The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [92]
“Then do you think we should speak in front of him, Doctor? What if he can hear us?”
Laughter. A pretty sound, unlike the language. “Oh, he can hear us all right. He’s close now, very close. But he won’t be able to understand a word we’re speaking. Which is unfortunate, as we so very much wish to talk with him.”
“But the linguists will work with him. I’ve heard they already have a vocabulary of over three hundred words.”
“Well, soon it will be much more than that.”
The voices ceased then, and the shadows drifted away, leaving only the ruddy light. Beltan began to drift again, then jerked himself back.
No, you can’t go back to the Gray Land. By Vathris, don’t be such a piteous weakling, Beltan of Calavan. She said you’re close. Close to what? To waking? But you are awake. So open your bloody eyes already.…
The effort the act required was staggering, more agonizing than any battle he had ever fought. With a moist, parting sound, his eyelids rolled open. Crimson light bled to white.
At first he could see nothing, and he wondered if he was blind. Then he realized he was staring upward into some kind of lamp. It was terribly bright, its light far more intense than any torch or oil lamp he had ever seen before. It was more like the magical lights he had sometimes witnessed Melia conjure, although this light was stabbing and harsh, with none of the shimmering beauty of enchantment.
He turned his head slightly—this act again a brutal war only barely won—and the light dimmed, receding to the corner of his vision. Gradually, his smarting eyes adjusted, and he found he could see.
Beltan lay in a white room. Walls, floor, ceiling: Everything was white. It was difficult to look at. Every surface was strange to him: sharp, smooth, and too bright for his eyes. He was forced to squint, and a feeling of nausea came over him. Everything was too square, too regular. It made him feel trapped.
He was trapped. Beltan tried to sit upright, but he could not. It was more than mere weakness. Something held him down, pressing him to the odd, angled bed in which he lay. He craned his neck, shut his eyes against a wave of dizziness, then opened them again.
He was naked, that much had been real. The bed beneath him was made of steel, and he was strapped to it with lengths of a shiny cloth he did not recognize. Either he was very weak, or the cloth was far stronger than it looked. Or perhaps both. His body was thin, his ribs showing plainly, the ends of his bones jutting beneath his skin. He looked like an old man.
Tubes sprang forth from the flesh of his arms like worms. The tubes were clear like glass, but obviously flexible in nature, so they could not be glass after all. The tubes coiled above him, leading to bladders that hung from a steel rack, and which contained various liquids, most clear, but one pale green, like emeralds in water.
He studied the bladders and thought he understood. The liquids dripped down the tubes and flowed into his veins. This was unlike the tube they had placed in his phallus, which was obviously intended to collect his piss. Beltan was not one to necessarily assume magic in things he did not understand, but it was hard not to wonder if he wasn’t being held by some kind of wizard.
Being tied down to the steel bed made him think of dead knights he had helped to carry off countless battlefields, strapped to their shields. But he wasn’t dead—although it seemed to him he should be. He glanced down at his left side. Shouldn’t there have been a wound there?
A spasm passed through him, the memory of pain. Yes, he was beginning to remember. He had been in Spardis, in the baths, seeking to waylay Dakarreth. Only the Necromancer had been too powerful for him, had forced him down and dug impossibly strong