---Chapter 13
Raggsy scrambled up the wall, digging his claws into every crack between the cut stones. It was hard work, as the blocks were squared and carefully set together. But by using his tail for balance and leaving both helmet and coat behind, he was able to make it. At the top of the wall he paused between battlements and looked behind him.
Patch was out of sight below the table land, twisting vines into a rope ladder. There were no sentries or guards down on the ground below, though there was one patrolling the wall top around a walkway beside the crenelations. Raggsy had put his ear to the wall and listened until the guard was past before starting the scramble up. From what he had seen, it would take the guard five minutes to reach the tall tower at the end of the walk. There, he would meet another sentry at its base and talk for a few minutes, before turning around to come back. With a quiet click of claws on stone, Raggsy jumped down onto the walkway a few feet below. He almost giggled as he thought of all of the stupid humans in the castle, asleep or patrolling without once thinking about the possibility of a giant rat loose in the place, with all of the agility of a rodent and all the intelligence of a person.
Running lightly along the wall and down a set of stone steps, Raggsy came to the courtyard. It was graveled with small, round rocks, probably hauled from the river. There was a set of small outbuildings between the wall and main keep at this point. Raggsy slid into the shadows behind them and padded along until he reached one of the main buildings. It was made of squared, bluish-black rock set into straight walls. Tilting his head back, the Ratperson saw the overhang of the steeply-sloping roof above.
He had not gone far along this inner wall when his keen senses picked up the scent of food coming from a door ahead. Trotting forwards, he pressed his nose up against the crack between door and wall to take a deep sniff. The smell of cooling bread, soapy dishwater and fresh herbs overlaid lingering food odors in deep layers.
“Must be the kitchen,” he said to himself, rubbing his claws together, “now let’s see if this door is locked...”
He pulled on it and heard a soft clunking noise inside, but it did not open. Not a lock; a bar put across the inside. Curling one of his claws through the crack where the door latched, he slid it up and down until he felt the bar. Then he slipped the whole slim finger in and pried the bar off of its hangers. Clunk! It fell to the floor inside with a loud noise. Raggsy froze, ears and whiskers twitching as he listened. After a long moment he decided that no one had heard or was coming. Opening the door, he went in and carefully moved the wooden bar aside. It was dark in the room, but his large eyes adjusted so that he could see, even if dimly. He was not in the main part of the kitchen but the scullery, where dishes were washed and fresh food prepared for bringing into the kitchen. A pan of cooling dishwater sat on a counter, while a long, deep sink of stone held a pile of carrot tops. Raggsy picked one up to delicately gnaw the last bit of orange off, peering around him.
There was another door, this one less substantial, which was set one step above the rest of the floor. Other than this, all that was around him was just cupboards, pans, counters and scrub brushes. Scurrying across the room, he opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. The low glow of hot coals lit the room dimly, seeping out of cracks in the oven doors. It was a large kitchen as befit the bailiff’s castle, with big, adobe ovens, a huge roasting pit and a chopping block of very solid wood next to the counters. Pans, knives and all of the many tools of the cookery trade hung on the walls. A few forgotten potatoes sat on one counter, decorated by their fallen comrade’s peels.
There were two doors which led out of this room, one at the far end and one in the middle of its wall. Raggsy went and sniffed at this central door, but smelled only the dusty, meaty scent of a storage cellar beyond. The other exit held more promise, as it was a larger, better-made door. Walking with the utmost quietness on the tips of his foot claws, the Ratperson crept over to it. Pressing his ear against the wood, he listened for any stirring beyond. No sound came through, so he pulled the door open. There was an extra-dark hallway there, running left and right. To the right, there was a handful of doors which looked like they led into sleeping chambers or personal rooms of some sort.
“Cook’s quarters,” he decided, swinging his snout in the other direction. That way, there was dim outlines of an open walkway to the side and a staircase straight ahead. He walked softly down the hall, stopping to peer out of the entrance way on the right. It looked into a large hall, the main dining hall, he guessed, with carpets on the floor and a huge fireplace with coals burning red in it. Somewhere in the room, Raggsy smelled the faint, fresh scent of humans.
With another look he spotted a pair of guards standing way down at the far end of the dining hall. He could make them out by the silvery gleam of dim light bouncing off of their angled helmets and the halberds in their hands. He was fairly sure that, with only his dark brown fur showing, they could not see him at that distance. Besides, human eyes did not seem to work well in the dark.
Gliding past the entrance, he climbed the steep, narrow stairs at the other end of the hall. Following them, he went by what he thought were servant’s quarters and halls leading to richer people’s sleeping rooms, then staircases leading to turrets. But nowhere yet had he smelled the dark, gloomy scents of a place where things were being kept prisoner. Wandering deeper into the house, he saw sentries pass each other with whispered passwords or greetings, as well as sleepless officials brooding over their paperwork or partners.
Finally, he came to a place in one corner of the huge house where steps went upwards towards a wide turret, as well as downwards into darkness. Here he scented the despair and dirt he had been searching for.
Raggsy crept down the stairs, soon coming to a wooden door with spikes set into it. It was barred on the outside with a heavy iron bar, which he carefully raised and swung up out of the way. The door creaked when he pushed it open, making him wince. But he guessed, correctly, that a door barred on the outside would not have a guard within.
Past it was a sort of anteroom with a chair, a table and a bench in it. There were puddles of wax on the table from melted candles and a strange contraption of metal which looked like a heavy iron glove with screws at each joint. Raggsy inspected it curiously for a minute, running his claws over the iron plates as he tried to think of what it could be.
“Perhaps for hurtin’ people with,” he decided shrewdly, “it smells like pain in here.”
There was also a small, heavy iron box which jingled when he shook it. But it was locked and did not interest him. Neither food not prisoners jingled when you shook them.
Pattering past the table, he went through a narrow doorway into a spacious room. Open windows, slit-shaped and stoutly barred, let a dim lavender-gray light pool into the place. To the right was a row of barred enclosures, with stone partitions in between each one. A wooden bench and bucket could be seen in the nearest one, both quite empty. On the left side of the room the wall was set with iron cleats, most of which had chains and manacles hanging from them. One just had ropes, raggedly broken at the ends. The feeling of sorrow and defeat was even stronger in this place, amplified by a crusty layer of mud which covered the floor.
Bits of straw stuck out of this filth every so often, or pieces of bones too small to be human.
Raggsy slunk across the floor, holding his tail up across one arm to keep it from dragging in the sludge. There were four cells of stone and iron, each a little deeper than a tall man laying down and perhaps a foot less in width. The first three were empty, just the scratches on the partitions and the dirt on the floor indicating previous interments. In the last cell, Raggsy’s bright eyes caught sight of a shape crouched in the center of the room on the floor. Coming closer, right up to the bars, he saw the form of a woman with dark hair and a simple, dark-colored robe kneeling on the floor. She was facing away from him and did not appear to have heard him come in.
“Uh, ma’am?” Raggsy tapped his claws on the bars, speaking hesitantly.
The woman turned, rising to her feet. She was wearing a pale dress under the robe, made of something that almost seemed to shimmer in the dark. She did not seem to see Raggsy very clearly in the shadows, as she tilted her head from one side to the other before asking cautiously, “who’s there?”
Her voice had a particular timbre to it, soft and wispy like fog blowing through trees on a mountainside.
Ignoring the question, the Ratperson asked his own, “are you the healer?”
“Yes, I am a healer.” She came closer to the bars, putting one of her own hands around it as she looked out. With a little start of surprise, she added breathlessly, “why...are you an Outlander?”
“Sort of.” Raggsy glanced behind him, lowering his voice. “look, I’ve got a pal who needs a healer. The lady in town wouldn’t help us, so me an’ Patch have come to break you out. If we do, will you help our pal, no matter what’s wrong with 'im?”
The healer stared through at him, sliding her hand up and down the bar in thought for a moment before answering, “of course, if I can. It is my calling. But what is wrong with this 'pal’?”
“You’ll see when we get there. For now, wait ‘ere until I come back with Patch. Then we’ll both get you out together. See?”
“I think I understand,” the healer said solemnly, “but before you go...my name is Soleeryn. Soleeryn of the Mist. My I have your name?”
“Raggsy.” The Ratperson threw over his shoulder, scurrying away. “I’ll be back soon.”
He hurried back up the steps and through the heavy door, barring it behind him so that, if anyone checked, it did not look like anyone had been there. His instincts told him that he had traversed most of the keep before finding the dungeon, so he was near the opposite wall to the one he had first come over. Rather than trying to retrace his steps directly, he simply found another small side-door leading outside, into the courtyard. This one seemed to be for use by soldiers coming in from outside, or bringing prisoners from the town, because it was near the dungeon and had a crest painted on it in red and silver.
Since he was on the inside, it was easy to unbar it. It led directly out into the edge of the courtyard. As he had suspected, he was on the opposite side of the castle from where he had come over the walls earlier. In the shadows of the walls, he slunk around the yard, a giant rodent loose in the castle.
Back at the first wall, he waiting until the guard was at the far end and ran up the steps back onto the wall top. It was not hard for him to climb between the battlements and skitter to the ground down the wall. Once on the ground, he gave a low whistle. It was returned from behind a tree a few yards away and Patch came sneaking out, dashing over to join Raggsy at the base of the wall. Behind him trailed a long tail of vines, all twisted and knotted together.
“Did ye find the healer?”
“Yep,” Raggsy put his snout almost in the pirate’s ear to whisper, “her name’s Soleeryn. She says she’ll help us if we get her out. We’ll have to deal with the guard on the wall top, but there ain’t any in the dungeon. Just have to break the lock on her cell.”
“Aye. Sounds good. Now, you take the rope to the top and tie it off on a battlement. Then give a signal and I’ll be up to take out the guard.”
“Right.” Raggsy grabbed the end of the vine, wrapped it once around his furry waist and tucked it tight. Then he turned and once again made the difficult climb up the wall, listening just below a battlement until he heard the sentry go by and away. When all was clear he vaulted over onto the walkway, hastily undoing the rope from around his middle. With swift precision he tied it around a battlement, letting the end dangle down towards the ground below. Once it was ready he leaned over and gave another whistle.
As the sound died away he felt a hand descend on his shoulder and a rough voice say, “hey, now, what sort of thing are you?”
The hand was strong and spun him around, so that he was looking right into the face of the guard. The sentry had heard something and turned around just in time to see Raggsy tying the vine onto the battlement. Doubling back, he had heard the whistle and come up to catch the perpetrator of these acts.
“Uh, I’m just a little 'ol rat,” Raggsy said, moving sideways so that the soldier was not facing the wall anymore while talking to him, but side-on to it. “I don’t mean no 'arm.”
“A little rat!” the soldier exclaimed, “you’re a giant one! And a servant of the witch, no doubt. Don’t try anything, or I’ll run you through.”
He pointed his spear at Raggsy’s middle, not seeing the hands which gripped the top of the stone beside him, or the lanky figure which scrambled silently to the top of it.
“Now march, big rat, down this walkway and don--!”
The soldier’s words were cut off abruptly as Patch jumped from the battlement and landed next to him, knocking the spear aside with one hand while the other clouted him in the face with a cutlass’s hilt. The soldier collapsed sideways, falling from the walkway to the ground below. He hit with a jingle of armor and a thud, but made no other noise.
“Whew, thanks.” The Ratperson let out a deep breath. “That was close.”
“We had better hurry along, now,” Patch returned, “in five minutes the guard on the other wall will expect to meet our friend. And in fifteen he’ll probably come looking for him, after waiting uselessly for a time hoping against hope.”
They dashed along the wall and down to the ground, where Raggsy led the way to the back of the keep and around to the door. The guard’s entrance was still unbarred, so they pushed the door open softly and stole inside. Raggsy watched Patch shut the door behind them and then turned around, only to come face-to-face with another soldier. This one was carrying a torch and not wearing any armor, with a sword hanging at his side. There was an insignia on his chest, indicating a higher rank.
“Ay--!” He opened his mouth to shout, fumbling for his sword. But before he could draw it Patch had run him through with the cutlass, grasping his arm afterwards to lower him quietly to the ground. The torch had fallen and gone out.
“There’s another cock that won’t crow before the morn,” he whispered, “let’s hurry.”
Agreeing wordlessly, Raggsy pattered along the passage and found his way to the spiral staircase leading down to the dungeon. It only took them a moment to reach the spiked door and unbar it, traversing the anteroom to the chamber with the cells in it. The Ratperson hurried over to the last cell and found Soleeryn waiting, standing quietly by the door.
“Is that you, friend?” she queried.
“Yeah.” Raggsy was breathless from his hurry. “An’ here’s Patch.”
The pirate gave her a quick nod of his head. “Aye, ma’am, stand back from the door and I’ll open it.”
She stepped back while he drew a small knife from his shirt, bending to insert it in the keyhole of the iron lock. From his pocket he took a fist-sized stone, which he had picked up outside. With a few hard (loud) blows to the knife, he broke both its tip and the lock’s mechanism. The door swung open and he ushered the healer out. “Hurry now, ma’am, we’ve got to get out of here double-quick.”
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Soleeryn came out with a soft rustle of fabric, trying to thank them, “you have saved my life. I--”
“Uh, later, please.” Raggsy grasped her sleeve in his claws, pulling her along. Patch shut the cell door so that it would appear normal from a distance, then hurried to stride up behind them. Still leading the healer by the sleeve, Raggsy ran up the stairs to the spiked door. Patch trailed behind, stopping suddenly at the desk in the anteroom.
“Come on,” Raggsy urged impatiently.
“Just a moment. What is this?” Patch picked up the heavy box from the desk, shaking it once. The noise it produced made his one good eye widen with delight. Without another word he tucked it under his arm and followed them out, barring the door behind them. In a few moments they had come to the last hall before the exit. When the healer saw the dead soldier laying on the floor in a pool of blood, she gave a little start. But she said nothing, only pulling her skirts away so that they did not drag in the filth.
Once outside, the escapees went more cautiously. They had just reached the point on the wall top where the vine was tied to a battlement when there was a shout from somewhere down below.
“Time to abandon ship!” Patch exclaimed, pushing the healer towards the rope. “Quick, ma’am, there is a rope ladder here with sticks in it. Down it as fast as you can go!”
Asking no questions, the woman knelt on top of the stone and awkwardly swung herself around to put her feet on the second stick. With surprising strength for one who appeared so delicate, she began to climb down. The alarm was being raised below: someone had found the officer’s dead body. Patch waited a moment, then urged Raggsy to follow the healer down.
“No, you go first.” The Ratperson waved him on. “I can climb down the wall if need be.”
“Right.” Knowing that arguing was a waste of precious time, Patch jumped to the wall and began sliding down the rope with a seaman’s agility. The vines creaked and swayed under a double weight, as Solyreen was still on it below him.
Raggsy glanced over his shoulder at the courtyard below. Torches were starting to move across it, searching the ground for footprints. He looked up and saw someone coming from the opposite wall, shouting as he came, “over here! Someone is over here!”
“Time to go.” Raggsy scrambled to the wall top, throwing himself down the wall at such a quick pace that his claws felt like they were going to be torn out before he reached the ground. He hit earth just a few moments after Patch and the healer, landing awkwardly. But he rolled upright without harm, jumping to his feet. Without a word, the three companions dashed away into the night, while torches flared and voices shouted on the wall top. Soon the runaways were tumbling wildly down the slope of the tableland into the trees below, where Raggsy picked up his coat and helmet from the ground.
Continuing their flight, they wound through the trees and came out into the valley east of the castle, cutting across open ground towards the hills on the eastern tip of the ridge which held the town. They ran and stumbled and panted in the dark, dodging around the stone pillars which littered the valley, until they found a copse of oaks and willows to throw themselves down into. The healer gasped in the dark, holding her head in her hands.
But once she had found her breath again she leaned back against a tree tiredly, saying, “now I must thank you, my friends. Those soldiers would have taken my life in the morning, but you have saved me.”
“Thank us later by saving our friend’s life,” Patch told her, sitting up and feeling himself to make sure that his cutlass was still in place and the metal box safe under one arm. “He helped me once himself, and is in sore need of medical aid at the moment.”
“Where is he at?”
“That way, across the river and on a bit.”
“Well, if you wish me to help him, I’m afraid you must tell me what is wrong with your friend now. We will be passing my house and I will have to bring medicines from it to heal him, if the soldiers have left me any,” Soleeryn explained, “also, if you wish to cross the river in the dark, this is not a good place. The ford is the best place to cross...but it may be guarded.”
“Is there any other good crossin’s?” Raggsy asked, “like, one where we don’t have to swim too much?”
“Let me think.” she bowed her head in her hands again for a moment, before sitting up straight with a nod. Indicating a place further down the river, she said, “there is a long gravel bar that way, which has a large fallen tree laying on it tipped from the other bank. If it has not washed away since last time I was there, it should make a bridge for us to traverse.”
“Let’s get going then.” Patch stood up, metal box clinking as it shifted under his arm. “And hope we don’t have to swim or I’ll never make it across with this.”
“What’s in it?” Raggsy sniffed at the box curiously.
“Gold coins, methinks.” There was a grin in the pirate’s voice, though it was hard to see its reflection on his face because of the dark.
They set off through the hills and scrub again, walking until they heard the deep murmuring of the river ahead of them. Once they had come near the bank, Soleeryn led them around willow thickets and through the sand to a gravel bar. It reached out into the dark water like a pale, gleaming arm, far out to where the branchy end of a tree could be seen leaning on it.
They crunched and slipped across the rounded stones until they reached the tree, which looked to be related to a cottonwood and was very large. Its root-wad was a dark shadow on the opposite bank, while the slim, pale branches of its top brushed the gravel beside them. Branches stuck up at odd angles towards them all down the trunk, making a maze of spiky limbs.
“This looks easy enough,’ Raggsy declared, jumping up onto the nearest branch. Running along it, he scrambled between branches and over the trunk until he disappeared into the shadows at the far side.
Soleeryn looked to Patch. “I’m a little more nervous than our animal friend. I’ve seen this before but never tried to cross it.”
“Aye, it’ll be a bit of a trick.” Patch proffered his hand, the one that wasn’t busy with a box. “But if ye like I can help you.”
She took his hand in her slim, capable fingers and they started across. There was a few slips and wavering steps before they finally made it to the other side, where Raggsy was perched on top of the root-wad waiting for them. “Heh, what took you so long?”
“There was a tree in our way,’ Patch retorted wryly, “now let’s keep going.”
The sky had turned almost black by the time they found themselves at the healer’s broken-in house. She looked it over with a stoic calm, stepping inside under the hanging roof to pick up a few odds and ends, putting them in a knitted sack with a handle on it from the floor. Once it was full she stepped out and asked them again to explain what was wrong with their friend.
“Please, do not hesitate to tell me anything,” she urged, “I have seen many maladies and will not judge him by what he has.”
Raggsy and Patch exchanged a quick glance before beginning to tell the healer everything that had happened to Jax. She listened solemnly, nodding with understanding when they described how the purple stain had touched him.
“Ah, yes, the corruption that has fallen on our land. It is a sad thing. When I first moved here from the Valley of Mists beyond the mountains of the Outlands, there was no corruption. But now it has spread mysteriously across the land. It is partially the corruptions fault that I was arrested. They have never trusted me here, but since I had the power to cure the corruption, unlike any other healer in the area, I was held as the maker of the mischief. If your friend has it, we must cure him as soon as possible. It eats men alive. Now if only the soldiers have left me my potions...”
She stepped quickly over to the poultry shed, where she began digging through the straw. “My potions for treating the corruption are kept here, for safety. Too many people look upon even the cure as evil.”
“Eh, you lookin’ for this stuff, ma’am?” Raggsy sheepishly took the remaining two bottles from his pocket. “I-er, kinda’ thought that it was sometin’ to drink when I found them in here earlier. Good thing I didn’t throw them all away, huh?”
Soleeryn took them from his gently. “It is a good thing, indeed. These take a month to brew and are the only full cure for the corruption that I know. Now I am ready to treat your friend. Take me to him.”
They set off across country again, aiming for the train.
---
Lenny seated himself at the end of the bench with Amber on a chair nearby, while Jax sat up feebly on the other side of Lenny, blinking sleepily as he listened.
“When I was young I wasn’t very strong,” Lenny was telling them, an explanation for the cannon in his hand having been demanded of him, “in fact, I was so sickly that I could not go to school. My parents had to have a tutor come and teach me. My greatest passion at the time, and it still is, electronics. Luckily, Edward Rosen was a good teacher. He helped me learn everything I could from books and do experiments with our computers at home.”
“So you built yourself an electro-cannon in your arm? Turbo!” Jax interrupted, “I wish I had--”
“Jax.” Amber stopped him. “I don’t think that Lenny’s done yet.”
“Oh, yeah. What happened next?”
Lenny gave him a quieting look before going on, “at that time my lungs and heart were so weak that there was many days, when the weather was bad, that I could not go outside at all. I didn’t eat much then, either. I guess a lot of people didn’t think that I would live for long. But I survived by spending my time indoors, learning. Ed Rosen only knew so much on the subjects that interested me. His specialty was languages, actually. But he knew someone who was and is an expert on electronics of all sorts: Dr. Devi.”
“Hey, you mentioned him to me before,” Jax commented, “didn’t he go missing or something?”
“Yes, just a day before you came to my world. But let me explain what he did for me.” Lenny paused, collecting his thoughts into a meaningful statement.
“I don’t know how the rules are on your worlds. But in my country, cybernetics are illegal. Not simple things like pacemakers, prosthetic hands and that sort of thing. Just complicated, computerized additions. They say that robotics implanted in a person...'dehumanizes’ them. Their idea is that, if too many people had cybernetics, we would become robots, devoid of feeling and life.”
“It certainly hasn’t dehumanized you,’ Amber said gently, seeing that he was having a hard time going on.
“Thanks.” Lenny gave her a pale smile. “Sometimes I’m not so sure. But, anyway, Dr. Devi offered me the best chance I had at life. He was secretly experimenting with cybernetics, though he had not tried them on a human subject yet, only animals. He offered to give me stronger lungs, heart, anything I wanted. In return, he wanted me to be his assistant. It was not a difficult debt, to me. It was a wonderful opportunity. After strengthening me, Dr. Devi had me help him with moving things around in his laboratory, bringing in heavy loads, all sorts of chores that I never would have been able to do before. And I could go out and meet people too. Friends like Mark, who never would have hung out with a nerdy wimp, though he thought that it was cool when he found out what I am. Or Sara Lancaster, the only other person who knows my secret...”
“Does she know that you left your home?” Amber asked.
“She left before me,” Lenny admitted ruefully, “somehow, she invented a Di-jump almost just like Jax’s and used it to leave. I’ve been hoping to find her on one of these worlds, though she could be anywhere by now.”
Jax’s eyes kept sliding shut in weariness, but he pulled them open insistently every time. “When did you get the cannon, Len? And what other cool gear do you have?”
Lenny smiled at him. “Devi would offer me new things every so often. I didn’t take all of them, but let me see...energy cannon and lance in this hand.”
He used just a little energy to show them the lance flaring outwards, pale blue and glowing, from under his right hand. “Then grappling hook, computer connections and multi-meter in this one.”
He flipped open his left hand, which clipped backwards just like the right did. Using his right hand, back in its place at the end of his wrist, he pointed out the metal tube where the folding grappling hook could shoot from, the bundle of wires that had various tips for different styles of electrical connection and the lines with metal probes on the end for the electronic meter. They all fit into a short, steel enclosure set in his left arm just below the skin. Most people would not know they were there unless they grasped his wrist and squeezed it firmly. Then the ring of metal could be felt underneath.
“The meter only reads in my optical display, so I can’t demonstrate that to you. The optical display built into both of my eyes can also switch to night-vision, tell me the co-ordinates of where I stand and activate certain computer controls through a wireless port built into my head.” He stopped speaking abruptly, looking with a shy hesitation at his friends. “This isn’t disgusting you, is it? I know it must seem strange.”
“I don’t even know what a lot of these electronics are,” Amber admitted, “but it sounds wonderful, to me. Look, I have a mechanical hand. It’s not so different, just cruder than yours. Your hands are mechanical, right, since they can fold in and out like that?”
“Partially. It’s rather complicated, but my hands still have living skin and nerves. They just...shut off when I flip them open. They can stay like that for about fifteen minutes before it starts to harm the blood flow, because of special recirculatory pumps built into my fingers. Perhaps thirty minutes is what it would take to permanently damage a disconnected hand.”
Lenny spread out his hands, clipped back into place so that they looked perfectly human. “The wires of my cybernetics run all through me. If I was cut deeply anywhere, I would not only lose human blood. It might sever an electrical line that would have to be repaired before that section of my anatomy would work correctly again. It is a double edged sword, but it gave me a life beyond an atmosphere-controlled room.”
Leaflow had come in from looking at the dead beast part way through the discussion and leaned against the workbench behind them, listening.
Now his odd, somber voice commented, “it looks like you have lost a major part of your audience.”
Lenny looked back at him in surprise, then around at Jax. The young man was asleep, or unconscious, his head lolling back against the seat. As they watched, he began to breath roughly and mutter incoherently, “no, no, no! Powers above and powers below. It’s mine! We will stop you! No...”
The last protest was murmured and sank away into a whisper. But he kept muttering to himself afterwards, rolling his head from one side to the other. Leaflow joined them near his bed, leaning over to peek beneath the bandage on Jax’s throat. He shook his head and looked at the boy’s face.
“If things don’t improve soon...there are some things I want to tell you. You may not--”
His words were cut off by the door slamming open, letting in a cool wind and the sound of a strange shriek in the distance. Everyone except for the injured boy jumped and turned to look towards the entrance. Raggsy came in first, darting in to hold the door open while he shouted, “whew, we did it! That last leg of the journey was nuts. There’s some sort of flying dinosaur out there, kinda’ like the one laying dead outside the door. But this one’s not so dead, 'cause its flying around tryin’ to eat us. And there are other things, too. But we brought the healer through it all!”
“You brought a healer?” Lenny jumped up, staring as too figures came in the door. The second figure was Patch, looking weary while holding an iron box stubbornly in his arms. But the first was the one which took up most of his attention.
It was a tall woman with the narrow face and large, dark eyes of a Lumyn, the people of this world. She was wearing a robe of palest green, almost white in the light. Over it, she had a simpler, stouter green robe with wide sleeves. Her hair was long and black, very straight, while under one arm she carried a sort of bright blue, knit knapsack which clinked faintly. Her eyes were roaming over the train and its people with surprised curiosity.
“You are a healer?” he asked her, hope rich in his voice.
“Yes. Please, show me the injured one.” Her tone had an accent to it, but less thick than the people they had spoken to earlier. It made him think of wind blowing through trees or the pale, gray light of mornings in the city.
“He’s here.” Amber gestured down at Jax, who was oblivious to all that was happening in his state. “Please hurry. And Raggsy, did you say that there was another wyvern outside?”
A screaming cry rang through the air, answering her question. Lenny tensed, wondering if he had enough energy left to kill another of the beasts with his cannon. This time, they would have access to the Gatling guns on top if they needed it. Last time it had been sitting right on top of them.
“If that noise is a wyvern, that’s what is huntin’ us,” Raggsy agreed, “along with a few other creeps.”
“I’ll get to the topside with the guns,” Lenny offered, “just make sure that Jax is seen to. Who wants to join me?”
“I’ll come.” Amber tossed back her hair and tucked it into place away from her face. “Unless you want to jump to the next world soon?”
Lenny hesitated. There were people in the train who might not want to go on to another world. On the other hand, if they jumped and it was daylight on the next world, it would save them another fight against the corrupted creatures.
Not that it necessarily would be daytime; it could just as well be the dead of night. And if they jumped, the healer would not only be forced to go to another world, but would have to stop her ministrations until they got there.
“Not yet,” Lenny decided, “we’ll try to fight it out here until Jax has been treated.”
Glancing once towards the healer, he saw that she was beginning to look over their injured friend. Reassured, he went out with Amber into the night.