He closed his eyes, listened to Asper’s footsteps as she came up behind him and set her medicine bag on the log beside him. She gave a cursory probe to the bandage covering his shoulder, gently eased it back to inspect the sutures. He should feel that.
“It speaks. The tome. It calls. To anything that will listen. But they can’t hear it. The demons can’t hear it. I can. Listen closely, you can, too. It calls us to the island, it-”
What if she’s right?
He hadn’t meant to think it, hadn’t meant for the voice to hear it, certainly hadn’t meant to interrupt it. The voice remained silent.
Where is the evidence? Where is heaven? Where do the demons even come from? The voice was not speaking. He was not speaking to the voice. But he felt its presence, something narrowing unseen eyes into a glare.
Ulbecetonth spoke of them as children. She begged me not to kill them. She wept for them. He rubbed his temple. She offered me escape. . to let me go in exchange for sparing her children. What kind of demon does that?
“You’re doubting.”
I’m wondering.
“There is no difference.”
That’s the problem, isn’t it? Everything seems different since last night.
“Last night?”
My sword feels too heavy. Everything does. Maybe it is doubt. . but uncertainty is difference enough, isn’t it?
“Nothing has changed,” the voice insisted with crystalline clarity. “Remove doubt. I will remove everything else. I will move you through pain, through fear. Your duty cannot be performed without me. I cannot fulfill my duty without you. Neither of us exist. Only we do.”
You say that, but if I don’t feel pain-
“You don’t.”
But-
“You aren’t.”
He wasn’t.
The netherling’s knife had struck hard. The wound was not light. The suturing had been painful and the blood had been copious. He had received such wounds before. He knew it should hurt now as Asper probed, touched, eased the red and irritated flesh around his sutures.
It didn’t.
“Well?” he asked, the voice matching wound in ire.
“You’re healing,” Asper said. “Some salve, regular poultices and keeping it covered and you’ll be all right.”
“Outstanding,” he said, reaching for his shirt. “See you when I get back.”
“Check that.” She placed a hand on his unmarred shoulder and pulled him back. “You need salve, poultice, bandage, and an understanding of past and progressive tense. You’re healing, not healed.”
“Then I will continue healing on the way to Jaga,” he growled.
“I know I’ve never really bothered to explain the intricacies of my craft, but medicine doesn’t quite work that way, stupid.” He heard her rustling about in her medicine bag. “You’re not going to be healing when you’re being eaten alive by snakes. . or lizards.”
“The Shen don’t eat people.” Lenk cast a glower over his back as she pressed a ripe-smelling poultice against his stitches. “We think, anyway. I mean, they’re reptiles and all, but so is Gariath and he’s never eaten someone. . all the way, anyway.”
“You’re being intentionally stupid now.” Her sigh was familiar, less tired and more frustrated. “Look, I don’t want you to die. This wound was tricky to stitch up and if you go around swinging your sword, it’ll eventually pop open and you’ll bleed out without me to help you.”
“There’s no telling what’s going to happen, and if the wound does open, Kataria can-”
“No,” the voice interrupted him before Asper could. “She cannot. We will not let her near us again.”
“She can’t,” Asper said. “I don’t care what she says, and I don’t care what you say, either. You’re going there to fight and, thusly, you’re going to die.” She cast a disparaging glance at the mail shirt lying in a heap with his other garments. “It’s stupid enough that you’re wearing that kind of weight, anyway.”
“It’s better to get used to carrying it now,” he said, “so I don’t get a wound like this again.”
“You know, another great way to avoid getting wounds would be to go back to that one plan you had,” she muttered. “The one where we don’t go chasing after books and return to the mainland and never see each other again. I liked that one.”
“That’s not going to happen.” The ire in Lenk’s voice rose, cold and clear. “And watch your mouth. Denaos will be upset if he finds out you’re trying to usurp his position as cynical worthless complainer.”
She tore the poultice away suddenly. Her hand came down in a swift, firm slap against his shoulder. He felt it sting, felt himself wince, knew it should have hurt a lot more. The trembling anger in Asper’s voice suggested she wholly expected it to.
“Don’t you dare compare me to him,” she whispered sharply. “He is a worthless, weeping coward who hides in the filth. I am trying to do what anyone with a conscience would, and offer you the intelligence that would save your life.”
“Coward,” the voice whispered.
“Coward,” he echoed.
“We don’t need her.”
“Don’t need anyone.”
“Pain is nothing to us. We will not be stopped by pain, nor blood, nor cowards.”
“We will not,” he said, “be stopped.”
He felt her eyes boring into the back of his skull, he felt her tremble. He felt her whisper something to herself, something that would make her hard. Something she didn’t believe.
“Do whatever you want, then,” she said, grabbing her medicine bag.
He felt her leave. She looked back, he was certain. She wanted to say something else.
“She won’t.”
“I know,” he said. “She’s harder these days, quieter. Like a rock.”
“Only pretending to be. She’s still as weak and decrepit as the rest. That is her betrayal.”
“Wait. . she betrays us because she’s weak?”
“A subtle sin, no less deadly. She wishes us to fail because she wants to fail. She refuses to mend our flesh. She tries to hold us back. She tries to infect us with doubt. This is her betrayal. This is what she dies for.”
“Dies. .” His voice rang with a painful echo, like it was speaking to itself.
“For betraying us,” it snarled. “They all die for that.”
“Yes, they die,” he said. “They all. . wait, why do they die? They. . they abandoned us, but-” He winced. “My head hurts. Like it did last night.”
“You speak of it again. Last night was dreamless, dark, restful.”
“No, it wasn’t. . it was. .”
“Enough,” it said fiercely. “Ignore it. Ignore them. Listen to us. Listen to what we do. We serve our duty. We find the tome.”
“But my head. .”
“Pain is nothing to us. Whatever happens, we will persevere. We will harden in ways that she cannot.”
Lenk found his eyes drifting to the fire, to the smoldering remains of the dismembered netherling, to the hilt of the dagger jutting out from the stones surrounding it. He saw it, glowing white with heat.
“Pain is nothing,” he whispered.
“Pain is nothing,” the voice agreed.
“There is no pain,” he said, rising up. “There will be no pain.”
“I did not say that.”