Chapter Twelve
I curled up on the settee in my sitting room with the bag of books and pamphlets I’d gotten from the printers. Taro and I didn’t have a watch at the Stall that day, and I was finding it more and more important to learn something about this spell casting everyone was talking about. Really, where did it come from? How long would it take to go away?
I picked up a book at random and upon reading the very first page noticed with shock and discomfort that it had first been written a good seventy years before. So much for the theory that this belief in spells had been created by the effects of the Harsh Summer or the Riverfront Ravage. People had believed in magic for at least seventy years? What had happened seventy years ago, to get that belief started?
I found it amusing that the first chapter of the book was dedicated to the discipline and hard work needed to achieve results. Because wasn’t casting all about trying to gain things one couldn’t acquire because one lacked the discipline or the will to do the hard work? If casting required all of this effort, wouldn’t it be easier just to get things the natural way?
I found it less amusing that many of the methods described in the book for getting into the proper frame of mind to cast spells were similar to the methods taught to Shields to stay focused and calm. It was enough to make me wonder if a Shield had written the book.
Of course, that was ridiculous. Being a Shield had nothing to do with casting spells. It had nothing to do with magic of any kind.
Being a Shield, or a Source, was a talent one was born with, like being able to sing or having skills with one’s hands. There was no magic. We didn’t create forces that weren’t already there. Even Taro’s ability to heal and my ability to influence the weather—both skills that were not, as far as I knew, the usual skills associated with Sources and Shields—were still just the manipulation of forces that were already there. From what I could determine, casting spells was about creating something from nothing. Which was what made it impossible.
We had encountered people who claimed what Taro and I did was magic. It was not. I knew that. So, that there were similarities between what a spell caster did to prepare and what a Shield did to remain calm was disquieting, but not particularly significant.
I almost got drawn into a description of the history of the use and development of spells. The book I was reading claimed the tradition of using spells was brought to the world by our ancestors, when they’d relocated here from some other world several hundred years ago. That the knowledge had been lost and then rediscovered. But that was ridiculous. From all we had learned of the Landing, the ancestors had had enormous and complicated machinery at their disposal, machines that let them fly between worlds and communicate over great distances. Such people would have had no use for spells, no reason to dream up such beliefs.
Of course, the machinery hadn’t worked on our world, for some reason. But that had merely caused most of the ancestors to leave this world. The failure of the machines was no motive to suddenly start believing in spells. It didn’t make sense.
It was something I wanted to look into further, but later. Right then, I wanted to read more about what kinds of spells people were going to attempt, killing cows and setting houses on fire. Actually, spells about the ashes, those were what I wanted to know about first. The bit with the ashes was what I found most disturbing.
I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, though. Was there going to be a spell mixed in with all the others that dealt with ashes? Was there a separate section dealing strictly with supplies, of which ashes would be one? I didn’t know, and the book I was examining didn’t have any kind of index, so I skimmed through the pages. Within the one book, there was an astounding array of subjects, or goals, for the spells. Love spells, of course, a popular subject for plays. Raising people from the dead, which I kind of expected, grief being what it was. I wasn’t surprised to find spells that gave one a talent, or attempted to direct another person’s will. I was shocked, however, to find spells allowing the caster to inflict an illness or death on another person, or to render them unable to have children. That was horrible. What kind of twisted mind came up with such things?
I was almost tempted to wonder if having such books criminalized wasn’t such an awful thing, after all. I didn’t want anyone encouraged to try such terrible things, even knowing they wouldn’t work. When the spells failed, having sparked a person’s imagination, said person might then move on to more reliable methods of accomplishing the same things.
As I continued to read, I was surprised by the degree of complexity some of the spells required. While some needed nothing more than facing the right direction, closing one’s eyes and reciting a few words, others took months in preparation, lists of ingredients several pages long, multiple participants and several sonnets’ worth of incantations.
Who had the time to make this stuff up?
What made people think any of it worked? Even though some of the rhetoric describing how spells functioned was intelligently written and appeared almost logical, it was still casting. When had a spell ever worked for anyone? Even the books didn’t point to any example for whom a single spell had worked.
It was in the next book, a thicker volume with heavy gray paper, that I found what I was looking for, a lengthy chapter dedicated to the procurement and use of human ashes. And even the procurement was much more complicated than I would have expected. The ashes were to be harvested—and wasn’t that a horrible word for it?—during the night of the new moon. I couldn’t remember if the night we’d interrupted a harvesting had had a new moon. I never noticed such things. A copper bowl was considered best for holding the ashes, an ivory spade the best for digging them out. That particular item had to cost more than most could afford. The list of instructions for the making of the candles that circled the ash grove marker was more than three pages long.
The book confirmed that the best source of ashes was someone who had enjoyed good fortune during their life. There was no definition of good fortune. I supposed that could be a subjective determination, but I had no doubt Taro would be considered fortunate. If he were dead, I’d have to be guarding his ashes, if I were able, which I wouldn’t be, because I would be dead, too.
There were a lot of uses for the ashes. Often they were an ingredient in other spells. Sometimes they were put in a vial and worn around the neck—which was just disgusting—to increase the user’s general good fortune or the talent of the user when they lacked the skill to perform one of the more specific spells. There was even a recommendation to wear the ashes on a daily basis to improve health and mind. And then there was, of course, the practice of mixing the ashes into a paste and rubbing it into the skin.
Just reading about it made my stomach gurgle and created the sensation of something thick and slimy coating my mouth and throat.
A quick, loud knock on my door made me jump. The door opened and Taro stuck his head in. “Come to my suite,” he ordered and he closed the door.
Sir, yes, sir. I tossed the book aside and went to Taro’s suite. He gestured at me kind of frantically until I closed the door behind me.
A young man I’d never before seen was standing in Taro’s sitting room, leaning against a settee. He was pale and sweaty, and his dark and ragged clothes were dirty and rank. He looked at me with more intensity than I found comfortable. “Good day,” I said, hoping that would be enough to prompt someone to give me an explanation.
“Good day, Shield,” he responded in a low voice that cracked unpleasantly.
“Lee, this is Lan Kafar,” Taro said. “Lan, please go through there.” He pointed at the door to his bedchamber. “Lie down. We’ll join you in a moment.” And Kafar did as directed.
We were going to join him? What the hell? “What the—”
“He’s ill,” said Taro. “He’s from the riverfront.”
“And you brought him here?” I demanded in a low voice.
“He just showed up demanding to see me. He remembers those rumors about me healing people during the Harsh Summer. He says the healers won’t go to the riverfront anymore, and the hospitals turned him away.”
“Because it’s contagious!” No matter what that Runner had said, I was sure it was contagious. Why else would they be closing the parks? Why would the hospitals refuse to treat people? And were they really? Were they allowed to do that? I couldn’t believe that. It was appalling if it was true.
“He kept saying I was a healer, over and over, and getting louder and louder. People on the street were noticing.”
“So you close the door.”
“Dunleavy!” he said, clearly appalled. I didn’t think he had ever addressed me by my formal name before. “He’s ill and he can’t get treatment.”
“No one’s dying from this illness.” And if every single member of the Triple S residence caught it, that could leave everyone in High Scape vulnerable to natural disasters. A whole lot of people would be dying then.
“That’s not what he’s saying.”
“So he’s claiming people are dying from this and you’ve brought him into the residence and exposed us all to it?” Seriously, what was he thinking?
“The more time we stand here talking about it, the more of a chance the illness has to spread.”
Was that true? Was that how it worked? I had no idea. “You don’t even know if you can do anything for him.”
“And I won’t know until I try.”
I couldn’t believe how careless and selfish he was being. Aye, it was horrible to be ill, and if it was true that the healers were refusing to help, I was appalled and felt nothing but sympathy for the man in Taro’s bedchamber. But to expose us all to this illness to perform a task he had no duty to perform would bring us the ire of all the other Pairs, and so it should.
“I’m going to try,” said Taro, having clearly lost patience with trying to persuade me. “You can join me if you choose.” He headed to the bedchamber.
I was tempted to threaten him with a refusal to Shield him—really, this was something that required the both of us, and he shouldn’t be making unilateral decisions—but I always tried to avoid making empty threats. As if I would ever refuse to Shield him, even when he was being ridiculous.
When I entered the bedchamber, Taro was instructing the man to lie out on the bed, and I winced as the man did so. All of that bedding would have to be burned. Taro sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m not a healer,” he said to Kafar. “I can’t be sure I can do anything.”
“Neither can anyone else,” the man croaked.
“I’ll do my best. That’s all I can promise.”
The man nodded. Taro put a hand on his shoulder.
Taro had learned he could ease the pain of others while he was at the Source Academy. Since we met, I’d had reason to believe he could actually heal some people. These were not abilities I’d heard of a Source having before meeting Taro, but I was coming to suspect there were elements to Source abilities that were largely unexplored. It made me wonder what else Sources might be able to do.
Taro had always kept his additional abilities as much a secret as possible. He claimed that if the Triple S council suspected he could do odd things, they would order him back to the Source Academy for tests and he would never be seen again. He refused to say more than that. And while I couldn’t believe the Triple S would do something nefarious with Sources who fell outside the mold, I also didn’t believe Taro was lying. It was frustrating, though, that he wouldn’t say more.
He couldn’t heal everyone; we knew that much. He seemed able to ease everyone’s pain, but he hadn’t been able to save a woman enduring a difficult childbirth, and he couldn’t mend broken bones. He could heal frostbite for some reason, which was what he was doing during the Harsh Summer. That was what created the rumors that caused his secret to grow legs and skitter away from him.
Really, I was surprised there hadn’t been any repercussions before this.
Shielding while Taro attempted to heal someone was a much more gentle experience than regular channeling. The forces were weaker, and Taro used a light touch, so light it almost felt like he wasn’t doing anything at all. His blood and mind worked at their usual pace, and he was in almost no danger. Sometimes I suspected I was superfluous during such occasions.
“The illness is not contagious,” Taro announced.
I saw Kafar’s eyes widen. I wondered if he was feeling something in this process. I’d never thought of that before. “Everyone says it’s contagious,” he said. “Often every person in a household is struck.”
“That may be,” Taro answered as he continued to channel, “and I can’t explain why I know this, but this doesn’t feel like a proper illness.”
“What is a proper illness supposed to feel like?” I asked.
“Something other than what I’m feeling here,” he retorted.
“Can you fix it?” Kafar demanded.
“I’m not finished yet.”
So we let him continue. Shielding while he healed was a little boring, but it was a nice change from what we’d been doing recently.
In time, Taro ceased channeling and I withdrew my Shields. He removed his hand from Kafar’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said with soft sincerity. “I can’t help you.”
“Keep trying,” the man ordered. “You barely tried.”
“I’m not a healer,” Taro reminded him. “I told you when I let you in that there would likely be little I could do.”
“Why don’t you want to help me?” It was more a complaint than a question. “You’re a Source. You’re supposed to want to help people.”
Why, that ungrateful little plonker. He comes to our house, a stranger demanding services that we have no obligation to provide, and after an attempt to provide those services is made, he starts throwing around accusations? How dare he? “He has no training in this and he’s doing this to be kind,” I said, making no attempt to dull the sharpness in my tone. “He is an honorable man and a Source, and you accuse him of lying.”
To my shock, the indignation seemed to drain right out of him, and his eyes lowered. “I am sorry, Source,” he mumbled as he sat up on the bed. “This was my last hope.”
Really? He didn’t look to be in that bad a shape. He was of a decent weight and he seemed able to move easily. Of course, I wasn’t a healer. I didn’t know.
“You are certain this isn’t contagious?” Kafar asked Taro.
“Completely.”
I was very uncomfortable with Taro’s claim, but no one was asking me, and it wasn’t like I actually knew anything about any of this.
“My sister lives on Gray Fields Row,” Kafar said, naming an area outside of the riverfront area. “She said I can move in with her for a while and help her with her shop if I can prove this thing doesn’t carry. I can say you said it’s not contagious?”
Sounded to me like his sister really didn’t want him anywhere near her. How could anyone prove the absence of a contagion?
“Aye,” said Taro. “I can’t promise she won’t get ill, but she won’t get it from you.”
“And I’ll get better?”
“I can’t answer that. I really don’t know.”
“Have you tried all of the hospitals?” I asked.
Kafar glared at me. “Now you are calling me a liar?”
For all I knew, he’d merely been told the hospitals were refusing to treat people, and he hadn’t investigated it personally. Or he’d tried only one hospital. Perhaps the others weren’t following the same policy. But I didn’t try to defend myself. Clearly he wasn’t in the mood for logic.
“We’ll see you down,” Taro said as a means to hint the man out of the room.
Kafar didn’t object to being herded down the stairs and out the front door. I fought the urge to order the man not to tell anyone else about Taro’s talent. I supposed Taro’s failure would take care of that.
“How do you know this thing isn’t contagious?” I asked Taro.
He shrugged. “The illness doesn’t feel natural to the body.”
“I would think illness is never natural.”
“Aye, it is. It is unpleasant. It involves a breakdown of the natural workings of the body. But a natural illness is a natural reaction to a breakdown within the body.”
“I don’t understand,” I confessed.
He scratched the back of his head. “To be honest, neither do I. All I can tell you is that there is something off about what that man is carrying. It’s not natural, so it can’t spread from person to person.”
Huh. I still didn’t know what that meant. However, Taro wasn’t in the habit of claiming abilities or accomplishments he didn’t actually have. If he said Kafar wasn’t contagious, then he wasn’t contagious.
But I still thought Taro should burn his bedding.