And then a strange thing happened. Snakes appeared. Adders mostly, chestnut-backed and stout, themselves dislodged by the storm. But also tempted out by the patter of little feet, by the heat of mammalian blood and the promise of a tasty meal. Wave upon wave of them materialized, swarming across the dunes, twitching their brightly colored tails to lure their prey. In the history of Rampart no one had ever seen so many snakes.
They had a field day with the rats. A bona fide, down-home feast. And when they had gorged themselves, and sunned themselves, and mated if so inclined, they crawled back underground. Or else they left the city completely, for like a flock of migratory birds, they disappeared from sight. It happened overnight. One day they were everywhere; the next, nowhere to be found.
At last, after being trapped inside for days on end, the people of Rampart were able to leave their homes. They could go outside without being pummeled by wind and sand, gnawed upon by a rat, or bitten by a snake. The sun was as fierce as ever, the heat as relentless, but those were everyday occurrences; they were predictable, not fickle like the minds of reptiles and mammals.
No one was more relieved to get out than Meera, who'd been steadily going mad cooped up inside her house, thwarted by the elements. She had to talk to Payne, but first she had to substantiate a disturbing new rumor. But before either of these, before anything, she simply had to get outside and breathe.
A thick layer of sand covered the tiles of her patio. The beach below the bluff was altered by the storm, flattened, as if it had been scoured. The Lac du Lac alone was unchanged; it shone like a medallion. She could see for miles and miles, as if the air itself had been scrubbed clean.
There was one other thing that needed doing before she left, and she went inside to change her clothes, then hurried to the water's edge to have a swim. She swam often, and always before important business. It was a release for her, the sea a calming influence. It put her in the proper frame of mind. Her habit was to swim for a while, then turn and float on her back. She did this, but sadly, it didn't bring the peace she wanted. She was too nervous; she couldn't relax. Had she been a fish, perhaps, with a fish's deep and timeless mind. But hers was human and excited.
She had not been inside the Tower since accompanying her father years before. She'd had no reason or interest in returning. But as soon as she set foot inside, it was as though she'd never left. The long, forbidding corridors, the echoing footsteps, the lines of patients waiting to be healed: all came back to her in a rush. She heard their hushed voices and remembered her own hushed voice. She saw their weary, shuffling gaits and remembered her father's walk. She half expected to see him shuffling by her side, reaching out to steady himself on her arm.
Wyn's healing chamber had been on the fourth floor; Payne's was three flights higher, on the seventh. His waiting room was furnished in the standard way, with comfortable chairs, a couch and a pair of beds. It was large as waiting rooms went, consistent with the fact that he was in demand. Wyn's, she recalled, was smaller.
Nearly every chair was occupied when she arrived, and there was a woman in one of the beds, tended by a man. All save the bedbound woman, who seemed to be asleep, glanced up and eyed her as she entered.
Getting seen by a healer of the Tower was a matter, first, of getting to the Tower, the admission to which, provided that a number of fairly easily obtainable documents were in order, was open to any human. After that it was a matter of waiting. Patients were taken in turn, except for those rare few in whom a delay might prove fatal. The people in the waiting room were sizing her up to see if she was one of these, which clearly she was not. Relieved, they returned to the business of waiting.
All save the man beside the bed, who cleared his throat and introduced himself. He also introduced his wife, the bed-bound woman. They'd been waiting since the night before to see the healer. They were second in line, he made a point of saying. There was one other woman ahead of them. She'd just stepped out to take a shower.
Meera had forgotten that there were baths and showers, as well as food and kitchens. It came back to her how long the waits could be.
“She showers every hour,” the man added.
“Oh,” she said, not so very interested in the bathing habits of a woman she had never met. But he seemed to want to talk.
“Every hour on the hour. That's thirteen since we've been here. Just when she dries out, she gets up and showers again.” He shook his head. “Never seen anything like it.”
“She must be very clean by now.”
He looked to see if she was joking, but her mind was elsewhere. She was trying to think of a way to jump the line.
“It's been packed since we got here,” said the man. “He's a very busy guy.”
“Every healer's busy,” she pointed out.
“Sure. That's their job. But this one…” He wagged his thumb at the door to the healing room. “He's something else.”
“I have to talk to him.”
“Sure you do. So does everybody.”
“It's not about me,” she said, as though this would make a difference. “It's about a friend.”
“You're here to help a friend?”
“Yes,” she said, brightening. “That's right.”
Clearly, he didn't believe her. “That's good of you. It really is. Me, I'm here to help my wife. Everybody's here for help. So you might as well do like the rest of us, sit back and wait your turn.”
But Meera had had enough of waiting, and half an hour later, when the door to the healing room opened, she was prepared to make her presence known. Every eye snapped to the healer who emerged, hers included, and all talk and activity in the waiting room ceased.
This was a part of the job that Payne hated, the one that was hardest to bear. The imploring looks, the tense silence, the neverending well of want and need. Apologizing for the wait was by now routine, and he always felt he should do more: work harder, work faster, work more efficiently. He was sorry, so very sorry, that they needed him so much, that they were all so sick.
“Who's next?” he asked wearily. He was in his eighteenth straight hour of work. The storm had closed the Tower, and in its aftermath patients were arriving in droves.
The cleanest woman in the city stood up and claimed that right. The man caring for his wife announced that they were after her.
Meera leapt up. “I need to talk to you.”
The man shot her a withering look. “She's last. She's not even sick.”
The sight of her was a jolt to Payne. His heart began to race. He scanned the room to be sure that there was nothing that couldn't wait and promised to be brief. The man, whose wife had yet to stir, was visibly upset. The woman of the showers left the room. Payne stood away from the door and ushered Meera in.
She apologized for arriving unannounced. She had news for him. They didn't have much time.
Payne told her not to worry. “They can wait a little.”
“That's not what I mean. They're after him, Payne.”
“Who?”
“Your brother.”
“Who is?”
“The guards. The drivers. They've formed some kind of vigilante committee. They think it's him.”
“Him? What do you mean?”
“The drivers who've disappeared. They're blaming Wyn.”
“But he's locked up.”
“They think he has some way out. That he escapes.”
“And does what?”
“I don't know. Calls them. Traps them. Kills them.”
“Wyn wouldn't do that.”
“No. Wyn wouldn't. But that thing, it's growing all the time. In the beginning you couldn't see it. If you didn't know firsthand, you could barely tell there was anything wrong. But lately…the last few months…it's taking over. Every day there's more of it and less of him.”
Payne could remember roughhousing with Wyn as a boy, how sometimes Wyn would fly off the handle and strike out at him. He had a streak of anger, or of something, but it was impulsiv
e, not premeditated or cruel. It was inconceivable to him that his brother would trap and kill.
“If he escapes, then why go back? Why voluntarily let himself be caged? It doesn't make sense.”
“For food,” said Meera.
“Food?” He didn't understand.
“He has to eat. That's why he comes back. They feed him. I pay them to. Sometimes I do it myself. He comes for food.”
“You feed him?”
She nodded.
He was very tired, and his mind was not sharp. Something about this bothered him; he couldn't exactly put his finger on it, and it was strange, because he should have been happy that she was caring for his brother. And he was. But at the same time he had a premonition of danger, as if her kindness were a threat or a warning.
“How long have you been doing that?”
“A long time.”
“How long?” he repeated. It seemed important.
“Since I put him there,” she said.
Half a minute passed. Noises filtered in from the waiting room.
She ignored them. “There's more to the story than I told you.”
This did not come as a huge surprise. A healing, even a difficult one, should not have turned his brother into a beast. It made no sense.
She leaned against the healing bed, which was still warm from its previous occupant, and with a sigh unburdened herself.
“After my father was healed, he felt indebted to your brother, and he offered him a gift. A present for what he'd done. Your brother had the audacity to ask for me. This made my father quite angry. It made me angry, too.
“But I was also curious, and, I confess, a little flattered. Or maybe titillated is a better word. And for saving my father's life, I felt indebted to your brother, too.
“So without my father's knowledge, I went to him and asked what he had in mind. What did he want with me?
“He said he only wanted to talk to me, and for me to talk to him. He'd never known a human outside the healing chamber. He was curious about us. Wasn't I curious about him?
“We talked all night, and when morning came, it was time for me to go, but he wouldn't let me leave. He threatened to tell my father that I'd disobeyed him. Then he bragged that he would make it worth my while to stay.”
“How?” asked Payne.
“I'm coming to that.”
“Why didn't you tell me this before?”
“It seemed enough for you to see him. To absorb one thing at a time.”
“Did you think I wouldn't have agreed to help him? If I knew he treated you like that? Do you think it would have mattered?”
“I don't know,” she said. “Would it have?”
“He's my brother,” said Payne, which to him said it all.
It was what she wanted to hear. “I never had a brother or sister, but if I did, I hope I'd say the same.”
“I wish you wouldn't hide things from me. I wish you'd trust me.”
She was quiet for a moment. “What he did—what we did—it's not something I'm proud of. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but that's why.”
“Tell me the rest.”
“I was intrigued by what he said. What did he mean ‘worth my while‘? I had everything I wanted, and I wondered what he thought that he could bribe me with.” She paused. “You can probably guess.”
“I don't want to guess.”
She glanced at him, then looked away. “He offered to heal me. ‘But I'm not sick,’ I told him. He replied that everyone was sick with something. It didn't have to be big; what I had probably wasn't. He dared me to let him try to do it. He was so full of himself. So cocky. I told myself he needed to be taught a lesson. He needed to be brought down a notch. So I let him.”
Payne waited for her to say more, but that didn't happen. She fell silent instead.
“What did he heal you of?” he finally asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing important. A little spasm in a muscle, but that's not the point.”
“Why don't you tell me the point?” He was exhausted, and this conversation, this confession, was the last thing he wanted to hear.
“I am telling you. Don't you understand? I'm the reason he's the way he is. I'm responsible for that thing inside him. Not my father, but me.”
Bolt had misgivings, grave misgivings, but for the most part he kept them to himself. With Payne he was out of his element, and as for Meera, it wasn't his place to meddle in her affairs. Still, he insisted on a few basic precautions. For their own safety, they had to wear protective clothing and arm themselves. And for the safety of everybody else, they had to do what they had come to do within the confines of the Pen.
He drove them out in the daily convoy. Meera brought food and water in a satchel. Payne slept virtually the entire way.
“He's gonna do a lot of good like that,” Bolt observed at one point.
“He's exhausted. He can use the rest. He'll be okay.” She hoped that this was true, but something else was bothering her. “It's not like we had a choice.”
“Who does?”
She gave Bolt a look. “We might if you called off your thugs.”
“I don't know what you mean.”
“I think you do.”
He shrugged and wiped the sweat off his neck. “Can't stop you thinking.”
Sometimes talking to him was like talking to a sponge. Her words just disappeared, as if they'd never been spoken.
“Then tell me I have time to wait,” she said.
A fly was crawling up the windshield. Bolt swatted it away, and it circled the cab before landing precisely at the spot where it had started. Bolt flicked it off again, and the same thing happened.
“Now there's a homing creature if ever I saw one. Got an instinct sure as it's got a wing.”
“The Pen's the home I gave him,” said Meera, taking his meaning, or what she assumed his meaning, at once. “He doesn't have a choice.”
Bolt said nothing.
“He's sick,” she reminded him, a position she had maintained for years. It was safer ground with the superstitious drivers and guards than saying what she sometimes thought, which was that Wyn was possessed. Being sick was blameless and demanded patience, whereas possession demanded action.
“No one's planning anything,” he said at length. “There's only talk so far.”
“And what's the talk consist of?”
“I expect you know.”
“Enlighten me,” said Meera.
He shrugged. “Self-protection. Watching our backs. No one else is going to do it for us. We need to organize our own defense.”
“In other words, you're taking matters into your own hands.”
Bolt liked her, he truly did, but there were times she acted so stupid, so out of touch with how things were.
“With all respect,” he said, “our own hands are all we got.”
From the rear their Conk let loose a peal of almost human-sounding laughter. Unbroken by the need to take a breath, the sound went on and on without pause, its pitch steadily ascending.
Meera got out the box of earplugs, but abruptly, the noise ended.
“I don't envy him,” said Bolt. “Or any of them. Having to lie down next to all those sick people. Get mixed up with all that nastiness. Then having to spit it out of their own selves.” He gave a shudder. “Makes me ill just to think of it.”
“He likes it, Bolt.”
“That's not normal.”
“He's a healer.”
“Like I said.”
Payne had settled against the door, his eyes closed, his face upturned. He looked so innocent, too innocent she thought, to be woken up, much less woken up to risk his life. She took heart in what he'd told her about Valid, that pompous, dangerous man. How a part of him, a tiny part, was tesque. It gave her hope that Payne would be able to heal his brother. Unconsciously, she rubbed the scar beneath her ribs where Wyn had bitten her.
“He told me once that
what he makes is beautiful to him. Not all of them feel that way. It's one of the things that makes him special.”
Bolt cocked an eye at her. “Special?”
“Yes.”
“The other one, he's special to you, too.”
“That's different.”
“None of my business, but you get in trouble having more than one.”
“I don't,” she said.
“Even one can be a handful.”
“Thank you, Bolt. I'll remember that.”
“Especially how it is. You and him.”
This was as close as he ever came to commenting on her relationship with Wyn. He was not an advocate of tesque and human intermixing, and he was not alone. Few tesques, and fewer humans, were.
“You came from us,” she reminded him. “We're mixed up from the very beginning.”
“That was a long time ago. And you got it backward. It's you who came from us.”
It was an old argument of theirs. Typically, she invoked the scientific point of view, which prevailed among humans; he, the ancient stories and beliefs of his own race.
But she was in no mood to argue today. “However it began, we're mixed up now.”
Bolt had no quarrel with that, except to repeat his earlier observation that Payne, who was now soundly snoring, seemed an unlikely candidate to get anyone unmixed.
They arrived at the Pen without incident, rumbling down in a cloud of dust, then waiting their turn to unload. Afterward, Bolt led them to the guardhouse, a stone-walled building dug into the ground to insulate against the heat. Stairs led down to a thick, tight-fitting wooden door. Several of the drivers sat inside, cooling their heels before heading back. One of them was smoking something pungent. He offered it to Bolt, who took a drag, then passed it on.
Beyond this common room was a smaller room where a guard was cooking. Meera led Payne past this to yet another room, where the equipment was stored.
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