The Deepest Poison

by Beth Cato

  His hand was her tether, the steady marching band of his heart clear even amidst the din.

  “Separate!” a man’s voice boomed. ­People jostled and shifted around her. A heart skips beats like a child learning to jump rope. Stomachs moan in hunger. The baby in the womb writhes as if it knows the excitement to come.

  “Octavia.” Alonzo’s breath was hot on her ear. “They are separating the men and women, you must—­”

  “Come along, then! Board! Say your farewells, it’s only a few hours’ ride—­”

  “Separate?” The horror of that word cleaved through her mental fog. “We can’t! How will I—­”

  The train roared. Alonzo’s hand jerked from hers. She struggled to focus, to see with her eyes and hear with her physical ears. Faces around her ranged from milky pale to deep coffee in tone, men and women both. Alonzo, tall as he was, had turned toward her, the determination on his face visible above another man’s shoulders. The tide of humanity carried him away.

  Women’s voices jabbered around her, higher in pitch. Giggles punctuated conversations. The press of women ebbed and flowed toward a black train car and groups began to split off. Octavia found herself at a short set of stairs. Passing hands had smoothed the wooden banister to burnished gold. She staggered up the steps and tripped at the top. She caught herself on a knee and forced herself up and inside.

  She had been on a train once, as a child. Mother and Father took her to the beach. To her delighted eyes, the train car had been a palace on wheels, even if she realized in hindsight that the velvet seats had been bald in spots like a mangy dog and the brakes had squealed like a pen of hogs.

  But in comparison to this place, the train car of her youth had indeed been a palace.

  The floor had been stripped down to coarse planks. Ridges of splinters snagged her shoes. Bleak wooden benches sat in rows, many of them already occupied. No seat backs, no comforts. Women laughed and murmured as their cases slid beneath benches. They doffed their hats and smoothed their bound-­up hair. Octavia sat, hatless and conspicuous. She breathed as she did in her Al Cala. It was easier to focus with fewer ­people close by and metal walls separating her from the rest. Her fingers clutched at her satchel as she had desperately clung to Alonzo.

  The train lurched forward, steam whistle piercing, the rollicking rhythm of the wheels shuddering through the hard bench. Where will this train stop? How will I find Alonzo?

  “Hey. Who’re you?” asked a raspy voice. The woman’s face was creased and dented like an apple left to rot in the sunlight. Her body rang out its exhaustion. Hollowness echoed in her abdomen. Somehow, many years ago, she had lost a babe . . . and much more.

  “I’m new,” Octavia managed.

  “New. New, aye. Nice coat.”

  She looked down as if seeing it for the first time. Wasters did know how to dress warmly to survive their godforsaken plains. “Ah, thank you.”

  Gnarled fingers plucked at her elbow. “Wool, I think.” The woman bent close to Octavia’s chest and breathed in. “Yes, wool.”

  Prickles of unease trickled down Octavia’s spine.

  “Kethan’s bastards. Look at that,” said another woman, her body craning around to stare. “What’s that cloth there?”

  More eyes turned Octavia’s way. Another woman leaned over and tugged back Octavia’s torn coat to reveal the pristine white of her medician robes. The cloth, which was unrealistically clean despite a week in the wilderness, shimmered with its enchantment.

  It made her a gleaming target.

  “It’s beautiful, like silk.”

  “That’s a Percival robe!”

  “No. It can’t be. Here?”

  “It is! I swear on King Kethan’s tomb! I saw one once. My mum took me—­”

  “A medician. A magic user?” Expressions varied from disgust to delight to sly assessment.

  Miss Percival had warned Octavia of this very risk, so many times. These Caskentian refugees would tear her apart with their need.

  Octavia had a gun but only four bullets. There had to be thirty women crammed into this space, and she didn’t want to kill anyone. These women had suffered—­did suffer. She knew their agonies, loud as steam whistles.

  The hand stroking the wool of her sleeve gripped it tight instead. Others leaned in, reaching toward her, toward her satchel.

  Octavia stood. The motion of the train almost bowled her over. Her calves rocked against the bench to keep her upright.

  “I’m terribly sorry, I’m just—­” Octavia began.

  “I need a healing. My chest . . . it hurts, I can’t breathe—­” Lung cancer, bronchioles clogged like autumn leaves in a gutter.

  “My foot! It—­” was broken in childhood and set poorly. The bones grind together as if to spark a fire.

  “I need a medician! I’m sick.” The babe is quickening. The woman—­the girl—­is too small, too young. She starves, the babe starves. Together they breathe in the coke from the furnaces. Black nodules already stain and harden her lungs.

  Octavia’s awareness—­the horror of it—­almost drove her to the floor. These women called to her, and it was as though their bodies, their woes, opened to her like a book. Octavia knew.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry!” Too many in need, too few herbs. Only one of her.

  The women gathered around her, hunched against benches for balance, a shabby pack of wolves with snarling lips and desperate eyes. They lunged.

  Octavia shoved several back. As she spun around, the stick of her parasol thwacked several more. A nose broke, and klaxons of blood began to wail. Oh Lady. Every train car will be the same. If I jump off—­I can’t. I would never find Alonzo again. She kicked someone’s bag aside. An empty space gaped at the back of the room. She kicked away more suitcases as she stumbled that way. Her hand dove into the center of her satchel, to the medician blanket.

  Two seconds later, she had the blanket fluffed out. The action surprised the mob. They retreated a few steps and cried out. A honeyflower-­woven circle—­oval, really—­lay flat in the center of the blanket. Octavia threw herself into it, her fingers grazing the golden threads around her.

  “Lady!” she cried out.

  With an electric snap, the circle flared into existence. The heat of the Lady’s scrutiny flashed against her skin, a stark reminder of the chill in the air. The women dove at her and crashed against the invisible barricade of the circle.

  “By Allendia’s ghost!”

  “Magic!”

  Howls of frustration filled the train car.

  The circle of a medician blanket enabled the Lady’s eye to focus on those most in need of healing. For most medicians, that borderline created a sensation akin to walking through a wall of spiderwebs. It helped contain the patient within the circle if they thrashed or convulsed. Octavia, with her unparalleled power, formed something similar to a brick wall. She could cross her circle as she reached for supplies or whatnot, but the patient could not leave until Octavia broke the enchantment.

  Octavia cradled her satchel on her lap. Her arms, her body, shivered. Her parasol’s staff gouged into her, but she didn’t move. She stared at the women feet away, listened to their curses, their profanity.

  Miss Percival always warned me and the other girls that if we went out in public in our gear, ­people would riot.

  The thought of Miss Percival stung. Her mentor may have sold out Octavia and Mrs. Stout to the Waste, but the woman was still wise. She’d been like a second mother to Octavia for the past ten years. All those nights when the nightmares of her parents’ deaths had plagued her, Miss Percival had been there, her presence a balm. Even in recent years in their medical wards at the front, Miss Percival had always avoided giving burn cases to Octavia except as a last resort.

  Now, these women—­her own countrywomen—­would burn Octavia alive, if they could. They�
�d shred her apart with their bare fingers.

  Frothy spittle spattered against the invisible wall and rolled down as if on glass. Several women pulled out eating knives and stabbed the barricade. Octavia flinched. Metal met nothingness with a sound like a wrench clanging on dense wood.

  She had never known anyone to take shelter within a circle like this. Another peculiarity for the list. I can float a body within a circle, and guide it beyond. My blood has grown pampria, a temporary version of the Lady’s Tree, and vines. I can hear the songs of zymes, those microscopic enigmas that make ­people ill. And now I know the details of a person’s health in greater detail than ever before. She was suddenly so tired. So very tired, and alone.

  Lady, watch over Alonzo. Help him to blend in, unlike me. Help us find each other again. Please.

  “The circle only starts at the thread, not the edge of the blanket. Look here,” said one of the women. Her hands trembled. At the Look here, Octavia gained insight into her body. The sound was dimmed by the circle, but even so, the stranger’s blood burbled with too much sugar, as if she were a Frengian maple tree ready to be tapped. The nerves in her hands and feet had atrophied, unable to carry tactile sensations back to the brain.

  Octavia clenched her eyes shut, as if she could force away the insight.

  Knives tugged and sawed at the white edge of the blanket. She felt the motions, but she also knew that they wouldn’t impact the integrity of the circle. Blankets were damaged and frayed in the course of their use, though she had never known anyone to willingly savage one.

  It’s spite. Pure spite. Rage wavered through her, hot and cold.

  A woman cried out in triumph. “I’ll patch my coat with it! The one bit that will never get dirty.” Others laughed and cheered.

  Octavia’s rage dwindled to pity and numbness. They wanted something of her? Fine. At least it could be of use. “The cloth absorbs blood and other matter.” At her voice, the women grew silent. “Use it to clean up injuries. Use it for your monthly. Don’t keep it on open flesh as a bandage, though, or it will absorb too much.”

  They murmured at that. “It’s a trick!” cried one. “She’s trying to poison us.”

  “No. I’ve heard the same about this enchantment they do. It’s why the cloth glimmers.”

  The knives went to work again. Their anger was gone. Now they worked in eager cooperation, like rag weavers gathered to rend cloth. Octavia bowed forward in the oval into a relaxed Al Cala pose. The satchel slid from her lap and rested like a thick log against her belly.

  Unbidden, the image of the Tree flared in her mind’s eye. The green branches that extended beyond the clouds as if to support the sky itself. The bark, gnarled, much of it patched in rough lichen. Leaves bobbed and swayed as if to wave in greeting.

  The vision of the Tree had been a tremendous comfort since it had first come to her as a teenager. Most medicians experienced it, from her understanding, though it was regarded as a private thing not often discussed. Octavia knew now that this was no mere vision. She saw the Lady as she was, day or night, whatever the weather. Nothing was distinct about the nearby mountains—­though they did not have the sharpness of the Pinnacles—­or the normal forest that existed like moss at the Lady’s feet. By some magic, this Tree had been hidden in the Waste for centuries, yet somehow the Wasters had found it. When they held Octavia captive, they had tried to bargain for her cooperation by saying they would take her to the Tree. It had to be done by land, she knew, and the trek was hard. Beyond that, the location was a mystery.

  Can you show us the way, Lady? It seems everyone is trying to kill us. Can we find refuge beneath your branches?

  And if not there, where?

  Chapter Two

  OCTAVIA WOKE TO the rollicking grind of the train’s brakes. The Lady’s warmth lay as a cozy weight over her, like dirt upon roots. She wiped a trail of drool from her mouth as she pushed herself onto her haunches. The circle around her held. She had seen circles stay open for hours during complex operations that relied on doctoring as well as herbs, but certainly not with the healer bound inside. The other women, long since retreated to their benches, began to murmur and stir. They eyed Octavia as they reached for their hats and bags. Their look reminded her of the vultures that clustered on the edge of a battlefield, waiting for their turn.

  Octavia did not anticipate a pleasant disembarkation.

  The train screeched to a halt. She dug her elbow against her satchel, readying herself. The rest of the women stood. The door to the train car flung open with a clang. Grabbing hold of the medician blanket, Octavia lunged forward, jumping over the stairs entirely. A surprised conductor fell backward. Incontinence. She landed, ready to run.

  Pandemonium drowned her.

  Songs, bodies, thousands of them. As many as an army encampment, but all in tight proximity. A stew of humanity, with her senses more attuned than ever before.

  She screamed, but even that sound was lost in the cacophony.

  She ran, faces blurring around her. Dark suits, dark skins, ­people, ­people everywhere. Train whistles blasted like a whisper against the needs of bodies. Starvation gout disease pox infection syphilis double amputation typhoid pregnancy migraine. She ran, she shoved, she found a wall of glimmering white tile. A door. She opened it. She threw herself inside. A hallway, the lights electric. She staggered another twenty feet until she collapsed, heaving for breath, heaving from terror. The songs still burbled close by, like ocean waves hidden behind a dune.

  “Lady, what is happening to me?”

  She pulled the blanket from beneath her arm and pressed it to her face. The cloth absorbed her sobs as she rocked for a minute. Enough of this. I need to find out where I am. Find Alonzo.

  Up the hall she found a map painted on the white wall: TAMARAN TERMINAL Colored lines depicted a massive facility of multiple floors and several dozen tracks. The place could easily hold tens of thousands of ­people—­no wonder she had been overwhelmed. Even at her normal sensitivity, this place would have left her dazed and desirous of a quick retreat.

  How am I to find Alonzo amidst these crowds? And how am I to cope with the noise of all these diagnoses?

  The map showed several access hallways, like the one she was in, but she could not avoid the city itself. The terminal was located at city center, at the plaza. Even as a newcomer to Tamarania, she knew of the plaza.

  The southern nations were a cluster of twelve city-­states. Tamarania possessed the largest area by far, though its principal city occupied only the tip at the continent’s end. The other city-­states overflowed islands interconnected by bridges, naval vessels, and airships. The plaza was the hub of Tamarania, and of all the southern nations. Millions of ­people were said to live in the immediate environs.

  Millions. My brain will explode.

  Octavia had heard millions of living beings before—­microscopic zymes—­when the Lady’s magic had enhanced her hearing so she could diagnose the Wasters’ water contamination. ­People were so much bigger and more complex, there was no comparison.

  If the Lady can enhance my hearing, maybe she can decrease it. Actually—­she did. In the train car, I barely heard the women’s songs once I was in the circle. The magic filtered it.

  Frowning, she fluffed out the medician blanket. It looked ghastly with an entire long edge hacked away. She had not properly disengaged the circle before she fled and she still felt the inherent heat of the Lady’s presence. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. While she’d been in training, forgetting to disengage a circle was a grave offense—­the sort that earned a hundred lines and a week of doubled manure-­shoveling duty. “But I do still require your attention.”

  She delved into her satchel to find her headband. The white cloth bore a hand-­stitched emblem of the Lady’s Tree on the front. It sparkled with the same enchantment as the rest of her uniform. Warding the cloth had taken many day
s of meditation; she hoped that the existing enchantment might make the cloth more receptive. As if I’m one to judge the Lady’s capabilities.

  Octavia sat in the circle, headband across her lap. “Lady,” she whispered. At the word, heat stroked her as if she were a cat. “You have opened my eyes and ears in new ways, and now I ask something more of you. I’m too attuned to ­people. I must be able to walk the city. Please, rest your touch on my headband so that I may cover my ears and dim the songs around me.” She lifted up the band. It grew hot in her grip. She remained that way for several long minutes, breathing through her Al Cala, and didn’t let her hands drop until the cloth began to cool.

  She disengaged the circle with murmured gratitude. She secured the headband to cover her ears, the embroidered side upside down and hidden at the nape of her neck. Immediately the background burble of songs vanished. She could have wept with relief as she murmured more thanks, but she didn’t dare linger.

  The longer I am hidden away, the harder it will be to find Alonzo.

  She wended her way through more passages in an attempt to avoid the public terminal. Rounding a corner, she stopped. A body was sprawled on the floor. Even as Octavia approached, she knew this person was dead. There was no song. Maybe the southern nations are not so different from Caskentia after all.

  She stepped closer. The body’s music returned, so thready that it barely penetrated her new headband.

  Octavia gasped and dropped to her knees, hands delving into her satchel. What just happened?

  “Octavia.” The woman’s head lolled as the name gargled past her lips.

  Shock froze her in place. “I—­do I know you?”

  The cut and shabbiness of the woman’s clothes denoted Caskentian origins, her skin honey in hue. Blank eyes met Octavia’s gaze. “North.” Her jaw bobbed as if she struggled for more words. Frustration flashed across her haggard face.