Scars of the Earth

“I had to explain it to her a little earlier than you. She and Cole were so tightly bonded at a such a young age. I didn’t want to see her get in trouble for being too close with him.” She paused and took a deep breath. “When I told her she couldn’t be married or hope to have a child, a life beyond her own, she didn’t speak with anyone for a week, but she didn’t cry.”

Amanda thought back to that conversation, and the agony she was feeling doubled at the memory of the heartbreak. Her sobs became so violent they shook her entire body.

“Go find out what is taking those nurses so long!” Madgie shouted.

Nell was out of the double doors before the request was complete.

Amanda forced back the screams and tears. Find her. Could she find her? She hadn’t ever heard of it being done, but that didn’t mean anything. There was so much she didn’t know about her own world. Sometimes she wondered if the Ancients were the only ones who knew everything about their existence. She just needed to get her head back on straight. This was difficult, considering the amount of pain she was in. She looked over at Madgie. Her face was unusually readable, anxiety plain on her face. Amanda cleared her throat, which felt raw.

“Healers for the Healer, don’t you think that’s a bit redundant?” She was trying to take away the line of worry

Madgie wore between her eyebrows, but her shot at humor had no effect.

Madgie spoke in a whisper, “There is no reason to be frightened. The Ancients have been called. They’ll know how to fix you up.” The tone of her voice made it clear Madgie wanted to believe the Ancients could solve any problem, but her words didn’t comfort Amanda.

“It’s just best to go through life never having to meet the Ancients.” That’s what Madgie had told Amanda the one time she’d questioned her about them. Now she was hoping they could help. I must look pretty awful… the screaming probably didn’t help, she thought, kicking herself for concerning her friend. She looked up and saw Madgie’s unfocused eyes and distant expression. The poison ripping through her made her thoughts jumbled and broken. It would be hard to question Madgie with any kind of success, but she had to try.

“Madgie since you haven’t drilled me with questions since I came to, I assume you know what happened to me in that Scar,” she said plainly.

Madgie snapped out of her far away thoughts and looked at her. “I know where these marks came from, but I don’t know exactly what happened to you in there.”

These marks? They’d said something about marks earlier.

She was still in a semi-frozen state, but she attempted to look down at her stiff body, which had been stripped completely naked. Her first instinct was to cover up, but her dead limbs where of no use. Unable to move even slightly, she could just make out her curves, but that was more than enough. The ominous marks were covering every inch of her once beautiful body. Her eyes strained to focus and make a clear picture, but without the ability to lift her head, it was impossible to see herself.

“Madgie, could you get me a mirror?” Amanda asked. Madgie knitted her thin eyebrows together.

She took her pause as a bad sign and spoke a bit louder. “Madgie, get me a mirror, please.”

Madgie left for a moment and came back with a petite wall mirror clutched in her hands. Madgie, who was never unsure about anything. Amanda wanted to know what she was dealing with. She cared little about looks but didn’t want her appearance to hinder her. It would be much harder to travel the world looking for Kaedin’s Scar if she didn’t look like a normal person. Madgie stepped tentatively forward, and after a few tries, she had the mirror angled so Amanda could see herself.

After she came to grips with the fact that her eyes looked like the devil’s own, she studied her body. Her entire left side was a dark bruise. Though it looked like none she’d ever seen. It was too black, and the colors within it swirled and danced like an oil slick on the surface of a puddle. The living contusion stretched across Amanda’s belly in thin waving fingers until it tucked back under her right side. The bruise made sense. She remembered the demon sinking its teeth into her skin and tossing its head back and forth like a crazed animal. She didn’t understand the rest of the marks covering her body, black marks running in every direction tracing every vein. It looked like her heart was circulating tar.

“Madgie? What are these?” Amanda asked, her voice full of panic.

“They are markings called Ronbi,” Madgie said.

Amanda searched through her education in a few short seconds. She had no definition for the word. “I don’t know what ‘Ronbi’ means, Madgie. Why don’t I know?”

“We don’t often discuss them. They are incredibly rare and a topic of great fear,” Madgie explained.

“What are they?” she pressed. Madgie looked down at the mirror, now lying in her lap.

“They are evil marks. It’s what we see when a demon has corrupted a soul…” She paused and tucked a bit of graying hair behind her ear. “And taken it to where we cannot tread.”

“What, like I’m something evil and unclean now? Do you think that, Madgie?” she asked.

From the way the woman averted her eyes, she already knew the answer, though Madgie didn’t give it.

“No, no. I don’t believe that, and I can’t tell you what I do believe. I haven’t a clue as to what’s going on. If a Healer has been corrupted, it isn’t something they can live through. The demon’s essence poisons their very blood, taking all that is human and all that is spirit, consuming them like a ravenous dog,” Madgie said.

The hard glint in her eye made it clear Madgie was trying to convince not only Amanda that she was whole, but herself too.

I may not be gone, but I’m corrupted. I can feel it. Closing her eyes, she searched her body, mind, and spirit. She could sense the internal struggle and feel the heaviness of the demon’s essence. It thrashed in her veins and spread a dark, unearthly smell into her skin. No, she wasn’t clean, but her spirit was fighting and it was strong. She’d be fine. But why? Why was she alive?

Amanda stopped thinking and voiced her question. “So why am I alive?”

“I don’t know. You must have just slipped out in time. I don’t understand how you’re still breathing. Just look at you. You should be dead, Amanda, and you aren’t.” Fear and confusion were apparent on her face.

“Listen, Madgie, I don’t care about what these stupid marks are or why I’m not dead. Just help me, please. I don’t know what that demon’s venom has done to me, but as you’ve noticed, I can’t move,” she said.

Madgie’s head turned swiftly away from her gaze and the aversion had nothing to do with her haunting red stare.

She spoke franticly, trying to get Madgie to understand the importance of haste. “I need to move, I have to find that Scar and free her, this little spirit. She was stronger than any soul I’ve ever encountered, but she won’t last long. After you figure out a way to get me up and moving again, you have to tell me how to find her.”

Madgie slowly turned her head back toward her and spoke slowly, making sure she understood every word. “The demon’s venom is still attacking your spirit, not your body.”

“That’s not true, Madgie. I can’t even tell you how much pain I’m in, and I can’t move a muscle,” she said.

Madgie shook her head slowly. “You’re in pain because your spirit is fighting the Hell fire within you, child. Your body is tainted, but working.”

“So why can’t I move?” Amanda asked.

Madgie opened her mouth to speak, but she seemed unable to answer. At least not to Amanda’s face. Fixing her gaze on something just outside of Amanda’s line of sight, she spoke. “You are unable because the Ancients have made it so.”

“The Ancients have made it so?’ What does that mean?” She strained her eyes to see what Madgie was gazing at, and in her peripheral vision, she could just make out the shape of a syringe. Her mind raced as she struggled against the manufactured concoction flowing through her veins. “They drugged me? How could you do this? I trusted you!” Amanda shouted at her.

Madgie’s kind face streamed with tears. “It was for your own good, Amanda. We didn’t know if you would be yourself when you came to or if what awoke would be a terrible creature of nightmares. We were scared to even use magic to keep you immobile for fear of what it might do to you or us. This is unheard of. I don’t even think the Ancients know what to do. Don’t worry. The drug will wear off by the time the Ancients are ready to hold council.”

Amanda tried to let her anger at them go. The venom in her seemed to bubble and grow in it. “What about