The Harbinger

[Kylerryth]

There was warmth, soft warmth. Coran did not know where it came from or what it was; it simply was. This disturbed him slightly, but not enough to pierce the veil of deep sleep covering him.

... and he fell, and there was the cold, sodden earth; and there was a splash, yes, he felt a great explosion of water all round him, felt it fall down again and upon him like raindrops. He briefly tasted the water, the ground beneath; both were muddy, viscous -- not at all pleasant. And then there was nothing.

"Is he even alive?" A woman's voice. Dry but smooth, filled with worry -- she saw the tall young man, the miracle worker, and she could do aught else but worry. He was so still...

"Yes, woman! Yes!" A man's voice. Whispered, fierce, urgent, obviously not wanting to make any unnecessary noise. No worry there, or if there was it was very faint, very well concealed. "I felt his neck and wrist! He's got a beat! A strong one, too! Settle yourself down and eat. Worrying 'bout him won't do no good. We just have to let him rest."

Awareness. Not completely awake, but nevertheless aware. And right now he felt hands, a number of them, strong and callused hands holding him by the wrists and ankles, a few more under his back. They were carrying him. Where? Where were they going? What were they going to do with him? No. It could not be allowed. They had to be stopped; they were going to harm him. He attempted to struggle, to free himself -- to no avail. He was too weak, they too strong; when he tried to move against them they only tightened their hands, and that was that. Much too weak. Light, where were they taking him? For that matter, how long had he been out?

"Bring him here, boys! There's room at my house! The missus will just have to sew somewhere 'sides the sofa!" Laughter. Cheerful and fearful all at once.

It was then that he realized their hands trembled even while they bore him.

Darkness.

Light.

Coran opened his eyes -- slowly, so they could adjust to the level of light. There wasn't a great amount of it in the house, but one's eyes were often sensitive after being closed to aught but darkness for long periods of time. Thus, when they had adjusted, Coran looked around in silent wonder and fear.

A fire. He smiled and closed his eyes again, though only briefly. Coran could feel -- and he cherished this, too -- its golden-orange kisses moving over his face, the ambient heat spreading over him like a blanket. And speaking of a blanket, he had one woven of thick and heavy wool covering him, slightly frayed at the edges and smelling of age -- it had likely been kept in a closet until he had been carried in here. Coran moved his fingers over it, admiring the simplicity of the work. It reminded him of home, but he didn't let his thoughts remain there too long. Too depressing. And a sofa -- yes, that's what the man had said and that's what they had lain him upon. He shifted, shutting his eyes once more and savoring the waves of comfort that rolled through him, ignoring the conflicting waves of pain flowing abreast the former.

"Did you hear that? He moved!" The woman again.

"Galine, be quiet! We don't want to dis--"

"Drink," Coran croaked, interrupting. He didn't care.

Immediately there was the scrape of chair legs across a floor, two pairs of feet slapping as they crossed whatever distance lay twixt him and them. Coran opened his eyes only to see two faces above him: the man was an older gentleman with a craggy tanned face and a full head of graying hair, tinges of its original brown visible here and there, and he wore simple wool garments; the woman wore the same sort of garb, but her hair was still fully brown and done up in a bun, and her face was only lightly touched by age -- she had the sort of face people would recognize as motherly, pretty but not beautiful, amazing and wondrous in its own plain ways. They both looked at him as if studying some rare, exotic animal from afar, their curiosity and fear entwined, palpable.

Then the woman -- Galine, he remembered -- Galine slowly raised her hand to his brow and felt it. "He's got no fever," she murmured, "and far as I can tell he's not sick, not in the slightest." Her earlier worry was gone, replaced suddenly with gentle care and the utmost confidence in her abilities to determine his health. I was right to think of her was motherly, Coran thought.

"Drink," Coran repeated.

"Galine," the man said reproachfully, "don't worry 'bout that now. Just go get him some water."

"No!" Coran said loudly, though his throat was raw, parched. He grimaced faintly. Raising his voice had hurt. "No water. Have ... had enough water ... for a lifetime."

The man and woman looked at each other, then him -- and then they laughed, quietly and warmly. Coran didn't understand at first, but when he thought it over all he could do was laugh with them. Briefly. Laughing hurt, too. Light, where was he? Well, why not ask?

"Where...?" Coran began, but the man cut him off. The woman moved off towards ... wherever their kitchen was, he supposed -- he couldn't see over the back of the couch.

"You're in my house," John said, making a broad gesture to indicate it and everything inside, "little less than a mile from the edge of town where the boys picked you up. I'm John Drake, and she's my wife Galine. Our house wasn't too badly touched by the rains -- nor anything else, the Lord be praised -- so we took you in, 'cause we knew we'd be able to help you and to keep you warm." He smiled. "We tried to get you to take some food, but you were stone cold out. All we could get into you was some chicken broth." John took a kerchief from one of his pockets and wiped his brow. He went on while tucking it away again. "Truth be told, son, we thought you were dead. When they found you, you weren't moving, you weren't responding to anything -- it was as if the flame of life inside you had been snuffed out."

Coran went cold. Too close, he thought. Too close to the truth.

Wait ... can I even channel now?

John kept talking, but Coran listened with only half an ear. Now, now Coran was focused on something else. Saidin. The male half of the True Source, bringer of ice and fire and golden glory, carrier of the taint -- all those and more, so very much more, because for Coran the seizure of the One Power, the act of wrestling it into control and then forcing it to obey, that was life, that is what let him know he was alive. The struggle, the eternal battle for not only control, but for sanity, for himself. However much life he derived from it, though, was indubitably matched by the amount of madness wrought into the taint -- and not just madness but madness and decay, and eventually death. Whether he destroyed himself, simply died, or was killed by another didn't matter. That was always the cycle: life, then madness, then decay, and then death. It never changed, never deviated. The only difference from man to man was how long it took for them to be affected.

How long it took, Coran believed, for them to forsake hope and the struggle, for them to embrace the taint as part of the whole rather than a separate entity -- a parasite, a poison, the most dangerous sort he knew of.

And there it was, the golden glow just beyond the edge of sight, perceived but never truly seen. Just to be sure, to be safe, Coran reached out for saidin ... and the One Power filled him, waves of frozen fire and burning ice coursing through his veins as surely as his blood, golden glory suffusing with every fiber of his being, blackest death warping his soul at its core. Coran could hear the crackle of each and every flame, the nearing footsteps of someone who could only be Galine, the faint sighing of the wind beyond the windows; Coran could make out the details of every log in the hearth, the individual ashes, and he could see infinitesimal cracks in the stone and in the wooden floor; and he could smell myriad things, from the tinge of wood smoke to the food John and Galine had abandoned to John and Galine themselves, and so much more. Yes, this was life, these sharp and vivid colors and smells and sounds -- what he knew to be normal he also knew to be dull.

Coran could not experience the joy he knew he was feeling, was even only vaguely aware of the tears streaming down his face.

He could still channel.

[Kylerryth]

"Son! What's wrong? What's the matter?"

John. John was holding his shoulders, the man's callused hands possessing a surprisingly gentle grip. Galine had returned, too; she stood slightly behind her husband, a tray with three glasses on it in her hands, fear in her eyes. Coran released saidin and then replied. "Nothing's wrong ... just ... happy to be alive."

John and Galine breathed a sigh of relief together, and his hands drew away. "Oh, thank the Lord. For a moment, I thought you were about to leave us." He motioned at Galine. "Bring the drinks here, Galine. Glad you thought of more than one. He may be real thirsty, what with how bloody big he is."

"John, don't use such language," Galine reprimanded quietly, but she did as instructed. Coran lifted his hands from underneath the blanket to take the glass she offered and drank deeply. Milk, slightly warm. Definitely a mother. Where are your children, Galine?

They were watching him drink. Coran lowered the glass and blinked at both of them, then asked, "What is it?" His voice was steadier now, and his throat didn't quite hurt so much.

"You..." they said simultaneously, only to stop at look at each other for a moment, communicating without words the way married couples do. Then they broke their gazes away and Galine spoke while John took the tray from her and set it on a table that was out of sight.

"You worked some kind of miracle out there," Galine said, smoothing her skirt absently. If she was nervous, she hid it well. "John and I'd heard the Guardsman yelling about the flood, so we ran out -- but we ran down the road rather than up, to gather up everyone we could and get them out of here. It was hard, at best, but when we heard the wall creaking and groaning like it was...” She paused to shiver, and Coran could see it was out of actual remembrance of fear, not some dramatic accent. She went on. "Then we saw you. You appeared out of nowhere it seemed -- one moment there was nothing, then a misty sort of doorway, and when it closed you were standing there, unbelievably tall and unbelievably dry. The rain did not touch you; we could see it falling off of you in shimmering waves. For a moment all we could do was stare ... but in that moment the wall broke, the flood came through, and we all screamed, we all knew we were doomed."

"Until you worked your miracle, that is," John continued. "I was clutching Galine, so very afraid to let go -- I thought, 'Lord, if this is where we're going to die, at least we'll die together!' -- and then ... then you lifted your hands, son, and I could not believe what I was seeing."

"We saw the flood suddenly moving straight instead of in a ... well, in a flood," Galine said, picking up from where her husband left off. "It was as though a huge hand had wrapped around the waters, directing them ever forward. And then another doorway opened, larger than the last, and of all things we could see what lay beyond the mist. The last had been nearly a mirror image of the road, we figured -- you must've just come from down the way or something. But this ... this was the ocean." She trembled slightly, her hands fidgeting at her skirt -- she was nervous and fearful, but still in awe. "This was rich blue summer sky filled with puffy white clouds. We could even see the sun's light pouring round the edges of the doorway. It was beautiful, wondrous and beautiful, a slightly obscured view into Heaven itself."

"Then," John said, giving Galine a moment to collect herself, "then we saw you emptying the flood into the doorway. Into the ocean! Everybody was frozen. We didn't even care about the rain, or that monster, or anything else -- you were there, son, our Savior, taking the floodwaters in hand and directing them elsewhere, protecting your people--"

"Wait, wait," Coran interrupted, lowering the glass from his lips again. "Your Savior? Protecting my people? What are you talking about?"

"You're a miracle-worker, son," John replied. "You're sent from God Himself, a Prophet, quite possibly even one of His Chosen -- an angel, you know. We don't know what you are, but we know what you did, and your actions spoke volumes to all of us."

"'All of us'?"

"Yes, all of us," Galina answered. "Not just the two of us, no, but everyone else who saw you as well. And they have gone to spread the word of your work, of how it is a sign that God truly does exist. It's a blessing, a miracle as John has said, and a sign of the greatness and goodness the Inquisition will bring to Myrkentown. You are their harbinger -- the harbinger, I should say, of the changing times. You and your miracle have sparked hope, and soon it will become a glorious blaze."

"There are some dissenters," John admitted reluctantly. "They say you yourself saved the town, rather than by God's will. That you're a good-hearted mage of some kind, and you used your powers to do what I've already gone over and don't need to again. I'm sure you remember all of it anyway. But that's rubbish, in my opinion. What mage would save us? I'm guessing a mage caused this weather!" John's voice grew vehement. "Unnatural! Evil! No, son, mark my words: no mage would save us. I think he'd conjure up more water and drown all of us. This was His work, God allowing you to perform a miracle or performing it through you. Nothing else."

Coran didn't know what to say to all of this. It was making him slightly dizzy, his weary brain taking in too much information all at once. He drained what milk remained in the glass and gave it to Galine. She took it wordlessly and set it on the tray with the others, then went back to watching him.

"What is it you want from me?" he finally asked.