One early February Saturday Arram came back from supper with his friends to find a note on his door from Master Cosmas.
Dear Arram,
Family business calls me away for a week. I have arranged for Master Chioké to join your instruction with that of Ozorne’s.
Be sure to thank Chioké. It is unusual for one master to welcome another’s students into his workroom, and Chioké is stricter concerning these matters than most. He must value Ozorne’s opinion, or mine, or both, to permit this.
—Cosmas
“You know I love you, to agree to be up at such a disgusting hour,” Ozorne announced when Arram arrived for class the next morning. His friend was leaning against the workroom wall, observing his approach with bleary eyes. “Do you even know how many of those things you have in the air?”
“Four,” Arram said. He’d been practicing juggling as he walked from Yadeen’s to Chioké’s.
“Aren’t you worried you’ll hit Preet?” Ozorne yawned hugely.
Preet, who sat on top of Arram’s head, cheeped as if to say she was fearless. Tired as he was, Ozorne chuckled. “I think she would take on armies if she could.”
Chioké bustled up the path, looking fresher and more alert than Arram. He halted before his door and bowed slightly to Ozorne. “Your Highness, good morning.” He eyed Arram. “Must you bring the blackbird?”
Arram blinked, startled: unlike his regular teachers, Chioké did not seem to realize Preet was no ordinary bird.
Ozorne glanced at him, then explained, “Master Lindhall is conducting an experiment, Master Chioké, on how birds raised with humans act differently from those that are captured wild. All of Arram’s masters, even Cosmas, gave him permission to keep Preet with him. And she isn’t at all disruptive.”
Chioké sketched the sigil that opened the door. “Other masters or no, if that bird makes a mess, it goes. I keep a serious workroom for magecraft, not a birdcage.”
Cross, Arram followed Ozorne and his teacher inside. If anyone should be picky about such things, it was Ramasu, who fashioned medicines in his workroom.
They had just begun to eat the cold fruit and cheese that Ozorne provided—nothing like the warm breakfast Cosmas always supplied—when Chioké said, “What has the old man got you studying, Draper?”
Arram blinked and swallowed his mouthful of cheese. Old man? He means Master Cosmas! “C-control, sir,” he stammered, shocked.
“Control over what?” the master asked.
“Kitchen fires. Forge fires if the smiths don’t mind. Starting and stopping hearth and brush fires,” Arram explained.
Chioké and Ozorne traded looks; Chioké began to laugh. “Mithros and Smith’s God defend us, this is the work of children and old men!” he cried. Only those who had been initiated into the rites of the smiths had the right to address their god by name. Others who attempted to do so regretted it. “We study war magic here—the kind of magic that changes empires! That’s what your power is for, young fellow!”
Arram looked at Ozorne, who was grinning. Surely Ozorne knew that the sort of magic taught by Cosmas would stop the kinds of fires that plagued cities and farms. Cosmas even had hopes that Arram might one day guide the lava that spilled out of Southern volcanoes, though Arram thought the master was overreaching.
“So much for staying indoors, at least for now. Come along, you two—let’s see what our young friend can do when he’s let off his leash. Step lively. The foretellers call for rain later.” Chioké led the way outside again.
They crossed the Tradesmen’s Road to a large grassless space in a field. Arram had been here often with friends to watch older fire magic students create displays for holidays. Large parties and games between the university’s schools were held here, with stone risers on either side of the field to accommodate viewers.
Chioké pointed to a tall stack of wood placed to one side of the area. “Draper, get one of those. Bring it over to where I’ll be standing.”
Arram hesitated. Would it do any good to protest? He didn’t think so. Instead he put his book bag on the riser Ozorne had chosen and handed Preet to his friend. She cheerfully ran up his arm and began to pick through the strings of beads in his hair.
“Should I give her one?” he called after Arram.
“Don’t. She’ll eat them,” Arram called back as he trotted to the stacks.
“Is he joking?” he heard Chioké ask Ozorne.
He chose a three-foot-high round chunk of wood—he identified it as cork oak—evened off on the bottom. Chioké walked five hundred feet into the center of the bare ground, where he scratched an X into the dirt before he returned to Ozorne. Arram got the message: he was to place the piece of wood there. Ozorne’s master was starting to remind him of some of the older students who still plagued him.
“Do you know the spell to project fire, as you would throw a spear?” Chioké asked when Arram returned to the other two.
“I’ve done it at targets,” Arram replied quietly. He felt his fingers tingle. His Gift knew he was about to handle fire. He was never sure whether he liked the feeling. At least he’s not asking me to light candles, he thought.
The mage pinched his nose. “As a war mage you must force it, of course. Concentrate your will, call the flame from your Gift, work the spell without faltering. Demand that it appear within that wood!”
Arram thought he should mention the risks. “Sir, it isn’t that I can’t do the spell—”
“No debate,” Chioké said, his heavy brows snapping together. “Do it!”
Taking a breath, Arram closed his eyes and prayed, Mithros, please shine on me.
The sky was covered with thick clouds; in the distance he felt thunder roll. The older he was, whether he was indoors or out, he had begun to feel any thunder around him, not only overhead. He’d told no one, not even Ozorne and Varice. He feared they might think he was putting on airs, or running mad.
Do it and get it over with, he ordered himself. Before the lightning comes.
He drew the spell-parts together in his mind—for simpler spells, it was considered more mage-like not to say them aloud—and bound them with his Gift. There was a roaring in his ears. Power shot through his veins. It was gone.
So was the wood, burned to ashes instantly. Arram couldn’t see his spell, but he felt it still rushing on. If he hadn’t yanked his hands down, driving its power into the earth—where it burned a track in the dirt almost to the edge of the clearing—it would have shot into the brush on the far side.
For a moment there was silence. Then Chioké yelled, “You call that control?”
“Master, look at his target,” Ozorne said. “Or what’s left of it.”
Chioké walked over to the ash mark where the chunk of wood had been, and kicked at it. Then he went to the woodpile, working a spell that lifted another piece of wood, a thicker and longer piece, into the air. He sent it to a point six hundred feet from where the two youths stood, and with a flick of the fingers, he drove it into the ground.
“Hold your position there!” he shouted. He walked quickly to the stone seats and climbed up three rows, then crossed his arms over his chest.
“Does he want me to do it again?” Arram asked Ozorne.
“I think he does,” his friend murmured. “He loves to look…mage-like.”
“What do you wait for, the immortals’ return?” Chioké bellowed. “Once more.”
The third time he demanded that Arram speak the spell aloud so he could ensure he was adding nothing to it. Ozorne had to stuff Preet into Arram’s book bag because she screeched in outrage at Chioké’s tone toward Arram.
The fourth time Chioké held Arram’s hands, earning himself a burn when they grew too hot. If he had not been a fire mage, it would have been much worse. As it was, he had to suffer the indignity of using Ozorne’s burn salve.
The fifth time he raised a barrier of his own power in front of Arram to slow the spell down. It incinerated his barrier and finally scorched only the chunk of wood.
“Is that the desired outcome?” Ozorne queried. Chioké whirled as if to shout at him, but Ozorne gazed calmly at the mage.
Finally Chioké managed a hint of a smile. “Your Highness is always ready with a joke.”
Arram looked at the sky. “That’s lightning,” he said nervously. “We should go in.”
He could more than see it. The hairs on his arms stood. The storm was moving fast. The lightning did not disappear instantly. Some of the bolts lingered and moved, like…“I really think we should go inside,” he repeated desperately. The wind rose; drops of water struck the ground hard enough to raise dust.
Ozorne and Chioké were talking quietly and very earnestly. “—see what I mean,” Ozorne was telling the man. “How wonderful it would be to have him in battle—”
“Without control he’s—” Chioké interrupted.
A triple arm of lightning reached out from the tower over the Mithran Library and brushed three fingers over Arram’s face. He closed his eyes, trembling, hearing Ozorne shout, “Arram!”
“Don’t worry,” he called weakly. “It’s only lightning snakes.”
More of them came to hold his hands and explore his shoulders, chest, and legs. He was jittering now, their energy flooding his veins. He would have given anything to see this from the outside. Then the rain came pouring down with a vengeance. Laughing softly in voices that crackled, the snakes moved on with the leading edge of their storm. After a moment hands seized his arms and towed him along. He looked up and saw only black. The rain stopped.
“Your hair’s in your face.” Ozorne swiped it away with one hand so Arram could see the shield of protection Chioké had placed over them. Ozorne, book bag over his shoulder, gripped Arram’s arm. Chioké clutched Arram’s other arm; he had Arram’s book bag. Preet thrust her head out of its opening and chattered at him.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he tried to say, but his tongue felt swollen and clumsy.
To his dazed shock, Ozorne’s surprise, and Chioké’s considerable irritation, Faziy came running up to them through the rain, her face alive with excitement. “Which of you did it?” she cried. When she reached them, she grinned. “Arram, you did it! They found you!”
“Woman, get out of our way!” Chioké shouted. “If you haven’t noticed, we are getting soaked!”
If Faziy was put off, it was impossible to tell. She was dancing as she walked backward. “Arram and I had talked about the lightning snakes, and they found him! Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“Nonsense!” Chioké barked as he nearly pushed Arram into his workroom. “Sheer tribal superstition!” Ozorne followed, while Chioké remained in the doorway, arguing with Faziy.
She seemed not to notice the rain. Ozorne, frowning behind the master’s back, cautiously threw a rain shelter charm out over Faziy. She didn’t seem to notice that, either. “Tribal?” she cried. “In Arpis Narbattum’s Of Elementals, he writes not only of his own experience in sighting them, but of several of the masters in the academy where he worked. They saw them clear as I see you, dancing on the rim of a volcano! The book contains their testimonials, attested to and sealed by an advocate!”
“Seven hundred years ago,” Chioké snapped. A gust of wind blew rain into his face. Ozorne glanced at Arram, who tried to look innocent. Preet made a chuckling noise.
Chioké backed inside and beckoned to Faziy to follow. Ozorne let his protective spell drop when she entered the room. Chioké continued, “Doubtless Narbattum and his companions were giddy on volcano fumes when they attested to it.”
“They were masters just like the masters here,” Faziy retorted. “Would they make so foolish an error? Was Somava Gadav giddy on fumes when she wrote of it in Children of Fire? She saw them many times in her life, and created a glass to show them to those who looked into it!”
Chioké frowned. “I have never heard of this glass or this book.”
“The book is in the library of the Unsettled Age. I’ve borrowed it,” retorted Faziy.
While the pair argued, Ozorne pushed Arram behind a tall screen. He motioned for Arram to remove Preet’s bag. Once Arram did so, Ozorne stood silently for a moment, then lifted his hand, palm out. His Gift streamed over Arram, covering him with pure warmth. Arram sighed with contentment, then winced—it had turned a little too warm. He signaled Ozorne, who relaxed. Now the temperature was just right again. Ozorne let him enjoy drying out while he returned to witness the argument.
After listening to Chioké and Faziy squabble over which authorities and reports were more reliable, Arram could tell that the two masters were now friendlier. Just as good, his clothes were dry. He gathered up Preet’s bag and came out from behind the screen. Ozorne was perched on a tall stool. Chioké and Faziy stood beside the fire, while the master brewed a pot of tea. Both adults fell silent and looked at Arram.
He cleared his throat and said, “I would prefer no one else knew what happened out there. Whatever you want to call it.”
Chioké leaned against a counter lined with models of miniature war machines. “I shall have to tell Cosmas. He is the master in charge of your learning.”
Arram looked at the floor. “About the lightning snakes?”
Chioké sighed. “Young man, until a group of masters in this century of the academy says otherwise, there is no such thing as ‘lightning snakes,’ except in old tales and those of tribal shamans.” He deliberately did not look at the scowling Faziy. “There is a perfectly good reason that whatever we saw happened. I would speculate it was a mixture of your Gift and mine that created those conditions, though to be honest, I would not care to experiment. Next time neither of us might be so lucky.”
“So except for Cosmas you won’t tell?” Arram asked. “I don’t want people looking at me strangely any more than they do.” He glanced at Faziy. She shook her head.
“I may explore the matter on my own, I trust?” Chioké raised his brows.
Arram goggled at him. He was a master. “I can’t stop you, sir. Ozorne?”
“I’m steadfast, Arram, you know that.” Ozorne gripped Arram’s shoulder in reassurance.
The university bells began to ring. “Very well. Time,” Chioké said. “Tomorrow we shall continue to work on battle magic and control.” A bit awkwardly he added, “Honored Faziy, if you would care to continue our private discussion?”
Once outside, Ozorne cast a rain protection spell over both of them and said, “Surely you didn’t mean I wasn’t to tell Varice!”
Arram stumbled a little as they trotted down the path. Ozorne steadied him.
“Won’t it upset her? The snakes? You saw them, didn’t you?” Arram asked, checking that Preet was fine.
“I saw something. Besides, I think your hair will upset her more,” his friend said, laughing. “You look like one of the deep-jungle tribesmen who combs his hair out in a huge ball around his head for sacred occasions. Doesn’t he, Preet? Wouldn’t he make a fine nest right now?”
Preet, who remained in the shelter of Arram’s book bag, only grumbled.
“Chioké improves as you get to know him, I swear. Apparently I didn’t prepare him for how surprising you are,” Ozorne said as they ducked into the nearest building.
“Ozorne, please don’t let him try to make me into a battle mage. I wish you’d told me that’s what you wanted.” Arram stopped and grabbed his friend by the arms. “I won’t do it. I’m not a killer. I’ll never be a killer.”
Ozorne eyed him curiously. “Not even to defend Varice, or Preet, or me?”
Arram sighed. “That’s different, and you know it. I don’t want to be a battle mage, not ever. I don’t want to sweep away a troop of men with a sigil and a snap of my fingers—or a bolt of lightning.”
“You are the worrying-est fellow,” Ozorne said, and shoved him down the hall. “Let’s hurry, or Master Lindhall will mark us late.”
After that day, it didn’t seem to stop raining. The jokes about turning into water plants or water birds were far less funny in March than they had been in February. Little fights broke out over nothing at all, even between Varice and Ozorne for a day. Everything smelled slightly of mildew, no matter how hard the students and workers cleaned and dried everything that got wet.
Preet’s song was Arram’s chief comfort. The little bird sang Lindhall’s people and animals to sleep at night and to wakefulness in the morning. In return, Arram always found gifts of her favorite foods in baskets or napkins by the door: any fresh fruits and vegetables that could be had, multi-seeded breads, and pistachios. He never had to worry about Preet going hungry, though she didn’t grow. He assumed that was part of her disguise.
In late March Ramasu was gone for five days. It was not unusual for a healer, not as it would have been for Yadeen, Cosmas, or Sebo, who rarely left the university. Arram had duties in Ramasu’s workroom if the master was not present: peel, seed, or chop any plants left in baskets on the main table, tend the contents of the cook pots, and follow the lesson instructions on the slate, put there by Ramasu’s chief assistant.
On the sixth day of Ramasu’s absence there were no instructions. Baffled, Arram began to catch up on his reading.
He had not been at it for long when the master himself came in. He wore an oiled cloak and hat, both of which streamed with rain, and carried a heavy basket. This he set on the floor. Coat and hat he set on hooks in the covered walkway outside.
“Put those away,” he instructed Arram. “We are going to change course slightly.” As soon as the worktable was clear of Arram’s books and papers, the master set cloth parcels from the basket on its surface. “Name these for me,” he ordered.
Arram touched the red bundle with his fingertips and his magic. “Shepherd’s purse, for diarrhea and lesions in the intestines,” he said. Putting his fingers on the brown one, he said, “Red raspberry leaves, to fight nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.” He did the same for the others, which included white willow, licorice, and herbs that soothed pain or calmed stomach and intestinal spasms. Well before he finished he realized what Ramasu wanted to treat with these herbs.
“Typhoid?” he asked softly.
The healer rubbed his chin. “There went my next box of candied cherries from Maren. I wagered Sebo you wouldn’t know why I needed them. And she’ll gloat, too, which is unbecoming in a woman of her age and humiliating for me. Yes, typhoid in the Riverfront District of the city, and in Sweet Hollow. I’ve been at Riverfront.”
“I’ll go with you, Master,” Arram said impetuously. “I can—”
Ramasu held up a hand. He settled into the chair beside his desk. “Start with the shepherd’s purse. Grind it for medicine, as fine as possible. Grind all of it that’s in the cloth. Place it in a jar from those cupboards.” He pointed to show what he meant. “The ones with cork stoppers. Do that with each bundle of herbs. Don’t disturb me until you’re done.” He began to examine papers on the desk. A fire sprouted in the braziers in the room, driving back the chilly dampness.
Arram gathered the materials he would need: a big mortar and pestle and a necessary jar. He settled Preet near enough to a brazier to be comfortable. She fluffed herself up and gave a soft cheep of contentment.
Arram surveyed the table, wondering if he had everything. There was a cone to transfer the ground herbs into the jar. He’d gotten a brush to clear the herbs from the pestle, and a cloth to wipe it out.
“You have forgotten nothing,” Ramasu said, looking up from his papers. “Staring won’t get the work done. If anyone knocks, you don’t know where I am. This is my first sleep in three days.” He closed his eyes, then raised a hand. “Onestu will bring us lunch. Wake me for that.” He arranged his booted feet on a hassock next to his desk and linked his fingers on his belly. Within moments he was snoring.
Carefully Arram lifted the cloth under the dried plants and poured them into the mortar until it was half full. Then he went to work turning and grinding, mixing and pushing, until he had a fine powder. Carefully, using the funnel, he poured it into the jar.
He’d worked his way through the shepherd’s purse and started on the raspberry leaves when a man he didn’t recognize knocked on the door. He was a big man, a Scanran, with muscular arms and legs, and corn-gold hair that he wore in braids. “I’m Onestu,” he said quietly. “His ragze. I brought him a proper lunch, since he’s been eating nothing but infirmary fare.”
Arram stood aside. “I didn’t know he was married,” he whispered. “Forgive my bad manners.”
The big man chuckled. “I’d be surprised if he ever talked to you about anything but medicine.” He saw a clear spot on a counter and laid out dishes and utensils, a soup thick with beef, chickpeas, and dumplings, fried balls of lamb kibbeh, eggplant dip, pieces of chicken, and fresh flatbread. “Help yourself to some of this. Let him sleep—”
“I need food as much as sleep,” Ramasu announced as he lurched out of his chair. “You were good to come, Onestu.” He walked his husband outside and returned shortly, looking tired but cheerful. “He’s a glassmaker,” he told Arram. “And he looks after our children when I’m called out like this. A fine man—I don’t deserve him. Where’s the soup?”
Arram dished up a bowl for the master, then fed Preet and gave her water. Once everyone had been cared for, he got back to work.
Some plants were dry, lacking the greenness, or vigor, that the others had. He talked to them silently, a trick he’d learned from Master Hulak. Stand up for yourselves! he told them, letting the words float on his Gift. You can be just as strong as the fresh plant—I know it’s still in you!
Slowly he felt their swelling pride and growing strength. They would do well.
When he looked up from the last jar, Ramasu had finished his meal. Arram hadn’t noticed his movements, any more than he had seen Preet fly to perch on the master’s shoulder. Ramasu was watching him, an odd look in his eyes.
“Do you often talk to plants?” he inquired.
“Master Hulak does,” Arram said defensively. “He says it helps them to grow.”
“I don’t believe even Hulak talks to them after they’re dead.”
“I just thought they might like it,” Arram replied, looking at the floor. “They were older than some of these others, and they felt bad about it.”
Ramasu stroked Preet’s chest feathers. “It’s very interesting, where you live, isn’t it, Arram?” He tapped his forehead to show what he meant. “Does Hulak know you can do this?”
“He lets me encourage living plants, if things go well,” Arram replied. “He says it’s a reward, but I’m not sure why. The plants do it for him when he’s just there.”
“Perhaps it’s meant to be a reward for you,” Ramasu suggested. He was staring at Arram as he rubbed his hand over his unshaven chin.
Arram tried not to fidget. He was not quite comfortable with Ramasu. The man was always aloof and dignified. His snoring and the introduction of Onestu had made him seem more human, but the look in those eyes was making Arram nervous all over again.
“Well, you aren’t getting any younger,” Ramasu said at last. He reached for paper and a pen. “Can someone take your bird for a time?”
“Well—well, yes, of course,” Arram stammered, not understanding the reason for the question. “Ozorne, Varice—they’re my friends—Master Lindhall, of course…”
“Lindhall! Perfect!” Ramasu picked up a small glass globe and passed his hand over it. It whirled with colored fires as the blaze of Ramasu’s power formed a circle around it. “Lindhall, it’s Ramasu.”
Arram jumped when he heard Lindhall’s impatient reply as clearly as if Lindhall stood there. “Great Mithros, surely you know I’m teaching a class!”
“Yes, but I am returning to the city. I want Draper to go, and I need you to keep his bird. There’s no telling when I will return the boy,” Ramasu told the globe.
“Haven’t you been in—” Lindhall began. Then his voice softened. “Oh. Must you? Your other beginners are at least three or four years older.”
Arram didn’t like the sound of that.
“He is splendid with herbs. He strengthens ones that are weak. We knew he’d have to go into a plague center at some point, Lindhall. Let it be now, while we might yet keep the disease contained.”
“He’s in your workroom? I’ll send Ozorne; he’s here.” The globe went dark.
“How did you do that? May I have one?” Arram asked, his fingers twitching with excitement. “Water scrying isn’t as solid.”
Ramasu looked at him as he tucked the globe into his pack. “May you have one? If I gave a globe like this to a student, Cosmas would have my head. Leave your bird. She may not go with us.”
Preet began the most woeful trilling Arram had ever heard her make. Ramasu picked her up. “The place is poor, dark, and wet,” he told her softly. “Young and old die there while their refuse flows on the floor. The stench is unspeakable. If you were seen—if you were heard—you would be caged and sold in a minute. It is too sad for you, my dear.” He stroked her as she quieted, until Ozorne knocked on the door. Arram had gathered her things by then.
He accepted the bird from Ramasu and passed her to his friend. “I’m helping the master in the city,” he explained.
Ozorne frowned. “The city?”
“A plague center,” Arram said quietly. “She can’t go with me.”
Ozorne looked at Ramasu. “Surely you have more senior students to help you. Arram’s no healer. He—”
“I am his master, and I determine what he is suited to,” Ramasu replied firmly. “I know that he is your friend and that you are concerned, but you are a student of fire magic, are you not? You understand there are no safe roads in our studies, not in the long run. At least, I hope you understand this.”
Ozorne looked at the master for a moment, then bowed his head. “Yes, sir. I apologize.” He put a hand on Arram’s shoulder. “May Hekaja watch over you”—he glanced at Ramasu—“watch over you both, and bring you home safe.”
Arram hugged his friend. “Tell Varice I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye.” He gave Preet’s carrybag to Ozorne.
“Stay with me, Preet,” Ozorne said cheerfully. “I’ll show you the new finches that came for the university birdhouse. And Varice will be with us. You like her.”
Preet muttered unhappily but accepted her transfer to Ozorne’s care. With a wave, Ozorne walked off down the corridor.
Once Ozorne and Preet had gone, Ramasu looked at Arram. “Report to the infirmary. Tell them you’re working with me in the city. They’ll give you something to ward you against typhoid. Drink it all—it’s cursed expensive to make, which is why we can’t give it to everyone. Then meet me at the Imperial Gate.”
“But shouldn’t I pack clothes, soap, and the like?” Arram asked.
“We supply what you need,” Ramasu told him. “You want to bring as little of your own belongings as possible. Everything is burned when we’re done.”
Arram looked at his boots. They had cost a good piece of his allowance, and he was quite vain of the painted designs in the leather. They were waterproof, too, just the thing for a Carthaki winter.
Ramasu smiled. “Leave your student robe and boots with the staff in the infirmary. They will give you straw sandals for the plague districts.”
Arram could have kissed the man. “Thank you, Master!”
“Don’t thank me—get to the infirmary. Have them send someone for the plants you ground. A very good job, by the way. Now, go!”
Arram raced through the servants’ hallways rather than deal with students who were changing classes. The potion they gave him to stave off typhoid was the worst thing he had ever forced down his throat. The student who supervised as he took it made him sit on a chair and put his head between his knees to keep from fainting.
“Does it affect everyone this way?” he asked, embarrassed to see a number of pairs of feet pass by.
“Even the masters who take it ’most every year,” the student assured him. “There’s no getting used to it. Hand over them boots.” Arram obeyed, exchanging his boots for straw sandals. Once he was on his feet, the student sent him behind a screen to trade his clothes for a rough wool tunic and a broad-brimmed straw hat to keep off the rain. She gave him a token on a string to hang around his neck so he could claim his belongings when he returned. “The stone, too,” the student said, noticing the small opal Arram wore around his neck. “We’re sworn not to steal, never worry about that. The last medicine student that stole ended up chained to the pillar of a house when there was rat plague. He wasn’t given no potion, either.”
Arram remembered to tell her about sending someone for his jars of powder. The student ordered a youngster on that errand and handed Arram a large chunk of cheese and several flats of bread to go with it. “Stick ’em in your shirt and nibble while you can,” she advised. “Master Ramasu hardly remembers to feed himself, let alone students. And good luck. Gods all bless, Arram.”
His heart thumping from combined excitement and terror, Arram returned the blessing and headed to the Imperial Gate at a trot. Ramasu wasn’t there, and they would not leave without him. Arram looked over the two carts with waxed canvas roofs to shed the incessant rain. In addition to supplies, two other healing masters and three senior students waited inside them.
When Ramasu arrived, the masters took him aside to argue about Arram’s inclusion in their group. Whatever Arram’s master said, it silenced them, but they glanced curiously at Arram on the journey. The three senior students napped.
The first sign that they were approaching the slums, and the plague areas, was the smell. Arram had wandered this far into the city with Ozorne and Varice in past years, looking for cheap books. On hot days there was a smell, but it had never been this bad.
The older students had woken and noticed he was covering his nose. They told him the stink was a combination of human dung, vomit, the rotting bodies of the dead, and the burning dead. The mages did their best to encircle the corpse fires with spells to kill the odor, but there were rarely enough mages who could be spared from working on medicines and tending the sick.
“Not enough mages?” Arram asked as they turned off the river road and onto mostly deserted streets. Many doors were marked with a white chalk O, the sign for quarantine. Several that Arram noticed were slashed through—Ø—to indicate that everyone who lived there was dead. Arram bowed his head and prayed that the Black God of Death would give them gentle treatment in his kingdom. He had a feeling there was no one left in the living world to pray their way into the Realms of the Dead.
“All of us fourth-year students who study healing have to work the plague breakouts,” the most senior of the students replied to Arram’s question. “It’s how we get experience. Mages with only a credential will do a lot of that. But any of us who want to make coin, real coin, we contend for our mastery—”
“And when we have that,” the only young woman of their number said, “we can find work where we’ll be paid what all this muck-groveling qualified us for. Then you’ll never see us tending the flea-bitten and stinking again!”
As the carts made their way deeper into the slums, through Sweet Hollow and into Riverfront, the odor thickened with the rain. So did the mud. Down here no one filled the deeper gaps with stones. Over and over students and masters had to get out of the carts and lift them free of mudholes. The few people out and about made the Sign against evil and hid as they passed.
“Why do they make the Sign?” Arram demanded, outraged. “We came to help!”
“Peasants,” a master said, and sniffed. “They think our work carries the disease.”
Children watched them, too starved or despairing to move. Occasionally one or several would rush the carts, only to get their fingers stung by the protective spells on the goods inside.
“Can we give them food?” Arram asked. “We have plenty. They’re skin and bone!”
“We would have nothing if we gave handouts to every street urchin,” the master who’d sniffed replied. “Criers go about telling folk where to go for soup and bread each day. We have more important things to do.”
Arram looked down. Had any of them tried to live on one meal a day? He hoped that he would never be as hard and cynical as these people, or as cruel.
Finally they stopped at the last of a series of warehouses. Over its door someone had set a shelf with a figure of Hekaja, the Carthaki goddess of healing. Arram kissed his fingertips and touched them to his forehead in salute. Silently he prayed that he would make his teacher proud. He looked for Ramasu for instruction or farewells, but the master was already being hurried inside by two acolytes of Hekaja.
Arram wondered what he should do. He tried to ignore the stench that made his stomach roll. With the other students he began to carry goods to the door, but realized almost instantly he would not make it inside.
A man took the jars in his grip. “Around the side is the midden. Try to make it that far,” he said, not unkindly.
Arram ran, slipping in the mud. Several times he nearly skidded into a line of scantily clad, muscled men and women who carried bundles in their arms: they were going in the same direction. Once he stumbled and would have fallen if a big arm had not gripped his and hauled him to his feet. Arram didn’t dare to speak his thanks. Waving to his rescuer, he continued his flight around the edge of the long building.
Even in the bad light and rain he saw too much of the midden for his unhappy nose and belly. Men in rags stood around it with rake-like devices, shoving the outside material toward the center so it would burn. The strong folk were tossing their bundles directly onto the fire.
When Arram reached the edge of the piles of rotten food, blood- and pus-stained bandages, and other unspeakable things, he began to vomit and kept doing so until he thought the next thing to come from his mouth would be his belly. At last he stopped, clutching his aching ribs and breathing with his mouth open. Now he sent a prayer up to Hekaja on his own behalf, so he wouldn’t stumble and fall.
Someone put a ladle of water up to his mouth. “Don’t worry, it’s safe,” said a deep rumble of a male voice. “ ’Specially if you’re already medicked against the plague.”
He nodded and gulped the water down. “Thank you,” he gasped when the ladle was empty. When he looked ahead, he saw scarred black legs the size of tree trunks and gnarled feet in straw sandals.
“Thought your head might come off there, youngster. Hold this,” his savior instructed, shoving the ladle into his grip. Arram obeyed. Brisk hands slapped a thin cloth scented with mint over his nose and mouth and tied it firmly behind his head.
“See if that don’t make it easier.”
Arram straightened, taking tiny sniffs of air. It was still bad, but the mint kept it from overwhelming him. Suddenly a woman tripped. Her bundle fell, spilling its contents into the mud and trash. She had been carrying a child’s body.
Cursing, she bent and covered her burden with the cloth, then picked it up again. Arram stared, gape-mouthed, noticing the differing sizes of the bundles. These people carried the dead to the fire. His stomach heaved again. Quickly he pushed the mask away from his mouth, not wanting to soil it. After a few moments while his belly writhed, he straightened and lowered his mask. He’d had nothing left to bring out.
“Arram, what are you doing here, boy?” boomed his new friend. “You’re young for this, seems to me.”
Startled, Arram looked up into a familiar scarred face.
“Musenda!” he cried. “What are you doing here?”
The gladiator smiled and waved a muscled arm to indicate the midden and the people working there. “This. Why aren’t you at school?”
“I study medicines,” Arram said, and hiccupped. “First time working in a plague.”
His friend gave him a fresh ladle of water. “First mouthful, rinse an’ spit,” he advised. “Then little sips. All the students I seen are older.”
Arram drank the last of the water and returned the ladle. “Master says I grind herbs well,” he explained. He eyed the gladiator. He wore only a loincloth, which left his scarred chest bare. On his right shoulder was a branding scar: the image of a circle around two crossed swords. The mark of the arena. “Aren’t you cold?”
Musenda chuckled. “You learn to ignore it. Look at you. First you break up rocks; now you work with the healers. What next—will you fly?”
Arram smiled. “Forgive me for asking—how are you here? I thought you weren’t allowed to leave coliseum grounds without guards.”
“Oh, they’re around, somewhere dry,” Musenda told him. “We can leave the coliseum sometimes. Especially when we are privileged to offer service to the crown.”
Arram looked at the line of muscular people of all colors who came around the corner, each carrying a limp, sad bundle. “You mean when there’s a plague.”
“Especially when there’s a plague.” The man shrugged.
“Aren’t they afraid you’ll escape?”
The man chuckled. “Oh, no, boy. No, no.” He turned to show Arram his left shoulder. A twist of sigils written there in yellow ink shone in his magical vision. “If I go more than one hundred paces from this building, my heart starts to slow down. The farther I go, the slower it gets. They clean the mark off once we’re back in the arena, but the next plague…” He glanced at his companions. “I need to work. Are you going to be all right?”
Arram nodded. “I should work, too.” He offered his hand. “I’m glad I saw you, Musenda, even here.”
The gladiator looked down, then said, “Not many people offer a hand to a gladiator and a slave.” He took Arram’s hand in his callused grip. “We keep meeting. I start to think it’s fate. Stay well, Arram Draper.”
“Stay well. Thank you for the water and the mask.” Arram watched the big man join the slaves who were returning for more of the dead.