THE BLACKENED WOOD
Scene 53
They picked Bunjaian up very carefully and carried him through Fornonck to the next Gellin town, Fornonpae, into the small, crowded hospital where fighters from the City assault on Fornonck were being treated. Taking several hours, surgeons extracted the spearlike span of dark wood from Bunjaian’s midsection, repaired the damage to his innards, patched him up, and raced back to the other wounded.
Another two hours passed. Galanaisa and the others stayed near, and when Bunjaian woke, she went in with a nurse and asked him, “What happened down there?” He told her and Terrenci of the creature that came into the portal room, the battle, and how it killed the three others with him.
“It was all over in seconds. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even when the Hounds are chasing andros. That thing… it wasn’t from here.”
“It died?”
“I felt an explosion and very-hot fire. I couldn’t see. I think it burned to ashes.”
Terrenci said, “We saw the ashes. I think one of the Hounds used an incendiary. The ashes smelled like burned wood, like charcoal.” The rest of the group came in one by one to listen.
“Where’s that stick, that spear thing they pulled out?” Galanaisa asked the nurse.
“They put it in an isolation sack. It’s probably with the med waste going to the incinerators.”
“So,” Terrenci said, “We’d better hope its friends aren’t following after it.”
# # #
Waiting with Inkurisar and the others, Mentrianos slumped on a stool, his back against the corridor wall in the Fornonpae hospital. Nurses, aides, and orderlies rushed past in the narrow space, dodging, stepping nimbly over his feet. A tub of wet, discarded waste stood beside him, ready to be hauled off. A blackened, jagged piece of what looked like old wood, wrapped in bloody white rags, stuck out from the tub.
He leaned forward, looked closely at it. Its surface seemed to be carved or etched into some kind of inscription, but every time he looked away from one part of it and looked back again, it had changed. When he stared at one mark for any length of time, trying to make it out, he felt something shifting inside his mind. It made him uneasy. He turned to Munizkara next to him. “This thing – what do you think it is?”
She peered across him to the hunk of dark, woody material. “That – that’s the big stick thing they took out of that militia guy. That is ugly! I don’t want to look at it.” She waved a hand in a gesture of rejection, and looked at him. “Forget about it. The guy is blessed from Arcalio to have it out of him and still be alive.”
“That’s for sure,” he said, but his thoughts kept turning back to the wood, or whatever it was. He tried to keep his eyes on the people moving back and forth. Inside, something seemed to urge him to explore the thing a bit more, but then he thought of Samantine. He wanted to be with her, his baby, and the longing rose in him and seized him.
Why did Tellina take her away, run away into danger, when I want them both to be safe with me? I think she’s turning from me, maybe she trusts that Derizan more. Or maybe… what if…
Now his eyes were on the discarded wooden thing and its marks again.
What if Samantine isn’t mine?
