‘How am I supposed to treat a shock victim?’ he wondered aloud, but nothing came to mind. He couldn’t remember how he’d done with first-aid training, but he was pretty sure he had not excelled. Mark would have scolded him and accused him of not paying attention. For a moment Steven stopped thinking about his own condition.
‘Mark, Garec?’ he called out over the campfire, ‘Gilmour?’ Nothing. Panic began to set in: had they been attacked as well? Were they all dead? If that were the case, how had he escaped – and more to the point, who had tied him up like this – was it for his safety, or to confine him?
All of a sudden Steven’s mind was beset with questions: where was he? With whom? Why? Using his good arm he examined the bonds that held him: several wool blankets were wrapped around him, thick leather straps and coarse hemp kept his legs, hips and torso straight. His head was held in place by a padded leather thong tied between the two pine branches that made up the skeletal frame of what he thought might be a makeshift stretcher. He couldn’t have been left to die because his – captor? saviour? – had left a fire burning.
‘Why won’t you answer me?’ he called in as calm a voice as he could muster. ‘I know you’re there; I can feel you.’
Straining to bend his neck, Steven watched smoke from the fire leaving a ghostly white trail. The ethereal tendrils danced slowly in the soft evening breeze. Steven watched, transfixed, as several pieces of lighter-than-air ash drifted upwards from the crackling fire. Then the smoke trail began to take on a more definite shape.
‘Gabriel O’Reilly,’ Steven said softly when he realised what was happening, ‘Gabriel, please come down here.’
The dead bank teller floated slowly down from the treetops to join Steven near the fire. He thought he could see genuine concern and compassion in the spirit’s features as he gazed on his broken form.
‘Is it that bad?’ he asked.
The spirit shook his head, as if to say, ‘I have seen much worse.’
‘Are both my legs intact?’
Again the wraith paused a few seconds, but this time he nodded.
‘Thank Christ,’ Steven sighed. His lower leg must be broken and numb, perhaps from the cold, or maybe because of a more serious infection.
‘Did you rescue me from the grettan?’
The spirit shook his head.
‘Who did?’ Steven felt anxiety begin to well up in him once again. This method of communication was so slow.
The wraith pointed towards the forest. Maybe he – or they – were off gathering food, water or firewood.
‘Are my friends nearby? Can you bring them to me? Can you find them?’
Gabriel O’Reilly’s spirit shook his head again, then extended a translucent finger into the air.
‘One of them is searching for me? Who?’
The wraith rubbed the back of one smoky white hand across his cheek.
‘The one with the dark skin, Mark? Yes! Will you guide him, Gabriel? I know you don’t owe me anything, but please, will you bring Mark here?’
The spirit stared down at Steven for several seconds before nodding slightly.
Then, hesitantly, as if his abandonment of his friends and his failure to defeat the grettan somehow made him unworthy to wield it, Steven asked, ‘Is my wooden staff here?’
Gabriel nodded again.
Steven asked, ‘Do you know from where it gets its power?’ When the wraith shrugged, he went on, ‘But Malagon fears it?’
The spirit shrugged again and Steven said quickly, ‘Right. How would you know? Sorry.’ He felt out of sorts, awkward and vulnerable without the staff. Now that he was alone and incapacitated here in the forest, he was deeply embarrassed at his behaviour. He hoped his friends would forgive his impulsive – stupid – decision to rush off in search of Hannah. As if one man, even with a magic stick, could face down Nerak… Steven’s face flushed as he imagined himself admitting that he had been attacked and nearly killed by a grettan less than a day later.
Steven turned his attention back to the wraith: he needed more information. ‘There is a woman; she is special to me… Lessek sent a dream, a vision, to me – at least, I think he did. Anyway, I think the dream may be his way of telling me she is here.’ Steven was waffling; he started again, ‘I need to know if she is really here, in Eldarn.’
Again, Gabriel O’Reilly shrugged.
‘That’s all right. I had to try. I am just so – so stuck here, so lost.’ Exhausted now, his voice trailed off. His head began to swim and he felt his vision fading. He tried to steel himself for more questions, but he lacked the strength. He made a final effort, croaking, ‘Please, Gabriel, bring Mark Jenkins here.’
This time the wraith nodded emphatically. He brought his facial features into focus, as he had on previous visits, and Steven realised O’Reilly was trying again to tell him something important.
‘There is one-’ He mouthed the words, but Steven did not understand.
‘What?’ Steven was drifting in and out of consciousness. ‘Say it again.’
‘There is one-’ O’Reilly tried a second time, but Steven’s eyes glazed over as his breathing steadied. Gabriel O’Reilly extended a nebulous hand, rested it on Steven’s forehead for a moment, then slid through the trees towards the mountain pass behind them.
Garec stood up and backed slowly away from the body. ‘He’s dead,’ he murmured to Brynne. ‘I can’t believe he’s dead.’ He filled his hands with snow and tried to wash off Gilmour’s blood.
‘He’s not dead,’ Brynne sobbed, ‘he’s going to be fine. He just needs some time.’ Supporting Gilmour’s head in her lap, Brynne looked as though she had been dipped in blood. Her face was streaked with tears and she coughed violently as she tried to regain her breath. She rolled up her sleeves and bared her forearms, then awkwardly pushed Gilmour’s flesh around the knife, hoping to stem the flow of blood from the wound. Though her arms were stained red to the elbows, it appeared her efforts had been successful, because no additional blood was seeping out.
But Garec knew otherwise.
‘He’s dead, Brynne,’ he said, reaching for her. ‘That’s why the bleeding has stopped. His heart isn’t beating.’
Brynne’s gaze dropped and she looked at the old man’s drawn, grey visage. In a sudden burst of revulsion, she pushed the Larion Senator’s body away and scrambled a backwards retreat across their camp to where her brother was still standing his silent vigil. Gilmour’s ancient body looked smaller, thinner than it had earlier that day. Garec reached down to close an errant flap of tunic that had torn away to reveal ashen skin.
Now sobbing uncontrollably, Brynne collapsed at Sallax’s feet. He reached down and placed one hand gently on his sister’s shoulder, the first show of emotion since his encounter with Gabriel O’Reilly’s spirit.
Garec looked around at the stoic lodge pines, tall and stately, ignoring the pitiful human drama being played out at their feet. This clearing, here in the Blackstone Mountains, was as close to a Larion Senate sanctuary as they would ever find outside Sandcliff Palace.
‘We have to give him his rites,’ he said softly. ‘We have to burn his body.’
Dawn was breaking when Garec finished amassing enough tinder for Gilmour’s pyre. Brynne had insisted on an enormous pile of prickly, dry tinder, to be certain their friend’s body would burn entirely away, even in that cold, snowy wilderness. Sallax helped, and despite his sadness, Garec was heartened at his improvement.
Garec hacked away at the exposed limbs of several fallen trees, then trimmed off the lowest hanging branches from a circle of lodge pines ringing the clearing. He felt a wave of fear and loneliness pass over him, turning his stomach and causing a moment of dizziness. The clearing seemed to brighten as his pupils dilated and his head swam. Angrily, he fought off the urge to cry. They were too far from home, in too much danger from freezing to death, being killed by grettans, Seron, an almor, let alone whatever other monstrosities Malagon was saving up for them. He had to keep himself under control.