54: Blood Donor

Darkasha was in no shape to continue, and Kael and I were exhausted from the battle. Nighttime was approaching anyway, so we decided to rest awhile at Ghostgate. The guards had set about extinguishing the fires that the Daedra had set and cleaning up the dead and wounded.

I tended to Darkasha as best as I could, but his wounds were grievous. Besides the broken bones he had sustained when the Xivilai had thrown him into the wall, he had sustained several deep gashes that I had been unable to see until I examined him closely. He bled very little, no doubt due to his state of undeath, which made finding all of his wounds next to impossible. The blood I had taken from his pouch had kept him alive (or rather, undead), but it was not enough to sustain him for long. Ghostgate is very isolated from any civilization or even animal life, and it was not as if Darkasha could go hunting. A gruesome idea occurred to me, and at first I was apprehensive to carry it through. Eventually though, I knew that it was the only solution.

I approached the priest who was tending to the fatally wounded. “How are they doing?” I asked carefully.

He looked at me sadly, “I have stabilized as many as I can, but several of them will die within the hour, I am sure.” He hung his head. “Nerevar protect us.”

I shifted my weight nervously, uneasy about what I was about to ask. “Sir,” I finally said, “If a dying man could donate a part of himself that would save the life of another, would you think it right of him to do so?”

He looked at me quizzically. “An interesting moral dilemma.” He thought for a moment. “I have every ounce of respect for the dead, and I would never damage their remains. But those who are dying are a different matter.” He sighed and said, “I suppose it would depend on what part of the dying man would have to be donated.”

“How about, say, his blood?” I said, gently probing.

“What are…” Realization dawned on him. “You don’t mean, a transfusion of blood? That almost always kills the recipient, especially if they are different species!”

“Not a transfusion, as such.” I said, pulling the empty blood vials from behind my back. “Might I see the doomed?”

The priest hesitated momentarily. Then he rubbed his brow and said “Very well, if it will save another life.” I decided not to mention that Darkasha wasn’t exactly alive. He led me to a man who was writhing in agony and struggling to breathe, his chest had been collapsed and his legs broken. I knelt down beside the man and made a small cut in the vein of his arm with a knife the priest provided me. It began to bleed immediately, but the man did not seem to notice it over the pain of his death throes. I used a telekinesis spell to suck the blood out of the man and into several vials, both the small ones that belonged to Darkasha as well as several of my own. I filled the vials shortly before the man died, and the priest began to administer the traditional service to him while I stepped away to Darkasha. I emptied several of the large vials down Darkasha’s throat and could see him healing before my eyes. I cast some healing spells to speed the process, and hid the remaining flasks of blood under the pile of sheets that Darkasha was lying on. I had done all I could for now, and Darkasha slept fitfully.

I searched for Kael, finding him conversing with the captain of the guard. He was trying to get information about the Nerevarine. I listened in carefully.

“He passed through here several weeks ago on his annual pilgrimage to Red Mountain,” said the captain. “He normally stays for several days, so initially we were not worried about him. After a week, we began to search for him.”

“Could he have left some other way?” asked Kael, “Perhaps he could have left towards Gnisis without passing through Ghostgate.”

“True, the Ghost fence has been deactivated, but we still monitor traffic in and out of the mountain. Anything that crosses the fence is logged. The Nerevarine has not left Red Mountain.” The captain spoke wearily. “We sent out several search parties, but ash storms blew up every time we went out. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that He doesn’t want to be found, or at very least something doesn’t want him found. I wish I could tell you more, but that’s all I know. I could probably get you an annotated map of Red Mountain if that would help.”

“It would help immeasurably, thank you.” Kael said, though he was soon lost in thought. I left him and tried to walk off some of the soreness I felt from the battle. I stepped outside into the night and felt a warm breeze brush across my face. Cliff Racers cried in the distance, and guards were dragging the Daedric dead to a pile to be burned. The wind began to pick up, and ash blew about my feet. A mumbled something that sounded like “Not another one.” I wondered what he was talking about, but just let the wind cool me off a bit. The wind was continued to increase, and soon my robes were whipping about in my face. I wrapped them tighter about me and went inside. The guards had stopped moving the bodies, and were instead hastily boarding up the smashed entrance to the tower. They seemed uneasy, and several were grumbling about “the pile getting covered up before it got burned.” I asked them what they were so uneasy about.

“It’s the wind,” said a gruff voice. “Ash Storms are coming.”