(The Dark Servant)Midnight Matters by A. Ellas (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Jethain drank gratefully, then gagged. “That’s the purging wine!” He promptly threw up on Rak’s bare feet.

“Purging? Blast it to the depths of the abyss!” Rak took a calming breath and peered at the bottle. “I wonder where it came from.” He ignored the vomit and strode into the bathroom. When he returned, his feet were clean and the bottle was empty. He sent Gill with a note asking Tebber for a bottle of Okyran wine.

“I didn’t know what it was until I tasted it, but I know beyond a doubt that the wine was used to purge me. I wish that I could remember the actual episodes. Then I could tell you who to kill.”

Rak used a damp towel to clean up the remainder of the vomit. Most of it had landed on his feet. The good wine arrived and Rak poured Jethain a goblet of his own stock of high quality wine. While Jethain drank with Jisten’s deft assistance, Rak rummaged through his kit. “I will assume blood loss.” He mixed something and turned to Jethain with another drink. “I cannot promise that this will taste good.”

Jethain took it with a wry face. “Thanks for the warning.” He swirled the potion once, then chugged it back. “Aaagh!” Once he finished grimacing, he said, “Another sun-scorched horse tonic!”

Rak burst out laughing. “The mint tonic is not, it is my grandmother’s recipe,” he said, once he’d recovered. “She swears by it for all manner of stomach ills.”

“That’s the only one that tastes good, I bet.” Jethain pointedly handed back the empty cup. “May I have another mint tonic?”

“Of course.” Rak accepted the cup and padded to the side table. He started mixing another tonic. “If you want, for the other medicines, I can put a tube down your throat to dose you.”

Jethain looked startled. “That’s what…no, a sun priest wouldn’t force a tube down my throat. Must have been a fever dream.”

“Tell me,” said Rak urgently, returning to the bedside with another mint tonic. He resisted sitting in Jisten’s lap, but sat so close that he might as well have been.

“A priest came in,” said Jethain. “He spoke something I didn’t understand. He forced a tube down my throat and poured something down it. Then, nothing.”

“Dreams have not been turning out to be dreams of late,” said Rak and smiled at Jisten, who smiled back. Rak stood up and paced. “But what to do. This cannot continue.”

“I’ll have a cot brought in here for myself,” Jisten said. “I’ll rotate only my core guards.”

Rak paused by the bed, pulled off his pendant, and put it on Jethain. “Two cots. I will stay here myself.” He resumed pacing.

Jethain picked up the pendant and looked at it. “What is it?”

“The sigil of the Lord of Night. And on the reverse, the symbol of my sect.” Rak smiled a little. “That particular one was a gift from my God. All His high priests have one like it.”

“You gave me a high priest’s sigil? Doesn’t that curse me?”

“

Ix

, not at all,” said Rak. “I gave it to you. If you had taken it from me against my will,

then

you would be cursed.” “Does it offer protection?” Jisten asked.

“That is my hope. At the very least, this sun priest will be in for a rude surprise when he touches the prince.” Pacing back to the bed, Rak pulled a grass green lizard from his pocket and put it on the headboard. It spread translucent wings and clicked.

Jisten grinned at the little lizard. “Hello, little wings.” The green lizard clicked at him and explored its new surroundings.

“What about Forael?” Jethain asked, worry in his voice. “Will he be harmed?

“Warn Forael and remove it before he touches you,” said Rak.

“Where is he?” wondered the prince.

“I don’t know,” Jisten said, “Perhaps we should send him another message.” It took him a few moments to write a note and set it on a lap desk for Jethain to sign.

Jethain lay back on his pillow and let a breath out. “When will I not be tired anymore?”

“Soon,” said Rak. He took the signed note, rolled it tightly, sealed it, and said, “Message.” He stroked the blue lizard that emerged from his hood. “To Forael, and no other, then back to me.” Trelo zoomed off with scroll clutched in his feet.

Jisten watched the whirring little wings with amazement.

“Mastigi have many uses,” Rak told him.

* * * * *

Too soon, an agitated Trelo zoomed back into the room, still clutching the message. He landed on Rak’s outstretched hand and clicked in distress.

“Forael is deeply asleep,” Rak said. “Or ill.”

Trelo clicked again. “You tried, you did well,” Rak crooned to the lizard and fed it bits of sausage.

“I’ve almost killed the archpriest,” Jethain said quietly. “Just like Father said.”

Jisten, still sitting on the bed next to Jethain, shook his head. “No, my prince.”

“I doubt that, he has healed worse,” said Rak. He wrote another note.

“Those patients were probably stronger,” Jethain said bitterly. “Not weak. Not fit for anything but an overdose of morphea.”

“Jethain, don’t say that,” Jisten said and patted the prince’s hand.

“Actually, I was nearly dead.”

Both men snapped their attention to Rak. “You, brother?”

“Oh, S’Rak, when was this?” Jisten asked.

“Go to Dethrian.” Rak sent Trelo whizzing back to the Sun Temple. “It was when Ylion Xaethien was archpriest over the Riverlands. Forael was a junior priest assigned to him.”

“And you were an unfortunate slave,” Jisten added.

“I was lucky compared to some. Nobody wastes morphea on a dying slave. Mercy doses are reserved for the wealthy.”

“I feel for those who were unlucky,” Jethain said. “But Forael was younger then. Now he is aged, and I’m draining him.”

“I would think that he is even more powerful now than he was then, and he is not that old. Xaethien drained twenty years of his life to feed himself.”

“That Ylion again? He