Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [152]
Hearing only the sighing of the wind, he looked upward. A sliding trapdoor could be drawn across the hatch’s opening, closing it. Wulfe wondered if he dared. The woman might hear him. He decided to risk it. He stood precariously balanced on a rung of the ladder, reached up, and carefully and cautiously, using the tip ends of his fingers, slid the trapdoor shut.
The hold was now dark and snug, giving Wulfe the comforting impression of being in a den. He crept over to check on the Ugly One. Wulfe squatted on his haunches, his chin on his knees, and regarded the young man in frowning consternation. Wulfe had often accompanied the druids when they tended the sick, for he had some skills in the art of healing. Since he was skilled in nothing else, the druids had encouraged him in this pursuit.
Wulfe had seen death before, and this Ugly One was dying. He burned with fever; his wounds were festering. His body twitched and jerked. He moaned in pain, and once, to Wulfe’s alarm, he gave a great shout. Wulfe tried to hush him, for he feared the woman would hear and come to investigate. She did not come—either she didn’t hear or she didn’t care. Night deepened; the Ugly One grew steadily worse.
Wulfe pondered. He had the power to save the young man. His skills in magic were considerable. They were also, unfortunately, erratic, sometimes ending in disaster. There was another problem. The druids had forbidden him to use his magic.
“Just because you can do a thing does not mean you should,” the elder had told him. “You do not understand these skills you possess, Wulfe. Are they a gift or a curse? You can do good, that is true. Sadly, you have also done great harm. Thus, until you understand how to exert control over this wayward power you possess, it is better that you do not use it.”
Wulfe was in a quandary. He was afraid of the Ugly One, who carried iron and stank of death. Yet Wulfe felt a strange sort of kinship for him. Like Wulfe, the young man appeared to be beset by his own inner daemons.
The druids taught that the soul leads an existence separate from the body. When the body sleeps, the soul travels to a twilight realm where it lives and loves and does all sorts of strange and wonderful things. But while beautiful, this realm was also dangerous. Souls were sometimes lost in the twilight realm. Unable to find their way out, they never returned and the body died. That was why one must never wake a person who was dreaming or sleepwalking, for fear the soul would not find its way back.
Daemons populated this twilight realm, taking the form of people known in life. Wulfe knew that for a fact. He often saw his father in the twilight realm, when his father had died long ago. These daemons were now besetting the Ugly One.
The young man begged someone called Draya to forgive him. He fought a daemon named Horg, and he groped about for his sword. This terrified Wulfe. He would have tossed the hideous weapon overboard, only he could not bear to touch it. Fearing the Ugly One would find the sword, which lay on the deck near him, Wulfe threw a blanket over it. Then he crept into a corner of the hold and stayed there until the Ugly One’s battle with the daemons ended.
The Ugly One sank into a stupor. Wulfe was torn. He was afraid of the young man, afraid of the sword. At the same time, he pitied him. He was in such terrible pain. It occurred to Wulfe that if the Ugly One died, the dragonship might sail on and on forever, and Wulfe would never see his home again. He couldn’t decide what to do, and while he argued with himself this way and that, he fell asleep.
Wulfe woke to find the sun peeking in through chinks in the planks. To his astonishment, the Ugly One was still alive. Wulfe cautiously slid open the trapdoor a crack and peeked out. If the woman was still there, he would