Healing House

Taylor slipped into Healing House in simple disciple attire, typical brigandine over a light robe with his bronze sword at his waist and a holy symbol fastened to the breast. It was easier to get around the city without vestments or finery, as people were less inclined to pay homage, ask for blessings, or demand news. He even scrubbed the color from his face, for his patients' sakes: they wouldn't mind being treated by a man, unlike most Calique, but they'd feel more comfortable if he didn't look so thoroughly 'native'.

Otavio and Milo waited outside the clinic to avoid disrupting the patients. Taylor took over an examination room and summoned the four disciples on duty, all women, plus J'anan, who kept quietly to herself in a corner. Calique were rigid about their gender roles, so Nexus only sent women to heal in the gardens. It felt strange to be in a room with so many Nexus disciples whom he barely knew and hadn't personally trained. They were all Gallian defectors and even the youngest had several years of healing experience.

Mother and son were shown inside together. Nada could walk with help, but her son had to be wheeled in on a chair. Ali was as tall as Taylor but was so thinned by his condition he likely weighed half as much. They were nervous to be seen by so many healers at once.

Taylor made introductions and asked the usual questions. How do you feel? When did it start? Did anything memorable happen before you fell ill the first time? He went down the list of symptoms, and Nada and Ali answered promptly. They had been examined many times before.

"Give me your hand, Ali. Let's take a look at you." Taylor took the youth's hand, as thin as a dying old man's, and sent his mind questing through his body. Damaged organs, ravaged bone marrow, and intestinal tumors were his most immediate problems. It was a familiar set of symptoms, one he'd many times, in another life: Radiation poisoning. Nada and Ali had probably been dosed over time rather than all at once.

All the other healers had seen the same thing, but none of them knew of a reasonable cause. They didn't know about DNA, much less that it could be damaged. Thanks to Taylor's recent "invention" of the microscope, they knew about cells and had looked at some through a lens as part of their Nexus training. So, they at least had a good starting point.

"Inside the nucleus of a cell lies instructions for making new cells," Taylor began, "and when a cell multiplies, it makes a copy of the instructions for the new cell. These instructions are called genes, and the study of genetics is a vast field unto itself." Two of the healers took notes on slate tablets, so nothing was lost. Taylor spied J'anan doing the same.

"Why haven't you written about this genetics?" asked the senior healer. "You've shared other parts of your otherworld knowledge."

"Dean Garsharp and I were working up to it. That's one reason I introduced the microscope, as a step in that direction. But then Enclave turned on us. Since then, we've been a little preoccupied with other things. Exile, Darkmaw, Kashmar's army … little stuff like that." Grim smiles bloomed around him. Survival came first.

"One thing to know about genes is they can be damaged. It's unusual but far from impossible. Our patients today are from Sesimbra, where they were exposed to a type of energy that penetrates the skin, often without visible injury, but damages organs and their genes. There's a chance that some of these cells will reproduce abnormally and become tumors. The rest will die off over the months or years of their usual lifecycle and ultimately be replaced by healthy cells. If the damage is not too severe, the patient slowly gets better."

The lead healer's eyes widened just a little. It wasn't good practice to show too much surprise in front of the patient. "We've been healing the cells with broken genes when we should have been excising them like tumors. Our treatments have encouraged the bad cells to multiply."

"The cure fosters the disease," murmured another.

"You'll join spirit with me one at a time, and I'll show you how to find and lance the bad cells. You won't feel anything," Taylor assured his patients, "you'll just be more tired than usual afterward. We'll treat you in small stages every few days. In a month, you'll be begging to leave."

"About this energy," asked the youngest healer, "is it some kind of light …"

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"That topic is forbidden." J'anan shook her head at the healers. "You must not ask."

"We're going to respect the taboo," Taylor told them while staring meaningfully at J'anan, "for now. It's a topic we'll have to revisit after Enclave is dealt with." J'anan looked like she wanted to disagree, but kept it to herself.

For the next hour, Taylor guided them until he was sure they could handle the procedure. Between their former years of experience as healers and their recent Nexus training, they didn't require much hand-holding. The senior healer made a plan to ensure everyone on her staff would learn the technique before Nada and her son were well enough to leave. Most of the recent defectors seemed well above average, leaving Taylor to wonder if recruit quality would drop as they cut deeper into Enclave's ranks. For now, Nexus seemed to get the better half of the old church's practitioner corps.

With the day's treatment done, Taylor sent the healers away, leaving just himself and J'anan with the patients.

"I need you for just a few more minutes, and then you can rest. What we're going to talk about is forbidden knowledge to Calique and Enclave, so you can't repeat this conversation to anyone, understand? We wouldn't even be having this conversation, but we need to make sure there isn't a threat to the entire region." J'anan's face paled.

"I'm going to show you some pictures. They're not very well done, but look at each one and tell me if you've seen something like it, or you've heard of something like it. Okay?"

Mother and son agreed, and Taylor started to show them Harrence's drawings of the ancient installation hidden inside Red Tower. Harrence had a way of scouting through solid stone, which let him investigate without unsealing the structure. It was the only safe way to peer into it for now, as the interior was filled with inert gas capable of suffocating everyone if it wasn't vented properly. For now, Nexus was leaving the vessel sealed.

None of the pictures meant anything to Nada, but Ali picked out a few as being similar to what he'd seen, working deep inside King Frenzio's base. "This one is exactly like Sesimbra." Ali pulled the image closer to him: a large translucent mass, as tall as three men, with a network of cracks running throughout its body. There was an ovoid shadow in the center. "We called it the Rock. His Highness made us break pieces off of it. It looks like it would break, but it's incredibly tough. At first, we tried picks, then hammers and chisles. Someone figured out they could use fine-toothed saws covered in abrasives, the kind they use for polishing gems. After that, we would quarry a few pieces every day, about this big." He held up a fist. "I don't know what happened to the pieces. They all went somewhere else."

"How deep did you go?"

"We cut about half of it, eventually. A lot of people were sick by then. Frenzio decided it was that thing's fault, and he shut down the project. I heard they dumped all the pieces into the pit."

"Did the area change, as you mined more of the Rock?"

Ali shook his head. "I don't understand."

"Did the room grow noticeably hotter? Or brighter? Were there strange shadows? Did people mysteriously go missing?"

"No, nothing like that! Can that happen?"

"What's at the bottom of the pit, where all the pieces went?"

"Nothing. It just ends. The ground is different down there, something older than the mountain. That's what they say, but I never spoke to anyone who was down there."

"When you went home after work, did you take any precautions?"

"Precautions?"

"Did you change clothes, or take a bath?"

"No. Why would I? I just went home at the end of my shift."

And spread the dust all over your home, and got your mother sick, thought Taylor.

"Can I see everything you've brought with you? I want to make sure bits of that rock aren't hiding in your bags. I don't have to unpack it all. Just show me where it is."

"Yeah, sure." Taylor summoned attendants to help with Nada and carry Ali's chair up a flight of stairs with him still in it. The ward was a long room with fifty beds, fewer than half of which were occupied. Most people there were simply resting after a session, and wouldn't stay longer than a night. A handful were too weak to leave, or they were having limbs regrown and needed frequent attention.

Ali and his mother had two beds and a partition, with a couple of packs and one rough sack to hold the sum of their possessions. There was no sign of radiation, not from a detection prayer or through the enchanted goggles he'd brought along for the purpose. Taylor pronounced their belongings clean, accepted Ali and Nada's thanks, and left their care to the healers. Without anything to obviously mark him, Taylor was able to slip in and out of the ward with little more than curious glances from the patients. Today, he was just another disciple.

"We're going to see the keepers," J'anan told him while glancing back at Taylor's guards, who had fallen in behind them, "they can follow, but they have to wait at the door." Her face was set in a blank expression, which told him the tabla was hiding her emotions.

"I'm just trying to protect people, J'anan. There's no reason to be so angry."

"You know things you haven't shared!" she whispered, not wanting to include passersby in their conversation.

"How can I, when we're not allowed to talk about such things?" he whispered back. "Don't blame me because I followed your rules. Maybe you should have asked. I assume Rigieta is one of these keepers. How many are there?"

Taylor could practically see the words it is forbidden forming in her head, but she thought better of it. "You will have a chance to ask questions soon."