Exsanguinated

by D. K. Holmberg

  He turned his attention to the shelves. Unsurprisingly, most of the books on the shelves were incredibly old. Most were likely from the masters' section of the library, with information about injuries and ailments that should have been kept in the library. Alec began to frown as he looked along the row of books, thinking to himself that this wasn’t the way knowledge was meant to be kept. It wasn’t meant to be hidden and stored in one person’s home. Knowledge of things that could help others was meant to be shared.

  “What’s this?”

  Alec turned to see Sam with a book half out of the shelf. He glanced at the cover but didn’t recognize the writing on it. There was some strange symbol…

  “I’ve seen that symbol before,” he said.

  Sam stared at it for a moment before her eyes began to widen. “The cells.”

  Alec nodded. “Grab that one. See if there are any others like it.”

  Sam began to look with different interest and focus. And now that she had discovered something that at least had some connection to the mystery, Alec was increasingly confident they would find something of use here.

  He continued searching the shelves, and there were three other books with symbols on them. He took all of them. He went title by title, moving along the shelf, deciding that it was worth it to move slowly, especially if they were able to discover what Helen might have been hiding here. Some of the titles were obscure. That didn’t surprise him. In the brief time that he’d spent in the masters' section of the library, he had seen various obscure titles. A few here were strange, and he pocketed those on the off chance that they might help him understand what Helen might have known about Scribes.

  “I’ll have to send somebody here to collect the rest of these,” Alec said. “I’m sure they belong in the university library.”

  “You don’t think they are important?”

  Alec shrugged. “Important to the university, but maybe not for our immediate needs. Those,” he said, pointing to Sam’s pocket where she held the books with the symbols on them, “are likely to be something more, though I don’t exactly know what, yet.”

  “I can help,” Sam said.

  Alec nodded. He would like that. He would also see what his father might know. There had to be something else that his father would have uncovered about the symbols by studying the books.

  “Alec?”

  Stefan’s voice drifted from below, and Alec went to the top of the stairs and looked down. “What is it? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, but I think you need to see this.”

  Alec glanced over at Sam and then shrugged. He took another look around the room, feeling as if they might be missing something. “Can you check to see if there’s anything hidden here?”

  “Hidden?”

  “You were the thief. See if Helen might have been keeping something from us.”

  “You keep commenting on the fact that I was a thief. If it bothers you that much—”

  Alec grinned at her. “I only comment on it because I find it funny.”

  “Funny?” Sam slipped over to him and jabbed him in the chest with one end of her canal staff. “I’ll show you funny.”

  “Just see what you can come up with,” he said.

  She glared at him before tearing her gaze away and turning her attention to the room. Alec hurried down the stairs, once again noting the transition of where the dust layer had been wiped away. It was obviously intentional, but who would have come through here and thought to erase away any traces of their presence? And why start halfway up the stairs? What had they hoped to accomplish?

  “What is it, Stefan?”

  He found Stefan standing in front of a wall. A painting was set on the ground, and as Alec approached, he realized that it looked to be of a younger woman with flowing brown hair. She had a slightly crooked nose, but her eyes were warm and almost welcoming.

  “I found this here.”

  “What is it?”

  Stefan handed a book to him.

  It was a thick book, thicker than most that he had seen up in Helen’s upstairs room. The cover was a dappled leather, and much like the ones they had collected upstairs, there were strange symbols on it.

  “What made you think to look behind the painting?”

  “I didn’t look behind it,” Stefan said. “I was going to take it with me.”

  “The painting or the book?”

  “The painting. It’s of my mother.”

  Alec turned his attention back to the painting. “What happened to her?”

  Stefan shook his head, sighing. “I don’t know what happened. All I know is that she was sick, and Grandmother was unable to help her, regardless of how much she tried.”

  An illness a Scribe was unable to help with? Many such illnesses came to mind, but there was something about this instance that troubled Alec. Could Stefan’s mother have been tainted by the Book of Maladies?

  “Why don’t you see if there’s anything behind any of these other paintings,” Alec said.

  Stefan looked down at the portrait that rested on the wall and shook himself before he began pulling portraits from the walls and searching them. As he went, Alec started to flip through the pages of the book. At first, he thought this would be nothing more than a series of symbols, nothing that he would understand, but two pages in, he found only blank pages. There were markings in the upper right corner, but nothing else.

  His hands began to tremble, and his breath caught.

  The sound on the stairs pulled his attention away, and he turned back to Sam.

  “What is it?” Sam said, staring at him. “I didn’t find anything else up there, so I don’t know if there’s anything hidden in those shelves that we need, or that might be beneficial, but so far, it’s just these books.”

  “Stefan found something.”

  “What’d he find?”

  Alec swallowed and handed the book over to Sam. She flipped through the first few pages much the same way that he had, her gaze narrowing as she noticed the symbols, and then her eyes widening, color draining from her face as she came to the blank pages with the symbol in the corner.

  “Is this?”

  Alec nodded. “It has to be, doesn’t it? This has to be the Book of Maladies.”

  13

  The Book of Maladies

  “The Book is not a single book. It never has been,” Aelus said.

  Sam couldn’t take her attention off of the book. The last time she’d seen pages like that had been when she had broken into the highborn house. At the time, she’d blamed Ralun, but now she wasn’t quite as certain he was responsible for the Book.

  What if Helen was the one responsible for it?

  “What do you mean that it’s not a single book?” Alec asked.

  He stared at the pages no differently than Sam did, and every so often he would reach over and finger the paper. It was easar paper. Sam had determined that, but there was something about it that seemed a little different from the easar paper they used.

  “It’s a series of volumes.” Aelus shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that.”

  Alec looked over to Sam and then back at his father. “If it’s not a single book, then how do you know which volume has been used on a person?”

  “Alec—you’re asking me questions for which I’m not entirely certain of the answers. I don’t have the same knowledge of the Book as some might. I’m not even a Scribe, so all I know is based on rumors, and those rumors are likely born from other rumors.”

  “You seem to know enough to understand that Sam had been targeted by the Book.”

  “Only because it made sense. But this? I can’t read the page, and though there might be some way of revealing the writing here, even if you knew how, it’s of little use.”

  “How do the Thelns use the Book?”

  “Again,” Aelus said, looking at Sam. “I don’t entirely know. Much of what we know is conjecture. The only people who truly know and understand the B
ook are the Thelns.”

  Sam frowned. There had to be some reason Helen had a copy of the Book. And the secret to it seemed tied to the symbols, though without being able to interpret them, there wasn’t anything they could do. All of it appeared interrelated, but complicated, nonetheless.

  “Have you figured out anything with those symbols?” Alec asked.

  His father sighed. “That’s the strange thing. I think I’ve identified a pattern, but I haven’t been able to determine what it means. It’s a sort of writing, but it’s not any sort of writing I’ve seen before.”

  “What of the things that mother had?”

  His father shook his head. “Anything we had was lost in the fire. And your mother… Well, she didn’t keep many things from her homeland.”

  “Other than the book on how to make paper.”

  His father nodded. “And even that, I was surprised you were able to uncover its secrets. Without a Theln translator, there wasn’t any way for us to interpret what was there.”

  Sam glanced at the books of symbols that she and Alec had taken from Helen’s. There were four of them, and each was filled with symbols much like they had discovered on the wall inside the palace prison. The symbols were similar to those on the first few pages in the Book, but not so much that they were able to translate them.

  “The book of Mother’s was different from those,” Alec said. “Hers was written in a different language, but it was written. These are…”

  His father nodded. “These are.”

  Sam couldn’t help herself and continued to flip through the Book. Even as she did, she felt something from it. Perhaps it was nothing more than the fact that it was old—and felt old. There was power in the pages. There was power in the words. But she wasn’t entirely certain what the intent of it was.

  “I don’t understand this,” Sam said.

  “What is it you don’t understand?” Aelus asked, looking from Sam to the Book.

  “This book. What’s the point of it?”

  “The point is assassinations.”

  Sam frowned. “It doesn’t seem to make any sense. It’s extensive if it’s this long. What was the point of having so many ailments here?”

  “As I said—”

  Sam looked up. “I know what you’re saying, and I know what we’ve believed about the Book, but what if that’s not it?” She looked over at Alec. “I think of the things you do and the way you document each illness and injury. How is that any different from what would be documented here?”

  “Well, presumably, it’s the fact that the Book seems to allow someone to be influenced in such a way that they are poisoned, or at least, effectively so.”

  That idea troubled her, though Sam couldn’t put words to why that was.

  “What are you trying to figure out?” Alec asked.

  “I’m trying to figure out what we are going up against. And why Helen would have this copy in her home. Why would it have been hidden, especially when it could have been so useful?”

  “Useful? Sam, you’re talking about a copy of the Book of Maladies.”

  “Not a copy,” Aelus said. “Like I’ve been saying—”

  Alec turned to his father and threw up his hands. “Fine. Not a copy, but still, it is a book with the same writing as the Book of Maladies. Whatever else it is, it’s dangerous.”

  Aelus sat back, staring at the Book. He said nothing, and Sam pushed the Book away from her, standing. “I’m going to have to trust that the two of you can figure this out.”

  Alec looked at her. “What are you going to do?”

  “I still need to figure out what happened to Bastan. If you get a chance, maybe the woman at the university can help. See what she might know. I need—we need—to know what Helen is after so we can get him back.”

  Alec stood from the table and wrapped his arms around her. “We will find him. Bastan isn’t helpless.”

  “Against a group of Kavers? He might be more helpless than we realize. I’ve always thought of Bastan as this incredibly strong and talented person, but there are limits to what he’s capable of doing.”

  “The same can be said for you.”

  Sam clenched her jaw. “See if you can find anything out. If you have to go to the university and ask others there, then do it.”

  “Eckerd might be able to help,” Alec started, scratching his chin. “Although, Eckerd has been strange since all of this started.”

  “He’s probably strange because he isn’t quite certain which side he needs to be on,” Aelus said. “Or how all of this might involve him.”

  “It’s possible, but…” Sam turned away from them, letting Alec and his father have their discussion about the various master physickers. What did it matter to her? What did anything matter until she figured out what had happened to Bastan?

  He couldn’t have merely been dragged out of the city. He was too well connected for that.

  That meant she needed to go back to Caster. She had to be the one to coordinate things in Bastan’s section. If there were anyone who would have the necessary connections, it would have to be her, wouldn’t it?

  She reached Caster near midday. A bank of thick clouds hid the sun, obscuring it and leaving the day dreary. It matched her mood. She reached the tavern, and inside, she found a dozen men all scattered around. Voices stopped when she came in, and when Kevin—sitting near the back of the tavern—nodded once, the voices resumed.

  Sam made her way over to Kevin and threw herself into a chair across from him. “What’s the plan?”

  “I’ve been trying to see what we can come up with. I haven’t been able to find any word of Bastan yet.” When Sam opened her mouth, Kevin waved his hand, silencing her. “That doesn’t mean I won’t; it only means I haven’t, not yet. I’m certain he’s not out of the city. If he were, we would’ve heard that. It’s too hard to move anything in and out of the city without notice, and we have all the potential avenues under watch.”

  “All of them?”

  “There are only a few ways people can be moved.”

  “We don’t even know that the intent is to move him out of the city,” Sam said.

  “No, but from the activity we’ve observed, that’s the most likely plan. There is enough activity that tells us something significant is happening, even if we don’t yet know what.” Kevin leaned back and crossed his arms. He let out a heavy sigh. “Bastan has enemies, Sam.”

  Sam smiled slightly. “Of course he does.”

  “They are enemies who would be of great benefit to those who seek to regain control of the city.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Have you ever wondered why Bastan has stayed in the outer sections of the city?”

  She shrugged. “Because he has his network here. Because he’s connected and set up. It’s because—”

  “It’s because he protects the city.”

  Sam would have laughed, but there was an earnestness to Kevin’s face that warned her against it. “What do you mean that he protects the city?”

  “Just that. Bastan is responsible for providing a certain level of protection to the city.”

  “You mean that he was asked?”

  Kevin shook his head. “It’s nothing quite so formal as that. I think Bastan took on the role for himself, wanting a certain level of stability. There are other beings of power in the world, Samara. You’ve seen some of them.”

  “I’ve seen the Thelns. So have you.”

  “The Thelns. They are but one part of it. Bastan himself…” Kevin paused and shook his head. “No. I shouldn’t be the one to even share that.”

  “I know about Bastan.”

  “Then you know he is something more than he appears. There are others like him, and there are others outside of the city that would like to gain entry. That is why I’m concerned he will be taken out of the city.”

  Sam could see the value in using Bastan in that way. If he was able to prevent access to the city by those who shouldn’t be here, it might be be
neficial to others for him to be removed. What would happen then? What kind of attack would they be facing if Bastan were gone?

  A better question might be, would they be strong enough to withstand it?

  “Do you think you can hold the city if something changes?”

  “Hold? Sam, we’re doing all we can to maintain the outer section. If something happens in one of the inner sections, there might not be anything we can do.”

  There was more to the city than Sam knew, but there was one person she could ask. She slapped the table and stood. “Keep looking for him,” she said.

  Kevin arched a brow at her. “Of course I will. Bastan means as much to me as he does to you.”

  She knew that he did and gave Kevin a warm, but worried smile before heading out of the tavern and making her way toward the center of the city, planning her conversation with Lyasanna and Marin. The two of them would need to provide information, though Marin might not know anything more. Lyasanna, on the other hand, likely did. There were things that she was hiding, and it was that information that Sam was determined to obtain. If Lyasanna knew what was taking place in the city, she was about to give it up.

  As Sam crossed the bridge leading to a merchant section—Isand, a place with mostly warehouses and canal barges all tied up along the edge—she had a growing suspicion someone followed her.

  Every so often, Sam glanced back, looking to see whether she could spot anyone. It would be easy enough for her to turn and shake them free, but she saw no evidence of anyone behind her.

  As she made her way forward, she still couldn’t get rid of that sensation.

  Someone was there.

  Sam assembled her canal staff and started focusing on an augmentation. With everything that she had been through, everything that she had experienced, she was tired—far more tired than she had been in quite some time. Finding the energy and the focus to place an augmentation was difficult. She thought about Alec’s eel meat and recalled the energy it had given her, albeit temporary. She’d have to get some for herself if her need for multiple augmentations continued.