Tragic Innocence

Chapter 48

            “Pentulla!”

            “No!  No!”  Pentulla battled desperately and pointlessly against the powerful restraint that held her painfully still.

            “Pentulla--wake up!”

            She was finally able to tear her eyes open and saw his concerned face hovering over hers.  “Mikash?” she croaked weakly, her heart contracting painfully about the empty void of swelling hurt.

            Crow then gently lifted her and gracefully rushed over to where Zolata paced with anxious attempts.  “She is burning with a raging fever.”  His brown eyes delved deeply into Zolata’s alarmed ones before he continued, “I think that she may still be battling with what remains of Rolac.”

            “This is not good, not good…” Zolata knitted her hands together and began to rub them worriedly.  She paused and gave Pentulla one last look and hurried over to her dusty shelves stacked with ancient scrolls of enchantments, which were covered sparsely with fluttering lacey cobwebs.  Zolata worried her lip as she ran a finger daintily across the rolled parchment with precise movements.

            “And here I had thought it to be sanctuary from that evil!” came Zolata’s despondent wail.

            “Can I be of any help?” Crow shifted Pentulla in his arms before lowering her into Zolata’s bed.  He silently slid the hangings into place.

            Later, the day found Zolata and Crow cross-legged upon the tiled floor with stacks and stacks of dusty ancient scrolls strewn about.  Many elixirs had been abandoned in the desperate search for the cure of Pentulla’s ailment.

            A soft moan fluttered from behind the hangings of the bed, bringing their faces up to attention.

            Zolata flew to the bed and quickly pushed aside the hangings with a flick of her wrist.  Once her fingers grazed the surface of Pentulla’s forehead, she turned over to Crow with a sigh of relief.  “The herbal remedy has successfully worked its way into her bloodstream.  She will rest now.”

            Crow exhaled audibly and dropped the scroll upon his lap, sweat glistening above his brow and lip by the dancing shine of candlelight.

            “It must be here somewhere!”  In a flurry of flowing sleeves and hemlines, Zolata shuffled swiftly to the last scroll that was covered thickly by drifting webs of silk that had long since been abandoned in an ancient time.  She stopped cold, causing a great alarm to shoot through Crow.

            He leaped to his feet with one fluidic movement and was at once by her side, his hands upon her shoulders.  “What is it?” his deep voice thrummed in the stillness.  Behind her mass of shimmering hair and arching shoulder, he saw her hand trembling as she hesitated to touch the last and lonely scroll.

            He smiled and reached out and grabbed it.

            “No!” she screamed, losing her will as her body almost collided with the shelves of sparkling dust.

            “Zolata,” Crow purred reassuringly as his arm easily slipped about her resigned shoulders, “It will be well, you shall see.”

            “But…” Zolata stared with wide-eyed fear at the object surrounded by Crow’s golden brown fingers.  “I don’t…”

            “Let us go sit down and see if it will help.”

            “I don’t know…” she swallowed hard against the alarm that stopped her throat.