SMOKE AND BLADES

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SMOKE AND BLADES Page 14

by D Elias Jenkins


  Gaunt looked down at his prominent ribs and bony hands.

  “How long?”

  “Just short of five months. Give or take a day.”

  Gaunt’s head began to clear through the pain and disorientation.

  “My wife? Izzy. Is she alright?”

  Beerbolme’s vocal sac bulged from his neck in what Gaunt took to be an awkward moment.

  “Captain Gaunt, you shouldn’t be alive at all, you and your wife were caught in the full barrage of an angelic choir. I’m frankly surprised that there is anything left of you to heal. It’s remarkable really. The odds...”

  Gaunt tried to sit upright but his body sagged down in pain and exhaustion.

  “Beerbolme. I thank you for your care and for all you have done, but talk to me. Where is Izabella? Is she safe?”

  The frog-man’s features were not as flexible or capable of expression as a human’s but Gaunt could still see the sympathy there.

  “She is here.”

  “Help me to me feet Beerbolme. I need to see my wife.”

  The physician cocked his head and his horizontal eyelids closed over the red irises for a slow moment.

  “Alright Captain. Let me fetch a nurse to assist you.”

  Five minutes later Gaunt stood with his hands splayed against the viewing window as if trying to push reality away from him.

  He recalled vividly the moment during their escape from Zalenberg when they had been thrown beneath the crimson waters of the fountain. For an elongated moment there was no war and no danger. They were held there, staring into each other’s eyes through an immiscible of water and their own blood.

  Now he stared at Izzy through a barrier of liquid again but this time only his eyes could see.

  What remained of his wife was suspended in a large glass and brass tank of pale blue liquid. It made her seemed like some specimen preserved in formaldehyde in a natural history museum. Harnesses were attached to the remains of her severed limbs, with tubes providing nutrients and oxygen. Half her head was covered with a brass visor that obscured the extent of her injuries.

  Behind Izzy in the tank was a large cephalopod.

  Its skin undulated and the colour changed in a subtle continuous ripple. The tentacles of the creature were latched on to Izzy’s skin at various points like a strange organic life support system.

  Gaunt pressed his forehead against the glass. What little strength he had he felt leaving his limbs and it took all his focus just to stay upright.

  Beerbolme placed a soft clammy hand on Gaunt’s shoulder and squeezed.

  “She took the brunt of the blast I think. My guess is that she probably shielded you with her own body. That’s probably the only reason you’re alive. I’m very sorry captain Gaunt.”

  Gaunt looked at his wife and fought back tears.

  “Is she…is that thing all that’s keeping her alive?”

  Beerbolme gurgled softly and nodded.

  “Here in Longforgotten we often receive patients that are untreatable elsewhere. We advocate experimental new treatments when nothing else has worked. The Nautilus, a type of deep sea squid, has some of the most extraordinary healing properties we have ever seen. It’s some kind of symbiotic relationship but the exchange of chemicals from its tentacles can bring people back from the brink. It certainly did with you.”

  Gaunt stared at the strange creature that floated in the tank.

  “With me?”

  “Yes. You were in a tank just like this for two months. The Nautilus brought you back. We would not have been able to save you otherwise.”

  Gaunt looked at his wife’s blank staring eye. He felt all the colour slowly draining from the world.

  “Then why isn’t it bringing her back?”

  Beerbolme sighed and his vocal sac filled and released.

  “The most we can do is preserve her current state, John. Her brain was too badly damaged. Look at the Nautilus above her. Its colour changes rhythmically, with her vital signs only. When you were in the tank, it flashed and changed like a kaleidoscope. It was reflecting your mind’s activity, your sleeping thoughts and dreams. That is how I knew you would return to us. With your wife, with Izabella, it is only her heart we have repaired. There is none of her mind left. Again I am very sorry.”

  Gaunt felt his knees weaken and Beerbolme stepped in to support him. The room started to swim and he felt his heart pounding in his chest.

  “The baby. Beerbolme she was pregnant.”

  Beerbolme helped Gaunt into a chair and poured him a glass of water.

  “Captain Gaunt, she was pregnant when you were both brought here. We were unsure what to do. This treatment is very experimental and we had no idea what effect the Nautilus would have on an unborn child. As it turned out the matter was out of our hands. Your wife was too badly injured, the unborn did not survive.”

  Gaunt placed his head in his hands. Beerbolme sat beside him and extended a long yellow and black hand to rest on his back.

  “With my kind, Captain, we are born one of many. My brothers and sisters were in the hundreds. Many did not survive in the swamp where I was born. Over a hundred lived. Still my mother was distraught that a single offspring should not survive. For a human, I cannot imagine the grief you feel, to have but one child in a brood. If there is anything I can do, anything at all, you have only to name it.”

  Gaunt looked up through the glass partition at the remains of his wife, kept alive by the parasitic cephalopod. He took a deep ragged breath.

  “Turn it off, Beerbolme. Let her sleep.”

  The physician’s eyelids closed over for a long moment. Then he nodded and stood up.

  “Your war is over Captain. It may not seem it now, but there is life beyond the fight.”

  Gaunt looked at the remains in the tank. He could see the past as clear as glass but the future was only mist.

  Red mist.

  “War’s never over.”

  19

  Maeve let her Angeldart grind to a halt before the bridge that spanned the chasm between the rest of the world and Longforgotten. The three wheeled vehicle rattled and purred as it idled on the road.

  It was three hours ride from Free Reign and her backside was feeling every bump and pothole in the winding road up the mountain. She was glad of her thick leathers for the warmth but her thighs were chafing.

  She looked at the old citadel wreathed in clouds and felt a peace settle upon her shoulders.

  She was a city girl born and bred and had no pretensions at being one of the city’s Outrider Corps, the specialist police that patrolled the wilderness around the city walls. Free Rangers as they were nicknamed could survive for weeks on a packet of cured venison and a skinful of water. They were the only department of the wardens that were permitted to grow beards and they took the permission to heart. Most Free Rangers had braided facial hair down to their waists.

  Maeve however, other than a few camping trips with her parents as an adolescent, was an animal of the urban wilderness. She knew how to hunt down good coffee in any number of establishments in every district. She could tap into the intricate language of gossip and rumor that percussed around the metropolis and follow the music to its source. She could adapt her behavior to mimic the myriad species that made their home in the city and could camouflage herself in a hundred social situations. She had hunted dangerous desperadoes through the nighttime streets and was always the first to go into any room that needed cleared. Maeve was a hunter that prowled alleyways and underbellies. She was no expert out here in the forests and mountains.

  Yet she could not ignore the sudden space in her mind usually occupied by endless background noise and chatter. The air was clear and smelled only of pine needles and soil. Her nose was accustomed to the pungent stench from the street food of a hundred countries and the lightning smell of sorcery from the streamlines. Out here her thoughts were sharp and clear.

  She revved her dart and set out across the bridge, disturbing a flock of birds in th
e trees as she went. The little fire sprite flared up in its reinforced glass engine bowl and she accelerated up to the open gates. The greasy exhaust smell reminded her of home.

  She had come to interview an expert in Eastern magic on the recommendation of High Councilor Crawl. The Mist Priests of Tiger bay and beyond had taken death magic to a far higher level than mages of the West, who considered it taboo. Dr. Praig Salt had been a scholar and former lecturer at All Souls College and had also spent twenty years travelling the east and learning from their experts. Maeve hoped that learning about the ritual this Vigilante had undergone would offer some clue as to how to find him and stop him. She parked her dart and walked the steep winding cobbled streets of the town.

  Almost everyone in Longforgotten was connected to the business of magic in some way. Downtrodden students wrapped in scarves carried heavy volumes up and down the steep streets to be delivered to one academic or another.

  The lower levels were dedicated to workshops and foundries where the profitable business of merging sorcery and machinery was advanced. The very contraption that brought her here was developed in the Gurrion Brother’s famous workshop in the lower town. Their custom darts sold for thousands of Florreks in Free Reign.

  The upper levels of the sloping town were where the physicians, academics and theorists lived and worked. It was here that Maeve had arranged to meet Dr. Salt on the steps of the Brightside Library. She stopped half way up the precipitous street to buy a hot chocolate from a cute little café, and as she sipped it wondered why a town as ingenious as this had not thought to install a tram system to convey people up this fucking hill.

  By the time she reached the town square her thighs were already burning. She imagined that a few years in Longforgotten would produce athletes as well as academics.

  Through the scattering of students shuffling through the stubborn nubs of snow on the cobbles, Maeve saw a wiry man in a thick wool coat and eyeglasses clutching a copy of the daily journal. He clearly marked her uniform from a distance as he offered a small wave and polite smile.

  Maeve returned the smile as she approached and waited for some students to pass before extending her hand.

  “Dr. Salt? Thank you for seeing me. I believe my Chief Inspector contacted you in advance via the stream?”

  Dr. Salt shook her hand warmly and retreated up a step to match her height.

  “Yes I got the message this morning over breakfast. It’s always nice when someone takes an interest Inspector. Most people are very Reign-centric and forget there is a big wide mysterious world out there. So you want to discuss the practices of eastern mist-priests with me, in relation to a case you’re working on? I must say during my time in the islands of the Pearl Nations I came across…”

  The voice of the amiable little academic had already faded to a distant drone in Maeve’s mind. Her attention was caught by a sign on the door next to the library. The purple lacquered wood of a physician’s practice swung on a brass rod, but what snagged on Maeve’s mind was the stylized depiction of some kind of cephalopod that wove around the nameplate. It looked so familiar. Yet she knew nothing of creatures of the deep oceans. She felt her subconscious call up to her from the depths. Something about it reminded her of the two robbers that had been nailed to the Warren walls, their intestines dragged around them like tentacles. When he turned back to Dr. Salt he was still smiling but his eyes showed confusion.

  “Inspector, I do tend to rattle on, but people usually don’t drift off until at least five minutes in.”

  Maeve felt the cold wind on her face.

  “Forgive me Doctor. I had a thought regarding my case. Could you be terribly helpful and tell me what this creature is? On the sign here?”

  Dr. Salt looked to the sign and shrugged then tapped it with his finger.

  “This Inspector, is actually within the realm of my expertise. It’s a deep sea nautilus squid from the waters surrounding Tiger Bay. Very rare. Has some unusual thaumaturgic properties. Dr. Beerbolme is a pioneer in the field, particularly when it comes to battlefield injuries on soldiers returning from active service. I have the utmost respect for him.”

  Maeve looked at the brass nameplate and let her mind weave its work.

  “Soldiers…”

  Dr. Salt nodded.

  “Yes Inspector. He has worked on some poor souls over the years. Men and women that very little else could bring back. I’m not saying necromancy obviously, there’s no forbidden magic here. But those on the brink.”

  Maeve smiled at the little academic.

  “Dr. Salt, would it be incredibly rude of me to postpone our meeting for an hour or two? I wondered if I might have a word with this Dr.…”

  “Beerbolme.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well I have some papers to mark so that would suit me fine. He’s a lovely chap just ring the bell.”

  Maeve already had.

  The black and yellow Salientian polished his glasses on his purple physician’s apron. His red eyes blinked as he took in Maeve’s questions.

  “I have treated a good number of military personnel over the years, Inspector. With a sometimes extraordinary degree of success and a few setbacks along the way.”

  Maeve accepted the cup of mint tea he poured from the delicate pot. He handed her the cup with long steady fingers. She took a sip and nodded with a smile.

  “Your techniques are unorthodox…exotic?”

  Beerbolme seemed to struggle with the question. His throat sac gargled and ballooned a little.

  “My techniques are generally just effective. There is only medicine that works and medicine that does not. That which does not cannot be called medicine.”

  Maeve gave him an expression that said fair enough.

  “Are there any unusual side effects from your treatments using the nautilus squid for example? That is your trademark treatment, is it not? Dr. Salt was singing your praises outside.”

  Beerbolme seemed genuinely flattered by this. He clearly held Dr. Salt in high esteem. Maeve could see why, the little man had been instantly likeable.

  “He’s too kind. It’s true that I have pioneered this treatment. It’s not even really known as medicine in the east where generally they just eat the damn thing. Regarding side effects it’s too early to say. It’s still in the experimental stages.”

  Maeve placed her cup on the coaster to let it cool. The steam alone was warming the chill rosiness of her cheeks.

  “Could you show me one?”

  Beerbolme seemed to perk up at this interest in his work.

  “Of course Inspector. I have one through here in my laboratory. Follow me.”

  A minute later Maeve stood in fascination against the thick glass wall of the flotation tank. In the clear blue water the creature writhed and churned its tentacles. The colour changes rippling through its skin were hypnotic. Beerbolme smiled.

  “See. It’s picking up on your essence. That colour configuration hints at a creative mind but a pragmatic edge. I would guess that very few of your cases remain unsolved but you don’t know why.”

  Maeve shook her head with a grin.

  “I’m no empath Dr. Beerbolme.”

  Beerbolme expanded his throat sac.

  “No no nothing so obtuse. You see the artistry in the world. The craftsmanship of a narrative. The narrative of crime.”

  Maeve raised a brow.

  “What I generally see could rarely be called art, doctor. Horrific is the word most often applied.”

  “I sympathize. I have seen some terrible senseless injuries come through my doors. For wars that no one wanted.”

  Maeve pressed her hand to the glass and the creature changed colour again.

  “These creatures are mildly thaumaturgic in nature?”

  Beerbolme nodded.

  “Mmhm. They are usually to be found living near deep sea vents that spew out heat that makes them inhospitable to most species. Some of these vents may be filtering material up from sorcery springs be
neath the sea floor. That’s my theory as it goes.”

  “The treatment is parasitic in nature?”

  Beerbolme did not seem to like the word.

  “I would say it is more symbiotic. Entity and patient both give and receive of themselves.”

  Maeve was becoming entranced by the flowing changes in the creature once again. It was beautiful.

  “The creature becomes saturated with human memories and emotion, reflected in its colour changes. And the patient would in turn be slowly saturated with sorcery?”

  “Yes, I suppose that would be correct.”

  Maeve broke her gaze from the nautilus and turned to look in Beerbolme’s red eyes.

  “Would that make him more adept at being a subject for complex or challenging magical rituals?”

  “He would be a perfect candidate not to reject the levels of sorcery that would kill most people. Yes.”

  Maeve stood straight and hoped Beerbolme caught the sight of her warden’s epaulettes.

  “Dr. Beerbolme, I do not wish to infringe on your doctor patient confidentiality, but do you have records of everyone you have treated in the last year? Particularly any married couples.”

  Beerbolme returned her gaze for a long moment with his bulbous eyes. Finally his shoulders sagged.

  “I have always kept records. But not of the man you are going to ask me about.”

  Maeve raised her brow.

  “You know why I’m here?”

  “I live in the mountains, Inspector, but I read the daily journal. And I know how grief and pain can be twisted into anger and hate.”

  “Show me.”

  “I am a healer, Inspector, I do not mean to be complicit to anything that causes pain, even to the wicked that deserve-”

  Maeve raised a silencing finger.

  “Show me.”

  Maeve stood in the small cemetery that sloped gently down the hill at the back of Beerbolme’s practice.

  Beerbolme took a deep rattling breath and softly croaked.

  “Some people laugh at me for having a cemetery just outside a physician’s. I think it’s rather romantic. Do you understand?”

 

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