A Thousand Lives
This is the fifth chapter of Wealthgiver, an alternate history serial romance about nationalism and cave-Thracians. For the back-of-the-book description and an index of chapters, click here. For the beginning, click here. For the previous chapter, click here.
Andrei pinched the snake behind the head and lifted it from the grass. The tail clenched up toward his fingers and the mouth gaped, displaying tiny fangs.
Andrei squeezed the viper until it was no longer a problem and tossed its body aside.
"Too many enemies on this mountain already," he muttered.
He could see, though, what had attracted the cold-blooded creature. The air coming up from the crack was warm and wet, if sulfurous.
"Must be caves down there. Hot springs. Maybe tomorrow, I'll find a way to take a bath."
He knelt and pressed the new grass with his palm. Water squelched as if he'd squeezed a sponge and the flowers nodded. Crocus, and taller stalks of narcissus. Only one of these had so far bloomed. The trumpet-shaped head gleamed in the moonlight, more perfect than the work of any mortal silversmith, the same apparent color as the viper.
Andrei walked a few paces uphill and spread his blanket on a drier patch. He lay back, staring up at the moon and the star that hung under it. Probably Venus. Somewhere in the valley below, a fox barked.
Would the old shepherd follow him up here? Would Andrei hear him as he approached, breaking thorn-branches and babbling?
"Stop that," he told himself. "He couldn't walk from his stump to his house. He's not about to hike up this mountain just to slit your throat."
An early cricket chirped. Andrei remembered the old woman. Her false smile, and real one on the face of the mad old man. "Why did he fill my pack with fetishes?" he asked himself. "And why, Doctor, did you bury them?" He could answer neither question.
Andrei's arms ached. His hands were black with soil. He'd had some notion of coming back to this mountain one day and retrieving the treasure. Now, he just felt like a fool. He'd never come back to this accursed place again. Assuming you manage to escape it. He didn't speak that last thought aloud, but it rang in his head anyway, deep and sardonic.
Exhaustion rose like a wave up Andrei's body. His hands, folded over his chest, felt warm and leaden. The fingers loosened, relaxed, clenched tight.
No!
Fear rocked Andrei's head back against the ground. He had almost fallen asleep! Let his guard down and the imperial agents would get him. The cracked face of the witch. The smell of old mice in the soup.
Andrei's heart raced. His cheeks flushed with heat. He squinted against the too-bright moon, trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing on this sweaty, chilly, viper-infested mountainside.
Sleeping. He was supposed to be sleeping.
"Damn it." Andrei opened his eyes. Clamped them shut again and flung his elbow over his eyes for good measure. It didn't work. If he threw off his too-warm coat, he would be too cold. "This is more trouble than I ever had on the march."
He had slept in lice-infested straw, and half-buried in freezing mud. He had slept on his feet. He had slept on the damn march. This warm, grassy hillside should be paradise. And God knew he was tired enough.
Andrei groaned and rolled over, trying to find a less uncomfortable position. His knees hurt. And his calves. And his quadriceps and hamstrings. He could see them as if on an anatomy chart, pulsing dully. His glutei maximi felt as if someone had pounded them with hammers. His right knee throbbed.
"Treat with hot pack and immobilization, Doctor. If the meniscus is leaking, you know how to sew it back up."
Andrei imagined performing the operation on himself, alone in the wilderness, as his enemies circled closer. "Stop it!"
He forced himself to lie still. He needed to climb tomorrow. To run. He needed sleep in order to escape the danger that was keeping him from sleep.
Tomorrow he would run again, putting just a bit more distance between himself and his enemies. His feet would tread the soft mountain grass. The grass that splits around a hole—
Andrei's leg spasmed and sparks flashed behind his eyes. "Ow!" He sat up, cursing. "What the devil is wrong with me?"
Don't you recognize a hypnogogic jerk when you see one, Doctor? I diagnose a prickly conscience.
Andrei rolled onto his left side. There was the mist rising out of the crack, like a curtain drawn over the view of the valley.
What did his conscience have to prick him about? Hadn't he helped that old shepherd? Snowdrops and move him into town. Find any doctor who could give a better prescription. And for free. And he'd saved the life of the feverish Junior Unteroffizier.
Saved him for the firing squad.
"And if I'd stayed, I'd have been executed too," Andrei protested. "Better I stay alive and find more patients to patch up, right?"
If you had let that one man die, you could have stayed with the army and helped others.
Another twitch. A flush. His heart raced. The smell of sweat and smoke was stronger now. Sulfur. A flooded crypt, feverish and wet. Andrei rolled onto his back. Maybe he wouldn't stay for that bath, after all. Run away again.
And when you last ran, how many wounded were there? A thousand? Fewer now, of course.
"There was no other choice," he whispered. "It was escape or kill. For God's sake, I swore an oath."
The moon stared down at him. The wind ran its fingers through the rising mist.
"For all the gods' sakes, Doctor." Andrei told himself, and chuckled darkly. "'By Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses.'"
The wind rose and fell. Mist pulsed in and out of the crack as the mountain breathed. The words came back now as easily as they had on the day of Andrei's graduation.
"'Into whatever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick.'" His breath caught in his throat. He'd had to run. Run or kill. There's been no other choice. "Better a deserter than a murder."
A convenient slogan, Doctor. It allows you to escape with your life and without your duties.
"What duties?" Andrei asked the night sky. "To help every house I enter? I do. I did! I don't need to remind you I was recently poisoned for just that."
Why?
"How the hell should I know? Madness! Evil, insane, in-bred mountain-people, probably getting ready to make me into soup."
Not after they poisoned you, surely. No amount of boiling would have rendered you hygienic.
"Shut up!" Andrei growled at himself. "Let me sleep, damn you."
Look at it this way, Doctor. You saved one life at the cost of a thousand. All you need to do is find nine hundred and ninety-nine more, save them, and your soul will be safe.
Andrei turned angrily onto his other side. "No deal."
Behind the Fool's back, a hand rose from the crack in the Earth.
Fingers spread, casting a spider's shadow over the moonlit ground. They reached, curled towards the darkness they cast, dug in. Next crowned the head.
The priest of Death gripped a cleverly-shaped ledge of rock and heaved himself out of the Sacred Depths of the Mountain. He stood for a moment, back bent, breath steaming, hating the Moon.
He was dressed in a fox-fur cap and a robe of felted wool. A blindfold of the same material protected his eyes, which he did not need.
His tongue clicked. His neck slowly twisted around.
The priest bared his teeth at the outsider and stretched the binding rope between his hands.