[ WP ] What does n't kill you makes you stronger . It actually kills a weaker you from a parallel universe , raising the average strength of all the different versions of `` you '' .

`` Funny,'' Geoff muttered, writhing on the thin cot. His skin was ice and his blood was boiling, fat beads of condensation standing out on his gaunt face. The wound in his thigh shifted under the bandages, the raw mouth of it pressing together and peeling apart thread by thread. He swore he could feel the notch the spear had left in his thighbone, like a newly-missing tooth. `` I do n't feel any stronger.'' 
 
 `` And yet you are,'' said the priestess, her nimble hands still working the loom, weaving together the varying strands of fate. He could see her, blearily, if he raised up his head, could hear the shifting and creaking and clacking of wood when he laid back to stare at the mossy stone ceiling. She was there. She had not yet left him. `` You might have died a dozen ways getting here. These are threads that can be cut loose in your mind, disregarded. You are stronger for having lost them.'' 
 
 `` Stronger,'' Geoff said. His hands tore at the front of his shirt, unlacing his tunic to expose his chest to the cool air. He shuddered instantly at the touch of it. `` Does n't mean anything, then.'' He crooked his leg and felt the muscles shriek in protest. His breath came out in gasps. `` Might not walk straight again. Might've crippled myself. If that's all you have to say - was a fool to have come here. I've crippled myself for it.'' 
 
 `` Yet had you not come,'' the priestess said, her voice weaving in with the sound of thread sliding over thread, `` you would have lived out your life obsessed with the possibility. It would have torn at your mind, torn at your heart, worn away your spirit. You are a single man, Geoffrey Taylor, faced with a myriad of possibilities before you. Every wondering is an act of doubt that weakens you, dissuades you from the path you have chosen. To look down a path and see death staring at you is to close off that doubt in your mind. You have survived. Is that not enough?'' 
 
 `` I came to you for possibility!'' he cried out. He raised his head and felt the blood drain as if from a spilt cup. He would black out soon, he was sure of it. At least that was a form of comfort. `` Just a possibility,'' he whispered, sinking his skull against the cot. `` That it was not their fate to die. That it could have been avoided.'' He reached up to a blurred figure in his vision. `` That there is some world where they yet live.'' 
 
 `` I serve no gods of fate,'' she said harshly, and the sounds of the loom ceased. He let his head loll to take in the room, and saw nothing. He could hear her footsteps, soft and gentle. `` Fate is for mountains and nations and armies, for the sun rising and the moon setting. I serve the destinies of man. You have chosen your destiny; now be strengthened by that knowledge. You might have died, and yet did not, and that is no small feat.'' 
 
 He could see her over him, her face blotted out by shadow, a frail and delicate wisp like the shadow cast by a candle. In her arms he could see something folded over itself, hanging low. `` And what do you weave, O priestess?'' he said. `` What do you weave?'' 
 
 `` I weave you a blanket,'' she said, and unfolded it, and he could see in blazing detail the farmstead burning and the charred black bones, the crooked path over the mountains and past the wolves and against the clockwork knight. She spread it out over him even as he raised his arms to fend it off, her voice cutting through the dark. `` It will keep you warm.'' 
 
 And he thrashed and flailed with all the strength he was able, as the blanket came down upon him, suffocated him, blotted out the light. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but only sobs came out, muffled by the cloth. And gradually his thrashing lessened and his flailing ceased, and the blanket wicked the sweat from him and weighed him down, all the impenetrable threads that had led to this. 
 
 And in that way, in the middle of the night, his fever broke.
