by G. P McKenna
She was right. Whatever pain-free bliss the Ilvarjo was enjoying broke as Kira pried his damaged eye open. Boy, was it damaged. Whatever had caused the cut had nicked both iris and cornea, leaving the Scalia a bloody, watery mess. The Ilvarjo’s body went stiff for a moment, then he began to struggle, trying desperately even in sleep to get Doctor Kira away as she rinsed the red eye with healing tonic. For such a small creature the Ilvarjo was deceptively strong. Had I needed to restrain him alone, it wouldn’t have been possible.
“Kilco.”
I shoved the needle into his arm. Made from cocoa leaf, a single dose could put a Poota to sleep for a week. The effects were almost instantaneous. The boy’s body went slack, his breathing unlaboured as it could be in his fevered state.
There was a knock at the door.
“About bloody time,” Kira muttered and pressed a tonic soaked cloth against the eye, “it’s open.”
Pogue’s eyes were puffy as he opened the door, but I couldn’t worry about that, not when Lady Ilana followed him into the room. She looked as beautifully immaculate as ever with not a hair out of place despite it being the earliest hours of the morning and everyone else looked like pigs in wigs. Her stoic gaze fell upon the Ilvarjo, unchanging other than a minuscule twitch of her jaw.
“Shield, I told you to get the boy’s mother, not his leader,” Kira snarled without even looking up. Sensing the presence of those she disliked was just one of her many gifts.
“I am his mother,” Ilana said.
Kira put the cloth down and turned to look at her, “this is your other one?”
Ilana inclined her head.
Kira glared at Pogue, who shrunk under its heat, “I tried to say so, but you stopped me.”
“Typical,” Kira muttered, but inhaled deeply and straightened up, “Alright, long story short, your son has a full-thickness corneal laceration that has been left to fester untreated. As a result, it is severely infected. I’ve given him enough antibiotics to kill a horse and bathed the wound in tonic. If the fever breaks by morning he will likely live, but I cannot guarantee his sight will be regained. The wound will need to be surgically stitched. I need your consent to remove the eye if it cannot be saved.”
“You have it,” Ilana said without hesitation.
“And the mask?” Kira asked.
That made Ilana hesitate, “if you must.”
Kira continued to look at her as if trying to insert some unknown wisdom directly into her cerebellum while Pogue approached the bench. He looked down at the Ilvarjo with a wince before reaching out to trace the shell of the boy’s ear, “will it scar?”
“Yes,” Kira stated matter-of-factly, “severely.”
“There’s nothing you can do?” Pogue eyes filled with fresh tears, “like cut it?”
“That will only make it worse, I’m afraid,” she replied while threading a needle, “surgery for cosmetic purposes is still a somewhat new field, and not one I’m willing to experiment with in a tent full of life-threatening injuries to tend to. I’ll strive to preserve the eye. That’s all I can promise,” Kira looked at the Ilvarjo’s abdomen, studying the numerous scars and marks which covered it. She glanced back at Ilana, “if you have nothing more to add, you can go. You too Shield.”
“No, I wanna-”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Pogue blinked at her through bleary eyes, fists balling up as his cheeks reddened. Lady Ilana took his elbow, “come,” she said in a dull tone that was still somehow authoritative, “I’ll find you a sandwich, and then I’ve got some questions that you will answer for me.”
Yeah, didn’t we all.
There was a long half-hour once the eye surgery was complete where I did nothing but open old wounds to thoroughly wash them with healing tonic before sewing them shut once more. It was a one-woman job, and Melly had long since returned to bed. Doctor Kira was off, drilling the Shield with her own brand of questioning that was more integration than anything else. There was nobody in the room; nobody other than the sedated Ilvarjo.
Clipping the final bandage, I walked to the head of the bench and looked down. There wasn’t much to see. The boy was more bandage than skin. Everything else was covered by that damned mask. If only I could peek beneath, see what horrors lay there. Almost involuntarily my hand found the hem. There was no one there to stop me, no one to know if I moved fast enough.
Naturally, that’s when the door swung open.
“What’s the hold-up? Just wait until you hear the Shield’s-” Kira paused, raising a brow as I snatched my hand away, “Whatcha doing there?”
“Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing,” she looked down at the Ilvarjo’s face, adjusting both the mask and the sheet that covered his modesty. She walked around the bench, examining my handiwork before clicking her tongue, “another day and we’d have been digging a grave for this one by weeks end,” despite the harshness of her tone there was no maliciousness in her words, only indisputable facts, “you’ve done a good job here. You’ll make a damn fine physician one day. Don’t let some boy distract you from that goal, no matter how fancy his title.”
When had I ever allowed a boy to get in the way of anything? Never, that’s when. “Right.”
“Or you can always try begging when you inevitably get pregnant and fail your studies,” how rude. A drop of honey to drown out a bottle of vinegar, that was my mother. She caught the bloody bandage I threw at her face and placed it inside the wash bucket before gathering up the soiled surgery tools, “I’m joking. You’re doing fine. That’s why I have a proposition for you.”
“What proposition?” I knew full well what she was implying but wanted to hear the words come out of her mouth. I wanted that victory.
“You’re seriously going to make me spell it out, aren’t you?” she asked and groaned as I nodded, “fine, but I’m only doing this because you’re forcing me to,” with bloody tweezer still in hand she stood before me with a sincere look on her face. Well, as sincere as the good doc was capable of. Her toothy smile looked most unnatural, “Kilco, my heart, I need you to stay in Ascot to help me. Tada.”
“You didn’t say please.”
“I said tada.”
“And why do you need me to stay anyway?” I asked, pacing around the bench. That was all I had wanted, what I’d suffered through six hours of clinic duty each day for. And not regular clinic duty either, oh no. Field clinic. I’d looked at sunburns on backs, bums and even one pair of bollocks. Dealt with patients so dramatic that even the bards would’ve been impressed, and here it was, fruition. The good doc was asking me to stay. Asking. She’d never asked me for anything in my life, so why didn’t I feel any better? I glared at the Ilvarjo, resisting the urge to rip the band from his pretty hair.
Later, I promised myself.
“Because he needs to be isolated and there is nobody else who can sit with him all day,” she said, popping open a bottle of disinfected and pouring it onto a rag. She said nothing as she rubbed the tweezers before snorting, “maybe this will convince you: The Shield claims that the boy disappeared into the umbra.”
“The Umbra?” I repeated slowly, raising my brows. The land of shadows. That fable had been as big a part of my childhood as Brother Yule and the Ostara Bilby. Pogue was somewhere between functionally batshit and batshit insane if he believed that, “the umbra’s a fairy tale.”
“I know, but the Shield’s insistent,” she placed the clean instrument in its marked place on the shelf, “that doesn’t really matter. What does is the fact that nobody knows where the kid has been. Blacklung is at epidemic rates in the highlands’ providence. An outbreak here would destroy us. It’s unlikely he’s been infected with that cloth covering his airways, but still-”
“No. I hate him.”
Kira blinked at me over the rim of her spectacles, her mouth settling into a severe line like she’d just smelled something rotten but was trying not to show it, “You’ve never met him.”
“And I hate him.”
“Tough shit,” Kira said, “you think I love everybody I care for? Do you believe everybody who works under me jumps for joy at the experience? No, even though that last group should. That’s life. Sometimes you’ve got to do things you don’t enjoy. You’ve spent the previous two weeks begging for a chance, well here it is. Grasp it,” she walked towards the door and paused, looking back at me, “two weeks, Kilco. That’s it. I’m going to keep him asleep for at least one. He needs rest, and I can’t imagine he’ll get much of that awake right now. Overall, the prognosis is good. We’ll see.”
With that said she left the room, left me steaming and clenching my fists. That was her way of saying there was no choice. She’d asked me, but it didn’t matter. I ran my fingers through the Ilvarjo’s hair. It was slightly greasy as I ripped the hairband out, bringing with it strands of sunkissed silk. It seemed I wasn’t being given any choice but to care for him, but nobody had said that I needed to make the experience a pleasant one.
Nine
Ommetaphobia
Fear of eyes
-I recall an interesting exchange regarding the Ascotian Armoury with one of my dearest friends: a well-travelled bond collector with a knack for vulgarity, which, of course, made her one of my favourite conversalists’-“I cannot understand how this happened.“- By chance, we’d run into one another at a pub in Blackwell’s way, near the border of the Ordenian Providence. She’d just returned from a job, giddy with new experiences.- “Commander Ramsey is interrogating the Warlock as we speak, Your Highness.“- Out of politeness, I’d asked if she’d had the opportunity to view the infamous tree temple, only for her to lose her peachy colour.
She recounted, not without chagrin, that in one small backwood village she’d patronised that the mayor’s only daughter was being wooed by three local lads-“I wish to be informed of any developments right away.“- The one who was least likely to win her hand dreamed up what he hoped would be a winning strategy. He would travel to the Armoury and enter the Ivory cage to claim the legendary Casteel sword for his bride-“You will be the first informed.“- everybody was in awe of his bravery, except for one village elder who approached the young hopeful and warned him that the sword is legendary for a reason -“and his eye?“- Nobody who has ventured inside the Ivory cage ever returned, for the sword is guarded by the Morrigan, an entity so dark it is but a shadow with a shifting face.-“it’s impossible to know until he wakes”- The Morrigan will take on the form of whomever it sees, and force you to confront yourself. If you are unable to stand behind your own skill, then the Morrigan shall sow and reap at will.
‘It’s dangerous to go alone.’
‘Then I won’t go alone,’ the hopeful had gloated haughtily, ‘I’ll bring my foolhardy mate.’
“That night,” my dear friend recalled in a near whisper which I had to strain to hear, “the crows cried from dusk to dawn without reprise. When the sun finally showed itself, a skinned face had been slung from the branches of a willow tree by the village sign. It was the face of the two foolhardy mates, seamlessly stitched together, left and right, as if they’d always been one. -‘’I’ll ask the Deities for prosperity”- “Promise me, Joe, if you ever venture near the Armoury and hear the crows cry, turn and run.” I agreed to humour her, for I did not envision myself slumming through the Chicora Woods in the foreseeable future, but I did not doubt the look in her eyes. It was the only time I’d ever heard her admit to fear-
The door slammed shut and I closed my book. The life and travels of a wayward bard. A favourite of mine since moving on from unicorns and fae, but favourite or not, there are only so many times you can re-read a book in a week. Nobody would ever claim sitting in isolation an enlightening experience, but isolation in a forest with a comatose Ilvarjo and limited access to materials with which to pass the time was a special brand of misery.
“The life and travels of a wayward bard?”
Had I been standing I might’ve stumbled, but since I was sitting on my bed, I merely dropped the book. It clattered to the floor, and a pair of silver slippered feet stopped before it as Princess Amicia knelt to pick it up. She ran a gloved finger over the leather spine, “J.P Elliot has performed for me a number of times, but between us, this is by far his greatest work.“
“Yeah,” I muttered and leaned over to carefully pry the book from her unresisting hands before clearing my throat, “sorry, I thought you’d left with Lady Ilana.“
It was a fair assumption. Since that first night, everybody had treated me as non-existent. Lady Ilana, in particular, pissed me off. She visited twice daily to do what needed to be done beneath that mask, and not once had she so much as nodded in acknowledgement. Like caring for her loin fruit was my life’s greatest privilege. Nobles were the same everywhere: rude. Yet the most important nob of all gave me a warm smile as she sat at the foot of my bed without invitation.
“I’ve brought you something,” she said.
“Really?”
“To show my gratitude for all you’re doing here,” she reached into the silver bag around her shoulder and pulled out a pink ribboned box, eagerly shoving it into my hands. She nodded with bright eyes and I placed the book down to pull the ribbon. Inside was a mess of chocolate-coated mellow fluff with cherries and cookies mixed in a slab. It looked hideously delicious.
I gave the Princess a genuine smile as I broke some off and raised it to my lips. It was lovely of her to think of something like that, to show gratitude in such a substantial way. I bit into the chocolate bomb…and froze.
“Do you like it?”
It tasted as if dirt and chaff had a fling. Rock hard yet spongy. The enamel of my teeth protested loudly at such maltreatment. “It’s-” Disgusting. A hate crime against both taste buds and dental hygiene.
“I made it myself.“
“- delicious.”
Darkness flashed in her eyes, contradicting the pleasantness of her smile, “I’m glad,” she practically tweeted as she stood and closed the approximate two and a half steps that separated the Ilvarjo from me. She reached out and curled his bangs around her finger before pulling the already bone straight hair rigid, “what’s your prognosis? He sounds slightly congested.“
An understatement. The Ilvarjo had been rasping and coughing so much that I wanted nothing more than to rip off the stupid mask and suction the snot from his nose. No one would’ve stopped me - we were alone together most of the day - but Lady Ilana scared me so much that every time I went to do it, I’d hesitate at the final moment before slinking back to my cot, clasping my hands over my ears.
“It’s only a cold,” I replied and leaned over to adjust the freshly changed bandage, “the eye is healing nicely enough. There isn’t any more discharge and the wound has completely scabbed over. I can remove the bandage-“
“No,” Amicia barked in the hoarse tone. She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment before reopening them, her voice back to its sickly-sweet pitch as she sighed, “no, thank you. It isn’t appropriate. I…,” she unhooked her finger from the Ilvarjo’s bangs and rested it against a scar over his right kidney, “of all my Ilvarjo, Ilya is my favourite. He’s a good boy. A loyal boy. He does what he’s told. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it can be to get them to do that. My young ones don’t always understand that I desire only the best for Ascot. Ilya does. He’s special.” It took all my resolve not to push my face into the pillow and scream. First the Shield, then the princess. Amicia was staring at me as if waiting for my confirmation that the Ilvarjo’s shit didn’t stink. Over my dead body was she getting it. Instead, I nodded stiffly. She nodded back, smoothing out her skirt as she moved to the door.
“Alright. I wanted to thank you, is all,” she looked me in the eye, “please remember though he may only be one of my Ilvarjo, he is important to me. Very important. If something were to happen to him while under your care I’d be dreadfully upset. Ensure that it doesn’t. Now, enjoy your chocolate” She left
then and once I was sure she wasn’t coming back I moved to the position she’d just abandoned. The boy’s chest rose and fell. I brought a hand to my mouth and spat the royal gift into it.
The aftertaste would linger for hours.
“His heart is beating faster, and his eyes are rapidly moving beneath his lids,” Doctor Kira announced like I cared. She’d taken one listen to the Ilvarjo’s chest and extended his isolation another week, and by extension mine. It wasn’t fair. He didn’t have blacklung, he’d be hacking up his lungs, bronchioles for bronchioles, if he had. She just wanted to punish me.
“Melly and I have to do our evening rounds,” she said, “We won’t be long. Now, he shouldn’t wake for a few hours, but if he does, he’ll be confused. Explain everything gently. No sudden movements.” Like she had the right to lecture anybody on bedside manner when she’d threatened to castrate a man who’d taken an arrow to the knee the week before just because he looked at her funny. What a joke. “Oi, answer me when I talk to you.”
“Yeah, I’ll be gentle with him.“
Grunting, she made a note on that damnable clipboard she carried with her, “good. I’ll hold you to that.“
And she could’ve too, had two hours in isolation not felt like two days. I’d paced around the tiny room as best I could without busting my knees into the stupid amount of furniture stuffed in there. Then I’d attempted to bite my nails, but there wasn’t enough left to satisfy my craving. Finally, I knelt at the Ilvarjo’s bed and poked his forehead, “wake up.” The Ilvarjo shifted slightly but didn’t re-join the land of the living. I gave his shoulder a rough shake while leaning in close to the half-covered ear, “wake up.“
A red eye blinked open and a hand brought up to ferociously rub, only to wince and rip it away once it contacted with the bandage. With a heavy sniff, the Ilvarjo pushed himself onto an elbow and groggily stared at me, “what do you want?” His voice was crackly, but the melodic accent still broke through. Much younger than expected. The Ilvarjo turned and buried their face in the crock of their elbow to hoarsely cough. A strange action considering his mouth was already well covered. He looked back at me and asked again, slowly “what-do-you-want?”