The Echidna's Scale (Alchemy's Apprentice) Read Online Free PDF Page B

offer comfort in the sound of its repeated prayers for healing and mercy.
    He fell asleep to the sound of Iasco’s voice offering ceaseless prayers, as he felt her hands grasp his golden fingers, and when he awoke in the morning the circumstances were the same, except for the weariness that had entered Iasco’s voice as it huskily continued to pray.
    He heard the door open, and the prayers stopped, then he was carrie d out and taken to the room where Glaze awaited him.
    “What did you do while I was gone?” Marco asked conversationally when his bearers had left the two men alone.
    “I went outside and looked at the stars from the balcony,” Glaze replied.  “Porenn was there and we talked for a long time.  She told me stories about when you came here before, and how angry all the women were.”
    “They were angry,” Marco admitted.  “I had to have a guard to protect me.”
    “Porenn said you killed someone,” Glaze commented in a low voice.
    “I did,” Marco said evenly, just before there was a knock on the door.
    “The lady Iasco has commanded us to work on the champion’s left leg today, to prepare him for tonight’s vigil,” a voice said, and Marco was summarily carried out of the room to another chamber, where he received hours of attention to one of his legs, as he was laid sometimes on his stomach and sometimes on his back, or on one side or the other, as the women did things that he did not feel to his leg.
    That night he was taken to the temple again.  “I am Electra,” said the woman who prayed over him that night as he lay and stared up at the hole in the dome above him.
    The next morning Glaze told him that he and Porenn had climbed around the mountaintop together while Marco had been prayed over.  Marco’s right leg was treated that day, and prayed over that night by Celaeno, and the pattern repeated itself for the next three days; a part of his body was treated each day, and then a different woman prayed a long, lonely vigil with him each night.
    After the sixth night of the prayers, Iasco came to see him in the morning.  “There will be no treatments today, but when you receive your prayer vigil tonight, you will be healed, and ready to move on,” she told him as she held his right hand.
                  “I wish you the best of luck, Marco,” she said with an intensity that he noted.
                  “Is everything going to be alright, my lady?” he asked.
    “I think so, Marco, but it will be a trial before we find out,” she answered reflectively.
    “Why?  What is it that worries you?” he asked.
    “The prophecy,” she began, then paused.  “You don’t need to worry about it right now; you just need to be healed,” she told him.  She straightened up.  “I will not see you again on this trip, I can tell you that.  So travel wisely and well, my young champion,” she gave his fingers a squeeze, then released them and left his room, leaving him to ponder the portentous tone of the conversation, and to feel an inexplicable sadness for Iasco.
    Late that afternoon, as sunset began to approach, Porenn led two other women into the room.  “I will be your intercessor tonight,” she explained, as the women picked up the stretcher Marco rested upon.  “Glaze, you will join us in the temple this evening, by the Lady Iasco’s command,” she added as she sensed the unrest of the other women at the insertion of the unnecessary man into their holy temple.
    That night the three of them heard the door shut, and then Porenn knelt by Marco, as she began her earnest recitation of the prayers that asked for miracles, healing, and salvation.
    Marco looked up at the stars, and observed them in the same locations they had occupied after sunset every night he had been in the temple, and he watched the infinitesimally slow rotation through which they wheeled out of the narrow scope of vision that the opening in the dome provided.
    There was a sudden shooting