

Rowyn smiled with an appeasing expression.

“They are looking for a steppeman bearded thief, remember? It’s only a disguise. Like I were going to cut your neck!”

Dashvara looked daggers at him, and he swayed to his feet, bracing himself against the table.

“Be more worried I might cut yours,” he growled.

Rowyn’s face paled.

“Azune, please explain it to him.”

The half-elf snorted.

“You explain it to him while I’m giving him a good blow. I don’t want to ride with a madman if he’s awake, Row. Besides, if he has a fit of coughing, we’ll certainly fall off the horse. I’d best travel with him being unconscious.”

Or dead, Dashvara thought. A wave of extreme fatigue came over the Xalya’s heart, and he sadly staggered back to his chair.

“Okay, then. Damned republicans. Cut my beard, and even my arm if you wish. I won’t last much longer anyway—”

“We’ll cut your tongue if you keep on talking,” Azune muttered.

Rowyn got to work. Dashvara was so tired he almost broke down in tears when he saw his splendid beard falling onto the paved floor of the living room. When noticing his distress, Rowyn cleared his throat.

“I’m not cutting it all. I’m just trimming it a bit.”

Dashvara said nothing. At some moment, he coughed, and Rowyn nearly impaled him with his scissors. When he caught sight of a spot of blood upon the republican’s nose, he sighed.

“Sorry. I splashed you.”

Rowyn finished his work before wiping the blood from his face and stretching an arm to Dashvara.

“Up, Lord of the Xalyas. Cheer up: I’m sure you will come out well.”

“We all come out somewhere,” Dashvara whispered, slowly getting up, “but we never know whether dead or alive.”

Rowyn gulped.

“For the Divinity’s sake,” he mumbled, “even Axef beats him at optimism. Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you, Azu?”

“No,” she rejected outright. “You take care of the Xalyas and go to sleep. The steppeman will arrive in Dazbon.”

Dashvara gave a dreadful smile.

“We all arrive. But we never know whether dead or alive.”

Snorting, they made him put some boots on, as well as a thick tunic smelling of lavender, and as they were guiding him outside, Dashvara caught himself thinking about Zaadma and her plants. In the small stable they entered, there were three horses. Azune opened the box occupied by a white mare, and Dashvara looked at it woozily. It looked so much like his father’s. It had the same elegance and the same beauty. But, obviously, it wasn’t the same.

Azune mounted, and they both were going to lift Dashvara when the Xalya pushed them away.

“I will mount on my own,” he affirmed.

He mounted, and he felt so dizzy that he almost fell. Azune firmly helped him stay in his seat, and Dashvara was thankful, for there was no worse humiliation for a Xalya than to fall alone off a horse.

“Take the Rain Path,” Rowyn whispered to Azune. “The caravan will leave tomorrow, and it will arrive around noon. If you want, wait for me on the Dragon Road.”

Azune nodded.

“I’ll be there.”

Rowyn smiled, and he glanced at Dashvara.

“Don’t die too early, boy.”

Dashvara was as stiff as a stick because he was trying to hold back a new coughing fit.

“And you, take care of my people,” he rumbled lowly. “If anything happens to them, you’ll have to deal with me, dead or alive.”

“Stop threatening and try not to fall off the horse,” Rowyn replied with a worried expression.

Dashvara puffed.

“A Xalya… never falls off his horse,” he panted. He didn’t manage to master himself longer—he began to cough like a mad demon, and Azune cursed under her breath.

“He’s going to wake up all the neighbors!”

“May the Pearl protect you!” Rowyn said with a parting gesture, as the half-elf spurred her mount.

They left Rocavita at full gallop, and Dashvara had to cling to Azune not to lose his balance. It seemed to him as if his whole body was turning into a burning sand soup. They galloped for an interminable time on the Dragon Road, only having the stars to guide them. During the journey, Dashvara struggled to keep conscious, and he tried not to stain Azune’s tunic with blood.

The caravan, he told himself after a long silence only interrupted by the thundering clatter of the hooves on the stone. Rowyn had said that the caravan would get into Dazbon the next day. Could it mean it had already arrived in Rocavita? His eyes widened. If so, that meant there were now probably more Xalyas in the Republic of Dazbon than in the steppe.

But this time they will have to free themselves alone, he thought morosely as he opened his eyes wide not to close them forever. Unless I manage to survive.

The only thing he saw when getting into Dazbon was a downing high hill covered with roofs plunged in darkness. He heard a mighty noise when they passed by the Great Cascade, but Dashvara couldn’t see it. Taking a path through a grove of trees, Azune slowed the pace before reaching the first houses.

“How are you going, steppeman?” she asked.

Dashvara was pressing his lips so strongly that, for a moment, he thought he wouldn’t manage to open them. When he did it, he felt a streak of blood flowing out.

“Fine,” he croaked.

In spite of the awful situation, Azune let out a sarcastic chuckle.

“Fine, he says. I bet you would keep saying you’re fine even if three blades were piercing you.”

Dashvara didn’t respond: he had the terrible impression that, if he opened his mouth again, all the blood of his body would flood out like a poisoned cascade.

They got into the city. Dashvara’s foggy mind could only find two adjectives to qualify it: foul-smelling and maze-like. Abruptly, the white horse stopped. Dashvara could feel Azune swinging down from her mount, and as he lost his support, he clung onto the saddle with shaking hands. All he needed now was to fall down and break his head.

Hastily, Azune knocked on a door. This one took a while to open, and when it did, a square of light appeared, and a worried voice could be heard.

“Azune! Dear, what happened?”

“I’m fine, Aydin. It’s my companion. He’s in a very bad way.”

The jerk Dashvara felt at the sound of Aydin’s name turned into a disaster: seized by a new coughing fit, he lost his balance. Azune held him just in time.

“Help me carry him inside,” Aydin said.

Between the ternian and her, they led him into the house, half-conscious. Dashvara finally found himself lying on a bed, with a face floating before his eyes. When he recognized the merchant, his heart twisted.

“I don’t want to be healed by a coward,” he articulated.

Aydin shook his head slightly, and a glint of challenge sparkled in his eyes when he said:

“And I don’t want to heal a fool.”

Dashvara looked him in the eye, and then he smiled… and he fainted.