Brimstone Medical

Some knowledge cuts the soul.

"Oliver, child, please come see me."

As my mind traveled from book to library, I tried to place the voice, in space and in memory.

The library remained deserted and the voice had been a wandering spirit raven. One tug of thought unraveled my summoner's riddle–for all the other professors laid their personal energy over every summoning. That is a primary thread in my preference for Jatham–they preferred to stitch their workings with a bit of thought and preparation. While I lacked their raw power–I hated relying on the dangerous fireberry brews in emergency–their example made me feel a little more like I belonged among the trueborn of the arcane college.

I tapped lightly on the door of Jatham's sanctum.

A strange voice answered, "Do come in, Oliver, child."

The voice had the melody of Jatham's, with the rich deep hum of a baritone. Uncertain who Jatham had as a visitor, I pressed my way in.

Jatham, back turned, leaned over their table, gray salted black hair tied loose.

It wasn't like Jatham to wear their hair so casually, like the men did. "I got the summons."

They turned and looked at me, stroking their beard.

I gawked a moment–I had never seen them wearing a beard.

"Do close the door, child; we needn't have the entire student body seeing me like this."

I pushed the door closed and smiled at them, reflecting that I would probably be 'child' to Jatham even when we were the oldest living humans in Balthispeare. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"The sands of time are ever dwindling–I hesitate to drain still more from your bowl."

Jatham's assignments save more time than they took. I mimed flipping over an hourglass.

"You read the book I pointed out, and retrieved the name of the spirit bothering your special friend?"

"Vivianca." I glowered a bit. "Vivanca. Not a true name–nothing powerful enough to bind her."

"With the angry angels–"

"Vivianca is a devil! With all due respect."

"You are frightened by her horns? Do you not reflect that predators keep their weapons sheathed."

I had not considered that–had not noted whether her teeth were sharpened like a snake. I dropped my head and mumbled, "They look how they wish to appear."

"Good point." Jatham lit a pipe and began to smoke, filling the room with hints of sage and cherry. "However they have much in common with you and I–they are set aside for their inability to conform, rather than their very real hostility."

"I just wish that I could banish her."

"In the long run you might regret this." The forms of the smoke were smooth and sleek, with occasional sharp turns expressing my objection. "This spirit has a stake in the survival of your friend, if not quite so personal as your own."

For a moment I understood my brutish brother Mollard, and his unreasoning will to purge Balthispeare of all who do not think and look like him. On most days I would be one of them. "So we just tolerate her? But that does not take extra sands from my bowl."

"Vivianca has a spell she would like to teach you." He toked on his pipe, and sharp curls came. "The spell of transfusion."

Life drain–from the darkest magic. "So it is not enough for her to poison Sigrun."

"Knowledge is never evil." Jatham thought upon it. "Though some are by far so wicked, that even the handle cuts–this is one that may be used judiciously."

"It is too easy to destroy the reservoir." The ancient story of Susan and Marcus, from the age of Glass–specifically, the series of plays called "Babylon Five." The ranger Marcus knew he could not stop the drain, and yet gave of himself.

"And that is the cost. One must ever weigh options, one against another."

"Is there a scale subtle enough to be true?"

Jatham chuckled. "Let's hope that Medusa has it if so." He made a banishing motion–the sweeping flick gesture–to indicate I need be on my way.

***

I looked over my notes. The spell was worse than I had imagined, every stroke of ink on paper stung like the canal in my skin from a rusted athame. Fihvyx's quill slipped back in my sleeve as I read, gathering the power to slowly etch the spell in my mind.

For my first target I selected the remainder of my meal–the pile of roast turkey on the plate before me.

In a living library, one would not have such a thing–but I had inherited this last chamber of a more civilized age. I covered my face a moment, then returned my focus.

I looked upon the plate with a bit of queasiness. Rarely would I have the skill to stabilize a patient while poring over my notes. In order to be effective, the spell would need be prepared at all times–making of my mind a living weapon.

I eased myself into the trance and sent out the fangs of my soul. I tasted the deliciousness of the life force–though most of it had burned away in cooking.

The target turned black, like charcoal, then puffed and scattered on the draft as the plate began to shatter.

I tried to spare the plate, but the stream continued, offering a surging joy as I struggled to stop.

It too turned to black dust, leaving a minty chill in the air as it dissolved in the currents of air.

The meal left me hungry–I am certain it would have been far more powerful from a living target.

A new work always slips in the hands. For its pedigree, the transfusion behaved admirably. I elaborated my notes for better results, and stared through the walls of the library for unmeasured bowls of time.

***

Each day as the week funneled through the many turns of the hourglass, I counted myself lucky that no harm called out the transfusion. Not that nobody was harmed–we found a child who had been whipped for stealing pies. The accuser balked in false–terrified-rage when I pointed to the law requiring the accuser be whipped equally.

In place of that he offered the boy a couple more pies.

Sigrun's divine touch soothed the wounds on his back. We didn't really want to take a share of the pies, but the boy's body hungered for our respect as desperately as he craved the meat.

I recognized one of Collen's bruisers–talking to the merchant the boy had robbed. The boy met my gaze and started to run.

I nudged Sigrun, who saw it immediately.

The men converged on us.

"Thought you said 'it ain't right robbing.'" Collen had lost fat but gained muscle in the months he had been missing.

That one phrase had driven a wedge between him and Sigrun, these seven hard years since our first meeting, that replaced his smooth skin with lashes and scars appropriate to his trade as a bruiser–and whatever he had graduated to.

"Justice was served, don't you think." Sigrun shrugged and kicked a rock at him.

He swaggered forward, not faking any limp as he fingered the switch on his fake cane. "We'll leave the thinking to your stupid wizards." He knocked the rock back at her,

His villainy no longer had the boyish softness of table legs and puffed-out-chest display. Instead of forgetting her eyes, he stared past them to the target–where he planned to strike. He had always been rough, but fairly decent, rudeness always asking after our respect. "What happened to you?"

"Be more concerned what's going to happen to you, stupid wizard." He smiled and spit. "I mean, what you going to do after I end your pretty little— I can't call you watch girl no more, seein's how it's just that you're too good even for them innit?"

I felt an aching urge to drain the life of him–undoubtedly the voice of Vivianca on my shoulder. I had no other combat magic prepared, and even now I was no stronger than he had been at eleven. But Sigrun could handle herself–against a few honorable opponents.

Sigrun took her arming sword out, behind herself.

As she told me her uncle had done at the beginning of his final battle.

"Banish that, Vivianca," I hissed, fumbling for the gilded copper coins the spider elf dusthad stuck on the outside of my purse–a distraction for enemies. They jumped to my hands.

Three bruisers with spiked saps closed about her.

I threw the coins at them, and the great spider released them at the perfect moment. I could never aim so well, that they sailed right across the edge of their vision, drawing their attention.

Two of them tuned.

Sigrun drove her pommel in the nose of one and blocked Collen's brandistock blades inches from her shoulder plate. The final one drove the brandistock into her neck.

Sigrun went down with a bit of a hissing groan.

Collen turned on his man. "I telled your stupid, she's not to be hurt!" He brought the weapon down on his friend. "When I say something I mean you to listen." He hit him again and again, then stepped on him to leave. "Better off dead when Dust hears."

I ran to the fallen warriors–Collen had completely killed the one. From the way life force left the other, I gathered that Collen had broken his own man's neck.

The spider web immediately stopped the bleeding on both Sigrun and Collen's victim.

But not the leaking life–one man dead, the other two soon would be.

The dead man had not warmth enough to anchor Sigrun to her body. She needed me to steal the dying man's force–it would be a mark in his favor when he chose whether to find the White Gates or flee into the misery of the Mazes Beyond.

The thought came from the wrong place in the aether. "Stop feeding me lies, Vivianca. I'm good enough at that myself.

I could use Speak with Dead–ask this man for permission. He teetered close enough for that to work, if only I had readied the spell. She would be dead before he could answer. I had to do the difficult thing. I need never let her know the source of the healing.

Then I imagined the look of sadness in her eyes when she guessed what I had done.

I could not tie a lie so carefully that this would never show a ragged string, that she would one day pull upon. There was only one man whose life force could be used to rescue her without defiling everything we cared for. "I'm sorry sir, you probably would be better off if she weren't such a good person." I slipped into trance, and opened the vortex, dripping the life force into her–achingly slowly.

My transfusion dripped so slowly I felt sure her sands drained faster than I bled mine into her. Meanwhile, the chill of the drain ached in my bones, urging me to reverse the draw or get it over with.

The color returned to her face and her breathing evened out.

***
The pearly curtain of the White Gate rippled before my face.

My long-lost home at last lingered in arms reach–whether for a final rest, or a visit. I looked for Oliver–surely he knew he belonged here as well?

"Sigrun, there is not time." The thundering gentle voice of my guardian enveloped me. "Oliver is bleeding his life into you–he is not meant to be here yet."

My guardian spirit stood there, hands out for me.

I grasped his hand and fell into darkness.

A horrible pain in my neck–the wound, half healed. Waves of cinnamon sweetness rolled over me–a torrent of fireberry, washing away the pain. I struggled to open my eyes, to raise up my hand.

Oliver's face twisted in pain as he shivered from the mortal chill as his warmth and life flooded into me.

I raised my hands in a halting, palms up gesture to stop him.

Relief filled him as he closed his spell.

A heartbeat later he collapsed over me.

Only the stress of the cold kept him alert–had he gone too far?

I lacked the strength of body to lift him off, but found the will to heal him. Although I felt sure that I would refill from the love of the High King, I cared little. Yes, if wrong, I might see him drag me back to the White Gates. So be it–at least I could be sure he knew he belonged there with me.

I laid a loving hand on him–routed the chill in his bones as radiating out of him, and sent him all my love.

I felt him warm up by degrees.

After a time–a score of parade steps, at least–he moaned and rolled to the side.

If Oliver did not get the summons to the High King's court, I felt privileged to be deployed here in this mortal exile wtth him.

"Get up you fools." Dust arrived, and kicked some dirt in our faces. "The street is not safe for you."

My hair stood on end, but I had to admit he was right. I woke Oliver and pulled him to his feet–dragged our sorry sleepy selves to safety.