Exsanguinated

by D. K. Holmberg

  That was not an outcome that Alec could allow.

  He crawled back, looking throughout the cavern, searching for signs of Helen. She had to be here somewhere, which meant the others would have to be here too.

  In the distance was a faint greenish light.

  Alec crawled toward it. He moved carefully, not wanting to make any sound, focused on the way he placed each step, trying to be careful so he could be as silent as possible. Alec wasn’t sure that he succeeded, but with each step, he came closer to the greenish light.

  What was it?

  A shadow hung near it.

  Was it a part of the cave?

  He looked around and saw no other shadows, nothing else that gave him the same sort of pause, and he hurried forward, scrambling along the rock until he reached the shadow and almost gasped.

  A small figure hung suspended from the ceiling. Blood dripped from its arms, collecting on the stones around it.

  It would be a Kaver. Alec knew that with sudden certainty, but why here? The others had been done in the merchant sections along the central canal, so why would Helen have used this place this way?

  He reached for his knife to cut the man down, but it wasn’t there. Nor was Bastan’s dagger. Eckerd must have taken them. So even if he could reach the rope, he had no way to cut the man down, but he had to do something. The physicker part of him refused to allow him to leave this person suspended like this.

  But how?

  He stood on his toes, and he could just barely reach the rope binding the man’s wrists.

  To pull them free, he had to remove some of the slack in the rope.

  He stooped under the hanging figure and moved the man’s legs onto his shoulders and pressed up, allowing some slack in the rope. He reached up, working at the binding with one hand. He managed to loosen it enough that he could slip a hand out, and he did the same on the other side.

  Alec sagged, lowering the Kaver carefully to the ground. There was nothing he could do here to help him, but he thought he could slow the bleeding by placing a tourniquet, wrapping a strip of cloth around his wrists.

  He worked quickly, tearing free a section of cloth from his own jacket, trying to do so as quietly as possible, but in the cavern, any sound seemed magnified. He quickly tied off a strip around each arm and hoped that would be enough. He needed to get him out of here, and then to the university.

  Who else was here?

  He moved toward the greenish light.

  What he saw as light was not that at all. It was a flame that flickered, burning out of the ground. No one was in sight, so he attempted to approach, but he couldn’t get too close to it, the flame was too scalding hot.

  It was a naturally occurring flame, which surprised him. On top of the flame, there was a pot, and within it boiled some concoction that stank.

  Alec pulled down the sleeve of his jacket to protect his hand and pulled the pot free. He tipped it over onto the stones, not wanting whatever Helen was mixing to contaminate anything else.

  Alec looked up, scanning the rest of the cavern. There had to be someone here. Eckerd brought him, which meant that somehow, he could find Helen, if only he could figure out where she was.

  Up ahead, he saw another shadowed figure, along with another green light.

  Alec raced forward, expecting to find another Kaver, and was not surprised when he did. This time, it was a woman. He did the same thing as before, and propped her up, getting underneath her so that he could loosen the ropes around the Kaver’s wrists, and lower her to the ground. She moaned, and Alec placed a hand over her mouth and whispered into her ear, “Shh.”

  He made quick work of tearing off strips of cloth and tying them on her arms to stem the bleeding, and once again, he found another pot boiling over an open flame. He pulled it off the flame poured it out, dumping the mixture onto the stones. This time, he worried that perhaps that was a mistake.

  What if that was what Master Helen wanted? Maybe she wanted to contaminate the stones.

  No. He didn’t think that likely. There would be water somewhere else, someplace other than where he had awoken, and she would be using that to taint the canals and somehow poison the Thelns.

  He looked around and saw another figure. And then another. By the time he reached the fifth person, and was lowering him to the ground, he heard the sound of footsteps behind him.

  Alec stepped back, trying to hide, and slipped.

  He made too much noise.

  Before he could even stand, two large men dressed in thick robes were there. They lifted him, jerking him forward. They dragged him through the cavern until a brighter light appeared in the distance. Lanterns, dozens of them, ringed a massive pool at the center of the cavern. All around the pool, more figures dangled from the ceiling like the five people he’d saved. He suspected there would be pots boiling near them, much like the others.

  One person appeared out of the darkness.

  Helen.

  She glared at him. “Physicker Stross. Or should I say, Master Stross?”

  “You’re not going to succeed,” Alec said.

  “I’m not? Do you have any idea what I’m doing?”

  “You intend to poison the central canal so that you can attack Asalar.”

  She shot him a quizzical look. “Interesting. Perhaps we would have been better off to have brought you in sooner. I had thought that by forcing you along, we might be able to expel you, but you have proven far more capable than I ever would have expected. It’s a shame this will be the end for you, Stross.”

  “You won’t succeed. I’ve already prevented—”

  Helen stepped forward. She smelled of heat and sweat and dried blood. “You have prevented nothing. It’s amazing you have survived as long as you have, but considering everything else, you have prevented nothing.”

  “Why are you sacrificing Kavers?”

  “I am not sacrificing Kavers at all. Most of them willingly offered themselves, especially when they realized what it was I was doing.”

  “Do you really believe that you can destroy the Thelns?”

  “I believe the power of this augmentation is enough to destroy them. When it’s complete, we will finally be able to return.”

  “Return to where?”

  “To Asalar, of course.”

  “Why would you want to return?”

  She glanced behind her, looking at something for a long moment, before turning her attention back to Alec. “We were exiled. Exiled for searching for a greater sort of power. Exiled for reaching for more. And now? Now we will return.”

  “Exiled from Asalar?” Alec couldn’t hide the confusion that he felt, and it probably didn’t matter if he tried.

  “I have lived in this stinking city for nearly a hundred years. It has taken a long time to re-accumulate enough power for this to succeed. Now there will be no one who can stop me. Not even someone like yourself, an apothecary who thinks himself something more.”

  Alec stared at her, and his heart raced. “You were responsible for the Book of Maladies.”

  Helen grinned at him. “We let the rumor out that the Thelns were responsible for it. It was effective, especially as crossing the swamp and then the forest is nearly impossible.”

  “But Lyasanna went.”

  “Lyasanna was allowed to go. There was an attempt at a reconciliation, but…

  “A reconciliation? Is that why she went?”

  “The Anders were summoned, but I ensured Lyasanna was the one who went. Who better to go and recognize the potential that remained there than Lyasanna, the only one of the Anders who has ever been a Scribe?”

  “Did you know about Tray?” When her mouth twisted in a frown, Alec smiled. “You didn’t. You didn’t know that she almost stayed.”

  “Yes, she almost stayed, and she would have sacrificed everything we had been working for. It took some persuading for Lyasanna to remember everything that had been done to her family.”

  “But it wasn’t done to her f
amily. It was done to the Scribes? That’s why the Scribes can’t return from the Theln lands, but the Kavers can.”

  And if the Kavers could, that meant that Sam shouldn’t be in any danger. That idea gave Alec a measure of hope. Maybe Sam wouldn’t be in danger going to the Theln lands. Maybe she would be safe there, and he didn’t have to fear anything happening to her.

  As long as he was able to prevent Helen from attacking. If he couldn’t, if he couldn’t find some way of preventing that, it might not matter.

  There was a strange, almost bitter odor that he recognized.

  “You’re not going to succeed with this,” Alec said again.

  “I’ve already succeeded. You preventing a few Kavers from participating will do nothing. This war will be over, and there’s very little that you can do to stop it. We will return to our homeland, and—”

  Alec laughed, cutting her off. “You won’t. You won’t even make it out of this cavern.”

  “And why is that?”

  Alec looked over. “You’ve been so concerned about the world beyond the city, that you have neglected the dangers within it.”

  “There are no dangers to me inside the city.”

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. The city itself has become home to others, many others. They come here thinking the university is something real, and they can be offered the opportunity for healing, but that has never been the case, has it?” He started to understand. If he were to need to create a Book of Maladies, how better to do it than to have people coming to him with symptoms that could be documented? Alec had participated in it. He likely had contributed to the making of the Book, at least a volume of it. “And yet, the university has become more than what you ever expected.”

  “The university has served its purpose.”

  “And that purpose has been to destroy others? You haven’t wanted to truly help them at all, but some of the physickers have. And those physickers are responsible for all of that accumulated knowledge. And the university drew powers you never expected. Drew attention to the city you never could have anticipated.”

  What Bastan had told him began to make sense. But Alec understood it even differently. There was danger in the city, but that danger was self-inflicted. It had been drawn by the promise of the city itself. It was drawn by the promise of help and healing, regardless of what the Scribes who had founded it had intended.

  “Enough,” Helen said. “You can sit back and watch as this plan comes to fruition, or you can be incorporated into it.”

  “I don’t have the necessary blood for what you intend.” He laughed again. “Tell me, Helen, what will you do with them?” He pointed to the far end of the cavern where many people were congregating. “You need Kavers, but you’ve used them all for your plan.”

  Dozens upon dozens of people had converged, and Alec smiled. He knew even without them being close enough that it was Bastan and an army of others from the outer sections. Maybe Mags would have come. Perhaps the Shuver. Maybe countless others who had abilities that were kept on the periphery of the city. All of them approached.

  “Without your Kavers, what are you going to do?”

  Helen glanced at Alec. “Do you think I need Kavers to be augmented?”

  “I think you need their help. I think you need your soldiers, as Master Eckerd said.”

  Helen turned away, and she jumped. She moved quickly, and with an augmentation that carried her. Alec could only watch, and he listened to the sounds of battle as sword hit sword, fighting that took place all around him. He wanted to help, to do anything, but found he didn’t need to.

  Bastan reached him. “Are you harmed?” he asked.

  Alec shook his head. “I’m not, but did you stop her? Did you defeat Helen?”

  Bastan glanced back. “I don’t know who we have, but we’ll bring them out of here, and you can help us determine who all have been involved.”

  Alec smiled, feeling relief at their success.

  And then the ground exploded.

  29

  A Return and the Plan

  The boat carving through the swamp was different from the canal barges. Rather than the flat bottom of the canal barges, this had a sharp keel, and it managed to move much more quickly than the barges had been able to do. Ralun rowed, using a set of oars fixed on either side and swept them through the water with a powerful stroke. Each time the oars pierced the water, they propelled forward faster and faster.

  A dozen boats were around them. Thelns occupied each one.

  Marin looked over at Sam. “This makes me uncomfortable,” Marin said.

  “Because you don’t think it’s right?”

  Marin glanced from the Thelns over to Sam. “I’ve been raised my entire life to fear the Thelns.”

  “And yet you have helped Tray.”

  “Because he was a child who deserved more. Because he was not a complete Theln.”

  “No, he is part Theln and part Scribe.”

  She still didn’t know whether that would matter, and didn’t know whether there would be any way they could restore Tray, saving him from the poisoning that he suffered from, but first, they had to reach the Book, and then they had to stop Helen.

  “I didn’t know that we were exiles,” Marin said.

  “Not you, the Scribes were exiles. You served the exiles,” Ralun said.

  “And because of that, we all deserve to suffer?” Sam asked.

  “You are all descended from the Anders. They have done nothing but create pain and violence wherever they have gone. The Anders are responsible for great destruction.”

  “We might be descended from the Anders, but none of us knew what they had done. It would’ve been easier had you shared.”

  “It would have been easier had Verdholm been interested in peace,” Ralun said.

  Sam looked out over the swamp. That was the hardest for her to come to terms with. Kavers had attacked, and it seemed as if it would be an easy thing for them to have ended, to have come to terms with the fact that they were not the enemy of the Thelns and the rest of Asalar, but how, especially when there were those within the city, particularly high-ranking Scribes, who had a vested interest in maintaining that distinction?

  “They have used the university to gain power and wealth,” Ralun said.

  “And they have used it for some good,” Sam said. She thought of Alec and everything he had learned, everything his father had taught him. Would that have been possible were it not for the university? Even if the university had been created as a way to hide what they did, many others would have suffered had Alec not receive the training that he had.

  No answers came to her as the city loomed in the distance.

  As they approached, Sam couldn’t help but feel somewhat traitorous. She was returning to the city with Thelns, and if she were wrong, if she had been deceived, she would be putting the city in danger.

  Sam glanced over to Marin. “How have the eels prevented the Thelns from reaching here before?”

  “They mask the presence of the city.”

  “And when you attempted to unmask it?”

  “I was angry,” Marin said. “I thought only of getting Tray out of the city and helping him reach his father.”

  “But you would have sacrificed the safety of the entire city.”

  Marin glanced up to Ralun. “They were never going to attack the entire city. That has never been their intention.”

  Sam breathed out heavily. It was a lot to take in. A lot to understand. But right now, her only focus was to get to the Book for Tray.

  But would they be in time?

  Marin guided the boats as they cruised through the canals. They reached the central canal, and it was wide enough for them to proceed several boats across.

  Marin frowned and signaled for Ralun to slow.

  “What is it?” Sam asked.

  “There’s something amiss.” She stood at the railing of the boat and stared down at the water. Marin frowned as she did,
looking into it for a long time before Sam joined her. “Does it appear reddish to you?”

  Sam nodded. It did appear reddish, which was strange. Normally, the canals were a dirty brown color. They were never clear, and that dirty water concealed the presence of the eels. This water had taken on a hint of color that almost looked like…

  “Blood,” Sam whispered. She looked over at Marin. “That’s what this has to be.”

  “Helen wouldn’t waste the blood like this.”

  Sam looked around. “What if there is some strange augmentation she thinks to place?”

  Marin frowned. They reached one of the merchant docks, and she motioned for Ralun to guide them up to it. The dock itself was empty, the barge missing, and Sam and Marin climbed out. The Thelns on the boat with them joined them on the shore.

  Sam had found the Thelns to be practically pleasant, certainly not what she had once imagined them to be. They were not the horrible beings she had thought them. They were not violent, and they had done nothing to harm her. And, considering what she had seen in Asalar, there was a beauty to the people.

  “What now, Kaver?” Ralun still had an edge of resentment in his tone, and Sam couldn’t blame him. How could he not, after they had been battling for as long as they had?

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure—”

  Ralun sank to his knees. He looked up at Sam, his eyes wide. “What is this? What have you done?”

  Sam looked at Marin. “Kyza. What happened?”

  She looked out over the other boats on the canal, and the Thelns were writhing. All of them had dropped, and they moaned, as if unable to move.

  “This is Helen,” Marin said.

  “Kaver!” Ralun said, trying to reach for her, but he couldn’t. He stretched up, as if to grab her, but he contorted again in pain and dropped to the ground.

  “Is this the Book?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t see how it could affect so many people.”

  Sam looked over to the canal. The reddish hue to it was more evident from the shore.