Scion of Cyador

CLVIII

Ciesrt holds Myryan’s arm as they climb the steps to the second level of the dwelling. His steps are so quick he is almost dragging her slight frame. “Please hurry…. please…”

“I won’t be much help…not if I can’t breathe when I get there.” Myryan’s voice is low.

“I told you. Don’t you understand?” Ciesrt slows his climb to match her steps. “Father needs a healer…and you are one of the best.”

“You told me that.”

“A bravo attacked him coming back from the Quarter tonight,” Ciesrt explains. “He must have had an iron blade…or something.” He says nothing more, and they walk, silently, the last cubits up the steps and across the portico to the study.

Slightly behind her consort, Myryan follows Ciesrt into the lamplit study.

Kharl is half seated, half slumped, lying back in an armchair, his feet on a stool. His face is flour-white, and his breathing is fast and shallow, almost panting. His tunic and undertunic have been removed, and his chest would be bare, saving that it is covered with a blanket, except for his left shoulder and arm. His green eyes are open, and fierce, even as his form convulses into another shudder.

A woman in white, Kharl’s consort, places a damp cloth across the forehead of the magus, and another across the shoulder and the arm.

“The iron…Mother removed it as soon as he got here, but she has not your skill,” Ciesrt explains.

The new First Magus says nothing as Myryan bends and moves the cold damp cloth to inspect the wound. Her fingers brush his skin momentarily. Red lines spread from a small wound, no larger than a thumb, in his left upper arm just below the top of his shoulder. Heat radiates from the entire arm and shoulder.

“Well…” The normally smooth and modulated voice is raw.

“It is ferric poisoning.” Myryan’s face is drawn. “It is well along, but I think I can do something about it.”

“If you would…” Ciesrt says.

“Quickly,” rasps Kharl.

Myryan touches the skin of the magus once more, lightly. She winces, murmuring. “Order-spelled iron.”

“…would be…” mutters Kharl.

Myryan seats herself on the stool that Ciesrt has drawn from somewhere for her. A cloud of unseen darkness rises from the healer and gathers about the wound. The air within a quarter of a cubit of the center of the wound sparkles, as if tiny points of order and chaos collide in miniature firebolts.

All eyes in the study are upon the sparkling, and none notice the second veil of darkness that wells from the healer and slips into the ailing magus.

Myryan shivers on the stool, and Ciesrt must steady her.

“Better…” says the First Magus. “…can feel it already.”

“You’re wonderful,” Ciesrt tells Myryan. “No one could do that but you.”

The faintest of smiles appears and vanishes before she speaks. “I’m sorry.” Her head turns slowly to Ciesrt, as if it is a tremendous effort. “I can do no more, and…I must rest.”

“She is a good consort, son. Have her rest.” Kharl says.

She offers a wan smile in return. Her face is pale, and she leans on Ciesrt, as she steps from the study.

Behind her, the green eyes of the Second Magus are cold on her back.