Ekleipsis (Fantasy Romance - LGBT, manXman)

8.3

Alva's old acquaintance, the gold-loving Meda Moreyli, Master of the Healers Guild, hadn't changed a bit. He was still lean, imperturbable and boring. He glanced at Chevalier Ahayrre's face without batting an eyelid, the same as before when he showed absolutely no surprise at the sight of an elf in the arms of a human in his office. Even his speech was almost the same all over again.

"The skill possessed by our Fanneshtou healers is not so great as to successively heal such extensive injuries... The highborn Chevalier Ahayrre might want to wait for the Time to be the most effective healer of all..."

Alva just smiled, remembering their last meeting, and poured out two handfuls of gold coins onto the table. The matter was settled.

In a spacious hall, where healers in snow-white mantles were putting on airs, Alva felt suddenly afraid. He would have much preferred to have Diné beside him, or at least Taro with his primitive jokes, or better still, both of them. But Moreyli had said that the process of masterful healing abhorred idle onlookers.

It was not pain that scared Alva, but uncertainty. And failure, of course. Who would have dared cast doubt on the Fanneshtou healers' skills, except the Master of the Guild, prone to extortion? But Alva's fears turned out to be justified.

When he came to after being put to sleep with a portion, the healers' faces were grim and unfriendly. Before Alva had time to ask a question, Meda Moreyli appeared, carrying a purse of gold coins. That purse frightened Alva the most, because he believed no force in the world could have made the Master of the Healers Guild part with money.

"My apologies. We weren't up to the task at hand," the Master began, without his usual evasive and pompous style of speech and without addressing everyone in a third person. "It's partly your fault, Chevalier Ahayrre. You didn't tell us all the circumstances under which you had suffered such lamentable misfortune. I understand there was stress and lack of experience to blame. You simply had no necessary qualification to recognize a magical energy discharge. But we have. We should have determined that those are marks left by magical fire. Unfortunately, they could not be treated with traditional medicine. You should go to the Mages Guild."

Alva was completely overwhelmed. Every separate word was clear, but together they didn't make any sense at all.

"What magical fire? I got these from a burning branch, you know, the wood is resinous in Jinnjarat, and it blazes up like a..."

Moreyli interrupted him − gently, compared to his usual cold manner of speech, and there was something akin to sympathy in his voice.

"Chevalier Ahayrre, I understand you distress. Unfortunately, I cannot know the circumstances of your accident better than you. I can deal only with its consequences. But judge for yourself. What burning branch would have caused so much skin damage and left such extensive keloid scars, which are resistant to any means of medical treatment? In spite of the efforts, time and potions spent during out attempt of treating you, we decided to return all your money, as a compensation for our mistake."

And because magical treatment will cost you many times more – those words remained unsaid.

"If there was magical fire, where it came from? I doubt that my amulet..."

Meda Moreyli averted his gaze, as if it was difficult for him to look Alva in the eye.

"I can venture a guess that you had... sort of... made it yourself. All the symptoms point to a spontaneous initiation, meaning explosive awakening of latent magical skills."

"What nonsense is that?" Alva said quietly, angrily and rose from the chair.

Chevalier Alva Ahayrre had rarely been so rude. This alone showed how shaken he was.

"I have not a single mage among my ancestors! It's some kind of peasant thinking, explaining everything in the world with magic!" he yelled and ran out of the hall.

Meda Moreyli wasn't offended. He followed Chevalier Ahayrre with his eyes and sighed.

At all times a magical skill seemed more like a curse than a blessing. Few adults ever decided to master that skill. Mages had usually been discovered and trained in their teens, when their psyche was flexible and their character wasn't fully developed. Many apprentices stopped halfway through their training, unable to give up normal life.

* * *

Alva wanted to shout right from the doorway, "They have gone mad, those quacks in the so-called Healers Guild!"

But he had only to look into the eyes of Ithildin and Kintaro, only to think 'magical fire', and the barrier he had erected inside his own mind collapsed. Chevalier Ahayrre remembered everything what had happened on that terrible night, along with the certain detail that had escaped his notice until now.

He turned so pale that Kintaro, quick as lightning, caught his elbow, afraid that Alva would faint.

"Th-there w-was n-no f-flint..." Alva managed to utter with his numb lips. Then he burst into tears and hid his face on Kintaro's wide shoulder.

Alva had set fire on the riverbank without any flint, or matches, or ember! Everything was left in the camp where they started their battle with the shapeshifters.

He cried for a long time, inconsolable, desperate, as almost never before, only perhaps by Kintaro's sickbed, which threatened to become his deathbed. Only yesterday nothing seemed more horrible than what had happened to his face. But now he would have changed an entire lifetime of wearing those scars for not knowing the truth.

"Quit bawling," Kintaro finally said, when he managed to make sense of the young man's incoherent explanations. "There is another point of view. If you become a wizard, you won't give a damn about Targhai and all his Enqins."

"I w-won't g-give a damn about anything, including sex," Alva said in an intentionally mean voice, but quit bawling.

Ithildin gave him a handkerchief, looking at him with calm, gentle eyes.

"Celibacy for mages is a choice, not a requirement, mi aerve. And you might not even become a mage. For example, it could have been a one-time magical discharge or a limited skill, like my visions."

"Visions would have been better," Alva muttered.

"I saw my ancestors die when I was barely twenty years old. I saw their blood spilled, heard their screams. At first the visions make no distinction between the past and the future. I saw my sister's death, although I don't know when it will occur, next year or in a thousand years. Do you still think that visions are better?"

"Forgive me," Alva said and covered his face with his palms.

Kintaro dragged a chair closer with his toe, sat and took Alva on his lap.

"Listen to me, my sweet," he began with heartfelt emotion. "To hell with everything. Let's leave. Let's go to the Wild Steppe or anywhere you like. What's so bad about those scars? You will brag about them in the Steppe. And who gives a damn anyway?"

"Me." Alva gave out a heavy sigh. "I have nothing except my beauty. No strength, no combat skills, no..." he made a face but finished, "...no outstanding intelligence. Only this."

He inclined his head slightly, so that his hair curtained half his face, and started to undo his shirt. Slowly, button after button, exposing the shoulder without scars, his smooth chest and taut stomach. For a few moments both his lovers forgot what they wanted to say, following his every move with their eyes.

Chevalier Ahayrre threw back his hair, showing the scars, and the spell was immediately broken. The contrast was just too great.

"I want my face back."

Kintaro looked at Ithildin, wordlessly begging for help. But the elf answered with a sad look and shook his head slightly.