Shaman's Crossing (63 page)

My head was reeling. I did know, very well, what a dishonorable discharge from the Academy meant. It would disqualify me from all military service. I would not be allowed to enlist even as a foot soldier. Oh, there were romantic tales of young men changing their names and enlisting to prove they had reformed themselves, and it was rumored that some of the civilian scouts who served the military in the more dismal regions were actually dishonorably discharged soldiers. But I knew what the discharge would mean for me. It meant no career, ever. I would go back to my brother’s holdings, and slink about them to the end of my days, a useless son. My father’s line would have to wait an extra generation before my brother’s second son, if there was one, could redeem our honor. I felt physically ill. I’d done a good deed and lost my future. Too late now to go to Captain Maw and tell him I’d be a scout. Too late for everything except disgrace.

I had nothing left to lose. I disobeyed my commander. I did not take the papers he was waving at me, but spoke, unbidden.

“Sir, I fear you have been misinformed about what happened last night. I did not take Young Caulder to Dark Evening. I did not even know he was there until I saw him in the company of some other cadets. I did not give him drink. All I did was to go to him after he had drunk a full bottle of liquor and passed out, and see that he got safely home. I swear to you, sir, on my honor, that I had nothing to do with your son’s downfall.”

I felt as if my body were literally burning with my fervor. I know I swayed on my feet and prayed I would not disgrace myself by falling. Colonel Stiet looked at me in disbelief. “Must you compound your failures by lying about them? Do you think my son is unconscious still? Do you think I don’t know everything? He has confessed all to me, Burvelle. All. You were the one who bought the liquor and put it in his hands. You and your friends urged him to drink, even when he told you he had had enough. The others will be discharged as well; they were to be culled anyway.” He looked down at the paper he still gripped in his hand. “I only wish there were something more severe than a dishonorable discharge that I could inflict on you. I will be notifying your uncle. By this afternoon’s mail, he will know of how you have shamed his name.”

“I didn’t do it,” I said, but my words sounded feeble and uncertain. My guts seemed to squirm inside me and I felt a tearing cramp in my side. I could not help myself. I clutched at my belly. “Sir, I’m feeling ill. Permission to leave, sir.”

“You have it. Take your papers with you. I never want to see you in this office again.”

He thrust the paper into my slackened hands. I held it against my complaining stomach as I staggered from the room. In the outer office, the colonel’s secretary stared at me as I passed him by without a word. I hastened out the door and down the steps. Sergeant Rufet was waiting for me, his face impassive. I began a quick march back to the dormitory, but after a few steps I faltered. A wave of vertigo swept over me and I halted, swaying on my feet.

Sergeant Rufet spoke in a low voice. “That must have been some dressing-down. Taking it hard, I see. Buck up, Cadet. Be a man.”

Be a man. Stupid, useless advice. “Yes, Sergeant.” I kept walking. Blackness kept trying to close in from the edges of my vision. I would not faint. Never before had foul news had such a profound physical effect on me. My belly boiled with acid and my head spun. I focused my eyes on the path and staggered on.

“So. How many demerits will you be marching off?” he asked. His tone was genial, as if to make light of whatever had befallen me, but I thought there was an edge of concern in it, too.

I could scarcely find breath to answer. “I won’t be marching at all,” I managed, ashamed of how my voice hitched on the words. “I’ve been dishonorably discharged. They’re sending me home in disgrace. I’ll never be a soldier, let alone an officer.”

The sergeant halted in surprise. I think he thought I would stop too, but I kept on walking. I feared I would collapse if I did not. One foot in front of the other. He caught up with me and asked me in a toneless voice, “What did you do, Cadet, to merit that?”

“Nothing. It’s what Caulder accused me of doing. He said I’m the one who got him drunk at Dark Evening. I didn’t. I was just the one who dragged him home.” When the sergeant said nothing, I added bitterly, “His old noble friends are the ones who took him to town and got him drunk. They wanted him to pass out so they could get into a whorehouse without him. I heard them talking about it. Those old noble bastards left him to freeze on the ground. I picked him up, I obeyed the doctor’s order, I dragged him home, and I’m the one to be kicked out. All because I’m a
new
noble’s son.”

“Caulder.” The sergeant growled the word like it was a curse. Then he added, in a low, vicious voice, “New noble, old noble, that’s all I hear, and not a damn bit of difference do I see between the lot of you. Any noble’s son is the same to me, born to lord it over me. Damn lot of you wet behind the ears still, but in three years you’ll be polishing your lieutenant’s bars while I’m still riding a damn desk and babysitting youngsters.”

A fresh wave of misery washed over me. In all the times I’d walked past the sergeant’s desk, I’d never stopped to wonder what he thought of us. I glanced over at him. There he was, a man grown, years of service behind him, and in two years at the Academy, I’d outrank him. That injustice suddenly seemed as great as what had just befallen me. I drew a breath against the misery that had swollen my throat shut and tried to speak.

“Shut up, Cadet,” he said coldly before I could get a word out. “I’m not any kind of a noble’s son, but I know an injustice when I see it. Listen. Listen to me. Don’t say a damn word about that discharge. Fold it up and shove it in your pocket. And don’t do a damn thing until someone commands you to do it. Shut up and sit tight. Caulder’s been a thorn in my flesh since he and his old man got here. Maybe it’s time I had a word with that pup, and let him know that I know what’s what with his trotting about here and there. I see a damn sight more than I say. Maybe it’s time I put a word in his ear about what I know. Maybe he’ll say something to his father to make him change his mind. But the fewer people the colonel has to explain that change to, the easier it will be for him to do it. So you, you just lie low and don’t do anything for a while. Do you understand me, boy?”

“Yes, sir,” I said shakily. I should have felt better for his words of support. Instead I only felt fainter. “Thank you, sir.”

“You don’t call a sergeant ‘sir,’ ” he pointed out sourly.

I don’t know how I made the rest of that long march back to Carneston House. He left me at the door and went, with a heavy sigh, to sit behind his desk. I still clutched my discharge paper in my hand. I started up the stairs. They had never seemed so steep or so long. Sternly, I ordered my body to behave itself and tried to get a grip on myself. On the first landing I paused to catch my breath. Sweat was pouring down my back and ribs. I crumpled up the paper I didn’t have the energy to fold, and thrust it into my pocket.

I have climbed cliffs that were less demanding than those remaining flights of stairs. When I reached our rooms at last, I stumbled past Spink sitting at our study table. “You look awful!” he greeted me worriedly. “What happened?”

“I’m sick,” I said, and no more than that. I stumbled to our room, let my coat fall to the floor, kicked off my boots and lay on my bunk facedown. I’d never felt so wretched in my life. Yesterday, I’d learned that I’d likely be culled, and it had seemed the worst possible fate. Today, I knew how foolish I’d been. Culled, I could have been a ranker or a scout. At least I’d been left a chance to prove myself a proper soldier son. Dishonored, I was nothing except an embarrassment to my family. My guts squeezed inside me. I only knew that Spink had followed me into the room when he spoke.

“You’re not the only one sick. Trist is down bad, with something a lot worse than a hangover. Oron went to fetch the doctor. And Natred left an hour ago to go to the infirmary. What did you eat at Dark Evening? Natred said he thought he got some bad meat.”

“Leave me alone, Spink. I’m just sick.” I wanted desperately to confide in him about what had just happened, but didn’t even have the energy to unfold the story. Besides, the sergeant had told me to say nothing. Lacking any better source of advice, I’d take his. I tried to take slow, calming breaths and regain some sort of control over myself. Nausea surged in my gut. I swallowed and closed my eyes.

I don’t know how much time passed before I admitted to myself that I truly was ill. It seemed fitting that I should be as physically miserable as I was mentally. I could hear Trist retching across the hall. I dozed off, and woke to a hand on my brow. When I turned over, Dr. Amicas was looking down at me. “This one, too,” he said tersely to someone. “What is his name?”

“Nevare Burvelle,” I heard Spink say dully. A pen scratched on paper.

When he saw my eyes were open, the doctor demanded, “Tell me everything you ate and drank at Dark Evening. Don’t leave anything out.”

“I didn’t give the liquor to Caulder,” I said desperately. “All I did was bring him home. Like you told me to. He was passed out on the ground when I found him.”

Dr. Amicas stooped and peered into my face. “Oh. So that was you last night, was it? You still owe me some cab fare, Cadet, but we’ll let it pass for now. I saw Caulder early this morning. Worst case of alcohol poisoning I’ve ever seen in a boy that young. But he’ll live. He just won’t enjoy it for a while. Now. What did you eat and drink?”

I tried to remember. “A potato. Some meat on a stick. Something else. Oh. Chestnuts. I had chestnuts.”

“And to drink?”

“Nothing.”

“You won’t be in trouble for it, Cadet. I just need to know. What did you drink?”

I was getting very tired of people thinking I was a liar. But instead of getting angry, I felt weepy. I ached all over. “Nothing,” I said again, past the lump in my throat. “I didn’t drink anything. And Caulder lied about me.”

“Caulder lies about a great many things,” the doctor observed, as if that shouldn’t surprise me. “Can you get yourself undressed and into bed, Cadet? Or do you need help?”

I groped at my chest, surprised to find that I was still dressed. When I began to fumble at my buttons, the doctor nodded as if satisfied. I heard someone gag and then begin to retch again. It sounded close by. The doctor scowled and spoke sternly, and this time I realized he had an assistant standing at his elbow. “And there’s another one. I want this whole floor quarantined. No. I want the entire hall quarantined. Go downstairs immediately and tell Sergeant Rufet to post a yellow flag by the door. No one comes in or out.”

I think the assistant was happy to leave judging by how quickly he fled. I sat up to take off my boots and the room spun around me. Nate and Kort were both lying on their bunks. Nate was hanging, head down, over the edge of his mattress, retching into a basin on the floor. Kort was motionless. A frightened-looking Spink was standing near the window, his arms crossed on his chest. Doggedly, I went to work at getting my shirt off my arms.

“Dr. Amicas! What are you doing here? I sent for you an hour ago!”

I flinched at Colonel Stiet’s voice. As he advanced into the room, his boot heels clacking on our floor, I wondered if it was all a dream. The colonel looked both distraught and furious. His face was red with exertion. Plainly he had hurried up the stairs. The doctor spoke flatly. “Colonel, remove yourself immediately from this building, or risk being quarantined here with me and these cadets. We’ve a grave situation here, one that I will not approach with half-measures. All of Old Thares is at risk.”

“I’ve a grave situation of my own, Doctor. Caulder is ill, seriously ill. I sent my first messenger for you more than an hour ago. He came back to say only that you were ‘busy.’ When I came to the infirmary to fetch you myself, they told me you were at Carneston House. I find you up here, mollycoddling hungover cadets while my boy burns with fever. That is not acceptable, sir. Not acceptable at all!”

“Fever! Damnation! I’m too late then. Unless…” The doctor paused, and knit his brow. I managed to get my shirt off. I let it fall to the floor beside my boots. I went to work on my belt.

“I want you to come to my son’s bedside immediately. That is an order.” Colonel Stiet’s voice shook with passion.

“I want the Academy quarantined.” The doctor spoke as if he had pondered all his options and reached a decision. I do not think he had even heard the colonel’s words. “It is essential, sir. Essential. I fear that what we have here is the first outbreak of the Speck plague to reach the west. It matches every symptom I saw in Fort Gettys two years ago. If we’re lucky, we can stop it here before it spreads to the whole city.”

“Speck plague? It can’t be. There’s never been a case of the Speck plague this far west.” The colonel was shocked; the hard tone of command had gone out of his voice.

“And now there is.” The doctor spoke with angry resignation.

I spoke without thinking. My own voice seemed to come from a great distance. “There were Specks there last night. At Dark Evening. In the freak tent. They did the Dust Dance.”

“Specks?” the colonel exclaimed, appalled. “Here? In Old Thares?”

The doctor spoke over him, demanding of me, “Were they ill? Sickly at all?”

I shook my head. The room was swaying slowly around me. “They danced,” I said. “They danced. The woman was beautiful.” I tried to lean back slowly into my bed. Instead the room spun suddenly, and I fell. Darkness closed in around me.

M
y memories of those days are distorted, like images seen through a badly ground magnifying lens. Faces came too close, sound was shocking, and light pierced my eyes. I didn’t recognize the room. There was a window opposite my bed and bright winter light shone directly in my face. There were other beds in the room, and all of them were occupied. I heard coughing, retching, and feverish moaning. My own life had vanished. I did not know where I was.

“Please. Pay attention.”

There was an orderly by my bed with an open notebook in his hand. His pencil was poised over it. “Concentrate, Cadet. The doctor demands that every patient answer these questions, no matter what condition he is in. It may be the last important thing you can do with your life. Did you touch a Speck?”

I didn’t care. I just wanted him to go away. Nevertheless, I tried. “They threw dust at us. Right at us.”

“Did you touch a Speck or did a Speck touch you?”

“Rory stroked her leg.” I thought of that, and my memories spun me back to the sideshow tent. I saw the woman’s mouth soften as he caressed her. I opened my own mouth, longing to kiss her.

A voice shattered the image. “So you’ve told me. Six times. You, Cadet. You…” He flipped over a page and likely found my name, “Nevare Burvelle. Did
you
touch a Speck or allow a Speck to touch you?”

“Not…really.” Did I? In a dream, I had done far more than touch a Speck. She had been lush and beautiful. No. Fat and disgusting. “It wasn’t real. It didn’t count.”

“That won’t do. Yes or no, Cadet. Did you have carnal contact with a Speck? Don’t be ashamed. It’s too late for shame now. We know that several other cadets bought time with the Speck woman. Did you? Answer me, yes or no.”

“Yes or no.” I echoed the words obediently.

An exasperated sigh. “Yes, then. I’m putting down yes.”

Dr. Amicas’s guess had been correct. It was Speck plague. It went against all we knew of that disease for it to strike so far west and during winter. Conventional wisdom at the time said that it flared up in the hot dusty days of summer and died down during the cool wet days of fall. But all the other symptoms matched, and Dr. Amicas, who had seen the disease firsthand, was adamant from the beginning about his diagnosis. It was Speck plague.

Those of us who fell to the first wave of illness were fortunate in a sense, for in the early days of the plague, we got good care. The first circle of cadets to sicken was composed only of those who had visited the freak tent. I have a hazy recollection of a rumpled and unshaven Colonel Stiet striding up and down past our beds, loudly denouncing us as perverts and saying we would all be dishonorably discharged for having unnatural relations. I remember Dr. Amicas pointing out that “Numerically, it simply isn’t feasible that all these lads had relations with the same female on the same night. Even if she’d lined them up like ducks, there simply wasn’t enough time. I’m including your Caulder in that line, of course. For him to become infected so swiftly, he, too, would have had to have congress with her.”

“How dare you think my son could be involved in something like this? How dare you even suggest it? One of the cadets who dirtied himself with that striped whore passed the illness on to my boy. It’s the only possible explanation.”

The doctor’s voice was tired but insistent. “Then, unless you are saying that your son had abnormal relations with one of these cadets, we have to admit the plague can be spread by means other than sexual contact. In which case, perhaps only a few of the cadets had intercourse with the whore.”

“They’ve admitted it! Half a dozen of those new noble vermin have admitted it!”

“And as many of your fine old noble sons have owned up to it also. Stop haranguing me, Colonel. How the disease got started is no longer a priority. Stopping it is.”

The colonel’s voice was low and determined. “We never had Speck plague in Old Thares before. Is it a coincidence that the first time we have young men patronizing a Speck whore, we get an outbreak? I don’t think so. The city officials who banished the freak show don’t think so either. Those who patronized the diseased whore are as guilty as the circus that brought her to town. And they should be punished for what they have loosed upon all of us.”

“Very well,” the doctor conceded wearily. “You occupy yourself with thinking about how to punish them. I’ll try to keep them alive so you’ll have someone to punish. Would you please remove yourself from my infirmary now?”

“You haven’t heard the last of this!” the colonel promised angrily. I heard him storm out, and then drifted off into my fever again.

Dr. Amicas’s plan to quarantine the Academy and confine the plague there was doomed to defeat. No walls or gates could contain or hold out the enemy that had descended upon us. The reports of sickness in the city were multiplying before the first day of lengthening daylight was over. As it was with the Academy, so it was with the city. Those who had visited the freak show tent were the first to fall ill. But it spread rapidly to their relatives and caretakers, and outward to others. Families such as Gord’s who had left the city for the holiday heard the tidings and did not return. Families trapped within the city closed the doors to their houses and waited inside, hoping against hope that the contagion had not already infiltrated their homes. The circus and the freak show were rousted from the city, but the Specks had inexplicably vanished by then. Their keeper was found dead, choked on his prod, which had been forced down his throat.

Two days after I fell ill, the second wave of plague swept through the Academy. The infirmary was overwhelmed. There were not enough beds to hold the afflicted, not enough linens and medicines and orderlies. The doctor and his assistants did what they could to take care of the cadets suffering in their various dormitories. There was little outside help to be had, for the Speck plague was raging through the city by then, and all the doctors who dared to treat the ill had far more work than they could handle.

At the time, I knew nothing of that, of course. On the second day of my sickness, I was moved to a bed in the infirmary, and remained there. “Lots of water and sleep,” was Dr. Amicas’s first advice. I’ll give him this; he was an old soldier and knew well how to take action even before the command came down. He recognized the plague and treated it as such from the first outbreak.

He’d seen Speck plague before, and had even contracted a mild case of it when he was stationed at Gettys. Knowing what he knew, Dr. Amicas did the best he could. His first recommendation, that we drink lots of water, had not been a bad one. No medicine had ever proven efficacious against Speck plague. A man’s own constitution was his best resource. The symptoms were simple and exhausting: vomiting, diarrhea, and a fever that came and went. Day would seem to bring a slight recovery, but with night our fevers rose again. None of us could keep food or water down. I lay on my narrow cot, drifting in and out of awareness of the ward around me.

My cognizance of those days was an intermittent thing. Sometimes when I was awake the room was brightly lit and other times it was dim. I lost all sense of the passage of time. Every muscle in my body ached, and my head pounded with pain. I was hot, then shaking with cold. I was constantly thirsty, no matter how much I drank. If I opened my eyes, I felt as if too much light were in them; if I closed them, I feared to slip off into fever dreams. My lips and nostrils were chapped raw. I could find no comfort anywhere.

When I first arrived at the infirmary, Oron had lain in the bed to my left. The next time I awoke, he was gone and Spink was there. Nate was in the bed to my right. We were too miserable to talk; I could not even tell them of my dishonorable discharge or that they were soon to be culled as well. I drifted between dreams that were too sharply real to give me any rest and a nightmarish reality of foul smells, groaning cadets, and misery. I dreamed that I stood before my father and that he did not believe I was innocent of the false charges against me. I dreamed that my uncle and Epiny came to visit me, but Epiny had the deformed feet of the chicken woman. When she blew her little whistle, it made cackling sounds.

But the most unsettling moments were neither fever dreams nor sickroom glimpses. For me, there was another world, deeper than the fever dreams and far more real. My body lay in the bed and burned with fever, but my spirit walked in Tree Woman’s world. I watched my other self there, and recalled clearly the years I had spent with her since first she had seized my hair and pulled me up and into her keeping. My true self was a pale ghost floating in their world, a party to their thoughts, but nothing that they feared or considered at all. In that world, my topknotted self had been her student for many years, and now I was her lover. Daily, she had taught me the magic of the People, and daily she had strengthened me in that magic and made me more real in her world. We had walked in her forest and I had learned the irreplaceable value of her trees and wilderness. Her world had become mine, and I had come to see that no measure was too extreme in the war to protect it.

And in her world, I loved her with deep and real passion. I loved the voluptuousness of her flesh, and the deep earthiness of her magic. I admired her loyalty and determination to preserve the People and their ways. I shared her dedication to that cause. In those dreams, I walked beside her, and lay beside her, and in the sweet dimness of the forest night, we made the plans that would save our folk. When I was with her, all was clear. I knew that I had pleased her when I had made the sign to the Speck dancers to “loose” the magic. I knew the performers had not been captives at all, but the most powerful dancers of the magic who could be spared from the People. They had come seeking my soldier’s boy self. They had used that “me” as a compass heading, to find the place where the intruders raised their warriors. And when they had found me, my other self had taken my hand and made the sign, and they had let fly the dust of the disease.

Powdered dung. That was what it was. It was a disgusting magic to my Gernian self, and as natural as breath to Tree Woman’s assistant. It was well known to the People that a tiny measure of powdered dung from a sick person ingested by a healthy child would make the child sick, but only in the mildest way, and never again would the child fall prey to the deadly flux. But in quantity, as they had discovered, the dust could sicken an entire outpost of intruders, cutting down their warriors and women alike and exterminating the workers who slashed the road through the forest’s flesh.

In her world I accepted, without question, the further mission I would fulfill. I would enter the flesh of the soldier’s son. I would undergo a change and become him. And I would spread the dust of death, not just through the great house where they raised their warriors, but also throughout their stonewalled hives, and even to the crowned ones who ruled them. Thus would I be the magic that turned the intruders back and saved the People.

All this I knew so clearly when I wandered outside my feverish body. Each time I came back to my tortured flesh as my true self, I was weaker. Each time, vestiges of that other life and the knowledge of that world ghosted through my fevered brain.

On my third day of sickness, I rallied briefly during the day. Dr. Amicas seemed pleased to see me awake, but I did not share his optimism. My eyelids were crusted and raw, as were my nostrils. The lingering illness made all my senses preternaturally sharp. The coarse sheets and wool blankets were a torment. I rolled my head toward Spink. I wanted to ask him if Oron had recovered, but Spink’s eyes were closed and he was breathing hoarsely. Nate was still in the bed to my right. He looked terrible. In a few short days the illness had sucked the flesh from his bones and the fever appeared to be devouring him from within. His mouth hung open as he breathed and mucus rattled in his throat. It was a terrible thing to hear, and I could not escape it. The day droned past me. I tried to be manly. I drank the bitter herbal water that they brought me, vomited it up, and then drank the next draft they gave me. There was nothing to do except lie in bed and be sick. I hadn’t the strength to hold a book, and could not have focused my eyes if I did. No one came to visit me. Neither Spink nor Nate was well enough to talk. I felt that there was something important I had to tell someone, but I could not remember what it was or whom I was to tell.

I told myself that I was growing stronger, but as the sun faded into night, my fever returned. I plunged back into a sleep that was neither rest nor true sleep. My dreams swirled like winged demons round my bed, and I could not escape them. I woke from a dream in which I was trapped in the freak tent to find myself in the dimmed ward. I sat up and discovered that Spink had no hands or arms, only flippers. When I tried to get out of my bed, I found that I had no legs. “I’m dreaming!” I shouted at the orderly who came to hold me down. “I’m dreaming. My legs are fine. I’m dreaming.”

I woke from that nightmare, shivering with cold, to find that my head was resting on a pillow full of snow. I tried to throw it off my bed, but Dr. Amicas came and scolded me, saying, “It will cool your hot head. It may break the fever. Lie back, Burvelle, lie back.”

“I didn’t give liquor to Caulder. I didn’t! You have to make the colonel understand. It wasn’t me.”

“Of course not, of course not. Lie back. Cool your head. Your fever is burning your brain. Lie still.”

The doctor pushed me back into the cold softness of the fat man’s embrace. “I used to be in the cavalla!” he told me. “Too bad you can’t be a ranker like me. You can’t be anything now. Not even a scout. Maybe you can be a fat man in a sideshow. All you have to do is eat. You like to eat, don’t you?”

I sat up suddenly. The softness of the cold pillow had wakened a brief connection of memory. It was night in the ward. Dim lanterns burned, and in the beds, shadowy figures tossed. I held tight to what I knew, desperate to share it, to avert my future betrayal of my people. “Doctor!” I shouted. “Dr. Amicas.”

Someone in a doctor’s apron hurried to my bedside. It wasn’t Amicas. “What is it? Are you thirsty?”