Comatose: The Book of Maladies

by D. K. Holmberg

  “She wouldn’t have done this,” Elaine said.

  “You put far too much faith in your Scribe.”

  “I put faith in my friend,” Elaine said.

  “Then you have the wrong friends.” Marin stared at her, and there was something angry on her face. “I thought we were friends, and yet…”

  “I believed that you died. When you were said to have gone after him, you were dead. That was what we heard.”

  “That was what you needed to hear. If I hadn’t died, if I hadn’t been willing to sacrifice my connection to her, Tray would have died.”

  “Why not tell me before now?” Sam asked. She cleared her throat, finally finding a way to speak. “ her voice. “WhyEspecially once you knew that I had begun to work with Elaine. You knew what they would do.”

  “You can’t believe her, Samara,” Elaine said.

  Sam glanced over. “I don’t know who to believe. I don’t know what to believe. First, Tray was my brother. Then he wasn’t. Then I believed that Tray was Marin’s son. Now I find out he’s Lyasanna’s son. And now? Now I learn that Lyasanna wanted him dead simply because of what he was.”

  “We have to speak with her,” Elaine said softly.

  “Do you believe that she’ll tell the truth?” Marin asked. “After all this time, why would she share? All that could happen would be that she would lose you, and she would lose you,” she said, pointing to Sam. “You are able to help her hold her position. She won’t sacrifice that willingly.”

  Sam stared at her hands. She didn’t know what to say or even how to feel.

  “He’s… He’s still my brother.”

  “You did this,” Elaine said. “You forced that connection. You’re the reason that Samara feels she needs to go after Tray and rescue him from Ralun. This is on you.”

  “No. Sam has a connection to Tray because of me, that much is true, but I will take no blame for the rest of it. That connection keeps him alive, at least it does until Lyasanna realizes that you know.” She looked over at Sam, and her gaze softened. “He is your brother. Your family is who you decide it will be. You don’t have to be blood relatives to share that bond. It’s no different from the connection you have with your Scribe. You aren’t related, yet there is a connection, a bond. One that I know you feel. I’ve seen the two of you together.”

  Sam didn’t trust herself to speak. And it seemed Elaine didn’t trust Marin to speak. She smacked her with her staff, knocking her unconscious once more.

  “You can’t trust her.”

  “How can I trust anything?” Sam asked.

  “I haven’t deceived you.”

  “But you have. You knew that Tray was Lyasanna’s son, and you didn’t tell me. How is that any different from Marin’s deception? How is Lyasanna’s deception any different? You’re using us, and we deserve better.”

  “I haven’t used you. I’ve tried to—”

  “You’ve tried nothing.” Sam turned away and rested her staff on her legs, staring out into the darkness for a long time. Eventually, Marin came back around with a soft moan, and Elaine spoke to her, though Sam made a point of not listening. Why should she when she had no idea who to trust? After everything she had been through, now she had to deal with the possibility that there was even more deception?

  She rolled her staff on her legs. The wood felt solid and comforting as it rolled beneath her hands, and she was tempted to stand and make her way back to the city, but at night, she wasn’t sure that she even could.

  Elaine came to sit near her, saying nothing.

  “What do you plan on doing with them?” Sam asked, nodding to Marin and her Scribe.

  “They will be detained and brought back to the city.”

  “And just how do you intend to do that? It took everything we had to get here, so for us to make our way back, it will be even harder trying to carry them.”

  “I didn’t say we were going to take the direct route back,” Elaine said.

  “What other way would there be?”

  “You keep even that from her?” Marin asked.

  “Quiet,” Elaine said.

  “Lainey, she has a right to know, just as he had a right to live.”

  “If you’re going to keep at that farce, you’re going to have to do a better job.” Elaine said.

  “There is no farce. I wish that there were. I wish that I could believe my princess. And I wish that I didn’t have to feel betrayed. But how can I?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “You are in for a severe disappointment,” Marin said.

  Sam stood and stormed away. She wasn’t going to stay and listen, not wanting to deal with whatever Elaine and Marin might go on about. She started forward and looked out at the darkness. Heat wafted up to her, coming off of the steam field, and in the distance—impossibly far away—she could just barely make out the glittering lights of the city. It had taken the better part of the day for them to reach the mountains, and returning would take just as long, if not longer, especially as they now would have to carry two prisoners with them.

  “Where do you intend for us to rest?” she asked without turning back.

  “It’s safe here,” Marin said.

  “Nowhere is safe,” Sam said.

  She made her way down the hillside and took a seat on the rock. She rested the staff on her legs, and leaned forward, letting her eyes drift closed. After a while, she stirred, heat making her uncomfortable, and she had to move, changing to a different rock. That one was only somewhat better. Sam tried to sleep, but it came in fits. She had flashes of visions, things that had been her experiences as a child, images of Tray and Bastan and, unfortunately, Marin.

  That was the family she knew.

  As much as she tried to move past it, she could tell that Marin had helped her over the years. She might not have wanted to, and her reasons for helping might have been twisted, but Marin had never meant to harm her, not until the end.

  Something had changed.

  Even early on, Marin had been willing to save Lyasanna, explaining about Sam’s abilities and allowing her the opportunity to try and help her.

  With her mind awash with everything she’d learned and unable to find sleep, Sam made her way up the hill. She found Marin resting and nudged her awake with her toe. Elaine watched silently. The Scribe—Bushy Brow—rested next to Marin. Something about that unsettled Sam. She doubted they would be able to do anything without easar paper, but maybe they could.

  “What changed for you?”

  “What?” Marin blinked sleep from her eyes and looked up.

  “You prompted me to help the princess. Something changed for you.”

  “Nothing changed for me. I was trying to help get Tray out of prison.”

  “He wouldn’t have been there if you hadn’t sent me to steal the easar paper. You needed that for you and your Scribe.”

  “There are many uses for easar paper. It would’ve been valuable for bargaining, but Jessup would have been able to use it as well.”

  “Why did you want me to help Lyasanna?”

  Marin took a deep breath before letting it out in a long sigh. “When Ralun returned to the city, I knew you would get pulled into it somehow. I tried to protect you—”

  “You tried to protect me? You’re the one who had me go after the paper in the first place!”

  “Only because you are the only one who would be able to. I didn’t know that Ralun was there at that time. Once I did, I tried to place myself between him and you. And then, when it became clear that I might not make it, I decided you deserved to know about yourself. You deserved to know what you were, even if it meant sending you back to them.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “It’s possible that you never will,” Marin said. “I don’t claim to have made the right decisions, not all the time. But with your brother—with Tray—I know that I did. Had I not, that young man—little boy at the time—would not have survived.”

  Elaine sa
t silently.

  “Why did you attack? Who were you serving when you poisoned the canals?”

  “I was serving me.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m tired of the misdirection. The Anders would have you believe that they are so different from the Thelns, but they aren’t. The only thing that’s different is how the power is manifested.”

  “The Anders are similar to the Thelns?”

  “Why else do you think both require the power of Scribes?”

  Sam looked down to Bushy Brow. He was breathing steadily and had a few welts on him from where her staff had knocked him out. “I intend to go after Tray.”

  “I will go with you.”

  Sam laughed bitterly. “Even if I could trust you, why do you think he would want to see you?”

  “I saved him.”

  “He doesn’t know that. To Tray, you were someone who deceived him, no differently than you did with me. How can either of us believe you anymore?”

  “Perhaps you can’t.” Marin glanced back to Elaine. “You haven’t told her.”

  “She needs to learn on her own.”

  “What lie have you kept from me now?”

  Marin looked up at her. “It’s not a lie. It’s how you can use your ability.”

  “It’s not something that can be explained,” Elaine said.

  “Maybe you can’t explain it, but I seem to recall being the one who attempted to explain it to you.”

  “And I was never able to do it, not nearly as well as you made it seem like I should.”

  “And that is somehow my fault?” Marin asked.

  “What is it?” Sam snapped.

  “You believe that you need augmentations to use your ability, but you don’t. Oh, augmentation certainly can help. There are times when you can add to what you would otherwise do, but the magic is within you, Samara.”

  “There’s nothing within me other than the blood that’s used for my augmentations.”

  “Close your eyes,” Marin said.

  Sam glared at her. “Why should I listen to you?”

  “I’m trying to offer something to you.”

  “Why? Do you think that you offering this to me will somehow make me more likely to believe you in the future?”

  “I’m offering something to you as a way to start,” Marin said. “Whether or not you believe me in the future is a moot point.”

  Sam glanced from Elaine to Marin before closing her eyes. “Now what?”

  “Now think about the feeling that you have when an augmentation is placed.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s not it, but it’s near enough that it can help. The augmentation is simply a way for you to have access to that same power, it’s sort of a way of cheating your magic. You’re using the power of your Scribe to trigger your magic.”

  “What about when we use our combined magics to heal people?”

  “Then you’re using the easar paper. That is something else entirely. That is what triggers your magic.”

  “It doesn’t work when we write on regular paper,” she said.

  “Doesn’t it? I would argue that there are ways in which you can use your abilities even without easar paper, and even without you triggering it yourself. If you’re determined to need your Scribe to trigger your magic, there’s no need for you to use easar paper.”

  Sam opened her eyes and glanced to Elaine. The other woman just stared at her.

  “And that’s it? I just need to close my eyes and imagine what it feels like when I have an augmentation placed?”

  “There is a little more to it than that, but it’s different for each Kaver. I can help you with the first part, but you need to find the rest on your own.”

  Sam closed her eyes, and she focused on what it felt like when Alec placed an augmentation. She chose to think about the ones that were most commonly placed—strength and speed—and tried to envision the cold sense that washed over her as he wrote on the easar paper.

  There was nothing.

  She shook her head. “Whatever you think will happen isn’t.”

  “I didn’t say it was easy. But you should know that the more you work at it, the easier it becomes.”

  “Can you do it?” Sam asked Elaine.

  “Not as well as Marin. She was always the greatest of us.”

  Sam took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. When she did, she thought again about the way she felt when the augmentation washed over her. Once again, there was nothing. She changed her focus, instead thinking about the words that Alec wrote. He had a pattern that he used, the same words that he chose to trigger her augmentation, rarely deviating, especially now that they both knew how it would work.

  A soft thrill worked through her, and with it came a cold flush.

  Sam’s eyes opened in a snap.

  “You felt it, didn’t you?” Marin asked.

  “I don’t know what I felt.”

  “It sounds as if you do. Keep working with it. Keep attempting to reach for the connection that you already have, the power that you have felt, that you know, and it will get easier.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  “If you can’t, then you will always be dependent on your Scribe. You will never know the full potential of your Kaver magic.”

  15

  Complications

  Alec tried to distract himself from what was happening with his father and with Kara, frustrated by how little he’d been able to uncover. There was nothing in any of the old records that would reveal what might’ve happened to either of them. Everything referenced that he had managed to come up with regarding somnolence and change in alertness had been practically useless. So far, he’d only managed to find a few records that were of any value to him.

  “I might have something here,” Stefan said.

  Alec glanced over at his friend sitting next to him in the library. The room was mostly empty, leaving them thankfully isolated, better to avoid questions. He didn’t mind having others in the library, but being allowed a chance to study without anyone else was beneficial. He hadn’t seen any masters coming through here, either, which was more surprising than anything else. Typically, there were at least a few who would come to the library, whether to research or to simply socialize, Alec didn’t know. Maybe he’d find out when he finally became a master physicker himself.

  “What have you found?”

  “It might be nothing,” Stefan said, pushing a record over to him.

  “Something is better than what I’ve uncovered.”

  “You’re not even researching alertness anymore. You’ve been spending most of your time looking at changes in vision.”

  Alec looked down at the record he had set out in front of him. He had been splitting his time, working on trying to find answers for his father while also trying to uncover what might’ve happened to the girl. Her vision hadn’t changed much over the last few days, though it did continue to decline. Would there come a point when she was completely blind? If that happened, there might be nothing that could be done for her.

  Before that happened, he was determined to use the easar paper. Until then, he was willing to research and look for a more traditional approach.

  “It’s troubling.”

  “The girl?”

  “Stacia, but yes. I don’t know what happened to her, and I can’t find anything that references someone of her age who had such a rapid decline in vision.”

  “You mentioned once that you were concerned about something she might have been exposed to. Why is that?”

  “Because there are various compounds that can be caustic. I’m not as familiar with what seamstresses work with, but it seems to me that if she were exposed to something caustic, it would explain the rapid change in her vision. She’s been working as an apprentice for just under a year.”

  “If it was something caustic and she’s had prolonged exposure, there isn’t anything to do unless you can counteract it—and remove her from future
exposure,” Stefan said. “And even then, it’s probably too late. The change in vision could be permanent.” When Alec frowned at him, Stefan only shrugged. “Vision is interesting to me.”

  “There aren’t too many masters who study vision,” Alec said.

  “Mostly because they don’t need to. The opticians manage most illnesses.”

  “They don’t manage illnesses at all. They help with lenses, but nothing more than that.”

  “But most people don’t think of coming to the university for eye-related issues. For the most part, they will go to an optician and will be satisfied with anything that can be done for them. I’m surprised that this girl—Stacia—didn’t go to an optician.”

  “That’s just it. She did. She made it sound like she went to more than one.”

  “She must have plenty of money.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You know how expensive opticians are.”

  Alec did know, and he had considered that as a complication, but hadn’t pieced anything more to it than that.

  “You said she told you which section of the city she was in. Maybe we should go and speak to her employer.”

  It was something that Alec had considered, but there never seemed to be enough time. Then again, if he could discover what she might have been exposed to, maybe he could find a way to help her. Once he knew what she was exposed to, treating her—even with easar paper—would be easier and likely more effective.

  “In a little while,” Alec said. “I still need to figure out what we can uncover about what happened with my father and the other woman.”

  He hadn’t told Stefan her name, not wanting to reveal that he had gone to Bastan for help. Eventually, he hoped Bastan would be able to provide some useful information, but Alec hadn’t heard anything from him.

  “Then look at this,” he said, holding out the record.

  Alec glanced at the page and quickly read it. It was old—based on the styling of documentation, probably several decades old. The way that physickers documented records had evolved over time, gradually taking on a different approach. After looking through records as often as Alec had, he had begun to identify the age of a record simply by the documentation style. It was an interesting observation, but likely meaningless. Most of the information was still there, though it was often times in different sections of the record.