Comatose: The Book of Maladies

by D. K. Holmberg

“What about Ryn?” Sam asked.

  “Ryn is of no concern. He has long wanted to move in on my territory, but there is a reason I have managed to hold on to it as long as I have.”

  “That’s not quite what I’m getting at,” Sam said.

  “Then what are you getting at?”

  She looked at him, thinking back to the story he had told her about his brother. Could this Ryn person actually be his brother? If he was, why would Ryn suddenly attack now? What reason was there for him to come after Bastan?

  “Ryn told Alec something when he was holding him.”

  “Knowing what kind of man Ryn is, I suspect he told Alec many things while holding him captive.

  “Only one of those is something that I think you should be aware of.”

  “And what is that?” Bastan asked.

  Sam glanced over to Alec, who was staring at the jars, his gaze every so often flickering over to the box. He was engrossed in the project, completely prepared to begin his experimentation. Master Helen shared the same interest, and yet with her, there was something in the way she looked at the jars that made Sam uncomfortable.

  “Samara?”

  She tore her attention away and looked over at Bastan again. “He claimed you were his brother.”

  Bastan glowered at her. “I think we have already had this conversation, Samara. I have no brother.” With that, he turned and left the room, and Sam stared at the door, wondering what really had happened between Ryn and Bastan.

  26

  Test Subjects

  Alec looked at the box. The rats inside would make perfect subjects on which to experiment with the eel venom, but how would he start? He opened the jars and set them on either side of the box. One of the jars had the yellowish fluid—that which he had extracted from the rear of the eel—while the other had milkier fluid, which he had taken from the fangs.

  “Why are they different colors?” Master Helen asked.

  “There were two sources of venom, three sacs,” Alec said. “I don’t know what the difference is. The yellowish venom came from a spongy sac in the lower half of the body and was excreted through the eel’s tail barbs, and two secondary sacs in the upper jaw, excreted the milkier venom through hollowed incisors.”

  “Two?”

  Alec nodded and glanced up. “Why?”

  “We have studied the eels for a long time,” she said.

  “I understand. The master physickers must know something about the eels, especially since they chose to use them to protect the city.”

  “It’s more than that. The eels have particular properties that are strange.”

  “Such as their fangs?”

  “Have you considered the reason that the master physickers—and the Scribes—have used the eels to protect us from Thelns?”

  “No one has been willing to share with me. Anything that I might have considered doesn’t matter.”

  “Use your mind, Physicker Stross. You are much smarter than that. You don’t need someone to tell you something that you can observe for yourself.”

  “What is it? Does it have to do with the Kavers and Scribes?”

  “In some way, the powers are connected. There is a balance. We have never really understood why the combination of Kaver and Scribe has made a difference, only that it does. There is something about the combination that is more effective than when it’s done by itself. In that way, we have searched for information about the eels. They have the power to kill but they also have the power to heal.”

  “Heal?” Alec looked at the two jars and thought back to what he had seen of the eels. “When the eel attacked one of Bastan’s men, there was no healing to it.”

  “And yet you managed to find some sort of antivenom, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know that there is a true antivenom. All I know is that when I wrote on the easar paper, I commented on the possibility of an antivenom.”

  “What have you been able to determine of eel flesh?”

  “The flesh?”

  She nodded. “Did you run any tests on it?”

  Alec thought of the eels he had dissected. He had discarded most of what remained after he’d removed the sacs, tossing them in a metal bucket that he had ignited. At the time, he thought he was doing it to protect his father’s reputation. “No. There wasn’t anything to the flesh. I couldn’t imagine eating them.”

  “And why not?”

  “I… I guess I don’t know.”

  “The master physickers have long understood that eel meat has curative properties. It’s not something that we make well-known, especially since, if we were to do so, we would run the risk of people wanting to harvest the eels themselves and use their meat for healing. The eels provide a certain protection for the city, so in turn, we must offer them protection, so that we can keep them safe.”

  “But if eel meat could counteract the poison, why wouldn’t you have told me that when my father and the others came into the university?”

  “I did not believe this was an eel poisoning. Anytime I’ve seen anyone poisoned by an eel, there was a puncture wound and—”

  “And necrosis around the wound.”

  Master Helen nodded. “You have seen it.”

  “It’s from the barbed tail.”

  “The tail? Not the jaws?”

  Alec shook his head. He lifted up the milky fluid and shook it. “I don’t know how toxic this is. That was the reason I wanted to test it. When one of Bastan’s men was bitten by the eel, nothing happened. It was the tail—and the puncture wound—that was what would have been fatal.”

  “And that is what your father must’ve harvested for Bastan?”

  “It has the same coloration,” he said, pointing to the yellowish liquid. “But I don’t recall him collecting any milky fluid.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know to look for it,” Master Helen said. “After all, who would think to look for a secondary site for the venom?”

  There was logic to that thought, but Alec wasn’t sure. Why wouldn’t his father have first searched the mouth and jaw for the venom source. Since snakes excrete their toxins through their bites, wouldn’t that have been the first place he father would have looked?

  With no evidence that his father had any knowledge of the milky venom, that was what he had to test first.

  He thought he had enough information on what would happen with the tail venom, and the way that it would cause immediate necrosis and ultimately death. But he had no idea what would happen with the milky fluid.

  He looked around Bastan’s office for something with which to administer the venom, and his eyes settled on a pen on the table. He stepped over to retrieve it and dipped it into the milky fluid. With a small amount of the venom now in the pen, he approached the box and one of the rat’s crawled up the side, sniffing toward the pen’s tip. Alex held it closer, and the curious rat actually opened its mouth. He let a few drops go into its mouth before withdrawing it.

  “What are you trying to do with this?” Master Helen asked.

  “I’m trying to see if there is any effect. There has to be some purpose to it.”

  “What if it’s nothing more than digestive juices? What if it’s only saliva? Think of what you know of the human body, Physicker Stross. Make an analogy.”

  “No humans have hollowed-out incisors that would allow them to inject saliva or digestive juices directly into anything they chewed.” This was different, but he wasn’t sure why it was different.

  Nothing happened.

  Maybe that wasn’t the key. Maybe there was no purpose to it other than as Master Helen said. Or maybe there was something else that they were missing.

  He went to Bastan’s desk and grabbed another pen and dipped it in the yellowish venom. He took it, moving carefully, and hovered over one of the other rats. The rat crawled up to the pen and started licking it. There was a part of Alec that felt terrible about what he was doing. If this worked, he would kill the rat.

  But if he didn’t try, he
wouldn’t know exactly what purpose the venom had.

  After a few moments, the rat started squealing.

  The sound was awful, a piercing, horrid type of sound.

  “I think you found the poison,” Master Helen said.

  “I hadn’t questioned which one was the poison,” Alec said.

  “And now what?”

  “I still need to know if the other is the antivenom.”

  “Try the milky fluid on the one you just poisoned.”

  Alec glanced over to it. He took the first pen he’d used and dipped it once again in the milky venom before bringing it over to the squealing rat. This time, the rat ignored it, not coming up to drink as it had before. Alec tried reaching his hand into the box, but the other rats raced at him, almost as if they intended to attack him.

  Alec jerked his hand back.

  “I’m curious whether the milky fluid does anything different to the creature once it’s been poisoned.”

  Alec looked over at the first rat, the one that had received the milky fluid. That one had not done anything. He seemed well, despite the fact that Alec had fed him with eel fluid. What would happen if he attempted to give the rat the yellowish fluid on top of that?

  Alec took the other pen and droppered it into the rat’s mouth.

  He expected the rat to begin squealing, the same way the other one had, but there was nothing.

  “Maybe the milky fluid prevents the eel from poisoning itself,” Master Helen said.

  “Or maybe it is the antivenom,” Alec said.

  Could that be it? Could the eel have the key within it? That seemed almost too easy, especially considering how close he had been to losing Tanis.

  The door flung open and he looked up. Sam glanced down, her gaze taking in the screaming rat in the box, before she looked up at him, meeting his gaze.

  27

  Losing a Friend

  Sam caught Bastan just outside his tavern. He was staring into the cloudless night, his face locked in a frown, and his eyes seeming to look off into nothing. A cool wind gusted, carrying the stink of the canals.

  “What is it, Bastan?”

  “You should go back inside, Samara. You have your friend there waiting for you—”

  Sam joined him, leaning against the wall.

  “He’s interested in those rats more than he is in me right now.”

  “If that’s the case, then I think you have some trouble.”

  “Oh, he won’t always be more interested in those rats.”

  Bastan glanced over, and a hint of a smile played on his mouth. “It’s not like you to be so salacious.”

  “What’s salacious about that?”

  “You need to talk with him about your feelings,” Bastan said.

  “We’re fine,” she said.

  “Fine doesn’t mean that you are where you want to be.”

  “And where do I want to be?”

  “I can see the way you look at him. You would do anything to protect him. It’s much the same way I look at you.”

  “Bastan?”

  He looked over at her. “It’s nothing quite like that, Samara. I’ve known you since you were this high,” he said, waving his hand around waist level. “But I think you’ve forgotten the fact that I care about you.”

  “You made that clear repeatedly, especially lately.”

  “I’ve tried to make it clear because you have gone off and are exploring something I don’t understand. You have an ability I don’t understand, and as much as I would like to and would like to help you, it’s something that leaves me feeling…”

  “Powerless?”

  “I suppose that it does. I’ve been the one who has protected you all these years, and now, I don’t think I can anymore. Now that you leave Caster as often as you do, my reach is limited.”

  “Are you trying to expand your reach because of me?”

  Bastan looked at her. “I protect those who I consider my own.”

  “Why am I your own? Is it because I’ve been your thief?”

  “My thief? You’ve been more than that, Samara.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I see you as family. I don’t have much family of my own, and I’ve tried telling you just how important it is to choose your own family. I have chosen you.” He met her eyes and held her gaze. It wasn’t often that Sam saw Bastan so uncertain, but there was uncertainty in the way that he looked at her now.

  “You don’t have to protect me.”

  “You’re mistaken.”

  “I don’t think I am,” she said. “I’ve learned enough that I can protect myself. I’m happy to continue taking jobs for you, and—”

  Bastan shook his head, and a smile crossed his face. “You misunderstand me. I don’t feel that I have to protect you. I want to protect you. To me, those are very different things. I do it because you are important to me. I see something of myself in you. You’re… You’re like a daughter to me, especially as I have no children of my own.” Bastan looked at her for a long moment before pulling his gaze away.

  He stepped away and headed down the street, and Sam debated whether to follow, though not sure what she would even say. How could she react to Bastan when he said something like that? She wasn’t accustomed to Bastan being so emotional around her.

  And yet, hadn’t she longed to have a father? Hadn’t she longed to know what that would have been like?

  But when she thought about it now, she realized maybe she’d had one all along. Bastan had always been there, always with her, and always making sure that she didn’t step too far out of line. He really was the father she never had. Oh, he had required that she take jobs, but never had they been jobs that were too dangerous. He had been the reason she learned to sneak around the city, and the reason she had gained some of the skills that she had. Marin had taught her some of the other parts of her skills, something that Sam realized she needed to think more deeply on.

  After discovering her mother and the connection she had as a Kaver, Sam had thought she’d found her family, but now it came clear to her—she’d always had it.

  “Bastan…” she said, calling after him.

  He didn’t answer and continued down the street.

  Sam swore under her breath and hurried after him. She didn’t even have her staff, which she should have known better than to leave the tavern without. Then again, she was close enough to the tavern that once she caught Bastan, she could return, and she could be back into a place of relative safety within Caster.

  Bastan turned a corner, and when she turned to follow, he wasn’t there.

  Where had he gone?

  The street was empty.

  She heard a grunt down one of the nearby alleys.

  Sam frowned. She raced forward, looking for signs of Bastan. Could some fool have thought to attack him? Why would anyone dare, especially in Caster?

  She thought back to the recent incident when those sword-wielding men had attacked him. She had managed to be there that time, but now…

  She rounded another corner and saw five men dragging Bastan off.

  Something struck her in the back.

  Sam swung around, wishing that she had her staff, but without it, she had to fight empty-handed.

  Two men waited. Both were nearly as large as the other men that she’d fought.

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  One man grunted. “There’s two of us. There’s one of you.”

  Sam focused on what it felt like when she had an augmentation and tried to give herself speed and strength, thinking about the way it washed over her when it came on. Could she force herself to have another augmentation?

  There came no following sense.

  She backed up, but the two men had her wedged in. They blocked her from moving away from them, clearly experienced working together.

  She looked at the nearby building. There was a window, but it would be locked and likely boarded over. Most people in Caster weren’t
foolish enough to leave their windows accessible at night.

  Even without augmentations, she wasn’t without skill. She needed to use that now.

  Sam focused on what she had learned of hand-to-hand combat. It wasn’t nearly as much as what she had learned about fighting with the staff, especially as her staff was her primary weapon, but she could be fast. She had quick reflexes.

  She needed to use those skills against men that were larger than she was.

  Stay low and keep out of their reach.

  If she couldn’t rely on augmentations, she had to get free. When she did, she could send word for others who could help her claim Bastan, though who would she go to? Who would believe that Bastan had been captured?

  Worse, Bastan had headed off before she had a chance to tell him that he was something of a father to her. He had been captured not knowing that he was as important to her as she was to him.

  More than anything, that sent a surge of anger through her. She would get to Bastan. She would tell him how important he was. She would tell him how much she appreciated all that he had done for her over the years.

  She dropped and rolled, getting out from beneath one of the men trying to grab for her. Sam flipped her leg around, kicking, and struck him on the shin.

  Pain jolted through her leg, but she was determined not to let it get to her.

  Sam rolled again, and this time, she collided into one of the men. He wrapped her up, grabbing her around the shoulders, and she swung her fist down connecting with his groin. He released her, and she spun, bringing her knee up.

  It was a double connection to his groin. At least he wouldn’t be chasing her anytime soon.

  When the other man lunged for her, she slipped beneath his grasp and rolled forward, quickly getting to her feet and racing back down the street.

  By the time she reached the tavern, she glanced back, looking to see if anyone followed.

  Inside the tavern, she looked around. She hurried back to the kitchen where there were a few familiar faces, and she found Tanis, the man Alec had healed. She didn’t know him nearly as well as she knew some of the others.