Tak

Aldervale - Part 5

     True to his word, Toby returned with Father Turly just as the sky was darkening with the approach of night. Just as, back at the castle, Lyssa was combing her long, silky hair with a trembling hand and whispering prayers to the Gods as she prepared herself for her third night with Philip.

     The cleric was a nervous, twitchy little man whose eyes darted to every corner of the room as he stepped timidly through the door. A sharp contrast to the heroic figures of Tak's father's fireside tales who called down the power of the Gods to smite the wicked and the forces of evil. But he's a healer, not a fighter, Tak reminded himself. Fighting is no part of his calling. Even so, though, he couldn't help feeling that a man of the Gods ought to have a bit more courage, that his faith and the promise of a blissful afterlife should be enough to counter any worldly terror. It was almost a sin, he felt, that a cleric should fear for his material body when it was surely his soul that counted, but then, who was he to question the wisdom of Caroli the Healer? For whatever reason, She had chosen him to be one of Her own and that was all that Tak, a mere mortal, needed to know.

     "Is this the man?" he asked in a thin, reedy voice, peering down at Jack Nowl where he tossed and turned in his sweat-soaked sheets.

     Tak bit back a biting comment. "Yes," he said. "Purple plant poisoning. Is there anything you can do?"

     The cleric turned to look at him. "The question is, is My Lady willing to help him, and if She is, is my faith great enough to act as a conduit for that much holy power? The second is questionable. I know that I am a sinner, weak and wayward in following Her path, and as far as the former is concerned, that depends on him. If he has led a sinful life, My Lady might refuse to..."

     "Skip the sermon and get on with it," demanded Toby impatiently. "Look at how he's suffering. If you can cure him, then cure him!"

     The cleric's eyes widened in fear and he shrank down into himself. Then some shred of pride and dignity asserted itself, though, and he drew himself firmly up, glaring defiantly at the farmer. "We shall see," he said. He bent over the feverish merchant, placed his bony hands on his stomach and chest and chanted a prayer to Caroli, beseeching Her aid to cure him and restore him to health.

     Tak had never been present at a healing before, and the electric tingle that he felt over the surface of his body as the holy power flooded through the cleric shocked him speechless. There was a power here unlike anything he'd ever encountered before. Something glorious and wonderful, and all of a sudden the cleric's failings seemed trivial and unimportant. Courage and heroism was irrelevant in a cleric of Caroli, he now realised. The sole purpose of his existence was to be a conduit for this force, the healing power of the Goddess Caroli, and if he was a coward, that just meant he'd probably live longer so he could heal more people.

     Father Turly straightened, looking pleased and relieved, and Jack Nowl was cured. He gave a great gasping cry of relief and started in surprise when he became aware for the first time of the people gathered around his bed.

     "Father," he said, wiping the sweat from his face with the bedclothes and sitting up. "Thank you. Thank you very much. Must have been something I ate..."

     Whatever else he might have said was lost as his wife and daughter threw themselves at him, sobbing and crying with joy and relief, and their three visitors crept discretely out of the room.

☆☆☆

     Half an hour later Jack Nowl, fully dressed in clean clothes, stormed down the stairs in a red fury and grabbed Tak by the collar. "I want my daughter back!" he spat into the boy's face. "I want her back now!"