They could not aid him.
Arbeenok's song turned inward, seeking some energy that he could harness within himself, from the spirits of the animals that resided in harmony in him, hoping perhaps to drain away the woman's sickness into himself and dissipate it.
The sickness was too strong.
Arbeenok opened his eyes and looked at his companions. Both were watching him intently. He had seen such looks before by those who had never heard him use his magic. He paid their stares no mind. "It cannot be cleansed by my magic alone," he said. "It is too unnatural for my healing skills." Arbeenok watched Vambran's face turn stony, as though bracing for the inevitable. "I can arrest it, though," the druid said, hoping that the two of them would understand. Sometimes, finding the words to explain things to outsiders was difficult. "Slow it," he added.
"Do it," Vambran said again, once more in that forceful, demanding tone. For him, failure was a fate too horrible to contemplate. Arbeenok could see that.
"It will not cure her," Arbeenok warned, wanting the soldier to understand that it was a temporary solution and would hold for a day at most. "She will still be ill, but the sickness will not… progress."
Vambran began nodding even before Arbeenok finished speaking. "Buy us time, that's good enough," he said. "And we'll go to the bottom of the Reach, burrow into the rock if we must in order to find whatever it is we're supposed to find."
Arbeenok smiled, glad that Vambran was ready to accept the alaghi's vision, to follow their entwined fates to their logical conclusions. "Yes," he said. Then he closed his eyes and began to sing once more, a different song, one to slow the poisons in Elenthia's body rather than drive them out. He felt the contagion begin to slumber, fall dormant. Satisfied, he finished the song, locking the magic in place for as long as he was able.
When it was done, Arbeenok opened his eyes and nodded to tell his companions so. The relief on both their faces was clear. "We must rest," he said.
"There's no time," Vambran argued, his intense eyes looking away to some distant place, not just in space but also in time. He was peering toward the future, always toward the future, trying to catch up to it and yet never seeing it as it went by. "We have to go, get out of the city. People are dying."
"No," Arbeenok said. He stood, then, pulling Vambran away from the woman, off to the side where they could talk alone. "We must rest. She must rest." Vambran stared hard at the alaghi for a long moment, his eyes glittering dangerously. "I have seen you yawn many times just since we arrived in this garden," the alaghi added. "When was the last time you slept?"
Vambran looked away. "I don't remember," he said, avoiding the question. "A lifetime ago."
"You have not slept since I met you, when you were dangling from a pole by your tied hands and feet, hardly a good bed. And that was in the small hours of this morning. How long before that?"
Vambran sighed. "Not since the ship," he said. "Not since two nights ago."
"You cannot save the city if you wear yourself to exhaustion," Arbeenok said. "And she will not last long without rest. The harder you push her, the more quickly my magic will… vanish. No, fade. The more quickly it will fade. Do you understand? It can weaken if her body is not strong enough to maintain it."
Vambran sighed then, letting his shoulders slump. "All right," he agreed at last. "If she needs the rest, I could do with some as well. But we've got to find some place safe. Some place where we can defend her, you and I, without her needing to fight. Better yet, someplace where damnable zombies won't bother us at all."
Arbeenok looked toward the house. "Up there?" he asked, pointing to a second floor window that overlooked the garden. "I do not think the former owners will mind," he said.
Vambran nodded. "I'll take a look inside, just to make sure nothing is hiding in there. You stay here with her."
When the soldier was gone, Arbeenok sat beside Elenthia. She leaned against a tree, her breathing eased somewhat by the effects of Arbeenok's song, but it was still raspy. The alaghi thought it best not to discuss the sickness. "Do you love him?" he asked, thinking to begin a nice conversation.
"Vambran?" Elenthia replied, looking aghast. "Ilmater's mercy, no. He's… he's just a friend."
"But you are mates," Arbeenok said, puzzled. "I can sense it in the way you look at one another. You have shared a bed."
Elenthia blushed slightly. "Yes, we have," she admitted. "But only as friends. Our lives are much too different. He visits me from time to time, and I enjoy his company when he comes to Reth. That's all."
Arbeenok considered the woman's words for a few moments. "It must be that way between Vambran and Shinthala, too."
"Pardon me?" Elenthia said, looking sharply at the alaghi. "Who in the Nine Hells is Shinthala?"
"Shinthala Deepcrest, Grand Cabal of the Emerald Enclave. They, too, are friends."
"I see," Elenthia said, but her tone was strangely flat. "So, he's bedding a druid, is he?"
Arbeenok looked at the woman strangely, not understanding the question, but at that moment, Vambran returned.
"The house is empty, save for a few unfortunate souls in one downstairs room. I checked to make sure they were really dead." His eyes flickered away for a moment, gazing into that invisible distance. "It was the rest of the family," he concluded, his voice thick.
Together, Vambran and Arbeenok carried Elenthia up to a bedroom and laid her on a thick, soft mattress. Vambran settled onto a divan against the wall, facing Elenthia as though to watch over her. The alaghi saw her give him one curiously unpleasant stare, and she turned her back on him, wrapped the silk sheet about herself, and closed her eyes.
Vambran was breathing slowly and softly a moment later.
So they rested, with the alaghi keeping watch, listening for the approach of enemies, of undead, of anything that would disturb them. Outside, beyond the garden wall, fires still burned everywhere in the city. Occasionally, shouts rose from down in the streets, though Arbeenok could not see what transpired there. Nothing came to disturb them.
Arbeenok felt a small amount of gladness in watching his companions sleep, for their faces were peaceful. He was thankful that he had done something, some small thing, to thwart the terrible sickness, to thwart the strange men of the cities who had brought it.
The three of them remained in sheltered quiet for several hours. At last, Arbeenok spied the sun beginning to peek over the tops of the closest buildings, the first rays coming to warm the land, to bring bountiful life-giving essence to all the birds and beasts and fishes. He closed his eyes and sighed, enjoying for a brief moment the joy that came to him with the dawning of each new day.
CHAPTER 7
Pilos peered through the cracked doorway out into the hall beyond, but no one stood near. Sighing with relief, he shut the portal again and made certain that it latched properly.
"Must have been some stray draft, blowing the door open," he said as he returned to the far end of the room, well away from the door. "There was nothing out there."
Pilos and Quill, along with Hetta-still hosted inside Laithe the wizard's body-had retreated to the library where the young priest and Emriana had hidden before, when they had been searching the Generon for Xaphira. After failing to locate the mirror in which Emriana was trapped, they had decided to hide out for a while and plan their next move.