The Deepcombers

Chapter Thirty One

"Ooooh it burns," the noble said.

Lon knew it was Clyde. He'd heard the noblekin in so many different emotional states he could recognize the feigor's voice anywhere. Now he heard his friend suffer great pain.

Melcart reached out and motioned for Lon to stay silent.

"That's Clyde." Lon whispered.

"He's okay."

"It's because he stole the map." Lon said

'No, it isn't." Melcart shook his head. Clyde moaned in the background.

"Oh, we have to save him." Lon sprang up, but Melcart pulled him down.

"No! It's..." the rogue didn't know how to explain, "...normal."

"How's that?"

"He's becoming a healer."

"Oh, how can that be the way?" Lon winced. "Such a thing..."

"He'll be fine. He must learn to heal himself first. You'll see. Soon he'll feel joy twice his pain." Mel explained, "that's how they learn."

"That can't be the way."

"It's exactly the way," Mel said. "Never doubt it when they lay hands on you and say, I know how you feel."

Lon listened to the torment and was unable to believe that such inexcusable treatment could somehow be instructive. "It's so... Barbaric."

"It's hard work for the templekin too. They don't enjoy it."

"No, I reckon not."

"Your friend will be an entirely different person. If he's pure enough to undergo the transformation."

"So, the pain prepares him..." Lon thought back to how hard he'd rowed on the slave ship with the wound on his shoulder. Neither spoke until Melcart mumbled under his breath.

"This is the Ordeal. That's what it's called. It changes his diet too." Melcart said, "A true mystic doesn't eat food or doesn't enjoy it. Instead they feed on your emotions, good or bad, depending on their own alignment." The rogue looked to Lon. "Can you imagine living, feeding off people's happiness?"

"Yeah. Actually. I can imagine that."

"That's Menche in the Book of Kluth." The rogue waited to see if he knew the story, "Menche could heal with a touch and he fed on happiness..."

"Will Clyde be able to heal with a touch?"

"I'll believe it when I see it. Nobody today can do that today... " 

"Clyde can already stop bleeding and take away pain. He tended to Jarl after we killed the roc."

"The roc?"

"We had quite a time getting here."

The two explorers sat and listened in silence as the unseen sufferer in the next room continued to moan. Lon was not going to enter the room or attempt to get any closer, but he couldn't leave either. So he merely listened. Clyde blubbered responses to unheard questions and then began to clack like the officers on The Annabelle.

"What tongue is that?" Melcart asked.

"Crolean."

"Crolean..." Melcart listened to the harsh consonants of the unpleasant language.

"Clyde was the valet to Minister Horne," Lon said.

"That priest who comes? The one you spoke of..?" Melcart confirmed, "Are you certain he was a valet?"