“Magistra?” Tam said. Prompting both Francesca and Ellen to look back at the twin druids.
The twins had been together since birth. Early in puberty they had been born to magic at exactly the same time. As sometimes happens with twins, Tam and Kenna had developed their own unique dialect; however, whereas most twins developed unique spoken communication, Tam and Kenna had developed a unique communication in the druidic magical languages. This is what gave them both their special abilities and their uncanny reticence.
In fact, Tam and Kenna spoke so infrequently that others often mistook them for mutes or forgot that they were nearby.
Tam had lowered his eyebrows. At least Francesca thought that he had. Both of the twins had hair so blond and skin so fair that sometimes she could not make out their eyebrows. “I fail to see what relevance the poor have to do with your argument about hatred and similarity.”
“Ah!” Francesca said with a nod. “Because this world changed, this glorious burgeoning of our kingdoms, has been caused by creatures like me.” She tapped her chest. “It’s the mixing of divine and human language that’s created the god mob and because of the benefits the mob brings, a burgeoning population that outstrips our ability to care for it. Then there are the neodemons, who are not all that different from me, who terrorize the weak and empower the wicked. And why do we do it all? Why do we keep populating our lands with divinities? Simply to try to keep up with the empire. If we gave half as much thought to caring for our own as we do to matching the empire’s might, we wouldn’t have any poor lining these steps.”
Tam nodded and then glanced at Kenna. Both of their faces became blank as stone. They began walking in perfect step with each other.
Francesca and Ellen turned back to the steps. Above them one of the billowing clouds had covered the sun and had begun to drop a light tropical rain. The merchants retreated farther into their stalls. The poor huddled closer to the jacaranda trees or each other.
“You know Plumeria Way used to be where the upper city walls stood? What are now the Upper Banyan and Plumeria Districts were just rice paddies,” Francesca explained as they passed Utrana Way. She could have turned right and sought out their family’s compound. Likely that would have helped her find Leandra. But she wanted to investigate one thing first. They continued up the steps.
“No, Magistra, I didn’t know that,” Ellen said.
“Granted, that was three centuries ago, but there’s no doubt that now the city is growing too fast,” Leandra complained. “Look at all this poverty. Far too fast. It’s enough to make a woman mad.”
“Of course, Magistra,” Ellen said.
“I sound like a sour old woman who complains all the time, don’t I?”
“Of course not, Magistra.”
“Ellen, I have always admired how well you are able to lie.”
“The feeling is mutual, Magistra.”
Francesca cracked a smile and then let the party fall into silence. They continued up the steps. The crowds of poor slowly dwindled as they rose higher in the city. They passed an elephant hauling produce down to the Bay Market. The massive animal’s ears displayed stylized lotus flowers drawn in red-and-white chalk. The rain was making the design run. The mahout riding on the elephant’s back called out a singsong warning to the traffic ahead of him.
At last, Francesca turned left onto Plumeria Way, which ran the length of the city’s eighth terrace. Being the only wide and well-paved street that connected all four major stairways, Plumeria Way was nearly always thick with traffic: pedestrians, palanquin crews, elephants, hand-pushed carts, all in a variety of colors, styles, and wealth that ranged from resplendent to tattered.
Although the light rain seemed to have kept some pedestrians at home, there was enough traffic to require Francesca and her followers to weave their way through a crowd.
Francesca and Ellen had donned lightweight black robes to signify that they were wizards and their red stoles to signify that they were clerical physicians. Behind them Tam and Kenna were dressed in their stark druidic white and carrying thick wooden quarterstaffs. Some recognized their robes and steered clear of them. The rest of the traffic—most troubling among them being the two-ton pachyderms—either did not recognize or did not care that they were about to run over a pack of spellwrights.
“Magistra, we could commission a palanquin for you,” Ellen suggested.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” After all that time cooped up on a boat, Francesca would be damned if they’d stuff her into some wooden box.
“It’s just that those in palanquins seem so much less likely to suffer a horrible crushing death beneath an elephant’s foot.”
“If you’re having trouble keeping up, Ellen, I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”
“I’d like that very much, Magistra.”
The traffic increased as the Plumeria Way led them onto Sacred Regent Plaza: a broad square of bare dark red earth at the center of which stood the Banyan of Ages.
Long before Francesca’s predecessor set foot in Chandralu, the first trunk of this ancient tree grew in this square and represented the city’s heart. Over the centuries, the tree had sent up massive, arching boughs in all directions. From these boughs dangled the aerial roots that made banyan trees so distinctive. Over time these roots had become so thick as to become new, buttresslike trunks.
In the memory of Francesca’s predecessor, the Banyan of Ages had been one tree—almost a miniature forest unto itself. Now after three centuries of growth, the ancient central tree had decayed back to red earth. The result was a ring tree, not dissimilar from the “fairy rings” of redwood trees she had seen in the Auburn Hills outside Avel.
In the banyan’s ring stood a small pool of salt water around a massive standing stone, upon which stylized lotuses and clouds were painted in tints of gold and silver. This was one of the city’s many divine arks, which transformed the prayers of the citizens into divine language. When Nicodemus had begun to cast his metaspells, these new stone arks began to grow wherever enough of the prayerful gathered.
Before Nicodemus had cast his metaspells, all arks held the soul of only one divinity or divinity complex and could convert the strength of the prayerful into magical text for only one particular divinity. However, Nicodemus’s metaspell had made magical language more intuitive. Therefore, all of the new arks stored the souls of any newly incarnated deity, and they could create prayerful magical language for any divinity within a network of ark stones. Though no one had foreseen this as a result of Nicodemus’s metaspell, it had provided the driving mechanism of the proliferation of divinities.
Presently, Francesca could see three priests of the Trimuril calling in shrill yellow voices for prayers to the patron divinity complex of the kingdom. Perhaps thirty citizens stood with palms pressed together and held over their hearts, praying away a small amount of their strength to the Trimuril.
Francesca hurried through the Banyan of Ages to the far side of Sacred Regent Plaza, where Plumeria Way continued. On the volcano side of the eighth terrace stood the three-story pavilion of Chandralu’s famous infirmary.
The infirmary, like every other civic organization, had a compound. In this case the attached buildings consisted of patient wards, operating theaters, apothecaries.
The wide doors to the infirmary’s pavilion were open to the street, where a crowd gathered in a sedate riot. Given how much pushing and cajoling took place in the pavilion’s queues, waiting for a physician was something of an athletic event. The sick often came with their families and servants to help reach the triage clerk. Ellen and Francesca confidently stepped into the madness. Many saw their red stoles and stepped aside.
The twins did not fare so well. Francesca looked back and saw the two white robes being baffled by elbows and shoulders. So she took Tam by his hand. He in turn grabbed his sister’s hand. Like a mother leading her children, Francesca hauled them through the crowd.
When at last they reached the guard in front of t
he physicians’ entrance, Francesca was sweating so much that her robes stuck uncomfortably to her back. The guard, a young man with light brown skin and a pubescent attempt at a goatee, eyed Francesca’s red stole. A small baton hung from the sash above his lungi.
“Physicians,” he said in a tone that didn’t so much border on politeness as violate its sovereignty, “I don’t recognize you.”
Ellen stepped forward and with a bow said, “May I present Magistra Francesca DeVega, Lady Warden of Dral and erstwhile dragon, who I would say has eaten insolent little men for breakfast if I weren’t afraid that you would fail to take it literally. We’re here to see the dean.”
Confusion washed across the guard’s face. “You a-are the Lady…” he stammered before turning to whisper something urgent into a nearby doorway. Francesca perceived the whisper as thin streams of white light unfurling into the doorway. The sound was too dim for her to make out the shape of any words.
A moment later, an older guard with a captain’s gold chain around his neck appeared. “Magistra,” he said and pressed both palms together over his heart before bowing. “Please follow me.”
They followed the captain through a hallway and then up a steep set of stairs to another, narrower hallway. Francesca realized that she was already disoriented. The infirmary had grown so much. They took another set of stairs before the guard led them into what looked like a small lecture hall.
“Please wait here,” he said with a bow and then hurried away. The twins walked to the window and stared out at the city. They were holding hands as they must have done as children. Francesca could never decide if it was charming or creepy when they did that. Maybe both.
Ellen stood next to Francesca. “Magister Sarvna is going to have an ulcer when he hears that you’re here unannounced.”
Francesca frowned. “Magister Sarvna, Dean of the Chandralu infirmary. Now there’s another example of similarity causing annoyance.”
Ellen shrugged. “Sarvna is nice enough, maybe a bit slippery and talks too much. How do you think you two are similar?”
“You don’t think I talk too much?”
“Well, you got me there.”
“Magistra DeVega, it has been too long since you visited us!” a booming burgundy-hued voice announced.
Francesca turned to see Magister Sarvna hurrying into the lecture hall, followed by a train of junior physicians. Sarvna was a short man with thin white hair receding behind a long, pale forehead. His plump face was pleasant and beardless. His short arms and thick fingers were habitually clasped together above his potbelly. He wore the blue robes of a hydromancer and an elaborately decorated physician’s stole.
The crowd behind him consisted of maybe twenty spellwrights. Their robes ranged from the bright orange of pyromancers to the green of heirophants to the gray of common mages. Each wore a red stole with various designs indicating specialty.
Francesca nodded. “Magister Sarvna, I am sorry to show up unannounced.”
“Not at all. It is an honor to have you grace our infirmary.”
The dean’s rosy tone gave Francesca pause. He should have been irritated. Perhaps he saw an opportunity to earn a political favor. “I won’t take up much of your time. When approaching the Cerulean Strait last night, an unknown sea god or goddess circled under my ship and sparked my meager ability to prophesize. I foresaw that something in this infirmary intertwined our futures. Perhaps you can help me discover what the something is.”
Francesca had expected the dean to frown at her outlandish request. Certainly she saw faces behind his expressing disbelief. In fact two physicians seemed to have started an argument. But, strangely, the dean’s pleasant smile became brighter.
“Why don’t I have the provost form a committee to investigate the matter? They can start by interviewing the senior physicians on each ward and reviewing the possible sea deities who might be involved.”
Inwardly Francesca flinched. She had forgotten how slowly the gears of academia turned. But having asked, she could do nothing more than nod and say, “Thank you kindly, Magister.”
“While this committee is being convened, perhaps you will tour our facilities. I believe you will be most impressed by how much we have accomplished with the funds that the League of Starfall has allotted to our order.”
So Sarvna wanted to get around the Ixonian Crown and appeal directly to the Council of Starfall for funding. She should have seen it coming. Not that Francesca was against the funding of public infirmaries, quite the opposite, but she had far more pressing concerns.
“Magister you are too kind,” Francesca said. “As you no doubt remember, my predecessor trained at this institution many … many … years ago. Be assured of my full support.” The argument at the back of Sarvna’s cadre continued. This made Francesca pause before she continued, “However, there is an urgent political matter to which I must attend with my husband and daughter…” Her voice died as the argument at the back of the crowd intensified.
Francesca’s textual mind churned, glimpsing the landscape of likely futures. This argument became a valley in time; one she might follow down into an intersection with the unknown sea deity. “Your pardon,” she said while approaching the argument. “Magister and Magistra, would you mind sharing the substance of your discussion.”
The two argumenteurs—a young woman with dark skin and darker freckles, and an older man with pale heavy jowls—looked up and froze under the crowd’s scrutiny.
“My lady, forgive us,” the bejowled old man said. “My student and I were just discussing an unusual case.” He glared at the young woman who returned the expression.
“Of course—” Sarvna started to say.
“Magistra,” Francesca said to the younger physician, “what case were you discussing?”
The young physician looked at Francesca, plainly embarrassed, but then she glanced at the older physician, who shook his head slightly. That was enough to cure her stage fright. Her mouth set in a hard line, she turned back to Francesca. “A case of postpartum mortality that may be connected to your mysterious sea deity.”
“Of course there are unfortunate events in this infirmary,” Sarvna quickly interjected, “as there are at every infirmary—”
Francesca held up her hand. “Magister, I don’t doubt your institution. But I should like to hear the rest of this case.” She gestured to the young physician. “Magistra, you must introduce yourself.”
The young physician blushed. “I am Magistra Nneka Ubo, originally of Ibadan. I earned my wizard’s hood in Astrophell and completed clerical training at Port Mercy before coming here for my first year of obstetric training.”
A wave of memories then for Francesca: the roughness of an infant’s hair as it crowned; the laboring mother’s cries; her two hands on the baby’s head, guiding it down toward the ground to deliver the upper shoulder out of the vagina; then pulling up to the sky and the lower shoulder delivers; suddenly in your arms the whole, hot, slippery baby making its stereotypical cries; the mother crying still perhaps but now with joy; maybe the previously stoic father going teary-eyed. Congratulations, she had thought so many times, congratulations on somehow making another human and passed it though your pelvis without killing it or yourself. Always had felt like a victory. Except when it wasn’t. Then it had been bitter, a dead infant, a dead mother. Dangerous business, creating or being created; funny that it should be so. She remembered then becoming a mother herself. Leandra’s delivery had gone perfectly, only five hours of labor. The trouble had started … much later.
Francesca came out of her reverie. She smiled at the young obstetrician. “Well, Magistra Ubo, your first year of training must be nearing an end. How many babies have you brought into the world?”
“One hundred seventeen vaginal deliveries: five breech deliveries and two sets of twins; fifty-six deliveries via surgical section of the uterus.”
Francesca nodded. “I cringe to think how little you must sleep. But now, tell me why I should w
ant to hear about a case of postpartum mortality?”
Magistra Ubo glanced at the other physicians but then continued. “Two nights ago I was woken with a message that there was a woman in New Village, only thirty weeks pregnant by report, who had gone into premature labor. I packed my things and headed down toward the village. But I found that the Low Gates were still closed. Just on the other side, a woman had been wrapped up in blankets and left on the ground. She reported that a group of men had carried her to the gate. She claimed she had delivered only moments before. Then they just left her. When I finally got through the gate, I found a pale young woman with copious vaginal bleeding. I sent for a stretcher, I conducted a bimanual exam hoping to find some amount of retained placenta responsible for the bleed. I also began uterine massage. It was at this point…” She paused, a flicker of doubt. “… at that point when I sustained a laceration.”
“I’m sorry,” Francesca interrupted.
“On my probing hand.”
“Her uterus cut you?”
“The stretcher arrived and we began to carry her back to the infirmary. While walking with her, she reported that she had given birth to a full-term and healthy baby boy not five hours ago. However, she was confused. She did not know what had happened to the child and became tearful. When I asked where she lived and if she had family who would support her, she grew agitated. She begged me not to ask any more questions. At this point, I noticed that under her blankets she wore one of the loose dresses commonly worn by the devotees of the Pillow House.”
“Pillow House?” Francesca asked.
Magister Sarvna coughed, a gray sound. “The Mithuna divinity complex is the patron divinity of erotic love and there is a … temple … dedicated to her in New Village.”
“I see. Go on.”
The young physician nodded. “Unfortunately, neither my maneuvers nor the subsequent assistance of more senior physicians could slow the patient’s bleeding. She passed into the next life shortly after midnight.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” Francesca said.
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