[Mkguild] Healing Wounds in Arabarb (37 of ?)

[C. Matthias]

This scene contains a reference to a story that 
has not yet been written, but it is small and 
really isn't much of a spoiler anyway.

Healing Wounds in Arabarb
By Charles Matthias



He throttled awake and yanked his body away from 
the cold stone wall. His chains yanked him back, 
but he pressed toward the lip of his prison with 
a wailing cry. He beat and pulled his arms this 
way and that, but the manacles only dug into his 
flesh and the chains clanked and held. He 
screamed into the darkness and his own voice 
bounced back and pummeled him. A gust of hot air 
made him gasp and silenced his feverish racket.

He wanted nothing more than to curl into a bowl 
and cry. Lindsey shivered even before the warm 
air had dispersed into the impenetrable chill of 
the castle stone. He pressed his knees to his 
face and scooted his feet as much under his rear 
as he could. His breath was ragged and he felt 
snot trailing down his nose and between his legs. 
He tried to wipe it away but the manacles held 
his hand back. With a sigh he let the snot drool 
down his leg and onto his feet. The wet mucus 
pooled there until it dribbled between his toes.

If he couldn't do anything about a little bit of 
snot, what could he possibly do against Calephas, 
let alone Gmork? Nothing. He had no hope but in 
his friends, and was there even hope there? His 
father was in prison and almost certain to die as 
soon as Calephas had what he wanted from Lindsey 
in the morning. Elizabaeg had gone into hiding 
with the fractious Resistance, all of whom had 
expressed skepticism about Lindsey's plan 
working. They might linger until midday, but when 
he failed to reveal that Calephas was dead, they would all flee like rats.

The birds were weak and could do nothing of 
themselves; one of them was already Gmork's pet. 
As soon as either of the other two were captured 
again they would become Gmork's pets too if not 
his meal. And Pharcellus... Lindsey had hoped a 
dragon would turn the tide against their enemies, 
but Gmork had been powerful enough to chase him 
off. Could the beastly mage have actually killed 
his brother? He sobbed anew to think it. He'd 
only now learned that Pharcellus was more than a 
friend but family and now he would never see him again.

He rubbed his face against his knees, wiping his 
nose there and keeping any more snot from 
flowing. Morning would come soon enough. But 
there would be no more dawns for Arabarb. Lindsey 
had failed and he had led the Resistance into a 
disaster from which they would never recover. 
Everything he loved would be in ruin.

Lindsey breathed erratically and whimpered just 
like the boy he truly was. He could still have 
adult thoughts, but there was no strength left. 
He only wanted some word of comfort, some ray of hope that would dry his tears.

Lamenting all that he'd lost, all the wounds that 
riven his heart into a thousand pieces, Lindsey 
the little boy fell once more into sleep.


A warm light angled through the curtains and cast 
over a wooden bed draped in quilts and bear fur 
with a yew tree hanging from the wall above the 
headboard. Outside he could hear birds chirping 
and his father chopping wood. His mother was 
tending their sheep and singing a little song to 
herself. Andrig was probably helping Father.

Lindsey sat on a little three-legged stool 
watching the man laying in the bed. His face was 
foreign and had at one time been clean-shaven. A 
week of bed-rest had provided him a modest 
reddish-blond beard. His eyes were a warm brown, 
like a pastry left just long enough in a brick 
oven, and he smiled with them as soon as they 
flickered open. His lips parted, bristling with 
welcome and delight. “Good morning, Lindsey.”

Lindsey, still a little boy, but now dressed in 
warm clothes and little boots that he knew he'd 
worn when he'd been a little girl so many years 
ago, smiled and recognized the healing man. “Good 
morning, Zhypar. I've missed you.”

His smile did not waver, and color filled his cheeks. “I know. But I am here.”

“This is where we first met,” Lindsey said, 
glancing anxiously at the walls of the little 
room in his home and especially at the window. He 
half feared that a monstrous mage in the guise of 
a wolf would come prowling about. “So long ago.”

“Not so long as all that,” Zhypar replied with a 
soft churr beneath his words. His ears, at first 
completely human, were distinctly longer than 
before, but not in a horrible way. They were 
longer in a wholly familiar way, with soft curves 
and russet colored fur brushing along their back 
and sides as if touched by an artist's pen. “Time 
is a created thing too. It passes as it does by 
the will of Eli. But it does not pass 
unmercifully.” He drew one human hand out from 
under the quilts and gestured at the room. “We 
are here again. It is good to see you, Lindsey.”

The boy trembled and pressed his head and hands 
against the quilts, feeling for Zhypar's other 
arm beneath them. “Oh, how could you leave me? I 
need you now more than ever! I'm lost and alone 
with no hope! My family, my people, everything will be lost!”

“Life is full of goodbyes, Lindsey. They are not 
easy, and they will always bring us pain.” Zhypar 
sighed and gently stroked the back of Lindsey's 
head for a moment. “When we walked into Hall of 
Unearthly Light together, I knew something 
terrible, something I could not tell you then, 
because I knew what you would do.”

Lindsey lifted his head and saw that Zhypar's 
face had started to shift further, with his upper 
lip splitting and his nose flattening and 
swelling as a snout began to emerge. His ears 
were taller than his head, familiar as the ears 
of a kangaroo again. Lindsey tightened his 
fingers in the bear fur. “What did you know?”

Zhypar's expression was soft as his brown eyes 
swelled in size in proportion to his animal head. 
Yet his voice lost none of its clarity or its 
gentleness. “I knew that one of us was going to 
die. If it was not I, then it would have been you 
that suffered the killing blow. Had I told you 
this, you would have thrown yourself before it to save me.”

Lindsey swallowed and nodded. “Aye, I would have. I love you, Zhypar.”

“And I you, Lindsey.” He smiled with his new 
marsupial snout and and brushed his hand through 
Lindsey's hair. The russet fur was beginning to 
appear on his upper arm. A lump was forming in 
the quilts between his knees. “Which is why I 
didn't tell you. I knew, and saw, and glimpsed in 
that moment a future for you that even I had not 
guessed. And I saw at the same time, a future for 
me that was all too short, and all too miserable.”

“Short and miserable?”

“The wound Yonson gave me in my side would have 
killed me in less than a year even had I survived 
Marzac. I couldn't let you spend your life for so little.”

Lindsey shook his head and pushed himself back 
onto the stool. His hands felt stiff and his 
fingers sore. “I don't want to believe it.” He 
swallowed and shook his head again. “But I... I 
know you never lie, and you especially never lied 
to me.” He dug his fingernails into his knees and 
whispered, “But why didn't you tell me then? After it was... too late.”

Zhypar chuckled lightly and set his hand back at 
his side. His fingers were developing little tan 
claws. “I was dying. I could do nothing but what 
I did. One day you will die too. There are so 
many things we wish we could do but no matter how 
long we live we are not given the time to do them 
all. Not even Qan-af-årael had that luxury.”

Before Lindsey could say or do anything more, 
Zhypar leaned forward in bed and placed his hand 
on his head and smiled anew, soft and gentle. 
“Given what I know you have endured since then, I 
am glad I was not allowed to say it. Had I done 
so, you would have looked at every tragedy as a 
promise from me and it would have embittered your heart.”

The boy shuddered and sniffled but slowly began 
to nod. “The worst was having to kill that thing 
growing in my pouch. I thought it was our son. I 
thought I would have you back through him.”

Zhypar's snout turned briefly in a moue, but the 
war regard returned with his next breath. “That 
is now past. When you rejected it, you rejected 
the false promises of Marzac. Just as Kayla did 
with Vissarion and James did with the bell; and 
even Jerome. But there are so many false promises 
in life that we must turn away from. Despair is also one of them.”

Lindsey let out a long sigh and half-watched as 
the lump between Zhypar's knees swelled down to 
his feet, which were also noticeably longer than 
a man's. He dug his nails into his knees and 
winced a little. “I don't want to despair. But 
I... I don't have any hope left.”

“No Follower should ever believe they are without 
hope.” Zhypar leaned forward and rested his 
furred hand on top of Lindsey's. “What do you really have to fear?”

He looked into the kangaroo's face and met his 
kind stare. Was it ever possible for Lindsey to 
remain morose when he truly looked into those 
eyes? He knew, knew deep down, the depths of pain 
that the kangaroo had suffered in his own short 
life. Yet it was the rarest of moments whenever 
he revealed that pain. The night in tent in 
Marzac swamp had been one of the very few he had 
ever seen Zhypar cry. It was a struggle to think of a second.

Still, the words came ever so slowly to his lips. 
“I fear for my family. My father is a prison of 
Calephas and the baron has promised to kill him as soon as his potion works.”

Zhypar nodded slowly as his legs and tail shifted 
beneath the quilts so that he laid on his side, 
head propped up by the pillows and one elbow. 
Lindsey could see the tip of his long tail poking 
out from the bottom of the bear fur. His voice 
bore a slight rolling lilt because of his snout 
and thicker tongue. “Was your father afraid?”

The scene, the first time he'd seen his father in 
almost ten years, was burned into his mind. With 
a strange sense of comfort he began to shake his 
head. “Nay, he was not afraid. My father would 
never be afraid of any man's threats. Or of death.”

“Then why are you, my gentle Lindsey, so afraid for him?”

He almost laughed as his eyes slipped down to 
stare at Zhypar's arms. “I don't want him to die.”

“But do you know that he will?”

“I don't see any way to save him.” He grunted and 
shifted on the stool, feeling a slight discomfort 
in his back. He kicked the little boots off his 
feet and stretched his toes. “And you told me 
that you knew one of us would die in Marzac. There was no way to save us both.”

Zhypar's smile receded but did not disappear. 
“But there was a way to save you and everyone 
else I cared about. Lindsey, for the first time 
in my life, I knew how to save the lives of 
others. All I'd ever seen before was that 
everyone I loved would be taken from me. All the 
Felikaush would die, by brothers, my sisters, my 
cousins, my aunts and uncles, and my mother and 
my father, all of them. I saw that everyone of 
them would die. There was nothing I could do to save them.”

He lifted his hand and gently cradled Lindsey's 
boyish chin. “But I could save you. I would die a 
hundred times more to do that just one more time. 
And I saved everyone else too. And with faith in 
Yahshua, a faith that saw me through every pain, 
I knew I had no reason to fear death.”

Lindsey closed his eyes and took a long, deep 
breath, stretching out his chest and then letting 
it settle back down. “But I didn't want to lose 
you either. And now I may lose my father, and 
even my mother. I... I've already lost her in a way.”

Zhypar let go of his chin and dropped his hand 
down to Lindsey's own and patted it once. The 
touch felt oddly distant and muffled. Withdrawing 
to the bed, the kangaroo smiled laconically and 
lifted the curtains back to let in more light. A 
bright Summer day waited outside rich and full of 
color. Lindsey smiled as he watched birds chase each other past the window.

But the weight in his heart dragged his eyes down 
until he was staring uncomprehending at his hands 
pressed atop his knees. Only his hands weren't 
covered in crimson-rimmed gray scales and tipped 
with dark claws. He lifted them both and turned 
them upside-down and right-side-up over and over 
again marveling and wondering at them. Dragon's 
hands, much like Pharcellus had. And they were his.

“My... hands.”

“Indeed,” Zhypar said with a light chuckle. “But 
you haven't lost a mother. You may have another, 
and you certainly have a new brother.”

Lindsey flexed his hands and smiled faintly. 
There was a boyish enthusiasm when it came to all 
things dragon. And thinking of Pharcellus always 
seemed to bring warmth to him, more so than a 
mere friend could do. “I hope he is all right.”

The kangaroo smiled broadly, his long ears 
folding backward against the pillows. “And there, you have hope again.”

He looked past his dragon hands and chortled once 
as he met the amused glint in his dearest friend 
and hoped for husband's eye. “You're right,” he 
murmured as he lowered his hands to his legs, 
noting that the scales had spread up his arms a 
few inches. He felt a strange pressure behind him 
and shifted on the stool again. “You're right. I 
do have hope. It's so small...”

“It doesn't need to be large to give courage.” 
Zhypar let the window shade fall back into place 
and stretched his arms and legs. His toe claws 
caught in the fur and dragged it half-way down 
his chest. He kicked his feet a little until the 
quilts were free and drew them back over his 
chest. Lindsey had noted he bore no attire, and 
that the vile black wound Yonson's ash staff had 
given him was gone. He wasn't quire sure why he'd expected to see it either.

“Did we have much hope against the forces of 
Marzac? Not a one of us could have contended 
against the Marquis, let alone Yajakali himself. 
Yet that evil was defeated. And we hope it is 
defeated forever.” Zhypar pressed his paws 
together and gazed at the ceiling as if he were 
in prayer. “And you know from whence comes all 
true hope. In weakness, power reaches perfection. 
All things work toward His glory.”

Lindsey lowered his head and offered a quiet 
prayer of thanks. After making the sign of the 
yew over his chest, he reached behind him to rub 
the tail growing from his backside. He could 
wiggle the end with a little effort. And to his 
delight, his toes were longer and covered in the 
same gray scales with red at their edges. The 
effect gave his feet a reptilian shimmer.

“There is hope. But,” Lindsey sighed as he 
stopped admiring his new draconic features, “how 
am I supposed to defeat them? I'm chained to a wall and stuck as a child.”

“Perhaps you aren't supposed to,” Zhypar 
suggested with a slight shrug. “Or perhaps 
there's a way for you to strike even without your hands.”

“Don't you know what is going to happen?”

The kangaroo chuckled. “When I died I gave up 
that ability. Now I see as everyone else in 
Paradise sees. More perfectly. But all of time is 
not revealed to me. And what I do see I could 
never explain so that you would understand. 
Still, no evil that besmirches this world can 
ever ruin the splendor of what awaits those who hope in Him.”

Lindsey rubbed his scaled hands over his thighs 
as he curled his toes around the wooden stool 
legs. “So you don't know whether I can save my 
family or not.” He sighed and wiggled his tail 
again as a general soreness entered his 
shoulders. “I... I haven't seen them in so long, 
Zhypar I haven't been to Arabarb since I came to 
Metamor. What I've found... my home, this place, 
is ruined and abandoned, set on fire, but saved 
by rains. The beds were smashed, and the place a 
ruin and haunt for beasts. My parents lived in 
hiding, my mother masquerading as a man! And my 
younger brother Andrig... nobody seems to know what has happened to him.”

Zhypar nodded slowly and thoughtfully. “I 
remember Andrig. And I remember the look of joy 
on your face when you two embraced. He returned 
to the Giantdowns to help your people and that is all you know.”

A horrible thought came to him and Lindsey 
stiffened. “Is he... is he... is he with you?”

Those deep brown eyes met his and their limpid 
solidity felt more secure than the ground. “No. He is not.”

Lindsey breathed a sigh of relief and the tensed 
further. “He isn't, in the other place?”

Zhypar chuckled softly and shook his head. “Rest 
easy, Lindsey. Your younger brother is not dead.”

Lindsey hugged himself, being careful not to 
prick the still soft skin of his shoulders and 
back with his claws. Already the scales had 
covered his arms up to the elbows and his legs up 
to the knees. And with the way his growing tail 
was forcing his hips to shift and swell, the 
stool was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

“And you have another reason to hope,” Zhypar added with a warm smile

The door behind them opened and Lindsey turned to 
see Elizabaeg enter carrying a small bowl of 
porridge and a bit of jerky. “How are my boys?” 
she asked as she extended the bowl to Zhypar and the jerky to Lindsey.

“Mother?” Lindsey asked, gripping the jerky in 
his dragon hands and climbing off the stool. “I'm half dragon.”

She smiled and gently stroked down his head, 
pressing his hair around a pair of horns that had 
grown that he hadn't even realized were there. 
“Of course you are. And I love you as my son.”

And the she pulled him close, letting Lindsey 
pressed his face into her stomach and wrap his 
scaly arms about her middle. Tears blossomed from 
his eyes, but for the first time in what seemed 
an eternity, they were not ones of misery. The 
moment was brief but seemed to draw on and on as 
if it could not of its own come to an end.

When Lindsey finally let go, he felt wings 
stretch behind him and his head rested on the end 
of along serpentine neck. No half dragon was he 
now. His mother stroked her hands down gray and 
red scales, smiling with affection and unwavering 
love the dragon her son had become.

“Now, you two be good.” Elizabaeg patted him on 
the head between his horns one last time before 
leaving the room with a slow twirling of her working skirt.

Lindsey stared after her for a moment before 
sitting down on his haunches like he'd seen 
Pharcellus do. He chewed the jerky in a few quick 
bites, and then lifted his snout to regard 
Zhypar. The kangaroo devoured the porridge with a 
dignified air despite his speed. After a few 
moments he set the bowl aside and stretched 
again. “Ah, your mother always made such good food.”

“She... she knew all along.” Lindsey said as 
warmth filled his reptilian body. “She knew that 
I was hatched from an egg. She knew my mother was 
a dragon and that Pharcellus was my half-brother. 
An she still loved me as her own. She loved me just as much as Andrig.”

Zhypar nodded and slid his legs from beneath the 
quilts. They were long and three-toed as Lindsey 
remembered them being. He set them on the ground 
and stretched anew, the bear fur draped over his 
long tail. “But the secret pained her. And Pharcellus.”

“They wanted... they wanted to tell me. They 
wanted me to know.” He shivered from nose to tail 
as that simple fact dawned. “But they didn't because of a promise.”

“A promise your father made,” Zhypar finished for him.

Lindsey looked into the kangaroo's face, having 
to stare up at him even though he was a dragon. “Did... did you know?”

The kangaroo laughed and shook his head. “No. I 
never knew.” He gently touched him on the shoulder just above the wing. “Come.”

They turned, Lindsey walking on all fours, and 
passed out through the door. Beyond was a 
gigantic cavern with roads and eerie lights far 
above. Homes were built into the stone, climbing 
the walls like honeycombs. Mushrooms clung to 
every crevice and glowed strange colors. Lindsey 
stared in wonder until he realized that they were in Qorfuu again.

His heart sank in his barreled chest and he 
lowered his head to the ground. “I hurt you here.”

“I forgave you long ago.”

“So why are we here?”

Zhypar leaned down and cradled Lindsey's draconic 
snout in both paws. He stared down the length of 
that snout, his eyes firm and serious. “So that you can believe it.”

Lindsey swished his tail tip back and forth and 
clawed at the stone beneath him. Apart from them, 
the entire city was silent, quieter even than a 
tomb. He craned his neck this way and that, but 
always he returned his gaze to the kangaroo. “I'm so sorry I hurt you, Zhypar.”

“And I forgive you. I have forgiven you.”

Lindsey opened his jaws to say something but felt 
tears pooling atop scaled cheeks. The kangaroo's 
arms twined around his neck and they hugged there 
as the strange lights glowed all around them. 
Lindsey breathed deeply of the musky, earthy 
flavor of the kangaroo's musk. He rubbed his 
snout against the russet fur, soothed by the way 
it brushed over his scales. He stretched and 
folded his wings while the kangaroo's claws ever 
so gently pressed into the taut muscles in his shoulders.

And though his heart ached, it felt lighter as if 
it would fly of its own accord.

When they opened their eyes they were no longer 
in Qorfuu but in the hold of a familiar Whalish 
vessel. They stood beside a canopied bed with a 
little hearth open to receive more fuel. The 
crackling fire felt warm but made the dragon 
tremble too. He'd tried to destroy Zhypar's 
letters there. He searched for the black smear 
where the child-thing had died but the timbers were blissfully unstained.

He gestured with a claw toward the hearth. “I 
threw your letters in there. I... I almost 
destroyed them all. If I hadn't done that, maybe 
the others would be more easily freed of Marzac's touch.”

“Would that there ever was such an easy way.” 
Zhypar said as he put one paw on the door handle. 
He swung the hearth shut after a moment's 
contemplation of the boisterous fire within. “If 
there had been, we'd have never needed to go 
there. But the evil there would have no power if 
not for the evil in our hearts.”

Lindsey blinked and then sat down on his 
haunches, curling his tail over his hind paws. 
The simple truth there was undeniable and already 
weary but warm, his heart admitted and released 
that truth. “I... I wanted to hold onto you. I 
wanted it so badly. I didn't want you to be gone.”

When he looked up at the kangaroo he noticed that 
Zhypar seemed indistinct, as if a thick haze had 
sprung up between them. “But you cannot. I have 
gone through the door of death. You cannot have 
me back. But do not be afraid. All of us must 
pass through that door.” He lowered his eyes and 
his ears folded down so that they almost laid 
across his neck. “All of us. That door can lead 
to a joy unimaginable, or it can lead to an 
unending horror that will make your nightmares 
pleasant. Every choice we make draws us closer to one or the other.”

He turned and gazed at Lindsey and smiled. “None 
of us are truly mortal, Lindsey. We are just on a 
path to a blessed or a damned eternity. You do 
not need to shed any more tears for me. And you 
do not need to be afraid for your family. They 
believe. They are not afraid.” He took one more 
breath and drew out his words, folding his paws 
over his heart and smiling with such simple 
confidence that Lindsey could never remember 
seeing him have. “They have hope. As do you.”

Lindsey sighed and looked down at his scaled 
arms, legs, and tail, before glancing back up at 
the ever more indistinct kangaroo. “I do. I don't understand, but I do.”

Zhypar patted the hearth one more time and then 
shook his head. “Do not feel guilt over burning 
my letters either. What is left of them will 
speak more clearly than if I'd had volumes to pen.”

The kangaroo turned and looked at something that 
glimmered from afar off. The walls of the cabin 
room fell away and they were nowhere. Everything 
was an elision of color, bright but indistinct, 
suffused with gray as if in counterpoint. Warmth filled him.

“Are you leaving?” he asked, the words the only ones he could find.

“Aye.” Zhypar turned his head back halfway, the 
muzzle creasing into a faint smile. “I am. 
There's nothing more I can do here. But your name 
is ever on my lips before He who can do all things.”

Lindsey stretched out one paw despite the 
limitless gulf that spanned between them. “I love you, Zhypar!”

“And I love you, my Lhindesaeg. Trust in Him.” 
The kangaroo smiled wide and true, then turned 
back to the glimmer of pearlescent white, and 
vanished in a cataract of brilliance. Zhypar Habakkuk was gone.



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May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,

Charles Matthias


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