I stumbled and would have fallen if the guards hadn’t kept a firm grip on my arms. I always hated those crusty elder magi, so cold and inward-looking, but now I finally understood. Magi could live a long, long time, and generations of mundanes came and went whilst we remained almost unchanged. It was too painful to watch them wither and die. It was natural to come to believe a mage’s life was of far more importance than brief mortal flames, inevitable to assume that with greater experience you knew better. It was logical to want control, for the greater good.
A chill of paranoia shivered up my spine. Hair and senses tingled in response, possibly my old magic-induced changes reacting to the new alterations in my mind. I had no way to know what else was happening inside me, burrowing like invisible worms through my body, devouring the old and excreting new flesh. Before I could horrify myself further, the guards stopped outside a door and dragged me into a small room with a table and chair, and Charra lying on the bed.
She looked little better than I felt. Scabbed red lines crisscrossed her face, neck and hands, and her skin held a peculiar grey tinge. A wide smile of relief appeared and she sat up.
The guards dumped me into the chair and one stepped outside, the sanctor and the second man loitering inside the doorway to keep watch over me. It was too early to tell if I was entirely sane after what I’d done to myself. I had held on long enough to prevent the worst consequences, but if I wasn’t sane I would think that.
“How are you feeling?” I said, putting aside personal worries for later paranoia.
She coughed, wet and phlegmy, and glanced at the guards. “Mostly just confused. They haven’t told me anything.”
I scowled. It was typical of the Arcanum to treat mundanes like children. I had to keep telling myself that I was different, that to me normal people were not just dupes to manipulate and discard. But they already were: I’d barely set foot back in Setharis before I chewed up and spat out that young thief who’d taken my coat. Because I’d found it convenient. Not to mention that warden whose mind I had burned out, or the infantilized dockhand who had tried to take my winnings. Charra had called me cold, but I figured that as long as I still felt a little bad about it then I wasn’t entirely lost. I was walking a hair-thin path.
Charra stared at me with big bewildered eyes as I told her about the statue, and the roots wrapping around her while she slept. She shuddered, but stayed quiet until I finished. I decided not to tell her about what they’d done to Lynas’ body. She had enough to deal with right now without being forced to suffer that horror.
Instead I began telling her about the blood sorcerer and the creature in the pool, omitting certain details like the true extent of my powers due to eavesdroppers. Cillian would have taken that badly, and in my position I couldn’t afford to aggravate her more. I was part-way through the tale when the sanctor cleared his throat. Loudly. Pointedly. I ignored him. He apparently didn’t hold with Docklanders knowing details of Arcanum business.
I continued: “…so this blood sorcerer was a magus–”
The sanctor cleared his throat again.
Again I ignored him. “–and I could tell from his voice that he was from the Old Town.”
A hand gripped my wounded shoulder. I winced as the fingers squeezed. Not the guards, they were too stupid to know what I shouldn’t be discussing. The sanctor then. His bare finger rested against my neck. Oops.
“You will cease discussing this subject,” he growled. “Or your time is up and you will be back in chains.”
I looked at his hand on my shoulder. Then slowly lifted my head to meet his gaze. My lips twisted into a mocking smile as I reached for my Gift, letting none of the excruciating pain that caused me show. He snatched his hand away, backpedalling and staring at his hand as if it had been poisoned. It seemed to me that he was frantically searching his thoughts for any trace of tampering. Good, let his paranoia grow. Sometimes the superstitious fear of tyrants came in useful. I could still feel magic lurking beyond my Gift, but an invisible vice clamped it closed and kept me from using it. At the moment it was oddly comforting to know I couldn’t, however much I needed that surge of supreme confidence right now.
I licked my lips. My head was pounding and my energy drained, but I couldn’t avoid voicing my fears any longer. “Cillian, she… said something; a disease.” My voice cracked. “She said they can’t heal you.”
Charra frowned. “No idea what she is on about. I’m fine, so no need to worry.”
“Liar.”
She flinched and looked away, eyes tracing the lines of mortar in the wall. “You like your answers straight, so here it is: I’m dying. My own flesh has betrayed me. It’s killing itself and the white-robes tell me the disease has spread through my whole body.” She lifted a hand to her mouth and coughed some more, then stared at the blood flecking her fingers. Her gaze drifted to meet my horrified stare. Her voice reduced to a whisper, “Sorry I didn’t tell you. I had a similar scare once before, but I got better. Not this time.”
My world dropped away. The deal had been broken, and those bastards I’d bargained with ten years ago never had fully healed Charra, they had just stopped the disease in its tracks.
“I’m so, so sorry, Charra. There must be something we can do. I’ll force the Arcanum to help.”
She shook her head. “There’s no more to be done, my old friend. Magic can’t fix everything.”
Healers used their magic to quicken a body’s ability to mend what was broken and fight off infection, but if her own flesh was killing itself then any attempt at magical healing would just hasten her end. But I couldn’t accept that.
“You’re wrong,” I growled, hands shaking. I was no healer, but there had to be something. “There must be another way. We’ll go to the Halcyons, try something else. They–”
“They tried, and they failed,” she said. “I’ve accepted it. In this life you can do everything right and the worst can still happen. Sometimes it craps on you at the roll of a dice; mine just happened to come up all ones.”
I slumped, mind thrashing through options: gods, great spirits, daemons, ancient Escharric texts of forbidden knowledge, even blood sorcery; I had to find a way to fix this. I’d lost Lynas – I couldn’t lose Charra too. If only I was stronger. If I had more power I could… No, that way led back to the Worm’s false seductions. I dismissed the possibility of obtaining and translating ancient texts that might be of any use as unrealistic. Pacts with great spirits or daemons of the outer realms? Risky. Illegal. And more importantly, I didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin, which put it in the same bucket as blood sorcery. Which left me gods, of whom four were missing and one a traitor to Setharis. If I tore off hunting them then I would be leaving her at the mercy of the Arcanum and that thing growing beneath the city.
I swallowed and took a deep breath. “How long do you have?”
“Months?” She shrugged, oddly calm. “Weeks?”
No time at all. My unseeing eyes stared at the floor. What was the point of going on if she was just going to die on me anyway, whatever I did, however hard I fought?
Charra’s hand cracked across my cheek. The guards started, seemed confused between the sanctor’s sudden horror and Charra’s slap. They didn’t know what was happening but didn’t try to stop her.
“Don’t you dare wallow in self-pity,” Charra growled.
“Charra, I–”
“Not while…” She bit her lip, eyes boring into me. “I’ve accepted I’m dying, and so must you – you promised me you’d look after her.” I had, but then I’d only known Layla as a child and that was an age ago. I seemed to be having trouble caring, about anything; I didn’t know if it was the magic changing me, the residue of the alchemic they’d given me earlier, or if it was just me being a cold bastard worn far too thin by the world. There was only an ember of life and love deep inside me and I held onto it grimly, hoping it would reignite. It was too terrifying to consider what I might become if I lost that.