Healer of Sakkara

Chapter 8 - Shelter

The cellar was dark, the latticed grill the only source of light, and it smelled of a damp muskiness. Galen leaned against the cold stone-brick wall and strained his ears for sounds of pursuit, but he couldn't hear anything past the ragged rasp of his breath and the rush of blood in his ears.

Gradually, his pulse slowed, and his breathing quieted. He heard distant shouts, but it was impossible to tell the direction.

Backing away from the wall, he took stock of the cellar as his eyes adjusted to the dark. It looked much as it had the last time he was here. Behn's father had expanded it over the years, and it was longer and wider than the house above. One half was filled with racks of barrels arranged in neat rows, and four huge copper vats occupied the remaining space.

Galen hid in the far corner, behind the last row of barrels, where he and Behn used to huddle together and giggle, imagining Triss looking for them all over Dern, and tried to put his thoughts in order as the sweat cooled on his skin.

Harrald had told him to run, but now he wondered if he had been a coward to listen.

What had the man said, exactly? That he might be a... p'yrha, and they wanted to take him Jana Val to see if he had some kind of magical ability to restore balance to the world? Or some nonsense like that.

It was ridiculous.

Still, Galen couldn't deny he'd been curious. Would the man have said more, or explained further, if Harrald hadn't decided he'd heard enough?

Galen shook his head. The man had all but threatened to take him by force, and no matter what he might have said to convince him, Galen wouldn't leave.

A piece of Harrald's expertly-made chainmail went for good coin, but it took time to make, and the forge was hard to work with one hand. Without the money from Galen's remedies, Harrald faced a long, hungry winter. And what if he got sick, or hurt his back again?

No; no matter what his true origins might be, Harrald was his father, and he'd been a good one—better than many blood relations could claim. Galen could only hope the strangers were honorable enough not to hurt an old man, and would leave him alone. And maybe, in a day or so, they'd give up their search, and go away.

He leaned his head against the wall and shut his eyes, playing it over again in his mind. The stranger's name, Sevhalim, echoed in his ears. It wasn't a Sakkaran name, or Pyrran. It was...

Well, it was strange; and that, too, made him curious.

Galen had no means to measure time, except his innate sense of it, and the measure of light that filtered in through the iron grill. He peeked between the barrels, every so often, and soon estimated that an hour had passed.

He relaxed a little. Unless the strangers had the authority, and the will, to search every house thoroughly, it seemed he would not be found.

Then again, Triss had revealed that she'd known all along where he and Behn were hiding, and simply hadn't bothered to look for them. She was three years their senior, and while they were best friends, sometimes she'd found the two younger boys 'pestiferous.' When she did, she'd propose a game of 'hound and hare,' and play a few rounds, until—inevitably—they'd decide to use their secret hiding place. Then she'd go about her day, while Galen and Behn giggled in the dark until they got hungry and bored.

And 'hungry and bored' described Galen perfectly, as the light faded with nightfall, and true darkness crept from the corners of the cellar, until he could barely see his hand in front of his face. He wished he had a lantern or a candle, and he wished that Behn would hurry up and get down here.