Wasting: The Book of Maladies

by D. K. Holmberg

  Alec sighed softly, nodding. “Of course, Hyp.”

  The safest course of action was not to argue with him, but unlike his father, Alec never found value in documenting Hyp’s symptoms. Sitting at the desk, he reached for a sheet of paper, suppressing a groan when he realized it was the last. Getting a re-supply of paper was just one more thing on his list of things needing to be done.

  He dipped his pen into the open ink bottle and quickly wrote down Hyp’s symptoms. Abdominal pain. Nausea. No physical findings. Suspect hysteria. Given barberry, chamoline, and feverleaf.

  As he wrote, Hyp shuffled toward him, watching. Alec hurried, shielding his notes from Hyp’s eyes as best he could. Then he slid it to the top of the nearest stack.

  Hyp nodded as he finished then fished a few coins from his pocket, setting them carefully on the desk. “For supplies.”

  “Let me know if that helps,” Alec said, ignoring the coins. His father rarely cared what people paid, just that they tried.

  Hyp tottered toward the door, pausing briefly at the threshold to glance at the clouds and drizzling rain before adjusting his hat and trudging down the street.

  Alec quickly closed the door behind him and twisted the lock. A moment of relief at getting Hyp out of the shop washed through him, but faded back into a familiar simmering frustration as he stared at the sky.

  Rain again. How much would this delay his father? How much longer before he returned?

  He surveyed the shop, thinking he could spend his time organizing—which was what his father would expect of him—or he could go to the market and purchase supplies. At least in the market, he might find some way to bide his time differently. There, he might be able to avoid yet another visit from Hyp. The thought made him remember he’d not updated his notes about Hyp’s second visit, same symptoms.

  His father wouldn’t mind if he closed the shop early for that, would he?

  Other than Hyp and his hysteria, there wasn’t anyone coming, anyway.

  7

  The Fallen Thief

  When Alec returned from the market, the door to the shop was ajar. He entered carefully, wrinkling his nose. The inside of the shop stank. Normally, there was the scent of the various concoctions his father made, the bite from the various herbs and leaves and oils all mingling together to make a very medicinal odor that hung about everything, but now there was something else to it. The rot was thick, almost enough that he could taste it, and Alec gagged as he headed to the back.

  Had he left something out? Something that had turned sour?

  He’d only been gone a few hours, not long enough for such a stench to fill the shop.

  Even with his father gone, Alec knew what was expected of him. He was to keep the door open, sell to those who knew what they needed, help whoever he felt comfortable helping, and placate any others until he came back. Either that, or send them to the university.

  So far, it hadn’t been a problem. Most knew his father was gone, leaving the shop empty. A few came and bought various benign herbs, most of them things that wouldn’t do any real damage if mixed improperly. The others were like Hyp or had straightforward symptoms.

  There was nothing about this odor that was straightforward.

  His mind raced through what he might be smelling, but came up with nothing. Leaves dried by the time his father brought them into the shop, leaving nothing more than a hint of what they’d once smelled like. The oils were all stable, and had nothing like this stink. Had some animal snuck into the shop? That was the only other thing he could think of making its way in here, but he’d closed the back door when he’d left… hadn’t he?

  Alec moved between the shelves, looking for any signs of whatever creature might have managed to sneak in. He expected a rat, maybe a cat. They were unfortunately common enough throughout the city, the canals and the grain that moved along them drawing in the rats, and the rats drawing the cats. He detested both.

  As he neared the front of the shop, he almost tripped over the form of a small person lying face down on the ground. Blood pooled around the body, more than he’d ever seen spilled at one time. The sight of blood didn’t bother Alec—he’d trained with his father long enough for him to have long ago gotten over his fear of blood—but the stench mixed in with it made him gag.

  He’d never smelled anything like it before.

  How did this person even get in here?

  Using the toe of his boot, he nudged the body. There wasn’t any way he—or she—could still be alive. He’d seen too many injured to think this person would have survived after this much blood loss.

  To his surprise, he heard a soft groan.

  He tapped his chest twice, making the mark of the Sacred Alms. How could this person still be alive?

  Alec leaned toward the body and flipped it over.

  As he did, he saw part of the injury. A thick length of wood—like some sort of arrow—pierced the flesh of the shoulder. The tip had congealed, the blood thicker than it should be, and the stench came from that.

  He jerked back the hand that had started reaching for the wound. A stink like that, with the blood thickened as it was, meant it was likely poison of some sort. Some poisons could soak through the flesh.

  If he did nothing, this person—a young woman, he realized as he saw her dark hair spilling beneath the hood of her cloak—wouldn’t survive.

  His father wouldn’t approve if he did nothing.

  Alec lifted the woman carefully, scooping under her back, and carried her to the cot. Blood stained his shirt, and would stain the cot, as well. One more thing he’d have to clean. He searched for something with which to grasp the arrow and found a pair of heavy tongs. They would give enough grip.

  When he touched the tongs to the arrow, the woman moaned.

  She didn’t move otherwise. He wondered if she could move as injured as she was. It might be that nothing he would do would even matter, but he had to try.

  The arrow came out slowly. There was resistance, more than he would have expected, but he wondered if the congealed blood prevented it from sliding out more easily.

  Alec carefully put the arrow in an empty jar before turning his attention back to the wound. Now that the arrow was gone, blood oozed, but it wasn’t the oozing of a normal wound.

  Poison. It had to be.

  What would have happened for her to have been shot like this? And why with a poisoned arrow?

  Alec shook the thought away. Now wasn’t the time for those questions. Healing first, then questions.

  He grabbed a roll of cloth, tore off a thick wad, and pressed it against the wound. Blood quickly soaked through the cloth. It wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to stitch the wound to give this woman any sort of chance.

  Tearing off a longer strip of cloth, he wrapped it around her shoulder and tied it off over the wound, then stepped away to find the supplies he needed. His father kept a sharp needle and thread for such situations, but his father preferred not to use them. Most of the people who came to his shop searched for medicine rather than surgical healing. Those who needed more ended up at the university.

  The first few places he looked didn’t have what he needed. By the time he reached the bottom draw of the desk, he’d almost begun to wonder if his father had gotten rid of the suturing supplies, but he found a spool of a thick black thread with a jar of needles at the back of the drawer.

  Pulling off a length of thread long enough to make a few stitches, Alec ran it quickly through the needle. The steadiness of his hands surprised him. He carried it back to the woman and unraveled the already saturated cloth covering her wound.

  He shifted her cloak out of the way. Had he more time, he would have preferred to take it off, but he didn’t want to aggravate the wound any further and risk more bleeding. To fully examine the extent of her injury, he had to gently tear some of the fabric away to expose the area around the wound.

  The flesh around her shoulder had blackened.

  Could the poisoning have c
aused that?

  Alec wished his father were here. He knew as much about medicines as anyone, and he’d likely know which poison had been used, and what could counter it. As it was, Alec would be on his own to come up with something that would work.

  After the stitching was done.

  He made quick work of sewing up the injury, tying the last stitch and cutting the remaining thread with a knife. He watched the wound and noted it still seeped even after he was done, but less than before.

  Tearing off another strip of cloth from the roll, he started to wrap her shoulder again before deciding against it. First, she needed some sort of salve to cover it, then he could wrap it.

  What should he use?

  He hurried along the row of shelves, carrying a ceramic bowl with him. He grabbed two erass leaves—best to stimulate healing—and added a joxberry. That would stave off infection. What he needed was something that would counter the potential effect of the poison. What would work?

  Without knowing what he countered, he needed to find something nonspecific. More leaves to stimulate healing. Erass again? It might work, but two leaves would be potent enough. Felth root? Alec shook his head. Felth would work with healing, but would likely counter the effect of the erass.

  He had made it to a row of oils. Most were obtained from plants, though his father had collected a few stranger oils. There was the oil from wolf fat, said to lead to increased virility. Roach oil—something he couldn’t believe his father could collect—would promote health, but it didn’t seem right. What else would work?

  The only other thing he could think of was terash oil. Terash were strange aquatic creatures found along the edges of the city, and his father said their oil would augment the healing effect of other substances in a mixture. In this case, he hoped the oil would work with the erass leaves and the joxberry. Together, they might be enough to help this woman.

  Using the thick pestle, he ground the leaves and berry together, and then added a few drops of the terash oil. The exact combination wasn’t too important—he didn’t think. When adequately combined, he smeared it onto the skin around her shoulder.

  The woman gasped.

  Alec worked quickly and wrapped up her shoulder, using more strips of cloth. Would the oozing continue? The blackness he’d seen around her shoulder had seemed to spread, now working along her arm. It might already be too late for her with what had been done.

  He stepped back and leaned on the table. There was nothing to do now but wait.

  With healing, that was often the hardest part.

  The woman moaned and tried to move.

  Alec grabbed her and held her. She continued writhing, moaning as he touched her side to hold her down, making his hand sticky.

  Why sticky?

  He jerked his hand back. Blood stained it.

  This wasn’t the thick, congealed kind of blood she’d had around her shoulder, this was a more normal sort of bleeding.

  Sacred Alms, but he should have remembered to examine her more closely. He’d been so caught up with her shoulder wound that he hadn’t paid any attention to the fact that there might be another wound he had to deal with.

  Alec settled into his training, focusing as his father had taught him. He started at her head and worked down, looking for signs of other injuries. There wasn’t anything on her head. He searched through her hair, using a comb to separate the strands so he could take a better look at her scalp, but found nothing. He tilted her jaw from side to side, and found nothing.

  Alec hesitated as he did this. The woman was lovely.

  Shaking the thought away, he moved down to her chest. She would have to forgive his intrusion if she lived. Peeling apart her shirt, he looked for other injuries there, and found none. He continued on to her abdomen and stopped to suck in a sharp breath.

  Two massive punctures bled steadily.

  A thick piece of glass protruded from one. Alec grabbed it and pulled it free, placing pressure on the wound as he did. She moaned again, but settled somewhat, looking more comfortable than she had before.

  How had she survived both the shoulder injury and the glass in her side?

  This woman was incredibly strong. Alec couldn’t help but be impressed.

  The glass wounds were more typical injuries. He grabbed the roll of cloth and tore off a length to apply pressure, slowing the bleeding. They’d have to be stitched like the other.

  When he felt comfortable that the bleeding slowed, he hurried to gather more thread and made quick work of sewing up these additional wounds. After finishing, he smeared more of the salve he’d made onto them before binding her with even more cloth. Healing her had required he use almost all of the cloth they had in the shop, so he’d have to purchase more before his father returned, possibly even more before he was finished with this woman.

  Deciding not to make the same mistake as before, he continued his survey looking for injuries, working his way down her legs and then her arms. Other than a few scrapes, he found nothing else.

  He set her belongings on the floor next to the cot. Other than a knife he’d found, there was really only her boots. He hadn’t wanted to move her too much to remove her cloak, not wanting to disrupt the stitches.

  As he set the boots on the floor, a scrap of folded paper fell from inside one of them.

  Alec picked it up and carefully unfolded it. For her to hide paper in her boot meant it would be important. At least, that had been his expectation, but the page was blank.

  Alec took a seat in his father’s heavy wooden chair, angling it to watch her as he studied the blank page. There was a mark in the bottom corner, and another in the top corner, but he didn’t recognize the symbol.

  All the strangeness around her continued to build. What had happened to her? How could a woman like this have ended up as injured as she was?

  The answer was obvious, even if unlikely. She was from one of the outer sections where crime was more common.

  With the shop several streets away from the nearest canal, they didn’t get the same level of traffic through here as they did in the busier sections of the city, which meant they didn’t see the same amount of crime, but that didn’t mean crime didn’t exist here. Alec had seen plenty of people come to his father’s shop with injuries, most often nothing more than a knife wound, or a broken bone from a fall, nothing quite like what this woman had presented with. Many came from the outer sections of the city, his father’s reputation drawing them in. Maybe that was why she had come here.

  For now, she lived. If she awoke—and given the severity of her injuries, including the glass to the abdomen that possibly meant a bowel injury—he could ask what happened. Until then… he waited.

  Alec surveyed the shop. Blood trailed toward the front door, leaving a long, dark streak along the floorboards. Some of the shelves toward the front of the shop were knocked down and the front door stood ajar.

  With a sigh, he stood. Waiting for her to heal didn’t mean he could let the shop remain in this shape.

  8

  A Deeper Colorant

  Alec returned to the shop with a new bundle of cloth and a few other supplies. Mostly, he’d bought some bread and dried beef along with a few vegetables. If the woman did wake, he’d need to feed her. One of the many things his father had taught him was that injuries required energy to heal, and the body needed to eat to make energy.

  He found her still lying on the cot, sleeping peacefully.

  She hadn’t fully woken since he’d found her a few hours ago, though Alec hadn’t really expected her to. He’d given her poppy milk—only a few drops, but enough for her to rest comfortably. Maybe when she did wake, the pain wouldn’t overwhelm her. Otherwise, with the extent of her injuries, it was possible she’d come around screaming.

  It appeared she had turned over, and now rested on her good shoulder. Dark hair hung around her face, pooling into the hood of the strange cloak she wore that seemed to collect the light from the single lantern he’d left burnin
g. He hadn’t wanted her to awaken disoriented and scared.

  Alec set his supplies down on the desk and decided to examine his patient. The shoulder injury in particular worried him, especially with the black streaks he’d seen running down her arm by the time he’d managed to get the arrow out.

  With her cloak covering her, he couldn’t examine her as well as he wanted. Alec worked carefully to slip the cloak from her shoulders and set it off to the side before returning his attention to her injuries.

  The wound remained closed, the stitches holding. Blood no longer oozed from it as it had before. The blackness around the wound remained, but Alec couldn’t tell if it had gotten worse or not.

  He tentatively touched the wound, running the back of his finger along the sides to test for warmth. He detected none. No infection—at least, none he could pick up that way. Without any drainage, it made it even less likely.

  Alec wrapped her shoulder again. When finished, he remembered that the arrow he’d pulled from her arm remained in a jar by the wall. Rather than discarding it, he placed a top on it and moved it to a protected shelf. When his father returned, he could ask whether he knew anything about the kind of poison used on the arrow.

  There was still nothing for him to do other than wait. Alec covered her with a blanket and tucked it around her, wanting her to at least be comfortable.

  He sat at the desk, glancing at the woman every so often. She didn’t move, though her breathing was regular and soft. Alec couldn’t help but wonder about her. What was her name? Where had she come from? Why had she been shot? And why this strange blank sheet of paper hidden in her boot?

  Alec kept the page smoothed out on top of the desk, running his finger along the edges. The paper was thick, almost a parchment, but the surface appeared incredibly smooth. He rubbed the surface, but felt none of the usual grain to the page.

  Setting it aside, he turned to the stack of papers near the corner of the desk. On the top was the one with Hyp’s symptoms, all spelled out as he had been taught. His father kept a log of symptoms and treatments, a journal of sorts, and could track what had worked and what hadn’t. This record more than anything probably made him a better healer than most.