“I can go find out how much it is.” I volunteered.
“Ok.” Sarah looked thoughtful. “That’s a good plan. Sam will go find out prices, I’ll go get my refund, and by tomorrow afternoon we can buy you a Cure Disease.” She turned to glare at her mother. “And this is non-negotiable. We will worry about my getting into college later.”
Marissa looked like she still wanted to argue about this, like your whole life shouldn’t change in an instant, over something as silly as a wound that would heal in a day or two. Like above all else, she didn’t want to be the reason her daughter’s future would come crashing down, and all of their careful plans and thrifty savings and grand hopes come to nothing. But like I said, she was a practical woman, and held her peace.
I left for Temple Hill, figuring that’s where the divines would be. The crowds were, if anything, more fretful today than yesterday; harried people hurried about their business, moving quickly, determined not to talk to or see a somewhat lost halfling. I finally managed to get someone to give me directions to where I might purchase divine potions, and to my dismay they pointed at the huge line of people I had avoided yesterday. I made my way to the queue, and then eventually to the end of it, wrapped around the block and down the road at least three quarters of a mile. Hoping I was in the right place, I took my spot at the end.
Standing in line was boring. It’s like waiting, but more exhausting. I tried to pretend this was no different than being crouched above a game trail, keeping watch for something edible to come along, but it wasn’t. While hunting, you sort of settle into your environment, make peace with it, become part of the landscape. You make yourself ignorable. Standing in line, however, requires vigilance. Instead of blending into your surroundings, you have to stand out from them, fidget, fill the space around you so that no one pushes you out of the way and cuts in front.
The queue moved like a sick inchworm, bunches of people would stand up, shuffle forward, and resettle themselves, making another foot of space for the people behind them to do the same, and so on, like a sluggish wave. The shuffle passed it’s way from the head all the way back to me twice before a couple got in line behind me. It occurred to me that if I was in the wrong place, this was a huge waste of time.
“Excuse me.” I asked the man in front of me. “I need to buy a potion for a friend of mine, who’s sick. But actually I just need to know how much they are. Do you know if there’s someplace I can just ask real quick?”
The man turned and gave me a quick appraisal. “You here for a Cure Disease?”
“Yes.” I answered, relieved.
He nodded. “Me too. I checked all the usual vendors, but they’re out. Not a place in this damn city you can buy a disease pot or hire a fever breaker. I hear some of the rich folk up in the Arcane Quarter are burning True Heal scrolls, on a simple disease, if you can believe it.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Probably so they don’t have to come stand in line like the rest of us common folks.”
“You don’t look sick.”
“Not for me. It’s for my daughter. We thought it was just the flu, but she can’t seem to beat this fever. I don’t normally go for magical healing. Let the body heal itself, that’s what I say, makes you tough….” He twisted his hands around inside his pockets, and I realized what I had taken for gruffness in him was in fact concealed desperation. “But she won’t drink anything, and it’s not getting better. I can’t go home without a cure.”
I got a bad feeling down in the pit of my stomach. “Was your daughter bit by a rat recently, by any chance?” I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know.
“Yes, on her toe, but I’m sure it’s not related.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets, and I saw what he’d been twisting around was a handkerchief. “That was a week ago. And the wound didn’t look infected. Healed right up.” More twisting. “This is something different, it has to be.”
I said nothing. The man, uninterested in further probing questions, turned back to face the front of the line, which did another shuffle trick. More people filed in behind me.
We didn’t speak again as the line moved forwards. Above me, the sky turned darker grey, and low clouds boiled in unfelt updrafts. Concealed thunder grumbled, but it didn’t rain.
It took hours for the line to finally shuffle us to the front, or at least to the smaller gate on the side of the temple proper, into which the line disappeared. Temple guards patrolled this last bit, looking grim and suspicious. We filled through the gate, down a hallway, and finally into a larger open room. Ropes recently strung between pillars guided the queue back and forth a few more times. I tried to peer between the forest of legs around me to see what was going on. It seemed the line was being triaged by a man behind a large, impressive looking desk, who directed a few people to alcoves stocked by many shaped, many colored bottles of all kinds, and sent others away entirely. Most of them didn’t look happy to be going.
At last it was the turn of the man in front of me. A guard waved him over to the desk, and then firmly planted his spear on the chalk line in front of me, in case I tried to bolt forward or something. The handkerchief twisting man was speaking in low, urgent tones to the desk clerk, who was shaking his head. Finally the man pulled out pocketfuls of coins, copper and silver and gold, and dumped them onto the desk. The clerk shook his head again, firm.
“That’s highway robbery!” the man burst out. “How do you expect me, or anyone, to afford that!”
The clerk stood up, laying his hands flat on his desk. “That’s what we have to offer. If you don’t like the price, someone else will.”
The handkerchief man was turning scarlet in the face now. “How dare you! You thieving bastards! My daughter is dying, I need that potion, and you have the nerve to line your pockets while this city is in the thrall of a plague! You… you…!” At this, the man’s invective failed him, and he balled up his fists. He didn’t seem to notice the two guards behind the clerk, who were stepping up to the scene. “That’s everything I have left! You have to take it! You have to!”
The clerk stood firm. “The price is the price. I cannot change it. You can calm down and come back later, when you can afford it, or I can have you escorted out.”
The man, purple with rage now, hauled back his arm and swung at the clerk. The clerk never even flinched, and the man was intercepted by the two waiting guards, who each took an arm and began dragging him off, cursing and screaming. The clerk sat back down, sighed at the money on his desk, and gathered it into a bag. The queue guard motioned me forward, while two more temple guards came in from a side door to replace the ones that had hauled off the man before me. As I approached the desk, the clerk handed the bag of coins to one of them.
“Here. See that our last petitioner doesn’t forget his money.” He then turned to me. “What,” he said, with more patience than energy, “can I do for you?”
“Uhm.” My eyes flicked over to the remaining temple guard, who was alert, but not seemingly worried about me as a threat. “I just need information.”
The clerk nodded, and looked a bit relieved. Up close, I could see he looked tired. No, more than tired. Exhausted. I bet he didn’t like his job much, right now.
“My friend is sick.” The clerks face stiffened with resignation. “Can I buy a Cure Disease potion here?”
“You can. If you have three hundred and twenty gold pieces.”
I nodded. The sinking feeling I had been having the entire time in line now went all the way down to my toes. “Is there anything else that will cure rabies?” I asked.
The clerk shook his head sadly. “No. Unless you want to go all the way to a True Heal, but those are far more expensive. We’re almost completely out of stock of potions. We have as many divines as can cast it making Cure Disease potions, as fast as possible, but we were completely caught unawares of this outbreak.”
“It’s the rats.” I told him. “They’re the reservoir. They’re coming out of the sewers.”
The clerk l
ooked like he wasn’t in the mood to be lectured about disease patterns by some petitioner he hadn’t ever met before, but he pulled out his notebook and wrote something in there anyway.
“Are you sure it has to be so expensive? Lot’s more people are sick than can afford that.” I asked. “And if you don’t cure them, they can pass it onto others, and the outbreak will only get worse.”
“What would you have me do about it? Those potions aren’t free to make, and even if we emptied our stock, there’d never be enough.” He waved his hand along the mile of line behind me. “Besides.” He added. “If people were so worried about it, they could have come in when we did have stock, and prices were much lower, and purchased one to keep on hand for emergencies. It’s hardly our fault if people fail to prepare.”
I bit my tongue before I could snap at him that Marissa wasn’t the type that failed to prepare, she’d just been preparing for something else. I didn’t want to get hauled off like the handkerchief man earlier.
“So if I come back with all that gold, you’ll sell me a potion?”
“Yes.” The clerk seemed pleased that at least somebody got it.
I left by the side door, and was pointed to the temple exit by one of the guards. Handkerchief man was nowhere in sight. I had a sneaking suspicion that my news that whole city was desperate for cures was not going to be welcome news back at La Baleine.
Instead of turning my steps home, I went down to the docks, asking after Ramsey. Most everybody had heard of him, but no one knew where he was right at this moment, or where he lived, or much else about him. Finally I stopped in at the Lonely Lobster.
“Where he lives?” asked Capitan Benni. “Beats me. For all I know he sleeps in a coffin, or better yet, doesn’t sleep at all. I never knew anyone to keep such weird hours, and this is me talkin’.”
The rest of the patrons didn’t seem to remember me from the game of Toads, which was just as well. I was just on the verge of asking Benni if this was the sort of information I was supposed to offer to buy, when he thought of something.
“’Course, it’s evenin’ and the fish’ll be jumping.” I blinked at this seeming non-sequitur, and Benni must have caught my confusion. “Ramsey’s friends with that fisher girl, what’s-her-name. She ain’t got no boat, so this time of day you can probably find her casting off of the north end of the docks, past the old rockslide.”
This sounded like a promising lead. I followed the docks north, and they grew much nicer towards the deep end of the harbor, with bigger, fancier ships, and more guards about. I careened my neck around trying to take in the sight of a big Southwind Trading Company galley, with her hull painted gold and her sails pure white, sporting the crossed grain sheaths of the STC. The docks ended abruptly at a large pile of rocks that had collapsed into the ocean from the steep hills above. Around the other side of the point I saw no further harbor lights, just some small boats, with or without sails, in various states of disrepair. I clamored up the rock pile, and sure enough, there was Minnow, the same girl that had found me after the boarox bus incident. She was perched on a boulder, a fishing net swinging lightly from her hands.
I scrambled up the rocks after her. The boulder she had claimed was a few feet out into the water, and it seemed rude to impose on her intense concentration, so I crouched down and waited. If she saw me, she gave no sign, just stayed looking at the water, which heaved and splashed at her perch, occasionally soaking her ankles. Then suddenly, with a motion so easy I almost didn’t notice her move, she swung the net out into the waves. It belled open as it fell and hit the water as neatly as you could ask, and she immediately began hauling on the lead line, drawing it back up. As the net reemerged from the waves I saw dozens of sardines caught up in it like flashing silver coins. These she dumped into a bucket next to her, deftly disentangling any fish which snarled themselves up in the thin threads.
“Nice cast.”
She look at me and nodded, solemnly. She peeked into her bucket, and satisfied, carefully folded up her net and tied it with the lead line. This she tossed over her shoulder, picked up the bucket by the string that severed as a handle, and nimbly jumped back my way.
“I’m looking for Ramsey.” I told her. “Do you know where he is?”
Minnow regarded me for a moment, unspeaking, and it occurred to me to wonder if she spoke at all. Whatever she was thinking, she seemed to make up her mind, because she nodded and made a little follow me gesture with her chin, so I did.
Minnow led me back the way I had come, and then up one of the winding side streets, and finally pointed at an establishment which I identified, after a moment, as a barbershop. I turned to thank her, but she was already gone.
The barber was a tall human, currently sweeping up after his last customer. “Can I help you?” he asked, giving my hair a surprised look.
“I’m a friend of Ramsey’s.”
This seemed to explain everything, as far as the barbers grin was concerned, and he led me down a small hallway to a ladder leading up to a trap door in the ceiling. He banged on the door with the end of his broom a couple of times.
“Ramsey! You have a visitor.” On the word “visitor”, the barber favored me with a huge wink.
“I do?” came a muffled voice from above. “Hold on.”
The trap door swung upwards and Ramseys face peered down, and broke into his own huge grin when he saw me. “Sam! Cummon up!”
“You need any help there, little lady?” asked the barber.
“I’ll manage.” I replied. I’d climbed things a lot trickier than an even-runged ladder in my time.
The barber opened his mouth to say something else, but Ramsey gave him a friendly, “Leave off, Stan.” and he took the hint and withdrew.
Upstairs was a tiny apartment under the eaves. The sloping ceiling would leave little headroom for an elf or a human, but Ramsey had it neatly arranged with a mattress on the floor against the chimney in the back, next to a halfling sized table and chair. A small window graced the one vertical wall, and tucked into the narrow space where the ceiling met the floor were many wooden boxes stacked on their sides to make shelves. Hanging from the ceiling opposite the mattress was a long horizontal rod, and hanging from it were a bunch of carefully pressed clothes, including what appeared to be a tailored suit, packed away against some eventuality I couldn’t guess. The whole effect was tidier than I would have expected, for someone who lived his life on the street.
“Sam.” Ramsey bowed at me with grand formality. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
“It’s… cozy.”
Ramsey smiled proudly. “Isn’t it? Stan rents it to me cheap, as it’s too small for the tall races, and dwarves won’t live in timber structures. His sister runs a salon out of the other side of the building, which can get kinda noisy in the evenings, but someone always has a fire going, so at least my place stays warm.”
He motioned me to the only chair, and pulled up an empty crate for himself. I noticed the bed was taken up by a small, sprawling silver kitten, who slitted one sea green eye at me before performing an upside down stretch and going back to sleep.
“And this,” Ramsey waved at the kitten, “is Dragon. Mighty slayer of socks and sardines, and bed hog extraordinaire.”
“That’s a big name for such a small cat.”
“Yeah, well, you should hear him growl when he doesn’t like something. Can I get you anything to drink? There’s tea downstairs.”
“No thanks.” I took a deep breath, wondering how to begin, when Ramsey interjected.
“You sure about that tea? Or, uhh, I can find some coffee. No? Ok. Well. Uhm.” He was babbling again, and fiddling with a pencil on the table between us. “I’m really glad you stopped by, ‘cause, I actually wanted to ask you something. And you can say no. It’s fine. It’s not about the tea. Actually, there might be tea, or cider, but that’s not the-“ The pencil snapped. Ramsey looked at it, betrayed, and then set both halves down. “The lunar eclipse is on Sunday, and,
um.” He was fiddling with the pencil pieces again. Finally he set them down, took a deep breath, and sat on his hands. “I have these two tickets to the observatory.” He looked up and met my eyes. “Would you like to go? With me?”
“Err.” I said, trying to change mental tracks and figure out what he was talking about. His face began to fall. “I don’t know yet.” He fell further. “Actually, I came to ask for your help.”
He straightened up again, like a flower after the rain. “Oh? What kind of help?”
I related the story to him, Marissa’s plight, and my information from the Temple. Ramsey listened carefully, hands between his knees, not moving. Finally he stood up, stretched rather like Dragon, and began pacing about the small room.
“I’d been hearing rumors.” he finally said. “The mood on the street isn’t good, and I guess this is why.” He stopped for a minute and pulled at his face. “Three gods, why did it have to be Marissa? She’s the nicest person I know!”
I nodded miserably. “Is there some place I could, I dunno, borrow the money?”
“Maybe.” Ramsey didn’t seem to like this idea. “I wouldn’t trust any of the loan sharks who would lend to you without reputation or collateral. And you’d better not try the trick with the blood sigil again, either!” he scowled at me, more serious than usual this time.
I tried to pretend I hadn’t been thinking of exactly that. I went for option number two. “What about stealing a potion then?”
Ramsey stopped to think about this. “Hmm. Not from the Temple itself. You really, really don’t want to get caught breaking in there, even if we could, and it’s been tried by better thieves than you and I have ever heard of. But the Temple isn’t the only place with Cure Disease potions.” Ramsey grabbed a coat off the hanging rack. “First things first. Let’s go see who else has a potion, and what they want for it.”
Before we left, Ramsey placed a heavy box of books over a hole in the floor, admonishing Dragon to stay put and not go out hunting rats. Dragon ignored him with grand indifference. We left by the trap door, and spent the next few hours walking through the drizzling mist, talking to everyone from twitchy eyed sparq dealers to ratty robed hedge wizards to upscale apothecaries, all of whom confirmed the same story. They were either out of stock of Cure Diseases, or wanted an even more extraordinary price than the Temple proper.
A Fist Full of Sand: A Book of Cerulea (Sam's Song 1) Page 21