Too Young to Die

by Michael Anderle

  Justin nodded, then frowned. “Wait, all of it? From one block?”

  “That’s the way of it. There’s not a crack or a join in the whole city. Streets, houses, castle, arena, everything. Some say Insea’s where the dwarves learned to work with stone—that they were the apprentices of the fae and they left to find their own mines beneath the mountains.”

  He gaped. His mind couldn’t picture it at all.

  “The stone’s beautiful,” Batholemew told him. “Some of its milky-pale, some’s golden like the first light at dawn, and some’s almost a rose color. You stop seeing it after a while, but I still dream of it, even now.”

  “That sounds beautiful,” he murmured.

  “Oh, it is.”

  “And the tournament?”

  “Oh, the tournament.” The man rested his head on the stone, a smile on his lips. “A chance at the greatest treasure in the world.”

  Justin sat bolt upright. “Treasure?”

  “Oh, yes. The king throws his treasure stores open for the tournament and the winner of the grand prize takes home something of incredible worth. Of course, they usually sell it to one of the nobles, but ten thousand gold in your pocket is nothing small.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “What’s the prize this time?” he asked.

  “Oh, no one ever knows ahead of time. The last one I was there for, it was a rope of the most beautiful pearls you ever saw. My friend had a glimpse and he said each was the size of a strawberry and a deep purple like dusk. The time before that…ah, yes, a golden statue of one of the elven gods with diamonds for eyes. No one has ever been disappointed, I tell you.”

  “Ah.” He leaned back and his mind rolled furiously. “I wonder what the king has in his storerooms.”

  “No one knows that,” Batholemew said with a laugh, “least of all the king. Some say the whole tournament was devised so he could clean out the storerooms and get some goodwill in the process. It helps the city, too—people come from all over to see the tournament and fight. The inns are always busy and so are the blacksmiths. Poets come to sing songs about the contestants. There was a song about me, you know.”

  “Really?” He smiled.

  “Yes. Well…it said there was one contestant with a nose like a turnip.” His cellmate shrugged good-naturedly. “But I was in a song. Everyone knew who I was that week.”

  Justin tried not to laugh too hard. “You know, I used to study dwarven artifacts.”

  “Oh, the king has those for certain,” the man said emphatically. “Remember when I said people think Insea was partly built by dwarves? Well, one of the reasons why they think that is because there are so many dwarven artifacts there. A whole academy is devoted to them, and rooms in the palace. Not that I, er…”

  “Ever considered robbing them?” he asked slyly.

  Batholemew cleared his throat and didn’t answer.

  He laughed. “Well, then. A palace full of dwarven artifacts. A tournament with the king’s storerooms thrown open. Huh.”

  “Are you thinking of seeking your fortune?” The man looked critically at him, then into the area beyond the cell. “Is that your sword and armor?”

  “Yes.”

  “You might have a chance, then.” He sounded doubtful. “Of course, that’s if you ever get out of here. What landed you in this mess?”

  His irritation returned and he blew out a breath. “Did you hear about the people who defeated Sephith?”

  “Ah, yes. It doesn’t make much difference to me in here, of course, but everyone else seemed happy.”

  “Well, one of them is a woman named Zaara. She’s the daughter of the mayor in Riverbend, beyond the valley. Another one of them…uh, is me.”

  “Oho!” Batholemew chortled. “And you got her in the family way, did you? Piece of advice, friend, get the deed done and marry her. There’s a sight worse you could do than an adventurin’ lass.”

  “I did not get her in the family way,” he protested, mortified. “No, her father didn’t want to admit to anyone that she ran away to kill Sephith, so he came here and accused me of kidnapping her. I didn’t, everyone knows that, but he got Mayor Killian to arrange a trial.”

  “Then it don’t matter much who knows what, do it?” the man asked.

  “Wait. What?”

  “A trial’s a place for the rich to grandstand,” his cellmate explained. “Everyone knows that. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a cell like mine, you wait and see.”

  “No. No, I need to get to Insea. I need to get to the king’s storerooms.” Panic began to rise and cloud his thoughts.

  “That’s as may be, boyo, but if her father wants you locked up…well, you just wait, that’s where you’ll be.”

  Justin lowered his head into his hands. The future, which had looked so bright only a moment before, now seemed insurmountable.

  “Cheer up,” Batholemew told him.

  “Oh? Why?”

  “I still have a good few jokes about having only one arm. You haven’t even heard the best one yet.”

  “This is it,” he said, the words muffled. “I’ve survived a car crash and a coma and this is what will kill me.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Mary was eating a very belated breakfast when DuBois found her in the seating area.

  “Mrs. Williams.” He smiled broadly at her.

  She swallowed her mouthful of eggs. “Hello, Doctor. It’s wonderful to see you in these new facilities. Your team looks very engaged and happy.”

  “Yes, yes, they’re remarkable.” He looked at the group. Some of them were chatting but they all did so as they worked. They looked as focused on their diagrams and experiments as the members of the PIVOT team did on their computers. “I wanted to ask you if you’ve had any word from the young woman you mentioned—Tina.”

  Her smile disappeared.

  “She’s not injured, is she?” the doctor asked. His mind seemed to spin off in another direction. “Hmm, if she initially seemed fine but now she’s having symptoms, would it make sense to…no, we didn’t test for that. Too much of a risk—”

  “No, no.” She shook her head. “I’m sure—I have no reason to think she’s ill, no. I haven’t…called her yet.”

  DuBois gaped at her. “You haven’t called her yet?” he asked faintly.

  “No.” Mary felt a deep, squirming sense of guilt.

  “Because?” He shook his head. “Mrs. Williams, Justin’s recovery may require someone in his age group. I truly believe that linking Tina specifically could help him become ready to wake up.”

  She made no reply. Instead, she looked at her eggs, although she no longer wanted to eat them.

  “Mrs. Williams.” He sat down next to her. “It is clear that you do not want to contact this woman. Could I ask why?”

  “Yes, why wouldn’t I want to call her?” She flared in response. “The woman whose reckless driving put my son in a coma, the woman who brought all this down on us—why wouldn’t I want to talk to her? Why wouldn’t I want to call and explain that I couldn’t help him but she could?”

  The words came out before she had time to stop them and she froze. Mortified, she focused stiffly on her hands.

  “Ah,” DuBois said softly.

  Mary pressed her hands against her eyes. She didn’t trust her voice in that moment.

  “So, perhaps…” he said. His words trailed off thoughtfully. “It is as if, in order to save Justin, I had to rely on those who blacklisted my treatment. I think I would be angry about that.” He patted her knee absently. “And yet, I think you know what you would tell me, even if the patient were not Justin. You would tell me that my goal—to save my patient’s life—was more important than my anger.”

  She put her hands down. This was perhaps the least cutting way he could have said this, and she was grateful. She managed to nod.

  “I will,” she said. “I hate that I hurt him and she could be the one to help.”

  “If you blame her for his condition, why shoul
dn’t she be the one to make it right?” DuBois asked rhetorically.

  “Well…that’s a good point. But…” She reached for his arm as he stood. “I want to go into the game. I want to help. I can’t simply watch, doctor. I can’t.”

  “Mrs. Williams,” he told her gently. “I told you that—”

  “I wouldn’t have to see him, would I?” she persisted. “Maybe there’s another way I could help him. Some way that he couldn’t see me and wouldn’t know I was there but I would know I helped. I could be helping—smooth the way.”

  DuBois considered this. “You know, I think there might be a way,” he said finally. “Yes. Yes, I think so. I’d have to run it past the team, of course.”

  “Run what past us?” Amber asked.

  Mary now vaguely remembered all of them heading out for lunch—goodness, her breakfast was late—and they had already returned. The other woman held a bowl of noodles that smelled amazing, and Nick munched on a wrap of some kind. Jacob set a sandwich awkwardly beside her plate of eggs. He had clearly gone out of his way to get her something to eat as well. She gave him a nod of thanks.

  The doctor gave them an overview of her request and his idea. To her surprise, it was quite an interesting one.

  “Remember,” he said, “we have the option to have each of our patients exist in the same world. Each would know of the deeds of the others, although they might not know those people were actual people.”

  “Are you up for this?” Amber asked her. “Because I think it sounds seriously cool. You could be a crazy legend—the death sorceress who trained Zaara the Great. Or whatever she ends up being called.”

  Mary smiled. “A legendary sorceress. I do like that. I’m not sure about the death part, though.” She frowned. “But…how will I get her away from Justin?”

  “Well,” Nick said, “we may have an opening. Give us a few. Well, maybe a half an hour or…I’m not sure how long it will take. Sorry.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” DuBois said. “Mrs. Williams has a call to make.” He gave her a surprisingly steely look.

  “Fine,” she muttered. She scooped a last mouthful of eggs into her mouth. “I’ll call Tina. But I won’t be happy about it.”

  “Okay,” he responded serenely.

  Tina realized she’d stared at the book in her lap for forty-five minutes without reading a single word. With a sigh, she closed it and put it beside her on the porch swing.

  “Are you all right, dear?” her mother called from inside the house.

  She shut her eyes and prayed for patience. Her parents had already been almost unbearable before the accident and now, they took it to an unimaginable level. Her father was absolutely furious that she’d had the accident and her mother coddled her as if she were a baby.

  Frankly, she preferred her father’s company at this point. However angry he was at her, it couldn’t come close to how angry she was at herself—and it felt good, actually, to have someone hate her. She still hadn’t heard from Mary Williams, and the thought of how angry and heartbroken Justin’s parents must be tore her up inside.

  All she wanted was for them to yell at her and say all the things she thought about herself.

  She didn’t expect her phone to ring and lurched into an ungainly sideways leap to stare nervously at the device as if it might bite her. The number was unfamiliar but it was from the area, which meant a glimmer of a chance that the impossible might have happened.

  Tina’s heart pounded. She picked the phone up and was shaking so hard, she had to make several attempts to answer. “Hello?”

  “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice. “Is this Tina?”

  “Yes?”

  A long pause followed. “This is Mary Williams,” the woman said.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Oh, my God. Oh, Mrs. Williams, I am so sorry. I am so sorry, you cannot imagine—”

  “I know.” The woman’s voice sounded strained. “Please do not apologize to me. It is Justin who deserves your apology.”

  Tears came to her eyes and she squeezed them shut. “I know,” she managed to say in a croak. “And someday I hope I can—”

  “Yes.” Mary sounded brisk now. “Justin’s doctors have requested to meet you. They believe you may be able to aid in his recovery.”

  “They do?” She stood up so fast she got a head rush. “Oh, my—”

  “God, yes.” The caller’s tone was now impatient.

  “How could I help?”

  “The doctors can explain that,” she said finally after another long pause.

  Tina briefly considered the possibility that she was planning to murder her. Mary must have been thinking the same thing because a moment later she said, “Please understand, there are concerns around patient privacy. Justin’s doctor is a man named Jean-Luc DuBois.”

  “Like Captain Picard?” Tina asked excitedly.

  “What?”

  “Jean-Luc. Never mind. Um. Yes, I can help. What hospital is Justin at?”

  Another pause made her feel a little uneasy. “Ms. Castro, I need to know that you will share this address with no one,” Mary said sternly.

  The murder vibes had begun to increase alarmingly now. “Uh…maybe it would be best if I didn’t come.”

  “Tina,” the woman said pleasantly, “my son is in a coma because you were driving ninety miles per hour on a residential street. If I could, I would rather live the rest of my life without ever hearing from you or acknowledging you again. Trust me when I say I did not respond well to the doctor’s suggestion to bring you in. However, they believe your presence might help Justin wake up, and I am determined to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Even allowing you near him again.”

  “See,” Tina said, “that sounds a hell of a lot more honest. I’ll be there.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah. And for the record, when he comes out of that coma—”

  “I think I know where you’re going, Ms. Castro, and I warn you not to say anything of the sort,” Mary said crisply. “I will thank you to take responsibility for your own actions before you criticize mine. When, God willing, Justin is out of his coma, I may be willing to discuss your opinions. Not before.”

  “Right.” She swallowed. “Right. So, you need me to come somewhere.”

  “Yes. The medical staff would like you to stay for several days to…speak to Justin. The head of the facility will contact you and send a car. Her name is Anna Price. And Tina, you cannot imagine how much it pains me to say this—thank you.”

  Mary hung up and the young woman smiled ruefully at the phone. The chances that she would be murdered were slim to none, she estimated. She could tell from the woman’s tone that the thank you had been hard to say and she would never have said it if she didn’t have to.

  Tina retrieved her phone and her book and headed inside to pack. When she passed her father on the stairs, he glowered at the sight of her smile.

  “What do you have to be happy about?”

  She looked at him, unperturbed by his belligerence. “I might be able to fix it,” she said finally. “Mrs. Williams called me to come see Justin. I might be able to fix this.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  The clang of the jail door woke Justin the next morning. He sat, winced at the pain in his neck, and spat out a piece of straw that had lodged in his mouth.

  Straw from the floor that certainly wasn’t anywhere near clean. He looked at it, winced again, and hoped his brain wasn’t powerful enough to make him sick based on the reasonable certainty of fake microbes.

  Multiple footsteps approached and his heart began to pound—all the more when the group reached his cell and he saw who it was. Mayor Killian looked deeply apologetic to see him on the floor and covered with dirt, Mayor Hausen looked triumphant, and Zaara looked furious.

  Screw the crick in his neck. He scrambled to his feet and brushed himself off as quickly as he could.

  “Master Williams,” Killian said. He smiled at him now. “I am
relieved to say that the charges against you are being dropped.”

  “Yeah, well—wait, what?” He broke off in confusion. “Eh?”

  The man looked at Mayor Hausen. On his other side, Zaara folded her arms and glared at her father.

  Hausen looked at them both and a somewhat sulky look settled on his face. He cleared his throat and sighed. “Hrm. Yes. Due to several factors, I have—”

  “Ahem,” his daughter interrupted meaningfully.

  Justin, suddenly entertained, looked at him.

  Her father was clearly not happy at this state of affairs. He sighed again and gave him a pained look that was clearly supposed to be somewhere in the realm of friendly. “After speaking to my daughter,” he said reluctantly, “it seems I was, er…”

  “Father.” Her voice dripped with poison.

  “It seems I was…wrong.” The last word seemed to be dragged out of him.

  “And how were you wrong?” she asked sweetly.

  He darted her an annoyed glance before he cleared his throat and focused on the prisoner. “Zaara has informed me that she left Riverbend of her own free will and remained here in East Newbrook with…you…in order to help the people of this town escape another of Sephith’s lackeys. As my daughter assures me that she did all of this without duress—and, importantly, as she is unharmed—I have decided to drop the charges against you.” His gaze bored into him.

  Against his better judgement, he felt a stirring of sympathy for the man. Sending a rescue party after Zaara under false pretenses had been wrong, but the man had come to find his daughter—a woman he was afraid for after she didn’t come home. He wasn’t lying when he said that the most important thing to him was her safety.

  “Thank you,” Justin said as courteously as he could.

  “Father,” she said. “The matter of the mission.”

  Mayor Hausen gave her a stricken look. When he looked back, his shoulders were faintly hunched. He cleared his throat. “Ahem. Yes. As a condition of your defeat of Sephith and my daughter’s rescue, two things were promised. First, the freedom of Lyle Stout and second, ten gold coins were promised. I regret to inform you that the coffers of Riverbend will only support…five.”