Chapter 9
The First Gamble
A steady knocking on her door woke Ailey the next morning. Pulling a jacket over her night clothing, she opened the door and was surprised to see Zandra. The woman looked behind her, then pushed her way into the small abode. “You had better get dressed and hurry up. The palace guards have come down demanding to see the new medic.”
Ailey followed the healer into the room. “I thought it was at my leisure.”
Shaking her lovely locks, Zandra pulled out an outfit from Ailey’s bag. “Apparently the queen’s eldest son has suddenly fallen ill, and he completely skipped the first two stages. He isn’t quite as bad as what you saw last night, but he isn’t well. The queen is panicking since he was supposed to take the throne next. Understandable fear given the precarious position with Yuezhi these days. The next surviving child isn’t even a teenager yet. If the prince dies, then the queen, there is nothing to keep Bagrada from falling into civil war over the throne. And that is if Yuezhi doesn't’ take the opportunity to stretch their evil tentacles this way.”
“Ah, right, that would definitely be bad for people like you.”
“Not just me. Nearly half of the country is humanoid, and most of us aren’t willing to be subjected to the Yuezhi government.”
“In other words, I need to hurry up. Go back and tell them I will be there directly.”
Zandra put her hand on Ailey as the medic began to remove her night shirt. “Hold still.”
“What are you-”
There was a small flash of light accompanied by a faint popping noise. When Ailey looked down she was fully dressed. “That’s useful.”
“Come on,” Zandra gave her a small smile as she grabbed her hand. As they hurried back to the main medic area, Zandra panted, “Thanks for not freaking out. I wasn’t sure what you would do, but you took it really well.”
“It was interesting. Not to say I would want to do that every day.”
“Still, it was really cool the way you handled it.” Zandra pushed open the double doors as she finished. “Here she is.” The healer leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees. Ailey strode into the room and walked up to the guards.
“Apologies for interrupting you, but we don't have time to rest. This way, please.”
“I am at your disposal.” She bowed her head.
It took several hours, but Ailey was able to calm the queen down and bring the prince’s fever down to a normal temperature. She began to explain that the ailment that the prince had seemed to be akin to a more common ailment, not the third stage of the ailment claiming lives around the city. When Ailey tried to leave, the queen insisted that she stay.
Ailey tilted her head forward, “I will send one of the other medics to ensure his care and convalescence. But if you want to save the life of your other suffering children and the people, I need to focus on the larger problem.”
The queen bit back her disapproval and allowed the medic to leave the palace with a promise that she would return to check on the prince at least once a day. It seemed like a complete waste of her time, but Ailey figured that setting the queen’s mind at ease was more important than the hour of sleep she would lose. History was full of examples of when monarchs needed better support. It was a small price to pay, and with any luck, the prince would be better within a couple of days.
Ailey was pleased to see that the rumors about the queen being ill were from a similar false alarm. Now she just needed to make sure that word got out about the queen’s health. She sent one of the more senior medics to deal with the prince, then she wrote a quick note to the Association, apprising them of what had happened since her arrival, leaving out the information about one of the healers being a witch. That would have caused unnecessary conflict and brought a host of problems that she didn’t have time to manage.
“Here’s some breakfast.” Zandra placed a small plate beside Ailey as the medic sealed the note.
“Thanks. I’ll get to it in a bit.”
“Are you sure? You skipped dinner last night, and it is actually lunch time.”
Ailey waved away the question, “I’ll be fine. Now, about your unique abilities.”
Zandra looked around them. “Not here.”
Ailey looked up and saw a few people looking at them. “I think we can talk about your singing now, but if you aren’t feeling well, then I will ask at a later time.”
Zandra gave her a confused look. “I don’t-”
“I certainly wasn’t talking about your untrained healing skills.” Ailey gave her a look and Zandra finally understood.
“I do need to work on them. Sure, if you would like for me to play some, that could be a good way to get people’s minds off of everything.”
“Good. I’ll take the chance to eat then.”
Zandra nodded and moved over to a corner of the room. She picked up a lute and moved to a small cluster of people. Ailey began eating, her mind going through scenario after scenario until a gentle sound reached her ears. Looking over at Zandra, Ailey’s brow furrowed. The healer had a lovely voice, and it played well with the instrument. Several of the patients were smiling and listening intently as she sang a popular song about the founding of Melzi. But there was something else just on the edge of her hearing, a familiar humming that wasn’t coming from the healer.
Rubbing her hand across her face, Ailey realized that she was hearing things. A part of her felt incredibly guilty about the way she had sent Ash away. That same part hoped that he would be furious and would never forgive her for what had happened. It would be best for him to be angry than to come here. As bad as the rumors were about Melzi, the truth was so much worse. Rumors always focused on the people, but Ailey knew that the problem was so much worse.
A tear rolled down her face, and she quickly wiped it away, looking around to make sure no one noticed. Standing, Ailey took her plate and washed it before heading back to the desk to work though her notes some more. Everything seemed to have calmed down a little since she had returned, but that wasn’t to say that things were ideal. Three patients had died since then, and the deaths weighed heavily on her. If she had come sooner, would they have died? The disappearance of Ester had been the final factor that had drawn her to the city, but now that she saw the suffering, Ailey felt shame that it had been a selfish reason that had eventually convinced her she was needed. That was not who she was, was it?
Another tear rolled down her cheek as she thought she heard the sound again. Wiping the tear away, she began to look around. No one else appeared to hear it, which meant that she was being absurd. She ran her hand over her mouth and began to collect the notes she had started to take. Shortly after she stood to leave, Ailey heard the music stop.
Zandra met the medic in her abode, and together, they reviewed the theories that Ailey had. It would take several days to test many of them, but as long as they were careful, Ailey felt certain that everything would work out.
A week passed with little success. The prince had fully recovered, and the queen had tried to send him outside of the city, only to be reminded that such a measure would undermine everything that had been done up to that point. There was also no guarantee that sending him away would help. Nearly half of the people who had fled the city had died less than two weeks after their departure, even if they showed no signs of having the ailment before leaving. The deterioration of a person’s health was much faster outside of the city, although there were some families who wanted to bring their relatives home to die in comfort.
Eleven days after her arrival, Ailey started to show signs of having contracted the illness.
Every day, the medic would take notes and work on a potion for her ailment. Sometimes she would fall asleep at her table and wake to find her notes scattered everywhere. A few scraps of paper would be mixed in with her notes in a very flourished handwriting, the kind that was used several centuries before. She couldn’t remember pulling them out, but they definitely guided her in the right direction when her potions reached a dead end. Several people came and went from her place every day, and it was very likely that some of them could understand what she was doing. Ailey was hardly among the best at creating potions. Her work was more geared toward open wounds than poisons and toxins.
Being more reclusive bought her a little more time from prying eyes, but it didn’t last forever.
Zandra was the first to notice, but she didn’t say anything for a few days, hoping that no one else would notice. But Ailey seemed to be progressing much faster than was usual.
She began to spend more time locked in her little place, with Zandra stopping by as often as she could. When the two were alone in Ailey’s abode, the healer finally spoke up. “Dammit, Ailey, I told you that you needed to be more careful. Even Ester wasn’t as reckless as you, that’s why she stayed healthy.”
Ailey covered her mouth as she coughed and shook her head. Catching her breath, she looked at Zandra. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”
“And you do?” There was a look of anger in the healer’s face that Ailey recognized. Zandra was afraid of losing the only real ally she had, and she needed someone to blame.
“Yes.”
“Oh, of course you do. That’s why you haven’t said or done anything to indicate that you knew.”
Ailey’s body shook as a violent coughing fit set in. Zandra came to her side, a look of worry etched across her face. Placing her hands on Ailey’s back, she tried to calm the medic’s lungs. The cough subsided.
Ailey wheezed as she brought out a couple of tools and notes.
Zandra fretted at her side, trying to pick up the heavier items so that Ailey wouldn’t be putting too much stress on her body. “It’s magic, not a cure. It won’t hold if you keep pushing yourself too hard. And why are you making a mess here? What is all of this?”
Finally able to breathe a little better, Ailey looked at Zandra. "Thank you, I feel a bit better. Look at this.”
The healer shook her head. “You are progressing too fast. At this rate, you will be dead in a week. Why is it going so fast?” There was anguish in her voice.
Ailey tapped the cover. “Look.”
“You are impossible,” Zandra threw her hands in the air before leaning over and immediately drawing back. “That’s disgusting! What is that?”
“That’s-” Ailey began to cough again, little flecks of blood covering her hand.
Zandra immediately began to use magic. “Too fast. This is too fast. What are we supposed to do?”
“Calm down and listen.” Ailey’s voice was weak as she caught her breath.
“Listen to what exactly? The sound of you dying?”
“Why is melodrama everyone’s go-to reaction?” Ailey muttered. Giving the healer a look that shut her up, Ailey took a deep breath and tapped on the top of the cover. “This disgusting sample is what is causing the problem.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. That is tiny, and the whole city has been affected.”
“Zandra, if you don’t calm down, I am going to boot you out of here myself.”
The healer opened her mouth to argue, then shut it. Giving a quick nod, she let Ailey know that there would be no more unnecessary interruptions.
“This is just a small amount of something much larger. When the test for lavellan came up positive at first, I realized that we had been thinking all wrong up to that point. It couldn’t have been lavellan because those things would have wiped out the entire city. Still, that made far more sense than any of the other theories. Nothing much changed about the city two years ago, but that was when the plague started. It was right there in the song you had been singing, the land under the city. Before the city of Melzi, the place was plagued by Sluagh. Everyone thought they were finally laid to rest, but this is proof of what actually happened to them.”
Zandra looked between Ailey and the dish of grotesque blackish liquid. “There is nothing like that up here.”
“It’s what is at the bottom of all of the wells in the city and in the surrounding area.”
“You went into the wells?” There was a look of awe and disbelief on the healer’s face.
“Someone had to because the water wasn’t showing any obvious signs of a problem. When you go down far enough, though, this coats the walls.” She moved the dish with the liquid.
“So you are getting sick faster because you went into the wells?”
“No. I’m getting sick faster because I’ve been drinking it undiluted.”
“You what?” Zandra’s eyes bulged as she looked at the medic.
Ailey ignored the outburst. “By looking at my healthy cells before I drank any of the city’s water and had less than a day’s worth of the city’s air in my lungs, and comparing those to the cells I collected every day after, it was easy to see when I started to get sick. It is very likely-” Ailey broke off as another wave of coughing began. She held out a hand to stop Zandra from touching her. “I really should not have had such a large concentration this morning. Didn’t realize just how fast it would work. Anyway, the people getting sick are the ones who get higher concentrations. When the bucket hits the walls or bottom of the well. The rains are recycling the Sluagh cells, and that is affecting the air.” She took a deep, shaky breath before continuing, “But that still is not the real problem.”
“The clean-up is the real problem.” Zandra looked at the dish with disgust on her face.
“No, the real problem is what has stirred up the remains. What has caused them to leak into the water system. That doesn’t just happen after a few thousand years. Something is forcing whatever is left of the Sluagh to move up.” She gave Zandra a look, waiting for the realization to kick in. The healer just shook her head. “The real problem is that there is something even worse living under the city.”
“Shit.”
“Indeed,” Ailey sighed, then gave the healer a little smile. “But clean-up is a very close second for the real problem.”
“Any idea what it could be?”
“First things first. We need to clean out the water and start to treat the problem. I’ve got something I mixed from research about strange toxins and how to dispel them.”
Zandra held up her hands. “There’s no way I can treat so many people. I'm not skilled enough.”
Ailey couldn’t help but laugh. Immediately she regretted it as her body began to shake with another violent fit. Zandra calmed her lungs after the first minute. “Not that kind of treatment,” she gasped. Wiping the blood from her mouth, Ailey waved a hand toward her cabinets. “There’s a purplish liquid in there. Please bring it here. May as well be the first test subject. All of my notes are in here.” She patted a large book as Zandra set the bottle with the liquid on the desk. “If this kills me, then you guys will be a lot further along.”
“But-” Zandra watched in horror as Ailey tilted the entire bottle into her mouth.
“See? It isn’t so-” That was the last thing Ailey remembered before passing out.
A warm hand pushed her hair back as Ailey tried to regain consciousness. A warm pair of lips warmed her icy forehead. “You don’t get out of it that easily.” The familiar voice was beside her ear, and for a moment Ailey smiled as she thought she felt Ash stroke her face.
Suddenly, her memories came back in full, and Ailey sat bolt upright, sweat pouring down her face.
“Thank gods! You are alive!” A female body pressed up against hers and Ailey blinked for a few moments. When Zandra appeared in front of her, the medic rubbed her forehead.
“Where is he? I know he is here.”
“Thelon just left. He said you were going to wake soon, and he was needed elsewhere.”
“No, I mean...” Suddenly her head began to throb. “Oh gods, that hurts.”
“Here.” A cold delicate hand rested on her forehead. Zandra muttered a few words and the pain subsided. She looked down at Ailey. “Better?”
Moving her neck, Ailey heard some popping. “Yes, thank you. That’s much better.”
“It looked like you were on the brink of death.”
“How long was I out?”
“Just a few hours. You developed a dangerously high fever, but after an hour and a half, that broke and you began to sweat profusely. There was some pretty gross black stuff mixed in, so I kept a steady charm on you to wash any new residue off you as soon as it surfaced.”
“Thanks again.”
“Yeah, well, unfortunately, no one knows about that. I’m worried that it could be a problem when they start to use the cure on more people.”
“Well, let’s go see how many witches and wizards we can dredge up.” Ailey swung her legs over the bed and tried to stand. Immediately her legs gave way.
“You aren’t going anywhere.” Zandra wrapped the medic in her blankets and tried to tuck her in.
“I am not here to convalesce, I am here to cure. You keep me locked up in a little place like this, you are condemning others to die.”
“But-”
“If I can’t walk, then you will help. Now, please dress me.” She pushed the covers off, exposing her naked body to the colder air. Zandra mumbled the words and moved her hands. A light flash, and Ailey was fully clothed. “Thank you. Let’s go.”
“I still think this is a bad idea.”
“That’s fine. As long as you do what I request, you are welcome to voice your disagreement.”
“You didn’t exactly ask.”
“I didn’t say ask, I said request. You could have chosen not to help.”
“Then you would have expended energy doing it yourself. Not much of a choice.”
“I never said it was, but it was still a choice.”
“Anyone who falls for you is going to have a lot more than they bargained for.”
Ailey smiled, “I don’t know, I think I’m pretty predictable. You just have to be able to anticipate.”
Zandra gave a derisive laugh. “It would be exhausting. High maintenance doesn’t even begin to cover what you are.”
A little later, the medics and healers sat around a table listening to Ailey detail what the problem was and what they needed to do. Several of them balked at the idea of using magic.
“It’s fine if you want to condemn your patients to death, but you may not endanger mine with your superstitious nonsense. Two hundred years ago, they refused to use elf’s root. If you want to live in the past, you will go do it elsewhere. If you want to stay here and save lives, you will do it my way because we do not know the risks of ignoring the benefits of magic.”
“What if a patient objects to magic?”
Ailey turned to look at the speaker, a young woman who had been a medic for less than four years. “They will be unconscious when it happens. If you tell them beforehand that magic will be used in their healing, I will hold you personally responsible if they die. The Association does not back your archaic bullshit, and you will not undermine me without consequence.”
The young woman glared at her, but kept her mouth shut.
Ailey looked around at the rest of the team. “Do any of you know any witches or wizards still in the city?”
“There is a shop that caters to them in the middle of the shopping district.” Thelon rose. “I will go there now and see who is available.”
“Thank you, Thelon, but I need you here. Zandra, will you go?”
The healer cast a look at her, then nodded. Rising from the table, she left.
“First, we need to start working on the medicine, then we will start to disperse it. There isn’t enough room for all of us in the lab, so I want those of you who are adept at potions to stay. Everyone else, I want you to try to bring all of the sick here. It will be easier to treat this in one place than to disperse such a small team across a large area. Oh, and all of you will need to drink it at some point as well. The odds that you have been contaminated are nearly 100%. We are going to err on the side of caution.”
The next 24 hours saw a flurry of activity around the ward. Ailey’s health improved, but because she refused to rest, the process was much slower than for their patients. Not everyone survived the treatment – the ones who were on the verge of death were too far gone to save, but the vast majority of patients began to recover during the first day.
As the second day showed that the cure was working, Ailey’s thoughts turned to the real problem. If the creature lurking under the city continued, no amount of cleaning would rid the city of the problem. She didn’t know much about monsters, and she certainly wasn’t a fighter, but Ailey figured that it was still part of the cure. As the city began to show signs of life being restored, Ailey began to plan for a trip under the city.
Zandra brought it up when she and Ailey talked just before Zandra’s departure. “Didn’t you say at some point that there was a more serious problem that we needed to worry about? All of this celebration may be a bit premature.”
Ailey waved a hand at her. “It’s nothing for you to worry about. We’ll bring in some professionals to deal with it.”
Zandra gave her a skeptical look. “If you are sure.” She knocked back her drink and slammed the glass on the table. “That was some alcoholic beverage.”
Ailey smiled at her but kept writing, her own drink untouched.
“Do you mind?” Zandra reached over and picked up Ailey’s drink.
“It’s all yours if you will do me one favor.”
“Another one?” Zandra gave her a lopsided grin.
Rolling her eyes, Ailey slipped the notes into a small satchel, then held that out to Zandra. “I need these delivered to the major cities and Association outposts. If you can deliver two or three of them to the closest places, the Association can manage the rest.”
“Of course.” Zandra took the satchel and put it over her shoulder. Lifting the glass up, she threw it back in one gulp. With a little sigh of pleasure, she stood up. “I’ve been meaning to ask.” Ailey looked up at her from a clean sheet of paper. “Why didn’t you tell anyone what you were doing?”
“At which point?”
Zandra gave a little chuckle, “When you were drinking that stuff on purpose. Why didn’t you say something?”
“If anyone had known, they would have tried to stop me. It would have taken longer and more people would have died.”
“You could have died.”
“That’s part of the profession. Sometimes, the cost of saving others is your own life. I made peace with that a long time ago.”
Zandra shook her head. “And they say humans are weak and selfish.”
“I’ve known plenty who prove them right.”
“But then there are people like you and Ester. You put your lives on the line, and all you ask for in return-” She lifted up the bag.
Ailey laughed, ending with a couple of coughs. She shook her head as Zandra looked like she was about to use magic. “Just residuals. And before you go thinking that I’m being entirely altruistic, you delivering that will save me so much time and trouble later.”
“Fair enough.” Zandra smiled. “I suppose I should get moving so that you can rest easier.”
Ailey gave a faint smile, her mind not really on the conversation. Zandra knew better than to try to keep the medic talking. With a chuckle, she exited the little abode and headed to say her farewells to the rest of the group.