I thought about lying to her for a moment, but I knew deep down that I needed to talk this out. And if I couldn’t talk with Hero, with whom could I talk? I couldn’t approach Deryn Lhopri with this, and Kynaston Lornis, for all that he seemed a decent fellow, was not a man I felt comfortable confiding in. I had no other friends.
I sighed and shut the book, laying it on the table beside me. “It was the juice,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, as though I feared the hundreds of books overhearing what I had to say.
Hero furrowed her brow confusedly. “The juice? But you said you hadn’t drunk it that morning.”
“Exactly.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Open your eyes, Hero. We are being drugged. My body was shutting down, reacting to not drinking the hyma that morning. I was sent to the infirmary, but I never went. I returned to my room and drank my daily dose. Within an hour, I was fine, as though I had never been sick at all. There is something in it, Hero, something addictive, something that makes us have to drink it every morning.”
She looked at me as though I were a madman, a raving lunatic. I’d seen that look before, though never directed at me. It was usually reserved for the young men in our classes who tried to impress her with their suaveness and intelligence. It stung my pride to see her look at me in the same way now. “You’re crazy,” she said, and I could hear in her voice that she was frightened. “Why would anyone drug the hyma juice? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Doesn’t it?” I asked, my voice rising with agitation. “Do you not see the world for what it is? The government, the whole system, from Hymage Quillan down to the Eikos in the poorest of the slums, all of it is a structure that concentrates more and more power in the hands of those above. How else do you think the Hymage could control all those Synths and Hymanni? He keeps them dependent upon himself, and the hyma.”
It was all pure speculation, but my mind was making the leaps in bounds as it raced towards the conclusion that we were all slaves to the Hymage. He was the chief, and all roads seemingly led to him.
“You’re crazy, Toven,” she said again, her voice growing more defiant as mine had grown hotter. Hymage Quillan is our father. What father in his right mind drugs his children? There is nothing in the juice. You were just overcome with guilt, and your body made itself sick so you would do the right thing.”
“Do you really believe that?”
She paused. Then she nodded vigorously. “Yes, I do.”
“Then why don’t you try going without the juice tomorrow,” I spat. I was furious now that she wouldn’t believe me, that she chose to trust in the good intentions of a man she had never seen rather than in the words of her best friend. “If you are so sure that the juice is not a drug, then go one day without drinking it. This is easy enough to settle, Hero.”
I could see in her eyes that she would not back down and would argue to the end. But I could also see that there was a hint of fear in her eyes hidden away behind that bravado. “I won’t,” she declared. “If I don’t take it, Professor Lornis will know, and then I’ll be in more trouble than you can imagine. You were reckless, Toven, but lucky. I won’t chance my luck.”
“You’re scared,” I said spitefully. “You’re afraid that I just might be right, that the Hymage and the Hymanni and the professors are all lying to us.”
She rose suddenly from her seat, sweeping her parchments and books up into her arms. “Don’t be angry with me, Toven Aimis, just because you made a mistake.”
Hero stormed from the room, leaving me alone in the mage’s library. I stared at the door for a long time waiting—hoping—that she would return and apologize. But she was ever a proud girl, and it took another few months before we sorted the issue out properly.
In that time, Deryn Lhopri also seemed to suspect what I had done, though she never questioned me directly. Still, she was an astute woman. She’d heard that I’d been sick. She’d seen that a small rift had opened between Hero and me. She’d noticed too that I was asking more and more questions about the hymaberry plant and the juice made from the little red fruit. She probably didn’t know for certain, but my suspicions were confirmed when she reminded me to be on schedule with my daily doses and in picking up my weekly supply of juice from Golpin Mennis.
All things finally began to come together, though, six months after I had read the above passage in Abacus’ book. I still hadn’t opened the journal in all that time, nor would I have if not for the incident which follows.
It was the morning of an ordinary Sixth Day. Later that afternoon, I would be turning in my old box of hyma vials for a new week’s supply. I had just dressed and was about to take my last half-dose of the juice when the door to my room flew open and Hero stood there, panic written all over her face.
She was breathing heavily, as though she had sprinted the whole length of the dormitory from the girls’ floor to the boys’. I saw her eyes go straight to the box containing my supply of the hyma, saw too the sudden rise in panic as she noticed one of the vials missing—for I held it in my hand—and saw finally her glance fall upon the hand which held the vial, clasped firmly around it so that she could not see whether it was empty.
“What is it?” I asked, feeling a sense of panic all my own begin to take hold of me.
“Toven, please tell me you haven’t drunk it yet.”
I opened my hand marginally to show her the red liquid still inside the small glass bottle. “What’s wrong?” My mind flew directly to our conversation of months before, an argument that had seldom been far from my mind, and I thought that maybe she had come to see reason at last.
I was mistaken.
“I dropped my last vial, shattering it on the floor.” She held her face in her hands. “I’m so clumsy. I opened the box to take out today’s dose, but got distracted by a spider that crawled onto my hand from the back of the box, and as I swatted it away, I knocked the vials over. All seven fell out onto the floor, but the only one that broke was the one that held today’s dose. What am I going to do?”
“Go see Master Mennis,” I said. “He can give you a spare dose. I’m sure you’re not the first one to break a vial.”
She was almost in tears, though I could not understand why. Surely, this was not the end of the world. “Toven, I’ll get in trouble,” she mumbled around a sob. “I’ll be punished for showing a lack of proper responsibility. The professors take this very seriously. You know that. Please, share yours with me.”
My heart beat fast within my breast. As much as I disliked seeing her distress, I thought that now was the perfect time to prove to her that the juice was indeed a drug. I was still rather annoyed by the way she’d argued against me, and though I saw she was fraught with worry, I was not prevented from doing something entirely unbecoming of a friend.
“Just pretend to be sick today. Stay in your dorm. After all, if the juice is not addictive, you’ll get along just fine. Fake a cough, and this evening we can go pick up your new doses from Golpin Mennis.”
There must have been the faintest of smirks on my face as I spoke, for the well of tears finally broke and Hero began to weep uncontrollably. “Why are you so mean to me? You think this is a joke, that we can play games with the hyma and the professors?”
I was shocked by the level of emotion pouring from her now and more than a little ashamed that I had brought my best friend to a state of open weeping. What had been intended as a slight jab had in fact pushed her over the edge.
Let me just say now that I have never understood women, and I doubt I ever shall. But I also know that on that day, as on many occasions in my life, I displayed the cruelty that lay in my heart, a cruelty that festered and bubbled over every now and then. That I could do such a thing unthinkingly and uncaringly to my dearest friend should make it easier for you to understand why I did those later things—for which I am so well known, even infamous—to absolute strangers. But my conscience in those days of youth was still str
ong enough to overrule my unkindness.
I stood in silence, watching Hero sob for a few minutes, until I finally held out my last vial of hyma juice to her. “Here. Take it. Drink it all.”
I guess I expected her to snatch at it, such was her state, but she looked up into my eyes and slowly shook her head. “No, Toven, then you’ll be in trouble instead. We can share it.”
I smiled softly. “Half a dose is barely enough for you as it is. I’ve watched you, Hero. I see how strong you are getting. You outpace the entire class. A quarter dose will do nothing for you. Drink it all.”
“But what about you?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve already survived half a day without the juice, so I think I can do so again, until we can get new doses this afternoon. Besides, you are my friend, and I am willing to suffer a little for you. It’s the least I can do after making you cry.”
Hero laughed softly but remained adamant that we should share the dose. We settled on a compromise: Hero would drink half the juice and if she could in fact feel her ether as normal, I would take the remainder of the dose. If she did not feel anything, though, she would drink the rest, as it was much more important that she appear normal than I, who had never yet touched his ether or worked with it in class.
She took the vial from me and carefully measured out half the juice into one of the empty bottles from my box. She smiled at me, wiping at the last of her tears, the red rings about her eyes seeming to make her all the more lovely for the helpless appearance they gave her. Then she tilted her head back and swallowed the hyma.
I waited for her confirmation that all was well, half expecting her to lie even if the juice did nothing for her, the dose being too small. But she furrowed her brow, smacking her lips like a connoisseur, and then screwed her face up as though against an unexpected bitterness. Yes, the juice was bitter, as I’ve said, but we’d both been taking it long enough for Hero to be able to tolerate it without making faces.
“What’s wrong?” I asked worriedly.
“Yours tastes different,” she said slowly, as though uncertain whether that was in fact the case or whether she was just imagining things. “It’s more bitter than mine has ever tasted.”
“Why should that be? It’s the same juice.”
The truth is I was actually growing quite concerned. Hero’s confusion was understandable, trusting as she did that the professors and Hymanni at the University looked out for our best interests. By contrast, I was ever skeptical and began to see several pieces of the whole puzzle that was my life slide into place.
“Do you feel your ether?” I asked, afraid of what I was about to hear but knowing that the question had to be asked. “Tell me honestly, Hero. No lies. Can you feel it?”
I saw that she wanted to lie to me, and maybe she would have had not the taste of the juice been so different from what she’d expected. I watched as she held her tongue and made an honest examination of her body, seeking out the ether that should have at least stirred a little at the presence of the hyma in her stomach.
A new wave of confusion and fear washed over her face, and she shook her head. “No, I don’t. I should feel it at least a little, shouldn’t I?”
“Take the rest of the dose,” I ordered. My heart was thundering in my chest. I could feel a faint tingling in my gut, but it was not the familiar nerves that feel like butterflies trapped in the belly. It was a sensation that felt like a live creature stirring from a long slumber, perhaps a bear after it’s hibernation, rousing several days early because it had been disturbed, and therefore agitated and apt to lash out in anger.
I could see that Hero was feeling uncomfortable herself, but she did as I asked and swallowed the remaining juice, shuddering against the bitterness once more.
“Do you feel it now?” I asked.
She shook her head, and fresh tears began to well in her eyes. I could see that she was coming to the same realization that I had just now reached. I was being given a powerless drink. I could see too that our former discussion about drugs flitted through her mind, as it did mine, and we both reached the conclusion that I had been targeted for some reason. Hero would not admit until much later that her hyma juice was just as addictive as the false juice I’d been drinking.
Regardless, there could be no question but that some foul play was afoot.
The stirring in my gut reached a crescendo, and I lashed out in anger, kicking at the base of my bed, throwing all of my frustration behind the strike.
This false drug was why I hadn’t been able to perform magic like my classmates—I’d been tricked for reasons I did not yet understand, but which I knew Deryn Lhopri at least would have answers to.
My foot struck the bed, and Hero leapt back in shock, screaming at the top of her lungs, as the wooden frame shattered and collapsed, spinning away from the wall that anchored it. I felt absolutely nothing. You might think I’d have broken my foot or ankle, but I did not even feel the twinge of pain as though of a stubbed toe.
No, I felt stronger and healthier than ever before in that brief moment.
For that was how my ether awoke at last.
* * *
The story continues in
THE SCION OF ABACUS
Part II
The Scion of Abacus, Part 1 Page 10