Free The Red Sea by Edward W. Robertson

Dante wiped sweat from his brow. "But I'm here."
    The woman walked back onto the stoop and nodded. Heart pounding, Dante walked up the steps. The front half was one large room. Though slits were cut in the walls to allow a cross breeze, it was as dim as twilight; after the glare of the tropical sun, he could hardly see a thing.
    At the far wall, a figure stirred from a pallet, gingerly propping himself upright. As Dante's eyes adjusted, he gazed on the face of his father.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
5
     
     
    The man was older than he remembered, yet younger than Dante had imagined—late forties, wrinkled around the eyes and mouth, black hair streaked with gray, his beard the white of dirty snow. His face was drawn. A blanket wrapped his shoulders, obscuring his form.
    A wave of heat rolled over Dante's body. He had virtually no memories of the man left, and the few he did possess were vague. He supposed, at first, he'd been trying to forget. Better that than to dwell on them, to be constantly reminded that his father had sailed off to the Golden Islands, orphaning Dante to the care of a monk in a sleepy village.
    After a few years, however, Dante no longer had to make any effort to leave those memories behind. By the time he found his copy of the Cycle of Arawn , and began his journey into the ways of the nether, where he'd come from had become irrelevant. Like clearing your throat before you speak. Or the memory of a dream fading as quickly as you woke up.
    The emotions Dante felt on seeing Larsin again were as just as hard to catch on to.
    The man's eyes were blue, and though the rest of him was tired and weak, these still bore the shine of life. His voice was a whisper: "You came."
    Dante drifted closer to the pallet. "You caught me at a good time."
    "I didn't think you would. And I wouldn't have blamed you." His gaze moved to Winden, then Blays. "Where are the others? Those who sought you?"
    "Only one of them made it to me. A young woman. She died after delivering your message."
    The sick man winced, eyes crinkling. "Sorry to hear that."
    Dante stopped beside the low bed. "I hope it was worth it."
    He felt for the shadows. After healing the people in the town, his hold on the nether was tenuous, but he wasn't exhausted yet. He should be able to stabilize the man at least. If the work proved difficult, he could finish it tomorrow.
    Dante stretched out his hand. "Do you know where your illness came from? Bad air? Old meat? Did you share clothes with someone who was sick?"
    "None of the above." The bearded man chuckled, then coughed, his suntanned face paling. "Went somewhere I wasn't supposed to. Like I always do."
    "What do you mean?"
    "The Stained Cliffs," Winden said. "They're cursed."
    "And the act of visiting them causes you to fall ill."
    "That's the lore."
    Dante maintained a neutral expression. "Know what, it isn't important. Neither are your symptoms. All that matters is that something is wrong and I will make it right."
    He closed his eyes and followed the shadows into the man's body. Treating him in this way, it was easy to pretend that the man before him was simply one more in the long line of people Dante had mended. Not to suggest that he was any kind of saint. He had hurt as many as he'd healed. Putting people back together was a type of penance. A way to remind himself that, although effective at it, the nether wasn't made to destroy.
    It obeyed its user's wishes. For good or for ill.
    He had been causing and healing injuries for a decade. Finding the wrongness inside Larsin was no more difficult than lacing up his boots: it existed in spots across his organs and limbs, dark and opaque. These spots looked and felt like nether—but when Dante tried to move them, they refused to budge.
    And when he sent the nether to cleanse them out, he could find no purchase.
    Frowning, he withdrew, observed the spots from afar, and tried again. Again, he couldn't so much as make them wobble. They were as slippery as a