The Book of Maladies Boxset

by D. K. Holmberg

  “What about you? Do you have a connection to the university?”

  Stefan flushed. “My grandmother. Master Helen.”

  Alec couldn’t help himself, he started to smile. “Master Helen is your grandmother?”

  “She is, but that doesn’t mean I get any sort of special treatment,” he said.

  Alec wasn’t surprised. Helen didn’t seem the sort to give anyone special treatment. She was well-known for being quite difficult. Alec had little experience with her so far, but the longer he stayed at the university, the more likely it would be that he would have some exposure to her.

  “I think, if anything, I’m a bit of a disappointment to Grandma Helen. She would much rather have someone like you in the family than me.”

  “I’m sure that’s not the case,” Alec said. “I’m sure she’s just happy that you’re here, and that you’re willing to study.”

  “You really haven’t had much time around Master Helen, have you?”

  Alec shrugged, grinning. “No. I really haven’t. Tell me more about your time with Grandma Helen, and what I should expect.”

  Stefan grinned. “You know, you’re nothing like your reputation.”

  Alec’s smile started to fade. “What reputation is that?”

  “I don’t know. Most people think that you’re too studious to have much of a sense of humor.”

  Alec chuckled. That was exactly what Beckah was working with him on to change. She wanted to ensure that he didn’t come across as too uptight and that he didn’t come off as unapproachable. He still wasn’t certain why she cared, but was glad that someone at the university cared about him, and cared about making certain that he fit in.

  “I’ve tried to hide it. I don’t want to overwhelm everybody with how amazing I am.”

  “And humble, too.”

  “It’s not easy to be humble when you’re as…” Alec shrugged, flushing slightly. As much as he wanted to come across with the same sort of cocky arrogance that he could have around Beckah, it just didn’t fit him around someone like Stefan. It didn’t fit him at all. He was studious. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with that, but he felt as if that tendency of his predisposed him to getting mocked by the other students.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Stefan said. “I’m just happy there’s someone here who can challenge some of the masters. Grandma Helen tells me that, too often, the masters will just go on dumping on us what they’ve done for years, and often they stop studying, and when they do, they stop learning.”

  “I think I would like your Grandma Helen,” Alec said.

  Stefan shrugged. “She’s not as bad as most claim she is.”

  “No? I heard a rumor that Master Helen made one of the junior students spend three straight weeks in the library trying to find an answer to a question that didn’t have an answer.”

  Stefan grinned. “You got to admit, that’s actually sort of funny. So many of the students are determined to impress the masters that they don’t stop and think of whether or not there actually is an answer to the question. With healing, there still are questions without answers.”

  “I am quite aware of that. My father loved nothing more than to make me look up illnesses that he knew had no known cure. I think it gave him a twisted sort of satisfaction.”

  “Either that, or he wanted you to get used to searching for questions that needed an answer.”

  “Isn’t this nice, two young students sitting at a table, getting along.”

  Alec looked up and saw Beckah approaching. She carried a stack of books, and he skimmed the titles, recognizing several of their most recent topics. He wondered what she would test him with this time.

  “You know, comments like that make me realize that you’re probably one of the two smartest students at our level,” Alec said to Stefan. “I realize there are others who wish they could be at our level, but they have to work too hard at it, and they just really aren’t as smart as they think they are.”

  Beckah took a seat and stuck her tongue out at him as she did.

  She grabbed the book from Stefan and pulled it toward her, turning it around so that she could look at the page. She scanned it, grinning slightly at Alec as she did, and made a face at him. “Why are you reading this?”

  Alec only shrugged. “I’ve got to stay ahead of you, don’t I?”

  Beckah grinned. “You do have to stay ahead of me, but I don’t see that happening. Especially if you keep grabbing books like this, those that have no bearing on what the masters are asking of us.”

  “The masters aren’t asking anything of us. All they want is for us to study. They’ve made no demands other than that.”

  Stefan leaned toward them and lowered his voice. “There’s a test at the end of the year. That’s how they determine whether we progress.”

  “What kind of a test?” Alec asked. He glanced from Stefan to Beckah and realized that both of them seemed to already know about the test. If they had family that were a part of the university, it made sense that they would know about it. That put him at a disadvantage. Even more than he already was, given that he came from his father’s apothecary.

  “It’s not one you have to worry about,” Stefan said. “You’ve already proven that you deserve to be here. I think even Master Eckerd will vouch for you, and he vouches for no one.”

  “What happens if we don’t pass the test?”

  Beckah and Stefan shared a glance.

  “Do they ask us to leave?” Alec asked.

  Beckah shrugged. “Nothing quite so terrible as that. Most of the time, they give the students longer to prove themselves. But there’s a stigma to it, and if you are one of the slower students, you’ll never progress far.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Alec said.

  “That means that you would never be considered for full physicker level if you fail your first time. It means that any connections you hope to gain from your time at the university will be limited.”

  Alec glanced down at his journal containing his notes. He wasn’t entirely certain what he wanted from the university, but now that he was here, he wasn’t ready to leave just yet.

  He’d already invested himself, planning to devote himself to his studies, and had been almost fanatical about it, but maybe he hadn’t done enough.

  Beckah watched him, a worried expression on her face. “What is it, Alec?” she asked.

  Alec forced a smile and shook his head. “Nothing. Let’s… continue with our studies.”

  11

  Neither Alive Nor Dead

  The lecture hall was dimly lit when Alec arrived. There was a medicinal odor in the air that seemed determined to mask something else, though he wasn’t entirely certain what it was. A single lantern was set at the front of the room, and he realized a cot was there, as well, with a person lying on it.

  He paused as he entered, glancing around the room briefly before his gaze settled on Beckah. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, and Alec wondered if he’d missed an announcement, but their instructor for the day hadn’t yet arrived.

  He turned his attention back to the figure lying on the cot, looking to see any signs of why it was there. Often times, there were easy ways to determine what the masters wanted from them, but he couldn’t tell from here in this case. Was there an injury they were asked to assess? They had been studying injuries so it wouldn’t be surprising for their instructor to bring someone with an injury to them, but it was unusual to bring patients to class.

  Alec took a seat, not able to determine anything from a cursory glance. “What do you think we’re expected to see today?” Alec asked.

  Beckah shook her head and raised a finger to her lips. She tipped her head toward the far corner, and Alec looked over, realizing that their instructor was already here.

  Master Carl was a heavyset man, with an enormous gut that flowed over his pants, forcing him to belt them below his stomach. He was a stern master who was widely considered one of the brighter minds
at the university, but he could be difficult and seemed to take particular joy in tormenting the students.

  After a few more minutes ticked by, Master Carl looked around and stepped forward. He clasped his hands behind his back, marched toward the cot, and stopped next to it. He slapped his hand down on the side of the cot, the sound drawing all eyes that might have been ignoring him before.

  “Now that we are all here,” he began, his gaze lingering on Alec, “we can talk about something a little different today. I understand that Master Eckerd demonstrated ingestions to you. Today, we will be discussing something else. Now, I need you all to gather around.”

  He stepped to the side and waited for all of the students to join him at the cot.

  When Alec did, he realized the person lying there was not alive.

  He wasn’t the only one to pick up on that. Someone gasped, though Alec couldn’t tell who it was. Others took a step back. Alec remained close to the cot, trying to study the body, wondering what Master Carl would have them learn from this person. There had to be a reason for him to have brought the body to them. It was unusual enough that an instructor had a cot in one of the lecture halls, but even more unusual was bringing in a lifeless body.

  “What can you tell me from initial observations?” Master Carl asked.

  No one spoke.

  Alec looked at the body. It was an older man, possibly close to his father’s age. Dark hair was cut short and neatly groomed. The man had a trace of a beard across his face. He didn’t have any appearance of someone who was ill, nothing like so many who presented to the university. Surprisingly, he looked rather hearty. Were it not for the fact that he clearly did not breathe, Alec would have believed him sleeping.

  As his father had taught him, he let his gaze go from studying his face to looking at his neck, and then on to his hands. Master Carl had made a point of referencing the solpace juice injection that they had seen with Eckerd, so Alec wondered if there was a connection there. Maybe that was part of the point, a reason that he had shared that. He noted nothing unusual about the hands, other than that his nails were trimmed and clean.

  Alec found himself staring at the man’s nails for long moments. Unlike the last man, this one had the look of a highborn. His appearance was nothing like the other man’s. Where that man had a shaggy and unkempt look to him, this man was well-dressed, and his clothing finely appointed.

  “No one has any observations about how this man might have perished?” Master Carl looked at each of the students and held his gaze on Alec the longest.

  The master clearly wanted some response and seemed to expect something from Alec in particular. He knew that he’d gained something of a reputation, but hoped that it was a good one, not one where he annoyed the masters. He understood they cared little for his father’s work at the apothecary. They viewed that as beneath someone who had trained at the university.

  Beckah elbowed him, and he resisted the urge to look down at her.

  “Surely, one of these excellent students has some idea about what happened to this man. It can’t be that none of you has an opinion, can it?”

  Alec stepped forward and took the man’s hand, ignoring the annoyed glares from several of the students, Matthias among them. Beckah followed him to the edge of the cot, watching him assess the man. Alec first confirmed that there was no heartbeat by placing the tips of his fingers on the inside of the man’s wrist feeling for a pulse, but there was none. He double-checked it by going to his neck, reaching for the larger artery there, but once again, there was no pulse.

  He couldn’t shake the fact that this man seemed too healthy to have died at a fairly young age. Alec tipped his head down, listening for breath sounds, but there were none. With no heartbeat and no movement in his chest, he hadn’t expected any.

  “What are you doing?” Beckah asked in a whisper.

  “Trying to figure out what claimed him.”

  “Why are you reevaluating his heart and lungs? You can tell he’s not alive.”

  Alec glanced over, ignoring the watchful eyes of the others around him. Master Carl simply gazed at him through slitted eyes. “Because he’s either recently dead, or he isn’t completely dead.”

  It felt odd to say that last thought, but Alec had been around people who had died before, and there was a change to the complexion of the skin that occurred almost immediately following death, a sallow appearance that this man simply didn’t have. Even the texture of the skin on his hands was more rigid than what Alec would have expected.

  “Not completely dead?” Matthias asked with a hint of derision.

  Alec glanced over. Matthias had a bright mind, and he immediately wondered if he’d missed something that Matthias might have picked up. If he had, Alec had little doubt the man would throw it in his face and make certain that the others were fully aware of Alec’s folly.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Alec began. “I’ve been taught to look for inconsistencies, and to avoid expectations.”

  “Expectations?” Matthias snorted. “You’re questioning the expectation that the man is dead when you can see that with your own eyes?”

  Master Carl leaned forward, placing his belly up to the edge of the cot. It shifted the weight of the cot, sending it into Alec’s thighs. “What would your assessment be if not death?” Master Carl asked.

  Alec shook his head. “I don’t know. He has no pulse, though it could be too faint for me to detect.”

  “And he’s not breathing,” Beckah added.

  “You’re not helping,” Alec said out of the corner of his mouth.

  Beckah shrugged.

  “Like I said, either he’s recently dead, or something happened to him that put him in a suspended sort of state.”

  There were a few snickers around the table. Master Carl silenced them with a single gaze. “We deal in what can be observed, not what can be imagined. Are you really suggesting that something magical might have happened to this young man?”

  Alec squeezed his eyes shut. Were he any other place—were he with Sam even—he would question whether the easar paper had been used and whether it was responsible for somehow holding this man in a state like this. That was the only magic that Alec knew, but it wasn’t beyond his understanding of what was possible with easar paper.

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “Only that what I see doesn’t completely make sense.”

  Master Carl grunted. “Back to your seats, students.” He waited as they all took their seats, and Beckah gave Alec a nervous glance. His heart pounded, and he realized that maybe he’d overstepped himself one too many times. Perhaps this was the time that he should have simply remained silent and let the master teach as he had intended. Why did he feel the need to speak up? Had he already begun to think that he knew so much more than the others? It wasn’t that the others here were not smart—Alec knew that they were—and he’d become far too comfortable with speaking his mind.

  “Now,” Carl continued, “we will talk today about mimickers of death. There are many that give an illusion of death, and when dosed in such a way, they can create a believable corpse.”

  “Is that what happened with that man?” Matthias asked. “Was he given something that mimicked death? Maybe some sort of magical mimic of death.”

  Master Carl offered a hint of a smile. “As I said, there are many things that mimic death. In this case, we believe he was administered foxglove, a plant found on the plains of one of the southern sections that, in adequate doses, can slow the heart. There are stories of men who used foxglove to fake their own death, before awakening and escaping.”

  “Will he awaken?” Beckah asked.

  Alec had heard of foxglove in passing, but it was a leaf used for other reasons. His father had explained foxglove and how it was used to help with a racing heart. Just a small amount would help slow it and settle the heart of someone suffering from such an ailment. Alec had never had the opportunity to administer it, but he sup
posed that if it was possible to use foxglove to slow a racing heart, it could also slow a resting heart, couldn’t it?

  “He may awaken,” Master Carl said. “Your magic-chasing student was correct in that. He does not appear as one would expect of someone who is deceased.”

  It was small consolation to Alec to be granted that much of a compliment. He didn’t feel he’d observed anything useful. He felt more like he’d made a massive mistake in speaking up.

  “Today, we are going to work with foxglove,” Master Carl said. He pulled a jar off the shelf and set it on the table at the front of the room. “A small amount is all that’s necessary. Nothing more than a pinch, and you’ll be able to feel its effects firsthand.”

  “What if we use too much?” Beckah asked.

  “There is a reversing agent,” Master Carl said.

  “Why don’t you give it to that man?” she went on.

  “Finding the reversal agent is difficult. Thistle root only grows in a few places. Even then, it must be carefully harvested. It is fragile and has been known to break before it can be fully used.”

  Alec’s gaze went to the man on the cot. If thistle root worked to help reverse the effects of foxglove, was there any at his father’s apothecary shop? His father often carried medicines that weren’t found any other place in the city. It was one of his father’s gifts, an ability to harvest what others could not, and for a moment, he wondered if he might be able to help this man.

  “Pair up and test the foxglove. Don’t use much more than a pinch unless you wish to end up like him.”

  Beckah grinned at Alec. “Will you be my partner? We’ll see if we can stop your heart.”

  “I’m not sure you really want me for your partner.”

  “Why? Because you believe in magic? You wouldn’t be the only person in the city to believe in it.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You might be the only person at the university, though.”