Belster put on a contemplative expression and pose. "So-just so I'm sortin' it out right-ye're wanting to come north when all the world's bright in the south, and now ye're wantin' to go south, when the darkness of the plague has swallowed the whole of it? " The portly man shook his head and snorted. "Chasin' darkness, are ye, girl?"
Pony started to reply, but stopped, realizing that she had little to say against that interpretation other actions. From Bolster's point of view, from the point of view of anyone who had not walked her recent spiritual path, it seemed that she was doing exactly that-chasing misery and darkness.
"Ye're goin' to get yerself sick and dead, is all," Belster finished, and he wiped the rag hard across the bar.
Pony grabbed his arm and stared up at him, forcing him to look her directly in the eye. "I might do just that," she said in all seriousness. "And I might go down there and do no good at all for anybody. But-can you not understand? — I have to try. I have been given this gift with the gemstones, a gift that the Abellican brothers claim is a direct calling from God. Am I to deny that? Am I to huddle with the hoarded gemstones while people around me suffer and die? "
"That's what them monks do," Belster reminded.
"And they are wrong," Pony insisted.
"The gemstones won't fix the rosy plague," Bolster said. "Ye did try, with Colleen and with others when ye were in Palmaris. Have ye forgotten that already? "
"I will never forget," Pony grimly replied.
"Then why're ye pretendin' that ye don't know better?" Belster demanded. "Ye fought the plague and it beat ye. Ye fought it again and it beat ye again-and ye're not the first to wage this battle. Them monks, they know the truth of it, and they admit the truth of it, and that's why they stay behind their walls."
"No!" Pony interrupted. "They hide because they are afraid."
"Because they're smart."
"Afraid," Pony said again, firmly. "They hide because they have found no answer and fear the consequences of trying. If Avelyn thought along those same lines, would he have ever gone to Mount Aida after the demon dactyl? If Nightbird thought along those same lines, would he have joined me in my fight against Markwart? "
Belster started to respond, but Pony knew what was coming and cut him short. "Yes, they are both dead," she said before he could. "But think of what might have happened if they had not tried, if they had not gone against their fears and won a battle that none believed they possibly could."
Belster gave a great sigh of surrender.
The door to Fellowship Way banged open then, for the first time that morning, and a young man, Harley Oleman, crashed in, obviously agitated.
"It's here! It's here!" he cried. "The rosy plague's found us!"
Pony looked at Belster.
"Jonno Drinks," Harley Oleman explained. "Jonno Drinks' got the rings!"
"Ye wanted yer fight," Belster said quietly to Pony. "Seems like it found ye here."
Pony dropped her hand into her gem pouch and produced the deep gray hematite, the soul stone, holding it up before Belster. "A fight that I am more than ready to wage," she said determinedly. She headed for the door, motioning for Harley Oleman to follow her.
"He should be put right out," Harley started to say, turning to plead with Belster as he did, for it was perfectly obvious that Pony wouldn't be seeing things quite that way.
Pony knew Jonno Drinks, though not well, but even if she didn't know him at all, it wouldn't have been hard for her to figure out which cottage belonged to him. A crowd had gathered outside the small shack, many cursing and demanding that the man walk out of the house and out of their town.
They quieted considerably when Pony came through their ranks, casting stern glances at each and every one. "Compassion is salvation," she reminded them. "Woe to you if you get the plague and die, but all the more woe to you if that happens after you have shown such cruelty to your fellows."
And after the woman they held up as a great hero put them in their place, Pony stunned them even more by striding right up to Jonno Drinks' door, and after a sharp rap to let the sick man know she was coming, right into the house.
She heard them before she closed the door behind her, some whispering that she, too, would have to be forced out of town.
She ignored them. Her fight lay before her, not behind-with the rosy plague and not with her fellow townsfolk.
She found Jonno Drinks in bed, feverish and with those same hollow, pleading eyes that had faced her in Palmaris. She was surprised at how advanced the plague already seemed in the man, and wondered if he had been hiding it for a while-and feared the consequences to the rest of Dundalis if that was the case.
"One battle at a time," she reminded herself, and she clutched the soul stone tightly, bringing forth its magic to free her from her corporeal form, and then spiritually diving right at the man.
An hour later, Pony sat on the floor beside Jonno Drinks' bed, thoroughly exhausted and sometimes slapping at her arms as if the little plague creatures were all about her. For all of her determination and all of her strength, she had done little to push back the plague in the man, she knew, and had once again nearly been overwhelmed.
The worst part was that she had believed she was making some progress at first, pushing through the green soup that was the plague, but then it had come at her, and viciously, and only her great power with the soul stone had kept the tiny demons at bay. A lesser gem user would have likely been overwhelmed byJonno's disease.
And so she believed that she had survived another encounter, but for Pony, that was hardly a victory.
She fell asleep right there, beside Jonno Drinks' bed.
She awoke many hours later, when the sun was low in the west. She felt somewhat refreshed and turned back to Jonno, soul stone in hand, thinking to do battle one more time.
She found the man resting comfortably, though, and decided against the course. Let him sleep and let her gather even more strength before the next fight. She must be better prepared for that fight, she realized; should find some answers between now and then. Pony pulled open the gemstone pouch and considered the myriad stones in there, searching for a combination, searching for some answer that would not come.
But then she thought of Elbryan and of Avelyn, of those heroes who had gone before, and she thought she knew where she might get some answers.
She came out of the house swiftly, wanting to get to Oracle before nightfall. The crowd was still there-nearly all the town now-waiting, waiting, like the specter of death itself.
"He dead?" one man asked.
Pony shook her head. "We are fighting," she replied, and she noted that every one of them fell back at her approach.
"He should be put out of town," another man, farther in back, remarked.
Pony stopped and glared in his direction. "Hear me well," she said, her tone deathly cold. "If you, if any of you, think to harm Jonno Drinks, or think to put him out of town, then I will hunt you down."
"Easy, girl," said Belster, coming forward through the mob and reaching out to take Pony's arm.
But she pulled away from him forcefully. "I mean every word," she warned. "Leave him be, in his house. Surround the place with flowers, if that will bring you some measure of comfort, but do not harm him in any way." The manner in which she spoke the words, so calmly, so determined, combined with that prominent gem pouch and that marvelous sword strapped on her hip, caused many a face to blanch. These people knew Jilseponie and knew her well-well enough to fear her should they provoke her wrath.
To heighten the effect, a moment later, powerful Symphony thundered into town, galloping down the road.
Pony looked at the horse with awe-it was as if he had read her mind, yet again, and had come rushing to her aid. She had to wonder how great the connection between her and Symphony had become, how powerful the magic of the turquoise set in the horse's breast truly might be.