Grasping specters of clawed hands…
A cave, the scent of the ocean…
A stone archway…
The man in front of me, his hands pressed to the stones, his bare foot crossing the threshold…
Agony. Cold. Ripping. Tearing.
I pull my hands away, the flesh on my palms and fingers aching and burning with cold. I look down at them. They are covered in frost that begins to melt in the warm gasps of my startled breaths. I look down into the man’s agonized eyes.
“You saw it?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I sought only to understand, but…”
I feel a tiny prickle on the back of my neck. A lie? I brush the feeling aside. He’s fading before my eyes.
“I do not know this magic,” I tell him. “But it is of the spirit. You’ve been… invaded. Possessed. There are natures here that are not your own.”
“Can you help me?”
I bite at my lip. He needs help. He will not survive whatever this is. And yet I do not know.
“This may be beyond my skill. I can promise nothing.”
“Can you promise to try?”
The plea in his voice almost breaks me. I think of the soil. Of the fever that vanished like a nightmare with the dawn.
“Yes. I promise to try.”
He presses his lips together in a thin, colorless line as he nods and closes his eyes. Waiting.
Waiting for me. I can barely breathe with the weight of the fear pressing down on me, suffocating me. I do not fear to try. I fear to fail. To failhim.
I have nothing, no tools to aid me, and somehow I know there is no time to retrieve them. I ball my hands into fists, stretch them wide again, and place them back against his skin that burns with cold. I can see it now, in every vein, this cold energy. It is what is killing him. It must be exorcised, like poison from the bloodstream. I raise one hand to my throat, my fingers already numb, and fumble for the chain that hangs there, tugging it free from the collar of my night dress. I stare at the object that dangles from it: a tiny glass vial which contains a protective charm.
Whispering an apology to the goddess, I bring the tiny vial down hard on a rock, and it splinters apart into a dozen diamond-bright shards. I take the largest of these into my right hand and, before I can talk myself out of it, I bring it down against the man’s skin and press down ruthlessly.
His back arches as the pain hits him, but he makes no sound. I watch in fascination as blood that is not blood beads up around the cut I’ve made above his chest. It is dark and thick and bubbles likesomething rotten. It should repel me. Instead, I place my hands on either side of the wound and begin to chant. The words fall off my tongue easily in a long, unbroken chain, words I have used a thousand times before, over a thousand ailing bodies, but not like this. Never like this.
Still, beneath my fear and uncertainty, I can feel them beginning to work. The flesh beneath my fingers is warming as the icy cold energy pours out of him. At first, it rises in a thick fog only from the cut I made in his skin, but as I chant it begins to pour from his nostrils and his eyes. Then he opens his mouth in a silent scream, and it billows up from his throat. It surrounds us, draping the entire clearing in a deathly cold fog. Then the fog begins to swirl and divide and coalesce all around the clearing. I watch, wide-eyed with shock, as the fog forms… figures. Like humans, but composed of bitterly cold smoke.
If I am to lose control of my magic, it is at this moment. My shock is almost enough to shake me from my concentration, but my training—or perhaps sheer instinct—allows me to cling to my resolve, allows my lips to keep moving, and for the words to continue to tumble out without my conscious effort. I cannot fathom what I have drawn from the shaking body beneath my fingers, but I know this is like no healing magic I have ever performed, or will ever perform again.
At last, my spell has run its course. No more mysterious fog pours from the shuddering figure beneath my fingertips. His muscles release, his spine sinks back to the earth, his desperate gasps settle into the deep, even breathing of one in deep sleep. I do not remove my hands—I seem unable to do so—but I do tear my eyes from him to stare around at what has manifested in answer to my call.
They are ghosts. Spirits, severed from their earthly bodies. They surround us, agitated, pacing like animals facing down a threat. I have seen the same postures, felt the same defensive energy, from animals who are hurt and cornered—ready to fight for their lives even as they realize their chances of survival are slim. Waves of deep animosity roll off them as they circle us. I can feel it washing over me, dizzying in its strength. They begin to close in on us, and I begin to panic. I do not understandwhat these things are. How can I protect him from them? I raise my hand in malediction.
The figures stop, and I realize they understand me. I open my mouth to ask the obvious question, but a tingling realization now coursing through my body answers. These are spirits—or something akin to spirits. I can barely hear their distant voices, their whispers borne away on the night air, before they can reach me. And yet, I understand they are calling out to me.
It is a warning. It burrows into my bones and nestles there, like a frightened animal.
As I stare at them, trying to understand, they shiver, and fade. The cold vanishes with them. We are alone.
The sound of his groan startles me, and I turn back to the figure lying limp in the grass. His breathing, once shallow, is now steady. The deep black of the veins beneath his skin has vanished. His eyes flutter open, and his dark eyes find mine.
