Free The Red Sea by Edward W. Robertson Page B

bout of good sense and left him alone. The sun set, alighting the clouds with red, pink, and orange. Back at the house, Winden fed them a mealy paste. It was spiced with a substance that tasted like the distilled sweetness of fruits, but an underlying brackishness permeated the mush.
    As soon as Dante finished, he went to sleep on a pallet in the back room. He slept fitfully, woken twice by Blays and Winden murmuring in the adjoining room. Probably discussing whether he could heal Larsin.
    He woke with the dawn. Winden helped Larsin outside to tend to the obligations of nature. After a meal of the leftover paste, Dante returned to the main room and kneeled beside the ailing man's bed.
    "Taking another go at me?" Larsin rasped.
    Dante nodded. After the night's sleep, the shadows flowed without resistance. He attacked the black stains inside the man from every angle he could think of. Lost in the work, he gave no thought to the individual he happened to be working on.
    By mid-morning, with his command slipping, Dante let out a long breath, stood, and walked to the front stoop to sit in the shade.
    Winden followed him. "You found nothing."
    "I tried everything. Whatever's afflicting him, the nether's no use. What exactly does your lore say about how the disease is contracted?"
    "That it comes through visiting the Stained Cliffs. The ground there, it's tainted. When storms stir it, you can get sick."
    "Is it contagious?"
    She looked down, thinking. "Sometimes it takes people who haven't been near the cliffs, but I think that's when winds and rain flushes the tainted ground into the air or streams. I've never seen anyone tending to the sick fall ill as well."
    "And do you know of any potential cures? Even anything to treat the symptoms?"
    "There is another option." Winden stared down the mountain slopes to where the sky met the sea. "A plant. It is known to sometimes reverse the wasting sickness."
    Dante gawked at her. "Let me get this straight. There is a cure. Right here on the island. But instead of going and getting it yourselves, you thought it was a better idea to send a team of people on a journey of over two thousand miles—a journey that cost them their lives—to fetch me. And as it turns out, I'm completely useless."
    "The cure? It kills the one who takes it as often as it works. Also, getting to it is very dangerous. Can cost more lives than it saves." Winden met his stare. "As for the idea to find you. It wasn't mine. It was his. Make of this what you will."
    "No need. I'll ask him myself."
    He went back inside. On the pallet, Larsin's eyes were closed, but as Dante approached, he blinked them open, smiling sadly. "It didn't work, did it?"
    "I can't help you."
    The older man nodded, sinking back into his blankets. "Thanks for trying. It was a big ask."
    Dante stood over him. "Do you have anything to say to me?"
    "Could I say anything that mattered?"
    "I doubt it."
    "I don't expect your forgiveness," Larsin said. "I just wanted to see you one last time."
    "Selfish to the end."
    "I wonder how far the apple has fallen."
    "I'm here, aren't I?"
    Larsin grimaced, working his way up to his elbows. "I left you with a friend. Someone I trusted. Didn't mean to stay gone—just to fill my pockets with enough silver to see you never went hungry. But life takes its own turns. When I got here, I found I couldn't leave."
    "Oh, I've heard. Winden says you're a man of high influence on this island. I'm sure you found it very difficult to give up the first prestige you'd ever found in life."
    "You asking why I left you only to help them instead?"
    "I wonder why I should care."
    "You shouldn't. I made my choice to help these people fight for what was theirs. I knew what it would cost me."
    Dante ran a hand over his stubble. "What was happening here that these people couldn't handle themselves?"
    "The Tauren. Twenty years ago, they were on the verge of enslaving the entire island. Nasty people—they leave their newborns on the slopes