“On balance, you’re on the mark-that wicked thing on his belt done more harm than good. He had any choice, he’d be rid of it already, I’m thinking.”
“But he… can’t be rid of it?”
“Thinking we established that, bookmaster.”
I sighed. “So we did. What I mean is, why? Why can’t he be rid of it?”
“Wasn’t with him, but heard tell he tried burying it once, figuring that was where it come from. Back to the ground, like a body you don’t want nobody else to find. Him and some Nooses with him. Dropped the last dirt on top, probably without a whole lot of eulogizing, and then rode off. Didn’t get real far, though.”
She stopped. I waited. When she didn’t continue, I started to open my mouth and she said, “Guessing you’ll want to know what happened after that, too, so I’ll just tell you. Crippling pain brought him down. They thought he was dying. Like to have, until they knocked their heads together long enough to figure out what to do. Rushed back, got those shovels dirty again, and brought that vicious thing back out of the earth. Seemed it didn’t much like being buried like that. Captain stopped screaming when it was back in his hands.”
I was about to ask something else, but she held up her nubs. “Right now, the whyfores of getting rid of it got nothing to do with us. I just got to get him through this spell.”
We both looked at Braylar for a long moment and then I asked, “So you’ll be able to help him, then?”
“Won’t be any kind of easy. I been here right after… But two killed, and five days? Done that many, but never that long. Memoridon could manage. Least, that’s what’s said. But none of their kind wandering out this way. So I’ll do what I can do.” She laid her palm on Braylar’s forehead. Quietly, and directed to the prone man on the floor, she said, “I would’ve been here sooner if I was able. Fact was, I was trying to lead danger the opposite way, keep you out of another scrape. But you wouldn’t have it. Ordered me away. I told you you ought not to, but…” She sighed. “Now you might not never wake to hear how right I was.”
I understood little and less. “I have no idea what’s happening here, Lloi.”
“You ever seen a man bit by a snake? Got the poison coursing through him? Now, maybe it’s a pit snake, just hurts the man bad, or maybe it’s a brass viper, kills him dead. Either way, you catch it early, open the wound, draw it out, that man might get better. Might not. But wait too long? Real sick or real dead. This is that, only the flail the thing done the biting, and those dead memories are the poison. Can’t say how bad Captain Noose is like to get-this is the worst I seen him. But I got to get that poison out, and I got to do it now, so you step on back and let me get to draining.”
I stood up. “What can I do to help?”
“Make sure I drink plenty,” she said. “Water, fine, wine, better. Do that, and keep your lips locked, that’ll be the rightest kind of help you can give.”
I found a flask and watched as Lloi knelt next to him, her good hand on his belly, and the nubby stump on his forehead. She lowered her head until it touched his sternum, then slowly raised it, rolling and turning it side to side slightly as she began to chant something I assumed was in her native tongue, until she tilted her head back as far as it would go, chin pointing at the canvas. She did this over and over, the only small changes coming in her humming or chanting.
I sat and watched, feeling equally mystified and obtrusive, as if I were witnessing some deviant act or sacred rite meant to be private. And yet what else was I supposed to do, go outside and sit in the dark?
And so I waited and held my tongue. After a time, my eyes began closing, but Lloi’s chanting, while lilting, wasn’t rhythmic or repetitive enough to allow me to fall asleep. Every time I was close, the pitch or delivery changed, or a new kind of alien syllable was introduced, and my eyes opened again.
I looked over after one such occurrence, and she paused her chanting, although the strange bobbing continued, and she looked over at me and opened her mouth. I remembered her request, and started to hand her the flask, but she shook her head. She paused mid-rise long enough for me to put the flask to her lips and tip it up. She took several swallows before pulling her lips away as wine dribbled down her chin and fell on Braylar’s chest.
And then she continued her ritual, with a smear of wine on her forehead after she touched down again, and I immediately thought of the large blood stain I’d hidden in the rear of the wagon.
This went on the remainder of the night, with Lloi pausing briefly on occasion to take some wine, and the chanting undergoing subtle changes, and little other variation as the hours crept by. As dawn came on, I put out the lantern and chewed some goat that was especially stringy. I offered some to Lloi, but she only looked at the flask, which I gave her. By now, we’d worked out the transfer of liquid so nothing was spilled, but Lloi’s hair was sticky and matted in front from our previous slips. I patted at her with a damp cloth as best I could and settled back against the side of the wagon.
I was nodding off again when Lloi finally stopped chanting. I looked at her as she fell back against a barrel, eyes shut, face pale. She pointed her toes away from her and then rolled her sandaled feet in circles, to either work out stiff muscles or keep them from seizing up.
I asked if she wanted food or drink but she declined both. I looked at Braylar, but besides the splotches of wine on his skin, he seemed unchanged. I whispered, “What happens next?”
She pulled her legs up to her chest and laid her head on her knees. She sounded absolutely exhausted and hoarse when she finally replied, “Can’t say.” Then she forced herself up, legs wobbly, holding the barrel for support. “Need some rest now. He wakes, you wake me. Otherwise, you leave me be.”
She disappeared through the front flap and the wagon rocked as she jumped off. A few moments later, I heard her vomiting. Even after I was sure she’d emptied her stomach, she continued to make awful clenching, heaving, sputtering noises.
I wasn’t sure which was the greater oddity-a Syldoon whose Deserter-inspired weapon allegedly stole memories from the dead, or a disfigured Grass Dog who presumably drew those memories out of him like poison. Or an archivist who believed either one.
And that was the last thought I had before falling into a depthless dreamless slumber.
I woke when the wagon began moving forward, feeling so tired I was unsure whether I’d slept for mere moments or a month. I sat up and the first thing I noticed was that a prone Braylar had been replaced by a seated Lloi, facing the rear of the wagon.
I stretched and sat up as well. When she heard me, she turned and offered me her small pouch of seeds in her nubby hand, which I declined. She popped a few more in her mouth, working them open with a dexterity rodents would have admired before spitting out the shells. “Captain Noose figured he been drifting off course long enough. Time to get rolling right and center again. Didn’t bother waking you, on account of you not sleeping last night. I already told him what befell while I was riding solo, but he cautioned me to be ready to retell it again, should you have questions. Which we both figured you might, as you can’t seem to help yourself. So,” she offered me the seed pouch again, which I accepted this time. “Ask what you got to ask.”
I wasn’t sure where to begin. My questions came in a flood, “What happened to you? Where did you disappear? Were you outrunning the ripper, or-”
She held up her hands, or hand-and-a-half anyway. “Whoa, easy there, bookmaster. Nah, wasn’t no ripper delayed me none. That is, I seen the feathered bastard, and followed at a real respectful distance for a fair bit. But I knew he hadn’t seen the wagon. They got a real taste for horse. He seen the horses, would’ve been too good a meal to pass up, wagon or no. That ripper moved off in the opposite direction, so he weren’t a worry no more. No, the reason I didn’t come back right quick was, there was a Grass Dog party, looking for those hunters that ripper gutted. Big one, armed to the teeth. They had some outriders, doing what I been doing, and they were heading for the tracks this wagon left in the earth. They found those, that party would’ve run you to ground, killed you deader than dirt, no question. So I gave them a different track to follow, led them back toward the ripper trail. Tried to, anyway. They turned before they caught it, headed back to the party for the night. So I spent the next couple of days and nights laying down track after track, staying just ahead of them.”