The cochobo could only move at a brisk trot with three people on its back, but after their battle with the soldiers Ryn could barely jog to keep up alongside it anyway.
The old man couldn’t move very fast either. Sagar sat upright on the cochobo next to Nuthea and the bounty hunter, holding his wounded arm. The only person who seemed to have much strength left among them was Elrann, though she was still shaken from the sudden invasion of Imfis by the Empire, as far as Ryn could tell.
When they’d made it a good way back into the woods and Ryn was satisfied that they weren’t being pursued, he stopped them in a small clearing of beech trees. He, Elrann and the old man carefully lifted Nuthea down from the cochobo and laid her on the ground, then did the same with the gagged and bound bounty hunter, then helped Sagar dismount.
Nuthea was the priority. Although Ryn’s heart had just about stopped palpitating when the healer had pronounced that she was going to live, she still hadn’t woken.
He knelt next to the princess. The healer had applied a fresh bandage from his bag to her abdomen and, mercifully, this one was not yet drenched in blood. Her face was still very pale—though Ryn fancied he could see a faint pinkness returning to her proud cheeks already—and frozen in a disapproving pout.
Even unconscious she looked like she was about to deliver a lecture.
“Is she going to be alright?” Ryn asked.
“Yes,” the old man said. “She should wake soon.”
The healer gently placed a hand on Nuthea’s forehead, closed his eyes and whispered something. He withdrew his hand.
First, nothing. Then a flicker of consciousness passed across Nuthea’s face and she began to stir, wrinkling up her nose and frowning even more deeply. The pinkness in her cheeks grew warmer. She blinked, then opened her cool blue eyes and looked into Ryn’s.
“Oh,” she said. “Why do you look so scared, Ryn?”
It was an unusual first question but Ryn supposed that it made sense.
“I was scared. I thought...I thought you might have died.”
Nuthea’s mouth pushed up into a smile underneath her heavy eyelids. “There’s no need to be afraid of death,” she said quietly, taking the opportunity to teach him something.
“What happens to us after we die?” Ryn heard himself ask her. He didn’t know how she would know or why he was asking, but he asked her all the same.
“If we have believed on the One, we go to be with Him forever.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I don’t know. I’m not always. But right now, I am. And I’m all the more sure from having just almost died.”
“Well, I didn’t want you to go to be with the One just yet.”
“What happened to me?”
“You were attacked by a bounty hunter, but I found a healer for you. I’m… I’m glad you're alive.”
His words ran out and for a moment no more passed between them, and he hovered above the blue pools of her eyes.
“Well, this is all very touching, pup, princess,” said Sagar, “but do you think I could get some attention from the old man, now, too? You’re not the only one who’s been hurt. I got injured rescuing you as well.”
Ryn had forgotten that there was anyone else with them for a moment.
He coughed and let go of Nuthea’s hand, realising at the same time that he had been holding it.
“Ah, I apologise, young man,” the healer said to Sagar. “Of course, you are injured too. Now that the young lady is alright, I can attend to you. Let me take a look.”
Ryn helped Nuthea to sit up and they watched as the old man took out a small knife from the leather bag that he carried. Delicately, he cut the sleeve of Sagar’s shirt away to reveal his upper arm where the bounty hunter had nicked it with his sword.
Ryn winced. Underneath the shirt was a horizontal gash. It wasn’t too deep—the man in black had only cut through the top layer of skin this time—and it had already started to scab up. But in amongst the red and brown of the scab was something else: a putrefying black colour.
“Ajanga,” the old man said. “Of course, the same as used on the young lady. I am sorry I did not get to you sooner. You did very well to last this long, young man—you must be feeling very weak.”
“Just heal me, old timer,” said Sagar, eyeing Ryn.
“Of course.”
The old man rummaged around in his bag, then produced a small glass phial of some sort of silvery liquid.
“Here, drink this antidote.” He pressed the bottle to Sagar’s lips and the skypirate drank a gulp. The old man shut his eyes and gently laid a hand on Sagar’s arm, over the cut. Sagar clenched his jaw.
The old man whispered something under his breath.
Sagar’s eyes went wide and his head rocked back. He took the man’s hand off him.
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The black discolouring had disappeared from the cut on his arm. Not only that, but now the cut closed before their very eyes, the skin sealing itself up and returning to a pinky-white hue as if nothing had ever happened.
“Woah…” said Elrann.
“A miracle...” said Nuthea.
“I…” said Sagar.
He leapt at Ryn.
Before Ryn knew what was happening he was lying flat on his back on the ground, Sagar pinning his arms down with his knees. The pirate had drawn one of his swords, and he pressed the blade into Ryn’s neck so that just the very tip of it pierced his skin. What the hells is he doing? thought Ryn, not in a position to voice his question aloud.
“Sagar!” called Nuthea from somewhere above. “Get off him!”
“Just a moment, princess, we’ve got some business to settle.” Ryn remembered why Sagar had cause to be angry. The skypirate leaned in close so that Ryn could see his stubble. His breath stank of stale tobacco leaf. Is he going to kill me? No—if Ryn knew Sagar at all, he would just threaten him. Or maybe slightly maim him?
The pirate captain dropped his voice to a low growl. “Listen, pup, and listen good. If you ever, ever pull something like that—unseating me from my mount by surprise—again, especially in front of the ladies, I will slit your throat quicker than you can say ‘naive little greenhorn pussywillow farm boy’. You got that?”
Ryn wanted to gulp, but he thought just now that would be a bad idea. He also thought that that phrase took quite a long time to say, actually, but he thought it would be a bad idea to say that too.
“Y-yes,” he said instead out of self-preservation.
“Good,” said Sagar, keeping his voice low. “I’m going to let you up now, and you’re going to support me in my suggestion that we keep traveling to Manolia so I can collect the reward for the princess. Clear?”
“Clear,” croaked Ryn, though he hated himself for acquiescing so easily. He didn’t really have any other choice though.
“Sagar!” said Nuthea again.
“Al-right!” said Sagar like a henpecked husband, and got up off Ryn.
Ryn stood, rubbing his throat. His hand came away with a small smear of blood, but it wasn’t much—Sagar had only pricked him.
“Silly boys,” said Nuthea with a roll of her eyes, as if Ryn had been just as complicit as Sagar in what had just happened.
“How did you do that?” said Elrann. She addressed the healer, but she was looking at the still-exposed flesh of Sagar’s arm where his cut had sealed itself up.
“Yes, that was truly remarkable!” said Nuthea. “A semion!”
Ryn hadn’t heard this word before. “What’s a semion?”
“The way that he healed Sagar’s wound. And mine. Mine even more so!” Nuthea placed her hand over the fresh bandage on her abdomen. “I can barely feel any pain any more. And my wound has closed up too. That man”—her eyes flicked over to where the bounty hunter in black lay tied up on the floor—“gave me quite a cut.”
“No,” said Ryn, “I mean, what is a ‘semion’? What does it mean?”
“A semion is a wondrous sign that points to the One,” Nuthea recited, closing her eyes for a moment and holding up a finger. “It’s when the One works in the world to show His power. Another word for it is ‘miracle’.”
“It’s not a miracle, princess,” said Sagar, shaking his head. “There are no such things. Don’t be foolish. This healer just used his arts to heal Nuthea’s wound, is all—didn’t you, old timer?”
They all looked at the old man. He smiled, deep lines forming around his white-bearded mouth and under his bushy eyebrows. “I did do that,” he said happily. “Whether you want to call it a miracle or not is up to you.”
“But you made the wound close up by itself!” said Elrann. “How did you do that?”
“The medicine he gave me,” said Sagar. “Obviously.”
“But what medicine you’ve ever come aceoss does that? You did something else to him as well, didn’t you?”
“I am telling you, it’s a semion,” said Nuthea.
“I still don’t get what you mean by ‘semion’,” said Ryn.
“A semion, Ryn, is when the One acts out of the normal course of things to show his power. Look at it like this:” (Ryn was amazed again at how easily, having been so recently near the brink of death, Nuthea was able to resume her teacherly manner.) “In the course of life, things normally happen a certain way: The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, heavy things sink and light things float, and wounds do not close up by themselves. All these things have been arranged by The One, the God of gods, who made all of Mid. But sometimes The One intervenes in the normal course of things and changes something, to show that he is there and that he has the power to do so. It’s a bit like the writer of a story putting something into the story to show that they wrote it.” She pointed to Sagar’s arm. “This was clearly a semion. My healing too is clearly a semion, performed through this healer by the One, to show us that He endorses our journey.”
Sagar snorted loudly.
“If you have something to say, dear Captain, please say it,” said Nuthea.
“I’m telling you, it’s not a miracle, or a ‘semion’!” said the pirate. “There is no ‘One’, or any god at all! This healer simply used his skill and medicines to heal us, princess. You’d be surprised at what bodies are capable of doing to heal themselves, with a little help. I’ve seen a man’s belly torn open by a cutlass close up and heal itself the next day after a night drinking rum. I’ve seen a man ghostly pale with the pox spring up right as rain when a skysailor’s blessing was spoken over him. I’ve seen a man who lost his eye in a fight screaming and wailing on the floor one moment leap up and kill his five attackers the next.” He patted his eye patch. “It happens. They weren’t miracles. They were just the ‘normal course of things’.”
“You’re wrong,” said Nuthea, eyes flashing.
Ryn could more than detect an argument brewing so he decided to interrupt before she could say any more. “Look, why don’t we just ask the healer himself?”
“There’s an idea,” said Sagar, clearly of the opinion that the old man was going to agree with his side of the argument. “Did you do a miracle or not, old timer? Tell us straight.”
The old man sniffed and wiped his nose. “I think it is best at this point if I keep my methods to myself,” he said in his kindly voice, slightly throaty with age. “I put my healers’ arts to use in service of the pair of you and I did everything I knew to do in your situations, and happily you have both recovered...that is all I will say on the matter.”
“There you go,” said Sagar, folding his arms, interpreting the old man as agreeing with his own opinion. “Healers’ arts. Not a miracle.”
“I will add, however,” the old man said, “that I too am a follower of The One. It is good to meet another Oneist, young lady.”
Nuthea’s face lit up. Ryn found himself hoping he would make her beam like that one day. “Oh! A father in the faith!” Nuthea said. “I’m so pleased to meet you!”
She stepped up to the old man and they each gave one another a light kiss on either cheek.
“Ugh…” said Sagar, facepalming. “Not another one…”
“Please, granddaughter” said the old man to Nuthea, “I am old in years. You do me a great honour, but ‘Grandfather’ will do.”
“Huh?” said Ryn. “‘Grandfather’? What are you talking about?”
“It’s part of their religion, farmboy,” Elrann explained to him. “Oneism is a Mid-wide religion, it ain’t just tied to to a particular place. You do come across them sometimes. They all see themselves as this big sort of family, with the One as their Supreme Dad. So they call their younger women ‘daughters’, older women ‘mothers’, then there’s ‘sisters’, ‘brothers’, ‘fathers’, an’ stuff. I’ve never heard of no ‘grandfather’ before though.”
“Yes,” said Nuthea, smiling, “that honorific is reserved for the eldest and wisest of men. There aren’t many of them in Manolia. What is your name, Grandfather?”
“I am called Cid,” said the old man, smiling in return.