I looked back to the fireplace to find Ewan looking in our direction.
“Unusual,” he mused. “It’s not entirely magical; there is something synthetic to it, making its progression strange. I’ve not seen anything like this before. If it weren’t for the knife wound forcing it to the surface we never would have caught it. It appears that being pulled to the surface has drawn it out, but that in itself may kill him. Your attempts here have held it off, but not for long. It’s in the blood, but it is not so far gone that we cannot do something about it.”
Ewan turned to start working up whatever potions he deemed would cure whatever was killing Devyn.
He pulled some labelled bottles from their neat rows, arranging them on the clear workstation and giving the usually bristly Madoc succinct directions which he followed without hesitation.
Ewan turned back briefly and raised an eyebrow at what he deemed to be an unnecessary audience.
“We’re not going anywhere,” I said in a tone even I could hear was mulish. I had learned from our earlier experience that it was hard to get back in once a druid had kicked you out of the room. A slight tug of humour whispered along the bond as the druid and I had a silent standoff. I pushed it away; it wasn’t funny and I wasn’t leaving.
“Please,” Marcus appealed on our behalf. “I am… was a doctor. I would like to understand more about your medicine. I am told I have some ability; perhaps I can also be of some help, under your guidance of course.”
My charming, handsome princeling to the rescue! The druid pursed his lips, the glint in his eyes sharing that he was not unaware of the calculating strategy beneath Marcus’s courteous approach.
“What the lad says is true,” Madoc supported him. “He seems to have healed Lord Rhodri… completely.”
A lone brow rose at this.
“Does he now?” Ewan blinked. “All right then. But stay out of our way.”
Where Madoc’s process of concocting had been a chaotic symphony of bottles and jars – lifted, put down, sniffed, tasted, a smidgeon of one, a scrape of another – Ewan’s was a singularly methodical process of selection, addition and completion. He was composed and focused, doses were given in small quantities and the results contemplated, then the patient was judged and the potion was adjusted before the cycle would begin again. Over and over until I could scream from the repetition of it all. Ewan responded to Marcus’s inquiries shortly at first, but as night turned to day, and the final solution continued to elude him, he opened up. His frustration was as restrained as his potion-making, but as the cycles slowed, he became even more thoughtful.
“What are you doing?” Marcus asked for the hundredth time as Ewan paused to observe the effects of his latest attempt.
Ewan’s brows crinkled and he extended a hand to Marcus, who took it as he stood over Devyn, who had fallen asleep again. Since taking the potions, he had started to drift in and out of consciousness, which Ewan told us was merely a result of the base ingredient and not the lingering poison.
“Focus on his blood,” he instructed his new pupil. Marcus’s green eyes lost focus as he followed wherever it was the druid led him.
Not wishing to be left out, I rested my head on Marcus’s shoulder as if I were tired, but with the physical connection established I was along for the ride. I had frequently assisted Marcus in Bart’s, temporarily lending him power when he was mysteriously healing the ill in his hospital.
We drifted down through Devyn’s body, following as the druid tracked through his limbs and organs, examining the results of the latest concoction. We wafted along, applying the essence of the potion to the greyish sections he sought out; some sections were resolved, healed, while others resolutely resisted. He stayed with one particular dark-grey area for a while, pushing and prodding at it; Marcus seemed to understand and began pushing at another side, causing it to go dark. It was his mistake, but I got it, and I nudged him to an adjacent spot and then pulsed my energy through him.
I could feel Marcus’s surprise at discovering I’d hitched a ride, but it was working.
“Again,” Ewan encouraged him.
I sent a pulse at the darkness and the area coloured, becoming suddenly vibrant and healthy. Marcus figured out what I was doing and we flowed through Devyn’s blood at Ewan’s direction, seeking out and destroying the damage that the potion couldn’t beat on its own.
Finally, after what could have been either minutes or hours, we were done. I blinked as my vision returned to the workroom, where the once aloof Ewan was now regarding Marcus with a new respect.
“That was well done,” he said. “How did you learn to do that?”
Marcus shook his head, catching my eye. “I don’t know. It just came to me.”
I made my way through the dark halls. I felt trapped; I needed air. I stumbled through the stone-flagged corridors, finally finding a door that led out into the courtyard we had arrived in earlier… or yesterday, I supposed. I just needed to breathe. I tripped on the cobbles in the dark, but regained my balance and headed for the high walls surround the keep, somehow managing to drag my weary bones up the stone steps that led up to the massive boundary wall. I felt like I was being called by the growing light in the sky. Eventually, I found myself at the top of the ramparts and saw the vast undulating sea sparkling in the distance as the sky in the opposite direction began to glow a light grey.
I breathed out into the sea air, expelling the darkness and the slimy touch of the evil that had slugged
