Chapter 35 #3
“Okay, then.”
The next few flights of stairs were, frankly, hellish. The Dervish’s only consolation was that if he had nightmares about them, they might displace some of the other things he had nightmares about. It would be good to have some variety.
At the eighth or the tenth or the hundredth landing, they had to stop. The Dervish’s body simply couldn’t go any farther without a rest. He lowered Edmund to the floor and slid down beside him until they both had their backs against the wall.
“This is awful,” he said, after a few minutes.
Edmund’s laugh was more like a series of dry clicks. “Glad you said it. Didn’t want … to complain…”
The Dervish offered him the waterskin, then drank himself. “The others are waiting for us outside.”
“Others?”
“Zale. Halla. Dog Violet. Sarkis.”
“Sarkis?”
“Yeah, well. Remember what I said about realizing I couldn’t change the past by killing someone?”
Edmund’s smile was genuine, though tinged with pain. “Proud of you.”
“If we start talking about feelings again, I’m going to throw myself down the stairs.” The Dervish got to his feet, aware of each individual muscle and how much it hated him. “Come on. We’ve got to keep going.”
They kept going.
It was awful.
The stairs were not particularly even and some of them were deeper than others.
The Dervish banged his shins so many times that he stopped noticing.
He had reached that peculiar stage of misery where one comes out the other side and becomes almost maniacally cheerful.
Unfortunately Edmund was also flagging, and had started to drift, both mentally and physically.
“Stay with me, Edmund.”
“Nnnn…”
The Dervish put his foot on the next step and hauled Edmund with him. “Tell me about the tree.”
“… the tree…?”
“The one you’re not supposed to piss on. The tropical one.” Another step.
Edmund’s breathing slowed, and for a moment the Dervish was afraid he’d lost consciousness.
But then he said, slowly, “The manchineel. Yes. It only grows on the islands … south of Delta.” He swallowed noisily.
“If you stand under it … when it rains … the water runs through the leaves and gives you … a rash … causes lesions…”
“Good, good. Are there any other trees like that?”
“… Giant … hogweed. Looks like a … wild carrot … ten feet tall … if you touch it … more lesions…”
“Lesions for everybody,” the Dervish said. “What else?”
“The blight … causes … causes…”
Edmund fell silent for too long and the Dervish stopped, turning Edmund’s face toward his. The scholar’s eyelids fluttered. His pupils were gigantic, the iris a thin brown ring around the edges.
“Come on, stay with me. Another step. Please, Edmund.”
The last time he’d begged for anything, it was for the pain to stop. The mad thought went through his mind that he would have taken any amount of pain if it meant getting Edmund out of here alive.
Perhaps Edmund heard him, or perhaps it was the ancestors having pity on their wayward child. Edmund staggered up another step, then another.
“Nearly there,” the Dervish said, although he had no idea how close they actually were to the top. “Tell me about the blight.”
“… Blight. It’s not … not…”
“Not what?”
“… a disease…”
“No, it isn’t,” the Dervish said. “It’s an allergy. You’re the one who found that out, aren’t you?”
Edmund mumbled something.
“Didn’t quite hear that.”
“Fast … very fast. Runaway. The healers said … said it was … like a cascade … if you were … susceptible.” It took him several tries to get susceptible out, and then he fell silent.
“Keep talking to me. What would happen to them?” The Dervish was only half listening, trying to get his feet on the next step without falling over.
“Everything … fell apart. Systems. Organs. Skin gets … holes … terrible. Terrible. Most people don’t … get it … though.”
“That’s good, that’s very good. And nobody knows what they’re allergic to, right?”
He reached the next landing and let Edmund lean against the wall. The scholar’s eyes were rolling in his head. The Dervish pulled out his waterskin and wetted Edmund’s lips. If I give him too much, he’ll probably choke to death, and wouldn’t that be ironic right now?
“Come on,” he said, after they had rested for bare moments. “We don’t have much time.” He put his shoulder under Edmund’s arm and began staggering forward again.
They’d gone on for perhaps five minutes when Edmund said, quite clearly, “It’s a lie.”
“What’s a lie?”
“I know.”
The Dervish stared up the next flight of steps. Where was the top? Was there even a top? How tall was this hill, anyway? “What do you know?”
“I know what they’re allergic to.”
The Dervish paused, gazing into the scholar’s face. Edmund flopped his head to one side, looking back. “It’s a ssssecret,” he told the Dervish solemnly. “So don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” the Dervish promised. He had a sense that he was on the edge of learning something earth-shattering, something he probably didn’t want to know, but he did not dare tell Edmund to stop talking.
“It’s gnoles,” said Edmund, and fainted dead away.