Tormina: The Book of Maladies Read online

  It was subtle, but as he moved his hands around, he could focus on the pain. There were a few different organs in that area of the body, and it would take a surgeon to determine which of them was involved, though it was possible to use a combination of medicines to better elucidate it.

  “Very good, Mr. Stross.”

  Master Jessup grabbed the record and made a few notes, and then he turned away from the cot.

  Alec stared at the man a moment longer before covering him back up. He shifted the gown into place, and then covered him with the sheet, before racing off after Master Jessup.

  “Is that it? That’s all you wanted to do to test me?”

  “You’d already proven to have an astute mind,” Master Jessup said. “I was curious what your examination skills might reveal. It appears that your father has taught you well there, as well.”

  “What now?”

  He half expected Master Jessup to share something with him, perhaps invite him to be a part of some study, but it was not to be.

  “Now you return to your studies, Mr. Stross. And I will return to mine.”

  Alec paused at the student section, and Master Jessup took the stairs back up to the masters’ section, not looking back at him. Alec wanted to follow him and talk to him. He wanted to find out more about what it would take for him to understand his role as Scribe… and as physicker. But the man was gone. An opportunity lost.

  14

  To the Swamp

  Sam paced in her room, irritation filling her. It had been another three days, days full of nothing but training, working with her staff, attempting to improve her skill, but feeling as if nothing had changed for her. Elaine hadn’t even bothered to work with her, and that bothered Sam more than anything else. If Elaine wouldn’t train with her, it told her that she meant nothing to the woman.

  Why was she so hard on Sam?

  All she wanted was to find some way to get to Alec. She could continue sending him notes, but what more could she tell him? How many times could she simply say that she was well? She couldn’t tell him that she felt like a prisoner here in the palace. What if the note was intercepted and someone told the princess, or her mother?

  What would Alec do anyway? He hadn’t tried to come for her, so it would seem he had no interest in seeing her, much less any concern for her safety . He was busy with the other students, probably that Beckah, the woman who had gotten so close to him. She was pretty; Sam couldn’t deny that. But Alec needed someone who could challenge him, beyond how his studies challenged him. He needed to be brought out, away from the books and back into the real world, something that Sam could do. Could Beckah?

  But maybe he no longer wanted what the two of them shared. Maybe he didn’t want to be her Scribe, much less her friend.

  Whenever they were together, she put him in danger. Maybe that was not the life that he wanted. He was a healer and was now on his way to becoming a physicker, and if Sam knew Alec—as well as she thought she knew him—it wouldn’t surprise her if he quickly progressed to become a master physicker. He was incredibly smart, much smarter than she, and considering everything he had gone through, he was stronger than most would be, as well.

  Her door opened, and Elaine poked her head in. Sam glared at her. “What do you want? You want to tell me that I can’t even leave this room now?”

  “Are you feeling as if you’re trapped here?” Elaine asked.

  “I’ve told you that I’m trapped.”

  “And I’ve told you that you are not. All it takes for you to get off the island is to find your own way.”

  “You’ve prevented me from crossing the bridges.”

  “Have I? Is it all my fault that you are unable to cross the bridge?”

  “You don’t want me to cross over.”

  Elaine shrugged. “As I said, I have done nothing to prevent you from accessing other parts of the city. All it takes is for you to use your abilities and you are free to leave.”

  Sam frowned again. “Is that why you’re here? Did you think that you needed to taunt me more about my inability to get off this section? Because I will get off.”

  Elaine nodded. “I hope so. But no. That’s not why I came.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “It’s time for an assignment.”

  Sam sat up, looking over at Elaine. “What kind of assignment? I’ve been practicing with all of the different Kavers that I can. What more do I need to do for my training?”

  “It’s not that kind of assignment.”

  Elaine motioned for her to follow, and Sam hesitated only a moment before jumping off her bed and grabbing her canal staff. She hesitated at the door and turned back to grab her cloak. It was a cloak that Marin had given her long ago, and because of that, Sam knew she should have destroyed it, especially knowing that Marin likely had some ulterior motive for giving it to Sam, but she just couldn’t. The cloak had protected her over the years. It had allowed her to sneak along the streets, not drawing attention to herself, and to use the shadows to bend light around her. There was something strange about the fabric that shifted though shadows, making it difficult for her to be seen.

  With her cloak now on, and staff in hand, she caught up to Elaine at the end of the hall. Elaine glanced over and saw Sam wearing her cloak, hood pulled up as she often did, and nodded to her. Sam felt foolish for a moment, wondering if perhaps this wasn’t the kind of assignment that Elaine had in mind, but even if it wasn’t, with her cloak and staff, she was ready for anything.

  “Where are we going?”

  “As I said, on an assignment.”

  They quickly crossed the grounds, and Sam saw where they were heading.

  A narrow barge waited near the shore.

  That alone was unusual. It was rare for boats to be this close to the palace, and when they were, there was usually a particular reason for it. They weren’t even allowed nearby for trade. Merchants were required to bring things across the bridge from one of the outer sections.

  “That?”

  “Are you afraid of boats?” Elaine asked.

  “I’m not afraid of boats, just asking whether that’s where you intend for us to go.”

  “That will be our transportation.”

  Sam’s gaze drifted from the boat to the other side of the canal where the university rose up. Its white walls caught the sunlight, and made it feel like it was close to her, yet at the same time, it was so far away. Alec was so far away. All she wanted was a moment. If she could reach the other side, and if she could get to Alec, she could tell him that she was well, that she was unharmed, and… They could work together, using augmentations to help find Marin. Sam had no idea where to begin, especially now that she couldn’t get off the damned palace section. She felt they were stronger when they worked together, studying problems as a team rather than individually.

  “Focus, Samara.”

  Sam shook her head and pulled her attention back to the barge. They paused at the shore, and someone pushed a plank across from the barge over to the shoreline. Sam and Elaine crossed over, stepping onto the barge. Sam had never spent any time on the boats that traveled the canals. This one was narrower than most. It had none of the scale or enormity, and it didn’t have the massive crates stacked atop it as many of them did. This was not meant to transport items. Rather, it seemed designed to transport people. With the slim hull, it would likely be sleek, and she suspected it traveled through the waters rapidly.

  Once they were on, Elaine nodded to a man standing near the tiller. He wore a leather jacket that hung to his mid-thigh, and he had long boots that pulled up to his knees. He was thin, and he swayed with the movements of the boat, clearly comfortable on the water.

  There were two other men, but neither of them spoke. Both were younger, and one had a scruff of a beard, while the other looked as if he could barely grow anything on his face.

  They pushed off, and the two young men used long poles to push through the canal. Sam watched with fascinatio
n. It was an unusual way of travel, and though she had seen the barges making their way along the canals for as long as she could remember, she never paid any attention to how they moved. They didn’t have sails or any other way of propelling themselves, she hadn’t realized that they used something similar to her canal staff to push along the waterways.

  Once they got going, they moved with a reasonable speed. It wasn’t any faster than what she thought she could walk, but traveling by canal, they were able to bypass the slowdown of traveling through the city. It was somewhat more efficient. She imagined what Bastan would think of traveling on the canals. He had long had a fascination with the canals, going so far as to place maps of them around his office. Sam suspected that was for another purpose, and that he used them to help with his smuggling operation, but it was equally possible that he simply found the canals interesting.

  “We could move through the city just as fast augmented,” Sam said softly.

  “As I have told you, you rely too much on your augmentations. I’m not denying that we could, what I want you to realize is that there are other ways that you can travel. There are ways that do not require you to be augmented. What you need to learn is what you would do if your augmentations failed. I fear that you don’t have anything in mind for such a scenario.”

  “I’ve lived without augmentations most of my life. I know what I would do if I didn’t have them. I would walk.”

  “And what if you needed to move quickly through the city?”

  “Then I would move quickly through the city by walking—or running.”

  “And what if you needed to get out of the city?”

  “Then I would go to the edge of the city and leave.”

  Elaine smiled at her. “It’s not quite as simple as that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Have you ever tried to leave the city?”

  Sam hadn’t, but she didn’t want Elaine to know that. All that would do would be to give her another reason to torment her about her inexperience. “What reason would I have had to leave the city before?”

  “You want to call yourself a Kaver, and you haven’t even left the city?”

  “How often have you left the city?”

  “My responsibilities carry me from the city frequently. Where do you think I was when Lyasanna was attacked?”

  “I thought you were out searching for some way to heal her.”

  “Once I learned what happened, I certainly did. Before that, I didn’t know that she was in any danger. Why should I? We’ve kept the Anders safe for many years. And Kavers have long protected the city, staying outside the borders to provide that protection.”

  “Only the Anders?”

  “The Anders came to the city and settled here as a way to get away from the Thelns. They created the protections, and they were the first who helped give the people here the freedom to live without fear of what the Thelns might do to them. In that, I serve the Anders.”

  “But not all Scribes are from the Anders line,” Sam said.

  Elaine settled near the center of the barge, looking out at the water. “Not all Kavers are from the Anders line, either.”

  They were traveling along a canal that took them past several of the highborn sections of the city. Sam had never seen them from this vantage. Seeing it this way, with buildings rising up on either side, there was something magical about the city itself. Every so often, they would pass a street, and Sam would glance down it, looking to see movement from the people who lived in the section. They were still in the highborn section, but from out on the water, it was difficult to tell the difference between sections. There were certain parts of the city that had elements that reminded her of Caster.

  “What do you know about the founding of the city?” Elaine asked softly.

  “I’m not a scholar. I never went to school, so I never studied the history of the city or anything else.”

  Elaine glanced over to her. “And yet, I suspect that you should.”

  “Why should I? What benefit would there be for me to study such things?”

  “The benefit is obvious. When you learn about where you live, and where you come from, you can understand things better.”

  “Which is why I’m trying to find Marin and the Book,” Sam said. Was that so hard for them to understand?

  “Finding the Book will do nothing other than create trouble for you,” Elaine said. “And your interest in finding Marin is not entirely about the Book.”

  “No? Then what is it about?”

  “You want to know why she used you. You want to know why she was willing to use Trayson.”

  Sam shook her head, trying to suppress the frustration that surged through her. There were times when Elaine tried to act as if she knew her so well, but how could she? She hadn’t been a part of her life. They may share a bloodline, but that was about it.

  “And you want me to know about the history of the city, but not care about the history of me?”

  “I’m not saying that you should be uninterested in your past and where you came from. All I am trying to say is that you should be aware of the intent behind what you choose.”

  Sam snorted at her choice of words. “Intent? Like what you showed me on that doorway?”

  Elaine tipped her head, and she nodded. “Intent is much the same,” she said.

  “Except I’m not trying to fortify some door so that I can prevent it from being kicked in.”

  “Or are you? The door may be symbolic, but it’s still a door.”

  “Now you’re talking in riddles.”

  “There’s no riddle. All I’m saying is that you have fortified yourself. You’re strong, Samara. I won’t deny that. If you weren’t strong, you wouldn’t have survived nearly as long as you have. You wouldn’t have been able to withstand the Thelns’ attack the first time. You wouldn’t have survived a poisoned bolt to the shoulder.” Elaine glanced at Sam’s shoulder.

  Most of the Kavers she’d now met didn’t believe that she had survived a Theln poisoning. It was rare. Anyone who had survived had done so with the help of a fully trained Scribe. For her to have done so with Alec, and with neither of them having had any training at that time, unsettled the other Kavers.

  “Maybe I wouldn’t have had to fortify myself in such a way if I had my mother there with me,” Sam said.

  Elaine considered her for a moment before shaking her head and looking away. “You blame me for something that was out of my control.”

  Sam had given it a lot of thought. There was a part of her that thought blaming Elaine for something that she really couldn’t have controlled was irrational, but another part of her said it wasn’t irrational at all. Had Elaine put any effort into finding her, she would have been able to. It wasn’t as if Sam had been hiding. It would’ve been easy enough to find her. Marin hadn’t even changed her name, though maybe she couldn’t have. Maybe there was no way to do so and maintain her identity. When she found Marin, she intended to ask about that.

  Rather than continuing the conversation, Sam fell silent. There was no point in arguing. Elaine would only justify that she had done what she could, and that she had been limited, that there was no way for her to have found Sam in a city that size.

  They made their way along the canals, and Sam watched as they passed from section to section, eventually moving into a part of the city that was entirely unfamiliar to her. They traveled north, a direction that she rarely went, and she marveled at how different this part of the city was. Caster was on the western side of the city, near the edge, and beyond that was nothing but the steam fields that eventually led up into the mountains. To the north, there was swamp, making it difficult for anyone to enter the city that way. To the east and the south was the sea, leaving them essentially isolated. Now that Sam knew about it, she suspected that meant they were protected, though it didn’t always feel that way. It felt isolated. Trade had always been difficult, requiring ships to bring their wares to ports along the coast, then offl
oad them onto barges that came up the canals, and all trade was restricted by the royals—all highborns—who prevented anyone they didn’t want to trade from entering the city. Could all of that been about trying to restrict access by the Thelns?

  “Where are we going?” Sam asked.

  “I thought you would recognize this. Didn’t you tell me that you have wandered the city?”

  “I have, but I haven’t gone this far to the north.”

  “It’s not much farther.”

  The barge passed through another few sections, and then they passed beyond the edge of the city.

  Sam’s breath caught.

  She turned, looking to take in the city behind her. The canals created a sharp barrier. Where the canals ran, creating the islands that formed each section of the city, there was a distinct line. Beyond that stretched the swamp, a great section of seemingly impassable water, an expanse of darkness she’d never dared enter, even when she’d come upon it while some thieves in her pursuit to understand what Marin was up to. Why should she? Her canal staff would be of no use to her. Even with an augmentation, she wasn’t sure there would be any way for her to make it through the swamp. It required transport by boat—by barge, it seemed.

  Elaine nodded at the captain, and he signaled to his men to slow the barge.

  They stopped in a reedy section of the swamp. Water stretched all around. The air hung with the stench. It was filthy, fouler than what she smelled even from the canals, and Sam wondered if there were eels even in here. The air was still and humid, and she wiped a sheen of sweat off her forehead.

  “This is the assignment?”

  Elaine grabbed her canal staff where it leaned against a rail. She stepped to the edge of the barge and flipped out over the water, stabbing down with her staff.

  She hung on the end of the staff, holding herself in place. As she did, she watched Sam, and then nodded. “Join me.”

  “Why? What is the assignment?”

  “Join me,” Elaine said again.

  Sam looked at the captain. He watched her, and there was an unreadable expression on his dark face. The other two men held their long staffs, and Sam realized that the staffs they used to propel the barge were much thicker than her own.