Heroes at Risk

by Moore, Moira J.

  “It won’t be long now,” Ben was saying. “I know this has been hard on you, but the end is supposed to be painless.”

  The end? What end? What was he talking about?

  “It’s really an honor to be chosen, you know.”

  Why did that sound familiar? Who’d said that to me? So many people I couldn’t properly count. I just knew that whenever someone told me something was an honor, it usually really wasn’t. “Reanist,” I said.

  He sniffed. “Of course not. Gods. What nonsense.”

  That was true. And I wasn’t an aristocrat. Pure merchant class, all the way back to my great-grandmother, at least.

  Damn it. Why couldn’t I think? “Water?” I asked.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Shield Mallorough. I’ve given you some blue root to ease your pain.” He had? Really? I had no memory of that at all. “Mixing water with it, that’s likely to start the stomach cramps again. You don’t want that, do you? Not with Source Karish gone. You’d feel them fully, without him here to blunt them for you.”

  Aye, that made sense. I let my eyes drift closed.

  Ben kept talking, though. “It’s really not that common, you know, for partners to be able to ease each other’s pain the way you and Source Karish are able. It happens, of course, obviously, but it’s rather rare. Only truly fortunate Pairs are able to enjoy such benefits from their partnerships.”

  Wait, wait, wait. How did he know we were able to ease each other’s pain? It wasn’t something we really talked about.

  “Source Karish is a rather remarkable person, isn’t he?” said Ben. “Of the finest family, so handsome, so personable, and so very talented. One would have expected him to have an equally talented partner.”

  Where was Taro? Why was he taking so long? If he would just come back, I could curl around him, and just touching him would make me feel so much better. Perhaps better enough to sleep. I just needed some sleep.

  “It’s so strange how things turn out sometimes,” Ben said. “I’d hoped, so much, that one of my children would be a Source or a Shield and have the kind of life you enjoy.”

  Would he please just shut up? I’d never be able to get back to sleep with him nattering on.

  “Sources and Shields are better off even than the aristocracy, in a way. No matter how wealthy or how highly placed an aristocrat is, a change in fortune can have him disgraced and digging out his dinner from someone else’s land. But a member of the Triple S, no matter what they do, they’ll always have a roof over their head, clothes on their back, food on their table.”

  Sleep, or the potential for it, was slipping farther away as the pain in my head grew more prominent.

  “But none of them had any talent. In anything, really.”

  Who never had any talent? If he insisted on going on and on and on about nothing, he could at least make sense as he went about it.

  My skin was heating up. Those strips of cloth dipped in ice now seemed a wonderful idea. I could see the bowl they’d been using earlier, sitting on the vanity. It probably wasn’t so cold anymore, but even warm water would be soothing. “Water?” I asked.

  “I said no, dear. It’ll make you feel worse.”

  “No.” He didn’t understand. Why couldn’t I speak properly?

  “It won’t be long now, I promise.” He put a hand on my left arm, brushing my skin. It burned.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  There was a clatter of hooves in the street, which happened often enough, but it made Ben rise to his feet and leave the suite for a few moments. When he came back, he announced, “Source Karish is back.”

  He sounded surprised.

  Thank Zaire. He was back. I would be able to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Karish came into the room carrying a huge trunk, a heavy one from the way he was using a leg to balance it as he walked. And behind him was Healer Cree.

  She halted when she saw Ben. “Who is this?” she demanded in a frosty tone.

  “He runs the house.” Taro grunted as he set the trunk on the floor.

  “I want him out of the house.”

  “He lives here,” Taro objected.

  “It is a condition of my assistance.”

  “It is of no moment, Source Karish,” said Ben, backing toward the door.

  “Tell everyone else to stay out of the house as well,” said Cree. “Their presence will disturb my work.”

  “Of course.”

  Cree watched him leave. I heard the door to the suite being closed, and Cree waited a few moments beyond that before stepping to the trunk and opening it. The first thing she took out of it was a bundle of wooden sticks that unfolded into a small, short table. I hadn’t seen folding furniture since we’d left Flatwell.

  Taro sat beside me on the bed, taking my left hand in his, and my headache eased. “Healer Cree is going to take care of you, Lee,” he said. “But you have to remember that she’s a different sort of healer from what you’ve seen before. She’s going to do things differently.”

  Sure. Fine. Whatever.

  Only Cree put immediate lie to that statement by pulling out strips similar to what Healer Pearson used. Like him, she put a strip each to my tongue, my temple, the burn on my right hand. With a small knife, she made a tiny cut in my arm, and she laid a strip against that, too.

  “It took Pearson hours to examine his strips,” said Taro. “She may not have hours.”

  Really, if he had to exaggerate about such a thing, couldn’t he do it out of my hearing?

  Cree glared at him. “We discussed this before I agreed to come,” she reminded him. “You are to trust me, yes?”

  Taro nodded.

  “Besides, Pearson is incompetent, and too arrogant to know it. Don’t insult me by comparing me to him.” From a small pocket in the lid of the trunk she pulled out four glass vials with flat bottoms. From within the trunk she pulled out a bottle. She put a strip palm in each vial, then uncorked the bottle and poured clear yellow liquid into the vials. After corking the bottle and putting it on the table, she picked up each vial and swirled the contents at the bottom. In each case, the liquid clouded from yellow to a dull, smoky brown.

  Cree sucked in a quick breath. She put down the last vial and stepped closer to the bed. “Move,” she ordered Taro, and Taro moved. Cree sat on the bed and stared at me, putting a careful fingertip below each eye and gently pulling the skin down slightly. Then she had me open my mouth and move my tongue around, which under the current circumstances felt as easy as pushing a tree over with my pinky. She raised my left hand from the bed, sniffed it, then licked it, which was just disgusting. She peered at the fingernails of both hands. “Who wraps your hand for you?” she asked me, glancing at Taro.

  “Ben,” I whispered.

  “Where does he get the poultice?”

  “Makes it.”

  “Where does he get the ingredients?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “How long has he worked here?”

  “Years,” said Taro. “Years before we came here.”

  “Hm.” Cree went back to her table, picking up the knife she’d used to cut my arm. “She’s reacting to the niyacin powder.”

  “No, no, Ben stopped using it,” I said. “I felt better.”

  “I can’t say anything to that. Reactions aren’t always predictable, and they aren’t always progressive. You can feel fine one day and awful the next. But there are huge amounts on your palm and in your mouth. I’d say you’ve consumed it, very recently. What have you eaten today?”

  “Just bread.”

  “Where did you get the bread?”

  “Ben made it. But there was no way he would have put niyacin powder in it.” Even I knew that wasn’t an ingredient for bread.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You’re saying Ben poisoned her deliberately.” Taro looked appalled. And furious. “That’s a disgusting thing to say! He’s been nothing but good to us.”

  �
��I am not making accusations. It is not my job to determine who is responsible. It’s my job to identify the problem and fix it.”

  “Can you?”

  “We’ll see.”

  I frowned at that. “I might die?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “You’re not terribly intelligent, are you?”

  “Stop that,” Taro snapped. “Just make her better.”

  “Of course, it’s as simple as that,” Cree murmured sarcastically. “I must see how far the poison has traveled.” Apparently that meant nicking the skin low on my stomach, the bottoms of both of my feet and on my forehead near the hairline, collecting samples of the blood on more strips. It also meant being examined more intimately than I’d ever been examined by anyone before, and that included anyone I’d ever slept with. It should have hurt. It should have been humiliating. But I really didn’t feel anything. I was too tired and too numb.

  “This is very serious,” Cree said once she had fiddled with more vials to her satisfaction. “It must have been a massive dose.”

  I couldn’t bear to watch Taro. He was pacing and it was making me dizzy. “But there is something you can do, yes?” he asked.

  There was no answer.

  I was going to die. Poor Taro. It really wasn’t fair. “Dunleavy,” said Cree.

  “Mm.”

  “Open your eyes.”

  Did I have to? I was so tired.

  “Open your eyes!” Cree ordered.

  I sighed and looked at her. She was standing beside my bed, staring down at me with eyes that seemed darker and larger than I remembered. “If nothing is done for you, you won’t live through the night,” she said.

  “All right,” I said.

  She huffed. “All right. Stupid girl. As though I were offering you a cup of coffee you’re too polite to refuse. I might be able to help you, but medicine won’t be enough.”

  “All right,” I said, because she had paused and clearly expected me to say something.

  “What do you mean, no medicine?” Taro barked out.

  “We discussed this before we came here, Source Karish.”

  “But I didn’t think you weren’t going to use any medicine at all.”

  “Adding any kind of medicine to the mix will nullify the spell.”

  The spell. Oh lords. I tried to giggle, but all that came out was a wheezing sound.

  “Dunleavy, you’ll have to trust me. I know your beliefs, but you’re beyond the help of common medicine.”

  Spells. Sure. Why not? Go ahead.

  “Your life is in my hands. Just as, when we are finished, my life will be in yours. I will expect you to honor that.”

  “All right.” It seemed the thing to say.

  “Source Karish?”

  “I have no interest in reporting you to the Runners. I think those laws are ridiculous.”

  Oh. That was what she was worried about. Perhaps I should show her my books. They were around somewhere.

  “That is because you don’t believe spells truly work,” said Cree. “We shall see how you feel after.”

  “If you heal her, all I’ll feel is ecstatic.”

  “And if I fail to heal her?”

  “I won’t be around to feel anything.”

  She nodded. “Point taken.” She removed from the trunk a square black bag and filled it with bottles and jars, candles and what looked like alarmingly long needles. “Does this place have a cellar?”

  “Yes,” said Taro.

  “How big is it?”

  “A bit larger than this room here.”

  “Is there much in it that would obstruct movement?”

  “A big table in the middle of the room. Very solid.”

  She swore. “Can you drag it out?”

  “I don’t think so. The stairs would be far too narrow. I’m pretty sure it was built in the cellar.”

  “I don’t suppose you know how to wield an axe?” she asked without much hope.

  “I do.”

  “Really?” she asked with surprise.

  “You’d be astonished at the breadth of my knowledge.”

  Once upon a time, that comment would have been made flirtatiously. The dignified healer’s reaction would have been interesting to see.

  “Then chop that table into pieces, as small as possible. Wait, what is the cellar floor made from?”

  “It’s just packed dirt.”

  “Perfect. Chop the table into kindling. I want to be able to light it easily. Make four piles of wood, one in each corner of the cellar. I’m assuming the cellar has four corners?”

  “There’s no place for smoke to escape,” Taro said dubiously.

  “You mentioned a stairway. That will have to do. Start chopping. Press anything else you find down there close to the walls, and take down anything that’s hanging from the ceiling. And be quick about it. We haven’t much time. Oh, take this with you.” She gave him the black bag. “Come back up when you’re done, but leave the bag down there.”

  Taro stared at me a moment, clutching the black bag, indecision clear upon his face.

  “Move, man!” Cree ordered.

  Taro left.

  “All right, my dear,” said Cree, who was, of all the strangest things, taking off her clothes. “I need something of yours that’s of great sentimental value. I imagine that’s the closest thing to magic that you have.”

  Things of sentimental value? I wasn’t really the sentimental sort. A leather hair tie I’d made as a child, about the only thing I’d ever made with my hands that wasn’t hideous. The history treatise given to me by my favorite professor. There was the bookmarker Lamer made for me, braided out of incredibly soft blue fabric, just before we left the Academy. The gold hoops Taro had given me. Would one of those do?

  She wasn’t going to destroy it in one of her spells, was she?

  Though right then, I couldn’t say exactly where any of those items were.

  “Wait a moment,” Cree said, stepping out of her skirt. And yes, it looked like she was getting completely naked. That couldn’t be good. “I feel something in here.”

  Possibly a draft.

  “Here it is.” She scooped up my chemise, which had been left in a puddle on the floor beside the wardrobe.

  I thought I didn’t have much time left. Why was she wasting it?

  “No, no, no. Ah! This.” She unpinned the harmony bob and let it hang from her thumb and forefinger. “Why, Shield Mallorough, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Jus’ jewelry,” I slurred.

  “Not at all. It’s so much more than that. Expertly crafted, expertly enspelled. And worn next to your heart ever since. This might be the saving of you.”

  Wonderful. My life depended on a trinket. This would end well.

  “Here, hold this.” She put the bob in my right hand. “Don’t change hands,” she ordered as she saw that I was about to do just that.

  Cree stripped down to her skin, then pulled from her trunk a garment of dark green with white designs embroidered down both lapels. It looked like some sort of robe, but made only of linen, the sleeves deep and wide, the bodice of the garment falling freely from the shoulders except where Cree fastened it down her front with hooks and eyes. It fell just to the top of her bare feet. Next she unpinned her hair, shaking it out so it hung loosely about her shoulders. Finally, she took off her rings, earrings and necklace.

  Then she bent over her trunk again, throwing into another black bag another collection of bottles and vials and some sticklike things. Once she had everything she needed, she closed and locked the trunk.

  I could hear the irregular thuds of Taro destroying the table in the basement. He’d done his share of chopping wood while we’d been on Flatwell, but that had been a while ago, and chopping something like a table had to be trickier than chopping logs. I just hoped he didn’t lose a foot or something.

  There was something kind of comforting about hearing the thud and the clatter. Homey.

  And then: “What the hell i
s going on here?”

  Ah. LaMonte. Always a pleasure.

  “Who is that?” Cree asked, going into the suite to lock the door to the hall.

  “LaMonte,” I answered. “Source. Old. Thinks he’s in charge.”

  “And he’s not in charge?”

  “No. No one is.” That didn’t mean he couldn’t cause problems for us if he wanted.

  The sound of Taro chopping wood halted. Clearly, LaMonte had gone down to the cellar. After only a few moments, the sound of chopping resumed, and a few moments after that I could hear him coming up the stairs to the second story. Then a pounding on the door to my suite. “Dunleavy! What’s going on?”

  “You can’t come in,” said Cree. “Dunleavy has become extremely contagious. You must leave this residence.”

  The snort I heard even through a door and across two rooms made me smile. “Nonsense. She was fine yesterday.”

  “She is now extremely ill. And contagious.”

  “I’ve never heard such tripe. Open up at once.”

  “Please, Source LaMonte,” I said, and it took enormous effort to make my voice loud enough to reach him. “It came on suddenly. Healer Cree was the only healer willing to come to see me, and she really knows what she’s doing. She had to send Ben away, too.”

  “And what about Shintaro? How is he immune?”

  “He’s not,” said Cree. “I have no doubt he’s already infected, so I need his help for as long as he can give it, before he succumbs to his symptoms. I would ask you to leave before you risk infection, and make sure none of the others come into the house. Consider it under quarantine.”

  There was a long pause. “This seems highly irregular,” he said eventually.

  And LaMonte did hate the irregular. Not that I blamed him. I hated the irregular, too.

  “So is her illness,” Cree responded tartly. “Are you going to force me to risk infecting you and who knows how many others just so I can find a Runner to enforce my quarantine on this residence?”

  “You can’t have me ejected from my own home.”

  “I am a healer. Believe me, I can.”

  I had no idea whether that was true or not. If LaMonte’s silence meant anything, neither did he.

  I did think it would be hysterical if the two imposing figures met under more normal circumstances. I would have to introduce them. If I survived.