3: Black Blades by Ginn Hale Page B

should let him sleep as long as he needs.”
    How could they still not have noticed that he was looking at them? John frowned, and then realized that he couldn’t actually feel the muscles of his mouth move. He’d just thought of frowning, but his body had not responded.
    Dayyid asked, “Will you be keeping Ravishan as well?”
    “I might need him to bear another wound.”    
    “What about Ashid?” Dayyid’s tone softened. John followed Dayyid’s gaze to the misshapen body in the other bed.
    Hann’yu’s gentle smile faded. Dayyid closed his eyes, head bowed.
    “Does he know? Is he suffering?” Dayyid asked quietly.
    Hann’yu shook his head. “No, he won’t wake. Tomorrow he’ll be in better hands than mine.”
    Dayyid remained still and silent, gazing at the white blankets. Then he turned back to John.
    “See if you can get him on his feet soon.”           
    “I will,” Hann’yu replied, “but next time don’t knock him off his feet so hard.”
    “I know.” Dayyid started for the door. “But they have to learn somehow. The Fai’daum certainly aren’t going to show them any greater compassion.” He pulled the door open and disappeared into the dark hall outside. The door fell shut behind him.
    John wanted to sit up and say something, but he couldn’t seem to do it. He wasn’t even sure that his eyes were really open now. When he concentrated intently, he could feel his lids pressed closed. He had to be dreaming then. It wasn’t the first time that he had slipped into a dream that seemed so deeply real. Still, he found it strange that he would dream of this. Maybe he was catching snippets of some conversation around him and building these images. Even as he thought about it, the dream continued just as the real world would have.
    Hann’yu drifted past the row of beds to a heavy, carved table laden with dozens of smoked glass jars. Farther back, John thought he saw a wide shelf stacked with even more jars as well as several leather-bound books. Hann’yu took a pen and started writing something.
    “Do you think Jahn’s bones will pass?” Ravishan glanced back when he spoke to Hann’yu, but remained at John’s bedside.
    “I don’t think it matters.” Hann’yu didn’t look up from his work. “It’s not as if he could take your place. I think Fikiri’s the one you have to worry about.”
    “Fikiri’s too scared to even walk through a Gray Space.”
    “He broke a prophecy.” Hann’yu opened two of the jars and poured dark powders from them into a mortar. “Even the Issusha’im Oracles don’t know how he did it. You shouldn’t underestimate him.”
    Ravishan nodded and Hann’yu seemed to take this as the end of their conversation. He dropped some wilted clumps of leaves into his mortar.
    “Maybe,” Ravishan whispered, “it wasn’t Fikiri who broke it.” Ravishan’s warm hand brushed John’s forehead again. His fingers swept John’s hair back from his face. Then Ravishan lifted his hand away.
    The touch hadn’t been more than a moment of contact, but somehow it soothed John. It eased him to know that Ravishan watched over him. John slid into a deeper rest. His vision dulled to shadow, and for a time, he simply drifted in a mist of sleep.
    The next time an image opened up before him, John knew he was dreaming right away. He was moving up a white stone staircase, floating through heavy gold gilded doors and passing deep into forbidden chambers.
    The air around him roiled with the smell of burning ozone. Plumes of pale blue-toned smoke hung like the suspended letters of a script he couldn’t read. They twisted around him and broke apart as he swept through them. As he took in a breath, he felt an electrical sensation prickle his lungs.
    It drew him, though he felt a little afraid of it. He passed through the final door and stepped into a vast, circular room. The air inside crackled. Thick clouds of bluish smoke hid the ceiling. All along the curve of the