The kurku was in an uproar the following morning. So much so that the shouting and calls of alarm woke me from a troubled slumber. I didn't have to guess about the panic and commotion I could hear filtering down the empty corridor to my isolated cell. Rising from my mat slowly, my heart begun to race anxiously. It wouldn't be long before Master sent someone to drag me out of here to face her in the kurku.

I felt terrified when I heard the heavy doors to my corridor scrape open.

My heart and mind stopped functioning altogether and I sank to my knees. Master's familiar silhouette was framed by the door of my cell. She came herself to drag me from my dingy cell.

Why had I thought it would be okay to heal that woman? What made me think I could get away with it? Hide it from Master? All my courage from the early hours of the morning were gone in the face of the diabolical sneer that became all to clear on Master's flawless face as she stepped into the cell with a lantern.

She glided in and reached out a single, elegant hand to take hold of my chin. She tipped my face up to meet her. I kept my eyes on the delicate silky folds of her embroidered harka. "You've been busy Dhuuni," she crooned almost playfully.

I spared a quick, nervous look at her. She was almost smiling and her vulture-like eyes were practically glowing with anticipation. My mouth felt unbearably dry as her fingers slipped from my chin to the silver slave collar around my neck. She grasped it suddenly and yanked me up painfully from my knees bringing me almost nose to nose with her. I was too frightened to even make a sound as I tried to look anywhere but in her predatory eyes.

She brought her face very near mine and seemed to examine my every feature with greater intensity than ever before. After what seemed a century she cast me to the ground with a little snarl.

"I don't know what you think you are up to Dhuuni but whatever you are playing at wont work. I've been watching you. I know your gift is stirring again. And don't think for one minute that I'm not going to put it to good use."

With that said, she exited the cell. Just as one of her lackeys closed and re-locked the cell door, I heard her say in an icy voice, "You are my property Dhuuni. Don't even think of defying me."

My limbs shook with a mixture of fear and relief. I laid my numb face on the cold damp stones of my cell and closed my eyes. It could have been so much worse. I was truly shocked she hadn't dragged me out to the kurku and started hacking people limb from limb to force me to heal them.

I wasn't sure I would have the courage to defy her as I was right now. Something about Det had made me feel strong, powerful and able to say no last night, but today, without Det staring at me - without her tremendous life force buoying me up - I was my fragile old fearful and pitiful self.

Who was I trying to kid? I was no hero.

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I don't know whether it was by design or by oversight, but, for the next week, I was left to rot in my cell. Master never came for me. Perhaps she wanted me to stew in fear and uncertainty. It was hard to know with her.

What was peculiar (and perhaps suspicious) was that security never once came to let me out to stretch my legs, even though they generally let me out to wander around the kurku for several hours each day. This worried me. I wasn't afraid for myself but for Det. If I couldn't wander out into the kurku, then I couldn't possibly know how she was faring and whether or not she was at death's door again.

What I came to realize, as time ticked away painfully slowly in my dark cell, was that this isolation did not deepen my fear of Master. Rather, during this time I found myself consumed with fear for Det. I had made a promise to keep her alive at all costs and yet, I had no way of knowing if she needed me. I could think of nothing but fulfilling my promise. Deep within myself I knew, without really understanding why, that it was essential I kept this promise.

It was a mystery to me why she was so important. I didn't know a thing about her. But, I knew I felt strangely connected with her the moment I first laid eyes on her in the kurku. Even a terrifying visit from Master and a week in a dark, dank cell had not changed that. My desire to keep my promise to her only grew as my uncertainty about her life increased.

I was sick with nerves when someone finally came and let me out. I dragged feeble legs through the corridor as I crossed the threshold of the kurku with my heart in my throat. A pair of intense aqua eyes found me almost immediately and I crumpled to the floor in a rush of relief. Det was still alive. I hadn't failed her. Tears of joy accumulated at the back of my eyes and I let a few slip unhindered from my lashes before brushing the rest away.

The security staff had her strapped, back arched and face down, to some sort of torture device that mangled her arms and legs. It was grotesque and barbaric. However, despite the intense pain she must have been in, her eyes were bright with life and an intense desire to live.

I felt my gift stir inside me in response to that look in her eyes, but I squashed it down as quickly as I felt it rise. Now, was not the time to heal her - when anyone could see, when maybe everyone as watching. The first thing I needed to do was to discover Master's whereabouts. I couldn't afford to make a single move in Det's direction without first knowing if Master was watching.

It took all day long, slinking here and there around the kurku and listening in on a dozen or more conversations between the security personnel, before I grasped the news. Master had departed the White City on business. That's why I had been allowed out. One of the head security staff had taken pity on me - likely someone I had healed in a time long past - and order I was released from my cell to wander the kurku while the master was away.

I could hardly believe this good fortune. Surely, if there were any gods left out there, they had favoured Det and I. With Master out of the picture, for I understood she was on a voyage and was not due back for many weeks, I would get many chances to heal Det without being discovered.

Part of me was wise enough and paranoid enough to believe that Master likely left spies in the kurku to watch my every move. However, neither the present staff or the torture victims (I was sure I could not trust them either) were half as sharp and observant as Master. Therefore, as I gazed around the kurku now, I was confident in my ability to clandestinely maintain Det's life without anyone here in the kurku realizing.

The trick was not to heal her outwardly, where everyone could see my handy work, but rather, to heal her inwardly, maintaining all her vital organs and preserving her life force in the process. The staff might wonder at her tenacity to live, but they wouldn't tie her will to live with my gift at work secretly in her body.

As these plans blossomed and grew in my mind, I felt renewed. My very spirit felt rejuvenated. This was my chance to do some good - to redeem myself in some twisted way, even though my mother was not alive to witness it.

I laughed out loud at myself. I hardly recognized the feelings stirring within me. The laugh drew the eyes of several of the security staff. They likely still thought I was half crazy. Well, that would work in my favour - in Det's favour. No one was going to be paying much attention to a broken down, washed up healer who had gone mad. I just needed to keep up the pretense till Det's star appeared in a month's time. 

I couldn't imagine what made the appearance of some star in the heavens so important that a person would endure endless torture to wait for it, but my mind did grasp that this was too important to Det to just shrug off. Anything worth that much suffering must be extremely precious. Even a slave-born like me could see that.

                                                             ---------------

A few days passed before I had a chance to linger unobserved by Det. I wasted no time pouring my gift through my fingers and into her body to help alleviate the worst of her pain and to breath life into her weakening organs. Since I was not healing her entirely the work was quick and practically unnoticeable.

Det groaned softly as I blocked the pain receptors in her body so that she could no longer feel how mangled and twisted up her legs and arms had become. Her eyes fluttered open and she gave me a grateful smile. It was fleeting, but it was there.

"I need you to do one more thing for me, Hashy," she told me in a soft raspy whisper.

I gave her a little nod to continue. I felt fairly certain we were unobserved given the late hour.

"When Nuriko appears," she began to say very quietly, "I will undergo a great transformation."

I scooted closer to her to hear her better. My mind was reeling. What could this transformation be? What would it mean for her? Would she be okay?

She continued, speaking just as softly as ever, "I will shed my skin, like a snake its scales and leave behind a shroud that is sacred to my people."

People did not shed their skin. It was a ridiculous notion. Even a slave-born like me knew it wasn't possible. It certainly wasn't normal. I reached out and placed a slender hand on her forehead to check for a fever. Perhaps she was becoming delirious.

Det responded by smiling gently into my concerned eyes. "I am not unwell, Hashy," she assured me.

I stared her straight in the eye for the longest time, but it did seem to me she was calm and clear headed. After a while I looked away and then sighed. There were many strange things that happened outside the narrow and sheltered world of a slave-born like me. Perhaps she was telling the truth. Maybe some peoples did shed their skin. Maybe her kind did. So, I swallowed my disbelief, looked back at her, and said with some hesitation, "Go on Det. Tell me what you need from me."

"A promise," she replied.

"Yes, go on," I encouraged her, though I felt anxious and doubtful I'd be able to help do more than heal her. For a brief moment I wondered if she was going to ask me to kill her and put her out of her misery after the star was revealed. The thought was horrifying. I immediately cast it off and shut my eyes tight while I waited for her to speak again.

"When I shed my skin, the Shroud of Vecnost will be wrapped up in the scurf. Promise me that you will deliver that shroud to my sister, Toshiyo in the Cave of Morah. She will be waiting for it. It cannot fall into the hands of anyone else. Do you hear me, Hashy? Especially not Bangkai, your master. She's been trying to discover the shrouds location for years and tormenting my sister an I endlessly in an effort to get her hands on it."

I listened feeling dumbfounded. I didn't understand even half of what she was talking about and it frightened me to think that Master had pursued the shroud to the extent of torturing Det so gruesomely.

Det continued speaking while her eyes burned with purpose as she stared at my face. "You must promise me Hashy that you will deliver the sacred shroud straight into Toshiyo's own hands. Promise me," she demanded with something akin to desperation in her voice.

I stared at her as if she had gone mad. I had no idea what scurf or a shroud was but I did know there was no chance in gehena I was going to be able to leave this place alive and take something so precious to her sister. Regardless if Master was after it or not. It was astonishing to me that Det would even think to make such an impossible request of me - a slave. Had she forgotten who, better yet, what she was talking to?

"It can't be done," I whispered to her in shock. I didn't know what else to say. Could she not see the collar around my neck? I had no more hope than Det of walking out of this kurku alive. Like her, I was destined to die here too.

I searched her startlingly aqua eyes for some sign she understood what she was asking of me. The ardent pleading look that had been in her eyes only a moment ago disappeared and was replaced by an almost furious stare. I felt a chill ripple through my body as her life force surged and pressed its powerful presence against my frail flesh.

"It can be done," she said in a voice that was not quite her own. The voice carried power and authority that penetrated the physical realm and cut through to my inner most being. Then, even more fiercely, the voice that seemed to me to come more from Det's life force than from her own vocal chords, added, "It must be done."

Though touched to the core and shaken by such a powerful, almost supernatural, voice, my mind would not relent. I was slaveborn. My body was not my own to command. I could not help her in this regard. It was impossible.

I grasped my collar and shook it for her to see. "I'm a slave, Det. I'll never be able to walk out of here a freed-slave. I'll never be able to get the shroud to your sister." I explained to her as plainly as I could.

Searching her eyes, I thought I might see a spark of understanding when she realized she was only talking to a slave. I was truly powerless to help her though I wanted nothing more than to tell her yes. However, it would be a lie and I didn't want to lie to her.

Her face, which was so fierce a moment ago, was suddenly transformed by the most alarming and wicked grin. My heart dropped in my chest. Had she gone mad? Had the continuous torture driven her over the edge?

Det let out a little bark of a laugh before that same strangely supernatural voice spoke again through her saying, "You, a slave? Wake up daughter of the earth, the rain and sky."

The moment those words, nay, the command 'wake up' hit my ears I felt something shift in my inner most being. I had felt a similar, if not identical feeling, the first day I laid eyes on Det. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, I gaped at the aqua eyed woman whose body was half mangled in a vicious torture contraption right in front of me, but whose life force filled the entire room.

In that precise moment, something shook free in me and the next thing I knew I heard myself say, "I will do it Det. I promise."

Part of me was panicking on the inside and screaming, 'This is impossible. It can't be done!' but at the same time I also felt this quiet assurance that I was making the right decision. I slapped my hands over my mouth all the same to prevent myself from making further promises my mind told me I simply could not keep.

Det looked at me and smiled triumphantly. When she opened her mouth it was still the eerily powerful voice that spoke. It commanded me saying, "When the time comes, procure a sailing vessel and take the Shroud of Vecnost to the edge of the Ilian Sea where you will find a series of islands called the Bitter Isles. On the main island ask for someone to guide you to the Cave of Morah. Toshiyo will be there."

I sat back on my haunches and digested the instructions as I stared into Det's fervid eyes and felt the pressure of her enormous life-force bear down on me in a way that was neither uncomfortable or pleasant. There was a peculiar feeling in the air all around us. It was almost electric but also soothing too. The contradictions were too stark for my brain and body to comprehend.

What I did understand was that the task was impossible for a slave and the directions were hopelessly vague for any traveler. However, in that moment I knew I had made up my mind to do it. And, once I realized I'd made up my mind to forsake my life as a slave and to fulfill this promise to Det with everything I had in me, I felt light. Light and carefree. Light enough to laugh joyfully. Laughter was bubbling up from my insides. Perhaps, it wasn't Det who had gone crazy but me.

I swallowed the laugh and clasped my hands over my mouth once again. Something was seriously wrong with me and I didn't know what to do about it. Just what had Det done to me? How on earth was I going to get the shroud and escape Master's hands at the same time? I shut my eyes tight and prayed to Kinabuhi to help me. No matter how I looked at this, I was in big, big trouble.