The Shadow of Elysium (Shadow Campaigns) Read Free

glance that my dog could not be saved. The salverre’s teeth had torn great rents in his flanks, and while his breath still whistled feebly, the pulses of blood from the wound were already slowing. I put my hands on him, and they came away as red as if I’d dipped them in paint. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have the breath.
    Then I felt the
cold
sensation again, right behind my eyes. Without quite knowing why, I touched Sagamet again, and this time the cold flowed out through my fingers and into his torn body. I could feel him, heart and lungs and guts and brain, as though his body were a beautiful, perfect machine someone had smashed great chunks out of with a hammer. In that moment I could see how it all fit together, and I reached out with the cold and began setting things to rights.
    I don’t know how long it took. All I remember is opening my eyes, at the end, to find my dog sitting up and licking the tears from my face.
    ***
    I went home that night, after Sagamet and I washed out the blood in a stream, and told my father what had happened. I did not have wit enough to lie. He listened, indulgently at first and then with cold eyes and furrowed brow.
    “You have saved Sagamet, but you may have damned yourself doing it,” he muttered when I was finished. “Listen to me, Abraham. You must never tell anyone else of this. Never, you understand? Until the day you die. This kind of miracle does not come from God. It is
sorcery
. There is a demon inside you, working through you. I had hoped . . .”
    My eyes had gone very wide. My father pulled me to him and wrapped me in his arms.
    “It will be all right. We will tell no one, and you will not use this power again. Just . . . don’t say anything. Not even to me, in case someone is listening. Promise me.”
    I nodded, my head pressed tight against his shoulder.
    The next day, my father told the other villagers I had discovered a salverre in one of the tidal pools. A party of them went out, with spears and ropes, and brought the creature back in triumph. That night we roasted it by the shore and had a feast. The flesh was tougher than I liked, but I ate a second helping, and I brought home a string of guts for Sagamet.

3
    The girl sleeps almost all the time. I wonder if she is sick.
    The north road is more heavily trafficked than the mountain passes, and we see other wagons or riders once or twice a day. When they are coming from the north, where we are bound, Voryil hails them and asks about conditions on the road.
    “Mud,” they say. Always mud.
    When southerners think of Murnsk, they picture snowy fields, trees hung with icicles, hungry wolves prowling through silent forests, and rivers frozen solid. But even Murnsk has its summer, however briefly, and we are in the height of it. To either side of the road, the dark green of pine needles has been joined by the brighter emerald of new leaves, while huge, brooding oaks and white birches shed ragged bands of bark. There are flowers everywhere, explosions of blue and red and purple wherever the trees let through a little light, lining the edges of the road as neatly as if they’d been planted there.
    With the flowers come the insects, fat droning bees and clouds of butterflies that pass over the wagon like flashing, multicolored jewels. Somewhat less welcome are the biting midges that swarm over exposed skin. With my hands manacled, I cannot even slap at them, so I cover myself with my blanket in spite of the heat of the sun. The girl acquires painful-looking welts on her face and hands but does not seem to notice.
    We make very slow progress. The thaw has turned the road into a sea of mud, orange, sticky stuff that clings to the wagon wheels and the legs of the horses. Usually there is solid ground a few inches down, and we can splash along, but the muddy surface conceals deep chuckholes and pools that could swallow a wagon whole. The guards, well versed in this kind of travel, ride ahead and probe the