Thieves' World New Series - Turning Points Part 18

"Are they ever?" Pel asked softly. He reached for a beaker of water. No, not the well water collected in the waning moon-that was to reduce swellings and injuries. The other beaker, that one with the long neck, of running spring water gathered up under the waxing moon. That was for growing and increase.

He splashed some into the mortar and dribbled a pinch of jewelweed powder into the mix. Not too much.

Siggurn watched him work with interest. "You don't make fun of me for my problem. Why not?"

"Why should I?" Pel asked.

"Well, the other healers won't do a thing for me. The herb woman in Prytanis Street said there's people aplenty with genuine ailments. The last thing she wants to spend her skill concocting for is an erection."

Pel shrugged. "I don't mind what anyone asks for, provided they can pay, and they take responsibility for what they do with it. If it puts your body or your mind at ease, so long as you do no harm to others, I have no reason to refuse. I serve." He glanced up at the ruined ceiling. Siggurn's gaze followed his.

"Better not talk that way where anyone else can see you," the carter warned.

The apothecary started. It had just seemed natural to want to pray at that moment. He'd forgotten the penalty, just like that. It was a quick way to get a beating, or catch his death of soldiers. "I was just wondering how you wished to pay this time."

Siggurn shook his big head. "Can't afford it twice so soon. All right, I was a frogging idiot. The tavern girls had a good joke on me. How much do you want? I'll raise it somehow, but I haven't got all of it right now."

Pel let one of his salt-and-pepper eyebrows go up. "Will you trade labor for your potion?"

Siggurn's s.h.a.ggy brows matched his. "Doing what?"

Pel smiled. "Ever put in a roof joist?"

The remote Ilsigi village into which he wandered late at night on the last day he thought he'd live had only about twelve houses made of wattle and daub, set in a long oval about the market place and grazing green. Its wealth was in its goats. Pel didn't know any of that when he arrived there. At the end of hisstrength, too afraid of what he was fleeing to think about where he was going, he collapsed at the gate of one of the houses.

If the old man who found him wondered about the unconscious heap of black cloak he found at his doorstep, or about the heavy tattoos all over the body within or the red stain that covered the arms from elbow to fingertip, he never asked. That was the first gift Loprin gave Pel. He did not push to hear his visitor's name, tale, nor even his voice. A blessing, Pel always thought, because he could not have spoken. The second gift was a bowl of soup, then a blanket and a place to stay. Pel kept count of the gifts. They were the first he had received from outside the sect of the Chaos G.o.ddess since he was a child. He had to fight his impulse to refuse them, coming as they did from a heathen. He recalled that he, too, was now a heathen.

The old man seemed happy for company. He didn't insist that Pel partic.i.p.ate in his prayers or do ch.o.r.es or even talk to him. Food and shelter came with no obligation, something that Pel had never experienced before. Loprin let him sit against the wall with an eye on the door, making sure he was warm enough, dry enough, fed enough, as he went about his daily ch.o.r.es and devotions.

Loprin wors.h.i.+ped Meshpri the Healer. The image on the polished stone altar was that of a slender girl-woman whose mouth was set firm but whose kind, intelligent eyes, older than time, promised mercy.

In her lap was a baby toying with a branch of lignum vitae: Meshnom. Loprin prayed especially during difficult cases. He sacrificed medicines, money, tools and offerings from his patients. The ingredients that went into his medicines were simple: herbs, water or liquor, minerals, bark, but it was the timing of the gatherings, the precision of his actions and instructions, and the deep faith he had in his G.o.d that made Loprin a successful healer. Pel was partly of Ilsig descent, partly not, the usual mongrel mix of Sanctuary's general population. He wondered if Meshpri or her lover-son Meshnom would listen to the pleas of a former murderer and torturer.

Repose and the lack of obligation allowed Pel to take time to think, and heal on his own. After a few weeks of having the blood taint out of his nostrils, Pel began to do ch.o.r.es for Loprin, rising before the dawn to draw water and light the fire. Because his appearance would have been remarked upon, he wore his enveloping cloak and gloves any time he went outside. During the day he cleaned and swept and cooked their simple meals. At night he followed Loprin's instructions on where to hunt for certain herbs and when to gather water from the streams and wells. After two months he found his voice again.

Loprin seemed delighted he had decided to speak. Sensing that Pel didn't want to talk about what had driven him so far into the country, Loprin discussed his craft. He explained the names of all the plants he used: what their purposes were; when in the month, or even the year, one might be used, and how much of a dose to use for what ailments. Pel was interested in it all, but listened most closely to the last.

Adherents of Dyareela abhorred the use of poison. Pel might have rejected everything else the Chaos G.o.ddess stood for, but he felt strongly about that. They talked about the foibles of Loprin's patients, the difficulty of some treatments, and how each bore his suffering and recovery. The old man had responsibility for the well-being of every living creature around him, much like a G.o.d, but he bore it with humility. Pel respected that. Hearing about the problems of others was healing in itself. Listening to Loprin talk he found he cared about the people as much as his mentor did. He wanted them to live and prosper, with all their faults intact that made them so human. He rediscovered compa.s.sion, a sense of humor, and a sense of purpose.

Five months after he had arrived, he asked Loprin to take him as a pupil.

For the first time the old man held back immediate affirmation. "This is a serious thing you ask me," he told Pel. "The most important thing is to harm no one. If a patient is going to die, he will die. You can ease his going, if it is his wish. That is mercy. For the rest, do your best and trust in Meshpri. There willalways be those who blame you for the loss of a loved one, but if you are honest they will understand you could did all you could."

He stayed with Loprin for several years, learning the old man's craft. He had discovered life-oriented G.o.ds to whom he felt he could honestly devote himself, but as it had been Meshpri who had led him to his new life, Pel gave her the greatest devotion. He had traded one G.o.ddess for another, and never regretted it for a moment.

As Loprin's apprentice the villagers had accepted his care, but he knew the robe, mask and gloves frightened them. They needed to see a human face, see human hands giving to them. He wanted to rid himself of the marks of Dyareela that covered his entire body, including his scalp. For that, Loprin explained, they had to turn to the G.o.ds. Still not judging, but with a twinkle in those kind old eyes, he began preparations.

Shaved as bare as a newborn, he lay on Meshpri's altar in the light of the new moon. Every tattoo, every word and number, every sacred whorl and scroll stood out in the silver light. The red on his hands glimmered like blood. The potion Loprin poured into his na-vel had taken many months to prepare. It was cold. Pel felt himself divided into three people: the one on the altar reaching out to his new G.o.ddess and taking everything very seriously, the watcher standing back and trying to save all these strange sensations and thoughts for later, and the little boy, stifled for so long, who wanted to giggle at the whole process.

"Be as a newborn," the healer had intoned. "Unmarked, untouched, at the beginning of your life once more. Clear your heart of what went before. As without, so also within."

Then the pain had begun.

"You should've froggin' asked me to come first," the large young man said to Pel, not for the first time, as he dodged a falling tile. It crashed on the floor between their feet. In spite of the cold of the day he was sweating, having just hauled in half a cart of stone blocks. He raised his voice to shout above the noises of sawing, hammering and talking, the busy sounds of fifteen other people who were present on an Anensday to work off their medical bills.

"Shoring up those pillars, resetting the walls-those ought to be done before anything on the G.o.ds' cursed roof!"

"Sorry," Pel said, brus.h.i.+ng fragments off the front of his tunic. "I don't know anything about construction.

I can have them all stop what they're doing and help you instead."

"Why in the froggin' h.e.l.l didn't you ask Carzen?" Cauvin asked, pointing to the woodman, who was standing near a wall with his arms folded. "He could've told you the same."

He wanted Pel to make a fool of himself, the apothecary thought, half-humorously. "He said labor's extra.

I guess that included advice, too."

Cauvin spat, but he grinned, too. He knew Carzen well. "I won't charge extra for getting these puds workin', but Grabar wants paying for his stone. He says the sleep remedy didn't froggin' work!"

"It was one of two possible cures for the symptoms he described," Pel explained. "Loud snoring, sudden wakefulness, feeling like he's choking in his dreams, and so on. One condition's more dangerous than the other. I hoped it wasn't that. I'll send the other potion with you today."

"If it works the deal's on, but if not, you'll have to come up with the soldats," Cauvin said, folding hismeaty arms. Pel nodded humbly.

"Done." Pel felt like a stripling beside the stonecutter. Because of his skin-renewal they looked to be about the same age, but Pel knew he was a good ten years older then Cauvin. Though the stoneyard put out that Cauvin was their long-lost son, Pel knew better. In fact, the man who had been the priest Wrath remembered when the Servants had dragged Cauvin in from the streets and dropped him in the pits. The boy had been big for his age, and in trouble a lot of the time. What a sc.r.a.pper he'd been even then, determined to survive in the h.e.l.l in which the adults had trapped him. Pel had had to haul him out for punishment once when a boy had died. The others had blamed Cauvin, but the other had been far larger and had fewer marks on him.

Thank all chance Cauvin didn't seem to remember him. To grow up so well, to become a respected man in this disrespectful town, was an achievement, twice so coming from such disadvantages. Pel rejoiced for him that he'd found a good sponsor, as good as Loprin had been for him.

"Friends!" he shouted. He picked up a mixing paddle and banged it on the altar to get everyone's attention. "Stop! There's a change in plan. Stop what you're doing and come down. Master Cauvin will tell you what to do."

With a curt nod to the apothecary the stonemason turned to his new workforce. Pel went back to his brazier, where a huge jug of water was brewing for tea. Some of the visitors had hinted that beer or liquor would have been more welcome, but there was no chance Pel was letting someone climb to the forty-foot ceiling with a skinful. Just in case of accident, he had prepared a load of bandages and salves.

There was food, though. He'd asked the people who couldn't work to bring things to eat for the workers.

A few of them had s.h.i.+rked it, like Ma Sagli, who'd brought half a dozen biscuits and called it her share.

Pel was holding his ire until the next time she came in looking for her phlegm medicine. Others, like Chersey, the money-changer's wife, brought in a big basket of meat rolls, far more than she owed for the vial of flux medicine she had needed for her youngest. She was keeping one eye on the comestibles and the other on her two small children, who were playing with the sc.r.a.ps of wood near his herb baskets. A few others had come to watch the construction, huddles of blankets safely out of the way of the workers.

The place would be very fine when it was finished. He hoped the G.o.ddess would be happy with her refurbished temple. Every padpol Pel didn't use for food or the raw materials for his medicines was put onto the altar as offerings to be used toward remaking the G.o.ddess's house. He had sixteen strong new joists, some blocks of stone, and waterproof cloth that would go up on top until he could afford the right enameled copper tiles for the roof. That could take years, money being what it wasn't.

This was the third workday that Pel had organized. The first was only a couple of months after he had returned to Sanctuary. The idea had come about because hard currency seemed to be in such short supply everywhere. If the Rankan lords had plenty of money, they weren't spending it in the city. Nearly all businesses but the taverns were taking some of their pay in trade. What Pel needed more than anything was helping hands. Meshpri's temple needed to be restored, but before that could occur all the rubbish that had acc.u.mulated needed to be cleared out and the building sh.o.r.ed up so he could live in it without fearing for his life. In spite of his rejuvenation by Loprin, Pel could neither move stone blocks nor hammer up b.u.t.tresses by himself. He tried to be as fair as he could in estimating the value of his services, but quickly discovered that any man who didn't add a hundred or even three hundred percent onto the base cost was a fool, and an exhausted and resentful one at that. He'd ended up doing most of the hauling himself.

The second time he had grown wiser. Requiring hard labor or hard cash kept the idly curious from trying out potions for the fun of it. Having everyone come on the same day served several purposes: first, it ama.s.sed the necessary manpower for the work. Second, it showed each patient he was not being singledout by Pel, and let some of them feel they'd gotten away cheap not having to fork over coin. Third, it brought people together in a cooperative effort of creation. Sanctuary needed healing. Even after the pa.s.sage of years the place was filled with hidden wounds. The act of building up instead of tearing down was important to Pel not only actually, but spiritually. He'd been responsible for some of those wounds.

He was ashamed to have run away instead of helping to heal them. His practical common sense b.u.t.ted in again to remind him that if he'd stayed he would have been killed, accomplis.h.i.+ng nothing.

He scratched his head. It took six months from the day Loprm performed Meshpri's rite upon him until all his tattoos and scars had faded away forever, but where the crazy designs had crossed his scalp, his hair had grown in white instead of black. He wore his hair long so no one could distinguish the pattern.

He looked up at the cold, blue sky through the rafters, now cleared of plaster and tile. When he fled he thought he'd never be coming back. Loprin had been his teacher for five years, then the old man had taken ill. Pel nursed him devotedly, but Loprin's time had come. He was content to go to his G.o.d.

When the old man died Pel taken his place as village healer. The forty villagers had come to like him and accept him. He was content there for a time, but he missed his benefactor. Then, to his deep surprise, he realized that he missed the city. Loprin had taught him nothing worthwhile was ever achieved in a hurry.

Pel had taken an apprentice: Taurin, the weaver's son, and taught the quick-eyed lad as much of his master's skills as he could. After four years the boy had encompa.s.sed all Pel could give him. With the purpose that had been lacking when he'd staggered into the village, he strode out, a new man inside and out, thanks to Meshpri and her servant Loprin. That's what he intended for this temple, to make it new inside and out. To finance it he made it known he'd sell any kind of philtre or potion to anyone who wanted it, regardless of its use. Poisons he would not make, claiming the ingredients were too hard to come by, disappointing a lot of disgruntled in-laws and would-be heirs who thought that an easy means had come their way of disposing of inconvenient relatives. On the other hand, love potions enjoyed a vogue, as did mixtures for enhancing eyesight and coordination. His reputation for giving the customers exactly what they wanted helped build his business up in a hurry. Men and women came from all over Sanctuary and outside, usually furtively wrapped up in cloaks, seeking their hearts' desire. Pel enjoyed it.

Making "elective" potions that hurt no one and made others happy gave him something to amuse himself while waiting for genuine patients to seek him out. And those came. And here they were.

"Siggurn!" Cauvin shouted, standing on a scaffold high against the east wall. "Get that up right now!" The carter looked up from the barrel of mortar he was mixing to glare at Pel. The healer chuckled, but he lifted his hands to the shoulders, trying to school his face into innocent lines. Not his doing. Just a bad choice of words. Purely coincidence. But it was amusing to see the way the big man's face turned scarlet as if he feared his secret was out.

"Froggin' h.e.l.l, hurry, pud! I'm bursting my froggin' back holding this block up until you get that froggin'

mortar up here! Move it!"

Siggurn, now understanding the mistake, leaped to haul a bucket of cement up the ladder to the impatient stonemason. Pel couldn't stop laughing. Oh, if people knew what he knew! But he would never tell. He had too many secrets of his own to keep.

"Healer," a voice whispered to him. Pel glanced down at one of the blanket-wrapped heaps near the brazier.

"Yes?" he asked.

A gloved hand reached out of the ma.s.s of cloth to beckon to him. He could see nothing of the face. It was hooded by the heavy wool blanket. Good fabric, too, without a single patch or caught thread. Had awealthy patron come here seeking his attention in the guise of a curious onlooker? Everyone knew the date of Pel's latest workday. Why, a handful of people who owed him had made a point of being out of the city today. Why shouldn't someone who wanted to see him come along?

"How may I serve?" Pel asked, crouching down.

"I hear you make the jewelweed potion."

"Yes, I do."

"I need some."

"For yourself?"

"Yes..." the breath came out in a hiss. "There aren't enough children in Sanctuary. I am called to make some. I cannot... try."

Icy fingers crawled along Pel's back. The way the huddled figure phrased his words alarmed him.

"What about... the mother?" he asked, very slowly.

"Ahh... so it's true," the voice breathed. The hand curled until the forefinger was pointing at his temple. A familiar gesture, one Pel hadn't seen in a decade. His heart contracted with fear. As surely as if he had torn it away to look, he knew the cloak concealed a body marked with red stain and tattoos. It came rus.h.i.+ng back to him that he had told his former masters that he was going underground. He hadn't meant it then. He was even more determined now not to return.

"No!" Pel almost shouted. "I mean, you are sure the mother can have children? Is she old enough?"

"They are all old enough. My body will not obey the Mother's command." Now Pel could distinctly hear the capital letter.

"Ah, you must be an Irrune, sir," Pel said, carefully, still with his voice low enough so only the gloved visitor could hear, though he was tempted to shout out to the nearby crowd of big burly men with hammers and chisels, There's a Dyareelan here! Kill him! "We poor Ilsig only take one wife. So... you cannot raise your sword? Is that the help you wish from me?"

"Yes. As soon as possible."

"The potion takes but a short time to prepare, but I cannot do my work with so much dust in the air.

Would you return tomorrow?"

"That will do," the blanket inclined its head. "After dark. I do not wish to advertise my... problem. Or my presence."

"As you wish," Pel said. "Many of my patients prefer to be discreet about seeing me. That means you'll be paying in cash, then? Otherwise, you'll be joining these," he gestured at the workers, "next workday."

"Cash."

"Healer!" Cauvin shouted at that moment. "Do you want this froggin' pillar replaced with wood or stone?"

Pel started toward him automatically, then turned to look back toward the heap of blankets. It was not there. A shadowed shape was slipping out of the door. He'd been too surprised to take action; now it was too late. With an act of will he went to listen to an argument between Cauvin and Carzen.The ringing of hammers and voices had long since died away. Pel huddled near the last orange embers of his brazier, alone in the echoing temple ruin. Night had fallen, and with it came a miserable, frosty drizzle.

Sanctuary had always had terrible weather, Pel reflected. It had gotten worse since he had returned. The night was bitterly cold, but at least now the rain didn't come through the roof. The cloth could hold for a good long time, perhaps until another owner came to claim Meshpri's temple. The building would not fall down, thanks to Cauvin and Pel's other patients. It could house another servant of the healing G.o.d, one who would carry on the task of helping to heal Sanctuary...

Visions of his former life came rus.h.i.+ng back to him: the clean-sings, the sacrifices, the dismal pits full of miserable children, and lastly the triumphant, mad look on his wife's face when she showed him the body of their daughter with the heart torn from it. No! He slammed his open hand down on the altar. He would not run away. Dyareela's priest couldn't have recognized him as Wrath. But there were other Servants hidden throughout the empire. Even if the man did not know him, he could think he was one of the others who'd gone underground.

But the important thing was that he knew the hooded visitor as a priest of the Bleeding Hand. Arizak had not, then, wiped out the entire warren. Like a cancer, the cult was growing back again somewhere in Sanctuary, and Pel might be the only one who knew it.

His visitor must be gathering new devotees, probably street children. By what he'd told Pel there were certainly a few girls old enough to bear, but no boys old enough to impregnate them, leaving him as the only one who could do the deed. That meant the cell was small as of yet. Thank all chance for that. But the priest was impotent. And so he had come to Pel.

What a dilemma he was in! His conscience wouldn't let the priest beget more babies to become a.s.sa.s.sins or die as sacrifices, yet he must give the man what he asked for. What could he do? Less than a full day from that moment, just after nightfall, the priest would return for his jewelweed potion. Pel could go to the palace and bring guards to wait here with him, to capture the man. But if he did, the man would denounce him as a former Servant. Pel could not hide the truth from his questioners. He and the other would both die, trampled by a herd of horses. He could-he had to steel himself just to think the thought-he could kill the priest. He'd kept his skills honed sharp all these years. But the man might not arrive alone. There was a chance he'd miss at least one defender, and his life here would be over, one way or another. And if he succeeded, there'd be the question of what to do with the body.

What was he thinking? Pel paced around and around the brazier, now filled with cold ashes. He was a healer now, a servant of Mesh-pri! He couldn't spill unjust blood. He'd have to answer to his G.o.ddess one day. Poison... no! Absolutely not. Never.

Pel thought hard. There must be a solution that would serve both his oath and his patient. He had no good reason to refuse to make the potion. He'd promised. But the Hand couldn't be permitted to sire more innocent children. No more babies must be born into the h.e.l.l he'd survived. He just couldn't bring himself to kill in cold blood, even for them.

A thought struck him, so hard he stopped dead in the dark. What had he promised? He felt the slow smile spread over his face. Yes, that was the solution! He could keep his word. Hastily he felt his way back to the altar, and scrabbled with sensitive fingertips until he found his tinder and flint. Striking a hasty light, he began to gather up bundles of herbs, piling them on Meshpri's altar.

The buildings on the Avenue of Temples were reputed to be haunted. Anyone pa.s.sing by the ancient shrine to Meshpri late that night would have heard the banshee cackling of restless spirits and hurried home to lock their doors.Night had just drawn its cloak over Sanctuary when the hooded visitor returned to the apothecary shop.

Pel had been waiting impatiently all day. Unable to think about anything but the impending meeting, he couldn't trust himself to mix medicines, lest he make an error that might prove fatal. Instead, he set himself the backbreaking task of cleaning up after his conscripted workforce. The bristles of his broom were at least a handspan shorter than they'd started out that morning, so vigorous was he in sweeping. He had just bent to brush up a panful of stone dust, when the low voice came almost at his elbow.

"Healer?"

Pel jerked bolt upright. The pan flew out of his hands, scattering the dust all over. "You're here!" he exclaimed.

"I am. Is it ready?"

"Yes, it is," Pel said, knowing he was babbling. "This way. It's ready. Seven uses' worth for one soldat. If you need more, I can make it. Any time."

Trying to keep his hands from shaking, he took the small bottle out from under the altar and placed it before the visitor. No gloved hand reached out to take it.

"Taste it," the visitor commanded.

"What?" Pel asked. He tried to peer under the hood to see his visitor's eyes, but it was too deep.

"I do not know you. There are poisoners in this city. Taste it."

"But I'll..." Pel began. Never mind. He picked up the bottle and uncorked it. With a glance at the door, Pel took a mouthful of the potion. He swallowed.

There was no way to disguise the effects of the jewelweed potion. They were immediate and long lasting.