His father was strong, once. Maybe that's what attracted his mother to his father. And his Da had to be when his wife was admired by all the unattached men-folk of the village. And some of the attached ones too. It was only his father's strength that made the more daring refrain from doing anything.
So when the disease came and robbed his Da of all that, Rhodry's world fell apart. To see his mother broken by grief, to see the greedy stares of other men counting down the days, circling his family and waiting to go in and offer their condolences with an arm around her shoulder, a comforting touch. But that wasn't the worst of it. It was the smell of his father's emaciated body, the waste, the sores. He couldn't bear to be around him towards the end. This disease had robbed him of the last precious moments he should have been spending with his once proud father.
 
And so his father passed. After the appropriate length of time spent mourning, the predators moved in. To be fair, a widow living alone with a son to look after was not an easy life. It was just the way of things. Not that he understood that. Robbed of his father, it felt like he was now robbed of his mother too.
 
The night Rhodry left his home was a night he would never forget. His Ma was on her knees in front of the little altar above the hearth when Rhodry heard her crying. He couldn't hear what it was she was saying at first, until he crept closer. Then he heard something that horrified him. His mother, his beautiful Ma, was praying to be taken by the self same thing that had took his father! She still loved him, couldn't live without him and wanted to be with him. So young Rhodry ran to her, wrapped her up in his arms and tried to soothe her pain. He wouldn't let this happen, never let this happen too!
 
Woken by the noise, his step father stumbled into the room, bleary eyed and disheveled. Why was she keeping him from his sleep, he didn't like her face ruined by crying, why was the lad always interfering, why hadn't the lad been taken too!?
The slap her mother gave sounded like a beam breaking. His step father's face went red and he answered with a slap of his own that sent her reeling to the floor. Then he rounded upon Rhodry and the look in his eyes spoke of more than just anger. To his step father Rhodry was just boy. The boy. "GET OUT BOY! And don't ever come back!"
 
That night changed his life. Just like the night his father slipped away had. Hiding behind the village wood store, sniveling and snotty, shaking with grief again, he cried.
 
Rhodry wiped his nose on his sleeve and quickly rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his dirty hands as he noticed a shadow cast by the moon. He felt like it had been there for a while but he hadn't noticed it.
 
"What are you doing in the dirt boy? Why aren't you in bed?" The lady's voice wasn't kindly, neither was it curt or annoyed though.
 
"I...my ma...she.." He could hardly speak through gulps and sobs. "I can't go h-h-home." And he broke out in another fit of sobbing and shame.
 
"Hmm. I see. Well. I don't see the use of crying so you had better stop." Whoever this was didn't seem to care much. "Go home, it's dark."
 
"I CAN'T!" He managed to blurt out. "Bill Tanner said I was to go, my Ma wouldn't stop me and my Da..." The tears came again. He could feel his cheeks burning but he just couldn't stop himself. Why did his Da have to ever leave him?!
 
"Ah. You're that boy. Hmm. Lost your father." She seemed to peer through him with hawk-like eyes for a moment, rubbing her chin. "Can't have you loitering here. You look a mess. And you'd probably start stealing things." Who was she to speak to him like that? Didn't she know what he'd been through? "You can sleep in the shed. Keep your hands to yourself mind."
 
"I'm not a thief!" he cried defiantly.
 
"We will see. Follow me. And don't step on those," she pointed to a patch of some strange looking little white flowers, all closed up for the night. "They're more useful than you can guess."
 
And so he worked for this strange lady that lived all alone in her cabin near the woods. Most of the work seemed to be just doing chores though. But he paid extra attention when she did portion out small snippets of lore about plants and the like. Whatever he could learn about how to stop disease he would learn, committing it to memory with an almost comical look of concentration on his face.
 
The seasons passed, merging into routine. He saw his mother and stayed away from his step father, keeping both at a safe distance. Occasionally he would find a warm pie wrapped in cloth outside his window and he knew his Ma still cared for him.
Unlike the healer who had taken him in. She wasn't mean but it was almost like she couldn't show him any kindness. He felt like she kept herself closed up for some reason and any attempt to strike up conversation was quickly steered onto the subject of a particular plant's healing properties or a herb's usefulness during childbirth.
 
And then, one spring, disaster struck. It was the wasting disease again. Despite all his knowledge, despite all his efforts, he couldn't do anything to stop it settling over his teacher like a shroud.
Time marched on and her end grew nearer. He would hold her hand, tears springing surprisingly to his eyes as he watched this mean, cantankerous, wonderful and kindly woman slowly waste away. Just like his father. But try as he might, there was no knowledge that he had, no plants or herbs that could stem the inexorable tide of death.
 
"DAMMIT!" He slammed his fist down on the small three legged stool beside the bed, tears blurring his vision. "Not again," he whimpered.
 
Just then her eyes flickered open, slightly unfocused and cloudy.
 
"I'm sorry Brian, little one. I'm so, so sorry," she wheezed. What the heck? His name wasn't Brian and he certainly wasn't little anymore.
 
"Shush shush shush." He held onto her hand tighter. "I'm not going to leave you." Not like he left his Da at the end. Not this time. He picked up a cloth and dabbed at her forehead, wiping away the fever sweat.
 
"It's okay Brian, I see it but it won't hurt me much longer." She seemed to be looking through him, not focusing on his face. Then her eyes did seem to look at him, he could swear it.
 
"What is it Ma'am? I'm here." Why was he crying again?
 
"Goodbye....." she breathed as the last breath left her body.
 
It was after, whilst tidying up her effects that he found her battered notebook, hidden in a drawer in her room. He knew he had no business in prying but it didn't feel like trespassing when all he wanted to do was to know a little more about her, to find something to hold onto.
It was a diary of sorts, interspersed with delicate drawings of herbs and mosses. He read here and there enough to piece together a short map of her life. It was very vague and lacking in detail but what he discovered left him deeply moved and he found himself shedding tears like that small boy he had been, thrown out of his home all those years ago.
She had had a family. A husband and a son. There were little drawings of them and descriptions of everyday events. And so it went on until...until the fever came to her village. It had struck randomly but cruelly. Just like it had robbed him of his family, it had robbed her of hers. Her husband and her son. And there was not a single thing she could do about it.
Still, this felt like prying too much into a person's private grief so he turned the pages on towards the end.
And there! There were the drawings, of him....There he was. The moment that she had found him. Did I look like her son? Did I? It was hard to remember what he had looked like as a child but he supposed he bore a passing resemblance.
He put the book down, his hands shaking with....with swirling emotions. He picked it back up again and carefully turned the pages. But the drawings had stopped. There were no more of them past a few months of when he had moved into that shed behind the cabin. There were still sketches of plants, leaves and flowers and the like. But even those seemed perfunctory and lacking in any extra careful detail. It was if she had retreated, closed up, like a flower at night.
 
He think he understood, understood her a bit better now. Now that she was gone....This terrible fever had robbed so many people. And it had robbed him of the chance to thank her. IT WASN'T FAIR! Throwing the book onto the empty bed he grabbed fistfuls of his hair and stomped around the room. WHY WHY WHY!? People were cruel, the world was cruel, when sickness and suffering could rob you, destroy everything. He had kept on trying to stop it. Had done all he could to heal, to cure, to learn. But it still wasn't enough! Nothing was enough!
He reached up to the racks of dried herbs above his head and prepared to tear them all down...
 
The knock at the door of cabin broke him out of his rage. Gathering himself, he strode to the door, wiping down his face. Who on earth was this?
He yanked open the door angrily. "What do you w.....?"
A dirty little face looked up and started to crumple before him as tears began to flow down her face.
 
"I don't....I d...d..don't," the little girl managed between her sobs. "Please don't let my Da die," she blurted out.
 
His face instantly softened as he tried to swallow past the lump forming in his throat.
 
"Hey there, hey now. That's not going to happen now is it little one," he said, kneeling down in front of her, wiping her face. "Now let me grab my things and we can go to see your Da, alright?" He stood up and tried to put on his most kindly smile.
 
The little girl seemed to consider this and then nodded, sniffling slightly.
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I didn't save him.
 
I couldn't cure a single damned one of them in that village. In fact the only ones who did pull through were those I didn't even visit.
It was a hammer blow to the guts and I started to draw some downright bleak conclusions about that. And I wasn't the only one linking my visits to the fevers that followed.
Oh there was no outright hostility to me. It never did to annoy your village's healer. But there were looks and I was no longer called upon to people's homes so frequently. These people, good people, made me begin to feel unwelcome in my own village, my own home. Just like my step Da had.
Eventually I couldn't bear it. So I moved on. Took to the road and became the itinerant healer type. Offering my skills from village to village. Even stayed in a few for a season or so. But still my failures seemed to follow me, wherever I went. I could set bones, stitch up cuts but whenever the fever season came around a lot less people wanted to see me turn up.
 
I'd never drank much before. Not because it reminded me of my step Da or anything. I just had no time for it. Needed to keep a clear head and a sharp mind. But I'm not ashamed to admit I took to my cups more and more and more. Until that one time, when I went to sleep, I didn't really care if I woke up or not. It had been a particularly virulent fever season with numerous villages being affected and I had endured more than my fair share of closed doors and thin excuses. Apparently word had traveled far of my role as a harbinger of illness. So, basically I was feeling sorry for myself. And here I was in probably the poorest village, in the poorest inn, not caring. And so I slept.
 
"BEGONE," a rather disinterested, patrician like voice intoned.
 
"Huh?" I muttered. I had gone to sleep hadn't I? I mean I was sleeping, surely.
 
"Not you. That thing." The other...person pronounced, looking away at something else. Then I felt it regard me with a sheepishness that hinted it had not meant to have given away it's presence. "Oh...damn."
 
"Wha...what thing?" I felt my head turn round to look at whatever the 'thing' was.
 
And I SCREAMED!
 
Bolting upright in bed, twisted in sweaty blankets, I turned rapidly this way and that but couldn't see anything in the darkness of the cramped room.
Nightmares. Now I was having nightmares. What else could go wrong. Just then a huge yawn interrupted my thoughts and I was overcome with a heavy need to go back to sleep.
"Jush mornin' soons," I mumbled as I nestled back down. I think i heard myself snore before even drifting off. Sleep.
 
 
I had done it! I couldn't believe it! At a run down farmstead down the end of a dusty road a farmer and his wife had taken me in under their roof. And I had cured their daughter. Me. The person whose welcome had dwindled to a few desperate villages. I hadn't felt this energized, this happy for longer than I could remember. I fair near startled the goodwife when I came barrelling through their door, whooping like a madman, shouting for joy. Their daughter had made it through the night and there was even some colour to her cheeks.
I stayed with them for a few more days and sure enough their young girl was well on the way to recovery by the time I packed up to leave.
It was going to be a long journey. But now the skies seemed brighter, the days ahead more full of promise. And I had cured someone and word would spread. No more avoiding places that the shame of my failure made me avoid. I could now truly help and heal.
 
Next up...
 
War, churchmen, minor miracles.
Straying into war-touched lands. Healing, curing, rubbing up authority the wrong way.
Churchmen of Pholtus hear. Warned before they get to me to get out quick.
Healing, minor miracles, not affiliated to a church?! HERESEY!
 
Continue wandering.
 
Chased from a village by churchmen of Pholtus, cornered in a burning barn. Burning beams crashing down around me. Intense heat. Cowering in fear. Burning straw, panicked animals.
 
"It seems that we have a slight misunderstanding. Tell me, do you want to get out of here alive mortal? I have seen your works and they are, hmmm, endearing. I do not normally reveal myself. I have far more pressing matters to attend to you see. No, you wouldn't. That is by the by. Well, if you walk out of here alive will you do as I ask? Will you serve me? Do not answer this question lightly, I warn you. It could set you down a path that is dangerous. You will have to do what I tell you. Is that something that you could do mortal?"
 
"Who is this? What are you? And, can I get out of here alive?"
 
"I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!"
 
This was no time to mess around I felt. This was it. The point in my life where everything hung in the balance. Everything else around me seemed to fade into the background. I no longer felt the waves of heat or heard the cries of the animals. Silence.
 
"I just want to help people!" I implored.
 
"Oh, er. Is that a yes? I have to have a yes or a no you see. I'm sorry about that but it's very clear in the rules. SO?"
 
I didn't know if he was toying with me or just plain stupid. Scratch that. Never stupid. Well I felt the gravity of the situation even if no-one else did. My entire life from here on in felt balanced on a knife's edge. And yet it was so clear. It was almost funny it was so simple. Not withstanding the threat to my existence in that barn I knew what to do.
 
"Yes. I am merciful, just as the Sun of Mercy shines on me. I accept"
 
"What? How did you..? Well.... Mine eye is upon you. Now go. Get out of here. To Saltmarsh you must travel. And I mean MUST."
 
My head was spinning as the flames retreated. I was left wondering just what the heck had just happened. And yet a part of me, a very big part, knew. I just felt it, in my bones. I had been saved, removed and put aside from danger because I could help. I could help people, I wanted to help people. Saltmarsh eh? It was a long way and well, I had best get out of here.
 
Rhodry leaves The Keylands.
 
As the memories of that night in the burning barn fade the heat picks up from another direction.
Buoyed up by his new outlook on life Rhodry travels from village to village once again. Bones are mended, fevers cooled and word spreads of the good works of the travelling healer.
 
Normally his days would pass from one to the next quietly and slowly. However, Rhodry, normally not one to enjoy the praise and attention of others, instead enjoys and welcomes it. Soon word spreads before his arrival to a village of his coming, the minor miracle worker.
Well, this has not escaped the attention of others. Namely those jealous and suspicious of his building reputation. An unknown nobody, unaffiliated with any Church, gaining the support of the local populace. A threat to the stability of the current order no doubt.
Questions are asked, Rhodry's whereabouts are sought after. Warnings are given to Rhodry of men on the look out for one like him. Barely keeping ahead of the questioners, Rhodry also hears of common folk given beatings for professing ignorance of his movements. Fearing becoming cornered and sickened at the trouble he had brought upon innocent lives, he decides it is time to leave. Time to, well, why not go to Saltmarsh? Maybe the presence of the Church of Pholtus is not as strong there. Just thinking about their Inquisitors made his blood boil.
Maybe he should have left sooner.
Maybe, just maybe mind you, he hadn't experienced a mere dream that night of the fire. Things had definitely changed since that encounter with those thugs. For the better. But he had oft noticed that with those he treated. A close brush with death brought about a fresh outlook on life. A life born anew was seized upon with both hands. Hadn't he just experienced some form of this?
He quickly banished memories of having brought people back from the brink of death that he normally would have given up on with a quiet word and a solemn breath.
All this mooning around was getting him no-where. What would his teacher have said? "The one who stays the last is left for the frost". And he had no intention of freezing his behind off. He had a sudden hankering for a nice drink in a nice tavern. No no no no no. He had been down that route before. Alright then, just a good hearty meal. A pie, or a nice joint of mutton. And gravy....
All he had to do was keep his head down and find passage on a ship. Maybe they needed a ship's doctor? If all went wrong he could see himself on the waves, tending to the needs of a crew. There'd be all manner of bumps, scrapes, bruises and broken bones to mend. Just then he had a twinge from a headache that had been bothering him off and on now.
But no. He had to get to Saltmarsh. Because...well. Hmm. He had had a dream right? Just a dream.
It was just then that the sun decided to make an appearance from behind the day's clouds. Shading his eyes with his hand he grasped his walking staff with his other and set off along the road.
Peculiar things, dreams.