Elion clapped his hands on Kasm as the ability activated. A rush of energy flooded out of him, like a gush of freezing water. He gasped, the icy shock shaking him. A swirl of golden threads twisted from his hands, wrapping around Kasm, forming into a protective cocoon. The weave tightened until it sank into Kasm’s skin.

Kasm gasped, his body tensing, shuddering, then falling still again. The boy’s chest began moving, breath flowing thin and shallow. At least he was breathing. Blood stopped running from his wounds.

Elion leaned heavily on the basin.

<< Quest completed: Follow the Path of Dawn >>

Air swirled, energy pulsed, and water bubbled up into the basin, soaking Kasm’s clothes. A crack in the bowl allowed the water to drip out, preventing it from filling by more than an inch or two. Red blood and black puss swirled in the water.

A glowing blue gem glittered in the basin alongside Kasm’s body. Elion grabbed the gem, and shook water and blood from it. He caught the small stone between two fingers and held it up to the light. The gem sparkled. Elion frowned, disgusted. He didn’t need gemstones, he needed a first aid kit.

Maybe it’s a magical first aid gem?

He rubbed the stone over Kasm’s wounds, to no effect. He pressed it to his own injuries, the deep gouges on his legs, and the more shallow cuts on his chest. Nothing happened.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” he grumbled. “How does this heal me?”

Praxis offered no enlightenment. With a frustrated flick of his wrist, he tossed the gem back into the basin.

Elion examined the deepest cuts on his right thigh. They were not as deep as he expected. His blood had already clotted, starting to scab over the injury. None of the malingering black ooze remained in his skin. The only sign it had been there a discoloration of his jeans. Whatever the pemalion infected him with was gone.

Aurelia’s Protection had saved him, he realized. Mentions of purification and healing hadn’t been a joke, providing him with just enough strength to make it here, to the statue. And he’d been given a power that seemed to stabilize the boy. His prior frustration with the statue melted away, exhaustion filling the void.

Too bad I used it all up already. Going through the portal, and fighting a pemalion is a lot of almost dying for one day.

He hoped they were safe here; that Domas or someone would find them, help Kasm, and save them from the pemalion. Elion tried to look around, scanning the clearing for signs of danger, but he struggled to focus his eyes.

His arms, leaden in their sockets, weighed him down. He should probably recover that gemstone, it might be valuable. He’d make sure to pick it up before he left. Now he was too tired.

Elion slumped to the ground, all strength gone out of him as he leaned his head against the base of the statue. His head dipped, resting beside the foot of the statue of Aurelia.

“Thank you, Aurelia,” he muttered. His mind began wandering, drifting through strange images of Zev and Liora, tumbling endlessly into purple voids.

The rumble of an engine in the distance pulled Elion back to the present. He looked up as Domas rolled into the clearing, the tires of his ATV too wide for the footpath. Tael leaned forward in his seat, gun slung on his back, staring ahead anxiously.

“They’re here!” Tael shouted, and other people were riding in behind them, filling the clearing. A man Elion did not recognize ran to the altar, picking up Kasm.

“Here he is!”

“Is he breathing?”

“We need to get him back to Gorman!”

The trip back to the village passed by Elion’s eyes like a whirlwind. Someone helped him onto an ATV, which might have been Domas. He caught snatches of conversation as they traveled.

“…not breathing…”

“…Aurelian Protection…”

“…bad luck to keep him…”

“…killed pemalion…”

“…he’s lucky to be alive…”

“…throw him out…”

He made little sense of the words he heard. He focused on the only thing which did not seem to move or sway; the constancy of the << Translation Active >> message in his vision.

They passed bodies along the road, pemalion and human. Elion felt an irrational pressure in his mind; disgust, disappointment, and horror at the death. He wished he had been here. He wished he could have done something to help them. Elion let his eyes fall closed, his mind wandering as they drove on.

The caravan brought them back to the village, to an open garage door of the central spike tower. A young woman rushed out and took Kasm into her arms, hurrying him back inside. Elion recognized her as the girl he’d seen in front of the tower earlier.

A stranger helped Elion off of Domas, and supported him as he limped to the door, his shoe still missing. Elion’s helper left him standing at the door, unwilling to enter the structure. A small group of people milled around in the sunlight, peering into the dimly lit room beyond, but making no move to help.

Elion leaned against the door frame. The entire first floor of the tower opened up before him. A central pillar packed with technology glowed and pulsed with light. The rest of the room was packed with various arrangements of workbenches, power tools, machines, and shelves.

Things had been pushed aside to clear an area where several injured men and women lay on cots. Two people bustled about, the young woman who’d taken Kasm, and an older, grey-bearded man.

The man placed one of the injured on a table. “We’re going to need to take his leg off at the knee before the infection spreads too far,” he said, his patient groaning loudly. “Bring me the sheers Keyla. And the saw!”

Keyla collected a circular saw and a pair of shears with blades as long as Elion’s forearms. She placed theses on the table beside the man.

“Go check on him,” the man said, gesturing to Elion as he took the tools. “And close that door; if there’s no one else to bring in. I can’t work with them all staring at me like that!”

Keyla ran to Elion and helped him into the room, easing him into a seat nearby. She hit a switch, and the door began closing. Several bright lamps overhead activated.

Keyla fetched a bucket of water and a rag, then returned to Elion and examined the scratches on his legs. She dabbed the wet rag at his injuries, softening the dried blood. Using a pair of scissors she cut away Elion’s torn jeans.

Elion watched her face as she worked. She wore her brown hair pulled back in a braid, and stared at Elion’s wounds intently through crystal blue eyes. Stray hair escaped from her braid, and she occasionally pushed these back behind her ears. Freckles spattered across her face were partially hidden by smudges of grease and blood. She wore a grey shirt beneath her patched overalls, and a blue bandana tied around her upper arm.

The motor of the circular saw started up, screeching loudly. Sounds of cutting mingled with cries of pain from the patient echoed around the workshop. Elion craned his neck instinctively, trying to see around Keyla.

“Sit back,” she said, placing a hand on his chest. “You don’t want to see.”

Elion allowed her to push him back.

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“How does he look, Keyla?” the man shouted, not looking up from his work.

She did not respond immediately, but prodded Elion’s leg with a slim metal probe, a look of bewilderment on her face. Elion gasped in pain, grasping the armrests of the chair, but the inspection did not let up. If anything, she probed him more aggressively.

“Were you hurt anywhere else?” she asked.

Elion nodded, pulling up his hoodie. She helped him remove it, and poked at the small cuts across his chest.

Shaking her head, she declared loudly, “He’s uninfected, sir.”

She stopped harassing Elion’s injuries.

“Are you sure these are from a pemalion?” she asked.

Elion nodded. “Same one that hurt Kasm.”

“Well, I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Bring me a peg, Keyla!” the man shouted, gripping the leg stump of his patient as the man thrashed on the table.

Keyla rushed to help him. She delivered the object and light flashed like lightning as something metal fused with the leg stump.

The patient screamed, and the man working on him muttered an apology. “I’m sorry Kile, I wish I had a better replacement for you but we’re plumb out of parts.”

Keyla uncapped a small tube and waved it under the nose of the convulsing man. The fight went out of him. He trembled, then drooped over the table.

“You can do this before you start cutting, Gorman,” Keyla said, recapping the tube, but the man, Gorman, didn’t seem to notice her.

“Who’s left?” Gorman asked, picking up his patient and carefully laying him down alongside the other injured people. Faint wrinkles marking Gorman’s face around the eyes and mouth, his hair mostly grey. He wore a well trimmed beard, and his massive arms suggested many years of hard labor. The amputation he just performed left his thick welding apron smattered with blood. He picked up the dismembered leg and dropped it into a nearby bucket, the foot dangling over the lip.

“Just Kasm,” Keyla said. “Unless they bring in anyone else.”

They approached a table in the center of the room, where Kasm’s still body lay. Keyla pulled a light over to illuminate the scene.

Elion rose from his seat and limped to the table. Keyla and Gorman watched him approach, but said nothing. They returned to their inspection of Kasm.

The man’s face twisted with consternation, mirrored by Keyla, who’s wide eyes reflected a more innocent fear. Elion’s stomach knotted.

“He’s going to be okay,” Elion said, more an assertion than a declaration.

“This wound in his side is bad,” Gorman muttered, running his hand through his greying hair. “We can’t just cut it out; the infection may have spread too far.”

“It should have spread a lot farther,” Keyla said. “I can’t believe he’s still alive.”

“Barely,” the man muttered, grimly. “Something is fighting the infection. If I had my old workshop, or even just the right parts, we could replace the whole thing, but…”

Gorman leaned heavily on the table where Kasm lay, and everyone stared at the body of the boy. Two deep gashes in the boy’s side oozed black puss, which dripped and puddled on the table.

Kasm’s face was ashen, his chest still. He looked dead to Elion, despite the shallow movements of his chest.

Gorman raised his eyes, locking with Elion’s. Filled with grandfatherly concern, they glittered in the harsh overhead light, the same crystalline blue as Keyla’s.

“You’re the Aurelian,” he said. “Can’t you do something for him?”

Elion wilted under the intense stare.

“I… I don’t know,” he muttered weakly. “To be honest I have no idea what is going on.”

“What did you do to yourself?” Gorman demanded. “How did you purify your own injuries?”

Elion shrugged. “A protection boon, I think,” he said. “But I think it’s exhausted.”

“You used it all on yourself, and you didn’t think to help Kasm with it?” Keyla demanded, eyes blazing.

“Is that possible?” Elion asked. “I’m sorry, I–”

“What’s done is done,” the man said, placing a soothing hand on Keyla’s arm. She pulled away from him. “You stabilized him somehow; he doesn’t appear to be getting worse.”

Elion nodded. “I protected him,” he said, searching for the words to describe the way he had cocooned Kasm in protective light.

“How long will it last?” the man asked.

Elion shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Can you renew it? Do it again?”

Elion met Keyla’s gaze. He sensed a frustration in her look, a desperation, met by his own surging desire to help.

“I can try,” he said. Keyla coughed, emotion showing in her face as she turned away from the table.

“Keyla, why don’t you go… clean up over there. I’ll call you back when I’ve decided what to do.”

“Useless Aurelian,” Keyla muttered.

“Now. Keyla,” the man ordered, and she rolled her eyes but left the table.

The man raised a gloved hand in greeting, smiling at Elion. “Hello,” he said. “My name is Gorman. I’m the Artificer here in Aterfel. What is your name?”

“I’m Elion,” Elion said, raising his hand to mirror the greeting.

“You have Aurelian features. You’re a Knight? Recently joined?”

“Today,” Elion said.

“Today,” Gorman said, raising an eyebrow. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Not exactly,” Elion said. “I… It’s a long story.”

“So you’re a generational Aurelian,” Gorman said. “You follow in your parents footsteps? A bold move to make in today’s world.”

“What do you mean?” Elion asked. “Why do people immediately assume that I’m Aurelian?”

“You don’t get white hair like that anywhere else,” Gorman said. “If you joined the Knights of Dawn today, like you say, then you must have been born with it. So your parents were Knights. Where are you from? This is pretty basic stuff.”

Elion glanced down. He knew that sharing too much information about himself might help Dorian track him down. But then again, he didn’t know what else to do. Gorman seemed like the kind of person who might be able to help him.

“Why does it matter?” Elion asked.

Gorman shrugged. “Well a word of advice. Not everyone has had good experiences with Aurelians around here.”

“Okay,” Elion said, pondering the information. He looked at Kasm’s body lying on the table.

Gorman did not press the issue. “You’re right,” he said, also looking at Kasm. “We have a more pressing issue. I am a mechanic, not a doctor, but I’ve learned a few things over the years.”

Gorman probed at the wound, gloves on his hands protecting him from the black ooze. “Highly localized,” he muttered to himself. “Hopefully nothing vital… only need one kidney… Maybe a modified oil filter if we need…”

Something clattered behind Elion. He turned and saw Keyla watching him, hands on her hips. She pretended to tidy up as soon as he looked.

“We can work with this,” Gorman said, finishing his investigation. “As long as your spell keeps the infection from spreading, I think we may be able to draw it out of him.”

“Okay,” Elion said, exhaling slowly. “What do we need to do?”

“Keyla,” Gorman called. “Get the hand pump and some tubing for me.”

The girl brought the items and set them on the table. As she collected them, Elion watched her. He caught himself thinking she was quite pretty, then looked away before she could catch him staring. She seemed like the kind of girl who would hit people.

Gorman dismissed Keyla, and Elion’s attention turned back to the man. He worked on Kasm with the equipment Keyla brought him.

I hope he’s going to be okay.