Hubris - 81. Episode 81

For the next three weeks nothing of incident happens. Petras returns to his bed-ridden self. With this shift back into sickness comes the loss of motor functions, the loss of independence. The loss of self. Crowe returns to his duties of tending to him while also trying to keep the house from falling down around their ears. While the worst of the blizzard has passed, driving winds continue to buffet the house, making it groan in protest. As if Petras and the house are one. When he dies will the house go with it? Crowe wonders and feels guilty when he realizes he wants this to happen.

He falls back into a routine that is all too familiar: He wakes up in the early hours of the morning when it is still dark outside to scrounge something up for breakfast: often times this is a meal of stale bread and salted pork preserved down in the cellar; chamomile tea for Petras to keep him docile, and an aether joint for himself. Only in the mornings and once at night because aether has become a scarce commodity. The highlight of his day.

And yet some things are not the same. There is an unshakable shift in the house, inside of Crowe. There is power in the blood, Petras had said and the words haunt the practitioner in his sleep. In his dreams it is not Petras he finds on the floor, bleeding from half a dozen wounds, but Bennett. Bennett bleeding, his eyes black as the void, an evil grin spreading from ear to ear. The grin of a demon.

“You did this to me,” Bennett accuses with that same evil grin; it never falters if anything it only seems to grow wider. Impossibly wide. He holds up a bloody sliver of glass for the practitioner to see.

“No,” Crowe says, shaking his head, wanting to wrestle the glass out of Bennett’s hand. But he can’t move, his feet rooted to the spot. Other times his movements are slow, as they only can be in dreams, he never reaches Bennett in time. Either way the dream ends the same: Bennett raises the glass to his throat and draws it across his flesh. The dream haunts Crowe night after night. Every night he wakes up in a cold sweat, his hair matted to his skull.

He tries to stay busy, he tries to distract himself from thoughts of Bennett. Mercius knows he has enough to do. While Petras slumbers, kept docile by chamomile tea, the practitioner ventures into the woods to hunt for game. He builds rabbit snares - the first thing Petras taught him how to do as child - and takes his catches home to skin them and make rabbit soup. Twice he is lucky and catches a deer in his traps. With their meat he makes deer jerky which will keep for months.

Everything is the same and yet he can’t shake the feeling that there is another storm on the horizon just out of sight but impending all the same. Sleep eludes Crowe and still Petras’ words echo in his head. The reverberation of prophecy. Even in his sickness he speaks as if he knows what I’m thinking - when he’s lucid enough to do so. Can the old man see the future?

For the three weeks nothing happens.

And then the storm arrives in the form of Bennett’s father.

                                                                                                …

Crowe sits atop a tree, straddling a branch. Watching. Waiting. Come on, just a few steps.

He has been tracking the doe for the past two hours, leading her to this spot. If he is to succeed in killing her it will all depend on the timing. Perfect timing.

The doe takes a few steps forward, sniffing at the air. She pauses, her ears twitching. Can she sense him? Can she sense that death is close at hand? Crowe holds his breath, not daring to breathe. One wrong move - the wrong timing - could undo all of the time he has spent tracking her. His hollow belly reminds him of what’s at stake. He holds a hank of rope in his gloved hands.

At last the doe takes another step forward, stopping exactly where he wants her to stop. Now! He drops from the top of the tree, dangling in the air. As he descends the metal snare pops up, tossing aside dead leaves and brambles. The snare catches the doe’s back leg, closing around it like a hungry mouth. The does bellows in pain, a high-pitched sound that Crowe hates even as he knows what must be done. It’s too late to go back now. The net drops from the tree, enclosing around the doe. Trapping her. There’s nowhere for her to go. Crowe does not waste time, does not draw out the torture. He draws the blade across her throat until the blood flows free in crimson rivelets, staining the snow.

Crowe watches the doe thrash and toss about, trying to free itself from the trap. He knows it won’t stop until its dying breath. Its eyes roll about until he can see the whites. He lifts his head towards the sky and offers a prayer to Mercius. May you find splendor in the Eternal City…

A few moments later the doe’s movements cease. It slumps in the snow dead. He cuts the net with a dagger and undoes the snare. He tests the dead beast’s weight. The doe is quite light from starvation. He can feel her ribs through the fur and flesh. He lifts her onto his shoulders and begins to walk back in the direction of the house.

It is a two mile walk back to the house. Already the sun has begun to sink. By the time he makes it home night will have fallen and it will be time to feed Petras his dinner. He stops at the bottom of the hill, his heart hammering in his chest. He pauses at the bottom of the hill. The house stands at the top of the hill where it has sat for over two centuries. Waiting. Always waiting for him. My prison. Will I ever leave this place?

Every muscle in his body aches. It hurts to walk. His thighs are chapped from cold sweat. The last thing he’s expecting is a visitor late at night. At the top of the hill a horse waits, tied to a post. A familiar dark clad shape stands next to the horse, stroking its muzzle, whispering to it. Crowe stops, uncertain of what to do, uncertain of what to say. Other than the doctor who occasionally checked on Petras’ condition and Bennett he has never had a visitor to the house.

“C-can I help you?” Crowe’s voice comes out as a frog’s croak; his voice is dusty from nonuse. It is the first time he has spoken in days.

The figure turns with a slight jerk of the shoulders and Crowe is surprised to come face to face with Jebediah. The blacksmith, Bennett’s father. The man does not say anything, seems incapable of speech. Crowe remembers their last encounter outside of the clinic and feels his blood grow cold with anger. “If you’re here to tell me to stay away from Bennett you can save your breath. I want nothing to do with him.”

“On the contrary,” Jeb says in a slurred voice, “I need your help.”

The strain, the misery in his voice catches the practitioner off guard. It is the first time the man has spoken to him without anger. Without derision. The man staggers towards, weaving drunkenly on his feet. He snatches a hold of Crowe’s robes, struggling to remain standing. He almost slips in the slippery compacted snow. If Crowe hadn’t been there to catch a hold of him he surely would have fallen to the ground.

“What makes you think I want to help you? That I would do anything to help you?” Crowe’s teeth don’t chatter anymore. The anger he feels, a cold calculating anger, steels his heart and brings everything into sharper focus.

Jeb hiccups, shakes his head, reeking of alcohol. “I know I don’t have the right…I wouldn’t come here if I had somewhere else to go, somewhere else to turn to…”

Crowe thinks of the dream he’s had of Bennett every night for the past three weeks. The terrible nightmare with blood and glass and black eyes. Black eyes that are blacker than night. You did this to me…

There is power in the blood…

Crowe is tempted to turn away from the man - he’s right, he doesn’t have the right to ask me for help; not after the way Bennett and he has treated me - to leave him standing in the cold. Damn him if he thinks I’m going to help him! But his feet remain rooted to the spot and he finds that no matter how angry he is he can no more turn away from Bennett’s father than he can turn away from Petras.

He clears his throat. “Has something happened to Bennett? Is he sick?”

“Please,” Jebediah says again. “Will you let me inside? It’s colder than a witch’s tits out here.”

Crowe bristles at the thought of letting the man inside the house, but he finds himself nodding. He tells the man he can come in and leads him towards the house. He has to guide the blacksmith by the arm lest he slip and fall. The man is so drunk he can barely move on his own. Once inside, once in the kitchen the practitioner ushers him into a chair. He lights a lamp and sets it in the center of a table. “Wait here,” he tells the intoxicated fool. “I’m going to get a fire going and then I have to check on Petras.”

Jeb lifts his jaundiced eyes. Eyes that are bloodshot and full of superstitious fear. “Can I speak with him? Can he help me?”

The practitioner pauses. Why would you want help from a man you’ve spent your life despising? Living in fear of? The question wants to slip off the tip of his tongue. What does it matter? Petras can’t help himself let alone help someone else. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. He’s very sick. He hasn’t spoken in some time. I don’t know when or if he will ever speak again. Stay here for a few moments. You can warm yourself by the fire. I will fix us tea and then I will see if there’s anything I can do to help you.”

Jeb nods shakily. “As you wish.”

Lighting a gas lamp, Crowe gets a fire burning in the kitchen’s furnace. It doesn’t take long. Jeb scoots closer to the fire, holding his hands out towards the furnace. His fingers are darkened by the early onset of frostbite. Crowe sets a pot of water to boil over the flames.

Crowe climbs up the stairs. Each step is painstaking. Each step causes his chapped thighs to rub together. Still he must push on for Petras. He stops in the doorway of Petra’s door, standing in a dome of flickering gold light, peering inside. The old man has not moved once since the practitioner left to hunt. It’s impossible to tell if the man is breathing, he rests so still. The practitioner feels his heart kick a few beats. Is it possible that the old man’s life could have slipped away while he was gone?

He takes a step into the room. A floorboard creaks. He calls the old man’s name. The old man does not stir. The room is chilled enough that the practitioner’s breath comes out in clouds of mist. He’s not dead. He’s just sleeping really deeply. Crowe now stands over the bed. Petras rests on his side, facing away from the sorcerer. The blankets are pulled up to just below his chin. Crowe leans over the bed, reaching for his shoulder.

Before his fingers can make contact, the old man rolls over and seizes the practitioner’s hand. Before Crowe can yank his hand away, Petras pulls him forward with a strength that belies his haggard appearance, his lips twisted in a leer straight from Crowe’s nightmares. “There is power in the blood,” the old man croaks. “Has he fallen ill yet? Has the parasite begun to twist his brain? Are his eyes black as night? Your lover boy. Has his guilt opened a door for something to step into him?”

Again Crowe tries to pull away to no avail. The man’s fingers dig into his flesh like an iron clamp. Like the trap that had closed around the deer’s leg just moments before. Now I’m the deer in the trap, the practitioner thinks. “Let go of me,” he hisses.

Petras’ grin falls away and his eyes widen as he sits up. He’s close enough to the practitioner that there is no escaping his fetid breath. “You can help him…Only you can help him. But it will take a sacrifice. You must give him something of yourself. Your blood. There is power in the blood. Always remember. The power to vanquish and the power to enslave. Remember that such power comes with consequences. It will twist your mind if you let it…”

With a final, desperate tug, Crowe yanks his arm free. Nails scrape against flesh hard enough to draw blood. Petras’ head falls back against the pile of pillows. The practitioner backs away the way he might a rapid dog. And still the old man’s words repeat in his head: There is power in the blood…Only you can help him.

How does he know? How does he know Bennett’s sick? He hasn’t left the house in weeks and it’s been that long since Bennett’s last visit…Since that day Petrass locked me in the cellar after the snowstorm. It’s impossible.

Crowe shoves all thoughts of Petras’ prophecy out of his mind. He still has to deal with the drunken Jeb downstairs. He finds the broad-shouldered blacksmith exactly where he left him in front of the fire. The man straightens when he hears the practitioner’s footsteps. The blacksmith eyes him sheepishly as if he’s been caught doing something wrong. Grabbing a rag and the tea set, Crowe goes about making tea. He can feel the blacksmith tracking his movements as he works.

“I don’t need tea,” the blacksmith grunts.

“I think you do,” the practitioner insists. It’s a struggle to keep his voice from shaking after his confrontation with Petras. “You’re so drunk it’s a wonder you can sit up. So you’re going to drink some tea and sober up. And then you’re going to tell me what’s wrong with Bennett.”

The blacksmith nods like a whipped dog. For the first time Crowe realizes that the man has lost a considerable amount of weight. His cheeks are sharper, hollowed, and there are dark bruise-like circles underneath his eyes. “Very well.” He squints at Crowe’s arm. “What happened? Who did that to you?”

“It’s not important.” Crowe hastily pulls the sleeve of his robes down over the scratches carved into his arm. He sets a steaming mug of chamomile tea in front of the man. He sits down at the opposite end of the table with a sigh. A heavy lapse of silence falls between them, neither man daring to speak first.

“You live up here and take care of the old man by yourself?” Jeb asks.

Crowe shrugs. “There’s no one else to do it. Not even the healer. So it falls to me.”

The blacksmith nods at his arm. “And he gets violent?”

“Sometimes. Rarely. But when it happens it’s usually when you least expect it.”

Jeb frowns, mulling something over in his mind. At last he says, “I didn’t know what I was expecting before I stepped through the door. I wasn’t expecting you to live in a…”

“...normal home,” Crowe finishes for him. “You expected something else? You expected a home full of totems, you expected to find us summoning the demonic forces of Inferno?” He laughs bitterly. “No, my life is much like your own. Now tell me what ails Bennett.”

“He has been taken. Possessed by a demon. He doesn’t eat. Anything I feed him he throws up. He doesn’t drink. He’s become violent towards himself. If I do not tie him down he scratches at his own flesh. And his eyes…they are pitch black to the point where you can’t see the whites.”

Crowe clutches the edge of the table with shaking fingers. Petras’ words echo in his mind: Has he fallen ill yet? Has the parasite begun to twist his brain? Are his eyes black as night? Your lover boy. Has his guilt opened a door for something to step into him?

“I’ve tried everything I could,” Jeb continues, his voice breaking. “I’ve called the doctor, I’ve called the vicar and he’s scared them both away…to the point that neither of them will come to the house again. Twice he has attacked me, clawing at me as if he doesn’t recognize me. Doesn’t recognize his own father. I’ve gotten down on my hands and knees every night to pray and Mercius does not answer my prayers…I don’t know what else to do, I don’t know where else to turn…”

Only you can help him.

“How long has he been ‘sick’”

The blacksmith sniffles. “A week. Can your mentor…can your mentor do anything?”

“As I said my mentor is sick himself. He is on the last legs of his life and that life he will spend in bed. He is in no condition to help you or Bennett, but I will.”

There is power in the blood…