Chapter 48. The Return

he eight beds in the infirmary were occupied for the first time in the Crystal Palm’s illustrious history.  Teleri decided to stay with Pendaran.  Nandao grasped her hand to pull her away from that sad place but she sighed at him.

“Let me stay, it will keep my mind off of Murdi.”

“Brother Gao and the servants are exhausted,” Nandao noted as the elderly monk moved slowly toward them, “Let’s offer to help clean this one up.  You can give me a hand.”

Not surprisingly, Brother Gao gave his permission and left them to the arduous task of cutting away the tatters of the once fine wedding robes. They obtained kettles of hot water and meticulously cleaned the accumulated filth and grime from the man’s body, taking away scabs and pus.  Teleri gagged at the odor of rotting flesh and followed Nandao’s lead by tying a cloth dipped in rose water over her face.  The monk gave her the less odious task of salving the clean wounds with ointment while he finished cleansing the man’s gaunt body and began lancing the infected boils and wounds that wasted his pale flesh.

Nandao showed her how to moisten the man’s lips with sips of water without choking him. Throughout the ordeal, Pendaran never stirred or made a sound.  She thought at times he might have died for his breathing was shallow.  How could a monk do their job without breaking under the strain of so much cruelty, she wondered, as she watched her friend bandage the welter of sores that ringed Pendaran’s wrists where the chains had bound him.

“Do you think he’ll recover?” she asked as Nandao took a razor to the man’s jaw and began removing the filthy tangle of beard.  She had already taken shears to his scalp and the matted mess now lay in a bowl.

“Maybe,” the monk replied, rinsing and tapping the blade as he cut swathes through the forest of dirty hair, “He was down there for at least twelve days.  Not that long as far as the damage starvation can do, but he appears to have become sick from the water.  That’s what would have killed him if we had not got to him first.”

“He’s got a pretty face, though he’s a bit thin,” she remarked as Nandao removed the last of Pendaran’s unruly facial hair and began working on his scalp, “All of his hair?”

“He’s got sores on the back of his head and the stuff is filthy.  Might as well let it grow back out.”

“He looks like a plucked chicken now, albeit a very handsome one,” Teleri grumbled.

The monk smirked.

“You are a sucker for the pretty boys,” he replied ruefully.

Teleri helped Nandao flip Pendaran onto his belly so they could finish tending the wounds on his back.

“Poor thing,” she murmured, seeing the jagged scars of a beating scoring the man’s back.  Nandao frowned grimly as he worked to complete the final round of lancing and cleaning the suppurating sores formed from lying in one place for too long.  When that was done, the monk pressed his hands lightly over Pendaran’s shoulders and uttered a long string of prayers, an azure glow flowing lightly from his touch.  Teleri gasped as the man’s body shuddered and a low moan issued from his throat.

His wounds, cleansed of filth and disease, closed at last and Nandao enlisted Teleri’s help in flipping Pendaran onto his back once more. 

“The spirit does not go willingly back into the flesh,” Shikai announced, startling the two of them for they had not heard the ritualist arrive and she stood statue still at the foot of the bed, her tattooed hand extended toward the Pendaran’s breast, “It pains him.”

“Of course it does,” Nandao grumbled, “That’s what bodies do after they’ve been treated like garbage.”

Teleri watched the rise and fall of Pendaran’s breast, his rawboned form becoming tense under Nandao’s gentle touch. His eyes rolled under their lids, but he did not waken, only gasped in pain until his flesh was bathed in a fine sheen of cold sweat.

“What’s wrong with him?” Teleri asked as Nandao moved frantically to draw a sheet over the man’s trembling form.

“He’s coming back and whatever they did to him returns also,” Nandao said, the alarm that was in his eyes not registering in his calm voice.

“No monk can battle that wound,” Shikai said quietly, “It is of the mind.”

Teleri noticed a gathering crowd of servants.  Brother Gao looked on grimly, then came forth to assist Nandao as they tried to keep the shuddering figure warm.

Zhou limped quietly to the table, his right hand clutching a cane that he leaned upon heavily, each jarring step causing his face to tense with pain.  Brother Gao frowned and gestured to the bed that Zhou had formerly occupied but the mesmer shook his head stubbornly and placed a hand upon Pendaran’s cheek, turning the feverish man’s face toward him.

Softly, Zhou whispered an incantation until an aura of magenta bathed his hand and flowed into Pendaran.  Nandao caught Zhou around the waist as he crumpled.

“Avenge my master with your truth,” Zhou gasped at Pendaran before he fainted. Brigit was frantic as she rushed to Nandao’s side and helped the mesmer back into his bed.  The calm of the infirmary was shattered by her swearing.

“Insane,” Nandao grumbled, “Every last mesmer is insane to the core.”

Yet Pendaran was calm now and his face was no longer pinched with pain and anguish. He was merely sleeping. 

“He is returned,” Shikai said, gazing upon Pendaran from the realm of spirit.

Teleri helped carry the man to his bed, sitting at his side as Nandao and Brother Gao draped blankets over him and laid a damp cloth over his forehead and eyes.  She sought his hand beneath the blankets and held it gently as she resolved to keep vigil.  Nandao wobbled on his feet with exhaustion as he stood over her, smirking.

“Go rest, Nandao,” she said, “You look awful.”

“Keep giving him sips of water,” the monk pleaded needlessly.

“I’ll send for you when he wakes.”

“It may be a while,” Nandao protested.

“Good, that means you’ll have lots of time to recover.”

“I’ll relieve you in a couple hours,” he conceded before slumping out of the infirmary.

Teleri thanked a servant for bringing her a chair so that she could sit comfortably beside her charge.  Sadness tightened her throat and she thought of Morisedd cast into some horrible dark hole and left to starve like a neglected animal.  Gods help him for she was helpless to do anything herself.

But at least she could help this man, she decided.  Damn the Red Lotus to Grenth’s coldest hell, they had at least been foiled in Pendaran’s murder.  Shikai approached slowly, kneeling at the bedside and laying the little package of Pendaran’s possessions upon the blanket beside his thigh.  The ritualist unwrapped the parcel and slowly lifted the harp key and held it before her blinded eyes.

“Give him this.”

Blinking, Teleri nodded, disarmed by the strange woman.  It was an old but ornate key very like the one Rhys had kept on a chain around his throat. It had gone with him into the Searing while his beautiful harp moldered in her cottage, untuned but beloved by their son.  Smiling at the thought of Mabane, she pressed the key into Pendaran’s hand and held it there.

“Not all is lost,” Shikai said mysteriously, “Just changed.”