Chapter 3

Being an invalid, I found, provided me time to think and more time to observe the strange interactions and sympathies between my fellow patients. One of the first anomalies was this thing they called ‘the noble spirit’ or ‘Espirit de Glorianna’. Later in the afternoon when I had to relieve myself, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and attempted to stand. I realized quickly it hadn’t just been a case of panic or disorientation before. Something was seriously wrong with my feet.

One of the other patient’s cries of alarm brought Nurse Jane running, and she cautiously inquired what I was doing. At this point I had staggered a few feet and was hanging off the foot rails of one of the metal beds looking something like a drunk raccoon. Using gestures as best I could, I indicated I needed to go outside. Not even dogs go where they lay; I certainly wouldn’t, even though some of the patients tried to explain the cooking pots next to each bed to me. I thought I could just walk to the wood line and do my usual squat until Nurse Jane explained that would be quite impossible.

“Oh deary! I hadn’t said anything yet because I didn’t want to alarm you,” she took a breath staring intently at me. “I’m afraid your poor toesies suffered a bit of frostbite, and you’ve lost your pinkie toes on each foot as well as the fourth one on your left.”

I blinked.

“Oh, is that all?” I nodded to myself. Yes, that made sense. I’d done all I could, but casualties were to be expected. “Well, Lorus use stick.”

“What?” Nurse Jane looked to where I was pointing to a stick with a large tassel on the end.

“Lorus use stick. Seen elders do it. Lorus go out.”

I figured if the old goats of the Ayfortees and plainsmen bent crooked as yew trees were still hopping around with just their canes and walking sticks, there was no reason I couldn’t do the same. In between sniffles and “oh you poor dear!” one of the other nursing help brought in the strangest contraption ever. It was a wicker chair with wooden wheels and a push bar in the back. I took one look at it and nervously began limping away even faster. There was no way they were getting me to ride in that thing. As much as she might claim to admire my tenacity, however, Nurse Jane was much more adamant about me avoiding invisible things called ‘germs’, which she claimed were all over the ground and would somehow climb into my feet and make them go bad if I walked on it.

I assured her as best I could that I would watch my feet very well, and after all the bandages on them, I wasn’t sure how any germ thing could wiggle in there to begin with. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t spent my whole life barefoot anyway. I considered telling her about the many times I’d had the bottom of my feet whipped by the Plainsmen for running or when I had my feet broken by the Roadies for the same reason, but each new injury I revealed only seemed to make her more determined I was to be treated like egg shell. It was either her way, or I would have to pee myself in the middle of the room.

As tempting as the thought was just to get a point across, I did not think it would endear me to their company. With as much dignity as I could muster, I allowed myself to be lifted into the wheeled-chair and carted like a child to the washroom.

After a few days of dealing with this and other oddities, like daily baths, nail trimming, and my favorite, hair brushing, they deemed me fit to attend ‘lessons’. This I had eagerly anticipated and even asked the other patients to tell me about, much to their delight. I had never heard of a people or tribe so willing to give away the secrets of their society let alone one that demanded new inductees choose and petition for their right to be part of the serving class.

In between naps and rounds of gorging myself on bread and greens, I allowed myself to be filled in on the workings of the city. All this hubbub, and it was just one city! It turned out that my fellow patients were not ‘New Castelians’, or just “Castelians’ as they were often referred to, either. The place we were being held currently was a quarantine and naturalization camp, though most called it Purgatory. Everyone else here was from a place around New Castle but not part of it called The Shoals, or they were “rescues”, like me.

Of all the rescues that came through, one had been there for so long, she practically lived in Purgatory. Raikan was a sun or two older than me and seemed initially curious. I pretended to be asleep each time she came by to look at me. I worried that she might be jealous of the attention I received, but it seemed I slept so much and was generally out of the way that she deemed it easier just to ignore me. Raikan had been the previous “wild child”, and she and Nurse Jane seemed to have a special connection. I seemed so docile, demur even, I apparently didn’t take nearly as much constant attention as the other girl.

The rest of the patients had all grown up around New Castle, and though degrees of enthusiasm varied, all of them undeniably loved their city that they did not belong to. It took me a little while to figure this out. They kindly explained the varying tiers of influence, what they knew of the city’s history, the relationship between the Cogs and Classes, and I nodded while trying not to fall asleep. It was the mention of the Thaumaturges that finally put the pieces together for me.

“Take those poor little toes of yours, Lorus,” the boy in the bed next to mine pointed. “It’s hard wobbling around without the balance they help with, right? Well, a good Thaumaturge could not only make you a shoe to slip over that to compensate, he-“

“Or she!” a red-headed girl on the opposite aisle interjected.

He sighed, “Or she, although girls are mostly alchemists.” He stared pointedly at red-haired girl who just stuck out her tongue.

“Anyways," he continued, “A good thaumaturge could not just make a shoe, but he or she could make mechanical toes or even a whole foot!”

“Make? From what?” I asked. I had seen a man on the shores of white birds once with everything below the knee on his right leg replaced with a wooden stump.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

The boy grinned, making his green eyes light up in a very charming manner.

“From Thaumagturgic steel of course. They forge it in the big furnaces in each ward university. You know? The big lights over the city? Thirteen in all? Makes it look like a big birthday cake?”

I stared at him trying to figure out the series of words I had just heard but had no idea what they meant. He looked across the aisle at the red-head who sighed and rolled her eyes.

“She hasn’t even been out of the hospital tent yet, Moron.”

I looked back at him as he sat there scowling.

“Moron?” That was an interesting name.

“What?” he looked up, surprised.

I put a hand on my chest, “Me Lorus,” I then pointed at him, “You Moron?”

“Aggggh! Beka, now you’ve confused her!” Moron shouted at red-haired Beka who was cracking up so much I thought she might roll out of bed.

Moron shook his head in frustration and mimicked my gesture.

“No, no, no. You Lorus, I am Finnias Treadgold Wiglaf the Ninth from the Arsenal Shoals. I’m only in here because someone would not cover her mouth when she sneezed,” he glared accusingly.

Beka tossed her head, “I was elbows deep in my Leidenfrost engine! You think I was going to take my hand off the crank just to smear it in snot?”

“You should have turned your head!” Fini Treadgus Wig…Moron shouted back. “You didn’t need to sneeze in my face!”

I decided it was a good time to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep. I had plenty to consider. The Roadies had never mentioned New Castle nor the Castelians, something I found interesting, considering this seemed to be a resource with not only able mechanics but the means to manufacture metal. Perhaps that was the point though.

The Roadies had a comfortable migration path following not only the path of wild herds and fowl but also weaker tribes who didn’t have access to grancestor motors or technology. It took a lot to keep the pack of Harlies running, most of it dangerous distilleries and meddling with fire. That’s why slaves and bone-chewers like me were both despised and needed. Why risk blowing up an able bodied warrior with the volatile task of lighting a fire when you could buy or kidnap someone else to do it? For the record, I had gotten pretty good at fire starting, only blowing off my eyebrows twice. I had seen one poor bone-chewer with a face that looked like candle wax. Apparently, her minders thought it was much funnier to watch her run screaming around camp with her head on fire rather than put her out.

The New Castelians seemed to have very strict rules on violence and punishment though. It didn’t seem they would tolerate that sort of treatment, even to their dredges. Heck, even the Cogs got three meals a day and a stipend for Brew, an alcohol for drinking not for running engines. Apparently, they had a whole different distilling process for what their machines ran off of. No, the Roadies would not like that sort of competition at all. The fact that New Castle’s existence had been omitted from lore or conversation, even when the city was so close to the migration road could mean just one thing. At some point the Roadies had challenged the Castelians and lost. Just the thought sent my heart racing again.

It was about then I felt someone’s eyes on me. I peeked back out from under the blanket. Standing at the edge of the room was black-haired girl. She was there with white-eyed, Colonel Whittaker. The two of them were talking in low whispers with Whittaker gesturing commandingly in my direction. Tossing her head in irritation black-haired girl suddenly turned and marched across the room. Roughly she grabbed my blanket and tossed it back, issuing an unhappy cry from me.

“Steady there, Lynwood!” Whittaker snapped. “The poor thing’s near traumatized. By your hasty actions no less. Not sure how the RCFers would take to that sort of conduct.”

Black-haired girl, Lynnwood put her hands on her hips and glared at me. I wanted nothing more than to fling my pillow in her face and scream that it was her fault I was here in the first place. If she felt so badly about it she could pay the wereguild herself. I wouldn’t mind taking either her blood or her coin, uppity wretch. What warrior drops her weapon for a bag and then shoots the wrong person? I sincerely hoped she wasn’t a representation of New Castle’s defenses. Instead of snarling though, I did pick up my pillow and cradled it to my chest, squeezing it to my face so she couldn’t see my bared teeth.

After a few moments she simply said, “Maybe,” then turned on her heels and left, the Colonel sighed and followed behind.

I had no idea what that was about. I was still puzzling over it when Nurse Jane said I was stable enough to go to lessons. It seemed Moron and Beka were feeling well enough as well that they were to be sent over too. Moron was to push my chair, and Beka was going to attend lessons. It seemed that although she too belonged to Moron’s village, which at some point was planning to petition for raising to Ward status, she had far bigger, more immediate plans than waiting around. She was attending lessons to petition to become a citizen and then take the placing exam to become a Thaumaturge.

My two escorts bickered constantly between the two of them about the merits of attending the Thaumaturgic university versus attending school and having one’s own shop in the village. Much of it seemed to come down to autonomy over work. When one went to the university, one had access to all its tools, resources, and libraries, whatever those were. However, one also periodically received jobs and work that the university expected completed in a timely basis. It was possible to be so loaded up with tasks from the university, one never got to work on one’s own inventions at all. This was Moron’s argument. On the other hand, there was only so far one could go on scraps, re-forges, and the second hand anecdotes of village elders. To advance beyond the limits of technology, one had to know just how far technology could go, and only the university Thaumaturges knew that. This was Beka’s argument.

I’m pretty sure both of them had completely forgotten I was there. And neither, I am fairly sure, expected that I could follow their conversation either. It made sense to me however. Of course there would be both benefits and draw backs to New Castle. As enthusiastic as the Shoalians were, no place could be as perfect as they painted it to be. I will admit, I was very caught up in their discussion even though they kept using words and phrases like “retrochronofantic library” or “systematic pedagogy” or “holiday”. There were still a few fuzzy spots in my vocabulary.

Thus, it wasn’t until Moron said, “Oh hey! Not cricket, mate!” and my wheeling chair suddenly veered off the path and cut across the yard towards a cluster of housing buildings, that I realized something was amiss.

“No worries, friend!” Gimlet yelled over his shoulder. “I’ve been looking for this one! Thanks for taking such nice care of her for me!”

I shrank down in the chair and pulled my legs up under the cover blanket they gave me as Gimlet leaned over the back and whispered in my ear:

“Hello there, Bright Eyes. Miss me?”