Read The Nothing: A Book of the Between for Free Online

myself and the stranger.”
    A moment ticked by. Jared began to drift again, but then the horse was moving. He didn’t even try to keep track of the turns taken. Voices reached his ears from a distance. He was burning up again and wanted only to lie down and be allowed to die in peace. Every time he began to sag off to the side of the horse, Kraal’s big hand caught him and straightened him, sometimes shaking him a little.
    After what seemed to Jared like hours, the horse stopped again. He felt a hand fumbling with the knot of his blindfold, and then he was blinking in a light that felt far too bright but was really moving into evening.
    The city was nowhere to be seen. He and Kraal were alone in a grassy space enclosed by a high wall. At the center gleamed a small pond. Kraal forestalled any questions.
    “You, little man, are going to have a bath.”
    Jared stared dully at the pond. A bathtub would have been welcome, a place to lie down and soak away the dirt, to let the heat ease his muscles. Although he wasn’t sure what the effect of hot water would be on his leg, and he was pretty sure hot water wasn’t good for a fever. But neither was sudden immersion in a cold pond. In any case, he was too weak to swim.
    Kraal lifted him down from the horse and then held him on his feet as his knees gave way.
    “None too early,” the Giant said, letting Jared sink slowly down into the grass. “No, don’t lie down. Drink this.”
    A flask appeared at his mouth. The first sip was bitter and he tried to turn away, but Kraal held his head in the iron grip of one hand and poured the bitter liquid down his throat with the other. Jared swallowed to keep from choking. A delicious coolness spread from his throat and stomach out into his limbs. His head cleared. Kraal released him and stepped back a little.
    “That will hold for a few minutes. Now, clothes off.”
    Jared shook his head. He was not going to strip. Enough of his dignity had been compromised already and he felt well enough to care again.
    Kraal didn’t ask twice. He simply bent down and tore the front of Jared’s tunic, stripping it off of his body. As the big hands reached toward his breeches, he scooted backward in the grass.
    “All right, all right. Give me a second.”
    He tried to get to his feet, but the bad leg wouldn’t work and whatever miracle medicine he’d been given hadn’t restored his strength enough to let him overcome its dead weight. So, he wiggled out of the breeches by lifting first one hip and then the other. It felt almost good to get his healthy leg out of the itchy wool and into fresh air. The wounded leg was another story.
    At sight of it, he gasped in dismay, choking on the overpowering stench emanating from the wound. His stomach heaved and he gagged. Flesh was literally rotting away from the bone. What was left of the skin on his lower leg was mottled green and black, with livid red streaks running up into the thigh. A blister the size of his hand swelled above the knee, filled to near bursting with a dark green fluid. The dull ivory gleam of bone made his head spin, but Kraal was dragging him to his feet.
    “Don’t look,” the Giant said. “It will be better soon.”
    It seemed that walking under his own steam, rather than being dragged or carried, was the last bit of humanity left to him, and he stumbled and staggered toward the pool, Kraal ever right beside him. When he reached the edge of the pond, he wished again that he’d stayed in Surmise. Maybe this pool was a cure for Giants, but he was pretty sure it would be the end of him.
    The water was very deep but clear all the way to a bottom lined with flat, black stone. The sides were smooth and steep. Once in, there was no way out without help. He looked at Kraal and then at the water. It all came down to trust, and he wasn’t at all confident that the Giant would pull him out before he drowned.
    As if that wasn’t bad enough, the pond teemed with flat-bodied silver fish, all