Excerpt: Darvas

A minute or two passed without any word from the Speakers, as Darvas and one of the other candidates looked to them for directions. Finally, the other boy must have sent Knight Alithyel some private query, because he told them both, Abide a moment. We will call you when it is time, soon. Until then you are free to walk about, but do not go far.
Both obeyed the admonition, but while the other boy sat where he was, reading, Darvas ventured up to the mighty blue drake on whose back Healer Jannelle had flown to Nanthal. It still fretted at something behind its head, and as Darvas approached, he could see it was trying to lick a spot on its neck that was too far forward for it to reach. Cautiously, he approached closer, to within a man-height’s distance. The mind of the wyvern exuded pain and irritation. Walking up alongside its body, he scrutinized its scales, and saw one that was scored by a deep gash, about two fingerbreadths wide. The wound looked fresh; though the blood had clotted, the torn flesh was raw and there was a spatter of dried blood along the nearby scales, as if it had just spilled out. He reached out to the animal with his mind, a gentle coercion taking hold of it, soothing it with waves of calm. Its arching subsided, and the dangerous snapping of its jaws, but it continued to chuff. He wished he had enough of the mind-healing gift to ease its feelings of distress.
Darvas decided that if the drake hadn’t attacked him by now, it probably wouldn’t unless provoked. He wondered why Sarisse hadn’t noticed his coming over and realized that the wyvern’s body was blocking nearly everyone’s view of him. He probably had a few minutes while she watched the self-serving pupils of Master Norverin vie for supremacy. Reaching out to touch the wyvern’s scales lightly, he addressed it, willing it to understand that he meant it no harm.
Do not eat me if I heal you, he said.
In his father’s home, he had never healed any animal or person except Charger, a brown-black mastiff hound that still lived, nearly as old as Darvas himself. The hound had stepped on a splinter somewhere and was limping around, lifting his forepaw gingerly. Knowing that Father would just have his loutish assistant Ludo cut the splinter out with a knife, inflicting unnecessary pain and not a little damage on the poor beast, he took the paw in hand and after a few minutes, had the splinter out and the wound healed. Charger had not even needed a poultice, Father had never been the wiser… and Darvas had never been able to repeat the feat again, except for the burn mark on Knight Torval’s hand.
He tried to recall what he had done to heal it, but memory yielded no insight. He did not want to see what Healer Jannelle would say if she found him near her steed, nor Knight Alithyel and the rest; time was of the essence. Sighing, he closed his eyes and let his power slide over the creature’s body. His bare hand brushed its flank and he was surprised to feel that it was warm, just as the redness of its blood had seemed an oddity to him against its azure skin. No matter; he had only to will the flesh to knit and the wound to close, he told himself.
Remembering his success from an hour ago, he visualized his Fourth Gift as a deep green balm, pouring over the surface of the drake’s body, which shone dimly blue-green in the dark. The angry wound gaped before him, a fissure in the abundant earth, red with lava. He let the balm flow into this fissure like a quenching flood of cool sea water, feeling the violent reaction as they met, imagining that he could hear a hiss of steam. The wound pulsed red, then dimly brown, and finally faded to black, as the balm did its work and was absorbed. Now the black encrustation that caked the wound like a scab began to crack, as if Darvas was speeding time itself. A rush of exhilarating power struck him then. He wielded it, willed the healing to continue under the surface of the dark scab, new flesh forming as the dead flesh greyed and was absorbed into the scab. The scale itself began to knit, a fresh one growing as the molting process began, accelerated a myriadfold. Bright green cracks appeared under the dark shape of the scab: the gleam of sunlight through the veins on a new leaf. Now the dark gray scab fractured, thinned, and flaked away, its fragments blowing off like cold ashes. Now, at last, the true color of the scale broke through, brilliant as a cloudless sky by the light of day.
Darvas opened his eyes and saw that the final in his mind was real: the wound was completely healed. Even the old spatters of blood had been cleaned away by the process of healing that he had accelerated. The wyvern had not stirred in all this time, though he realized now that the sounds of water meeting fire that he had imagined were his mind’s interpretation of the strange keening sound it had made as his healing took hold. He backed away, stroking the animal’s mind with his reified thought, hightailing it back to the tent where Jannelle was still holding her trials.
Almost as quickly as his ability had come upon him, the recollection of the experience was fading. The surge of power, seemingly infinite in its intensity and extent, had given him a feeling of immortality, but now that it had passed, he felt drained and weak for the first time that day. A deep sense of loss weighed upon him, amplified by his growing awareness that it had been like this the other two times he had successfully used the healing gift. Was it ever to be thus? Could he be taught to use the Fourth Gift as any healer could, or was his life to be an unending series of disappointments punctuated by rare moments of sudden brilliance? A bitter irony, if so.