Comatose: The Book of Maladies Read online

  Comatose

  The Book of Maladies Volume 5

  D.K. Holmberg

  Copyright © 2018 by D.K. Holmberg

  Cover art by Rebecca Frank

  All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  1. The First Victim

  2. Back Home for Answers

  3. To Be a Physicker

  4. An Uncomfortable Ally

  5. The Swamp

  6. Helping a Friend

  7. The Princess Explains

  8. An Unusual Case

  9. Failure

  10. Sneaking with a Thief

  11. First Assignment

  12. Out into the Steam

  13. Finding a Kaver

  14. Answers and Questions

  15. Complications

  16. A Friend in Need

  17. Threat to Caster

  18. Into the Swamp

  19. Dissection

  20. Back to Caster

  21. Search for Alec

  22. Captive

  23. Into Danger Without Augmentations

  24. Torture and Rescue

  25. A Different Sort of Calling

  26. Test Subjects

  27. Losing a Friend

  28. Coming Up With a Plan

  29. After Bastan

  30. A Kaver Comes

  31. Brothers and a Battle

  32. After Marin

  33. Healing

  Names and Terms

  Author’s Note

  Also by D.K. Holmberg

  1

  The First Victim

  Alec paced through the ward at the university, scanning the beds. There weren’t as many occupied as there often were, with fewer people having come to the university. Alec wasn’t sure whether that was something to be excited about or whether he should be concerned. He hadn’t been in his position long enough to know what the typical trends for the university were, and not long enough to know whether the absence of illness was something to worry about.

  “You’re walking too fast,” Beckah said.

  Alec glanced over to his friend. She had her hair pulled up, and it was twisted into something almost like a braid, giving her a more elegant appearance than she normally had. “I need to walk fast,” he said. “Now that I’m a physicker—”

  “Now that you’re a physicker, you can slow down and take your time. Gods, you’re walking faster than the junior physickers. They have no trouble taking their time as they make their way through the wards.”

  Alec shook his head. It had only been a few weeks since he had been promoted to full physicker. A few weeks since he had demanded testing, taking advantage of an old tradition that had been rarely used in the university’s history, and only a few weeks since he was granted equal stead with many of the people he had long admired at the university. He didn’t have the same cachet as the master physickers, but he was only one step below them in rank now.

  “I still feel as if I have to prove myself,” he said, lowering his voice. Even though he had been promoted, it was still difficult for him to feel comfortable with his position. Since his promotion, he had spent even more time in the library studying, and even more time in the wards working with the people who came for healing.

  There was something peaceful about his time in the wards. It was familiar and throwing himself into his work was satisfying in a way that spending time in the library reading through books was not.

  “You already proved yourself. That’s how you got here,” Beckah said. They paused in front of a cot where a young woman lay sleeping. She had dark hair much like Beckah’s, and an olive complexion. Her features were delicate. Though she was reclining, making it hard to tell, she looked short, maybe only a little taller than his friend Sam. Alec had examined this woman before, trying to determine what was wrong with her, but she was one of the true mysteries in the ward. She was one of several in the ward. People with ailments whose sources the master physickers weren’t able to uncover, and Alec was drawn to those most of all. If he could uncover the secret of what was wrong with them, he thought he could gain even more respect.

  It would be easy enough to restore her, he thought, and all it would take would be using easar paper and his and Sam’s blood, but that felt like a cheat. He would do it if not for the fact that his supply of easar paper was limited.

  “You know what’s wrong with her?” Beckah asked.

  “I’m supposed to be asking you the questions now,” Alec said, smiling over at her.

  Beckah made a face and shook her head. “I think we both know that you have no intention of testing me.”

  “Is that right? I am a full physicker.”

  “And as I suspected, now you’re impossible.”

  Alec grinned. “I thought you would like the fact that I was promoted.”

  “I like the idea that you have access that we didn’t have before. I’m optimistic that your access will allow you to get closer to those Scribes who are a part of the university,” she said.

  “It hasn’t, not yet,” Alec told her.

  He studied the woman as he spoke. Had her complexion changed? He didn’t think so. Her breathing was regular, and every time he assessed her heartbeat, it was steady. There were no signs of fever. There was nothing outwardly wrong with her. She simply wouldn’t wake up.

  Alec had tried various treatments that would help with sedation, thinking that perhaps she had been poisoned. He had been exposed to plenty of substances that would lead to an ongoing sedation such as this, but nothing seemed to work. Nothing about her changed, leaving him to conclude that it wasn’t an illness like that. Whatever it was, he remained unable to make the diagnosis.

  It pained him to have to admit that.

  “What about Master Eckerd?”

  “Master Eckerd is difficult to find. When he is around, he is often unavailable, taking time to work with the students.”

  “I seem to recall that you were once one of his students.”

  Alec nodded. He had hoped that with his promotion to physicker he could continue his studies with Master Eckerd, but that didn’t seem to be the case. The master physickers rarely took on physickers as mentees. Now that he was promoted, he was on his own quite a bit more than he had been before.

  “It’s different,” Alec said.

  “What about your father? What has he said?”

  “My father was pleased, though I sensed he was slightly surprised,” he told her. When he had gone to his father’s shop, Alec remembered the look on his father’s face when he told him that he been promoted to full physicker. It matched the surprise when he shared with his father that he’d demanded testing.

  “Now that you’re a physicker, have you thought about trying to get him to come back?”

  Alec shrugged. That had been on his mind. His father was a master physicker. He had abandoned the university after Alec was born, around the same time he lost his wife—Alec’s mother. Knowing what his father knew of healing, his departure was a significant loss to the university. Having his father’s knowledge would have been valuable. How many would benefit from it?

  Then again, how many had benefited because his father had spent time outside of the universit
y and had continued to heal, not demanding payment for his services? He had probably helped far more there than he would have been able to help at the university.

  Yet had he stayed at the university, he would’ve been able to train future physickers, and they would have been able to help others. Perhaps his father could have convinced the other masters there was no need to charge for services. Maybe he could have had a different sort of influence.

  Instead, he had influenced Alec, and he was the only one who benefited from his father’s knowledge and training.

  “Alec?”

  He looked up. Beckah smiled at him, and she hesitantly touched him on the arm.

  “You seem distracted.”

  He smiled. “I have all these things working through my head. It’s not just my father, and it’s not just trying to come to terms with my new position and what that means for me, but it’s also…”

  “It’s Sam.”

  He nodded. “It’s always Sam, isn’t it?”

  “She’s on your mind much of the time,” Beckah said. “I’ve gotten used to knowing that when you disappear like that, you’re thinking about her.”

  “I keep waiting”—he leaned toward her, lowering his voice, not wanting any of the junior physickers to hear him talking—“knowing that she’s going to go after the Thelns, knowing that she needs to go after Tray, but when? I worry that she will run off without asking me for help.”

  “Do you really think she would do that? She needs your help.”

  He hoped she did, and hoped Sam recognized there was value in their partnership, but the more she learned about her abilities as a Kaver, the more she didn’t need him. He had seen the way that she could fight even without her augmentations, and the way that she now was able to use her staff, fighting with it in a way that he still could barely comprehend. Was it something of her Kaver ability that granted her such skill or was it simply training?

  Alec wasn’t sure, and maybe he didn’t need to know. Maybe he wasn’t meant to know. He could be impressed by her ability without knowing and could simply marvel at the person that she had become. She was so different from the woman he had met all that time ago, and even then, she had been impressive.

  “I had thought she might have gone before now,” he said.

  “Isn’t it better that she hasn’t? If she had, and had she asked you to join her, you would have been pulled away just after your promotion. Don’t you think that would’ve raised even more questions?”

  “It might’ve raised questions, but I think that some of the other Scribes would’ve been able to minimize those. If nothing else, Master Eckerd and Helen might have been able to help with that.”

  “It still would’ve raised questions. Think about everything you’ve gone through since your promotion. Think about the reaction that everyone has had since then. If you hadn’t been here for that, it would’ve raised different questions.”

  Alec knew she was right, and he also knew that it probably didn’t matter. In the scheme of things, he was Sam’s Scribe, and he needed to assist her with everything that she did. Even if that meant that he had to sacrifice his own training.”

  “I might not have been disappointed to miss all of that,” Alec said.

  “No? You haven’t enjoyed the looks that you’ve been getting?”

  “I think some of the looks have been more than I would prefer.”

  “What about Master Carl?”

  Alec looked around the room. There were no master physickers here, not yet, but in time, they would arrive, bringing their students with them. Alec had made a point to avoid Master Carl when he came to the wards. He had agreed to Alec’s promotion, but that didn’t mean they now got along, and it didn’t mean that Master Carl even knew anything about Alec’s role as a Scribe.

  “Master Carl has given me space.”

  “Is it because he has chosen to give you space, or because you have created it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I don’t know. I think you need to own the fact that you were promoted. Gods, few are ballsy enough to demand promotion and pull it off. I know how I would be if that were me. I might be flaunting it to everybody who came through.”

  “Which is why I wouldn’t vote for your promotion,” Alec said, smiling.

  “You don’t get a vote. You’re only a physicker. It’s only the master physickers who get to vote.”

  Alec grinned and turned his attention back to the woman. He grabbed the record hanging near the end of the bed and started flipping through the pages. She had come to the university already sedated. He skimmed over the various treatments that had been attempted but didn’t find anything that was useful. Alec had an entire page of his own, though there were other junior physickers who had attempted various things. That had surprised him. He thought the junior physickers would defer to the full physickers, and maybe it was the fact that it was Alec that they didn’t, but it seemed they were muddying the potential treatment by all of them having a shot at helping her.

  “Is it because she’s pretty?” Beckah asked.

  Alec blinked and looked up. “What?”

  “Is that the reason you’re so fixated on helping her?”

  “It’s not because she’s pretty,” Alec said.

  “So, you do think she’s pretty?”

  “Stop.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what motivates the great Alec Stross to choose his subjects for healing. I mean, if it were me lying here, would you be so inclined to work with me?”

  Alec shook his head as he glared at her. “This young woman’s appearance has no bearing on my attempt to heal her.”

  “Now she’s a young woman? See? I knew it was her appearance that motivated you.”

  “I might make sure that you’re assigned extra responsibilities,” Alec said. “I seem to recall that physickers are allowed to assign punishments.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t if you didn’t harass me. Stefan doesn’t harass me in that way.”

  “Only because he’s still angry. He thinks we’re keeping something from him.”

  “Because we are,” Alec said.

  As he scanned the page, trying to think about what he might offer this woman next, the doors to the ward opened. A cart rolled in, and Alec saw that an older man was lying on it.

  “You can go over there,” Beckah said. “You don’t have to wait on me.”

  “It’s supposed to be the junior physickers who are given first attempts at healing.”

  “Just because that’s the way it’s supposed to be doesn’t mean you have to follow those traditions. If you followed traditions, you wouldn’t be in your position now, would you?”

  Alec looked around. None of the junior physickers had moved away from the people they were working on, practically ignoring the students who had rolled in the new person. There wasn’t anything he could offer this woman, and he would need more information—maybe from a family member, if one could be found—to find out what might have happened to her before she arrived. He might even consider going to his father. He didn’t have a master physicker here that he could work with, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have access to a master physicker. His father could still serve as a mentor for him.

  Alec made his way over to the cart. The two students were arranging the sheets overtop the patient, and as he approached, they looked over. One of them was Stefan. Alec didn’t like the sense of separation between them, but he hoped that he could ease it. The other was Andrew—a student that he had never gotten along well with.

  Andrew frowned. “Physicker Stross,” he said.

  Alec didn’t love the distinction that was now between him and those he had once studied with but hearing it from Andrew was fine.

  “What do we know about this person?” Alec asked, not yet initiating his own examination. He would take the assessment from the students as was expected of him.

  “He… he was brought in unresponsive
. We haven’t been able to determine anything other than that he seems stable,” Stefan said.

  It was much like the young woman, though that was probably only a strange coincidence.

  “Do we have anything from the person who brought him in?”

  “Physicker Stross?” Andrew asked. Discomfort in his tone—or maybe it was pure resentment.

  “What is it?”

  Andrew didn’t answer, but Stefan did. “Physicker Stross—Alec—look.”

  Alec looked down, and when he did, he realized why there had been strangeness.

  The person they had brought in was his father.

  2

  Back Home for Answers

  Alec searched the grounds of the university, looking for Mrs. Rubbles. He assumed that she had been the one who brought his father in, but wouldn’t she have stayed? Beckah trailed along next to him, and he was thankful for her presence. It wasn’t uncommon for physickers to have students with them, and he thought he could deflect most of the comments about Beckah’s presence, but his mind wasn’t on that at all.

  What had happened to his father?

  “She should be over here,” Stefan said.

  “That’s all you know?” Alec asked.

  He looked over at Stefan. He was taller than Alec, and incredibly thin, and he gripped the bottom of his short gray student jacket. “She wasn’t able to give us much information. She told us his name, who he was, and told us to look for you.”

  Alec nodded. Mrs. Rubbles would have sent them after Alec, especially as she knew Alec was here. It still didn’t make sense that something would’ve happened to his father. His mind raced as he tried to think of the possibilities. Had his father been collecting something that could have poisoned him? Many of the things he collected for his healings had dangerous effects, so it wouldn’t surprise Alec to learn that he had, but his father was also careful, and incredibly well-versed in the effects of everything that he worked with. The idea of poison didn’t strike Alec as likely.