Pain dragged Galen back to consciousness with red hot claws. His head ached as if it were about to split in two and fire licked at his leg and side with molten tongues.

Blinking open crusted eyes, pure blackness met his vision. He sucked in a breath of cold air and coughed, groaning weakly as the sharp motion stabbed fresh agony through his ribs.

"Galen?"

A whisper like the flutter of moth wings in the dark.

"Sev?"

The name rose unbidden to his lips, even as his brain struggled to arrange the shards of disjointed memories into a coherent whole.

"Thank the gods. Are you hurt?"

Galen winced. He remembered falling, the icy ground giving way beneath his feet, and Sev clasping him tight as they plunged into the depths of a narrow-sided crevasse; but after that initial moment of terror, there was nothing until he had awakened a moment before.

Experimentally, he attempted to lift himself, gasping as pain seared his leg and side. He still wore his pack, which had likely cushioned his fall a little, and after a moment the white hot agony faded to an ache, accompanied by a strange buzzing and tingling, as when a limb has fallen asleep, like a swarm of bees beneath his skin. He did not seem to be badly injured, and the worst pain remained in his head.

"Only a little," he said at last. "Are you?"

"My leg is broken," Sev answered matter-of-factly. "And I am very cold."

Galen pushed himself up into a sitting position, hissing as his body protested with a fresh wave of pain. He felt about himself experimentally, finding a smooth surface littered with the debris of their fall. He could not tell if it consisted of rock or ice, but either way it was bitterly cold. Then his hand encountered open air instead of ground, and he gasped as his stomach lurched with fear. Catching himself, he explored more carefully and discovered that he lay upon a narrow ledge.

"Sev? Where are you?"

"Lower down. Be careful."

"What happened?"

Sev's sigh rose on a whisper. "You fell unconscious almost immediately. I think you hit your head. I aimed us for a ledge but lost my hold on you and... fell a bit further."

Struck by a sudden fear, Galen waved his hand before his face, but could not even make out the shape of it in the dark. He had heard tales of people who lost their sight after a blow to the head.

"Can you see?" he asked.

"No," Sev replied. "The lantern broke, and the barrowlings did something. Sealed over the spot where we fell. At least they didn't follow us."

Galen was grateful for this, but it stirred a new unease to life in his mind. "Why? I thought they never passed up an easy meal."

"I don't know. Perhaps they dislike the cold."

Galen pondered this but found it an unsatisfying explanation, and shivered at the thought that perhaps it was not cold, but fear that deterred them, and of what might frighten even barrowlings.

"Galen... do you remember when Zenír taught you to meditate, that day in the forest, when your magic... became visible as light?" Sev asked, interrupting his unpleasant ponderings. His voice was not quite a whisper, but had the weak, strained quality of one fighting to conceal pain.

"Yes, of course."

"Could you... do that again, do you think? If I had a bit of light, perhaps I could repair the lantern, if there is any oil left."

Galen frowned. Meditating in a peaceful forest on a bright afternoon was quite different than meditating at the bottom of a freezing crevasse in the pitch dark. "I will try," he said.

"Yes... please try."

Sev's voice sounded fainter yet, as though he were half asleep, and concern poked little needles through Galen's chest. If his leg was broken, Galen would have to set the bone before he healed him; but he'd have to climb down to him first, and he couldn't do any of that in the dark.

"Sev?"

When he got no reply, panic fluttered little wings behind his ribs, and he repeated himself with a shout.

"Sev!"

Only mocking echoes answered him, along with the rattle of pebbles and bits of ice shaken loose by the vibrations of amplified sound, and Galen swore. If he didn't bring barrowlings down on them, he would bring down the roof instead.

Hissing more curses as he arranged his bruised, half-frozen body into a meditative posture, he did his best to slow his breathing and clear his mind, as Zenír had taught him to do. Much to his own surprise, it worked; and as his heart slowed and his focus sharpened, he turned his mental sight inward and envisioned the seed of magic nestled at his core.

Calling it forth, he imagined it filling his chest with warmth, spreading down his arms, and gathering in his palms in little spheres of green fire.

It felt good, like soaking in a hot bath. As his aches and pains melted away, so did the ice in his blood, until his entire body glowed with warmth. At last, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes, and laughed with relief to find himself surrounded by a soft green light. Twin spheres of energy burned like little stars above each palm, and the air surrounding him danced with emerald sparks.

By this illumination, he saw that the crevasse was narrow, but long. It extended out of sight to either side, but a larger man could probably touch both walls with outstretched arms. One wall was of stone and one of ice, and Galen guessed that they had fallen into a crack between the glacier and the mountainside.

Leaning forward, he perceived that the bottom was perhaps twenty feet below him, and unlike the smooth ledge on which he sat, was filled with the rubble of fallen rock and ice. He spotted Sev, fetched up against a boulder and slumped over in unconsciousness, and then the light faded and all was dark again.

"Tits of Thrynis!" Galen swore. He couldn't concentrate and climb down to Sev at the same time — not without a lot of practice, at least, and he didn't have time to perfect his meditation technique. "Sev!" he called softly. "Sev, I can't do this alone. Please..."

He called, and waited, and called again, but got no reply. The warmth imparted by his magic slowly faded, until the ice crept back into his veins and he shivered with cold again. He'd have to climb down in the dark, and hope he didn't fall and break his neck in the attempt. Meanwhile, the longer he delayed, the worse off Sev might be. He would have to help himself.

He got carefully to his feet, using the wall for support, and inched his way towards the side of the ledge that, in the brief glimpse he'd had, seemed the easier way down. It was then he noticed that the darkness was not complete, after all. The wall in front of him glowed faintly.

Leaning closer, and half afraid that he imagined it, he saw that the stone was covered in the thinnest layer of a grayish-green growth: a lichen. Harrald had once told him that a lichen was a marriage between a fungus and the tiniest of plants. Where the old man had picked up such an obscure bit of knowledge, Galen couldn't guess, but he'd always remembered it, and now he understood: the strange light that filled the Dweller realm was not magic, but a natural accident. The lichen, perhaps as a means to sustain its greener half, produced its own luminance. This little patch must have been dormant, or perhaps almost dead, until awakened by Galen's magic.

Struck by an idea, Galen sat down with his back against the wall and shut his eyes. If the lichen had responded to the mere presence of his magic, how would it do with a more concentrated effort?

Hampered by excited urgency more than fear this time, Galen struggled to regain the state of meditative calm, but at last succeeded in settling his mind. Calling forth his magic again, he imagined he expelled it on his breath in a mist that spread through the crevasse and settled like soft rain on every surface.

When he began to feel a hint of resistance from within, he withdrew his magic — he would need most of it for Sev — and opened his eyes.

As before, the cavern glowed with a soft, green light; but also as before, it faded with Galen's concentration, the firefly sparkles winking out like stars extinguished. Disappointment struck a sharp blow, and Galen swore again. He'd expended his energy for nothing, and now...

Before he could sink very far into despair, something caught his eye: a glowing patch of lichen farther down the wall. Then another, and another appeared, until the crevasse was lit with the same eerie twilight as the great Dweller caverns above.

Barely suppressing a whoop of triumph, Galen scrambled through a hasty descent on shaky limbs, but reached the bottom without killing himself, and stumbled across the debris to Sev. Falling at his side, Galen's knees knocked against stone and he winced. He was in better shape than Sev, but not by much. Adrenaline was all that fueled him, and the cold had sharp teeth. He knew he would likely pass out after healing Sev, and if he didn't find a source of heat first, they would both freeze to death.

There was nothing to burn, nothing but rock and ice, and he wasn't sure starting a fire down here was a good idea, anyway. He had another idea, but it, too, had drawbacks, and he needed to examine Sev, first.

Galen checked his pulse and found that it was slow, but strong. He sat with one leg bent at the knee and the other extended. A glance was all it took to see which was injured, as blood soaked the cloth covering the extended limb and something white protruded through a tear below the knee.

Swallowing the taste of bile, Galen shrugged out of his pack and worked one of Sev's short knives free of his belt. Carefully cutting through the cloth, he tore it away to reveal the injury.

It was bad, but Galen had seen worse. One of the bones in Sev's lower leg had snapped and broken through the skin, but the break appeared clean enough. If Galen could set it properly, it would heal well.

Such injuries were not uncommon among the guard, and Galen had seen the medics set bones when he brought them his poultices of comfrey or coltsfoot, but of course he'd never done so himself.

"First time for everything," he muttered, and rummaged for his water flask. Hoping the water was as clean as Sev had promised, he poured it over the wound, washing away as much of the blood and grime as he could. Then, grasping Sev's leg firmly above the break, he took hold of the lower part and pulled gently. The bone slipped back beneath the skin and when Galen rinsed away the blood again and gently felt along the length, he found the broken ends to be well aligned.

Shaking so badly he wondered how he'd managed to perform the operation at all, he hung his head and sighed with relief. He was already exhausted, but he was far from finished yet.

Rising, he placed both his palms on the large rock at Sev's back, and, calming his mind as best as he could, called on his magic again. This time, he channeled the heat of the green fire directly into the stone. This wasn't healing magic, and as when he'd awakened the lichen, it felt different. Less like standing in a bolt of lightning and more like pouring hot water from one vessel into another.

When the boulder was almost hot to the touch, Galen stopped. He knew the rock would hold the heat for several hours, and hoped it would be enough to keep Sev warm until he woke up.

At last, he turned to Sev himself, and with a deep, shaky breath and hint of trepidation, placed his hands over the injury and shut his eyes.

His magic responded, but it was different than when he'd healed Behn, or Obi, or Iksthanis. His magic didn't pour from him in a torrent that carried his life in its current; instead, something in Sev rose to meet him halfway.

The blue fire of the Hand wove tendrils through Galen's green, as if recognizing itself in his power. If Anira was right, and the 'cure' was made with the blood of a p'yrha like himself, perhaps this was not far off.

From what Sev had described, the power of the hand was unstable and unpredictable; but here, tangled with Galen's own, it was malleable as clay and gentle as water. Tentatively, Galen guided it into himself and let it flood and fill him, and then directed it through his own hands and back into Sev. Bones knit; muscle mended; blood restored and skin sealed: with a few breaths the break was healed, and Galen released his hold on the mingled magics.

The blue fire slipped free of his as with a caress, and his own settled back to curl at his core like a contented cat.

Utter exhaustion flooded him in its wake, but he did not feel so drained as merely in need of rest.

Barely conscious, he unrolled his blanket and covered both himself and Sev, tucking himself as close as he could for warmth, and fell asleep with sparks of blue-green fire still lighting the air.