The Last Eternal Book Six, page 11
“Easier said than done, I think.”
“Maybe so,” she said, “but go on—impress a girl.”
The wanderer was set to do just that. He turned and took a step. Then he took another. Or, at least, he meant to. That step somehow turned into a stumble, the stumble into a fall, and the fall into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He was in the darkness, a part of it, floating on the inky current of unconsciousness, or perhaps of something more. Perhaps he floated along the currents of the long sleep that waited for all men at the end of their lives, and if he was not there already, then it was only a matter of time before the currents pulled him there. That had always been true, of course, was true for all men, but he had never felt that truth, never understood it as much as he did in that moment.
But he could not escape that darkness, that current, did not even know where he might flee to if even he could flee, and he could not. And so, he only drifted, waiting for what would come. And as he drifted, as he waited, that darkness around him grew darker still, so dark that it had weight, so dark that the shadows were not just shadows any longer but beings of substance.
And then suddenly, in that darkness, a light shone.
It was small at first, no more than a single mote, flickering like the last brief ember of a dying fire. So small, so fleeting that the wanderer thought he might have imagined it, that he must have imagined it. But then it came again, stronger now, steadier.
And where the light touched the darkness, the darkness did what it always did when the light came—it fled. The wanderer stared at that light, yearned for that light the same way a drowning man might yearn for the shore, or a man dying of thirst the taste of water.
There was nothing else in all the world save that light and, a moment later, the face that appeared within it, limned in gold. A woman’s face, smooth skin, slightly pouty lips that were currently drawn down into a frown, long, blonde hair and soft hazel eyes with starbursts in the pupils he might have gotten lost in.
And as he watched her, it didn’t seem to the wanderer as if the woman and the light were separate at all, but that she brought the light with her, that she was the light in the darkness, pulling him out of the shadows that peeled away from him as he was drawn toward her. Toward the light.
Beautiful, he thought.
The woman blinked, and a pretty blush suffused her face. She pulled away then, and the world seemed to coalesce around the wanderer.
He was no longer in that place of shadows and darkness. Instead, he was in the healer’s shop, of this much he was sure for he recognized the shelves and counters he’d seen when first entering the building. Not that he paid them much attention for while he was no longer in that strange, half-waking half-sleeping place he’d been in moments ago, he still found that he was reluctant to pull his gaze away from the woman.
And from the way she stared at him, he realized that he hadn’t just thought beautiful, but had spoken it aloud in his delirium.
“Well,” she said. “It appears that you might not die after all.”
“Not yet anyway,” he said, trying for a small smile but wincing instead as his awakening consciousness became aware of the many aches and pains all over his body.
“Right,” she said in a low whisper as they continued to stare at each other. Then she cleared her throat. “You were talking…in your delirium.”
“Ah,” he said. “I was?”
“Yes,” she said. “You spoke of someone called Veikr.”
“Ah.”
“You said that you loved this Veikr.”
He blinked, surprised that he’d said as much. “And so I do,” he said.
She nodded, clearing her throat. “Your lover, is it?” she asked, sitting back and pulling away, and as she did he realized for the first time that one of the woman’s hands had been on his chest, and his skin felt at once hot and cold from her touch.
“My horse,” he said.
Her eyes went wide at that. “Your horse.”
“That’s right.”
“You love your horse.”
“He’s a good horse.”
“Of course,” she said, giving an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry, I thought you meant…” She gave her head a shake. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway…” She trailed off uncertainly.
An awkward silence descended on them then, and the wanderer, in an effort to avoid it, spoke. “So how bad is it?”
“To love a horse?” she asked. “Not so bad, I think. Plenty of people do. I’ve always been more of a dog person myself.”
“I meant my wound,” he said.
“Oh that,” she said, raising an eyebrow. She nodded to his side, and the wanderer turned, grunting at the pain as he did, to regard a nearby shelf from which hung his bloody shirt, ripped and torn and looking like something even the most desperate vagrant wouldn’t think to wear. “See all that red stuff?” she asked.
“I do.”
“That’s blood—I know you’re no healer, but let me let you in on a little secret—it’s best, as a general rule, to try to keep your blood on the inside.”
The wanderer gave her a pained smile. “Thanks for the tip—I’ll try to remember it.”
“I think that would be for the best,” she said. “Anyway, to answer your question—you’ll live. Probably, and assuming of course you try to avoid being shot and stabbed in the immediate future.”
“I’m all for trying new things.”
She shook her head. “Are you always so flippant?”
“Only when I’m nearly killed.”
“A common occurrence, is it?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“More so than I’d like,” he said honestly.
“You have that effect on people, do you?”
“Not just people,” the wanderer said, thinking of the creatures who’d taken the Eternals’ places, of those abominations that he’d spent the last hundred years running from when he could and fighting when he could not.
“I see,” she said. “And should I expect any sudden homicidal urges while in your company?”
“If you have any, I’d appreciate you letting me know,” he said.
She smiled at him, and he smiled back. For a moment, they only remained there, smiling at each other, then she blushed again—as pretty as the first time—and cleared her throat, standing abruptly. “My, but I’ve made a mess here,” she said. “I’d best get all of this cleaned up before the morning—Boulder would throw a fit.”
“Boulder?” the wanderer asked.
She glanced at him, wincing. “That is, Healer Thordrin.”
“I thought…that is, aren’t you the healer?’
“I never said that,” she said defensively. “I’m Boulde—that is, Healer Thordrin’s apprentice.”
“Ah,” the wanderer said. “I see.”
She frowned. “What, you don’t think I could be a healer, is that it?”
“Not at all,” the wanderer said. “You seem…” Great. Beautiful. “Completely competent. Only…”
“Only I’m a woman?” she asked, her eyebrows drawing down into a frown.
“Only, most healers I’ve met have gray hair, if they have any hair at all,” the wanderer said. “I meant no offense, truly—I’m very thankful for what you’ve done.”
She blinked at that, then slowly her frown turned into a smile. “Sorry,” she said. “A lot of the people that come in—a lot of the men—they have also pointed out how I may not look like the typical healer, though far less politely than you. Anyway, now that you’re not in immediate danger of dying—assuming you don’t do anything foolish like fight someone or move too much—why don’t you tell me how you came to be hurt so badly? Celes is dangerous, it’s true, and I won’t deny that with all that’s been happening in Celes my master and I have seen a lot more patients than normal, but even still your wounds—and your scars—win the prize and that by a long way.”
The wanderer gave her a small smile. “I’ve felt a lot of ways about those scars and wounds myself, but I never thought of them as prizeworthy.”
She winced. “I only mean…your body…I’ve never seen so many scars. At least not on the living, and I’m not entirely sure if I’ve seen them on the dead. I can’t help but be curious how you came by them.”
Because I am an Eternal, the last Eternal, and I’ve spent a century running and fighting. The words were on the tip of his tongue—he had even gone so far as to open his mouth to say them when he stopped himself. Perhaps it was his wounding or whatever the woman had done to see to it, or perhaps it was simply because the woman was beautiful and kind and from all that he’d seen, good. The first two were rare, the third, in his experience, nearly non-existent.
But whatever compelled him to tell her his true identity, to do so would be more than foolish. She was beautiful—there was no denying that—but there were plenty of men, some living, some not, that would happily testify to the dangers of beautiful women. The simple fact was, he didn’t know her from anybody. And even if she could be trusted, telling her his true identity would not be a kindness for that knowledge would only put her in danger.
It would be a fool thing to do—he knew that. And yet, as he stared at her, as she stared at him, he was tempted to do it anyway. But she was waiting for an answer and, in the end, he chose something between the truth and an outright lie. “I’ve…led an eventful life.”
“So I see,” she said. “But that doesn’t explain how all that happened,” she finished, gesturing at his shirtless form at the scars crisscrossing his chest and stomach and arms.
The wanderer followed her gaze, examining those scars. Each of them had a story, a story that hadn’t been paid for in the toss of a coin to a bard or troubadour, but which had been paid for in blood and pain and grief. A lifetime of small hurts and big hurts—several lifetimes of them. “Would you believe I used to be a knife juggler?” he asked, smiling to show that he was kidding.
She returned the smile, but he didn’t think he mistook the disappointment in her gaze. “It’s alright,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to, but wounds like you had—like you have—aren’t something to joke about. It was hard work, putting you back together, and from all that I’ve seen, I’m far from the first to have to do so.”
The wanderer winced. “I didn’t mean to offend you, really. I’m grateful for what you did, truly. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead, and I know it. Thank you.”
She nodded slowly, at least appearing to be partially pacified. “You had some bad wounds, but even as bad as they were, they couldn’t account for all the blood on your shirt and trousers.”
“It wasn’t all mine,” the wanderer confirmed.
“And the person to whom it belongs?”
“The best healer in the world couldn’t help them.”
“Them,” she repeated, a slightly airy sound to her voice.
“Yes.”
“And these men…you killed them?”
“They tried to kill me first,” he said.
She nodded slowly, watching him, and in her hazel gaze, he could see her thoughts as she weighed him. Trying to decide if she’d made a mistake by letting him in. He saw her glance at the door, judging the distance, trying to decide if she could make it before he’d be on her.
“I can tell you truthfully,” he said, “that I have never hurt someone who didn’t deserve it and then only when I had no choice.” He sat up on the table and reached a hand underneath the sheet covering him from the waist down and into his trouser pocket. Or, at least, he meant to, but he realized in a moment that he no longer wore his trousers.
He blinked, surprised, and glanced up to see the woman blushing.
“Your trousers were filthy, and I needed to make sure there weren’t any more wounds so…” She paused, clearing her throat. “Boulder leaves changes of clothes here sometimes,” she went on, forgetting to use the man’s official title in her obvious embarrassment. “For the times when he has to stay over to tend to his patients—I brought some for you.” She turned away, apparently glad for the excuse to avoid his gaze, and hurried to a small table, retrieving a neatly folded linen shirt and trousers. Then walked back to him, offering him the clothes.
“Don’t worry,” she said, her eyes glittering. “I won’t look.” Then she turned away. “Be careful though,” she said over her shoulder, “move slowly—your body needs time to heal.”
The wanderer did as she recommended—mostly because with each infinitesimal movement his body protested with various aches and pains, though there was no denying that she knew her work, for the dizziness and numbness were gone. Instead he only felt weak, drained, as if he could sleep for a year. He rose from the table, gingerly putting his weight down on his legs and was relieved—and more than a little surprised—when they didn’t buckle beneath him.
He then proceeded to pull the trousers on, shocked by how big they were in the legs and the waist, enough that he thought he could have easily fit a second one of him inside. He was forced to tie off the waistband so that they didn’t fall off. Next came the shirt, though it felt less like a shirt and more like a bed sheet with a hole cut in the center, so much did it swallow him. The shirt was short-sleeved, but the end of those sleeves came down to the middle of the wanderer’s forearms.
He was staring at it, wondering just how big this Boulder was—as big as Dekker, he thought—for he felt like nothing so much as a child trying on his father’s clothes. A moment later he heard a giggle and looked up to see her staring at him, one hand over her mouth, her star-burst hazel eyes dancing with amusement.
The wanderer looked down at his clothes and found himself laughing as well. “Perhaps you ought to call him ‘Mountain’ instead.”
“I’ll consider that,” she said, her voice full of laughter.
It was his turn to blush. He spied his blood-stained clothes lying on the floor and moved toward them, reaching into the pocket of his trousers and retrieving his coin purse. He fished inside and fished out a gold coin—the last one. He put it on the table. “For the help,” he said, then glanced down again. “And the clothes, of course.”
Her smile slowly faded. “You’re leaving, then?” she asked, and he wasn’t sure if he imagined the disappointment in her voice this time or not, thought it was likely only wishful thinking.
“I have to,” he said. “Though…I just realized, I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Elizabeth,” she said, “but everyone calls me Lizzy.”
“Lizzy,” the wanderer repeated.
She smiled. “And yours?”
“Gabriel.” The name was out of his mouth before he realized it, and he stood stunned by it. Gabriel. It was not a name he’d used in a hundred years and more, certainly not the way he’d thought of himself for a very long time. Ungr, the Last Eternal, the Traitor, the wanderer. They were the names he’d been called, the names he’d carried for the last century. He had thought Gabriel long gone, long dead, and yet it felt right just then.
“Well, Gabriel,” she said, “your wounds are on the mend—it would be best for you to rest here.”
“I would,” he said, “but I have to go.”
She nodded. “In that case, you should take it slowly.”
The wanderer would have loved to have done just that, but then he didn’t think that was going to be an option.
“Thank you,” he said. Then, a strange fluttering in his chest, he cleared his throat. “Listen, I—” he began, but he cut off as there was a muffled knock from outside the room, back in the main part of the healer’s shop.
Elizabeth—Lizzy—looked slightly surprised by the sound of that knock. “It seems you aren’t the only one who decided that tonight, instead of sleep, they’d visit a healer’s. I’ll be right back.”
She started away, but the wanderer caught her by the arm, stopping her. She turned to regard him, a surprised look on her face, one that might have even been a little scared. He understood that, but if the worst that happened to the woman was that she was a little scared then he’d count it a win. After all, while the knock might have struck her as unusual, it had rung like an alarm in the wanderer’s mind. “Is that normal?”
“For men I just met to grab my arm so hard it hurts?” she asked, sounding at once annoyed and confused. “No, it’s not normal.”
“Sorry,” he said, loosening his grip slightly but not letting her go completely, not yet. “Not that—what I mean is, is it normal for people to call on you this late?”
“Not normal, no,” she said, “but it happens. After all, you did, didn’t you?”
She arched an eyebrow at that, the words clearly a gentle rebuke, but the wanderer barely paid them any mind. Instead, his mind was racing. “How long was I out?” he asked.
She frowned, apparently picking up on something of his worry. “I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty minutes?”
That sounded about right to him. Sure, it might have been coincidence that someone was knocking on the door so shortly after he’d arrived, but then the wanderer had never much cared for coincidences. Coincidences, after all, were warnings, and the graveyards of the world were filled with those who had not heeded those warnings.
A second knock came, and the wanderer felt his weary muscles tensing. He turned back to the woman. “My weapons—where are they?”
“I, that is…” She paused, looking nervous and guilty at the same time as she glanced at the back of the room. The wanderer followed her gaze and saw that there was a safe sitting at the back. “Criminals sometimes try to steal certain medicines, and so we were forced to get a safe to protect them. I didn’t know you, and I thought…”
The wanderer knew well enough what she’d thought, that when a stranger shows up covered in blood with two swords on his back, it was better to be safe than sorry. The truth was he was just lucky she hadn’t fetched the city guard while he was unconscious, a fact he was curious to inquire about but not then. “The key to the safe?” he asked.
“At the counter up front,” she said. “I can go get it, but—”
