Shadow War - Deborah Chester [85]
Agel moaned and opened his eyes. His face was still beaded with sweat. He looked as though he had been dragged through a place no man should ever have to enter.
Caelan patted his cheek, still talking to him, urging him.
Finally Agel grabbed his hand and pulled it down. He blinked in an effort to focus, and scowled at Caelan. “I am awake,” he said acidly. “Stop trying to revive me.”
Relief swept Caelan. He grinned and almost laughed as he helped Agel sit up. “Thank Gault,” he said. “I thought you were lost to us.”
Agel leaned over again, bracing his hands on the floor as though he was going to be sick. But he was not. After a moment, he pushed himself to his feet and stood swaying unsteadily.
His eyes met Caelan’s and held them. “What, in the name of all purity, have you brought here with you?” he asked.
Caelan sobered instantly. “I don’t know. It’s gone.”
Agel closed his eyes a moment, then opened them to glare at Caelan. “How do you know?”
“I sent it away.”
“You have authority over it?”
Caelan heard accusation in his voice. He could see fear in Agel’s eyes, along with a dawning look of horror.
“You can make it come, and go, at your bidding?” the healer asked, his voice rising. “What are you?”
“You misunderstand!” Caelan said sharply. “I do not govern it. Murdeth and Fury, why must you always leap to the wrong conclusions? Anyone else would be relieved that I was able to destroy it.”
“Only evil can destroy evil,” Agel said, his eyes still wide with shock. “Only evil knows the secrets within itself.”
“All I did was sever it from its source,” Caelan said impatiently.
Agel flinched away from him, bumping into Tirhin’s bed as he did so. “Severance cannot be used that way. It is not possible.”
“Of course it is. Beva taught me—”
“Don’t even mention your father’s name in connection with this! It’s unspeakable.”
“Shut up,” Caelan snapped, trying to stem Agel’s hysteria. “You are still using a mantra to sever, like a novice.”
Agel was tight-lipped. “Not everyone is as talented as you.”
“To sever is to take away. You see the source of disease, and you simply cut the link. You see the threads of life, and you simply cut them. You see the source of a demon or whatever in Gault’s name that thing was, and you—”
“What simplistic nonsense is this?” Agel said angrily. “You—”
“Simplistic?” Caelan retorted. “Is not all truth simplicity? That’s how you recognize it. Are you angry because I saved your life, or are you angry because I can do what you cannot?”
“You are evil. I felt you join with it.”
“I didn’t—” Caelan cut off the denial. He could not explain the difference. “Sevaisin exists everywhere. It calls constantly. Sometimes it is difficult not to use it.”
“Exactly why it is forbidden.”
“It is not forbidden here. No one condemns the joining.”
“No one has ever considered Imperia the center of purity or balance either,” Agel replied. “Hedonistic, all-embracing, indulgent of every vice—”
“Why don’t you calm down?” Caelan interrupted. “It was a trap, a bad one, but you survived it. What about the prince?”
Agel glared at him, then turned resentfully to examine Tirhin.
“He is alive,” Agel said at last. “Weaker than before. The rest... I do not know. I am not fit enough to work as I should.”
“You should sit down,” Caelan said. “Let me bring you a cup of water.”
“A cup of poison, more likely,” Agel snapped.
Caelan had been about to offer him a steadying hand, but now he stepped back. He was hurt and furious by Agel’s attitude. Agel was badly frightened, clinging to blind prejudice and superstition rather than reason. Caelan tried to keep his own temper, tried to be compassionate, but he was losing patience rapidly.
“If you were well, I would hit you for your insult.”
Agel made a gesture of repudiation. “Spoken like a true believer in peace and harmony.”
“Damn you, Agel!”
“You are casna,” Agel retorted. “You must be.”
“Don’t say that! I am not a devil. I am not of the darkness.”
“Then what are you?” Agel shouted