Chapter 03

“Are you taking your potions? You know how you get...” said a woman, her voice laced with worry and concern. 

Hal recognized that tone. It’s the one his mother used to use on him all the time when he was struggling to pick a major, unable to stay pinned down to anything for more than a year. It was the tone of repressed disappointment and motherly worry.

“No, I haven’t been taking the potions, Mother,” snapped a familiar girl’s voice. It had the same musical quality as the Huntress but since he could understand her, there was no way it was her.

Couldn’t be.

“You go out at night into the Wilds, doing Gods know what and come back at all hours of the night - if you come back at all - and now you’ve brought this… this thing with you and expect me to do what, exactly?”

“Heal him,” the girl’s voice took on a pleading edge. “That is what you do, is it not? The thing you’ve always been after me for? I don’t hear you complaining when I go into the Wilds and bring back medicinal herbs that keep your rich patients alive and well.”

The silence that followed was shattered by the sharp sound of a slap. 

“How dare you throw that in my face,” the older woman said. “I have done this to put food on the table and a roof over your head. Even when you choose to sleep out in the Wilds like some common animal. You know the types of people that live outside of the Sanctums. Savages. Barely better than beasts. You think I don’t fear for my daughter when you go out there?”

“I-I’m sorry, Mother. I am worried. Look at him, he is sick. What does it matter where it comes from?”

I’m sick? I mean, I was hallucinating my ass off just a bit ago. Floating ropes, magical mushrooms, windows that popped up in my vision like some game prompt. Not the sort of thing a sane person experiences. Maybe she’s right.

“What is he to you?” Suspicion crept into the mother’s voice. Cold, practiced hands began to check Hal’s body. “You have never brought an outsider into the Sanctum before. You know the penalties. Why risk it, who is he?”

“Nobody. I met him in the Wilds. He helped me fend off a couple of the Scourges.”

The mother scoffed and started to inspect Hal’s left wrist. There was a cloth tied around the mark that hadn’t been there before. “As if you’ve ever had any help with anything. What’s this then?” She tugged at the binding.

“I already dressed that wound, the issue is something he ate. I think he ate a poisonous mushroom by mistake when foraging. I found a piece of it near him when I came back to camp. Here.”

“Girl, this is no ordinary mushroom. You say he ate this?” Why did she sound so aghast? I mean, it tasted bad. It had an unpleasant texture, and it gave me a deeply unsettling trip… okay, yeah I get it.

“I believe so.”

Just going to pretend you didn’t point out the mushroom for me to eat, huh? If I’m not still tripping balls when your mom leaves, we’re having some words.

“Gods above, the idiocy of men knows no bounds.” The older woman let out a gusty sigh. “If he’s not already blinded himself or become impotent I’ll be greatly surprised! Would serve him right too. Idiocy is one thing we cannot abide to spread at a time like this. Hand me the rinceroot, wheezle powder, and a pinch of asp scale.”

Okay, I’ve had enough of this. It was all fun and games until the backwoods yokels begin putting random herbal shit into me. I’m getting up.

Hal opened his eyes but everything remained pitch dark. Aw, fuck. I am blind! It took him a moment to realize that he hadn’t actually opened his eyes. Every motion he tried to make met a dead end. He could feel and hear but he was effectively trapped in his own body. 

Panic seized him as the reality of his situation was driven home. Whatever they were doing to him took a backseat to the maelstrom of fear and outrage over his predicament. 

He’d heard of something like this before while he was up too late channel surfing as a kid. Locked-in syndrome. All the downsides of being in a coma without the perk of being asleep. Instead, the patients were fully aware of their surroundings but they were unable to communicate. 

As far as Hal was concerned, it was a fate worse than death.

If this grumpy lady could fix him, he’d take it. Hell, he’d take being blind. And as far as being impotent, well they had pills for that back home.

Those cold, hard practiced hands roamed him again. Why was it that doctors or healers, or whatever they were called here, always had freezing cold hands?

Luckily, whenever she touched a sensitive spot on him that would have had Hal howling with laughter like some four-year-old, nothing happened. He felt the same sensations but his body stayed unresponsive. Like somebody had cut the circuits between his brain and his muscles.

A warm paste was spooned into his mouth. It tasted faintly of apples and what he assumed a pine air freshener tasted like. Those two things should never be mixed.

As an added bonus, the woman thrust her cold finger into his mouth and scrubbed the disgusting paste all over his gums. The effect was slow at first but it gathered speed and spread throughout his body like wildfire.

It was like falling asleep on your arm and waking up when that horrible pins-and-needles hit. Except a thousand times worse. And all over. The feeling came back in fits and starts.

The old woman held him down as he started to flail and kick without much conscious thought. His eyes flew open. The woman was not nearly as old as he thought, maybe mid-forties at best. Still fairly pretty. Also surprisingly strong. 

She held Hal down without much strain until his limbs came fully under his control. Her eyes were a watery blue and when she saw Hal’s, her hands leapt off him like he had burned her.

The older woman made some strange sign with her hands and stepped back several steps. She stared agape at Hal then at the Huntress as the blonde came to Hal’s side, her gray-blue eyes searching his. “Can you understand me?” she whispered just for him.

Hal nodded. He tried to prop himself up on his elbows but his arms still wouldn’t fully obey him. The Huntress piled up the pillows behind his back to give him something to rest against. “Thanks,” he said hoarsely, trying not to make a sour face at the paste that was still in his mouth.

Probably be rude if I spit it out… God, I hope this isn’t topical only. Hal swallowed it down as best he could without gagging.

“What is he?” asked the mother. Her voice shook and she would not take one step closer. “What have you brought into my house? Into the Sanctum?” Every question made her voice jump another octave until it was shrill with fear and anger.

The Huntress gave Hal a kind smile. She did not shy away from his gaze like the healer had. 

Hal could lose himself in those mysterious gray-blue eyes of hers. The light seemed to bend and shift within them, they were never the exact same color when he looked at them. “Do not be afraid, Mother,” she said keeping her eyes on Hal. “He is here to help us. I saw the Broken chase him through the woods at the edge of the Wilds.”

The older woman blew a strand of graying dirty blonde hair out of her face and crossed her arms skeptically but she didn’t seem quite as fearful. “I thought you said he helped you fight off a Scourge?”

“That was after I approached him.” The Huntress looked over her shoulder at her Mother. “Anyone they hate is a friend to us. Is that not what you told me?”

She had shed that cloak of shifting colored leaves and instead had a simple leather vest - Hal vaguely recalled it as a jerkin - over a forest green long-sleeved shirt. There were far too many belts and pockets for his taste. He’d never find anything in it but it looked good on her. Useful.

“Fine, but this is on your head.” She jabbed a bony finger at her daughter. “I don’t care if he’s the savior come back with a golden halo. If the Magistrate finds out you’ve broken protocol there will be a terrible price to pay. Once he’s well enough, you get him out of here. I will not harbor an outsider.”

From where Hal laid, propped up against the pillows, he could just make out the side of the Huntress’ face. The way her eyes narrowed, the tiny muscle that jumped in her jaw under the smooth tanned skin. “Very well, I will see to him from now on then.” And though it looked like it pained her, she bowed formally to her mother. “I appreciate all you’ve done.”

The look on her mother’s face was priceless. Her mouth formed a perfect O and her eyes bugged out so far they were nearly cartoonish. 

Hal had the distinct impression that the Huntress had never been much for gratitude. Maybe the mother had thought she’d wash her hands of Hal as well once he was on his feet. 

Whenever he looked at the Huntress there was nothing but a bucketful of mixed signals. She had seemed to help him at first. Clearly, she had waited for him to come out from his hiding place and speak to him. Then she had tried to help him, then knocked him out, tied him up like some wild game she hunted and then told him to go eat some poisonous mushrooms.

That last bit may have actually paid off, not that he was sure going blind and impotent for life was worth it. He hadn’t been able to understand a damn word she had said and now it was as if they were speaking English. Which he was absolutely certain they were not. It was as if he somehow knew their language. 

Whatever it was. 

The mother huffed and drew herself up to her full height, somewhere around five-foot-five Hal guessed, and bulled ahead pushing her daughter out of the way. “He is still my patient. Move aside.”

For the next half hour the mother, who introduced herself as Gretilda, made him perform a strange series of tests. At first, it was the typical doctor's physical stuff, reflexes, and the like but then it turned into something a cop might do to a suspected drunk.

After Hal had touched his finger to his nose while looking up for the tenth time, Gretilda finally declared him fit enough to get the hell out of her house. “After supper,” she added before throwing on a cobalt-blue cloak and vanishing out the door.

Gretilda’s place was cozy, stone walls and clean furnishings. The type of thing you’d see in a medieval reenactment with a few added cushions and creature comforts that always seemed to be missing in his opinion.

Before Hal could say anything, the Huntress rounded on him and held out an accusatory finger. “Before my mother gets back, we need to go over a few things.”

Hal shut his mouth with an audible click. Patience may not have been one of his virtues but he could try. New land, new me.

“First, do not show anybody that mark on your wrist. Keep it covered. Always. Second, you can understand me because you ate an allspeak mushroom. It lets you understand whatever language somebody speaks to you within the first day of eating the fungus. And third, until we are alone you should keep quiet and do as I say. There are dangers constantly seeking somebody like you out, and if they find you, you will beg for death.”

For a moment Hal let all that settle in. “Wow, all right. That’s a lot to unpack. I’m going to need some answers. First, who are you? Why did you save me, but then make me eat a poisonous mushroom? Why do you care what I do or don’t do and why are you lying to your mom about me?”

Her eyes flicked back and forth from one of Hal’s brown eyes to the other as if she could read something within. As much as it unnerved him, he forced himself to keep his eyes locked on hers.

“My name is Elora. I saved you because you were chased by the Broken and I wanted to see why. Now I know.” She jerked her chin towards the hidden mark on his left wrist. “Which makes you important. You clearly aren’t from around here, the mark pretty much makes that obvious and rather than teach you like some child, I opted for the faster route of gifting you with the language you will need to know to survive. Any local will spot an accent a mile off. Now you fit in. Mostly.”

“You still haven’t said why you’re lying to your mom.”

Elora pursed her lips, her eyes glittered with a warning. Hal met her gaze and found it a little easier this time. He’d been bullied and let everybody else tell him what he should be all his life and it had made him into a miserable loser. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.

“Fine,” she finally said, throwing up her hands. “My mother is a good woman - mostly. She’s a Healer if you haven’t already caught on to that. But she doesn’t like to rock the boat. She’s eked out a nice life for herself in Sanctum-Fallwreath. If she learned the truth about you, I don’t know what she’d do and you are too important to risk letting her determine your fate.”

Hal got up on wobbly legs and forced himself to pace back and forth in the small living room. “What’s a Sanctum? I’ve heard you both talk about it and while I understand the word, I’m getting the feeling like this is a contextual thing. And why would I wish I was dead if somebody caught me for having this… thing on my arm.” He motioned sharply at his bandaged wrist.

“I don’t have time to get into a history lesson with you right now, she could come back at any moment. Do you have walls for your cities where you’re from?”

Hal shrugged one shoulder. “Older ones, maybe.” He couldn’t exactly remember anything other than some of the old castle towns in Europe having walls around them. 

“Well, a Sanctum is like that. They are safe. That is all you need to know right now. And as for your other question, you’re a threat to them. You surely have people with immense power and influence where you’re from? Right. So, imagine what one of those people would do if a completely defenseless future threat showed up on their doorstep?” Elora made a dismissive gesture at Hal. 

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” he said. Though, understanding and believing were two very different things. Hal was just about to ask about the window that had popped up telling him he was poisoned when a loud thumping came from the door.

Elora’s face fell. “No,” she whispered, her voice strangled with disbelief. “She wouldn’t.”

Before Hal could ask what she was talking about, the door exploded into flinders and from the empty frame poured several heavily armored soldiers with white and green livery.