The Black Chalice

Twenty-Five

Alymere fell in a ball of fire.

The agony was incredible. The right side of his face was burning, but it was nothing compared to the pain that came with hitting the ground. The only thing that saved his life was the monk taking the brunt of the fall, cushioning him from the impact.

He tried desperately to roll away from the dead man, but could not move. His body refused to obey him.

He stared into the monk's crudely stitched eye sockets. He couldn't feel the man's breath on his cheek.

Alymere tried to get his hands underneath himself and ease away from the monk but even that little victory was beyond him. His entire right side was wracked with convulsions. As his vision misted over, he was sure he had killed himself.

He felt someone stand over him, rather than saw them; felt them tear the cloak from his shoulders and slap at his head, dousing the flames. They dragged him off the monk and rolled him onto his back. The sky was fiery red. He tried to focus on the stars; to hold them in his mind, knowing somehow that to lose them, to let go, would be to die.

His skin felt too tight for his body. He tried to open his mouth, to breathe, to speak, but he couldn't work his jaw. The pain was blinding. The entire right side of his face felt like it had been dipped into Hell's pit and pulled out barely a fraction of a second before the flames scorched the meat from the bones of his skull. It went beyond any concept of pain he had ever known, or even imagined, and into a whole new territory of suffering.

"Hush, now," the man said, though his words lacked any real substance. He felt his hands gentle over his wounds, and then, alarmingly, the pain subsided, as his body went into shock. "Rest easy, son. Don't try to move."

He couldn't even if he had wanted to.

Black veins threaded through the sky, thickening as they spread to slowly block out the stars.

He felt his grip on consciousness slipping.

He tried to call her name. For a moment, as all colour fled his world, he thought he felt the press of her lips on his, their souls mingling as she breathed life into him in that shared kiss, making him immortal. And then he tasted the rancid breath in the back of his throat and all fantasies of Blodyweth were banished.

He opened his eyes and saw the crudely stitched eye sockets of a blind monk just inches from his face.

At that moment, it was the most beautiful face he had ever seen.