Xangô POV: Day 76

Current Wealth: 168 gold 47 silver 29 copper

I hurried to Solitaire and Corvan, all too aware that every moment passing by was another opportunity for my “brother” to do something horrific, irreversible and, in this case, disastrous. He wouldn’t, though, would he?

A stupid question, of fucking course he would.

To my surprise, though, he hadn’t. When I came to the pair they were talking- or rather, Solitaire was snarling, and Corvan was cowering. I supposed that much made sense, magus or not, he was still just an ageing man physically. Within the reach of Solitaire’s arm, there would be no real contest between the two of them. Which made it even more remarkable that Corvan’s physiology hadn’t been rearranged yet.

“You’re going to heal the big one.” Solitaire growled, just as I came to within earshot. “You’re going to do a really, really nice job of it. He’s going to live a long and healthy life, and he’ll even have that knee problem gone once you’re done. If you don’t, I’ll kill you. If you fail, I’ll kill you. If he turns out to be too hurt for any magus in the world to fix, I’ll fucking kill you so slowly you’ll end up wondering whether it was old age that got you in the end. Understand?”

Corvan nodded, his face sheet pale. I could see blood dripping from one side of him, just under the ribs. It formed a patchy trail behind him, too, little droplets and flecks in the ground. Not a deadly amount to lose, I thought, but running out fast enough that it would be soon. Solitaire hauled him to his feet with one arm.

“Then let’s get healing.” He spat.

Argar was in bad shape. Somewhere between “hospital visit” and “something I just hauled out of a 1200cc engine” levels of hurt, barely moving, not making a sound, covered with burns and covered even more entirely by mangled, glowing armour that kept us from seeing the extent of it. We’d needed Beam’s help to even examine him, twisting and tearing the ruined plate’s remnants free of his body.

Fortunately, the heat left his steel coating just about weak enough that it surrendered to my friend’s physical power. Unfortunately, what it revealed was more harrowing than I’d dared fear.

There were men out there who’d have sent a steak back to the kitchens if it had been as cooked as Argar was. His iron-tough skin was peeling back, blackened and charred, cracked apart to reveal bloody meat below. That meat wasn’t anywhere near as glistening or moist as it ought to have been, its residual water currently permeating the air around him as a thin, steady trail of steam. The giant twitched, groaning with pain, and every motion sent fresh rivulets of blood to ooze up from his ruined body where the tissues were fused unnaturally together, then forcibly torn apart by the shifting movements.

Without magic, he’d have been dead. Even in a modern emergency room I wasn’t sure what his chances would’ve been, but we had something better. I turned a glare to Corvan, tried to think of something to say, then gave up. Looking, instead, at Solitaire.

“If he doesn’t save him.” I said, quietly, finding the words coming out of me as if someone else were speaking with my mouth, “I want you to kill him as slowly as you’re capable of.”

Solitaire nodded, and, for once, didn’t smile.

The magus got to work.

I watched him like a hawk, Beam watched him like an eagle, and Solitaire watched him like the most paranoid man Liverpool had ever produced. All three of us kept our eyes on him with laser-intensity, and Helena was crouched right behind, her spear ready to drive through the magus’ spine if things looked like such an action would be necessary. The worst part was how difficult it would be to tell, we could all feel magic haemorrhaging off of him, but none of us were yet skilled enough in magery to tell one kind from another by sensation alone. He might’ve stopped healing and started readying another fireball, for all we knew, and the only warning we’d get was the light and heat.

Corvan’s face didn’t twist into a treacherous sneer, though, and his magic didn’t convulse into a deadly ambush. He just looked exhausted .

When creating Redacle, we’d made healing magic exhausting, difficult and time-consuming for a reason. It was to avoid compromising our dark fantasy atmosphere by making it easily commonplace for people to have limbs grown back, or fevers purged from them. Well, that was biting us in the ass now, because Argar’s tortured body was being repaired far, far too slowly for my taste. It certainly didn’t help that we’d forced the magus to use so much of his power in the fight just minutes prior.

The blackened, carbonised flesh that was beyond saving fell off, detaching from its healthier dependencies and falling away like leaves in autumn. Below, the ugly red flesh slowly lightened, turning from crimson to scarlet, then pink as new skin grew over it. I saw the heat die down, the mangled connections rethread as soft tissue reformed and reattached. The more was done, however, the slower things became. Corvan was panting and sweating long before Argar was past the point of danger.

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“I can’t keep this up much longer.” The magus breathed, his words strained. I eyed him, deciding that if he was that good at lying he’d probably have seen our little betrayal coming a mile away in the first place.

“What can you do?” I asked, and he scowled.

“Nothing, I just-”

Solitaire hit him, hard, in the spine, and the magus coughed out his agony for a moment before continuing in a slightly milder tone.

“...Not much, my power is failing me.”

“What can we do about that?” I snapped, sending a furtive glance at Argar. He didn’t seem to have improved much, if at all. For all the damage that was physically gone, his strength was just as diminished and his agony just as apparent. Maybe people only had so much life in them, and an injury like this left it all squeezed out even when most of it was fixed. Maybe there was just more damaged tissue deeper below the exterior.

I was spiralling, focusing on minutiae, giving myself something trivial to consider so I didn’t worry myself with what actually mattered. Stupid. I stopped.

“We can’t do anything.” Corvan replied, a touch of panic to his voice. He’d answered fast, fast enough that I might’ve been the delaying factor in our conversation had I not snapped myself out of the panic when I did. But his answer was useless all the same.

“That’s not good enough.” Solitaire growled. “If you can’t do anything then you’re a scrotum-themed rug in my warehouse.”

He wasn’t even kidding. I knew Solitaire kidding, and this was certainly not it. He looked far too sincere in his smile, far too subtly eager, for it to be anything but a promise of what was to come.

If he decapitated our subordinate’s healer, then it would probably get in the way of his healing Argar. I decided to intervene before that could happen.

“What about a power pool?” I asked. “Can you draw on my strength?”

It was a concept in our lore, but not a commonly used one. I only even suggested it out of desperation, and before Corvan could answer, Solitaire was leaning in.

“Everyone shut up.” He instructed. “I’m being clever.”

I struggled to acquiesce, every instinct in my body wanted me doing, not watching, but I was fresh out of useful ideas, and by the look on Corvan’s face a power tap wouldn’t have changed anything at all.

“What do you think you’re-”

“Shut.” Solitaire snapped, interrupting the magus before his question could continue. It occurred to me that Corvan suddenly seemed a lot less cowed, his posture a lot less fearful. Was that intentional? Yes, it must have been, somewhere along the way he’d managed to slip himself out of the suborned position in our conversation. Probably around the time we let him see he was fucking invaluable for healing Argar.

Whatever the implications of his newly perceived status were, Corvan had asked a valid question.

“What are you doing?” I frowned, figuring Solitaire had at least a bit of wiggle room in answering. He was quite the multi-tasker when he wanted to be, most of the time he just asked for silence because he was a cock.

Sure enough, I got my answer.

“Cooling his body down.” He replied. “Specifically, all the bits that are still hot enough to keep cooking, if nothing else I’ll keep his burns from worsening on their own.”

Corvan barked out a new answer before I could.

“I was doing that.” The magus exclaimed. “If you can do it yourself, instead, then I’ll have more power to spare on other things.” Wordlessly, Solitaire made room by his side for the man to kneel down and continue his work in healing Argar, and I just stood back and watched them both go at it.

Minutes passed before they were finally finished, Solitaire leaning back with a snarl, Corvan with a sigh. Both of them were exhausted, but Argar looked…Better.

He was breathing consistently, at least, not interrupting every other inhalation with a sharp gasp, not twitching or spasming anymore. There still wasn’t a lot of colour to the man’s face, but there was at least a life to him. He looked less categorically dead than asleep, and I’d call that progress. All eyes turned to Corvan, who glanced up at us and scowled.

“I really am done now.” The magus growled. “Nothing left in the tank, if you want him healed more it’ll take you a few hours of waiting.”

I resisted the urge to swear. Magi were powerful, but not for very long at a time. Depending on how they paced themselves they could output maybe a few minutes of magic each day at full strength, with long stretches of recharge-time in-between. If he’d been healing at close to full capacity then he probably did have truly nothing left in the tank.

If he was lying to keep our guard down, though, then there’d not be any real way of knowing. I knew a lot about our world’s magic, but not what different levels of it felt like, or how to compare them. I had no way of matching up the power we’d seen from Corvan to the exhaustion he claimed he felt, nor even how strong he was to begin with.

Solitaire must have gone through all the calculations already, because he spoke before I could.

“You’re going to make your offer soon.” He noted. “To keep healing him, now that you’ve seen how we can kick the shit out of you now.”

The magus glared at him, the way people tended to glare at Solitaire when he opened his mouth.