desperate for water and he could hear it dripping all around him, but his charred tongue found nothing in his mouth but blisters and scorched flesh. For hours he lay on the ropes of the low bed, unable to move, the pressure of the hemp on his destroyed skin sending new agonies deep into his body.
At last he found the strength to tear his mind from the searing pain, and he prayed to the Goddess for release. And slowly, slowly, his mind faded into the dark, away from the torture of his burns, and he fell into the blessed release of the coma his overloaded nervous system had so far denied him.
The smell of him filled the cavern, like the ashes of a bonfire that have cooled in the morning dew. His skin oozed pus and clear serum that dripped through the ropes of his bed and onto the mud of the wet floor. Long, sticky tendrils gradually dangled and lengthened down to the glutinous, saturated earth. Eventually, after many long hours, the pendulous stalactites of bodily juices made contact with the thick, rich mud, and at the same time a small spark of consciousness returned to the warlock’s mind.
He shrank from the agony, but before he could flee, a voice echoed faintly in his head: “Remember what you have been told, Oskan, Beloved of the Mother. Death would fall from the sky and healing would rise from the earth. Call now on the Goddess and be made whole.”
His mind rose through the torture of his body, and he tried to look around him. But his eyelids were sealed shut over the jelly-filled orbs that had been boiled to blindness. He screamed silently, then, as he gathered what strength remained to him, his muscles convulsed and he sat upright, the crisped flesh cracking and snapping as his mind screamed into the blackness of the cave:
“GODDESS!”
Oskan crashed back onto the ropes of his bed, and his mind fled into unconsciousness.
But rising through the dangling tendrils of serum and mucus, power flowed from the earth. Nutrients and minerals were being drawn into his body, like the flow of oxygen and the other essentials of life between mother and unborn child through an umbilical cord.
Slowly his body began the process of repair, and as the hours passed, the rate increased, as new skin cells were forged and the layers damaged beyond healing sloughed away to mix with the mud of the cave floor.
Up above him in the infirmary, Maggiore Totus stood at the head of the first flight of steps that led down to the cave.
Wenlock Witchmother had already refused to let him go down to see Oskan, so he stood as close as he could get to the boy he’d grown to love like a nephew, if not quite a son. The old scholar fully expected Oskan to die; his injuries were so severe that recovery was surely impossible. He was also convinced that leaving him alone in a cold and wet cave would probably accelerate the process. Maggie shook his head sadly; Oskan was so young and with such fabulous potential that would now never be realized. And, he thought to himself, what would Thirrin do without her friend, without the boy who would probably have become her consort one day?
Maggiore sighed loudly, and was startled to hear the sound echo around the empty cellar. Only then did he realize that he was completely alone. The witches and other healers were busy attending to their patients on the upper levels, so, seizing his opportunity, he scurried down the steps. He didn’t really know what he intended to do, other than say good-bye to the boy with the strange powers and beautiful winning smile.
The way was steep and the torch he carried burned badly, throwing an uncertain light on the steps before him. But at last he reached the bottom safely and stepped out into the mud of the cave. He was struck instantly by the cold and the earthy scent. It was so strong he coughed once or twice. It wasn’t a bad smell, exactly, just very strong, like a forest after a rainstorm, but richer and with a sharp underscoring of minerals.
Maggiore raised the torch and could just make out the low bed over by the cave wall. He walked tentatively toward it, and then with a sudden rush of disgust and pity he saw the tendrils of mucus that had dripped from Oskan’s ravaged skin. He stopped and peered