Chapter 25 end

"You're tired," my boy said.He was standing beside me, I don't know how long he has been standing.He slowly stretched out his hand and took the pen away from my loose grip. I looked wearily at the faltering ink that continued all the way on the page.I think I've seen this shape before, but not in ink.Was it a trail of drying blood on the deck of the Red Ship, and it was my hand that caused the blood to splatter the deck?Or was it a puff of black smoke rising into the blue sky, because it was too late when I rode off to warn a village of red ships?Or a yellow swirling poison in a glass of mere water, which I handed to someone with a smile?Is it a lock of hair that a woman left unintentionally on my pillow?Or was it the heel of one of the corpses as we dragged them off the smoldering lookout at Seal Cove?Is it the tear stains on the face of a mother who holds her tempered toddler in her arms despite his angry cries?These memories are like red boats, coming without warning or mercy. "You should rest," the boy said again, and I found myself sitting staring at a line of ink on a piece of paper that made absolutely no sense.Another piece of paper ruined, another effort wasted. "Put it away!" I told him, and he gathered all the papers into a random pile, and I didn't object.Herb knowledge and history, maps and speculations, were as much a jumble in his hands as they were in my head.I can't remember what I was going to do in the first place.The pain came back, and it was so easy to calm it down, but that approach would lead to madness, as has been demonstrated in many instances before me.So I asked the boy to get two "take me away" leaves and make me a cup of tea with ginger and mint.I wonder if one day I will ask him to bring three leaves of that Chiuda herb.Somewhere, a friend whispered, "No."