Chapter Eleven: In which our heroine wakes up, our hero has yet another unfortunate conversation, and is forced to rely, yet again, on the kindness of evil.
About a thousand years later, Serafin woke up.
Her ribcage felt as if ogres had been dancing on it, but her lungs were clear.
She'd been wandering in painful darkness for a minor eternity, lost without any sense of which way to go, or even if there was someplace she should be going. She had wanted, more than anything, to lie down and not move again, in hopes that the pain would go away and the fear would go away, and there would be nothing left but the dark.
But there was a voice, and it wouldn't let her stop moving.
It was not the sort of voice one usually followed. It was not loving or kind or heroic. It was…rather thin and nasal, actually, and it really had a grudge against her uncle Duncan.
"…and then I had to clean out all twenty barrels, and did he thank me? He most certainly did not!..."
It seemed to Serafin that she ought to recognize that voice, but for some reason it eluded her.
"…always the insults, viper this and snake that…"
Still, while she might have been able to ignore a normal voice, there was something about this one that cut through the dark like a buzzsaw. Ignoring it was not an option. She followed it instead, because she didn't know what else to do.
"…and why is it always snakes? Do I hiss? I do not. My elocution is exquisite. I do not slur, I do not stutter, and I most certainly do not hiss…"
Eventually it started talking in Elvish. She still didn't know what it was saying…probably more about Duncan. What was the elven word for "degenerate barkeep" anyway?
The dark went on and on, and the voice went on and on. Serafin realized after awhile that there was no more pain, but she kept following the voice anyway, until she passed at last out of the darkness and into normal sleep.
She thought she was awake now, but it was hard to tell.
It's awfully dark.
Possibly if you opened your eyes, it wouldn't be.
She considered this novel suggestion for a few minutes, then pried one eyelid open.
Oh. Huh. How 'bout that?
She was in a dimly lit room, in bed. There was a fire to her right, and she was very warm…some kind of hearth, apparently. The room smelled like herbs and baking, and the walls were hung with faces—no, with masks. That was less creepy. Marginally, anyway.
I suppose it's possible this is the afterlife…
The afterlife probably would not have included straw poking into her from the rather roughly made pallet.
I appear to be alive.
I did not think that would happen.
"Hey," she said, just to see if she could. "I'm alive."
Something stirred at her elbow. It was either a brown mop, or…"Sand?"
The elf lifted his head. He'd apparently fallen asleep at her bedside, which Serafin would have found touching, except that he looked like—like—
"Sand, you look like hammered shit."
"A flattering analogy, to be sure." His voice was a hoarse rasp. "Not without a certain accuracy, however."
His face was so drawn that he could have passed for undead, and while he'd cleaned the blood off his hands, his hair was still in stiffly dried spikes. The circles under his eyes would have done a raccoon proud.
She glanced down, and discovered that he had his fingers curled around her wrist, a gesture less tender than clinical, since she was pretty sure he was monitoring her pulse.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Better than you look. Where are we?"
"I suspect you are happier not knowing."
She exhaled. Her lungs felt oddly raw, almost as if she'd been running, but her breath didn't catch. "Probably, but you better tell me anyway."
"We're at a shrine to Mask."
"Whoa." She considered this for a moment, tilting her head back. "That would probably explain all these masks, huh?"
"I am pleased to see that your grasp of the obvious has survived unharmed. Before you ask, the cleric is a friend of Bishop's."
"Of course. So…Casavir's dead, then?"
"Merely wishing he was."
"Did they fix you up, too?"
"I was not wounded." He sat up, running a hand self-consciously through his hair, which only made things worse. "I believe most of this blood is yours."
"Oh. Well, you can keep it. What time is it?"
He got the vague, listening look that elves got when they were off communing with the stars or whatever it was they did. "It would appear to be about two hours after midnight."
"Have you been sitting there the whole time?"
"Once the healer was done, yes." He looked faintly embarrassed. "I had to be certain she would not ruin my handiwork, after all."
Awww. He really does care, even if he'd rather eat rat poison than admit it.
Serafin found a smile somewhere. "Thought vigils were for paladins."
"He's outside the door." Sand jerked his chin toward the door, looking mildly disgusted. "He cannot bear to be inside. Evil makes him uncomfortable."
"Lotta evil, then?"
"In a peculiar form, yes. It bakes cookies. And it healed you."
"Ah." She considered this. Her memories of the last battle were patchy, but she had a pretty clear memory of Sand, sunk to the wrist in gore, that did not seem like a hallucination. "I seem to remember you….there was a…you had your hands…okay, what exactly did you do?"
"Oh, you know. The impossible." He shrugged.
"Yes, I gathered that. What specific impossibility?"
"Applying potions directly to damaged internal organs."
Serafin took a moment to get her head around this. It would take a mind as methodical and a stomach as strong as Sand's to even try such a thing, let alone succeed. "Good gods. Have you done that before?"
"No." He gazed up at the ceiling. "I happened to read a book on the theory recently."
She chuckled. It hurt, but it was a massive-bruises kind of hurt, not a ruptured-spleen kind of hurt. "Sand?"
"Mmm?"
"Next time Qara makes a snide remark about books, you have my permission to disintegrate her."
He smiled. His eyes were starting to close from sheer exhaustion.
"And…thanks."
The sheer desperate inadequacy of the word was almost funny.
He shrugged. His eyes were still closed, but the fingers around her wrist tightened.
She tried moved her hand, and was pleased to see that she could. She made use of this newfound ability to pat his arm.
"I heard your voice, you know. In the dark. I didn't know it was you, but I followed it anyway."
He opened his eyes again. They seemed to glow in the reflected firelight. "I was talking to you. I didn't know if you could hear me, but I thought…" He rubbed a hand over his face. "I don't know what I thought."
"Apparently that Duncan's a right bastard."
"Well, that, yes."
She took pity on him."Go to bed, Sand."
"I don't require much sleep."
"You require a lot of it right now. Go to bed. I'm not dying anymore."
He nodded slowly, and pushed himself to his feet. For once she had no trouble believing that he was four hundred years old.
He stood looking down at her, and shook his head. She could guess pretty well what he was thinking.
"Sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time…"
His lip curled. "You do realize that you are not immortal?"
"What, really? Crap, that explains some things…" She propped herself up on an elbow, wincing as her ribs twinged, but she gave him a tired grin anyway.
Sand shook his head.
"Im melant le," he muttered. She didn't understand it, but since it had the same intonation as some of Bishop's favorite phrases, she could take a guess.
"You kiss your mother with that mouth?"
Sand snorted. "Fine, I'm going. Try not to die in my absence."
"I promise nothing."
He glanced around, and saw no one in the room. Mother Haggard and Ammon Jerro had retired hours ago, and presumably the ranger as well.
Sand leaned forward to press a kiss briefly to her forehead. "Idiot girl," he muttered against her skin.
Serafin was used to such endearments, and only chuckled. The fire cast a flickering, stoop-shouldered shadow across the wall as he left, and she craned her neck to watch him go.
p
p
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Sand closed the door behind him, heard it click, and sagged back against it in exhaustion, one hand over his eyes.
She was alive. She was alive, and she'd grinned at him, and he'd said…he'd told her…
I can't believe I said that.
Oh, well, at least she's got no idea what it meant.
He wondered if anyone else in the history of the world had said "I love you," and gotten "You kiss your mother with that mouth?" as a rejoinder.
Typical. Entirely typical.
Anyway, it wasn't as if he really loved her or anything. He just…felt better for having said it, that was all. If she died, he wouldn't have to feel guilty now.
Perfectly reasonable, I'm sure.
He dropped his hand, suddenly smelling something familiar and unwelcome.
Bishop was standing about five feet away, watching him and smiling.
Oh, sweet Mystra. I don't need this right now…
"Now who would've thought?" The ranger padded closer. The room was dimly lit, and through the far doorway, Sand could glimpse beds. They looked very inviting.
"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm sure." Bishop was between him and the beds. Sand did not appreciate that at all.
"Sure you don't." There was a feral light in the ranger's eyes. "You're such a cold fish…I would never have guessed. Hell, I kinda thought the paladin was more your type, if you know what I mean."
Sand decided not to dignify that with a response.
"You must know you've got no chance, a sniveling little worm like you. Must be why you never said anything."
First I'm a snake, then I'm a fish, now I'm a worm. I seem to be sliding down the evolutionary ladder. Next week Khelgar will accuse me of being a gelatinous cube…
"How long have you been carrying that torch, huh?"
Great. If he thinks we're going to start putting on the Traveling Ranger, Paladin & Wizard Show, he's got a disintegrate coming…once I can think straight enough to cast.
He dredged up the energy to speak. "Go and goad the paladin if you must. I have neither the strength nor the inclination for this."
Bishop did not back down.
Oh, lovely, he's prepared a speech. I suppose I'll just have to sit through it.
"Now, the paladin's hot for her sense of honor, and I've always been fond of women who can kill their way through a room. But you…I've been trying to figure out what you want with our fine captain."
"At the moment, I want sleep above all else." He tried to pass, and Bishop blocked his path again.
Sand knew full well that he couldn't outmuscle the ranger, and he didn't have a spell to his name at the moment. He sighed and resigned himself.
"And you know, I think it must be power. That's the only thing that makes sense."
Sand sighed.
He's not going to go away. He loves resistance. Might as well try a different tactic.
"Yes. You've guessed it. I'm passionately in love with our glorious leader because I secretly hope she can get me a better alchemy lab."
Bishop looked faintly nonplussed.
"I look at her and think of acids, bases, and glassware. It drives me to madness. Beakers haunt my dreams. I can practically taste the reagents. Now, may I please pass? I am exhausted beyond all reason."
"This isn't over, elf."
"If you wish to castigate me while I sleep, you are more than welcome to do so. I will attempt to snore at the appropriate moments."
He detoured around Bishop. The ranger narrowed his eyes, but did not try to stop him.
"But you are in love with her."
Why do people keep asking me that? There are armies of githyanki and undead and the gods know what else roaming the landscape, and all anybody worries about is the Captain's love life.
And more specifically, why do rangers keep asking me that? Did their union send out a memo?
"No more than you are, my good ranger."
Bishop snorted.
"Watch yourself, wizard."
"Around you? Always."
Sand passed through the doorway, and found a row of beds. A dark shape in one was Ammon Jerro. The warlock slept with his eyes open, which had been alarming the first time Sand saw it, but now merely made him wonder how the man's eyes didn't dry out overnight.
He glanced behind him, but Bishop had melted away into the shadows.
Would Bishop try and kill me overnight?
Here? Maybe. The cleric will hardly stop him, and the paladin is outside. Serafin is in no shape to come to my rescue.
He had to sleep. If he didn't lie down soon, he was going to fall down. The catnap he'd caught at Serafin's bedside was hardly enough to sustain him.
He sighed.
And once again, there's only one person left to trust…
Sand reached over and shook Ammon Jerro's shoulder.
The warlock was silent for a long moment, and then a surprisingly powerful hand snapped up and caught the elf's wrist.
"Are we under attack?"
Sand pulled his hand away and slipped it into his sleeve. "No. However, I am concerned."
The warlock frowned, lifting his head. Burning eyes stabbed at Sand. "The cleric's not going to kill us all in our beds without showing us etchings of her grandchildren first."
"No. I am more concerned that Bishop will attempt to kill me in my sleep."
He waited for Ammon Jerro to ask why, but the warlock had either already figured it out, or more likely, didn't care.
"Nnngh. Fine." The warlock dropped his head back to the pillow and gestured with one hand.
Something elongated and shadowy coalesced from the darkness lurking in the corners of the room. Empty eyes stared at the warlock, and it bowed low before him, a tattered scarecrow of black on black on black.
"…masssster…?"
"Keep an eye on the wizard. Don't let anybody kill him. If anybody tries, wake me up."
"…I obey, masssster…."
Sand settled slowly onto his bed. The shadow drifted to the foot of the bed, folded its arms across its breast, and stood as patiently as a stone.
It was more than a little creepy, and yet, for the second time in one day, Sand found himself being grateful for the kindness of evil.
"Thank you," he said to Ammon Jerro.
"Mmm." The warlock pulled his cowl down, and apparently went back to sleep.
Another time, Sand might have found it difficult to sleep with the shadowy sentinel at the foot of his bed, and yet he was unconscious the moment his head touched the pillow.
