City of Towers_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [130]
“Can you speak, my lady?” Pierce said, his voice deep and calm.
“I can.” Her ribs still ached with a dull, throbbing pain, but her energy was returning. She raised an arm, touching her forehead and her cheeks. “Where are we?”
It looked like a room in a small and comfortable inn—a considerable step up from the Manticore. There was a pillow beneath her head, and while the pallet beneath her was hardly remarkable, it was the softest thing she’d slept on in at least three years.
“It’s a Jorasco house,” Daine said. The Jorasco halflings were masters of the healing arts, and every large city had at least one Jorasco enclave. “We couldn’t rouse you, and we still had some money left over from Alina’s last advance.”
While her ribs still ached, after she’d had a moment to collect her senses, Lei realized that her legs felt fine. She pulled back the blankets. There wasn’t even a mark where Daine had stabbed her.”
“I … wanted that dealt with quickly,” Daine said, somewhat sheepishly. “I didn’t want you to have to limp around town because of me.”
The thought of Jorasco’s healing touch brought back other memories. “Jode?”
“He’s gone, Lei. It wasn’t a dream. He’s not coming back.”
Lei nodded. Her head was quickly clearing, but she felt empty inside. What had been a dream? She looked over at Pierce and started to reach out to touch him, but at the last moment she drew her hand back. “Are you all right?”
“I have fully recovered,” Pierce said. “I am grateful for your actions. Whatever the risk, I would not wish to be responsible for the death of a friend.”
I thought I was going to kill you, she thought, but she did not say it aloud.
“I do feel … different, however,” Pierce continued. “I cannot explain it, exactly. My senses seem sharper, my movements more precise. May I ask what you did when you stopped me?”
“I don’t really know, Pierce. I just reached within you, hoping to find some way to slow you down. I’m still not sure what the mindflayer was doing before I escaped. I was exposed to a number of different alchemical substances, and my memories are somewhat unclear.”
Pierce nodded. “It appears to have worked out for the best, and all in all it was an interesting experience.”
“What about Chyrassk?”
“I inflicted significant injuries on the creature in our initial encounter,” Pierce said. “At least six of my arrows struck home in the second encounter. I believe that it was dead by the time it fell.”
“If not, I’m guessing the fall finished the job—or whatever that liquid was that it fell into.” Daine said. “We took a few minutes to cut the chains supporting those incubation chambers. Chyrassk never resurfaced, and I didn’t feel its presence in my mind. I think we finished it off.”
“What else?”
Daine frowned. “Well, we smashed the tanks and destroyed everything we could. No one will be making new monsters down there any time soon. But I’m still worried about what Teral said. If he really did come to Sharn with a hundred followers—not to mention those created by Chyrassk over the last two months—that means that there are dozens out there we haven’t seen. I’ve mentioned it to Greykell, but most of the grafts seemed to be easily concealable. And we don’t even know that all of Teral’s followers settled in High Walls. I don’t know. I imagine they’ll be keeping a low profile, but I don’t like thinking about what horrors might still be hidden in High Walls.”
A stout, middle-aged halfling entered the room, the griffon badge of Jorasco on the breast of his brown robe. He was carrying a small tray bearing a bowl of clear broth and a mug of pungent milian tal.
“Ah, you’re awake. Good.”
He set the tray down by the bed and climbed up on a footstool to examine her. The Mark of Healing could be seen poking up from the collar of his robes, and once again Lei’s thoughts drifted back to Jode. The healer touched