Page 11 of Grimdark Magazine Issue 48

Seelia was always gone by the time I’d been brought back to our small room. But she’d return before evening shadows began to gather, and I’d be well enough that we’d walk. Our own shadows fell ahead of us, long and shapeless, since we usually strolled eastward. And not always to drab nurseries. I became rather well acquainted with what I could only think to call leper cloisters. Diseases of the flesh brought together these unfortunates, all of whom bore their ailments in the name of Talenfoier.

We also visited hospices in alleys where the rain never seemed to wash the dust from ivy that covered the walls. It left a smell like things forgotten. In these places I found a few wounded men and women returned home from battle, trying to convalesce—unsuccessfully, from what I could see. The extent of daily curatives available to them was clean water and cloth. I did notice a few needle-and-gut trays.

The hospices also cared for the extremely old, and for those with a myriad of non-infectious ailments. But care would be too strong a word for the attention the ill received in these places. I began to believe that these hospices’ main purpose was herding together those who were losing their private battles of personal refinement.

I’ll admit that to be a cynical view. But it was the best I could do. I was in a state of constant pain, battling my own Talenfoier. And likewise losing.

One evening, sometime in the middle of my second cruciation, Seelia and I ambled through a sparse night market. The sweet smells of honeycombs and sugarcane stalks drifted on the air. While I wouldn’t have called the atmosphere exactly festive, it was more cheerful than Darles Hem by day. And here, of all places, in what I’d come to think of as the convalescent quarter. I’d later learn how wrongheaded that thinking was. All of Darles Hem, all of the Mal lands, had ivy-walled byways. This was merely a borough. Seelia’s borough, as it happened.

But despite the pleasant surroundings, I felt heavy, bone-weary. And as Seelia and I made our way through the streets, I faltered and fell to one knee. She made no immediate move to help me up. I knelt there, feeling afire, the fever particularly strong that night. Beads of sweat ran down my neck and chest. I watched a few of them plunk down on the cobblestones beneath my bowed head.

Passersby in the street paid me no mind. I sensed they were aware of me, but no one tried to help. No one stopped or gawked or jeered, either. But then, I didn’t need their chastisement, I was doing a royal quality job of that myself.

Because kneeling there in the east quarter of Darles Hem, I caught sight of one of my failings. I may have mastered the Mal lingual root, and known a meaning or two for Talenfoier. But I had no idea how to live them. The ones that mattered, anyway. The ones that could help me ... to endure.

I’d been walking with Seelia for almost fifty days now, lending what small support I could to beggars, children, and those too proud to ask. I’d been rendering a portion of my will, every day, to defy Talenfoier. To heal a few broken bodies or minds, and then bear the physical torments of my own morning sessions with Jaimen without the aid of my Sheason arts. And all I was doing was confirming the ugly understanding people outside the Mal lands held of Talenfoier. I must have looked a pity to those passersby who viewed me where I’d fallen in the street.

After a long while, Seelia bent and hooked my arm around her neck. We struggled to stand, making me wonder if she still had instep bores in her shoes. Then we limped together to a small side alley, where I slumped against the cool, rough wall. And sat.

She hunkered down in front of me. “Do you imagine you’re ready to understand now?”

I managed an ironic smile. “I look that broken, do I?”

She shared neither my mirth nor my self-pity. And she made no reply. Her face held the patient look of one waiting for a proper answer.

I stopped feeling any irony in the situation. I stopped smiling. I stared ahead at her. And I finally nodded, feeling teachable in a way I couldn’t remember feeling before.

“Without employing your Sheason skills to help yourself, and without understanding Talenfoier, you should be dead by now.” Seelia surveyed my brands briefly. “You’re too stubborn to die.” She paused and quietly added, “That’s about to end.”

I shook my head, not understanding.

“The next cruciation won’t bend to your obstinance. You’ll either have to stop helping these alley residents and start mending yourself …”

“Or what?” I urged gently.

Her expression was a portrait of reluctance. I could see her weighing the consequences of some choice, like maybe betraying a confidence. After several moments, she sighed and said in a mildly scolding tone, “Or, like I’ve been telling you for weeks now: You’ll have to learn Talenfoier. Really learn it. You can’t hold yourself separate and above it.” She slowed. “Or you’ll fail.”

“Fail to retrieve the ingot of steel your people hold hostage, you mean. I can’t imagine you really care about that.”

“That’s a dishonest reply. You know that’s not what I meant.” Somehow the lack of judgment in her voice was more condemning than her accusation.

“You’re dangling a carrot you know I can’t reach. You’ve lived a lifetime preparing for Talenfoier.” I stopped, trying to clarify what I understood about this path they followed. “You’ve been living Talenfoier all along, preparing for your cruciations. I don’t think it’s honest of you to suggest I could learn enough in a few short days. Hell, months even. I won’t achieve Talenfoier—”

“You don’t achieve it. It’s not an end state. You know better than that.” Her reproving eyes softened. “Talenfoier is a way of being. And I can teach you.” I was afraid I was never going to understand Talenfoier. A pregnant silence stretched as we stared at each other. The kind of silence that usually ended with unfortunate conclusions. Like mine now.

My voice sounded beaten when I said, “I’ll tend to myself.”

“Another dishonest reply.” Seelia’s tone held clear disappointment.

I shook my head, thinking about the ingot I’d come here to retrieve. “You’re right. That’s not what I’ll do. Even if I have to leave here without the ThousandFold steel.”

“It’s not dishonest because you wouldn’t do it,” she explained. “It’s dishonest because if you did, you’d be playing yourself false.” A nurturing smile softened her face further. “You don’t want to stop helping the few you can. And ... I don’t want you to.”

I chuckled. “So you want to help me so we can keep taking our walks, is that it? What about the arrogance of robbing them of the chance to suffer?”

There was an answer to that in her eyes. I could see it. But she kept it to herself the way a parent might to preserve a child’s belief in things he was too young to know the truth about. Like the eventual death of a pet. Or the life the child imagines he will have. It’s cruel to dispel some beliefs, and makes a parent seem a betrayer in the telling. Seelia kept her secrets.

She took a long breath, fixed me with a solemn look. “When the pain begins, don’t resist it. Feel it.”