Briar carried the basket downstairs very carefully. Without rousing his teacher, he arranged the plants around her curled-up form and waited.
After a minute or two color returned to her skin, changing ashen to cream. Her lips bloomed from white to pink. Her hair, which had looked brown over the last few days, developed a chestnut glow.
It was like she was dead, he realized with a shudder. Like she was dead, and somehow brought back to life.
Her eyes opened. They were slightly bloodshot yet, but their shine was back. She yawned widely. “Strike me for a ninny,” she remarked, sitting up. She slid one hand around the shakkan’s trunk and cupped the ivy’s bowl in the other. “It never once occurred to me that this was the problem.”
“Me neither, till you said that about you not being a plant that needs sun,” he said. “You never been in quarantine before, right?”
“I have never been in quarantine, yes,” she said tartly.
Briar grinned, unrepentant. This was the Rosethorn he knew. She’d threaten a horrible death for someone any minute now.
“I’m always shut in with Crane, developing a cure. I never thought there’d come a day when I’d wish for that.” She sighed. “We should get back to work.”
Briar nodded and fetched more stale medicines for them to tend. Rosethorn sat for another moment, cradling each plant in her hands and tickling her face with the fronds.
As a plant mage, Rosethorn could tap the shakkan’s magical reserves, once Briar talked the tree into allowing it. For reasons that baffled the boy, the shakkan preferred his touch to Rosethorn’s. With its help, and with Rosethorn’s and even Briar’s energies renewed by contact with living plants, they finished the job.
When done, they carried the potted plants upstairs in a basket.
“Let’s share the wealth,” Rosethorn suggested. “Give people something to look at.” They left all of the plants but the shakkan on windowsills in the first- and second-floor wards. While Briar was glad to bring cheer to those rooms, he was unpleasantly surprised by how many people were in them. Each first-floor ward held thirty people, like their own upstairs. The three second-floor infirmaries were full, with a hundred patients in each. Adding in the first-and third-floor wards, he realized that Urda’s House contained nearly five hundred sick.
“Where are they coming from?” he asked Rosethorn as they took the empty basket to the first floor to be reused. He carried his shakkan in his arms; it would stay with him. “Are they all from the Mire?”
Rosethorn shook her head. A pile of empty crates and baskets lay beside the front door: she placed theirs on it. “We’ve been getting people from East District since yesterday. There’s talk of emptying the houses on either side of this one to use them for quarantine.”
“Not necessary,” said a familiar voice. Both Rosethorn and Briar gasped as Niko walked out of a nearby office with Dedicate Henna and Jokubas Atwater. Niko wore not only gloves and mask, but also a long overrobe spelled so powerfully against disease that it made Briar’s eyes smart to look at him. “With the plague now loose in the city, the Water Temple there has opened its normal hospital wards to take in those with blue pox.”
“There’s plague outside the East District?” asked Rosethorn.
“Ten cases this morning in Fountain Square,” Niko replied, “and seven in Emerald Triangle.”
Briar bit his lip. Niko had just named the two wealthiest districts inside the walls, where rich merchants and nobles lived. If the Money-Bags have it, everyone does, thought the boy.
“The duke is clearing an Arsenal warehouse for use as a hospital,” Henna added. “I’m leaving to get things set up there.”
“What about the quarantine?” asked Briar.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” Rosethorn asked Niko and Jokubas. “There’s no point anymore, not with cases throughout Summersea.”
Both men nodded.
Briar yipped with glee. “Then we can go home!”
“No,” said all four adults at once, startling him.
“Why not?” he demanded, suddenly furious. What good was he doing here, and why shouldn’t he leave? They had plenty of healers now. He wanted his own room, in his own house, and food cooked by the peerless Gorse in temple kitchens. He wanted Lark to say how brave he’d been and to hear the Hub clock sound the hours. Open air would be nice, and proper sun, and a roll on the grass with his dog. He could settle back among the girls, where he belonged.
Who would look after Flick? asked a quiet voice within him. Does anyone care about her but you?
Rosethorn put an arm around Briar’s shoulder. “There’s no disease at Winding Circle,” she explained softly. “Is there?” She put the question directly to Niko, who shook his head. “Until we know how this plague is carried, we can’t risk taking the blue pox uphill to our friends.”
“But you’re going back, ain’t you?” Briar demanded of Niko.
“Yes, I am,” snapped the mage. “I also have to stop at a tent outside the Mire, get rid of my clothes, scrub every inch with a vile soap that makes me itch, then rub in an even more vile-smelling oil before I can leave. If I thought you did more good at Winding Circle than here, I would be quite pleased to suggest that you get the same.”
Briar glared at Niko, who glared right back. If he’d been feeling tolerant, Briar would have seen that Niko’s eyes were tired, his skin chapped and red, and backed off. Briar was not feeling tolerant just then.
“This reeks!” he yelled, terrified that he would spend the rest of his life in Urda’s House. “This really, really reeks! Lakik’s mercy to the blue pox and whatever sent it!” He ran upstairs with his shakkan, fighting the urge to cry like a baby. The problem was that he was already seeing Lakik’s mercy, which was no mercy at all.
7
Frostpine placed the lid on a sample box; Daja gave it one last rub. Kirel took it to the girl in the yellow habit of the Air Temple who waited in the doorway. She balanced a wooden crate nearly filled with sample boxes in a wheelbarrow. Kirel placed his burden there, shut the crate, and fastened the leather strap that kept the lid on. The girl thanked him, giving the big youth a sidelong glance, then turned the wheelbarrow and trundled it away.
“Perhaps you should help her,” Frostpine suggested as he winked at Daja. “She looked strong, but such loads are delicate….”
Daja noticed that Kirel’s skin turned a nice shade of crimson. “She seemed to like you,” she pointed out, massaging her fingers.
“I’ll see her at supper,” Kirel replied. “Her and her girlfriends eat at a table close to mine.” He brushed his white habit, trying to wipe away soot marks.
“Are your hands all right?” Frostpine asked Daja, putting away the rest of his tools. “I know engraving is hard, but you did so well that I didn’t think to ask.”
Daja tucked her hands into her tunic pockets. “I’m just surprised they’re empty,” she said. “How many days have we been at this?”
“I lost track,” Kirel remarked wearily. He ladled water from the barrel and poured it over his long braids, blowing like a whale.
Frostpine slung one arm around Kirel’s wet shoulders and another around Daja’s. “You did fine work,” he told his students. “Only the healers, and Lark and Sandry, are working harder.” He let them go. “Daja, my pearl, you can return to Discipline tonight, if you like.”
“I would,” Daja replied. “Did we make enough of those things?”
“They have enough to last a month, and tomorrow we are going to rest,” Frostpine announced as they went outside.
“Here! Watch it!” cried a man just when they would have walked onto the spiral road. Four wagons rolled by, each carrying novices and Fire and Earth Temple dedicates. They were armed with picks and shovels. Still more wagons followed, laden with canvas, empty carry-baskets, and lumber.
“What’s all this?” Frostpine asked one of the drivers.
“Setting up a hospital camp,” replied the woman, an Earth Temple dedicate.
“Hospital camp and an open pit for burning the dead.” When Frostpine and his students stared at her in shock, she said, “Where have you been? The blue pox is everywhere in the city. Urda’s House and the Water Temple are full up. Duke’s clearing a warehouse, and they’re building the camp uphill of the Mire. Pit’s to be dug on Bit Island.” Her wagon rolled on, bound for the south gate and the road to the city.
Briar? asked Daja, reaching through their magical connection. Are you all right? She was suddenly frightened for him and Rosethorn.
I’m fine. Go away, Briar replied firmly. Daja was cut off as crisply as if he’d slammed a door in her face.
As Briar stalked down the hall to the room where Flick was, a healer stopped him. “Mask, gloves,” he said tiredly. “We’ve fresh ones on the tables; use them.”
Briar wanted to tell him off as he’d just told Daja, but the man looked so weary over his own mask that Briar decided it wasn’t worth it. He put the shakkan down and helped himself to a mask. A sense of Lark and Sandry washed over him as herb-scented cloth pressed his nose. He could almost see their faces, their magic was so powerfully written into the undyed cotton. The gloves were the same. Fitting them over his hands, he felt as if Lark and Sandry stood at his back, keeping him safe.
That made him feel small.
Daj’? he called out silently, sheepishly. Daj’, I’m sorry.
He could feel the Trader’s hurt, as sharp as if he’d cut her. Then Daja too relaxed. It’s bad there?
Bad enough, he replied, stroking the shakkan’s wrinkled trunk. Ain’t you heard?
Only a bit, just now, she told him somberly. We’ve been making sample boxes ’round the clock, with breaks for catnaps.
She felt exhausted to him. Now he was really ashamed of himself. Sleep and eat, he told her sternly. Lots of both.
One epidemic and you’re a master healer? she asked, amusement threading her weariness.
That’s it, he agreed, mock-serious. Tell them at home me and Rosethorn miss ’em.
I will, she replied, drawing away.
Feeling better for the contact, Briar carried his tree into the ward he’d left that morning. His bed had been filled.
“You aren’t sick,” replied a healer when he protested. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Briar settled his tree on the shelf behind Flick’s cot. “I should be and I am,” he said firmly. “I’ll see to my—my mate, here.” The term wasn’t strictly accurate: a mate was someone who stayed with you in dire times, as the girls had with him the year before. Still, he was as much of a mate as Flick was going to get. Lifting his eyebrows, he asked, “You want to argue?”
“Just keep out of my way,” the man warned him, moving on to other beds.
That was easy enough. Flick had sunk into a high fever while Briar was out. He checked her mouth, to find her tongue as dry as paper. Her cracked lips bled; her skin was ashy and dry. When he pinched her gently, the fold he’d made in her skin flattened very slowly. He’d been around healers enough to know this was the worst possible sign. His friend was drying up inside.
His heart pounded heavily. What was going on here? He’d thought she was on the mend that morning. Looking around, he saw that the homeless man Yuvosh was gone. A kid Henna had brought in and one of her old people were missing too.
“Dead,” said a healer—not the one who’d told him he didn’t belong there—when he asked. “Yuvosh, did you say his name was?—had a stroke. The old woman in her sleep; her heart stopped. It was quick. The little boy went into a coma and died—fever cooked his brain. Your girl started to heat up about an hour after you left. You won’t be able to give her enough liquid to make a difference,” she added as Briar grabbed a clean jar and filled it with water.
“We’ll see,” he said grimly, filling a smaller jar with willowbark tea. He marched back to the bed, determined to do battle. Flick’s response was not encouraging: she swallowed two mouthfuls and let the rest dribble onto her blanket.
“Open your eyes,” Briar ordered, trying to sit her up. “C’mon, Flick, you’re drier than the rooftops in Wort Moon. You have to drink.”
Flick’s eyes popped open. “Ma, don’t!” she cried, raising her hands against an unseen threat. “I’ll learn, I will, only don’t—” Her head snapped back. She keened deep in her throat and curled into a ball. “I’ll be good. I’ll be good,” she whispered, sobbing.
“Flick, drink this,” Briar said, badly frightened. “I know it’s nasty, but it’ll help.”
Flick sat up with a grin. “There’s a haul, and proper nicked!” she sang out. “And food enough for everybody after the Dirt Mayor gets his cut.”
Briar got the cup to her mouth and tipped it, pouring half down her throat. She drank, thinking it was part of the food she’d stolen in her waking dream. “Naw, give ’em dates to the littles,” she announced. “Too bleatin’ sweet for me. How ’bout some o’ that wine, there.”
Briar filled the cup from the water jar and raised it to her lips, but he was too late. Flick lay back, eyelids fluttering. “You want Petticoat to work the Bag trade. She’s got the lingo. Gimme wharves any road.” She slept briefly, her breath rasping in her dry throat, and woke to still more hallucinations. As the healers closed the shutters for the night and supper was brought to those who could eat, Briar learned more about Flick’s early life than he ever wanted to. He wished, tiredly, that he could find the monstrous mother who figured so vividly in his friend’s cries.
Worse, he wished that he’d never heard of Flick. He hoped that she would die so he could get some rest. That last thought made him despise himself. Her life was surely worth more than his winks. He was a monster to think it. As penance he fought her to drink more liquid. When she refused, he helped tend those on either side of her. One of them was Orji, the other homeless man who had come in that second day. He slept lightly, muttering in his dreams, but he drank when he was told, and he wasn’t as hot as he’d been.
Just after the Guildhall clock struck midnight, Flick went stiff, her body turning into a bow. Just her head and feet touched the bed. She collapsed as Briar and a blue-robed healer ran to her cot, then arched again, unbreathing, eyes rolled up in her head.
“Get her feet!” snapped the healer. She threw her body across Flick, grabbing her wrists. While Briar hung on to the girl’s feet, the healer took a breath and exhaled. Her magic surged like fast-growing vines through Flick’s arms and into her straining chest. Flick collapsed, gasping as she tried to suck air into her dry throat.
“Breathe,” the healer urged Flick. “Breathe as hard as you—”
Flick whined. Her back arched as her eyes rolled up. Now the healer sent power racing through her, filling the girl’s skin with magic only Briar could see. The magic’s light fluttered; in Flick’s arms and legs it receded, trickling back into her body almost as quickly as it had filled her limbs.
This time Flick’s convulsion was shorter. “Breathe,” chanted the healer softly when she went limp. “Breathe, breathe—”
Briar was confused. Why was it important for Flick to breathe? Wasn’t it Henna—? Yes. She’d said that in long moments without air, parts of the brain died. People with seizures forgot to breathe. Urda, no, thought Briar, scowling at his friend. Don’t leave her an idiot.
Flick tensed again. Two more seizures followed, the healer never once loosening her grip. Each time it took her more effort to thrust her magic into Flick’s body, and it never lasted as long inside the girl’s skin as it had the first time.
When Flick had lain quiet for a while, the healer let go. Briar, who’d been knocked repeatedly into the bedstead, was happy to release the girl’s feet.
“Could I do that?” he asked the healer as she gulped down cold water. “Put my magic in them to keep them going?”
“Are you a healer?” the woman asked tiredly. “Can you run your power through another human being?”
“Only my mates—these girls I know—and Rosethorn.”
The hea
ler looked at him—really looked—for the first time. “Yanna bless me, you’re one of the four, aren’t you? The boy, the plant-mage?” Briar nodded. The healer massaged her temples. “You might do it with those girls and Rosethorn, but we would have been told if any of you could heal.”
“Could I try?” asked Briar as the healer lurched to her feet.
“Try all you like,” she replied. “Nothing will come of it.” She hesitated, then touched Flick’s head. Once again Briar saw magic, but its gleam was just visible—the woman was nearly drained. She pursed her lips.
“Flick’ll be fine,” snapped Briar, annoyed by the healer’s rejection of the idea that he could do this kind of magic.
“I hope so,” she replied, moving on to the next bed.
Sitting beside his friend, Briar held her wrists as the healers did. Magic was magic. It could be lent to other mages; he’d seen that, had done it himself. Let him bleed off some now, when there was some good to be had.
His store of power wasn’t the same as it had been that morning, before he and Rosethorn had gone downstairs, but he still had some. He pictured Flick’s veins like veins in a leaf and urged his magic forward. It was like trying to leap off a cliff, only to find he was still on even ground. There was no place for him to go. Again he tried, imagining her veins as a web of roots. His power moved in him, but went nowhere.
A hand on his shoulder jolted Briar out of a half trance. “It doesn’t work,” Rosethorn said wryly. “I’ve tried. How has she been doing?”
Briar described Flick’s seizures and the shrinking amounts of magic that the healer had fed to his friend. Rosethorn frowned as he spoke. When he was done, she said, “I’ll be back shortly.” She left him there.
“Can I have water?” Orji whispered from the next bed. “My head aches.”
Briar scooped water into a cup and helped raise the man so he could drink. Looking for Rosethorn as Orji gulped the water, Briar saw her arguing softly—but ferociously, from the look on her face—with the healer who’d tended Flick. The healer pointed to other cots and shook her head. Was she telling Rosethorn she’d already helped those people and was drained of magic, or was she saying there were others who needed it more than Flick?