Lilith Saintcrow - The Red Plague Affair

“Nothing with faramide, either.” Vance whistled tunelessly, but did not turn. “Do not take your coja, Clare. It will accelerate the illness.”

What manner of deduction led you there, sir? But it was immaterial. Clare squinted a fraction more; his faculties seized upon the notations on the crumpled, torn farthing-paper. He could almost see Morris hunched at his table, scribbling, incoherent with excitement as whatever vengeful Muse or saint waited upon mad geniuses dropped the solution into his fevered, waiting brain.

“Aha,” he breathed. “ Ah .” The fit of coughing seized him, and when it was finished, he spat a globule of bright red. It splatted dully on the floor, but Clare was past caring. “Vance. Vance .”

“Filistune is also useless. I am here.”

“Here it is.” Clare forced his reluctant legs to straighten, pushing back the wooden chair with a scrape. “Here is the key. It is the alteration process. By God, man… by God…”

He did not have to finish. Vance was suddenly there, and the other mentath’s sweat was as candy-sweet as his own. Vance took in the scrawled notations with a single glance and shut his eyes, the tear filming down his shaven cheeks tinged with crimson. His own faculties would be working through the ramifications and deductions, and when he opened his eyes again Clare found that their gazes met and meshed with no trouble at all.

It was a moment of accord he could have shared with none other than a mentath.

“Muscovide. And not marrowe-jelly.” Vance nodded.

“We must have some method of separating—”

“—and an acidic base. Yes. Yes .” Vance’s fists knotted, and he made a short sharp gesture. As if he felt a throat between his fingers, and he wished to squeeze .

“It will take time to prepare, to break the chain of replication. But by God, man, we can halt this dreadful thing.”

“Then we must not stand about.” A series of wracking coughs seized Vance’s body, and he curled around them, shaking away Clare’s movement to help with an impatient violence. When he could draw breath again, he straightened, and another of those piercing looks passed between them.

“Indeed.” Clare suppressed the tickle in his own throat. With no further ado, he strode for the table and swept a working space clean with one of his trembling arms. We are in a footrace with Death. But perhaps we may gain a length or two.

It was a good thing she had not wasted her sorcerous force duelling with the absent Rudyard. She could not take her carriage, or even the smart new curricle, for Mikal was still at Ludovico’s bedside. Harthell the coachman paled at the thought of driving to the Collegia, though he was willing enough; no , she had told him, merely saddle the bay mare, properly, and be quick about it. None of the sidesaddle rubbish.

It meant she could not wear full mourning, but she suspected Eli would understand. And why mourn, when there was death aplenty lurking in the streets? Her least favourite riding habit, in a shade of brown most dowdy and with newly unfashionable mutton sleeves, at least had divided skirts. She could always turn it over to Catherine and Isobel for reworking; Catherine’s needle could no doubt change it into something exquisite.

None of her servants had so much as a cough. The likely reason, of course, was throbbing in Emma’s chest; a wyrm-heart Stone that granted life and immunity, extending out through the indenture collars. Such protection would not extend where it was most needed.

Mentaths did not indenture.

Wherever Llewellyn Gwynnfud, Earl Sellwyth, was, he was certainly sneering at her.

What would Llew say of this? But she could guess. And it would be nothing she could give credit to if she wished to retain her self-regard.

She gathered the reins, nodded to Harthell, and the bay clockhorse, shining and lovingly oiled, pranced restively. She was a fine creature, deep-chested and beautifully legged, her glossy hide seamlessly merging into russet metal and her hooves marvels of delicate filigreed power. Wilbur the spine-twisted stableboy darted forward to open the bailey gate, and the mare shot forward, hooves striking sparks from the cobbles. The gate clanged at her passage, rather like a mournful bell, and she was very glad Mikal had not come from Ludovico’s bedside.

The witchlight before her spat silvery sparks, but she need not have bothered with the warning of a sorcerer’s haste. Those on the streets, handkerchiefs clamped to their mouths, scattered as she cantered past, and the few carriages out and about in the Westron End were easily avoided. Those who could afford to stayed inside, those forced out of doors hurried furtively… and three of the scuttling pedestrians collapsed as she rode past, their limbs jerking in a deadly dance.

Morris, damn him, had wrought well.

Riding thus absorbed a great deal of her attention, but what remained circled the same few problems as a tongue would probe a sore tooth. They vied for her attention equally – Victrix, the Duchess and her hangman, the faceless sorcerer who had so generously left Morris’s notes and quite possibly injured Rudyard severely in the bargain, Clare’s flushed cheeks and sweating, fevered brow, Ludovico’s restless tossing, Mikal’s hypnotic swaying at the assassin’s bedside.

What am I to do? How may this be arranged satisfactorily?

For the first time in a very long while, Emma Bannon had precious little idea. Everything now depended on Clare… and on other factors she had little say in. For a sorceress used to resolving matters thoroughly, quietly, and above all, to her own liking, it was a d—d uncomfortable state of affairs.

Through moaning, fog-choked, eerily calm Londinium the sorceress rode, and she arrived at no conclusion.

As soon as the bay’s hooves touched down on the white pavers inside the Black Gate, Emma tasted the chaos and fear roiling through the Collegia’s sensitised fabric. The Great School shook, its white spires flushed with odd rainbow tints and its defences, invisible and barely visible, quivering with distress.

She took the most direct route to the Hall of Mending at a trot, and the Collegia servant who took her horse had a fever-bright glare and an oddly lumbering gait. Emma merely nodded and mounted the steps with a stride a trifle too free to be a lady’s, the great Doors opening creak-slowly. She nipped smartly between them, rather as if she were a student again…

… and plunged into a maelstrom.

The white pennants and hangings had been taken down, and the floor was splashed with scarlet. Cots lay in even rows, then jammed into corners, while Menders and their apprentices hurried from one to the next, seeking to dull the pain of sorcerers who lay twisting and screaming as their bodies warped under a double lash of disease and ætheric eruption. Bannon actually stepped back, almost blundering into a young apprentice who hissed “ Mind yourself!” and scrambled away, his arms full of bloody rags.

The low sinuous altarstone throbbed as well, flushed with pink as its energies, collected over generations, were now plumbed to aid in Mending.

It did not look as if it was doing much good. As she hurried down the central aisle, looking for a particular set of broad crippled shoulders, a lean hieromancer in his traditional blue jacket thrashed off a narrow cot and screamed a high piercing note of pain, and his body disintegrated under a wave of twisting irrationality. His flesh parted with sick ripping sounds, and the blood that spilled out crystallised into what looked like rubies, gem-bright droplets that chimed as they hit the floor.