Free The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) by Ian Irvine Page B

feeling in his last three fingers;
might he lose them, or even his whole hand? He was beginning to think so.
    Colm was on his left, the taut rope looped around his right
hand so he would sense the smallest tug. Flydd was on the other side, murmuring
a rhyme, trying to recover his lost Art.
    He broke off. ‘How’s your hand?’
    ‘It’s troubling me a bit, but I’ll be all right,’ Nish lied.
‘During my time in father’s prison I learned to be stoic.’
    After a while Flydd said quietly, ‘That bad, eh? If I could
find a trace of my Art, I’d work a healing charm.’
    Talking about it made the pain harder to endure. ‘Thanks,’
Nish said curtly. ‘How are you getting on?’
    ‘A few memories are coming back, though my flesh still
doesn’t fit my bones.’
    ‘It takes days to adjust to a new pair of boots,’ said Colm.
‘You can’t expect to feel at home in a new body in a hurry.’
    ‘One of the reasons why I’d always refused to take renewal.’
    ‘Still,’ said Nish, ‘many people would kill to be young
again – well, middle-aged, anyhow.’
    ‘Some people will kill for a few coppers,’ Flydd sighed. ‘I
have to admit that, despite my protestations, a part of me did want renewal,
after nine years in a failing body. I knew it would either kill me, thus
solving all my problems, or make a new man of me. In a way, I’m glad I was
forced into it – but don’t tell Maelys I said that,’ he added hastily.
    ‘What about the third possibility?’ said Nish.
    ‘That I’d survive but be damaged? I ignored it, and the
irony is bitter. I could have endured any physical agony more easily than I can
accept the loss of my talent. Mancery has been my life and soul, my Art and
Science, my work and play, but most of all it has been the crutch which has
held me up through every one of life’s crises since I first began training in
the Art as a small boy. I don’t think I can cope without it.’
    ‘It may come back,’ said Colm.
    ‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’
    After a long pause, Nish said hesitantly, for few mancers
liked to be questioned and Flydd was no exception, ‘Xervish, a while ago you
seemed to remember something puzzling about your renewal. And you mentioned a
woman dressed in red.’
    ‘Xervish?’ Nish repeated after a minute or two had gone by
and Flydd had not answered.
    ‘I had a strange, strange dream,’ said Flydd. ‘It was after
using the third crystal – or was it the fourth? The fire flared up oddly
–’
    ‘Fires flare all the time,’ said Colm.
    ‘Not peat fires, when they’re nearly out. Though mine was no
ordinary fire.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Nish said uneasily. Whenever he thought
he knew what Flydd was talking about, he introduced some new oddity.
    ‘Vapours seep up through fissures in the rock from
bituminous layers deep below Mistmurk Mountain. The same vapours feed the
cursed flame and the greater abyssal flame that is its uncanny source –’
    ‘ What greater
flame?’ said Nish. ‘I haven’t heard of any other kinds of flame.’
    ‘I built the fireplace in my hut over a fissure, years ago,’
Flydd continued as though Nish had not spoken, ‘thinking that, once I grew too
infirm to cut and carry peat, I would still have warmth and a blaze to cook on.
And the well of dreams when I needed it …’
    ‘Well of dreams?’ frowned Colm.
    ‘The seeping vapours induce prophetic visions in those who
have the gift of the seer, which thankfully I do not, and by breathing their
vapours, oracles can connect with the ethereal realm where the shape and timbre
of the future is encoded.’
    ‘Like the Pit of Possibilities?’ Nish said uneasily,
remembering the dark futures it had predicted, especially for Maelys, and among
them the solitary bright possibility for himself. He had always craved the
respect that high office brought and, despite seeing how power had corrupted
his father, a little part of Nish still yearned for it.
    ‘No!’ Flydd said firmly. ‘Not