Wasting: The Book of Maladies

by D. K. Holmberg

  “And they were able to afford entry?”

  “I guess they had at least three silvers,” someone said.

  “Maybe he’s here because she burned something off,” the man suggested.

  The woman laughed softly. “You should talk. What do you have?”

  “Who knows? A few more silvers, and I’ll give them a salve. They’ll probably believe it helps.”

  “You’ll never be raised to full physicker with that mindset,” the woman said.

  “You don’t think so? It’s more about what you bring in than what you do…”

  Alec didn’t hear the rest. He pulled back from the wall and stood staring at the door.

  The conversation disgusted him, but there had to be real healers here, otherwise why would people continue coming for healing? Where would his father have learned what he had?

  What would happen were he to actually need healing? How would he manage to get that? If these weren’t even the full healers, how would he get in front of those with the ability to actually do something to help others?

  The door opened, and the thin woman returned. “Tell me your symptoms.”

  Alec nodded to Sam. “She can’t talk, not anymore.” He hadn’t discussed what he intended with her before, and hoped that she caught on in time. “She said it was like her insides had grown tight and painful.” Alec pointed to her throat. He needed something that would be believable, but something she wouldn’t be able to inspect. Smoke inhalation was potentially fatal, but not something she would be able to check on if he told the truth. They already believed they had been burned, so this wasn’t too much of a stretch.

  The woman twisted Sam’s face, forcing her mouth open. She looked in for a moment and then shook her head. “I don’t see anything, and you were able to make it all the way here from…”

  “Callesh.” It wasn’t a highborn section, but relatively high class. It would be believable of them to have the money necessary for healing.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “The Callesh section is quite a walk. If there was a significant problem, it would have appeared by now. That it hasn’t should reassure you.”

  Alec made a point of nodding vigorously. After overhearing the two physickers speak, he had a sense of what they expected out of him. They wouldn’t expect him to know anything, and they would expect him to listen, but he had plenty of experience with those seeking healing to know how they pressed when they felt they weren’t listened to.

  “It’s been getting worse since we left,” Alec went on. “She said it feels like her throat is closing and she can’t swallow anything.”

  Sam allowed a trail of drool to run down the side of her mouth, and Alec suppressed a laugh. At least she was playing the part.

  That last should be enough to trigger a deeper investigation, but the woman would have to be interested in the supposed illness for her to care. Alec wasn’t certain she was.

  The woman glanced over her shoulder toward the door. “If you sit here, we can observe. If any intervention is needed, we will be able to offer it then.”

  “Where are we supposed to sit?”

  She motioned to the floor. “You can sit anywhere in this room. You will be checked on periodically. When she’s felt to be sufficiently stable, we’ll release you.”

  Alec didn’t get the chance to argue, or even ask for a chair. She slipped out of the door faster than he could speak up, leaving him staring after her.

  This was how the physickers worked? At least his father offered a cot, even if not such a cozy room. This was more like a cell.

  How long would they give them?

  “That’s it?” Sam asked.

  “Well, she is right. There’s not much to do for smoke inhalation other than give it time. Though, I have seen a few cases where—”

  Sam shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, not right now. We need to get out of this room. Do you think it leads to the rest of the university?”

  “It would have to.” At least, he hoped that it would. If they got in, and he led Sam astray… Alec didn’t like to think about that. Disappointing Sam bothered him.

  When they’d been left alone for a few minutes, Alec reached for the door, unsurprised to find it unlocked. They would have no reason to lock them in this room. Most who came to the university for healing would remain as patiently as needed for the hope of what the university could offer. Most had spent enough to get here that they likely felt they had no other choice.

  Alec pulled the door open and slipped out. Sam followed close behind.

  The hallway was empty. No one moved, though he heard the soft voices coming from the other small rooms. He hurried away and reached a narrow hall with a row of long, gray jackets.

  Alec slipped one on. If he were spotted, he could try to pretend he belonged. The lie wouldn’t last if any thought to question him. He doubted he would be convincing to anyone who actually was from the university.

  “We can pretend to escort you to a different part of the university,” he whispered when Sam eyed him strangely.

  “It suits you,” she said.

  Alec flushed and then hurried along the hall to the steps at the end.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, they were in a much different part of the university. Pale white walls rose around him, all smooth marble. Hidden lamps glowed softly, giving the entire hall a serene sort of light. The soft sound of bells tolled distantly, a steady and gentle sound.

  Alec hurried along this hall. If they were caught now… He didn’t want to think what would happen were they caught now. Without the gray jacket, he could claim ignorance, and state he was lost, but without it, he would draw more attention.

  The hall led to another set of stairs, and they hurried up these, as well.

  “Do you recognize anything here?”

  Sam looked around. The landing here was wide and the marble inlaid with decorative strips of gold. More lantern light created a soft calming effect, almost coming from everywhere around them. He suspected hidden mirrors helped with the light, but the effect impressed him. Heavy oak doors lined the hall, each closed. At the end of the hall, another stairway led up.

  “I think… there.” She pointed to the stairs.

  The faint sound of voices drifted down the hall, and Sam grabbed him, pulling him against the wall, wrapping her cloak around them. He glanced over to her, but she brought a finger to her lips, silencing him.

  “She grows weaker by the day,” a hushed voice said. It came from the other end of the hall, and near the stairs. Were they talking about the princess?

  “Soon she will pass.”

  “We can’t allow her to pass here. She needs to be returned to the palace.”

  “They need to know we’ve done all we can to help her.”

  “And have we?”

  “There are limits to what we can do without access to the book.”

  One sounded like an older man, and he had a hard edge to his voice, even hushed as it was. The other sounded more like a woman. If they were talking about the princess and the fact that she was dying, at least these two seemed concerned.

  “There’s no way to find the book in time.”

  “Then she really is gone, isn’t she?”

  There was silence, and Alec thought they were now too far away for him to hear, but then the man spoke again. “She’s not gone yet, but all too soon, she will be.”

  The voices disappeared, and didn’t return.

  He stood next to Sam, feeling a chill wash over him. The physickers he’d seen in the lower level hadn’t displayed any real caring, but these two had. If more of the physickers were like them… There seemed a profound sadness from them about the fact that they couldn’t do anything.

  “Come on,” Sam urged, taking his arm and pulling him along the hall and toward the stairs.

  He didn’t resist, allowing her to pull him, and they climbed the stairs. With each step, they went further and further into the university, and further and f
urther into the kind of trouble Alec had never dared risk before. He couldn’t shake the troubling thought that if they were caught, any chance of him ever entering the university to study would be lost.

  21

  Finding the Princess

  The halls around her were familiar, and Sam guided Alec with more urgency. She was thankful that he had agreed, and the look of disgust on his face when they had reached the intake room troubled her. Had he thought that the university would be any different from anywhere else in the world? Could he really have believed that they wouldn’t favor highborns over lowborns?

  It was almost enough to make her regret dragging him here. Almost.

  Now that they were here, she needed to get into the room with the princess and then see if there was anything Alec could do.

  They reached a landing. The air had a familiar foul stench to it that reminded her of the danker parts of the canals, and she guided Alec down the hall. His eyes widened, and he paused periodically, sniffing, almost as if he wanted to inhale the stink that came out.

  “This one,” Sam said, motioning to one of the doors. She tried the knob and found it locked. She glanced up at him, hating that he would see her breaking into the room, not wanting him to see that side of her, but she’d already proven that she was a thief. She debated using her knife, but she still had the slivers of wood she’d made when she escaped that would work better.

  Slipping the slivers out of her pocket, she made quick work of the lock, and it popped open. Sam looked inside the room, but it was darkened, and she couldn’t see anything.

  The smell, though… that was awful.

  She jerked her head back, gagging.

  “Tissue rot,” Alec said.

  He reached a hand beneath his jacket and pulled out a roll of waxed paper, and ran his finger along it. He took this finger and smeared it beneath her nose. Instantly she smelled only the heady aroma of mint. The rot fought to get through the mint, but whatever he applied seemed to hold most of it back.

  After applying a smear of the paste under his nose, he rolled it back up and stuffed it into his pocket. “My father taught me to keep some with me since we don’t always know what we might encounter. I didn’t expect to need it here.”

  “Helpful.”

  Alec shrugged. “You get used to all but the worst. For that, you need a little reprieve.”

  Sam shook her head. “I don’t know that anyone can get used to stink like that.”

  Alec met her eyes. As he seemed ready to say something else, a moan came from within the room.

  He rushed past her and into the room.

  Even though it was the reason they were here, Sam reluctantly followed, hoping the mint paste would prevent her from smelling the awfulness of the room. For the most part, it worked, but she had a whiff of more, like a memory of it, that she couldn’t completely shake.

  Alec made his way toward a large bed occupying the middle of the room. As she watched, he peeled back the sheets to reveal the princess, a young woman with blonde hair and pale skin, so different from Sam’s darker skin and hair. Alec was seemingly unmindful of the fact that he left the woman fully exposed. Beneath the sheets, she was naked. Was that the way he had treated her? Likely he had, needing to do so to save her from the crossbow bolt in the arm… and the glass in her belly.

  “Can you help her?” she asked.

  Sam approached more carefully than Alec had, ignoring the way he tipped his head to her chest and then stomach, again trying not to think about his examination of her that night. Practiced hands ran along either side of the woman’s neck, and her chest, then her stomach. He lifted each arm, then her legs, studying them as if they could tell him secrets. The princess let out a soft moan, but didn’t seem in pain.

  Her cheeks were hollowed, and her eyes seemed sunken. Up close, even her flaxen hair seemed more like straw than silk. Bones were prominent, and her breathing had a ragged quality with each breath.

  “This… This is strange,” Alec said.

  “What happened to her?” Sam said.

  Alec paused in his examination, lowering the woman’s leg back down to the bed. “That’s just it. I can’t find anything wrong with her. It’s some sort of rot, but usually with this…”

  “Smell?” Sam filled in for him.

  He nodded. “With this, there’s a wound and an infection festering. I can’t find anything. It’s almost like whatever is happening is within her.”

  Sam stared at the princess. It was awful, what was happening to her, but she had a hard time generating any other kind of sympathy. The highborns, and all of those descended from them, had done nothing to help those like her from the outer sections. They didn’t care, so, why should she? The only reason she was here was to help her brother.

  Alec stopped at a small table resting next to the bed. Sam had missed that when she first came in, but noted now how Alec sorted through the various vials, holding them up and looking within. A few, he unstoppered and sniffed, before setting them back down. As he worked, he shook his head, slowly at first, and then with increasing intensity.

  “None of this would work,” he said softly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Alec held up the vial he’d just been sniffing. “This. It’s a burgworm root. This would help with appetite, and given the way she’s wasted, I suspect they intend.”

  Sam noted the boniness to the princess’s arms. “It seems so.”

  “But in combination with this”—he held up another vial, this one looking like it held a few leaves—“it robs the burgworm of its potency.”

  “They would know that.”

  Alec nodded. “I think they would.” He lowered his voice and pulled her away from the princess.

  Sam didn’t resist, feeling a growing sense of unease standing so close to her. If the princess could get poisoned and not healed by physickers, what would happen were she to catch it? She doubted there would be nearly the same effort spent trying to get her well.

  “I don’t think it’s contagious,” Alec said, almost as if reading her mind.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Well… I can’t. But if it were contagious, I’d expect there to be some sort of barrier in front of the room, and a film placed over her mouth. More than a sheet.”

  “A barrier like a locked door?”

  Alec shook his head. “That’s no real barrier. Anyone with a key can open it.”

  Sam looked past him and fixed her eyes on the princess. As much as she didn’t feel empathy for the woman, she couldn’t help but feel something. She was human, after all. “Is she suffering?”

  “I thought you didn’t care about her.”

  “I don’t care about her, but I wouldn’t want anyone to suffer needlessly. That’s not completely true. I wouldn’t have any trouble if one of the brutes suffered, especially after they put an arrow in my shoulder.” She rubbed the spot as she spoke. There was always a soft throbbing in the shoulder, one she couldn’t completely shake. “But I need her to come around. Tray needs her to come around.”

  Alec glanced up, meeting her eyes before looking back down at the princess. “I don’t think she’s suffering.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “She’s mostly quiet, for one.”

  “She’s moaned twice so far, and we haven’t been on the floor all that long.”

  Alec went back to the tray and started sorting through the different vials. There were also some uncovered bowls, and a thick brown paste was smeared around a plate, looking more like uneaten gravy than anything curative.

  None of the vials or bowls were labeled. How did they even know what they used on the princess?

  “It’s not all about the moaning. With suffering, you’ll see a few signs. A sheen of sweat on the brow. A racing heartbeat. Rapid breathing. She has none of those.”

  Sam had to trust that he knew what he was talking about. He’d healed her, so he obviously did, and it wasn’t that she really cared whether
he did anything for the princess. “She reminds me of some of the underfed strays I’ve seen in the Caster section,” she said softly.

  “If I can’t do this…”

  “If you can’t do it, then I’m going to find the tunnels that connect between here and the palace and use those to get into the prison.”

  “Do you… Do you really think that would work?”

  It wasn’t her best plan, but it was all she had. Go from here and into the palace, from there, find the deep tunnel to the prison, rescue Tray, and be gone. Maybe then they would even risk leaving the city. It would be difficult, but what choice did she have?

  She doubted she could even accomplish the first part of that plan.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re probably a good thief, but I doubt you’ll make it very far,” he said. “And I don’t know that there’s anything I can do. Even if I had supplies…”

  “You don’t need supplies.”

  “If I’m going to help her, I need something. What they have here isn’t going to be enough.”

  Sam dipped her hand into her pocket, pulling out the piece of paper that Bastan had given her. She didn’t even know if it would work, but it was the entire reason she had come, the reason she had grabbed Alec, thinking that the two of them could make this work.

  “What is that?” Alec asked.

  Sam held out the folded sheet of paper. “Here,” she said.

  “What is this?”

  “This is how you’re going to heal the princess and how I’m going to get my brother back.”

  The surprised look on his face was priceless.

  22

  The Magic in Paper

  The look on her face made Alec think she was serious, so he smiled, trying to soothe her. She’d been through enough already, and he didn’t want to upset her by telling her that paper wouldn’t be the key to helping the princess.

  The layer of paste under his nose itched, but he refused to scratch at it. The odor of necrotic flesh was potent, more so than anything he’d ever experienced. There was probably nothing he could do for the princess, but with the collection of medicines next to her bed, he doubted the physickers were getting anywhere, either.