The Gates of Sleep

by Mercedes Lackey

  And it appeared that the huge rooms here had been made into wards. As she entered the third, this one featuring painted panels of mythological scenes up near the ceiling, she found people there. A modern cast-iron stove with a fireguard about it had been fitted into the fireplace, rendering it safer and a great deal more efficient at producing heat, and two folk who were not in their beds dozing sat in a pair out of the motley assortment of chairs around it. There were roughly a dozen beds, three occupied, and one brisk-looking young woman in a nurse’s cap and apron and light blue smock who seemed to be in charge of them; when she saw Marina, she nodded, and walked toward her.

  “I beg your pardon, miss,” the nurse said, as soon as she was near enough to speak and be heard, “But the old family no longer owns this home. This is Briareley Sanitarium now, and we do not give house tours, nor entertain visitors, except for the visitors to the patients.”

  “I know that,” she replied, with a smile to soften it. “I’m Marina Roeswood, and I’m here on two accounts. I would like to speak to Dr. Pike, and I would like to enquire about the poor girl who was—”

  How to put this tactfully?

  “—out in the snow yesterday. Ellen, I believe is her name?”

  “Ah.” The young woman seemed partially mollified. “Well, in that case, I suppose it must be all right.” She looked over her shoulder, back at the patients. “Miss, I can’t leave my charges, and there’s no one to send for to take you around. I shall tell you where to find the doctor, or at least, where to wait for him, but you’ll have to promise to go straight there and not to disturb the patients in any way. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly.” Again she smiled, and nodded. “It’s possible that one of them might approach me; would it hurt anything if I try to soothe him and put him back in a fireside chair? I think I can feign to be whomever I’m thought to be.”

  “We don’t have many as is inclined to delusions, miss, but—yes, I think that would be the thing to do,” the nurse replied after a moment of thought. “There isn’t a one as is dangerous—or we couldn’t be as few of us for as many of them as there is.”

  Marina thought she sounded wistful at that. Perhaps she had come from a larger establishment; Marina hoped she didn’t regret the change.

  “Now, you turn right around, go back to the hall, across and to the back of the room. Go through that door, and keep going until you find the Red Saloon, what used to be the billiard room. It’s Doctor’s office now, and you wait for him there. He’ll be done with his rounds soon, and I’ll try to see he knows you’re here.”

  “And Ellen?” she asked.

  “Not a jot of harm done her, poor little lamb,” the nurse said sympathetically. “But that’s what happens, sometimes, when you take your eyes off these folks. Like little children, they are, and just as naughty when they’ve got a mind to it.” She looked back over her shoulder again, and Marina took the hint and turned and went back the way she had come.

  Following the nurse’s instructions, she found the Red Saloon without difficulty, complete with medical books in the shelves and empty racks where billiard cues had once stood. It still boasted the red figured wallpaper that had given it its name, and the red and white marble tiles of the floor, as well as a handsome white marble fireplace and wonderful plasterwork friezes near the ceiling. It was not hard to imagine the billiard-table and other masculine furniture that must have once been here. Now there was nothing but a desk, a green-shaded paraffin lamp, and a couple of chairs. She moved toward one, then hesitated, and went over to the bookshelves to examine what was there and see if there was anything she could while away her time with.

  Medical texts, yes. Bound issues of medical journals. But—tucked in a corner—a few volumes of poetry. Spencer. Ben Jonson. John Donne.

  Well. She slid the last book out; the brown, tooled-leather cover was well-worn, the pages well-thumbed, the title page inscribed To Andrew, a companion for Oxford, from Father.

  She took it down, and only then did she take a seat, now with a familiar voice to keep her company.

  She looked up when the doctor came in, and extended her hand. “Well, we meet again, Dr. Pike,” she said, as he took it, and shook it firmly. “I won’t apologize for visiting you without invitation, although I will do so for borrowing this copy of one of my old friends.”

  She held up the book of poetry, and he smiled. “No apologies necessary,” he replied, and took his seat behind his desk. “Now, why did you decide to come here?”

  She took a deep breath; as she had read Donne, encountering with a little pain some of his poems on the falseness of women, she had determined to be as forthright and blunt as she dared. “You know, of course, that I’m not of age?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “The thought had occurred to me. But I must say that you are extremely prepossessing for one who is—?”

  She flushed. “Almost eighteen,” she said, with a touch of defensiveness.

  “It is a very mature eighteen, and I am not attempting to flatter you,” he replied. “Do I take it that this has something to do with your age?”

  “I have a guardian, as you may know—my father’s sister, Arachne Chamberten. My guardian would be horrified if she knew how much freedom I am accustomed to,” she said, wishing bitterly it were otherwise. “Furthermore, my guardian doesn’t know that I’m here and she isn’t going to find out. She and her son have gone to deal with a business emergency in Exeter, and they can’t be back until this evening at the earliest. Madam Arachne has very, very strict ideas about what is proper for the behavior of a girl my age.” She couldn’t help herself, she made a face. “I think she has some rather exaggerated ideas about how one has to act to be accepted in society, and the kind of people that one can and can’t know.”

  “Ah?” he responded, and she felt her cheeks getting hotter.

  “I mean, she thinks that if I fraternize with anyone who is absolutely on the most-desired guest-lists, I would be hurting my future.” Her blushes were cooled by her resentment. “I think she’s wrong. Lady Hastings doesn’t act anything like Madam, and I’m sure she is in the best circles.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Dr. Pike said dryly. “I don’t move in those circles myself. Oh, they may come to me when they need me, but they wouldn’t invite me to their parties.”

  She felt heat rushing into her cheeks again. “The point is, I did promise to help you with that girl, and since my guardian is probably going to have my wretched cousin riding with me at any time I’m not going to church or the vicarage, this was the only time I was going to be able to arrange things with you. I think, if you can manage it, that we ought to bring her there. I think the vicar would understand, he seems a very understanding sort—”

  The doctor seemed, oddly enough, to fix first on what she’d said about the odious Reggie. “Your cousin? Don’t you mean, your fiance?”

  She stared at him blankly. “What fiance?”

  “The gentleman who came to get you—”

  Reggie. He thought she was engaged to Reggie. What an absolutely thick thing to assume!

  “Good gad!” she burst out. “Whatever possessed you, to think the Odious Reggie was my fiance? I’d rather marry my horse!”

  He stared at her blankly, as she stared at him, fuming. Then, maddeningly, he began to chuckle. “My apologies, Miss Roeswood. I should have known better. I should have known that you would have more sense than that.”

  She drew herself up, offended that he had even given the thought a moment of credence. Not one ounce of credit to my good sense, not one. Couldn’t he see from the first words out of my mouth that I would have less than no interest in a beast like Reggie?

  He probably thought that, like any silly society debutante, she would be so swayed by Reggie’s handsome face that she’d ignore everything else. “I should hope so,” she said, stiffly. “I should think anyone but the village idiot would have more sense than that. Now—”

  She was irrationally pleased to
see him blush.

  “—perhaps we can talk about your patient, and how I am to be able to help her after today.”

  “I think that you are right, if getting away from your—escort—is going to be so difficult. The vicarage is the only solution, Miss Roeswood,” the doctor replied. “And I believe that we can manufacture some sort of reason to bring you and Ellen together there on a regular basis. But first, well, I would like to see if you can do anything for her, before we make any further plans.”

  She nodded; that was a reasonable request. “Why not now?” she asked. “I came prepared to do just that.”

  “Come along then,” he replied, waving his hand vaguely toward the door.

  “I have her in a ward that has other Sensitives in it,” he told her, as she followed him. “We won’t have to hide anything.” Now with a patient to treat, he was all business, which was a great deal more comfortable a situation than when he was assessing her personally. She was not altogether certain that she liked him—

  But she didn’t have to like him to work with him.

  “That should make things easier then,” she replied, just as they reached Ellen’s ward, this one in an older part of the house, wood-paneled and floored with parquetry-work, with only six of the austere iron-framed beds in it. The poor thing looked paler than ever, but she recognized Marina easily enough, and mustered up a smile for both of them.

  The doctor looked around and addressed the other four women currently in the ward. “Ladies, this young woman is another magician,” he said softly, just loud enough to carry to all of the people in the room, but not beyond. “She is going to help me try a new treatment for Ellen, so don’t be surprised by anything you see.”

  One looked fearful, but nodded. The other three looked interested. Marina surveyed the situation.

  “Shields first, I think,” she said, and with a nod from the Doctor, she invoked them, spreading them out as she had been taught from a center-point above Ellen’s bed.

  “Hmm,” the doctor said, noncommittally, but Marina thought he looked impressed. “Why shields?” he asked, so exactly like Sebastian trying to trip her up that she felt her breath catch in memory.

  “Because, Doctor, not every Elemental is friendly,” she replied Nor are all other magicians, she thought, but did not say. “Now, if lead-poisoning works like the arsenic-poisoning I treated some birds for, it will take more than one go to get the filth out of you, Ellen,” she continued, deciding that she was not going to make conversation over the girl’s head as if she wasn’t there. “I don’t know, but I think that the poison is in your blood and the rest of you as well, and when I flush it out of your blood, some of it comes out of the flesh to replace it. So this will take several treatments.”

  Ellen nodded. “That makes sense,” she ventured; a quick glance upward at the doctor proved he was nodding.

  “I think you’ve gotten things damaged; that’s something I can’t do anything about. All I can do is try and force the lead out. And the first thing I want you to do—is drink that entire pitcher of water!” She pointed at the pitcher beside the bed, and Ellen made a little gasp of dismay.

  “But miss—won’t I—” a pale ghost of a blush spread over the girl’s cheeks.

  “Have to piss horribly?” she whispered in Ellen’s ear, and the girl giggled at hearing the coarse words out of a lady. “Of course you will, where do you think I’m going to make the poison go? And I want it out of you, without causing any more harm. So, water first, then let me go to work.”

  Ellen drank as much of the water as she could hold without getting sick; Marina groped for the nearest water-source and found one, a fine little river running along the bottom of Briareley’s garden too strong for the ice to close up. And with it, a single Undine, surprisingly awake and active. A wordless exchange flashed between them, ending with the Undine’s assent, and power, like cool water from an opened stopcock, flowed into her in a green and luminescent flood.

  Ah. She drank it, feeling it course through her, filling her with a drink she had missed more than she knew. With fingers resting just over the girl’s navel, Marina closed her eyes, and went to work.

  It was largely a matter of cleansing the blood, which looked to Marina like a polluted river with millions of tributaries. But it all had to go where she lurked, eventually, and she was able to “grab” the poison and send it where she wanted it to go, whether it wanted to or not. It didn’t want to; it was stubborn stuff, and wanted to stay. But she was not going to let it, and the green fires of water-magic were stronger than poison.

  About the time that Ellen stirred restlessly and uncomfortably under her hand—needing to empty out all that poisoned “water,” before she burst—Marina ran out of energy—the personal energy she needed to control the Water Energy, not the Water Magic itself. Reluctantly, she severed the connection with the little stream, and opened her eyes.

  “I think that’s all I can manage for now,” she said with a sigh.

  “I know ‘tis all I can—” Ellen got out, and Marina was only just able to get the shields down before the girl was out of bed and staggering towards a door that probably led to a water closet.

  I hope it leads to one quickly—poor thing!

  “Poor Ellen!” Dr. Pike got out, around what were clearly stifled chuckles.

  “Poor Ellen, indeed,” Marina said dryly. She didn’t elaborate, but she had noted a distinct lack of comprehension among the male of the human species for the female’s smaller… capacity. It had made for some interesting arguments between Margherita and Sebastian, arguments in which the language got downright Elizabethan in earthiness, and which had culminated in a second WC downstairs in Blackbird Cottage.

  “Allow me to say that was quite what I wished I could do for her,” the Doctor added ruefully. “It was quite frustrating. I could see the poison, but I couldn’t make it go away; it was too diffuse, too widely spread through the body, and nothing like a wound or a disease.”

  “Well, we Water powers have to be good for something I suppose,” she replied, feeling cautiously proud of herself. “How long—?”

  “Just about an hour and a half. I would like to invite you to luncheon—” he began, but stopped when she shook her head.

  “I would very much like to accept, but even I know that is behavior that is simply unacceptable in a single girl my age,” she said regretfully. “And Madam would be certain to hear of it. Servants cannot keep a secret like that one—for you know, if there is any appearance of familiarity between us, it will be blown out of all proportion and gossiped about interminably. So long as my only ostensible reason for being here was to look in on Ellen, all’s well.”

  He grimaced. “I suppose you are right—and if you are to get to your own luncheon without enraging your cook by being late, you should leave within the quarter-hour. How often are you at the vicarage?”

  “Every Wednesday for chess, but—” she hesitated. “I suspect that you and the vicar can contrive more occasions. He knows that I play instruments; perhaps he could ‘arrange’ practices with the choir or a soloist? Or I could even teach a Bible class.” She had to laugh at that. “Though I fear I know far more Shakespeare than the Bible!”

  “How often do you think you could contrive to get away, that’s the real question, I think.” He folded back the blankets on Ellen’s bed, and held out his hand to assist her to stand. “At most, do you think you could manage Monday, Wednesday, and Friday?”

  “Possibly. Let’s try for Friday, at first. Madam always seems to be extra busy that day.” She was glad of his hand; she was awfully tired. Though that would pass, it always did. He smiled at her, quite as if he understood how tired she must be.

  Well of course he does, ninny, he does all this himself! What a relief to have someone with whom she could discuss magic openly.

  “I suppose it isn’t going to hurt anything to tell you that I’ll be able to let the vicar in on the real reason why I’ll bring Ellen down on Friday,” h
e was saying, as he let go of her hand so he could escort her to the front door. “He’ll tell you himself, soon enough. He’s a Clairvoyant Sensitive, and a bit of an Air Magician. Not much—and it mostly gives him that silver tongue for preaching, more than anything else.” He chuckled at her startled glance. “Oh, you wouldn’t know it, not just to look at him. His shields are as good as or better than yours; they have to be.”

  “But that couldn’t be better!” she exclaimed. “Oh, thank goodness we aren’t going to have to concoct some idiotic excuse like—like you and Ellen wanting me to teach you Bible lessons!”

  “And trying to come up with a reason why it had to be done in private, in the vicarage—yes, indeed. Next time, though, the vicar and I will save you a bit of work and we’ll do the shield-casting.” If she hadn’t been so tired, she’d have resented the slightly patronizing way he said that.

  Bit of work, indeed! Oh, I suppose it’s only a bit of work for a Master!

  But she was too tired to sustain an emotion like resentment for long, and anyway, she could be over-reacting to what was, after all, a kindly gesture.

  “Excellent,” was all she said, instead. “The more of my personal energies I can conserve, the longer I can spend on Ellen.”

  By this time, they had reached, not the front door, but the kitchen. “This way to the stables is shorter,” he said, hesitating on the threshold, as a red-cheeked woman bustled about a modern iron range set into a shockingly huge fireplace (what age was this part of the house? Tudor? It was big enough to roast the proverbial ox!) at the far end of the room, completely oblivious to anything but the food she was preparing for luncheon. “If you don’t mind—”

  “After all my railing on the foolishness of Madam’s society manners?” she retorted.

  He actually laughed. “Well struck,” was all he said, and escorted her across the expanse of spotless tile—the growling of her stomach at a whiff of something wonderful and meaty fortunately being swallowed up in the general clamor of pots, pans, and orders to the two kitchen-maids. Then they were out in the cold, crisp air and the stable was just in front of them.