Taming Fire (31 page)

A fisherman. I remembered struggling to scream. I remembered the hand upon my shoulder. He must have brought me back. I took a breath and let it out. My head was up, elevated, but the rest of my body stretched out on some bed or palette. I could smell the stink of sweat, too—of good, hard labor—and faintly the acrid sear of poor firewood convinced to burn anyway.

And then I heard the creak of an ill-made door at my left shoulder, and the orange flicker of firelight intruded on my gloom but did little to clarify it. I squeezed my eyes shut again and choked off a sob.

I felt the fisherman's presence, there at my shoulder, and he waited a heartbeat for me to regain control. Then he spoke with a carefully controlled voice. "Thought you might need something to eat. Got a good broth shouldn't tax you too hard." He cleared his throat and shuffled half a step closer. "Think you can handle that?"

I nodded, and it was a jerky motion. It satisfied him, though. He fell into a crouch, probably sitting on his heels beside my bed on the floor, and then reached a strong, scarred hand under my head and raised me up higher.

Pain stabbed through my stomach and shoulders and a spot on my neck just left of my spine. I sucked in a breath at it, and that brought more echoes from my collarbone, my ribs, and the top of my right hip. A moan escaped me, a sob, and then I passed out again.

It took three tries like that—probably several days—before I was able to eat. And when I did the thin soup was tasteless in my mouth but it burned like fire in my throat, and it set my stomach roiling for hours. I lived in fear that I would retch it up and that the violence of that act would finish me off. When he brought another bowl the following dawn I turned it down.

By noon I regretted my decision. I prayed for him to come back again, whoever he was, and eventually I called out weakly. And then I did as I had done on the beach, gathering my strength and gathering my breath until I could shout. That effort took an entire afternoon, and it earned me nothing. Starving, weeping, I fell back into unconsciousness.

When he came back again it was nighttime, and this time I ate. I ate two bowls, and it soothed my angry stomach, and the fisherman said something to me but exhaustion came on quick and I fell sound asleep.

Then sometime in the night I woke up retching and it very nearly did kill me. The fisherman came to me, turned me on my side, and then set to cleaning it up. I just lay there trembling, gasping for breath, trying to scream. It was a long night.

After that he did not leave. Day and night, he was there for me. He brought food sometimes, but he was careful with how much he let me eat. He gave me water to drink, too. He kept me clean, and I felt him tending to my injuries. He moved slowly whenever he touched me, careful, but his hands were not as gentle as they were strong. More than once he slipped, or gripped too hard, and sent me screaming back into the blackness.

Three times I fell into the dark without quite letting go. Three times consciousness held me too tightly, and though the agony tried to swallow me up completely, I felt something else there in the darkness with me. There inside my head. It was immense and powerful. It bumped like the slow, patient heartbeat of the mountains. It danced like a thread of black fire. It held me up, and I could not fall.

There was a strength within me, something wholly inhuman, and it alone kept me in the world of living men. It knit together broken bones. It stitched shredded muscles back to meat. It prodded me, forever, back toward the light. And after timeless days of blistering agony, it began to heal the light as well. I opened my eyes one weary morning and saw the fisherman kneeling over me.

I saw him. Not just his general shape, but his sunken cheekbones, stringy gray hair tied back in a knot. His weathered skin tanned like leather and the severe slash of his lips pressed into a frown. I couldn't quite follow his eyes, couldn't make out the wrinkles that I knew must mar his hard-worn face, but it felt a miracle to see his face at all.

I smiled. He finished tending a splint around my arm then turned to go—and stopped when he spotted my face. He came closer and tilted his head to one side. "Which one of you's in there this time?"

"Just me," I said. "I can see you."

He pressed a hand to my forehead, warm and strong, and shook his head. "Fever's broke," he said. "First your heart and then your bones and now your sight. Get one more of those and I'll have you hauling nets."

I frowned against his palm, and he pulled the hand away. I sucked in a careful breath, but it was more from habit than need. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt the angry stab behind my ribs. I let the breath out and took a deeper breath, and this one too came easily. I pressed with an elbow and raised my shoulders an inch higher so I could stare toward his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

I saw him scanning my face for a moment, then he rose and left. I saw the shape of the slatted-door behind him as it swung open, and he passed into the firelight of the little room beyond. He came back with a yellowed glass bottle filled with water and a crust of hard brown bread.

"Time to try some bread," he said. "If you can sit up like that, you'll be needing more strength than broth'll give you. Fillet you a fish first of next week and see how that goes down."

He offered me the bread and I took it, but I did not eat right away. I looked toward his eyes. "You asked me who was in here," I said. "Why? What do you mean about me healing?"

He rocked back on his heels and took a long drink of water. Then he heaved a sigh. "Saw it happen," he said. "Lots of stars that night. The azurefin run by starlight, you know, and I was out making a mighty catch. Saw a shadow across the sky, heard it scream like a horror squall, and then I saw you falling."

I swallowed, and I felt that same old panic and fear bubble up inside. I remembered my helpless fall, remembered the shock of hitting the water. I saw him shaking his head.

"Spent three days looking for you," he said. "Ended up near twenty miles upshore of where you fell. You know that? Should've been dead. Should've been dead a hundred times over."

I nodded. I knew it for the truth. For a while the only noise in the cabin was the crackling pop of the fire in the other room. Then he took another drink and shrugged. "You lived. Times there, I doubted it. Times there, you started to rave. Day I brought you in, your skin burned with a fever like I've never seen. And I've seen sickness. Fever like that can break a man's mind, so it didn't seem so odd...."

He trailed off, and my heart thundered in my chest. "What?" I said.

He shrugged again. "Times, in that fever, you spoke. With a different voice. A hateful voice. Like there was a demon inside you."

I trembled, and it hurt. Not the explosion of pain I'd known before, but discreet blossoms beneath my collarbone and to the right of my stomach. I coughed and groaned, and when my vision cleared I saw him nodding at me.

"Horrible," he said. "Never made a lick of sense. Words that weren't words, you know? First fever lasted seven days, and I figured any morning I'd be hauling you off for the carrion birds."

I closed my eyes. If not for the pain, I probably would have chuckled. Instead, I only nodded. "I felt that way, too."

"Then the fire was gone," he said, and spread his hands in wonder. "Fever was gone. And after that you were still all shattered, but you had a pulse steady as the surf."

"Seven days?" I asked. "And three, you said." He nodded, but cut me off.

"More than that," he said. He chuckled and offered me the water bottle. I took it and drank deep, and he watched me with care. When I finished he nodded again. "Ten days for the first fever," he said. "And then it got bad."

"Then?" I said, and a laugh escaped me. It hurt.

"That's when I started trying to get food in you."

I blinked, startled. "
After
the fever? After ten days?"

He shrugged. "You were never awake. On and off. Took another week just to get you sitting up—"

"I remember," I said. "I hadn't known it took so long."

"Ten days before your first taste of broth, four before your second. And third." His mouth twisted, and I knew the night he was remembering. He shook his head. "Next day we tried again. And then your skin began to burn again."

I shook my head. "I don't remember."

"You wouldn't," he said. "You weren't there. The voice was back. Your brain was all on fire. Twelve days this time—"

"
Twelve
?"

"Twelve," he said again. "Thirteen when the fever broke, and after that I thought perhaps you were really going to live. Got a real appetite then. Started breathing easier. Stopped coughing blood." He wiped his hands unconsciously, as though washing them clean. "You were mighty broke when I pulled you off that beach," he said. "You know that, right?"

I nodded. He rose and turned away. I twisted, despite the pain beneath my collarbone, and found a little window set into the wall above my bed. He leaned on it, staring out at the sea. "Twelve days of fever when he wouldn't even let me touch you. He raved. He spat at me. He tried to bite me."

I felt a blush rise in my cheeks. "I'm sorry," I said, but he shushed me with a wave of his hand.

"Weren't you," he said. "Times, you spoke to me, too. Not much. But times. And you were always quiet. Like you are now. Little bit afraid. He was different."

I swallowed. I closed my eyes and remembered the great black presence in the darkness. I remembered the furious rage of the beast that I'd felt within my head. I remembered the dragon I had faced. Terrible. Indestructible.

I shivered.

Above me the fisherman nodded. "Brought you broth, but you didn't touch it. Wouldn't let me close enough to feed you. Brought you water, and if I left I'd come back to find it empty. Best I could do for you, and that fever burned hot and long."

"Twelve days," I said.

"Twelve days. And then he was gone again. And you were back. And your ribs...." He sighed. "I've seen a lot of things. You know? I've seen a lot of things. Never seen damage like yours healed by starvation and a fever."

I didn't know enough to tell him what it was. I had suspicions, fears, but even if I dared to give them voice, I didn't know a tenth of what I'd need to make any sense of it. So I held my tongue, and after a time he shrugged again.

"Second fever mended bones," he said. "Shattered legs and broken ribs and an arm I'd've sworn you'd never use again." I grunted as though he'd hit me, and he nodded. "But then it was just a matter of time. Blind and weak and quiet as you were, I figured I could bring you back from death by then. Took four weeks—"

"No!" I shouted, and I saw him twist to look down at me, then back out the window.

"Sure enough," he said. "More than a month of slow and steady from one fever to the next, and then the third one broke my heart."

"Worse?" I guessed.

He shook his head. "Nope. Quieter. Never heard a word from the other one. Could've cooked a fillet on your forehead. Poured the water and the broth into you, listened to your moans, and watched the fever slowly climb. It was worse, but only because it was normal."

"Oh," I said. I nodded.

"Mhm. Figured this one had nothing to do with magic demons. Figured after everything we'd been through, you and me, you were going to die of something stupid."

I chuckled, and I could feel him grin down on me. He sank back down on his heels and nodded toward the bread still in my hands. "Eat," he said. "Eat. Then tell me your name. Been waiting nigh on three months just to ask you that."

"Daven," I said, without starting on the bread yet. It felt rough and real against my fingertips, and I was cherishing it.

"Just Daven?" I shrugged. He frowned. "I expected something grander."

"Everyone does," I said. But then I understood, and I nodded. "I'm a student of the Academy," I said. "I was."

"Ah. Yes." He nodded back at me. "Thanks. Had to be that, huh?"

I shrugged. It was an answer to the things he'd seen. It wasn't really an explanation, it certainly wasn't the truth. But it made sense. People needed sense. Claighan had told me that.

"How long?" I asked, after a while. "Altogether. How long has it been?"

"Eighty days, give or take." I felt his eyes on me, burning, and realized how very little he had asked. How little he had demanded. I felt my cheeks burn again.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Eighty days? You've spent all this time taking care of me?"

"I had the time," he said, and he chuckled. "Not a lot goes on, this corner of the world. Brought a little story with you. That's worth the cost in soup."

"And time?"

He laughed again, a shade darker this time. "Got nothing but time, Daven. Daven." He tasted the sound of it. "Waited weeks just to put a name to you."

"Daven Carrickson," I told him. "Of Chantire. Of Terrailles. And recently a student of the Academy."

He whistled soft and low. "Been all over," he said. "And Joseph." He jabbed a thumb at his chest, then leaned forward and patted my right knee gently. I felt an answering jolt of pain up in my hip, but I concealed the wince. "Get some rest," he said. "Eat that bread. Maybe try you on fish sooner than I thought."