TANNARA YOUNG - BLACKFOIL

Tannara Young writes fantasy fiction and articles on the genre. She lives on the central California coast, and the woods, waters and mountains of her home inspire her imagination. When she is not writing, she loves hiking in the redwoods, which offers long, quiet spaces for cultivating stories. Please come and visit her at tannarayoung.com.

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​BLACKFOIL
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​Marina slid the tincture bottles into her traveling kit. Packets of feverfew and yarrow lay on the table beside it. Across from her, Janna Colesway, Master Healer of Tirlew Keep and the surrounding town, folded her arms, leaning her hip on the table.
“You’re going to destroy your reputation. I thought you had better sense,” she said.
“We both took an oath to the Healer’s Guild – you know why I am going.” Marina didn’t like Janna very much personally, but she respected her skill as a healer.
Janna’s eyes narrowed. “The Bog Men are no better than layabouts and horse-thieves.”
Marina tried logic. “If this outbreak of the Bog-Fever spreads to the town or the Keep, it could be deadly. Better we stop it before it spreads.”
“Better we should turn the Bog-Men out of town,” Janna scowled. “Let them treat themselves with dirty water and bog-grass.” As Marina snapped her case shut, Janna straightened. “If you walk out that door, don’t expect to come back. If you choose the Boggies over respectable folks, you might as well stay with them.”
Marina stared at her. It really wasn’t up to Jenna to decide; the Guild had sent her and the Guild paid both their wages. But would she want to come back to this?
“Fine,” she said. In light of Jenna’s decree she detoured to her sleeping alcove and stuffed a few trinkets, extra clothes and her precious herbal into a pack. She tucked her brown braid under a hat, grabbed her cloak and left without looking back.
The village streets were empty; the crowd that had gathered to taunt the Bog-Man had dispersed. Marina slipped around the grange hall to the shed that was used as a rustic gaol. Usually it only housed the occasional rowdy drunk.
She expected to have to bribe the guard, but evidently the mob who had thrown the stranger there hadn’t thought it necessary to keep a watch. The door was stout and well fitted and the bar across the outside sturdy: still it was the work of a few moments to lift it aside and open the door.
The prisoner stood just inside, tense and wary. A tear in his threadbare linen shirt revealed dark bruises down his side. A trickle of blood from his nose had dried in a dark streak. His eyes were brown like her own, but much darker, and his hair was black against coppery skin. Even with her skin brown from the summer sun, his was several shades darker.
She tried for a reassuring smile. “I am Marina. I’m Guild Healer. I know you came looking for medicine for the Bog-Fever. I want to help.”
He flicked a glance behind her, braced for a trick – mockery or more blows. Marina stepped aside so he could see that there was no one there.
“You want to help?” he asked, looking back at her. He had a faint accent – lengthened vowels and thickened consonants. “You must be new here. Your people do not help the Uselda.”
“The Uselda?” Marina asked.
“The People of the Marsh, whom you call Bog-Men.” He drew himself up proudly. “We lived in the marsh before the Men of the North came down with their swords and their horses. We lived there before the Ocilla of the South came with their spears and their stone roads. The North and South mingle in the fields, but in the marshes the Uselda keep to the old ways.”
Marina stared, startled by the condensation of thousands of years of history into his brief statement. After a moment, she said, “Well, I swore to help any who need my services.”
“It will not please the people here. They call us thieves and liars.”
 “I am not from here and I have yet to see any evidence of what they accuse you of.”
He cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowed, considering her.
“I have meadowsweet, peppermint, feverfew, yarrow and foxfinger in my kit,” she said.
He hesitated a moment longer, then said, “I came to buy the foxfinger.”
Marina tightened her lips. “I understand that you have little reason to trust me, but I assure you that I am serious. I have taken an oath to heal where I am needed, I will not break that oath because of a local prejudice.”
He considered and then he bowed in a formal gesture. “I am Córris. I accept your offer.”
They left the town by the river path, avoiding the few people who were out. Most were at the midday meal and they were able to leave unmolested by suspicious villagers.
Córris led the way, pushing past thick shrubs until he reached the gravely river bank. She glanced around, wondering where they could go from there – the river stretched wide: green under the shade of the trees and glinting golden-brown under the sun. Before she could ask, Córris pulled a roll of thick leather and a round wooden frame from the willows beside the bank. With quick motions he bound the leather to the frame and flipped the whole contraption over. He set the coracle in the shallows of the river and held out his hand to her to help her board.
She looked at the tiny, flimsy boat in dismay, and then met Córris eyes. The set of his mouth was impassive, but the tilt of his eyebrow held a hint of mockery. She swallowed and allowed him to help her sit on the plank laid across the width of the boat. He took up a paddle which had lain at the center of the leather bundle and shoved at the shallow bank. With a spin they glided out into the current of the river.
The banks grew thick with purple and gold iris and the river ran lazily between them. Beyond a curving green wall of willow, Marina saw the stretching blue of Lake Eelswell.
“When was your village stricken with the Fever?” Marina asked after a long silence.
Córris glanced at her. “Twelve days saw the first sicken, but it has spread quickly. Seven died already and more are close. We have used our supply of foxfinger and the onsela, our healer is stricken with the fever and cannot prepare more.”
“How many are sick?”
“There are fifty-three. That is a third of our village – we are very worried.”
Marina pressed her hand to his arm. “I will help, Córiss. I am a very good healer.”
Their boat wound through tickets of reeds, where jeweled dragonflies hovered over the still green water. Then they entered into twisting channels between tufts of sedge grass and stands of willow and alder. Water-lilies floated serenely in the larger pools. Birds drifted over them or stood long-legged in the shallows, supremely unconcerned by the silent coracle slipping past. Marina slowly sank into the great hush that underlay their soft calls.
She slipped into a reverie where, through half-closed eyes, a pale light edged everything around them. Green-gold shot through the reeds and willows, and the lilies each held a flicker of fire. However, when she glanced at Córiss she started. She could see a rosy-golden glow about him – strong and vital. She stared eyes wide.
“What is wrong?” he asked, noticing her look.
She shut her eyes and opened them again. The strange light had vanished. She took a breath. “Nothing’s wrong, I was sun-dazzled for a moment.”
He frowned. “We are nearly there.”
Shortly, they passed a small island with a copse of willows at one end. As they rounded the green trailing branches, Mariana saw the Uselda village.
It rose from the marsh itself: an erratic network of houses joined by rope and plank bridges. Some were built on small islands, but most were built on platforms that stood on pilings or floated, raft-like, on the shallow water. They headed for the largest island that had two buildings on it: a hall made of wooden planks with a thatched roof and a small stone cottage skirted by a garden of herbs and flowers. Córris raised his hands and gave a hooting cry.  He steered toward the dock. The door to the hall opened and a woman stepped out, a man peering over her shoulder. Córris called out to them in a liquid tongue, the only word of which Marina understood was “Marina.” She stared at him in astonishment. It had not occurred to her that the Usleda would speak a different language.
At his words, the man in the door of the hall started forward, his face brightening with hope, but the woman frowned darkly and spat a series of questions at Córiss. He responded, but his words brought little change to her expression.
She looked at Marina and spoke with a strong accent: “You be foolish to come, healer. Your people be not pleased.”
Marina’s chin came up. “If your need was great enough need to send Córiss to Tirlew, knowing how they would treat him, than you should not dismiss my help. I am a Guild Healer and the oath I took does not preclude the Uselda because the people of Tirlew dislike them.”
The woman studied her for a moment, said something to Córiss and turned back to the hall. He lithely disembarked, and then he held out his hand to assist Marina.
“What did she say?” Marina asked.
He smiled with a brief flash of white teeth. “Aline said ‘If she be foolish, it is her affair.’”
The hall had been turned into a makeshift hospital. Despite the rustic conditions, the room was clean and well aired, though heavy with the scents of sickness. Marina was dismayed at how many pallets lay on the floor. Men and women, silver-haired elders and babes-in-arms lay there. The woman said something to Córiss as they entered, and he nodded.
 “I will take you to the onsela, Faela” he said. “Aline tells me she does very poorly.”
He led her out and across the stream into the stone hut. Inside the wooden furniture was carved with leaves and flowers, roots and birds. Arched windows, glazed with thick, rippled glass let the light stream in. Wall shelves held tidy jars, and bunches of herbs hung from the rafters, filling the air with a spicy fragrance. A boy of fourteen carefully poured hot liquid into earthenware cups set on a tray. He looked up as Marina entered. She could see the dark circles under his eyes. Córiss, coming in behind her, spoke to him. To Marina he said, “This is Parrin, our healer’s apprentice.” Then he asked the boy, “How is Faela?”
Parrin looked at Marina and answered carefully. “She be worser, Córris. We gave her gigala but it will not work.”
 “Gigala is what you call ‘foxfinger.’” Córris told Marina. He led her to the back of the room where an old woman lay, still and quiet, her copper skin ashen and her breath barely visible.
Marina pressed her fingers to the base of the woman’s throat; her pulse was erratic as the fever burned at her heart.
She looked at the young apprentice who stood near. “Her heart struggles,” she said through Córris’ translation. “You have not been able to stabilize it with the foxfinger?”
Parrin shook his head. “I fear to give it her more. I gave her the most for safty.” He looked at Córris “Aline says use the last placwyrt but I cannot. I will surely kill her.”
“Go get it,” said Córiss.
“What is placwyrt?” Marina asked.
Córiss hesitated. “It is a medicine we can no longer make. It is a cure for the Bog-Fever, but very dangerous. Harder even to dose then the foxfinger.”
Parrin returned and held out a small ceramic jar. Córiss opened it. Marina gasped. Pale green light spilled out of the jar, casting eerie color on Córiss’ face and hands.
“What is that?” Marina stared.
Córiss looked at Parrin. “I will be responsible to dose her.”
The boy’s relief was palpable. He moved around the bed to open the healer’s mouth. Córiss picked up a drip wand and scraped it across the bottom of the pot. He lifted it out. One drip of emerald fire clung to the tip. He dripped it into Faela’s mouth.
Marina gasped again. Emerald fire shot through the faint rosy glow that clung to Faela. Marina could almost hear the woman’s heartbeat fluctuate with the strange the force of it. Córiss scraped another drop, but Marina grabbed his hand. “Another dose like that could kill her.”
Córiss looked sharply at her. “How can you tell?”
“Can’t you see it?” Marina put her fingers over the healer’s pulse. The pattern was slowing, the emerald fire fading taking the heart beat with it. “Give it to her now.”
Córiss dropped the drop in Faela’s mouth. Her heart jolted under Marina’s fingers, but then steadied. This time the green light faded to a pale gold. “Good,” said Marina, absently. After a moment she lifted her fingers. “I think she’ll be all right now.”
She looked up to find Córiss and Parrin staring at her.
 “You are a saras?” Córiss asked. “I did not know such existed among your people.”
Marina frowned. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“The power to see health of a person, to use saras – how would you say it? Sorcery?”
“Magic?” Marina laughed. “I’m not a conjuror if that’s what you mean. I just...” What had happened? She had seen – could still see – that faint light. “It’s never happened before,” she said. “I could see what the medicine was doing to her, but I swear I’ve never seen it before.”
Parrin said something. Córiss looked thoughtful and nodded. “He thinks you might have the gift but could not use it outside the Marsh.”
“Why would that make a difference?”
“We are taught that the saras is in the water that comes from the Forest. If you have been far from that source you might not have known you could use it. One of our hunters has the gift of saras. He can understand the speech of birds and beasts, but few now are born with such gifts. I myself have a gift of seeing into people. It helped me learn your tongue, for I hear more than just the words. Once many of our people were saras, because we live at brink of the Allou – the great Forest. But now the Forest fades and the saras fades as well.”
Marina frowned as he spoke, looking at her own hands. After a moment she began to see the rosy gold light about her own skin.
The door to the cottage opened suddenly and Aline entered. She spoke urgently to Córiss.
“We are needed in the hall,” Córiss said. “Bring the foxfinger.”
The vision of light faded as Marina grabbed her kit and hurried after him toward the hall.
 ###
When Córiss pushed her onto a bench and pressed a cup of hot broth into her hands, Marina noticed how dark the hospital hall had become.
The hours since she had tended the healer had disappeared in a blur of tending the other patients. She had all but used up her foxfinger, and yet only five people had responded to it. Three others had not: their weak hearts faltered and faded. Some were too ill to even try to save. She had tried over and over to break the fever with less dangerous methods, and then to keep the patients warm enough when the inner heat weakened. As they worked, four more cases arrived.
Marina was appalled to see her hands shaking as she took the broth. She sipped it gratefully. “How is the healer, Faela?” she asked Córiss.
“Her fever broke an hour ago,” he answered, quietly. “Your gift saved her life.” He looked as tired as she felt. “Aline has made you a bed at the onsela’s. You should come and rest. You will be no help if you work too hard.”
Marina might have protested, but as she stood her head swam and only his swift hand at her elbow kept her upright. “Let me look on Tannis again, then I will go,” she said.
He led her to a corner where a young mother lay cradling her sick baby. Though still weak and pale, the mother had rallied to the foxfinger. However Tannis, her baby, was too young for the drug. Marina smiled at the mother, but her heart sank. The child was slipping away. She let Córris lead her across the dark islet and into the cottage.
When she woke, morning brightened the sky. Marina lifted her head from her pallet and saw that the healer, Faela, lay propped up as Aline fed her spoonfuls of broth.
Marina sat up, reaching for her gown folded on a stool beside her. Both women looked over. Aline came and helped Marina with her laces and then produced a wooden comb.
“Córiss?” Marina asked, hopefully, as she untangled and re-braided her hair.
“Aya,” Aline nodded and hurried to the door. Marina went to the healer’s bed.
The old woman had closed her eyes, but opened them at Marina’s approach. “I give you thanks,” Faela said, carefully. “Aline tells me.”
“Don’t speak – save your strength,” said Marina. “But you are welcome.” She touched the frail hand that lay on the coverlet, relieved to find a steady pulse beneath the fragile skin.
“Aline tells me Córris thinks you are saras?”
Marina hesitated. “So he guessed when I helped give you the medicine. I never experienced anything like that before.”
“Aya,” Faela nodded. “Outside the saras is weak. Even here it is weak. But not so much.”
The door opened and Córiss entered, followed by Aline who brought Marina a bowl of rice and honey and sweet hazelnuts. Córiss knelt by the bed and pressed Faela’s hand to his cheek. She spoke quietly but quickly to him. He glanced from Faela to Marina, hope dawning on his face.
“The herb, the placwyrt you used yesterday.” He paused, thinking a moment. “It would be called Blackfoil in your tongue. Like you saw, is an old cure for the Bog-fever. But only a saras healer can prepare it and must also give the dose even more carefully foxfinger. We do not even gather it anymore, for without saras, it cannot be prepared. But Faela thinks you can do this. She knows the way to prepare it, but has not the gift to do it herself.”
Faela squeezed Marina’s hand. “You find the placwyrt. I teach you the culling of it.”
“How shall I know it?” said Marina.
“Parrin knows it – but I tell you.” she switched to Usleda and Córris translated. “The leaves are spikes – like the iris, but small and thin. The flower looks like birthroot with three petals, but small and very dark purple – so dark as to look black.”
Marina stared at her. “I do know the plant you mean. In my tongue it called death-spike lily. But it is a deadly poison. There are no cures to have of it.” She glanced at the bottle Córiss had dosed Faela with the day before.
 Faela nodded, “Poison, aya. Only in your hands a cure. I can help – I know much of the old lore, the measure of our skills before the loss of the saras.”
Marina thought of the patients in the hall – the children struggling to breathe, the young mother cradling her babe. She took a breath. “I will try the blackfoil.”
###
Thin fingers of mist twisted through the reeds under a silvery sky. Marina was relieved that they traveled in a larger boat this time - made of sturdy planks, rather than the thin hide of the coracle. Parrin sat at the prow, and Córris worked the oars. They wound through the baffling labyrinth of reeds, until at last they came out to a wide pool fringed with flowers and sweet scented herbs. Córris beached them on a strip of sandy bank. Parrin led the way to a patch of the deadly lilies. He handed Marina a knife made of obsidian. Córris repeated his words to Marina:
“No metal must touch the flowers. It makes the poison stronger and, what is the word? Fickle? Do not cut the ones that are closed, for the poison runs too strong in their sap, nor the ones that are withered, for the poison sickens as they die.”
Parrin handed her a pair of leather gloves and a flat lidded basket. Marina knelt down and studied the flowers. She thought of the page in her herbal for the Death-Spike Lily:
“A drop of the juice shall kill a man” read the entry. “Even the dead and dried plant contains deadly poison. Let it not be cast upon a fire for the fumes shall smother all near. If it is used on arrows to kill, let not the meat be eaten for the poison will make it unwholesome. Should it sprout in the garden, let it be dug away in the winter when the poison diminishes and let it be buried deeply, so that it may not grow back.”
“Lady guide me,” she whispered. Then she looked at the dark flowers in that way she was learning - a little to the side, a little out of focus. She could see a faint aura of light about them, a sickly yellow green that pulsed with menace to her senses. It shone more brilliant about the tightly furled buds, while the color lessened as they opened and dank gray clung to the old ones. She carefully cut six flowers – each perfectly balanced between brilliant green and gray.
As they wound their way back through the marsh, she continued to look sideways at everything they passed, wondering what other cures existed that this new sight could reveal.
She turned her head to watch the glittering flight of a small marsh bird, and then froze. On the far side of the wide pool they crossed she could see something moving in the stretch of mud. The ground rippled and heaved and there was a sharp silver light breaking through. She caught Córiss’s arm and pointed.  Córris thrust his paddle into her hands and yanked his bow from his shoulder, fitting an arrow to the string. The mud cracked and split open. Marina clutched at the side of the boat. A large, hairless head rose up. It had pale grey skin and a wide mouth filled sharp needle-like teeth. Its eyes looked blind under milky membranes, but it turned toward them, pointed ears swiveling. A bony hand with long nails reached out of the mud.
Córiss let an arrow fly as the creature opened its mouth wider and began to let out a keening sound. It flew true – straight into the gaping mouth and Marina squeaked as the creature jerked back, and then fell to the side. A trickle of dark blood dripped onto the mud.
Parrin said something in an admiring tone of voice and Córris nodded fervently. He took the paddle back from Marina and the boat shot back into the reeds. Marina took a deep breath.
Córiss looked at her. “Are you well?”
“Startled,” she said. “What was that?”
“A grynim, “grey-eater” or “grey-biter” would be the closest in your tongue. They live in the mud where the trees of the Allou have fallen. Their bite carries poison, and sometimes they swarm. Then they can tear a full grown buck to pieces in minutes. Cold iron cuts them, but we have little of that in the marsh. With your warning I made a lucky shot, just as it called to the others.”
Marina stared at him, and shivered.
###
By the time Marina had completed the decoction of the blackfoil she as exhausted as after a week of examinations at the Collegia Medica. It had taken hours of painstaking preparations: First she boiled the plant in five changes of water, before taking the sixth distillation and letting it cool to blood warm. Then she had added apple vinegar, which reacted violently. Once it had subsided, the she filtered the liquid through a layer of clean charcoal, and then mixed it with spirits of wine. At each step Marina had to minutely describe the auras she saw, as Feala described though Córiss what she should look for. Her head began to pound before she was halfway done. Yet she thrilled to see the ugly yellow-green of the blackfoil slowly mellow into a deeper true green - an intense color, but no longer unwholesome.
At last, as she decanted the liquor from the top layer of their beaker into the waiting bottle, she felt a sense of triumph. Faela insisted on being carried with them as they hurried to the hall. Marina went straight to the baby, Tannis. She lay limp and still in her mother’s arms, her tiny heart barely fluttering, the ugly red rash gone from her skin leaving her pale and wan.
“By your leave,” Marina said. The young mother nodded at Córiss’ translation.
Marina carefully dipped the wand into the bottle and let a drop fall into the baby’s mouth. The whole hall held its breath. Nothing. The child’s aura was as pale as her skin, the brilliant green of the potion making no change. Another drop and another. Then the blackfoil reached the baby’s laboring heart and green light flared across her aura. The flare subsided and to Marina’s joy the child’s heart stuttered, then picked up an even rhythm. A measure of rosy-gold returned to her aura and for the first time in hours she let out a thin, weak cry. Her mother burst into tears.
Marina didn’t wait to comfort her. She hurried across the room to fall on her knees beside an old man whose breath rattled in his chest, as he stared into the distance with glassy eyes. Yet she had to take a moment to dash the tears from her own eyes as she leaned over to treat him.
###
Marina sat in the sun, watching the Uselda rowing to and fro. Córiss came to sit beside her. “Hala,” she greeted him, using one of the words she had learned in his language.
He returned the greeting. “What did the Baron’s message say?” he asked her.
“He is to have a new healer sent to the Keep. One who will not challenge their customs.”
“He is a fool,” said Córris. “There has not been a healer of your gift these many years.”
“Without the lore that I have learned from the Uselda my gift is useless,” she answered. “The University has nothing left of the arts of magic in its teaching. I do not blame them; they care for what works now, not legends from the past. Yet, for whatever reason, I can learn from those legends and now that I know that, a door is open to me that I cannot close.”
Córiss picked up her hand and turned it palm up. “I once met an old man, one of the Wandering Folk, who showed me once how to read fortunes. Shall I read yours?”
She laughed. “Like the fortune-teller at a Faire? Yes, tell me what I should do.”
He squinted over the lines on her hand. “You should travel,” he said, presently. “You should gather the knowledge of saras-healing before it is gone.” He sat quiet for a moment. The air grew very still. When he looked up, there was a silvery depth to his eyes and, for a moment, they were as deep as the midnight sky. “You will heal someone who will be far from their hearth and home. In this healing you will help to restore the Allou and return the light to the water.”
She stared at him. He shook his head as if to clear it. Then he shrugged. “That is what I see. Remember I have a touch of the saras too.” he said lightly, as she continued to stare.
“What you see,” she repeated. She laughed. “A door I cannot close indeed,” she said.
                                                                 END