Briar's Book

by Tamora Pierce

  As the others left, Sandry lay her head on the table. She was one solid ache, head to toe. A cool hand rested on her forehead; blearily she looked up at Lark. “I’m just tired,” she said. “I’m not sick.”

  “We’re both tired,” replied Lark. “I really hate to do this, but—we’ve been at it for days. I think we have to rest. No work, just rest.”

  “But Crane needs masks and gloves—” argued Sandry. The idea of a day without pouring her magic into a slush of herbs, oils, and powders made her giddy.

  “He’s got enough for two days,” Lark said firmly. “We really must stop for a while. Go back to bed, dear one. I’m doing the same—the dishes can wait until we get up.”

  Crane, Rosethorn, and Briar had just reached the spiral road when Rosethorn halted, staring at the north gate. A covered wagon like that which had taken her, Flick, and Briar to Urda’s House rolled through. It was driven by a masked and gloved soldier of the Duke’s Guard: the red spot that meant she was free of the blue pox was vivid on her forehead. When the wagon drew near, Rosethorn motioned for the driver to stop.

  “Are the city hospitals full, that you bring the sick here?” she asked.

  The driver shook her head. “They’re near full, but the duke’s putting up two more, one on Market Square and one on Fuller’s Circle. These are temple folk with the blue pox—they’re to be nursed here, Honored Moonstream’s orders.”

  “Temple folk?” cried Rosethorn.

  “Who?” demanded Crane, grabbing the bridle of the horse closest to him. “Do you know the names?”

  “Novices Fara, Olatji, Kazem, Alasha, Nanjo,” the driver recited tiredly. “Dedicates Egret, Treefrog, Henna, Whitelake. If I may—?”

  Crane released the horses, and the wagon rolled on. Rosethorn was shaken and pale. Briar felt as if he’d been dropped down a hole. “Henna was fine when she left to look after the Arsenal setup,” he whispered. “Just fine.”

  Rosethorn drew the gods-circle on her chest and closed her eyes to pray. Crane did the same. Briar waited them out as patiently as he could manage. If you give your life to a temple, he supposed, you believed that prayer worked. He knew better.

  “Can we get to it?” he asked when they looked up again. “You said there’s things we can do without knowing just how this magic turned into the blue pox?”

  “He’s right,” said Rosethorn grimly. “Let’s get to it. That’s the only way we can help them now.”

  “Careful,” said Niko. “One more—you’re almost down.”

  “And oh, how pleased I am to hear that,” muttered Tris.

  “Can we get on with it?” Niko demanded. Tris was feeling for the next rung of the ladder with one foot. Like him, she wore thigh-high boots, oilcloth breeches and robe, an oilcloth cap, mask, and gloves. Like the other workers in Crane’s greenhouse, she also sported a large red dot at the middle of her forehead as a sign she was uninfected with the blue pox. Niko’s red dot, she’d noticed, was on the back of one hand. He never would have consented to an unsightly red mark anywhere on his face.

  They had entered the system near Flick’s den, taking the path that Alleypup had used to bring Rosethorn down. Niko had chosen to start where the first case of blue pox had appeared, hoping to trace its path back to its origin.

  This time, when Tris put down a foot, there was a small splash and the feel of a hard, flat surface. Wincing, she put her other foot down. Another splat. She released the ladder and turned to scowl at Niko.

  Light bloomed around him to reveal a ledge four feet across, spotted with dark puddles. The canal’s waters ran one inch below the ledge. Tris saw lumps carried along by the swift-moving tide and rats that ran squeaking down the ledges, and cringed. The stench flooded through her nose, making her stomach roll. Trembling, she breathed with her mouth open, trying to smell only the oils in the treated cloth of her mask.

  “This way,” Rosethorn said. Niko towed her along until they reached Flick’s den. Scavengers had been there already, taking the lamps and whatever else looked to be useful or interesting. Even the bed of rags had been picked over.

  Niko removed a glove to rummage in a sack he carried on one shoulder. He produced a small stone jar and opened it. “Take off your spectacles,” he ordered Tris. “Remember the vision-enhancing ointment we made earlier this year?”

  “Gum mastic, cinnamon bark and oil, at a silver crescent the ounce, no less!—”

  Niko sighed impatiently.

  Tris glared at him and continued, “Heliotrope, saffron and cloves, lavender.”

  “Very good,” Niko said. “Close your eyes.”

  She felt something cool dotted first on one eyelid, then the other. “Wouldn’t it be better put on my specs, the same as your other vision spell?”

  Niko sniffed. “That spell wore off a week after I placed it on you.”

  Tris donned her spectacles. “You never told me.”

  “It slipped my mind,” he replied as he put the balm on his own eyelids, then closed the jar. “There’s an advantage to instructing young mages: a suggestion counts for so much with you four. Now, what do you see?”

  Her eyelids tingled. A gold veil dropped over her sight, one that shimmered and caught on objects, then pulled free. It stuck only in a wash through the sewer and on a line of footprints that turned into Flick’s den.

  “There’s a gold tint in the water,” she said, watching it. “It comes from upstream. And it’s in footprints too.”

  “The tint is throughout the city’s water. It is the footprints we must follow.” Niko walked down the trail. Tris resettled her spectacles on her masked nose—they didn’t fit properly with cloth in the way—and set out after him.

  At first they walked in silence, intent on the trail. For some time the prints showed clear through even a slight amount of water. By the time Tris realized that either the ledge was sloping or the water was rising, she was ankle deep. “Oh, no!” she cried. “Niko, stop!”

  “What’s the matter?” he demanded.

  “We’re walking in it, and it’s getting deeper! You don’t need me for this—please let me go home! Please!”

  Niko faced her.

  “You see better than I do, and this is disgusting.” Tris knew she was whining and was ashamed, but the horror of soggy lumps that struck her legs in the dark made her dizzy. Never in her life had she wanted to be gone from a place so badly as now.

  “Stop acting like a child!” Niko snapped. “This job needs both of us, I explained that to you! Complaining about how dreadful it is only makes things worse, and I don’t need them to be worse. I didn’t ask you to come here lightly, and I would really, really appreciate it if you could just hold your tongue.” He caught his breath and stood still for a moment, eyes closed. After a moment he said, “I hate this too, understand?”

  Tris stared at him. Niko was sweating. It was damp and cold here, but she saw drops collect on his forehead. When she tentatively rested a hand on his arm, she could feel him trembling. She had been so busy worrying about herself that she had forgotten how finicky he was. He tended his clothing with minute zeal, inspected tableware in strange eating-shops for dirt that might have escaped a lazy washing, and aired out his bedding the moment he reached a new inn.

  She looked at the water rolling down the tunnel toward them and thrust it aside with her power to bare the ledge. Holding it off their right, Tris said quietly, “See, everything’s fine. You should have reminded me to get the water out of the way, I’d have done it. Now we can see the footprints better.” She patted her teacher. “We’re all right. Come on.”

  Wishing they had slept more, Briar followed Crane and Rosethorn into the big workroom. “If I may have your attention,” Crane said.

  Everyone put down their work and looked at him.

  “There is a magical element to the blue pox,” he announced.

  Someone gasped. Two workers murmured to each other.

  “May I have silence?” Crane asked, a bit too patient. He g
ot it instantly. “Its components have yet to be determined. We hope to know by day’s end what precisely we are dealing with. Should that be the case, I believe we shall begin to make progress.”

  The workers nodded their agreement. Stick with Crane long enough, Briar thought, and you forget that all of these folk must be pretty smart to get sent here, with so much at stake. He treats ’em like silly bleaters, but they aren’t.

  “In the meantime, we must start again, with those procedures used when we know that magic is present. Additives must be prepared—Osprey knows which of the lists to use. Rosethorn and I should review the trays that were experimented upon yesterday. Then, unless we, er, got lucky—”

  A soft chuckle greeted Crane’s words. He pronounces it like he never said “got lucky” in his life, but he’s trying to sound like one of us, Briar thought, amused. If he ain’t careful, he’ll break a tooth that way.

  The dedicate cleared his throat. “Then, unless we stumble on something useful purely by accident, those trays must be emptied and cleaned thoroughly and quickly.” Crane shrugged. “I regret to say that since we proceeded quite well yesterday, there are a great many trays to be cleaned.”

  A few workers groaned.

  Rosethorn raised a hand for quiet. “I know this looks like a setback,” she said. “The truth is, it’s the best news we’ve had in a while. At last we know something. All of us have worked with magic enough to know that it jumps funny sometimes, but we also know ways to detect what magic has shaped and unravel the spell. No long faces or complaints—we’ve finally got a direction we can follow.”

  “Enough loitering,” said Crane. “To work, all of you.” To Rosethorn he added, “I will join you in a moment. I need to look around.”

  Rosethorn nodded and headed for the inner workroom at her usual brisk stride. A man lifting a tray with blue pox essence turned from his counter just as Rosethorn passed and clipped her with the heavy tray. It tilted and began to slide from his grip. Instinctively Rosethorn grabbed it as yellow fluid ran out from under the glass top to drip on her gloves and arm.

  “Stupid bleater!” Briar snarled.

  He yanked Rosethorn away, sliding a hand underneath the tray to raise it until it was level. “Chuffle-witted, festering—”

  “Stop that,” Rosethorn ordered, stripping off her gloves. “Take off your gloves.”

  “Rosethorn, he—”

  A lordly voice cut him off. “You—out,” Crane ordered. “Immediately.”

  The worker said, “I’m sorry. I’m so—” He put the tray on the counter and fled to the washroom.

  “Let the gloves fall—we’ll clean them up,” a friendly voice said in Briar’s ear. It was Osprey, holding two fresh pairs. “Dedicate Rosethorn?”

  “No harm done,” claimed Rosethorn as she took the new gloves. Her face was pale. “It was scary, that’s all. Briar, come put that anger to some use.”

  Briar followed her to the inner workroom, pulling on his new gloves. Watching Rosethorn go to her counter, he suddenly felt weak with fright. She had said there was no harm done, hadn’t she? It must be true. She wouldn’t let the tiniest drop of pox run between sleeve and glove, where it might touch her skin. Never. Besides, the spot on her forehead was still crimson. She didn’t have the disease.

  Or would it change color only when her body lost the fight to keep the pox from taking over?

  He couldn’t work like this. Steadying himself against his counter, Briar closed his eyes and practiced meditation breathing. He wanted to stop shaking before he even tried to handle his trays.

  Niko and Tris halted where a pair of tunnels intersected. Tris felt the force of the water, thigh deep now, heavy on her barrier. She poured more strength into it, baring the ledge on which they stood and its counterpart across the intersection. With the gold shimmer in the water itself removed, they could see where the footprints continued after a jump from ledge to ledge.

  Niko sighed. “I hope it’s not too slippery over there.” He braced himself, then leaped across the canal, landing on the far side where the footprints resumed. Tris had to back up and run a few steps to get the speed to clear the canal.

  “We were lucky at Winding Circle, I guess,” Tris said grimly as they picked up the trail again. “All our water comes from wells on the other side of Wehen Ridge. None of this leaks through the stone of the ridge.”

  They passed more intersections and entered smaller tunnels, where they had no ledge to walk on. Tris shoved the sluggish liquid mess to either side, fiercely determined to avoid contact with it for as long as she could manage. She had to pity Niko. In here he was forced to walk in a stoop, trying valiantly to keep his head from touching the slime on the roof overhead.

  Suddenly the trail ended in a broad, drippy blotch in the center of the tunnel and along a curved wall. Niko and Tris looked up. Immediately above that gold blotch was a barred rectangle of light: a grating. They could hear the rattle of wheels on cobblestones and a distant clock striking the half hour.

  They had passed ladders to the street all during their expedition. There was one five yards ahead with a sign next to it that read LUCKY STREET & SHORTSHANK WAY. Niko climbed up, opened the exit and looked around, then sank down a rung. “Stand back,” he ordered Tris.

  Confused, she did as she was told. Niko stripped off his heavy outer garments, dropping them into the sewer: only his mask, gloves, and street clothes remained. He then boosted himself up onto the street. “You do the same,” he ordered, his voice a haunting drift from the light overhead. “Wait until you’re almost out.”

  “Oh, joy,” she muttered, panting as she struggled to climb the ladder. She tried not to remember that her three housemates would have clambered up like monkeys.

  When Tris emerged, blinking, into the light, Niko stopped her. He’d removed his gloves and tossed them into the sewer. Now he pulled fresh ones from his satchel, giving a pair to Tris. As he placed the cover on the sewer hole, she looked around. They were not in the best part of town. Houses were jammed together, cobbles broken or missing in the street. A view of a towering wall between her and the sun told her they were in East District, near the wall that separated the poorest part of Summersea from the Mire.

  Bodies lay on either side of the narrow rising way, many attended by rats. What faces she saw were covered with blue spots. Far down Lucky Street she heard a clanking sound, metal-shod wheels on stone. A wide, deep-bedded dray made its slow way uphill toward her. Workers in gloves, robes, and masks loaded the dead into it.

  Those few who walked the hilly streets abroad were veiled or masked and moved with a quick, scuttling gait not unlike that of the rats. If they were puzzled at the emergence of a man and a chubby girl from the sewer, they kept it to themselves. Blue circles were painted on a number of doors to mark where the disease had struck. Fires burned on the corners. Homeless animals, their owners dead, roamed everywhere, digging through garbage in the hope of finding a meal.

  A bony hand rested on her shoulder. “You can’t think of that,” Niko said. Of course he’d seen her eyes fill at the sight of the starving creatures. “We have to track down the disease. Time to renew the balm.” He fished out the jar and, taking off a glove, dotted Tris’s eyelids and his own. “Don’t put your spectacles on just yet. Since we now trace not the magic as it became the plague, but the magic alone …”

  He drew a glass vial from his satchel and opened it. As Niko touched the bottle’s damp stopper to her eyelids and to the center of her forehead, above the diagnosis oil, Tris’s long nose twitched. New scents—heavy, unpleasant, musty—poured into that sensitive organ. She was about to inquire when Niko said quickly, “You won’t learn what goes into this one for a couple of years—some of the ingredients are poisonous. Don’t even bother to ask. You can put your spectacles on.”

  She blinked as vapors from the new liquid made her eyes sting. While Niko anointed his lids—she saw them blaze with her changed vision—she looked around. Scraps of magic glinted in
corners and on door and windowsills, the remnants of luck and prosperity charms, love potions, and other small workings. A thin, blue-white cord stretched from a nearby sewer grating up the street.

  Niko beckoned her; they followed the blue-white cord to a tall, ramshackle house nearby. The door, a blue circle painted around the knocker, was half off its hinges, which made it easy for Tris and Niko to enter. They stood in a dark and narrow hall, ankle deep in trash, facing a rickety staircase. All the doors on this story were as useless as the front door. Rats and insects fled into the empty rooms, trying to escape the light that now shone bright around Niko.

  The blue-white cord led them up three flights of stairs. Tris guessed that this place had rented out rooms. It seemed that now most, if not all, of the building had been abandoned in the wake of the blue pox.

  The staircase ended in a garret. The looters had apparently ignored this level. Maybe they don’t like stairs either, thought Tris as she fought to catch her breath. There were only two apartments: the cord vanished through the closed door on one. Niko rapped hard, then tried the knob, only to find it locked. He sighed.

  “We should have brought a guard with us,” he told Tris. “Now I have to find one—why are you smirking at me?”

  Tris drew a small, rolled-up cloth from her pocket. Briar? she called through their magical bond. I need some advice.

  Briar was about to pick up a new tray. Now he stepped away from the stack and turned his attention to his friend. You came to the right person, he said with approval, inspecting the locked door through her eyes. Smart thinking, to bring your picks. That winter, in exchange for lessons in reading classic Kurchali, he had begun to teach her the art of lock picking. Which pick do you need to start?

  The long, straight one? she replied, a bit unsure.

  Good. Now, get close.

  Tris knelt before the lock and let Briar help her through the rough spots as Niko watched, bemused. She only needed two picks before the lock gave and the door opened. A wave of rot-stench surged from the room inside.