The Palace of Impossible Dreams (27 page)

Arkady looked at the reptilian Crasii blankly for a moment and then stared down at Pedy, as a thought occurred to her that was almost too frightening to contemplate.

Only once before in her life had Arkady ever seen someone like this—dying from a combination of blindness, a weakened heart, and laboured breathing. She was about twelve at the time, with her father on one of his many trips to the mines up around Lutalo, during which she'd assisted him in much the same way she was assisting Cydne now. That time, however, it hadn't been swamp fever. It was a miner dying from drinking a bad batch of home-made spirits.

Pedy gasped painfully, his breathing growing more and more shallow. Arkady felt for a pulse at his wrist and couldn't find it.

His mother must have read her face.

“He's going to die, isn't he?” she said softly.

Arkady nodded mutely. Pessimism was the order of the day, after all.

“It was good of you to come, then,” she added, scooping the limp youngling into her arms. “But you can go now.”

“I'll wait with you,” she said, her eyes filling with unshed tears. The female's calm acceptance of the imminent death of her child tore at Arkady's heart. “If that's all right?”

The female studied her for a moment and then nodded her permission. Her other youngling had ingratiated himself beside her, and was staring at Arkady with dark, uncomprehending eyes. Behind her, the other chameleons began to sit down. They were a family group, she suspected, and would keep vigil together.

Arkady glanced out of the small window. The sky was beginning to lighten with the onset of dawn. She settled back on her heels to wait, and realised Cydne would have to get his own breakfast.

Let him starve
, she thought.
He deserves it.

Murderer.

The first stomach cramps hit Tiji just on dawn. At first, she thought it was something she'd eaten, but even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't the case. All she'd had for dinner last night was bread and cheese. Even had the cheese been bad, she would have felt the effects much sooner than this.

No, Tiji knew what it was, and cursed herself roundly for not staying out of the village as Azquil had made her promise she would, to reduce the chances of becoming infected. She hadn't, of course. There were other chameleons in the village and Tiji wanted to talk to them. She wanted to learn about her own kind—about their customs, their lives . . . and how she'd finished up in a circus where she was bought as a slave by a Glaeban named Declan Hawkes.

The chameleons couldn't answer all her questions, of course, but they were able to tell her more than she'd hoped for. Apparently, the outlying settlements in the wetlands were often raided by slavers. Chameleon younglings were prized, worth a fortune on the open market. That news made her wonder where Declan had got the money to afford her in the first place. Probably from the Cabal.

But that also meant they had a purpose in mind for her too.

Was that all she had been to Declan? Just another tool in the Cabal's armoury of weapons they might one day turn on the Tide Lords? The idea shook the very foundations of everything she believed about herself and the human she considered her best friend. Every day she wondered about it, the more she came to resent Declan, the Cabal, and everything about her previous life. She discovered she didn't care what had become of Arkady. The Cabal could all rot, for all she cared . . .

Another cramp doubled her over, making Tiji wonder if she was more fevered than she thought. She needed help, she knew that, although it seemed a bit early to pay a visit to any of her new chameleon friends in the village, even though Azquil had assured her that if she needed their help, all she had to do was ask.

Fortunately, she didn't need to bother anyone. The Port Traeker doctor was still in town.

Although she knew where it was located in the village, Tiji had kept away from the makeshift clinic until now, quite certain the fastest way to
get infected with a disease was to hang around other diseased people. After writhing in pain for a while as the stomach cramps twisted her gut, Tiji finally forced herself out of the cottage and headed along the path toward the village, stopping several times to either vomit or evacuate her bowels into the undergrowth. She was feeling wretched, but was reasonably confident that if she could make it to the doctor, she'd be able to get some of the tonic he was handing out so generously.

The sun was well up by the time she reached the edge of the village, the main street stretching out before her like a quest she didn't have the strength to undertake. At the other end of that muddy street, and another street over, lay relief from the pain, and an end to the draining effects of every bodily fluid she owned trying to forcefully eject itself.

Tiji stopped to vomit again, wondering what was left inside of her to be rid of and then staggered forward. Relief was only a street away.

All she had to do was reach it.

The sun was fully risen by the time she reached the small house the visiting doctor was using as his clinic. It was too early for him to be open, so the line of humans and Crasii waiting to be treated had yet to form. She wondered if they'd make her wait or if she could see the doctor now.

It's not like he's going to have to spend much time diagnosing what's wrong with me.

She decided to try her luck. After stopping on the veranda step long enough to vomit up something that looked like a liquefied internal organ she probably needed to go on living, Tiji made it to the front door. She knocked on it weakly and was more than a little surprised when it was answered almost immediately.

“Where in the Tides have you been!” the human man—presumably the Port Traeker doctor—demanded. “I've told you about wandering off—” He stopped ranting when he realised he wasn't addressing whomever he expected to be standing there at the door. “Who are you?”

Tiji's answer was to vomit again, all over his shirt. She clung to the door frame weakly.

The doctor looked down at his shirt in disgust. “Tides, you creatures are revolting,” he muttered taking a step back. “Wait there.”

He disappeared for a moment and then came back carrying a bottle of the precious tonic. He pulled out the stopper and offered her the bottle. “Here, take a swig.”

Tiji nodded and accepted the bottle with relief. The creamy tonic
smelled foul, but she was sure that any minute now, the doctor would be wearing even more of her innards if she didn't do something. She didn't hesitate before putting her lips around the neck of the bottle and taking a deep swallow.

The tonic burned all the way down, and she gagged a little, but surprisingly, she managed to keep it down. The doctor watched her drink it, nodding.

“More,” he commanded, when she lowered the bottle from her mouth. “You need a good-sized dose for it to be effective.”

Grimacing, she did as he bid, taking another swallow of the burning liquid. When she was done, he took the bottle from her and stoppered it.

“Is . . . there anything else I should . . . do?”

“Don't die on my veranda,” the doctor said, and then he turned and called, “Jojo!”

Unsympathetic bastard.
She wondered what criteria they used in the Senestran Physicians' Guild to rate their members' compassion and charity.
Perhaps that's why they sent him here
, she thought.
To teach him some humility.

Tiji sagged against the frame as a feline Crasii appeared behind the doctor. Had she been feeling better, Tiji might have hissed at her—she never liked or got along with felines—but she was too ill to care.

“Get rid of it,” the doctor told the ginger and white feline. It wasn't until the Crasii approached her that Tiji realised she was the “it” the doctor was referring to.

“I don't . . . need help,” she gasped, moving to the railing. Tiji didn't have the energy to worry about the doctor's abysmal bedside manner or the feline's intentions. She supposed the Crasii was the doctor's bodyguard. With the creature close behind her, Tiji used the wooden railing to support herself until she reached the step, and then gingerly lowered herself until she was sitting, hoping that if she waited a little, the tonic might have a chance to work its magic. After that, she might feel well enough to head back through the village to the cottage.

“You can't stay there,” Jojo said behind her.

“Just gimme . . . a minute . . .”

The feline studied her for a moment, and then shook her head. “
Only
a moment. If I come back and find you here later, you won't like it.”

Tiji forced herself to look up at the Crasii. “You could disembowel me right now, you wretched cat, and I'm not sure I wouldn't thank you for easing my pain.”

The feline frowned, but didn't react to the insult, which was a little surprising. “Just don't be here when Doctor Cydne starts his rounds for the day,” the feline warned. “Otherwise, I
will
disembowel you.”

The feline turned away, muttering something that sounded like “Stupid lizard” but Tiji didn't really care what she thought. Closing her eyes, the little Crasii rested her head against the veranda post, somewhat concerned to discover she could still feel the burning in her throat from the tonic. Somehow, that didn't seem right, and her stomach was clenching as if she was about to vomit again. She hoped she didn't, and not only because she didn't think there was anything left inside her to puke up. Tiji was certain that if she sicked up the tonic, the feline
would
be back to disembowel her.

She was also fairly sure that the Crasii-hating, uncaring doctor wouldn't give her another dose.

By sheer force of will, she kept the tonic down, but stayed sitting on the step. Having sat down, she doubted she had the strength to stand up again, and the cottage felt as if it was back in Torlenia, it seemed so far away . . .

Sitting up with a jerk, Tiji realised she'd dozed off. The sun was even higher in the sky. At least, it seemed to be. It was a bit difficult to tell, it was certainly hotter, but her eyes were blurry and she couldn't seem to focus them. She looked around but nothing was clear. The street in front of the house was a strip of darkness, the other cottages vaguely rectangular shapes breaking up the green. Tiji could just make out a figure walking toward her, but couldn't make out enough detail to determine anything other than its human outline. The approaching human paid her no attention in any case. He . . . she—Tiji couldn't tell—stormed straight past her, slamming the door to the cottage open . . .

“You heartless monster!”

Tiji tried to sit up a little straighter, her head spinning. She felt drunk. The voice yelling the insult was female. Tiji silently cheered her on. Apparently, she'd witnessed the doctor's rude dismissal of his Crasii patient a few moments ago.

“You can't speak to me like that!”

“You don't deserve to be spoken to any other way, you unconscionable bastard! You and all the rest of your Tide-forsaken, murdering, Physicians' Guild!”

Tiji didn't hear the doctor's response because whatever the doctor was
saying didn't matter as much as the fact the woman was yelling at him in Glaeban. Shocked to hear that language here in the Senestran wetlands, Tiji turned and crawled on her hands and knees across the veranda toward the door, to the sound of shattering glass.

“
Patients should always expect the worst
,” the Glaeban woman continued scathingly. “
That way, if it happens, they're prepared.
Did he teach you that?”

It seemed as if the woman was telling off someone else besides the doctor. Maybe the feline was in trouble too.

“And so they
should
be prepared, you monstrous excuse for a human being,” the woman was saying. “Because you're not
curing
the Crasii with your generous medical care and your wretched free tonic, are you? You're putting them down!”

Tiji was close enough to the door to hear the doctor's response now, the enormity of what this woman was accusing him of not quite registering in her fevered mind.

“They are diseased and their diseases spread to the human population,” the doctor said. “We provide a peaceful transition into death, which is more than their Tide-forsaken swamp fever will give them and we'll save countless human lives in the process.”

“A peaceful transition!” the woman cried in disbelief. “Tides, you're feeding them raw wood alcohol!”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because I know the symptoms, Cydne,” she said. “It might look like swamp fever to the ignorant, but no swamp-borne fever ever caused someone to go blind.”

Tiji heard footsteps inside the house followed by the sound of even more shattering glass and the sound of a struggle. She crawled through the open door and felt something sticky on the floor. It smelled foul, and it made her eyes burn and she cut herself on something sharp when she inadvertently put her hand in it.

“Jojo, stop her!” the man's voice was shouting from further down the hall, punctuated by the sound of even more shattering glass. “That's all we've got left!”

“Good,” the female voice shot back. “That means you're done poisoning innocent Crasii.” Her brave words were followed by a cry of pain. Tiji wondered if it meant the feline had attacked the human woman . . .

And then another thought occurred to her . . .
Poisoning
? Tiji smelled the stuff on her hands and realised it was the tonic. With vision too blurry to
make out any detail, she felt her hand and managed to extract the sliver of glass that was stuck in it. Somewhere, in the midst of her muddled thoughts, she realised what the discussion meant.

The tonic
 . . .
it's not a cure. Tides . . .it's a death sentence.