“I’m sorry,” Anna told Irene, “but there just aren’t any sales.” Irene was standing in front of her shop. She arrived in Londontown to find the shop closed. It took her half a day to track down Anna. “I had to do something else.”
“I understand,” Irene responded. “This conflict with Chicago is redirecting a large portion of the economy into weapons and armor.”
“The reds are beasts,” Anna said with passion.
“They are human, just like us,” Irene countered. “At this point I am not even certain who started it. Everyone is angry and hurt. I wish people would just remember that we are all children of Earth. We should be united against the dangers of the structure, not divided against each other. No one remembers what our ancestors did to get us here.”
“The reds started it when they killed our people at Paris,” Anna said with absolute certainty. Irene knew that was a belief she could not fight.
“Let's go inside,” Irene said. “I’ll pay you a parting bonus. I’m going to shut down the shop. If things calm down in the near future we can try it again.”
She paid Anna ten silver as a parting bonus. It was enough money to rent a shop for a month. Irene felt a little guilty that she didn't visit Londontown as much as she really should in the months since she returned from Moscow. She dropped Anna from the shop interface after the woman left. Irene sat down on one of the upholstered chairs that were in the front window.
She got a little lost in her love affair with Ian during the last six months. As the raids and counterraids started piling up, Irene found herself spending more and more time in Redfalls, where she could pretend none of it was happening. Recently Ian spent more time away. He was taking a larger role in the defense of Greater Chicago. When he was gone, Irene remembered her commitments and tried to make time to live up to them.
Irene was crazy in love with Ian. All those silly pictures her sister Helen used to send of her muscled boyfriend in construction overalls suddenly started making sense to her. Ian brought her strange new crafting tools and listened to all her theories about nanobots and magic. Even if he did seem to drift off in the middle sometimes, he never called her weird or strange or odd. Instead he called her brilliant and beautiful.
Teachers and teaching machines told her she had high potential since the first lesson, but potential just wasn’t the same. There was something about the statement that left her thinking she wasn’t good enough, she needed to strive for more. Her potential was greater than her accomplishments, hence she was already failing at reaching it.
She knew she wasn’t beautiful. A cousin of hers, her father’s sister’s second daughter was beautiful. She possessed a luminescent radiance that was hard to describe. Having seen her, Irene knew how far short she fell. When Ian called her beautiful, she felt his approval of her. It wasn’t physical beauty he was talking about, it was love.
Irene tilted her head, as her eyes focused at what she was looking at while she was lost in thought. The protection crystal hovered over the ground in the courtyard. Its translucent shape was only visible in the way it refracted the light that went through it. When Irene first saw it twelve years ago, it was two feet tall. It was smaller now, by at least an inch or two.
She couldn’t remember thinking it was smaller before. All the crystals in squares were different sizes. The one in Redfalls was no more than sixteen inches tall. Their size didn’t affect how they worked. However the absence of a crystal was another form of hell. If the crystal in Londontown was shrinking, would it eventually disappear?
Irene got up and left her shop. She walked across to the entrance to the training yards. Warriors were facing off against each other with new dedication. None of these warriors were going to land on their ass after striking a shield spell. They were wearing hardened leather armor at a minimum. There was a lot of armor reinforced with steel studs. Irene didn’t see any of the plate armor that was just starting to appear in Chicago, but she didn’t think it was far behind. Christopher was standing outside a sparring area yelling advice at the two combatants.
“They look more skilled than before,” Irene observed. “Like they actually know how to swing a sword instead of just relying on magic to drag the blade in the right direction.” Christopher jumped a foot and turned to stare at her. Irene realized the don’t notice me spell on her was still active. She dismissed the spell with a quick wave.
“Irene,” Chris said to his sister, “I didn’t realize you were in the square.”
“I’m going to close the shop,” Irene said. “It isn’t making any money. I’d like to blame the violence, but sales dropped a while ago. I think I just saturated the square.”
“You sold too cheaply,” Chris told her. “I would have paid double for the pieces I purchased.”
“I thought you lived in the inn,” Irene responded.
“No, I have too many children. I have an apartment up on the third floor,” Chris responded. He didn’t mention that three of those children were actually their sister Mary’s.
“The crystal is smaller,” Irene said. “When did that happen?” Chris looked back at the courtyard, fear flickered across his face.
“It shrinks when there is fighting. It is worse if someone dies,” Chris explained. “I don’t think Phillip believes me.”
“That is interesting,” Irene responded. “I wonder if that means Control doesn’t want us to fight, or if we just can’t fight from a safe zone. Chicago doesn’t have a crystal to lose.”
“They may not have a crystal, but without healing they have a lot more deaths. Most of our injured are saved,” Chris countered.
“But at what price?” Irene asked. Chris looked angry and refused to reply. “Not that long ago we all lived in a big metal can floating in the darkness of space. Isn’t there a common ground somewhere in our Earthen roots that we can build a peace from?”
“No,” Chris responded. He spoke the single word with a firm conviction. Irene sighed.
“Be careful, brother,” Irene said. “If the crystal disappears it will be far worse, remember even inn rooms will be wildspace.” Chris frowned. Irene hoped she made an impression. She turned away, intending to go back to her shop.
Halfway there she changed her mind and went up the stairs to find a cook selling lunch. She ended up at the same cook she bought from before.
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“I hoped you would come,” the cook said as soon as Irene stepped into the open doorway.
“What is it?” Irene asked. The cook turned the heat source she was cooking on off. She set down her spoon and wiped her hands on a small towel.
“He’s in the next apartment,” She led Irene back out of the improvised restaurant, closing the door behind them. She went down the hall to the next apartment and knocked. A young boy opened the door with caution. “It’s ok,” the cook told the boy, “I found Irene.”
The boy opened the door for them. Irene followed the cook into the apartment. Against the wall lying on a thin pallet was Anthony. He was too pale and sweating. A young girl sat beside him, trying to get him to drink water. Irene was across the room in an instant.
“What happened?” she demanded
“He took an imbued sword strike,” the cook replied. “His team got him back here, but he’s lost part of his sword hand, so they won’t heal him for free. They don’t think he can hold a sword again, so he has no value to them. We don’t have the money to buy a heal. I’ve heard if you live twenty four hours you’ll make it, but it’s been three days and he isn’t any better. I heard years ago you healed Rebecca’s little boy. Can you help him?”
“I was able to heal the little boy because his magic didn’t have color yet,” Irene responded. “Is Anthony’s magic really blue?” Irene asked. A lot of people with red magic in Londontown pretended to be blue. Red wouldn’t be a problem, but if Anthony was hiding another color like Irene, it could be. Irene kneeled beside her friend. The young girl backed away, giving her access.
“Yes,” the cook responded.
Irene cast. It was just a quick tier one heal to try and stabilize him. The warrior moaned and thrashed, throwing the light cover off himself. The action revealed nasty blood stained bandages around his body and a hand that was too small.
“He will need more food and water,” Irene requested. “I know of another spell that might help with the hand, but I haven’t mastered it. It might take me a couple hours to get it to cast. Do you want me to try?”
“It might fix his hand?” the cook asked. She knelt down beside Anthony and ran a soft hand across his forehead. “Yes,” she said, “please try.”
“You can’t tell anyone,” Irene said, suddenly remembering that she was in Londontown. “If it works or not.” Irene wasn’t certain it would work. In the time since she found the tier four heal she considered what injuries a tier three heal couldn’t fix. Those injuries were candidates for what a tier four heal would. Missing limbs was one of those things, along with the diseases of age.
“I understand,” the cook said. She rose back up to her feet. “I’ll go get both of you food.”
It took Irene three hours to successfully cast the tier four heal. She lost count of the actual number of tries, but if she figured a minute for each cast, it was at least 180. When the spell finally cast Anthony’s eyes rolled up into his head and he went limp. The first tier one heal stabilized him enough to allow his children to feed him in turns. He ate listlessly, but he swallowed. From his daughter’s happy reaction, Irene knew this was an improvement. His son was more reserved.
Irene cast the spell four more times before it worked again. Anthony’s response was much more muted, mostly just a twitch of his maimed hand. Irene unwrapped the hand and inspected the result.
His thumb, first two fingers and a chunk of hand structure were missing. It was true that with what remained he would never hold a sword in that hand again. The edges were all healed over with a smooth coating of baby skin. Irene suspected this wasn’t real skin but some kind of nanobot fake skin, put together in moments to close the wound. An extra pink line delineated between Anthony’s real skin and the nanobot fake. It was a good sign. It could be an indication that the missing hand and digits would grow back.
“Margot?” Anthony said in a weak voice. So, Irene thought to herself, the mysterious Margot was the cook.
“No,” Irene responded. “She went to work the dinner rush. It’s Irene.” She turned to the two children, “Can one of you go tell Margot we need dinner?”
“I’ll do it,” the boy said, jumping to his feet.
Anthony dragged himself up into a half sitting position with Irene’s help. The girl offered her father water when he started to cough. He reached for the flask then looked at his hand in horror when he caught sight of it.
“Drink,” Irene said encouragingly. “Dehydration is a real problem and will kill you even here.”
Margot came in behind the boy, carrying two heavily loaded planks. She took one look at Anthony sitting up and almost dropped the food. Irene stepped out of the way, as Margot tried to squeeze the life out of Anthony, under a shower of tears. Irene picked up one of the hastily discarded plates and started eating.
“Will he be ok?” Margot asked tearfully when she finally pulled away.
“Yes,” Irene replied. “The hand looks hopeful. It might regenerate. You need to keep him well fed and hydrated.”
“Did you heal me?” Anthony said in horror.
“Yes,” Irene said, “but don’t worry about it. I’m not a blue wizard and I’m not a red wizard either. Somehow I ended up as something in between. I think if I healed someone with magic my own shade it would be a problem. I ran into an archer far to the north whose magic was green. I couldn’t heal them at all.”
“Green?” Margot asked.
“Yeah,” Irene responded. “I think magic comes in many more colors than anyone has realized yet. I recently heard of someone with yellow magic. As I told you earlier, children don’t have any color at all. If we’d ended up with more mixed societies I think some of the pitfalls of healing could have been avoided.”
“Are you saying that reds can get healing addiction too?” Anthony asked.
“Yes, of course,” Irene responded. “They just need to be healed by a red wizard. There are a couple up in the north that are building empires very similar to the queen’s. I expect the way things are going one of them will show up in Chicago before very long and enslave the whole bunch of them.” Anthony looked stunned.
“I’ve always been jealous of reds because they don’t have the temptation,” he commented.
“No,” Irene said. “It is the queen that saved red magic users when she wouldn’t teach anyone else how to heal. It was her refusal to share that knowledge that kept the reds safe. Now that someone in the north has figured it out independently, the reds’ heal-free society is coming to an end.”
“Do you think that’s what’s happened?” Margot asked. “That a red healer in Chicago is driving all this violence?”
“No,” Irene responded. “Although with all the injuries among the reds the opportunity is only getting greater. I think our current conflict is just human greed and power games. Londontown and Chicago are the oldest and largest settlements. With all the children getting older, they started to spread and touched each other. The existing power structures in both settlements don’t want to lose any ground and they both want to grow.”
“Harry,” Anthony asked the boy, “where is your brother?” The mention of their children getting older made him realize his eldest son was missing. There was some talk of training the oldest children for the war effort. Anthony did not want to see his eldest child caught up in the fighting.
“He’s in the shop apartment, watching all the younger kids,” Margot replied for the young boy. “Harry and Jane have been taking care of you.” Anthony thanked both his children for their care and gave them hugs. Irene finished up her meal while the family was reunited.
“I would like to know if that hand regenerates,” Irene commented, before she left. “I don’t think it would be a good idea if I was here though if it happens. You be careful,” she said to Anthony. “I was forced to shut down my shop due to lack of sales. With the rising violence in the halls I don’t know when I will be back.”