wagner

The Herbs Of Andali

Every step he took was blocked. Leaves and branches had overtaken the small path that once ran through the woods—he could barely see the dirt line that led to his destination. The young man running increased his speed as the path took a turn uphill. Through the green obstructions to his eyesight, he could barely see the mountain where he was headed. His brown robes were torn in several spots from being caught on branches as he ran as fast as he could.

“Not that much farther,” he said to himself, panting. He kept pace and forced himself to go on. The memory of the temple pushed him.

“You're new here, Eudelis.” the priest had said to him earlier that morning. “You might not be all that prepared for what you're about to see.”

“I'll do my best, father,” the young man responded. He stood up straight in his brown robes, looking at his superior. The priest was older, wearing robes of blue and gold with long rows of beads around his neck. While his cloths were new, his skin looked pale and faded as if something other than age had been draining him.

“It's been spreading throughout all the surrounding villages,” he said leading his young companion down a hallway inside the stone-carved temple walls. “No one knows how it started, but it's very contagious.”

“Then how are we supposed to treat it?”

“The assistants wear enough clothing so they don't actually touch those who are sick. So far, there have only been two workers who have shown symptoms.” The pair came to a large door at the end of the hall. “Again, this isn't a pretty sight,” the priest warned before opening the latch. Eudelis followed his teacher to a balcony that overlooked a large chamber. Large statues lined the walls and tapestries hung from the Alter at the other end. Concentrated in groups in the center, hoards of people laid across makeshift beds of hay and straw. Some had blankets, some didn't. All of them had a shade of skin two or three tones darker than normal, spotted with red and purple pimples. Many of them groaned in a mix of pain or delirium. Dozens of lurching figures wearing hooded temple robes tended to the hundreds of patients. Some carried small buckets and sprinkled bits of water onto the sick while others knelt before the Alter or their patients, hands in the air, reciting prayers and begging for pardons from the divine on behalf of the ill.

“Oh my God,” Eudelis muttered.

“Quite a sight isn't it?” the priest asked leading his pupil down the stairs at the edge of the balcony. “More come in every day.”

“What is that they're doing over there?”

“What?”

“With the water?”

“That's the remedy for the disease,” the holy man said as they reached the ground level. He walked over to a table and grabbed one of the small buckets to hand to his follower.

“Holy water?” Eudelis asked taking the bucket.

“It's not just holy water,” the priest replied. “It's water from the holy river—the river of the great statue.”

Eudelis nodded. “Yes, the river where the Gods dropped the idol of their image and the early hunters found it and learned of the power.”

The priest nodded. “But there's a herbal remedy to it too, and—”

“Father!” a voice yelled from behind. The pair turned to see a white robbed cleric standing in front of a storage room.

“What is it Leucon?”

“We have a problem, come here!”

The holy man sighed and turned to Eudelis. “There are thicker robes for you hanging at the end of the hall. Get to work and I'll be back to tell you more.”

“As you wish, sir,” Eudelis said, holding the bucket. He watched as the priest followed the cleric into the room, they closed the door behind them. As he walked towards the robe rack he saw two of his fellow servants carrying a wooden plank, with a long, wide, white cloth covering the cargo they were moving.

“What happened?” Eudelis asked the servant closest to him.

“We lost another one,” the low voice replied as he kept walking.

“That's the fourth one today!” the second servant added.

“My God,” Eudelis sighed. “Have there been any improvements so far?”

“No,” the first servant said plainly. The two started walking again, carrying their load out the back door.

Eudelis now fully hooded and robed, stood in front of a middle-aged woman. She was on her back, spread across a wooden table and riddled with red spots. He cleaned the dirt from her with a wet cloth, muttering prayers under his breath as he worked. She was moaning.

“Eudelis!” a voice yelled from the edge of the large room. The diligent worker turned to see the man who called the priest away earlier.

“What?” he replied.

“We need to see you for a moment, it's important.”

Eudelis nodded and put down his rag, assuring the woman he would be back shortly before walking to the doorway where Leucon stood. He followed him through the doorway and down a small flight of stairs to where the priest was standing by a large black cauldron.

“There's been a problem,” the holy man stated.

“What's wrong?” Eudelis asked earnestly.

“There's been a fire in the storage room.”

“Almost all of the herbs have been burned!” Leucon exclaimed.

“What herbs?” Eudelis inquired.

“Like I was telling you just before,” the priest replied. “The water we use on the patients, it's not just holy water. The water is mixed with a special herbal remedy.” He held up a bundle of green leaves. “The herbs of Andali.”

“They grow at only one point in the forest, next to a hidden relic of the deity Andali,” Leucon added.

“A relic like the statue in the cave?” the servant asked.

The priest nodded. “A villager north of here found the relic and the herbs deep in the woods. He brought some back to his village and used them to help heal a few of his infected relatives. Afterwards, he came and told us where he'd found them.”

“So, you've been combining the power from the two holy relics?” Eudelis asked.

The priest nodded. “I'm going to give you directions, and we need you to go to the relic and bring back as many herbs as you can.”

The memory had kept the young servant moving, but after running for more than an hour he had to stop to catch his breath. Leaning forward, hands on his knees, he looked through the trees in every direction. “I hope I'm going the right way,” he mumbled to himself. As he stood up straight again he heard a rustling to his left. He turned to see a man heading in his direction. He was tall, middle-aged, wearing black clothing.

“Hey mister!” the man yelled as he came closer. “Hey, you work at the temple, right? Have you got a minute?”

Eudelis brushed off his clothing. “Sorry, I really don't right now,” he started moving again, leaving the man in the small clearing behind him. Without stopping for another break he moved towards the landmark that the priest had told him about. The small hillside became clearer the closer he came. It wasn't long before he could see the large stone head he had been searching for. Growing all around it at the base were the same herbs the priest had shown him in the temple chamber.

Without hesitation he ran towards the relic, leaned down before it and started gathering as much of the herbs into his bag as he could. He smiled as his bag grew fuller. Then there was a rush of wind behind his head, and he saw nothing at all.

Eudelis opened his eyes feeling a sharp pain on the back of his head shortly after. He moaned as he sat up, observing the dark room he was in. There was nothing in it but the bed he occupied and an opened door before him. His hand found its way to the back of his head as he noticed his bag was gone.

“What the heck?” he asked standing up, making his way to the open door before him. Looking into the main room, he saw large tables covered with glass cylinders and tubes. Most of them contain some kind of liquid, and a few of them sat bubbling over fire.

“You're awake,” someone said. Eudelis turned to see a tall man wearing all black.

“You?” the temple servant asked. “Did you hit me?”

The man nodded. “I'm Ulrich,” he said holding out his hand. Eudelis made no motion to take it. “I'm sorry about bringing you here, but it didn't look like I was going to get your attention any other way.” He headed over to one of his tables, grabbing Eudelis's bag, rummaging through it and taking some of the plant leaves.

“Hey, give that back!” Eudelis yelled.

“It's yours, just like it always was,” Ulrich said putting it down. Eudelis walked towards it and picked it up as Ulrich made his way for a doorway at the end of the room.

“What are you doing?” the temple worker asked as he followed. When he came to the doorway he saw Ulrich kneeling at a bedside next to a woman lying under the covers. Her face was riddled with red and purple marks, all of which Ulrich was rubbing with the herbs he took from the bag.

“You know, you haven't told me your name,” Ulrich said.

“Eudelis.”

“Well, Eudelis, this is my sister, Anya. As you can tell, she's sick.”

“That's what you needed back there, the herb? Why didn't you just go to the temple?”

Ulrich sighed as he stood up. “Have you seen anyone come out of the temple any better than when they went in?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come with me,” Ulrich said leading the temple worker back to the main room. “What exactly do you do at the temple, Eudelis?”

“I'm just a worker. I treat those who come in that are sick.”

“And you go and fetch the herbs from the forest?”

Eudelis nodded. “And what do you do?”

Ulrich took another leaf from the table and put it inside one of the glass containers. “I live mostly away from civilization, but if you had to label me with an occupation, I guess you could call me a chemist of sorts.”

Eudelis recalled what he'd heard of chemists at the temples. “You mean black magic?”

Ulrich smiled. “No, mostly just the type of magic that figures out what herbs and spices go well with specific types of foods, and which ones don't. And I want to show you something,” he took two stones from the table and clapped them against each other, creating a spark that lit the wood and leaves assembled under the glass where the herb sat. Within a minute, as the flame burned, the herb started to deteriorate, creating a gaseous substance that rose to the top of the vile. “You see that?”

Eudelis nodded. “What is it?”

“In a word, poison.”

“What?”

Ulrich motioned for his guest to follow him back to his sister's room. When they got there, Eudelis saw the red and purple spots on her face were foaming, and a few were already starting to shrink.

“Look at that!” Eudelis said. “She's already getting better!”

Ulrich nodded. “I'm sure you've heard that this herb had healing powers.”

“That's what the priest told me.”

“Once I saw my sister contracting the symptoms, I went to the northern village. I found the man who discovered the herbs and realized that there was some truth behind the story. He gave me a sample of the herb to give to my sister. But when I heard that no one from the temple was getting any better, I tested the herb on a sick pig of ours. He got worse, and died that night. After that, I did some investigating with what I had left. It turns out that this plant is beneficial when absorbed in whole through the sores, but ingested through the mouth...well…not so beneficial.”

“But they don't eat it at the temple…” Eudelis thought for a moment. “Is that gaseous substance just as deadly inhaled as it would be ingested?”

“Even more so, the gas is the poison in its purest form.”

“In the temple, they combine the herb with the holy water.”

“Well that wouldn't be too dangerous…unless…do they melt it in with boiling water?”

Eudelis nodded. “And then we sprinkle it onto the sick.”

Ulrich looked at the worker. “The water probably slows it, but over time they must be ingesting it little by little.”

“That's why it doesn't hurt the workers. They're never exposed to enough of it at one time.”

“And that's why I brought you here. I wanted to show you all this before you brought all those herbs back to the temple. I figured maybe you could use what I discovered out here to do some good.”

It wasn't long until Eudelis found himself heading back down the forest path towards the temple. An hour later he walked through the cauldron room where the priest stood before a small supply of the herbs. He was even paler than Eudelis remembered.

“Eudelis!” the priest exclaimed. “Thank God, we were starting to get worried! What happened?”

“I got side tracked in the forest, Father. A man needed my help to heal his sister.”

“Well, we could have used those herbs here earlier. I had to send someone else for them when you didn't come back. We had some developments after you left. The patients weren't getting much better, but they stopped getting worse thanks to our efforts.” The holy man grabbed the bag from Eudelis, and sorting the herbs onto a table.

“Father, you need to stop administering the herb the way you're doing it.”

“What are you talking about?”

Eudelis started to explain.

The sun had started setting—it shone slightly over the top of the temple. After a short while had passed, Eudelis could be seen from the bushes where Ulrich was waiting. The servant no longer wore his robes.

“So what happened?” Ulrich asked.

“They didn't believe me.”

“Why not?”

“Because they're so convinced that they're doing the right thing. Apparently after I left the people started getting better, and they are convinced it was because of the treatment they were giving. They don't realize that the improvement was thanks to the fact they were no longer being exposed to the poison. And the priest…well, he seems more willing to die believing in the power of the relics, than live believing in the results of your black magic.”

“I guess there is no way to get through to them.”

“As far as they think, they're saving these peoples' lives.”

Ulrich nodded. “How many lives do you think it will take for them to know the truth?”

Eudelis sighed and gave no reply.