A huge man with a thick black beard stepped into the doorway, seized him by the arms and hoisted him into the air. ‘They won’t be sick for much longer,’ he said, with a wide grin. Okar was not a small man, but the giant lifted him and moved him aside as if he were a child.
‘You must forgive my friend,’ said a slim, handsome man, ‘but he is very excitable.’
A young woman followed the two men inside. She was Nadir, and strikingly attractive.
‘Where do you think you are going?’ asked Okar, as the group made their way up the stairs. They did not reply, and he hurried after them. The Abbot was waiting at the top of the stairs; still in his night robe, a candle-holder in his hand, he blocked their way.
‘What is the meaning of this intrusion?’ asked the Abbot sternly.
‘We’ve come to heal our friend, Father Abbot,’ said the giant. ‘I kept my promise.’
Okar waited for the harsh words that he was sure would follow. But the Abbot stood in silence for a moment, his expression unreadable in the flickering candle-light. ‘Follow me,’ he said softly, ‘and please be silent.’
The Abbot led the way through the first ward, and on to a small office in the western part of the building. Lighting two lanterns, he sat down at a desk littered with papers. ‘Now explain,’ he said.
The giant spoke first. ‘We found the healing stones, Father. And they work! By all that’s holy, they work! Now take us to Klay.’
‘That is not possible,’ the Abbot told him, and he sighed. ‘Klay passed from this life three days after you left. He is buried in a simple grave behind the gardens. A stone has been fashioned for him. I am truly sorry.’
‘He promised me,’ said Druss. ‘He promised me he would live until my return.’
‘It was a promise he could not keep,’ said the Abbot. ‘The bolt that struck him was tainted with some vile substance and gangrene set in almost immediately. No man could have withstood the deadly effect.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ whispered Druss. ‘I have the stones!’
‘Why is it so hard for you warriors to believe ?’ snapped the Abbot. ‘You think the world revolves around your desires. Do you honestly believe that nature and the laws of the universe can be changed by your will? I have heard of you, Druss. You crossed the world to find your lady. You have fought in many battles, you are indomitable. But you are a man of flesh and blood. You will live, and you will die – just like any other man. Klay was a great man, a man of kindness and understanding. His death is a tragedy beyond my ability to describe. Yet it is part of the cycle of life, and I do not doubt that the Source received him with joy. I was with him at the end. He wanted to leave you a message, and we sent for pen and ink, but he died very suddenly. I think I know what he wanted to ask you.’
‘What?’ asked Druss, numbly.
‘He told me of the boy, Kells, and how he had believed that Klay was a god who could lay his hands upon his mother and heal her. The boy is still here. He sat with Klay, holding to his hand, and he wept bitter tears when the fighter died. His mother still lives. If the stones have the power you say then I think Klay would want you to use their power on her.’
Druss said nothing but sat slumped in his chair, staring down at his hands. Sieben stepped forward. ‘I think we can do a little better than that, Father. Take me to the boy.’
Leaving Druss alone in the office, Sieben, Niobe and the Abbot walked silently through the hospice, coming at last to a long, narrow room in which twenty beds were set against the walls, ten on each side. Kells lay curled up and asleep on the floor by the first bed; a tall thin woman was sleeping in a chair beside him. Within the bed, her face pale in the moonlight from the high window, lay a wasted, dying figure, the skin of her face drawn tightly around her skull – no flesh visible, black rings beneath her eyes.