16. No Turning Back
My quiet conversation with Eth hadn”t been quiet enough, apparently.
”Come here, girl,” the Hag said as we joined her and Gingel. I thought to correct her, wondering if I had given her my name, but it seemed a trivial matter now.
”Do you need my help?” I asked.
”No.” She continued to move around, setting up whatever it was she was preparing.
I stood there, waiting, not sure if I should leave her to it or ask more questions. I certainly didn”t want to risk her changing her mind if I somehow gave her offense. I glanced back at Eth.
”You can see it, can”t you girl?”
My heart pounded for two beats. How could she...could she see him?
”Yes, I know it”s here,” the Hag answered my question before I formed it.
”Can you see him, too? What does he look like to you?” I asked. She didn”t answer, just scrunched her bulbous nose in a way that made me feel only a little foolish.
”You shouldn”t converse with those. No good will come of it. Just let it be. If this works, it will be your thread it will take.” I nodded.
”I”m aware. He”s actually been quite helpful.”
”He? Helpful?”
”Yes, does he not look like a man to you?”
Perplexed, the old woman stopped her preparations and stared in Eth”s direction.
”I see no man, a shade, a shimmer, but no man. Does it show itself as a man to you?”
The Hag was clearly intrigued now. It seemed a strange thing that I knew more about it than the woman who could steal sickness from one and shove it upon another. I wondered if I should gift her with this esoteric information or keep it to myself.
What harm could there be in telling?
”They call themselves ”guides,” and they were all once men and women. He didn”t always show himself as a man. I”m not sure he shows himself as anything, on purpose anyway. But he has changed in appearance. He was frightening at first, but now he appears nearly human.”
”Hmm.”
That”s it? I impart mystical secrets of the afterlife, and all she can say is, ”Hmm?”
I stifled a laugh as I shook my head.
”That”s a rare gift, girl. A shame you couldn”t do something useful with it.”
”Like you? Making coin off a unique skill? Not sure what good it would be to tell someone that their death stalked them. Seems like I”d get a beating instead of payment.”
”Yes, perhaps it is for the best,” she said as she finished setting the strange stones in the stranger objects.
”So how can you see him, or whatever it is you see over there?”
”I”m a great deal older than you think, child. I”ve been cheating my own death for a few centuries now, transferring my illness to others. Perhaps when you cheat them, they start looking harder for you. But they haven”t gotten my thread just yet. I wonder if they can see me at all. Maybe I”ll never die.”
”We can see you well enough, old woman.”
Eth”s voice was a low, rumbling chastisement. The Hag jerked, startled, gasping as she did. He stood very near to her, looming, the shadow of a furrowed brow hinting at his forehead. But there was a curl to the side of his mouth. A smirk? At this moment, he was the hunter, and she was the prey. He leaned down near her ear and whispered.
”No one escapes their thread forever.”
The Hag worked with a quickened pace and renewed focus after Eth shattered her misconception. I tried my best to calm her, assuring her that he would be gone once the thread was spent. She all but ignored me.
Arit joined us just as the Hag curtly directed me to lay on my back next to Gingel on the large slab table, the opposite direction, positioning my lower leg alongside her crushed limb. I did as I was told. Arit helped me remove my boots, and I rolled my breeches up as high on my leg as I could.
Muttered chant-like utterings from the Hag were the only sound in the cave now. She slathered a burnt-smelling paste over my leg, from mid-thigh to big toe, repeating the process on Gingel.
Dutiful to my instructions, I fought the urge to sit up and observe the strange device”s application. My eyes closed, and my mind navigated by feel. She was strapping one thing to my leg and the other to Gingel”s, or that was the assumption. I surmised the devices were the conduit of the transference.
Questions were brewing in my thoughts, but I suppressed them. There was no need to know anything anymore. Trying to distract myself, I focused on my breathing to no avail. I opened my eyes.
Eth stood two paces away now, his eyes locked on me, his face still and serene. I opened my hand next to me. As quick as a gliding felding hawke, he was beside me, looking down at me as his hand settled into mine. My eyes stayed on his.
The Hag hadn”t mentioned if the process would hurt, but I couldn”t help but believe that it would. Eth believed it would. Certainly, Gingel”s condition would be excruciating by now. I steeled myself, determined to outlast whatever came next.
If I had a hundred years to steel myself, I would not have been prepared.
”Hold her down.”
Arit braced himself upon me, his hands set just above my knees. I expected a warning, more instructions, something. Anything.
I received nothing.
The chanting amplified, her voice now booming, vibrations filling the room. The air in my lungs turned to water, drowning me.
Oh gods, what have I done??!
Pain.No, more than pain. Pain could be handled, one might negotiate with pain. Every fiber, every ounce of blood and flesh twisted and reversed its natural state. My limb cracked and split, rearranged and reassembled.
I pressed a hand over my mouth, my very soul slamming itself against it, a shriek straining to escape. My suffering was impossible to comprehend. Thousands of gnashing insects tore at my flesh, devouring. Wild harounds ripping muscle and skin off bone. Invisible hands pulled my head back, my mind thrashing against the agony. I couldn”t feel Eth, unable to tell if I still held on to him.
Arit pressed down with his entire weight on my legs to keep them still. An anguished sob echoed off the rock walls, but it wasn”t mine. My hands fell away as I lost all control over my body, my breath drawn from me in a keening wail, the essence of all I was spilling onto the floor. I lay paralyzed, mouth agape, eyes unable to close, lungs unwilling to fill. Blackness rose up to claim me.
And I welcomed it.