Feverdreams (Sama'el)

[Poison]

„You have been touched by the sun“, Sama’el could hear the female voice he had already heard before answer as he asked what was happening to him.

The voice was gentle. For a moment it would seem to him as if a hand were touching his forehead. It was not Denen‘s or Caelum’s hand. This hand was softer, and it was made of pure sunlight or at least it felt that way.

„Do you not understand?“ she asked. „All those songs you sang, all those times you prayed ... your dedication touched me. If I gave you your sight back, if I give you the ability to see beyond, would you spread the light? Or would it only consume you? Would you become lost like so many others that bore the sign?“

Caelum and Denen could not hear her words. They were meant for Sama’el’s ears and Sama’el’s ears alone. All they could do was make sure that the fire would not consume him before this here was over. What they were doing now helped, to some extent at least, but he wouldn’t recover completely until the flower had been found. Denen had to act now and leave ...

Caelum and Denen could not hear the woman’s words, but Caelum could feel something. There was something there – or somebody. The lost son of Syna that had fallen from the sky could feel a presence, so close and yet so far, strangely, painfully familiar. Syna. Syna. Syna. Syna who believed in him no more had extended her hand. She had touched this place, although her touch burned and rendered those affected by it blind.

Or was it only wishful thinking?

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

His mouth opened into a shocked O, his dark eyes warm with love, but disbelieving. When her words finally sank in, he spoke carefully as he might. "But I... I only sing the songs my grandfather taught me," he protested, for Kasb'el-cum-Caelum was indeed his ultimate grandfather, even if he was not quite the Drykas he used to be in the stories. "I sing at the gloaming to speed you through the dark, and at the breaking of the dawn to welcome you back. These are your... These are not special things, but less than what you deserve for warming our skin and lighting our paths." Sight was a strange thing in this feverish swoon that seemed more real than real. He could not see his makeshift pavilion, but the presence of a goddess consumed his attention, left little room in his world for aught else. "I am not worthy to receive your favor," he protested, "but only say the word and I shall be healed." Of course, her healing might come via the hands and expertise of the Opal healers who seemed to flock to him. The gods worked in mysterious ways. "Already I have been taught to call your fire, but if you bless me, I will do my best to earn it."

[Denen Sunsinger]

Denen nodded. Speed. He had Durno, and he had to move fast. He paid acute attention to the instructions he was given, grabbed a waterskin, and was gone within the next moment. He hurried out to Durno, fingers quick as he put on the yvas, and was on his back in the next moment. Goddess, help me, he prayed. He shook, even as his heels urged a sleepy, reluctant Durno to speed. He had seen this plant. He needed to make haste to it as quickly as possible. The morning air was chilly on his face, but he didn't care for his comfort. He had to get it for his Sam. He couldn't lose him.

[Caelum]

The tent flap fluttered and slapped down in Denen's wake, all the wishes in the world disintegrating like pieces of plants in the tail of a comet. It seemed so, at least, to Caelum's abruptly bleary eyes. Hands rose, charcoal stub tumbling down to leave a smear of ashen color against the leaf of a torn journal page. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, watching the glare explode into miniature solar systems before shaking his head in a final attempt to clear it. Long muscles tensed as he rolled back the brief distance to Sama'el and his kit. Leftover prayers were mouthed, grimacing, in the habit of the year that had been lost in thrall to Caiyha and then Rak'keli. Funny, though, no matter what holy who's work he did, it was ever circling back to Syna. Planets revolved rightly, always, even the barren ones beyond the light. Two fingers crawled, curling about Sama'el's wrist to count the steps of his pulse with on piece of his mind while the other went about preparing the proper dosage for a second round of wormwood should the first prove to be not enough. The fleshly connection restored, what thin reserves, what ever remaining drops of divine healing he had were willingly given. It was like that, bent over the excruciating care of a proper dosing, the air in his lungs stalled. Her presence was no longer capable of being denied, but She was yet still removed from him. The Ukalas, he had once informed an ambitious young scholar by the name of Aelius, were here and there. Everywhere. Whirling about a candle flame. Tracing the paths of fingerprints. Here. There. Within. Without. It had never been so obvious, nor so painful. Wary eyes slanted in study of Sama'el's face, ears catching the mumble of the Watchman's words. He heard their meaning if not their defining notes. Nine years he had wondered what he might say to Her did the day come, but the day was now and words were wasted in his mouth. Her face was turned from him, Her form invisible to his eyes. She was not here for him. Of course She was not here for him. He exhaled and bid his heart be still so as to finish the herbal measurements.

[Poison]

„Sometimes all that is necessary is a song“, she spoke as she heard Sama’el’s words. She smiled at him, and her smile warmed his heart. This one time her touch didn’t burn. „Why do you belittle yourself? Music can be powerful, Sama’el. It can move people to tears. It can warm the coldest heart. It can turn enemies into friends, and friends into enemies. Kings have fallen because of a song. Sometimes it only takes a song to change the way that the world works. Your songs are special, my Drykas. They matter to me because they come from here ...“ For a moment he could feel a hand touch his chest, where his heart was.

„Why should a man who welcomes me at dawn and bids me farwell everytime Leth’s darkness consumes the world not be worthy of my favour?“ Her voice was exceptionally gentle. She placed a finger on his lips as she heard his protest. „Shhh ...“ she whispered. „Do not speak of this any longer. Soon everything will be as it should be. As long as you continue to sing to me and use my gift wisely, I will be pleased.“

She smiled. Her smile was filled with love and warmth, for him and all those that prayed to her. It touched his soul, reinvigorated him. „Concentrate now, Sama’el“, she spoke to him. „Can you see him, the one whose song is broken, riding there? Everything that my light touches will be visible to you from now on. You are blessed to have people by your side that care about you so deeply ...“

If Sama’el concentrated, he would indeed be able to see Denen. It was as if he were floating somewhere high above the other Drykas who was desperately trying to find the plant that would save him.

She turned to Caelum once more, even though it was not him she had come for. Once more she extended her hand, and warm flooded through him, but then she let go, sad, as if his reaction wasn’t at all what she had expected. „My lost son“, she whispered. „I hope that you find peace one day and realize that I never left you, that it wasn’t me who cast you out ...“

Denen would find the plant he needed not too far from the tent, a small bush that looked exactly like the one that Caelum had described. There were only a handful of flowers on a single bush, but that would probably enough.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

At her direction, he found he could indeed see Denen's familiar head and Durno churning the turf underneath him. They were just now leaving Endrykas proper, and soon he was beyond this enhanced sight, perhaps a mile or so away. There were limits even to Syna's grace, it seemed, but the way he understood it, such favors grew if the favored was diligent. But this sight returned, finding his humble camp with a few small tents, a few horses. He could not see into the tent where Kasb'el and Denen had taken him, but he knew where would have been taken. "I will sing, Lady," he promised, awed. Even if he had fallen out of his yvas like some outlander knight struck by a big, pointy compensation for a phallus. "Thank you."

[Denen Sunsinger]

The gods smiled on him, he knew, when he found the flower. He had seen it before, but hadn't known what it was. Not until now. He dug through his bag for his spade, unearthing the plant. He took what was needed, his thin hands shaking, and placed it in his bag, before he mounted Durno again, and, spinning the horse around, pounded his way home. There was no time to waste. He couldn't lose Sam. After a short while, the boy tumbled back into the tent, shaking as he held out his offering to Caelum. "H-Here," he managed. "Th-Thank the goddess. I f-found it."

[Caelum]

Heat blossomed in his chest, consuming. It felt of Her touch. It burned and broke as all things that required healing must first do. Tears welled in his eyes, squeezed out of the walking corpse his soul had become. Love and devotion pulsed in tune with his heart and the medicine he was preparing went for awhile unfinished. He wept soundlessly, the tears washing with them out a little more of the poison that had been injected between his shadow and his soul. He had wept for Rak'keli and now he wept for Syna, for Her words and her claim that She had not been the one to cast him out. "Lover," he mouthed, scrubbing the heels of his palms over his cheeks. His eyes could not find Her. His hands could not touch Her. Not here for him, no, but, oh. Oh, She had come for his descendant. Love crumbled words in his mouth. He was already on his knees. He choked back the tears and footsteps rushed, reverberating against the earth before the tent flap flew up to admit Denen. He reached unhesitating for the bag, snatching it from Brokesong's hands and sitting back on his heels to dig with utmost care. A heavy knot of root was lifted, verdant earth still clinging to it, and the smile he cast Denen was unusually glorious. "Denen's brought your curse, Sam," he informed his dazed and thralled descendant and set to the preparation of a different medicine entirely that that he had earlier left off with. Shavings of the root bled golden tears that he caught with a delicate glass vial, his fingertips being stained purple while his mind remained in a gold edged haze. He muttered to himself, counting out the dosage, adding a touch of water. When he was satisfied he offered the vial to Denen with an encouraging nod. "Give it to him." Denen, he felt, deserved to.

[Poison]

„I thank you, Sama’el“, she said as he promised her that he would sing for her. While many of those that dwelled with her in the Ukalas had hidden motives, manipulated people or made them despair, she only brought out the best in the people she revealed herself to. She was warm and loving and bright and wanted those around her to be happy. Once more she reached out to him and touched him, and once more she smiled at him, and then she withdrew her touch, and he could finally see clearly again. The light that had consumed him was gone.

As she moved away from him, to wherever it was that gods went, she whispered to him, „Remember the light, Sama’el. It will shine for you, even in your darkest hour. It is never completely gone. In your darkest hour when everything seems to be lost, when all hope seems to be gone, I will come to you again. And remember who your friends are, who your family are and who they used to be. Always remember. No man can exist alone.“ A moment passed and then another one, and then the goddess was gone.

As Caelum prepared the medicine, he could notice something. Something had happened to Sama’el. He looked different. There was a mark on his face now, a golden orb, surrounding his right eye. A golden ray extended from the orb. He had been touched, touched by a goddess. His body was still warm to the touch, but he wasn’t burning to death anymore. All that Denen had to do now was give him the cure, and he would be fine again.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

As Syna faded from his fever dreams, the tension in his body began to drain away. He began to sleep properly, finally. The great, numinous Passion had passed, leaving only the tingles of afterglow in his subconscious, but his body remained aflame, requiring that skill that his ultimate grandfather and his friend had garnered over their years of practice. They would treat the fever that was threatening to broil his brain, and he would abide in peace until that brain was ready to support his consciousness again. The golden mark would fade before Caelum's eyes to lie dormant until it was fully integrated into Sama'el's spirit, his aura. Only then would it manifest fully, the seal of the goddess of the son upon this scion of sun singers.