21. Of Mice and Men
The burning pain in her chest drove her awake yet again. The world was dark and something warm and hard was pressed against her, putting pressure on her wound. She heard harsh, ragged breathing and realized it was her own.
She tried to push the offending weight away, and found herself perilously weak. Frustration built first as the pain intensified. Then she felt fear rising. But even as she struggled, the unexpected emotions filled her. Helplessness and fear rose in her, until at last she turned the corner down into the depths of despair. She was going to die there in the darkness, alone and helpless.
A sob broke from her, as misery descended in the wake of the despair. The weight lifted instantly and the sound of movement was followed by a blazing flare of light that drove into her brain like a dagger.
"Sherry? What's wrong?" Alistair's voice sounded from somewhere in the blinding brilliance.
"Light. Hurts." It came out as a whisper, all she could conjure. The light was gone instantly. One of her precious few remaining matches flared and the flickering light of the even more precious candle flickered in the darkness, limning Alistair's face in a pale glow. "Something was crushing me," she whispered to him. "It frightened me."
He looked guilty and she wondered.
"I'm sorry. I fell asleep with my arm across you."
"Hurts," she whispered to him. "Chest burns."
"It's getting worse," Alistair told her. "But we have an idea. We might be able to save you—"
"I feel different."
"Gomer Pyle was drugging you." He looked frustrated. "I stopped him."
"Thank you. Now I'm in withdrawal, though. I'm going to need—"
She was cut off as Jesse barged into the room, his form waving eerily in the candlelight. "Everything okay?" he demanded.
"I'm in a lot of pain," Sherry answered. "But I'm okay. I need a shake. Two eggs, orange juice, and the red powder in the blue jar—"
"Got it," Jesse darted out the door before she could even finish.
Alistair started to follow him, but Sherry called for him. He tucked his head back in. "Don't let Jesse help…" he agreed in that sort of offhand fashion that told her he hadn't listened, "… he's color blind." She finished after he had gone, certain that she shouldn't take more than the tiniest sip of the resulting shake until she was sure they'd gotten it right.
A few minutes later, after much arguing from the other room, and new voices being awakened by the fuss, they returned. She almost laughed, as they pushed each other jostled to be the first in the room to tell her the deed was completed. It was endearing—if childish.
She took the smallest sip of the drink as it was offered to her. She made a face, unsurprised yet still disappointed. She glared at Alistair. "You let him make it, didn't you?"
He protested, but looked guilty. She handed him the drink. "Jesse first." She waved her hand at him. "Go ahead, take a big drink." He looked mutinous, and she told him, "I can still kick your ass, Jesse. Later. But I won't forget."
He took a drink of the concoction and coughed viciously. "Aaaah! That's hot!"
"Now you," Sherry told Alistair. When he looked mutinous as well, she told him, "You let him help after I specifically told you not to." He still looked unhappy but took a much smaller sip of the drink. At the look on his face, she said, "Try again, with the red powder, not the dark brown cayenne pepper…"
A few minutes later, they were back, both much subdued. She drank the Philosopher's Stone shake and sank back against the bed, angry with the physician. As well as amused at Alistair having called him 'Gomer Pyle', for some reason she couldn't quite place. It wasn't as if he understood the reference.
Time passed and she floated in and out of consciousness, each time looking over to see someone sitting with her. Alistair, Jesse, even Callbrith put in an appearance. Each time she woke enough to do so, when she wasn't befuddled and confused from withdrawals, she got another shake.
She had no idea how long it took, but eventually she felt only the deepening pain of her wound, the peculiar longing for something she couldn't place, and the overwhelming sense of dread at the thought of dying with so much unfinished.
She eventually sat up and pulled open her shirt, since the unfamiliar mage sitting with her was both female and asleep. Vicious black striations ran out from the wound in her chest, which had torn loose from the stitches again and gaped grotesquely. Rib bones protruded obscenely from the rotted, greenish wound. But the smell that accompanied gangrene was not present, and the muscles beneath the rotting flesh looked bright, although blackened.
She was repelled by it, yet not. Almost as if something deep in her mind whispered that at last she was becoming what she'd always been meant to be. That soon she would be free and would never fear death again.
A scowl flickered across her face. She had only begun to fear death recently. Almost as if it weren't her own thought. She sensed that distant mind still, and heard its frustration. She had hit on something… but the sensation flickered away and she felt suddenly schizophrenic. What was she thinking? Was she going crazy? Another mind in hers? She shook her head and laid back on the pillow.
When she woke again, Alistair was there.
"Sherry, I don't think we can wait any longer. We're going to put you through the Joining. There's only enough for two people. It could save you from the taint, which is getting worse. Slower now than before, but still—"
"What's 'the Joining'?" she interrupted him.
"You'll be a Gray Warden…" he looked away.
"…if I survive," she finished for him.
He had the grace to look guilty. "It's the only way."
"No." The rebellion against it came from some place deep within her. Someplace far, far beneath the other presence.
"You'll die," he told her. "You might die anyway, but it's the only hope you have."
"The red powder. Triple the amount you put into the shake. Bring me one every hour," she argued. "It will heal me."
He lowered his face into his hands. "One day. If it's worse tomorrow morning, do the Joining?"
The desperation in his voice and his body thrummed through her with a deep pain, as if it were her own. Certain that the Philosopher's Stone could undo what was happening in her body, she reluctantly agreed. All of her 'voices' were silent, yet she felt the overwhelming disapproval of both of the other presences that seemed to be communicating with her.
She tried not to care, but was strangely pained by their censure. Yet the look of relief and hope on Alistair's face eased the pain of their rejection.
For the rest of the day, they brought her Philosopher's Stone each hour. The next morning, the encroaching taint had moved. Barely, but certainly. A frisson of fear ran up her spine. She couldn't imagine how such a thing were possible. It had never failed her before. Even Alistair was now fully restored without even a trace of scarring.
Yet it was leaving her to die to the taint of Darkspawn.
He carried her out of her home the next morning. She refused to hold the ritual in her home. If she was going to die, she told him, it was going to be in the sunshine, under an open sky. And not leaving the energy of death behind in her home, a place of sanctuary and peace.
Riordan was brought out as well, and he gave instructions from the pallet he was lying on.
When instructed to do so, Sherry drank from the old, cracked wine glass they used as a chalice. Jesse had drank before her, and survived, so she figured her odds were pretty decent.
But as the strangely exotic, sweet liquid slid down her throat, she felt agony scream through every part of her body as her flesh was peeled away and fire flared against every raw, exposed nerve.
She shrieked in her unspeakable pain, and then felt something horrific lurch and slide inside her belly, as if she were pregnant with a thousand vipers. Vomit swelled and then burst from her. It was all she could do to roll over and let it spew instead of choking her.
Beside her, she distantly sensed the shock and distress of the people around her. Then she looked up into the face of the dragon-woman, Flemeth.
"Fools! What have you done?"
"The Joining—" Sherry heard Alistair begin, but another brutal bout of vomiting overtook her and she felt herself being torn in two as the vile horrors in her stomach sought escape from the life-giving force of the Philosopher's Stone.
"You can't make the Keeper into a Warden, foolish boy!"