LAMENTATIONS 1:14

PANIC! No! He could not do it!

As the blade began to press deeper against Derry’s flesh, again drawing blood, his arms suddenly stiffened, bearing him up and to one side, away from the death he sought, to collapse into the straw. With an agonized moan, he wrenched the weapon from the floor and tried to slash it against his wrists, against his choking throat.

But it was no use. He could do nothing to injure himself. It was as though an unseen hand deflected every attempt, always guiding the blade to harmless destinations.

Wencit! Wencit had been right! Derry could not even kill himself!

Weeping uncontrollable tears of frustration, Derry flung himself onto his stomach and sobbed, his wounds burning with his exertion and his head ringing. The dagger was still in his hand, and he stabbed it hysterically into the straw-covered clay floor, again and again, until, after a while, the flailing ceased and the sobs subsided. Fading consciousness took with it some of the futility of his situation.

Once he thought he came to. Or perhaps he only dreamed it. He thought he had been asleep for only a few minutes when he became aware of a gentle touch on his shoulder—the tentative probe of a human hand.

He flinched and tensed, fearing that it was Wencit, come back to torment him, but the hand did not punish, and the pain did not come. When Derry finally gathered the courage to turn his head toward the intruder, he was astonished to see a gray-cowled stranger gazing down at him in concern. Somehow he was not afraid, though he knew he probably ought to be.

He started to open his mouth to speak, but the stranger shook his head and placed a cool, warning hand over his mouth. The stranger’s eyes glowed with a silver, smoky hue, a frosty light in the shadow of the monkish hood; and Derry had the impression of silvered-gold hair, that he had seen the face somewhere before, though he could not remember where. But then his vision blurred, and he began to drift again.

He became vaguely aware of the man’s hands gliding over his body, probing at his wounds, and of a lessening of the hurt from those wounds, but he could not seem to focus his eyes anymore. He felt the man’s touch on his right hand and thought he heard a sigh of dismay as the man lifted the hand to inspect something cold and silvery on the right forefinger; but he could not seem to move a muscle to resist.

He started to drift again as the stranger rose. He wondered idly if he was truly seeing a nimbus of light around the man’s head, or if he was only hallucinating. Somehow, even that did not seem to matter.

Then the man was backing toward the door, staring at him strangely. Derry had the distinct impression, as the door closed behind the gray-clad figure, that there was a touch of blue to the man’s apparel, that a darker countenance flickered beneath the façade of fairness. The thought crossed his mind that something very odd had just occurred, that there was something he ought to be able to deduce regarding what had just happened.