The Sin War Box Set: Birthright, Scales of the Serpent, and The Veiled Prophet (18 page)

“My people are a generous, appreciative lot. They seek to honor you for your good deed, nothing more.”

“It would be best if we left before this gets any more out of hand, Uldyssian,” remarked Lylia. “We must be on our way to the city.”

The party had originally agreed to just stay overnight at Ethon’s estate. However, that single night had turned into two, then three. Ethon made no attempt to ask them to depart and Uldyssian had quickly found that he had missed such simple comforts as clean beds and proper meals. He liked Partha, liked the people, especially the kindly merchant. He was only embarrassed by the excess of generosity, something he felt he did not deserve.

“I can’t,” Uldyssian finally said to her. “Not yet.” Without warning, he started for the door.

The others rose to their feet. Achilios was the first to ask, “Where are you going?”

“Out to do what I must. Wait here.”

Uldyssian gave them no chance to argue with him. He especially worried about what Lylia would say if he hesitated. The plan was still to head on to Kehjan…just…not yet.

He all but flew down the stairs, but as he headed toward the doors, a slim figure caught up with him. Cedric, eyes wide, stepped up next to Uldyssian and began keeping pace.

“Are you finally going out? Are you? Will you do anything like the last time?” he asked excitedly.

The farmer grimaced. “I’m going out, but alone. Stay here, Ced. Stay for your safety.”

“Safety? Safety from what?”

Instead of answering, Uldyssian picked up his pace. He crossed the threshold just ahead of the boy. However, when Ethon’s son attempted to follow, it was to have the door shut right in front of him despite no one touching it.

Outside, Uldyssian breathed a short sigh of relief. He had hoped that the door would do as he wished, but actually having it happen still astounded him. No one would be able to open it again until Uldyssian was well into the town square. By then, it would be too late to stop him…

Unfortunately, if he had hoped to make it there unnoticed, in this his abilities failed him. Even before Uldyssian stepped beyond the gates of the estate, people began to gather in his vicinity. It was as if they had been waiting for him to finally come out…very likely the case, he mused. None of the faces he saw gave any indication of malice or fear, though. Something far different. Something he thought approached…reverence?

It was not the emotion he wanted of them. He had experienced it to a point with Serenthia and still felt uncomfortable. He was a simple man. He came to offer them something to put them on a level with himself and to free them from the control of the nobles and the mages…and, most of all, the Temple and the Cathedral. Uldyssian had no desire to be worshipped.

But first, he would have to show them that what he had done was not so much a miracle, not if they could learn to do it for themselves.

By the time he neared the town square, there followed in his wake a substantial throng. Uldyssian continued to sense nothing threatening in anyone around him. Perhaps he had overreacted in keeping his friends from coming with him immediately, but it was still possible that there would be one person around who might choose to see him as a thing of evil, a monster, as his own village had declared him.

The center of Partha consisted of an open, stone-paved area where, in the morning, merchants and farmers with wagons sold various wares, especially food and meat. They ringed a wide, round fountain in the middle of which stood a statue of a scholarly figure with a long, long beard and bearing twin scrolls under his arms. Master Ethon had called him Protheus, one of the founders of Partha and the man who had preached kindness and understanding. Uldyssian thought Protheus’s shadow a good one to have cast over him when he began his task.

Four leaping fish spouting water marked the outer edge of the fountain and directly between two of these was the location that Uldyssian chose. Protheus would be staring at the crowd from right behind him.

The market had still been active, but a hush spread through the townsfolk the moment he stopped. Uldyssian suddenly felt nervous. His mouth went dry and he was tempted to thrust his head in the fountain not only to try to quench his sudden thirst but to hide from the very audience he had sought out.

But then Uldyssian spotted a very familiar figure in the crowd. The woman, Bartha. He had only to glance down to discover her son, who beamed at the man who had healed him as if Uldyssian were his own father.

That gave him the heart that he had momentarily been lacking. Unconsciously mimicking the statue’s stance, Uldyssian surveyed the crowd, then proclaimed, “What I’ve done is no miracle!”

His words were met with disbelief by some, confusion by others. Bartha smiled as if he had told some gentle joke.
She
was absolutely certain of what she had witnessed and her son was proof of that.

However, Uldyssian shook his head at her, then continued, “It is no miracle…because it lies within each of you to do as
much,
if not more!”

Now a murmur arose among the people, many of them clearly not believing this suggestion any more than the last.

“Hear me!” the son of Diomedes shouted at the top of his voice. “Hear me! Only a short while back, I was no different from the rest of you! I toiled in my farm, concerned only with my day’s work. I thought of little else. The vicious bickering of the mage clans was not for me, save that I hoped it would not spill over into my village! Nor was I concerned with the empty words of missionaries from the Temple and the Cathedral, knowing how they had done
nothing
for my family, who first suffered long from plague, then withered slowly into death!”

Here, he received sympathetic glances and nods of understanding from several in the crowd. Uldyssian spied at least a handful of people who wore the pockmarked faces of plague survivors. Partha might overall be very prosperous, but its individual citizens suffered their black days, clearly.

He shook his head. “I said that what I did was no miracle, but for me there
did
come a miracle one day, an awakening of something
within
me…a force, a power…call it what you like! Things began to happen around me. Some feared them, some did not.” That was as far as he would go into the story of what had happened in Seram. If the townsfolk discovered the truth later on, so be it. By then, either Uldyssian would have convinced them or proven himself a madman after all. “I was able to
do
things,
help
others…”

He gestured at the boy—whose name he realized he still did not know—urging the child to come to him. Bartha patted her son on the back, sending him off to Uldyssian. The child ran up and hugged the tall figure tight.

“I was able to help him,” Uldyssian added, letting everyone see the arm. The boy smiled at him. “And what I did, you can do, too. Perhaps not immediately, but you
will.”

Many shook their heads or frowned. It was one thing for them to believe that he could perform miracles, but still they could not conceive of such abilities in themselves.

With a sigh, Uldyssian considered. Perhaps he moved too swiftly even for the understanding people of Partha. Perhaps he just had to show them.

“Bartha,” the son of Diomedes called. “Come up here, too. Please.”

Beaming, she rushed up. “Yes, Holy One?”

Her use of such a title caused him to wince. He did not wish to be put in the same category as Malic and his ilk. Never that. “I’m just Uldyssian, Bartha, a farmer by birth, like many you know.” Her expression immediately told him that his words passed by unnoticed. With a sigh, he finished, “Just call me Uldyssian, please.”

She nodded, which was all he could hope for at this juncture.

“Stand beside me.” When she had obeyed, he looked for the man whose face had most been ravaged by disease. “You there. Come to me.”

There was a moment of hesitation, then the sandy-haired figure stepped up before Uldyssian. He held his cap in his hand as if it were a form of security.

“What’s your name?”

“Jonas, Holy One.”

Uldyssian tried not to react again. He would get them to stop…eventually. “May we touch your face?”

Again, there was a pause, but finally the man nodded. “Yes. Yes, Holy One.”

Uldyssian reached to Bartha, taking one of her soft hands in his own. She allowed him to guide it up to the ruined flesh, unfearful of touching it despite its grotesque appearance. That impressed him. It was one thing to see someone disfigured so, it was another to actually
feel
that scarred skin beneath one’s fingertips. He had chosen the right person with which to start.

As both his fingers and hers made contact with the man, Uldyssian closed his eyes and tried to imagine the flesh whole. At the same time, he also reached out to Bartha, trying to see inside her and let her feel what he was doing.

He felt her abruptly shiver, but she did not pull away. Grateful for that, Uldyssian focused on the figure before him. The man was understandably anxious, perhaps most of all from being the center of attention. Uldyssian knew that he had to hurry, if only to prevent Jonas from growing faint of heart and retreating.

Uldyssian tried to recall the emotions that had flowed through him when he had healed the boy’s arm. It proved easier to bring them to the forefront than last time, something that surprised him.

The pain, the loss, coursed through him. He knew others who had suffered disfigurement as this man had, people in his village whom he could not help now. Perhaps…perhaps if all went as hoped, Uldyssian could someday return to Seram and make amends…

Then, as if such thoughts were the key, the force within suddenly poured out of him. He sensed Bartha’s renewed astonishment, an astonishment mixed with immense pleasure.

He also sensed the man feel the power flowing into him, and, specifically, his ravaged face.

A gasp of wonder rose from those watching. Uldyssian dared open his eyes—

His fingertips had already given him some hint of the results, but seeing them still amazed Uldyssian at least as much as it did the throngs. The damaged skin was pink and whole…in fact, there was no longer a blemish or mark
anywhere
on the man’s countenance.

“Another miracle!” Bartha breathed.

The subject of Uldyssian’s experiment put his own hands to his face, marveling at the feel of his skin. He turned toward his fellows, giving them a good view of the results.

Before they could start praising him again, the son of Diomedes loudly interjected, “Bartha, did you feel everything? Did you?”

Her expression turning confused, she replied, “I felt you heal him—”

He cut her off. “What do you feel inside
yourself?
Do you sense it yet?”

She touched over her heart. The crowd—including the healed man—looked at her.

“I feel…I feel…” She smiled beatifically at Uldyssian. “I feel as if I’ve just awakened, Holy—Master Uldyssian! It…it’s…I don’t know how to describe it…”

Nodding, he looked to the others. “That’s how it begins. The feeling will continue to grow. It may take time, but slowly…slowly…you’ll come to be everything I am…and possibly more. Possibly much more.”

It was a weighty promise and one that Uldyssian in great part regretted the minute that he uttered it. Yet, now it was too late to turn back. As he learned more about what he was able to do, he would try to teach the others, at least until someone else could do better.

That meant that Kehjan would have to wait even longer than he had initially intended. Uldyssian could not very well leave the people of Partha until they understood better.

Immediately, he thought of Lylia. She would be upset at first, surely, but, as in the past, she would come around. When the noblewoman saw how the Parthans reacted, it would make absolute sense to her to stay as long as needed.

At least, he hoped that she would see it that way.

The man he had healed came up to him again. “Master Uldyssian…. could you…could you show me?”

Uldyssian started to reach forward, then hesitated. He smiled, surprised himself not to have sensed it sooner. “I guess I don’t have to. You should know that. Just look deep. You’ll see…”

Jonas’s brow furrowed…then suddenly joy filled his face again. It had nothing to do with his mended skin. He nodded eagerly, all but shouting, “I feel…I think…what Madame Bartha said! I feel…awakened…”

His awestruck words were enough to cause the crowd to break into excited babble. Someone stepped toward Uldyssian. That caused the entire crowd to flow forward. Each person wanted to be the next.

Caught up in the moment, Uldyssian accepted one after another, spending what time he needed with each. Hands stretched toward him, seeking his touch. Not all of them would feel the awakening as quickly as Bartha and Jonas had and he said this to every person before trying, but it
would
eventually happen. Uldyssian truly believed that and because he believed that, so, too, did those to whom he ministered.

As each new supplicant stepped up, he also grew more and more confident with his decision. Partha was indeed a perfect place to prove himself. If he was able to do this well here, it staggered Uldyssian’s imagination to think just how matters would fare in the city.