Spellbound (25 page)
Authors: Blake Charlton
Francesca made a thoughtful sound. “What do you know about kobold anatomy?”
“More muscle and the obvious superficial differences, but otherwise, as far as I know, it's identical to human anatomy.”
“Have him lie down,” Francesca ordered and flicked her wrist into the air. Several sparks began to flit above her head. Cyrus recognized them as flamefly spells. Their incandescence created floating globes.
Three of the kobolds hissed at the light, baring sharp black teeth.
“It won't hurt you,” Francesca said in a clipped tone. “Tell him to stop acting like an overgrown cat.” She looked at Nicodemus, who was also staring at the lights. “Nicodemus!”
The man started and then looked at her.
“You going to hiss too? Want a giant scratching post? Maybe a massive saucer of milk? Would that get you to translate for me?”
Nicodemus spoke in the kobolds' language, and Vein lay down on a drier patch of street. Cyrus noticed the kobold seemed older than the others and had a thin white scar running down his cheek. Vein uttered a few short words. Nicodemus translated. “He says it's harder to breathe lying down.”
After getting onto her knees, Francesca held her ear to Vein's chest, first the right side then the left. She listened just above the wound.
“Hierophant,” Nicodemus asked, “do you see anything aloft?”
Cyrus scanned the sky. “No, nothing. I'll keep a lookout.”
Francesca spoke. “Order two of your men ⦠kobolds ⦠whatever to hold him down.”
“What's the matter withâ” Nicodemus started to ask.
“Now!” she snapped.
Cyrus found himself looking down from the sky to watch the drama.
Nicodemus issued commands, and the four healthy kobolds jumped to obey, each one pinning down one of Vein's arms or legs.
Now even Cyrus could tell that Vein's breathing was shallow. The muscles along his neck jumped out into cords every time he inhaled. Francesca took his hand. “You're going to be all right,” she said. “It's going to be just fine.”
She looked back at his chest. “Nicodemus, back in the temple, what was it you said about my jeopardizing those who follow me?”
“What does that have to doâ”
“You implied,” she interrupted as her hands moved over the kobold's chest, “that I am careless, sloppy, that I led Cyrus into danger.”
Cyrus looked at her. Had she worried for him?
Nicodemus was frowning at Francesca. “Maybe we could discuss thisâ”
“I take my calling seriously and am never cavalier with the lives of others. I sought you out only because Deirdre gave me no other choice. But what I want to know now, Nicodemus blasted Weal, is what you are? I'd wager every coin ever to drop into my purse that you're a cold-minded killer. What you did to those watchmen back there, you're not even disturbed by it.”
Nicodemus cleared his throat. “Magistra, can you save Vein and demean me at the same time? Because if you can't, I could gag you with a few sentences.”
“I'm so bloody infuriated right now I don't think I could save him without God-of-gods damn demeaning you!”
“Then insult me quick; he doesn't look good, and I have an urge to threaten violence unless you take his health more seriously.”
“I still see no kites,” Cyrus said in a low tone, “but if you two can't quiet down, the lycanthrope hunt will hear us from half a mile away.”
Francesca seemed to ignore him. Her hands were still moving fast across Vein's chest. The kobold holding down Vein's right leg said something. Nicodemus replied curtly.
Francesca suddenly spoke: “You know, Nicodemus Weal, the fact that you would even think of threatening violence against a healer makes me need to belittle the tiny, wrinkled, frozen organ you call a human heart.”
Nicodemus glanced at her: “Magistra, if you save my student, I don't care a snap what you say about my heart.”
She snorted. “Typical of a man, caring only when an external organ is belittled.”
Nicodemus frowned in confusion and then let out a single, humorless laugh. “What an extraordinary reaction you have to crisis.”
“Your student's one mistake away from death and your expression is as bland as a loaf of wet bread. So tell me, whose reaction is the extraordinary one?”
“Holy sky!” Cyrus whispered. “Why don't the two of you just start yelling about where we are so the hunt can findâ”
“Shut up!” both Francesca and Nicodemus said in near unison.
Cyrus threw his hands in the air and wondered how he'd fallen in with a pair of lunatics.
Francesca glared at Nicodemus and then pointed at the narrow slit on the left side of Vein's ribs. “The spearhead slipped between his ribs and punctured his left lung in such a way as to make a flap. It's letting air out of his lung but not back in.”
Nicodemus frowned. “A one-way valve?”
“A miracle! You understand a basic principle. Every time he inhales, air passes out of the lung laceration into the chest. But the wound between the ribs is too thin and tight to let the air out. So pressure is building up in his chest cavity. Why would that be dangerous?”
“Dangerous ⦠I ⦠shouldn't you be doing something?”
“I am,” she snapped and nodded at her hands. “Can't you see the texts I'm writing in Magnus and Numinous?”
“Yes, but they're ⦠I mean, I don't ⦔
“So why would increasing chest pressure be dangerous?”
“It might compress the organs in the chest?” Nicodemus said hesitantly.
“What organs?”
“Lung?”
“Good, the left lung's collapsed. He's breathing only with his right. What other organs are in jeopardy? Here's a God-of-gods damned hint, you don't seem to care about this organ.”
“The heart?”
“Amazing. What else?”
“Windpipe?”
“Yes,” she gestured to the kobold's neck. “See how the trachea has deviated away from the wound?”
Cyrus leaned closer but could see only that the creature's catlike eyes
were wide with fear. Apparently, Francesca noticed the same thing. “Tell him he's going to be all right.”
were wide with fear. Apparently, Francesca noticed the same thing. “Tell him he's going to be all right.”
Nicodemus murmured kobold words that sounded gentle despite all their harsh sounds. Francesca focused on her hands. “So what should we do for our patient?”
“Burning heaven, cleric! Why in Los's name should Iâ”
“I've treated types like you beforeâsoldiers and criminals. You want me to save a life you endangered? You want me to heal a creature who just killed a watchman of my city? Fine. I've treated murderers and rapists. But once, just this blasted once, I'm going to make a killer like you answer my damned questions.”
Cyrus studied Francesca's face. Even in the heat of their old lovers' arguments, he had never seen her this upset.
She moved her hand from a point two inches below the middle of her patient's left collarbone to a nearby puddle. She looked up at Nicodemus, anger burning in her dark brown eyes. “So what do you want to do for your student, Nicodemus Weal?”
“G-get the extra air out of his chest?”
“Tell them to hold Vein down,” she said while keeping her eyes locked on Nicodemus. He said a few words and the kobolds at Vein's arms and legs tensed.
Francesca slapped her patient's chest. The creature shrieked. The broad muscles of his arms and legs flexed and bunched, but his companions held him down.
Slowly he relaxed, and Francesca looked down at her patient. She peered at his neck, pressed her ear to one side of his chest, then the other.
Bubbles appeared in the puddle next to Francesca. “What under holy heaven?” Cyrus asked. One of the kobolds pointed and said something in his language. The bubbling seemed to be occurring in time to Vein's breathing, as if Francesca had magically transferred his breath into the water.
Francesca didn't seem to hear him. “You see my medical prose?” she asked Nicodemus.
“I do.”
“With the interlocking Numinous sentences, I've defined the surface of his collapsed lung here.” With her index finger, she traced a tiny circle on her patient's chest. “With the non interlocking sentences, I've defined the surface of the lung cavity. The space between those two is the air that's collapsing his lung.”
Nicodemus gathered his long black hair and leaned closer. Cyrus leaned closer as well.
She continued. “I wrote a long tube in Magnus and punched it into his chest here.” She pointed to a small bleeding flap below the kobold's left nipple. “I could have wasted time writing a valve subspell that would allow air out but not in. Instead, I extended the tube and stuck its end into this puddle.”
She pointed to the puddle that had been bubbling, and to his surprise Cyrus saw a thin cylinder of muddy water rising up out of the surface. Then the water dropped into the puddle and bubbles began to come up.
“The water acts as a valve. When our patient breathes in, the negative pressure in his chest can suck the water up less than an inch.” She pointed from the cylinder of floating water back to the patient. “But when he breathes out, the positive pressure forces the air out the tube and into the puddle.”
The kobold exhaled and the cylinder of levitating water sank and bubbled.
“Holy canon!” Cyrus swore.
She gestured back to the patient's chest. “With every breath he is pushing more air out of his chest and reinflating his lung.”
Nicodemus stared at the puddle with wonder. “You created a shunt to compete with his lung laceration.”
Cyrus felt as impressed as Nicodemus sounded. He had never seen Francesca in action as a physician.
She nodded curtly and then looked up at him. “Effectively.”
Nicodemus spoke rapidly to the four healthy kobolds, who all looked at Francesca with catlike eyes wide with surprise.
Meanwhile, Nicodemus looked back at Vein. He and the kobold spoke briefly; then Nicodemus stepped even closer, his eyes darting from the kobold's chest to the puddle. “Magistra,” he said softly, “your prose is ⦔ He lifted his hand as if to touch some sentence on the kobold's chest but then stopped. He looked at her, his eyes darting across her face as if seeing her for the first time. “Your prose is beautiful.”
Heat flushed across Cyrus, and he felt his hands ball into fists.
The bluemoon hung as a bright shard among the skeins of stars. Francesca, so rarely abroad in the night, studied it from the party's resting place against the northern parameter wall. Soon the whitemoon's crescentâthree times longer but half as brightâwould climb after her brilliant sister. The kobold Vein had improved; however, as they had run, more air had accumulated in his chest. So they stopped by a puddle below the wall and Francesca had shunted his chest again.
When they had first arrived, Nicodemus had exchanged hand signals with a watchman, who afterward ignored the party as he patrolled the walls. Behind the party stretched a maze of dark shacks and deserted streets. The Canics had yet to emerge from their barricaded houses.
Francesca took her patient's rough hand and inspected his throat, making sure that his neck veins collapsed during inhalationâa sign that nothing was putting pressure on his heart.
Francesca's own throat tightened as she remembered Deirdre's distended neck veins as she had lain dying. The poison of self-disappointment filled Francesca. She had trained so hardâthe memorization, the abuse from superiors and patients, the sleepless nights, so many sleepless nightsâin hopes of becoming something extraordinary. But her failure to save Deirdre had illustrated that she was only a competent physician, nothing more.
Realizing that she was pitying herself, Francesca took a deep breath and studied the kobold's neck; the veins collapsed with each inhalation. “You're doing fine,” she whispered and squeezed his hand. His retracted claws rested between the metacarpal bones of his palm; she could feel them. Vein looked at her with golden eyes, beautiful. Mud had darkened his blond hair. He nodded.
She squeezed his hand again, and he squeezed back. In that moment, she could see his body in alternate futures, all healthy in the short term. The greatest danger had passed. This strange talent for prognosis was the one thing that distinguished her among physicians. At least she could take comfort in that.
“Hold tight,” she whispered and then stood. The four other kobolds
were crouched against the wall. All of them were watching her with wide yellow eyes. She couldn't read their expressions. Interest maybe? Apprehension? She nodded to them and then walked away to be alone.
were crouched against the wall. All of them were watching her with wide yellow eyes. She couldn't read their expressions. Interest maybe? Apprehension? She nodded to them and then walked away to be alone.
A black cloud was tumbling across the sky, changing shape with dreamlike fluidity. The brisk air bore a poststorm scent, clean and invigorating.
“Magistra.”
Only with great effort did she keep from jumping. “Pleasant as it is to be accosted in darkness by a man I distrust, could you perhaps drop the subtext when approaching me, hmmm?”
The darkness beside her unfolded to reveal Nicodemus. “Apologies.”
She studied him. His dark green eyes were fixed on hers. “What do you want?”
“How is Vein?”
“He could tell you better than I could.”
“Thank you for saving him,” Nicodemus said. “He is dear to us.”
Francesca could feel her expression soften a bit. She nodded. “I think he understands me well enough, but he doesn't speak to me.”
“All of the kobolds understand our speech, but they will not speak to you. Please don't misunderstand. They are grateful for what you did for Vein, but they instinctively distrust humans.”
“I can't read their expressions.”
“They do not wish them to be read. Their ancient civilization was destroyed by the legions of the Neosolar Empire. We are their demons.”
“But not you? You're the good demon to them.”
“They would find your phrasing amusing.” He smiled humorously. “It has to do with their prophecies. Please forgive their secrecy. But now, tell me, may we safely take Vein over the wall?”
“If it's not too jarring. He's recovering faster than any human. If we continue shunting the air from his chest, his body may heal the lung laceration on its own. But to be certain it closes, I want to use a specialized text to sew the lung laceration shut.”
“Can you do that now?”
She shook her head. “Ideally, I'd take him to the infirmary, but ifâ”
“No, Deirdre is still abroad.”
“âif I retrieve some texts from the infirmary's library,” she continued, “I can manage it out here.”
Nicodemus looked at Vein. “How long will that take?”
“Most of the day. But I'll show Magister Shannon how to work the shunting spell until I can return here in the evening.”
Nicodemus looked back at her. “We won't be here.”
“Then where will you be?”
“Elsewhere.”
“You've really committed yourself to this whole air of mystery, haven't you?”
“You think I should trust you with where we hide outside the city?”
She nodded.
“Magistra, can you tell me more of who you are?”
She folded her arms. “You know everything: born in the Burnt Hills, trained in Astrophell, then Port Mercy, now here.”
“Nothing you left out?”
“Oh ⦠you know ⦠you're right,” she said with exaggerated enthusiasm. “I forgot to mention that under a full moon I turn into an eight-foot-tall, fire-breathing, God-of-gods damned potato.”
His face was blank. “Unfortunate. You're a half-baked monster. Or do you breathe on yourself?”
She scowled at him. “That was in poor taste.”
“The pun or the half-baked potato?”
“Stop trying to mash things up.”
At last he laughed. “Well said. Seems we have the same sense of humor. Perhaps we can understand each other after all.”
“A shared appreciation of bad jests would foster a wonderful friendship, true. So don't give up; I'm sure you'll eventually find someone else with your sense of humor.”
He laughed. “So rough with everyone else and yet so gentle with patients.”
“I wouldn't know; I've never seen you care for one.”
“I meant you.”
“Oh, did you?”
He paused. “Magistra, there's something wrong with you.”
“What a charming way you have with women.”
“Forgive me. But ⦠you appear more alive than anyone I've ever met. Too alive.”
She fanned her face. “Stop, you're making me blush.”
“I'm not saying it well ⦔ He frowned. “Magistra, do you know what Language Prime is?”
“It's blasphemy.”
“So you were taught. But we've discovered it's real. Language Prime is the first language, the language from which all living things are made. I've learned the four runes that make up its sentences. I see them glowing in all living things.”
“Lovely,” Francesca muttered. “You really are a few biscuits short of breakfast.”
His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“You're a few colors shy of a rainbow?” she offered. “Not pulling a full wagon? Knitting with only one needle? All foam and no beer? Your cheese slid off the cracker? You couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel?”
“All right. I get it.”
“So,” she said cheerfully, “you truly believe you're the Halcyon, the savior who will deliver us from the demonic hoards?”
Nicodemus shook his head. “Prophecy isn't about humans and demons or even good and evil; it's about two competing conceptions of how language might exist.”
“Hmmm. I was wrong about the water and the boot. I think a better description of you would be ⦠oh, I don't know ⦠fell out of the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
“You heard what Deirdre said about Typhon stopping Language Prime from misspelling. The demons want to alter life itself.”
She sighed. “And you can restore order to the demonic chaos?”
“You've got it backwards. Right now, I'm a force for chaos. Typhon stole my ability to spell when I was an infant. He's keeping it in the Emerald of Aarahest. Now I'm the Storm Petrel of counter-prophecy. Only when I recover the emerald will I become a force for order.” Passion was making his eyes wider, his breath faster.
Francesca nodded slowly. “Riiight.”
“Here, write a Numinous spell resistant to misspelling. It doesn't have to be functional.”
“An apprentice could write a nonfunctional spell that even the Lord Chancellor couldn't disspell.”
“Do it.”
She wrote several Numinous sentences in her biceps, folded them back on each other, and interlocked all words. It was a luminous, useless half foot of golden language. Nicodemus eyed the text. “Cast it between us.”
“Unless you chew on the damn thing, you won't be able to disspell it.”
“Just cast it.”
With a shrug, she dropped the golden spell. The incandescent words floated down through the dark. Nicodemus gently touched the spell with his index finger, and the prose blasted into a thousand fragments.
Francesca jerked back and covered her face.
“You can look now.”
Slowly she lowered her arms. Nothing of the spell remained. “Creator!” She looked at Nicodemus, expecting a smug expression. But he gazed at her with haunted eyes. She'd seen that look before on so many sick and dying
patients that she felt a pang of sympathy. Here was a man acutely aware of his own frailty.
patients that she felt a pang of sympathy. Here was a man acutely aware of his own frailty.
“Your cacography?”
He nodded. “I can focus it on a text and it just ⦠disintegrates or explodes or warps.”
“But the spells you and the kobolds cast? The subtexts and the blasting spells?”
“I'm not disabled in their languages. But they function only in darkness and take a toll on the skin.” He tapped his chest.
At first Francesca saw nothing peculiar about his skin. But when she leaned closer, she realized that his chest was scored with hundreds of tiny welts. They were hard to see in the darkness. “And how does your cacography affect Language Prime?” she asked and realized she was using her soothing physician's voice.
“I distort Language Prime as I do wizardly languages.” He looked around. “If there were an insect or a plant at hand, I could show you. I could ⦔ His voice trailed off, seemingly looking over her shoulder.
She turned around to follow his gaze. She saw nothing but dark shacks. “What is it? Do you see someone coming?”
“Magistra, do you see that cat on that roof?” He pointed.
She followed his finger to what seemed a grayer patch of a dark roof. “No.”
“There's something not ⦠I'm not sure ⦔ He looked at her. “Have you noticed a gray cat around you?”
“The city's full of strays.”
“But one cat repeatedly.”
“No. Where are you going with this?”
His mouth pressed into a thin line. “Maybe I'm wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Never mind. But about Language Prime, perhaps I'll touch one of the kobolds. Dross will let me do it. Kobolds are resistant to what my touch creates. They can rip them out. It's a ⦠disturbing sight.”
“But when you touch creatures that aren't kobolds, it harms them?”
“Kills them. Distorts the Language Prime texts so as to give them cankers, large, blisterlike, dark with death. There's a term the clerics use that means dead tissue within living tissue ⦔
“Necrosis.”
He was looking away from her. “Yes, necrotic, the cankers become necrotic.”
Francesca took a sharp breath as her mind made a sudden connection. “Magister Shannon has cankers.”
He looked at her, his green eyes even more haunted. “How did you know?”
“His gaunt face and thin body. His weakness. It's a state of muscle wasting a body enters when fighting cankers. We call it cachexia.”
Nicodemus closed his eyes, and his mouth bent slightly, the thin smile of agony; Francesca had seen it a thousand times. “Did you accidently touch Magister Shannon?” she gently asked. “Is that what caused his cankers?”
“No, a creature from the ancient continent, called itself Fellwroth, used the Emerald of Aarahest to canker curse Magister. When I have the emerald again, I can cure him.” He looked away to the distant sanctuary. “It's another reason why we will stop at nothing to retrieve the gem.” He looked at her and blinked, no longer haunted, no longer betraying any awareness of his frailty.
Francesca felt her spine straighten. This man was not her patient. “So what does this have to do with Deirdre's message about two dragons?”
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