Beyond the Boundary Stones (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 3) (23 page)

“My falconer will see to it immediately,” the Matriarch promised. “And food, as well. Jesses, a hood—”

“No need for those. She’ll remain free to come and go as she pleases. My room has a good-sized window that will serve.” Tharanirre sidled down Elkan’s arm; he flinched. “Although I’d appreciate a tough leather glove, if your falconer has one to spare.”

“Of course. I’ll send him to consult with you in the morning.” The Matriarch eyed the eagle once more with what Josiah was sure was greed, then turned and swept from the room.

Thirteen

N
irel put her hand on Kevessa’s arm as her friend frowned after the boy she’d just finished healing. “Are you all right?”

Kevessa shook off her pensive expression. “I’m fine. It’s just that’s the fourth patient I’ve had this morning who’s going to require regular treatments. Something’s wrong with his lungs that makes them fill up with mucous, and it can’t be fully healed by the Mother’s power. Master Elkan said it’s part of the pattern of his being. One of the others was like that, too, except the problem was in her blood. And two with diabetes. At least they got here soon enough for us to save them, but they’ll need constant access to wizards to survive.”

“I guess you run into things like that occasionally,” Nirel said. On the way to the square that morning Vigorre had told her about Yoran Lirolla’s plan to disillusion the people of Ramunna about the wizards’ powers. The Purifiers must be scouring the city for every hopeless case they could find. From the way the boy’s mother had reacted, they’d filled her ears with false assurances that her son would be completely cured. Her bleak eyes and drooping shoulders showed Nirel she’d been hit hard by the news he’d never be free of his ailment.

“That’s what Master Elkan said. There just seem to be a lot of them today.” Kevessa shrugged. “Come on. The line’s not getting any shorter.”

By the time they broke for the midday meal they’d added three more disappointed families to the tally. Kevessa had to explain that there was nothing the wizards could do for the young woman with odd features and an impaired mind, the elderly man with half his body paralyzed, and the woman with a deep knife scar disfiguring her face. In addition, Kevessa had spent more than an hour healing a woman whose bones were riddled with tumors. The waiting throngs shifted restlessly and grumbled about the delay.

Elkan and Vigorre joined them at the table. Their clothes were blood-spattered. The wizard looked grim, and Vigorre’s face was pale and sweaty. He turned away when Elkan loaded his plate and began determinedly eating. After a moment he rose and went to lean against the wall, pressing his forehead into the stone.

Nirel went to him. “Vigorre, what’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “You don’t want to hear about it.”

“I do. It will help you to tell someone.”

“I doubt it.” He shuddered. “A dockworker got his foot crushed between a ship and the pier. More than a week ago. It was dead, rotting away, the infection spreading up his leg. Elkan had to amputate. He made it so the man didn’t feel much, but he used a saw to cut the bone, and the smell…”

Nirel’s stomach flopped in sympathy. “It probably saved his life.”

“I’m sure it did.” Vigorre dropped his voice. “Look at him! Munching away as if nothing happened. I swear he’s as much a demon as his monster cat.”

To Nirel it looked as if Elkan, too, was fighting nausea, but she said nothing, only gripped Vigorre’s hand and squeezed it hard.

After a moment he returned the pressure and gave her a grateful if still wan smile. “You go eat, if you can after hearing that. I’ll wait.” He brushed at the dark streaks on his Keeper’s robe. “Elkan swore he got rid of anything that could spread the corruption, but I think I’d better go home and change.”

Nirel spoke softly. “And report to Yoran Lirolla on the progress of his scheme?”

Vigorre quirked his lips in acknowledgment. “A messenger is waiting for me around the corner.” He surveyed the waiting crowds. “They’re already more somber than they were yesterday. Another day or two of this sort of thing and they’ll forget they ever believed the wizards to be all-powerful miracle workers. By the end of the week they’ll be demanding blood.”

Nirel raised her brows skeptically. “What else does Lirolla have planned? Because it’s going to take a lot more than a few doses of reality to rile people up.”

“He didn’t tell me specifics, but I expect—” He broke off, twisting to see down the street. “Here comes something now. Smart of him to interrupt their meal. They’ll run out of energy faster.”

Distant screams reached Nirel’s ears. She hurried to Kevessa’s side. Vigorre squared his shoulders and returned to Elkan. The young soldier who’d been assisting Josiah jumped to his feet. “They’re calling for the fire brigade.”

Kevessa clutched Nina close. “We’ll be dealing with burns.”

Nodding, Elkan swallowed a last bite and rose. He brushed a stray lock of hair out of his eyes and studied the mass of panicked people surging toward the square. “If there’s too many, we’ll have to triage.” With deadly calm he went to the guards at the entrance of the roped-off area. “Tell the people in line they’re going to have to wait. Give out numbers to those who want to leave. How far away is the fire?”

“A couple blocks.” The head guard pointed to where black smoke billowed over the rooftops. “The sailworks.”

“We’ll stay here, then. Clear a path, and send to the palace for more troops to transport the injured. Bring each of the wounded to me first.” Tobi bounded to his side. He put a hand on her back and watched as the guards followed his orders.

Nirel grabbed Kevessa’s arm. “What did he mean, ‘triage?’”

“I don’t know. Josiah?”

Josiah was staring at the smoke. He gave a quick shake of his head and tried to smile as he turned to the girls, although Nirel clearly saw the horror he sought to hide. “It means he’s going to split the patients into three groups as they come in. The ones who aren’t in immediate danger, so they can wait. The ones we can help.” He swallowed. “And the ones who would take so much time and energy to heal that too many others would die before we got finished.”

Kevessa blinked at him. “We’re not going to help them all?”

Josiah shrugged helplessly. “We have to save as many as we can.” He scowled and cut her off as she opened her mouth. “I don’t like it either, but it’s part of being a wizard!”

Kevessa’s voice was shrill. “The Mother can’t want us to ignore—”

Nirel pointed to the entrance. “Here come the first ones.”

A cluster of soot-blackened figures stumbled up to Elkan. Gold light poured from his hand and swept over them. “You, you, and you,” he barked, pointing, “wait over there. You stay here; you two come with me.”

One man sank to the ground, three others who seemed more dazed than injured stumbled off to the side, and Elkan led the other two forward, beckoning. Nirel ran with the others to meet them.

“Josiah, Kevessa, set up here, far enough back from the entrance to be out of the way, close enough they don’t have to come far. Nirel, Vigorre, I sent for water and bandages; do what you can with the ones who’ll have to wait. Send the worst of them over to us whenever we’re free. Borlen”—he turned to the young soldier—“come with me and escort people to their places.”

Borlen saluted and moved to Elkan’s side. Josiah grabbed one of the patients and pulled him aside, reaching for Sar. Kevessa shot Nirel a bleak grin, brushed her hand down Nina’s back, and turned her attention to the other wounded man. Nirel gaped at the swath of blackened flesh across his belly and thighs. As golden light enveloped it, Vigorre tugged her away, toward the less seriously injured victims who were their assignment.

A soldier arrived with an armful of cloth. Nirel shook off Vigorre’s grasp, snatched a length of cloth, and went to a woman who was staring stupidly at her red, blistered hands.

“Here, let me help you,” Nirel said. She turned to yell for water, but another soldier was already there with a bucket. Nirel guided the woman to submerge her hands, taking heart from her sigh of relief at the cool touch of the water. After a minute she lifted them out, patted them dry as gently as she could, and tore strips of cloth to wind around them. After she tied the ends she directed the woman over to the wall to sit and rest. Vigorre was finished with his first patient, so they worked together in silence to clean and bandage the third victim’s scorched cheek and shoulder.

As he stumbled to join the other two, Nirel leaned against Vigorre. Elkan had left off healing the woman lying at his feet and was raking the Mother’s power over a cluster of victims, some standing, some lying on stretchers. She gulped as he directed guards to take three of the stretchers to the far side of the enclosure. Two of the doomed victims lay still and silent, but the third thrashed and screamed.

“Can’t he—” She shivered, appalled. Surely it wouldn’t take much energy to end the woman’s suffering.

Vigorre’s voice was harsh. “I suppose he hopes to have time for them after he’s taken care of the rest.”

The Lady’s mercy was crueler than the Lord’s justice. Nirel forced her stomach to settle and focused on the cluster of victims staggering toward them. She couldn’t do much for them, but it was better than nothing.

The afternoon passed in a blur of charred skin and bloody bandages. The stench of smoke and the meaty smell of cooked flesh choked her lungs. Soldiers and others came to labor beside her, but the numbers waiting for attention kept growing. The wizards could only minister to three at a time, and as soon as one was pulled back from the immediate threat of death he was sent to join those waiting to be bandaged. Nirel tried not to look past where the wizards toiled, but a part of her mind was aware of the slowly growing ranks of the abandoned.

Gradually she pieced together what had happened from the victims’ anguished accounts. The sailworks was a vast building where hundreds of workers, male and female, wove canvas, sewed sails, and assembled rigging for the ships of the trade fleet and the Armada. The brief midday meal break had just ended and the workers had settled to their tasks when a bin of linen thread had started to smolder. Within a minute it burst into open flame. Despite frantic attempts to quench the fire it spread to the piles of woven cloth and finished sails, which served as kindling to the seasoned timber of the walls. Panicked workers fled to the large doors where wagons entered to be loaded, only to find them barred and locked. They’d crammed the one narrow exit remaining as the blazing roof collapsed around them.

Nirel finished tying yet another bandage. Vigorre pressed a cup into her hands. She gulped the ashy-tasting water and counted the people waiting for bandages. Only six, down from eleven last time she’d paused, at least twenty patients ago. No one crowded the entrance; Elkan and Tobi were crouched over a patient. The road from the sailworks held only a few groups of stragglers, and no more stretchers.

It was almost over. Nirel allowed herself a deep breath and a spark of hope. She snatched a handful of bandages from the dwindling pile and gestured for a man to sit and extend his burned leg.

Shrieks echoed behind her. She ignored them, as she’d ignored all the cries and screams and whimpers from that direction, until anguished words broke through her concentration. “Get your filthy power away from me! Lord, spare me your wrath, I never asked—”

Nirel dropped the man’s leg, heedless of his curses, and dashed to where Josiah was falling back in bewilderment from a wildly sobbing woman. “Leave her alone!” she yelled at him. “Can’t you see she doesn’t want to be healed?” She fell to her knees and gathered the woman into her arms. The woman buried her face in Nirel’s shoulder and wept as if her heart were breaking.

“But her whole side is still open! She’ll never survive if we don’t finish getting skin over at least some of it.” Josiah put out his hand, then turned to Sar in confusion when nothing happened. “Why—”

“She’s a F—a Dualist. She called on the Lord of Justice! Tell me you haven’t started healing her yet.” Nirel glared at Josiah.

Her heart fell at the hurt look on his face. He held his hands up defensively. “We didn’t know! She just lay there not saying anything until we’d been working for a few minutes, then all of a sudden she started yelling.” He stepped toward the woman. “Please, we just want to help you. Let us—”

She twisted in Nirel’s arms, shooting Josiah a look of pure hatred. “You’ve destroyed me already. Let me die without committing further sacrilege on my body.”

“Listen.” Nirel shook the woman’s shoulders, stopping only at her gasp of pain. “Don’t tell anyone. No one knows what happened but the three of us. They’ll believe you if you say you stopped them before the Mother’s power entered your body.”

The woman gaped at her, painful hope dawning in her eyes. Josiah scowled. “She won’t be able to tell anyone anything. She’s going to die without more healing.”

Nirel kept her voice to a low hiss, although she badly wanted to shout at him. “What were you thinking? Did you not even ask her what she wanted?”

“She was unconscious!”

“Didn’t you see the way she’s dressed? The high neck, the drab color—” At Josiah’s confused denial, Nirel bit off her words. The woman’s clothes weren’t much different from those of the other female workers, but the telltale signs were clear to Nirel’s eyes. “You have to ask. You always have to ask. This isn’t Tevenar. Not everyone wants your help!”

Elkan strode toward them. “Josiah, what have you done now? I had to leave a patient—”

“Nothing!” Josiah glared at him defiantly, but deflated a little at Elkan’s scowl. “Sar didn’t have any problem healing her. How was I supposed to know she would rather die?”

Elkan’s brow creased. Nirel rushed to explain. “She’s a Dualist. Their faith holds that the Mother is evil, that her power corrupts anyone it touches. If the Elders find out Josiah healed her, they’ll throw her out. Her family won’t speak to her, she’ll lose her husband and children if she has them. It won’t matter that it was only a little, that she made Josiah stop as soon as she realized what he was doing. They won’t care.”