In an adjacent bower Skilluck lay in a crotch made comfortable with masses of reddish purple mosh; he was still not alert but the creshmarks were fading from his mantle. Others beyond held Strongrip, Sharprong, and Blestar, who was visibly the worst affected.
“I’ve never seen such a severe case,” sighed Shash. “One could almost imagine he had weakened himself deliberately.”
Wellearn nearly admitted that in fact he had. It was the custom of chaplains, in face of danger, to fast in the hope of being sent a vision from the stars that would save them and their comrades. There was no recorded instance of it happening, but the habit endured.
These people, though, might have no faith in visions, and he did not wish them to mock the strangers who had fallen among them. Instead he voiced a question that was burning in his mind.
“What manner of place is this?”
“A healing-house,” Shash replied, and added wonderingly, “Do they not have such in your country?”
“A great house like this, solely for sick people? Oh, no! We’re lucky to have enough for those who are well. Sometimes they die, and the occupants must take refuge in caves, or pile up rocks for shelter … I’m amazed! When we arrived in the bay, we thought this region was uninhabited!”
“Ah, you were the wrong side of the cape. People rarely visit that bay except for glassmakers needing sand or fisherfolk like the ones who spotted your briq.”
“Tempestamer!” Wellearn clenched his claws. “What of her?”
“We have small knowledge of matters of the sea, but we have guarded against her wandering off by fixing strong cables across the mouth of the bay. However, she’s so huge … Will it be long before she needs to feed again? She’s practically cleared the bay of weed.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask the captain. Usually she only feeds by night as she swims along, but she must have been half-starved after the storm that drove us here.”
“Hope then that the captain recovers shortly. We’re doing our utmost for him. Look, here come curers with more creshban.”
Wellearn turned in the indicated direction, but almost literally while Shash was speaking, it grew dark. He gasped. Then festoons of luminous creepers reacted, faster than any gleamers he was used to, coming up to full brightness nearly before his vision adapted to the lower light level, and he saw two husky youths each bearing a round object like an immense nut. There was a sudden pungent smell, which reminded him of a taste that had haunted his long period of dreamness. Also he recalled terrible hunger, and having to be restrained for fear he might attack those who were holding him … But that belonged to the past, and in the present Shash was saying, “You must continue the medicine for several days yet. Drink some more now.”
Wellearn complied. The nuts were hollow, and contained a bitter liquid of which he managed a few gulps.
“If we could only plant such nut-trees on a briq!” he muttered.
“It’s not their natural juice,” said the curer who had given him the drink. He spoke without Shash’s deliberateness, but by this time Wellearn was adjusting to the local accent. “It’s mixed with sap from half a score of plants.”
Visions of saving the lives of countless future mariners bloomed and wilted in Wellearn’s imagination. He said grumpily, “And I suppose not one of them grows in the north?”
“Later we can show them to you and let you find out,” Shash promised. “But now I think you should return to rest.”
“I couldn’t! I’m too eager to see the marvels of your city, and meet more of its people!”
“In two or three days’ time, perhaps. Not right away.”
“May I not at least look out at the city, and question someone about it?”
“I’ll oblige him, Father,” Embery said, and added self-mockingly, “That is, if he can understand me.”
“In my young days,” Shash sighed, “people your age were wise enough to know when their elders were giving them advice for their own good … Oh, very well! But remember, both of you, that the workings of cresh are insidious, and over-excitement is as fast a route as any into dreamness!”