The gate swung open, and they entered a geometric wonderland of pools and gardens. Here there were no flowers, although there was a wide variety of plants. A rich herbal scent permeated the air—pungent, spicy, bitter, acrid, sweet. In spite of himself, Jared found himself drawing breath after breath, filling his lungs with a heady invigorating sensation that was close to a high, only it smacked of health.
“Almost overwhelming at first, I know,” Kraal said. “The herbs are carefully chosen for different purposes, as are the pools. We go this way.”
He set a course that led along the edge of the complex, past pools of varying sizes. In some the water steamed; others appeared to be cooler. Some had herbs strewn across the surface, some were murky with sulfur or other minerals, others were crystal clear. All had giant attendants lifting people out or lowering them in, carrying them from one pool to another.
At last they came to a small space screened by privacy hedges and closed by a gate. Kraal pushed against the gate, and it opened into a small square of grass and a basin just large enough to accommodate a tall man. A stream of water ran into it on one end and flowed out again on the other. Along the inside of the sheltering hedge, a low border of green with tiny white flowers gave off a scent that stung Jared’s nostrils.
Kraal lowered him onto a wooden bench and instructed, “Take off the robe.”
“No privacy?” he muttered, hesitating.
“You have nothing I haven’t seen before. Robe off. Then we will soak away these bandages. This pool will cleanse all infection that is near the surface—from your wound and from your skin. When you are clean we will move on to another, more restorative. The water cannot do its work if you are clothed.”
Jared complied as far as removing the robe, but then said, “Just help me, will you? It’s not far.”
Kraal grunted something unintelligible but helped him up and supported him as he hopped over to the pool and slowly lowered himself in. The water was blissfully warm; it stung a little, an effervescent buzzing that was not unpleasant. Without asking permission, he tilted his head back and immersed face and hair, scrubbing at his scalp with both hands while his body floated weightless.
This was a far sight better than that damned frigid pool Zee had tortured him in. Thought of his enemy ruined the moment and he surfaced, blowing and snorting, tossing his hair back out of his face.
“There is a barber to tend to your hair,” Kraal said, and Jared thought he heard a hint of humor, although the giant’s face remained expressionless. “Here, drink this.”
This time Jared accepted the glass without question. Some sort of wine, warmed and laced with herbs. As he drank he had the sensation that it cleaned the inside of him as the water scrubbed at the outside. Tension seeped out of his pores and the flowing water washed it away. Even his hate seemed a distant thing, not worth the energy. It tugged at its moorings, following the other toxins out of his body.
He might have let it go, but at that moment he felt hands on his wounded leg. Startled by the return of sensation, he opened his eyes to see Kraal kneeling at the edge of the pool, supporting the leg in one hand and unwinding the bandages with the other.
When Jared saw the pulpy mess of what remained of his leg, the calm fled. His gorge rose, and he pressed both hands over his mouth, swallowing desperately to keep from fouling the water. Strips of dead gray skin floated in the current. In places the bone was exposed, all muscle eaten away. What remained of the flesh was mottled green and angry red.
Either amputation or death. He could see it now, all the denial stripped away.
“It can be healed,” Kraal said, in a voice almost below Jared’s hearing. He thought he’d imagined it for a moment. The giant wasn’t looking at him; there was nothing about either face or body language to indicate that he had spoken.
“How?” he answered, gambling that his senses still functioned and he wasn’t delusional.
“Not by Aelfric’s methods. But the giants know.” There was an undertone of disrespect in the usually uninflected voice.
“What do the giants know?”
The black eyes fixed him with an acute stare that made his heart skip a beat. He had dismissed the giant as stupid, based maybe on account of old fairy tales and the flatness of his facial features. But what looked out of those stone-black eyes was a sharp intelligence, coupled with something dangerous and wild.
“Nothing is for nothing,” Kraal said, in that voice that sounded less like words and more like a slow rolling stone. His hands continued winding up the discarded bandage. He tossed it into a trash receptacle and held out a fresh white robe. “Come, it is time to move to the next pool. Then we will put on new salve and bandages.”
“Whatever it takes,” Jared said, clinging to the hard hand with both of his and using its strength to climb up out of the pool. “I will give anything for the healing of my leg. Besides, I fear they will kill me if I stay.”
“Do not promise lightly to a giant.” The warning was clear.
“I would sell my soul to the devil,” Jared said.
Kraal grinned. “This is good to know. Now, silence. Later we will speak of a visit to my Queen.”
“I have nothing to trade—unless she really wants my soul.”
“That could be arranged.” The giant’s face showed no sign of humor, and Jared shivered a little as he realized that this was not a game. Last week he would have scoffed at the idea that souls really existed. So many strange things had happened since then that anything could be possible.
“She sounds formidable, your Queen.”
“Indeed. She is not to be trifled with. But she can heal you.”
Jared looked down at his leg and shuddered again. There was no good option here, no safe and easy path.
“What would it take? What would she want besides my soul?”
“Information.”
“About what?” But he already knew. What had happened in that garden. She would want to know who was there, who fought. About Zee and about Vivian. It wasn’t a betrayal, he told himself. There was no reason to think this Queen of the Giants would harm Vivian or Zee, although he would have been more happy about the latter.
Kraal didn’t answer right away. He picked Jared up and carried him to another pool, this one cooler. Only a short dip, and then out again, dried this time with a towel and bundled back into the robe.
Still he kept silence, not saying another word. Only when he had laid Jared down on a high wooden table covered with a clean sheet and was spreading a thick, cream-colored paste over his leg did Kraal speak again. His voice was low, meant for Jared’s ears alone. “Tell me what you were doing in the Dreamworld, as a gesture of good faith, and then I will arrange to take you to the Queen.”
And so Jared told him—about Vivian and the dreamspheres, the attack, the Key, and the black dragon. As he spoke, the giant’s eyes glittered, but the big hands continued steady and gentle, swathing the ruined leg in bandages.
“You have done well to tell me,” he said, when at last Jared was done. “Now you are weary, and will rest.”
Jared’s eyes were heavy, and it was all he could do to keep his lids open, to not let his head drift down and rest on Kraal’s hard chest when the giant picked him up to carry him back to bed. Pride held him until he was laid on the soft goose down mattress, with the clean sheets pulled up to his chin. But as his eyes were drifting shut he heard the giant’s slow voice say, “Rest well. When you wake, you will find yourself in the Kingdom of the Giants.”