My pen scratched loudly in the shadowed examination room. I was the only person working on the floor. Two months ago, transients — and, unfortunately, General Droit — had killed seventy-two patients and thirteen staff members. The corpses were gone and the blood cleaned away, but the horror lingered. The hospital’s operating budget had been frozen and its board of directors disbanded. Most of the physicians who used to work in Blackstone were temporarily making house calls as they coordinated with the government to develop a new system of scattered treatment centers that would avoid accumulating a critical mass of pain and despair in any single place. Only a skeleton crew of physicians and orderlies remained to treat those patients who, for one reason or another, remained. And in the meantime, the poor and desperate, who had once benefited from having a teaching hospital in the city, were being turned away to die on the streets.
My eleven patients were among the few who had survived the transients’ attack. Imprisoned on the asylum floor of Blackstone Hospital, their locked doors had resisted the transients’ attempts to break through. After the attacks, nobody had known what to do with them — they’d had no families to claim them and their conditions were severe enough to discourage their placement in less secure facilities. My time was evenly divided between serving as a coroner in the basement morgue and volunteering as an alienist in the top-floor asylum.
I didn’t mind. As long as the government panel conducting the review left me to my own devices, I was free to neglect the hospital’s traditional regime of hydrotherapy and chains and pursue a more experimental approach to treating madness.
A warm wind gusted from the wall across the room. I cleaned my pen and set it aside as a line of sickly balelight spilled from a crack in the air that tore wider as I capped the ink bottle.
“Doctor Axton!” The words came out as a mangled hiss from jaws designed to rend rather than speak. Two bodies leaped through the crack in reality, which promptly sealed itself behind them. Claws skittered across the stone floor as the transients slid, off-balance, and careened into the table. Clicking and snapping devolved into giggling as the threads of bale that formed the transients’ carapaced bodies wisped away and vanished. Jack and Caro laughed as they lay sprawled on the floor.
“Are you all right?” I asked. Caro leaped to her feet and held out a hand to Jack, who took it to haul himself up with a grin.
“Yeah. But we didn’t find the cathedral,” he apologized, brushing dust off his Vigilance school uniform. “Or Far, either. The thing is, it’s really hard to find stuff over there. There aren’t any directions. Everyplace is here, and getting from here to there is impossible if you’re not sure where there is.”
“You sound like Far,” Caro scoffed. “But we created the school dorm, almost!”
“It wasn’t very good,” Jack amended. “And it collapsed while we were in it.”
“Well, that still sounds like an impressive accomplishment.” I stood, leaning on my crutches, but Caro and Jack were already pulling two chairs closer. I nodded gratefully and sat back down.
“The problem is, you’ve got to remember everything.” Caro sat, running her fingers through her hair and pulling it back into a loose knot. “The dorm had holes in it where we’d forgotten what things looked like, or whenever we didn’t know what was behind a door…”
“And if we lost our concentration, the halls bent or vanished — it was really freaky,” Jack agreed, sitting, then leaping back to his feet. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
“I can’t go there, Jack.”
“Sure you can,” Caro urged. “You’ve been there before.”
“I had Far’s city-construct around me then. Without that kind of context, I’d go balemad.” I was proud of myself for saying the words aloud without stammering.
“Well, obviously we can’t create a whole city,” Caro scowled, “but we could create — I don’t know —“
“A street?” Jack suggested.
“A carriage!” Caro grinned. “If you had a carriage around you, you could look out the window and still have a, uh, a construct to think about.”
“That’s an interesting idea,” I admitted, my fancy momentarily captured by the mental image of riding through hell like an aristocrat. “Point for creativity.”
“Let’s try!” Jack took a few steps away, looking ready to open another hole in the Line right there.
“But what if doesn’t work?” I added. “What would you do if I lost my mind across the Line?” I worked hard to keep my voice even as I spoke. I wanted to encourage them to consider the consequences of their actions, not reveal my personal phobias.
The two young sentinels looked at each other.
“We could cure you, the way you cured us?” Jack ventured, sitting down again. “Except … going balemad is probably different from being nixed?”
“I expect so. And I didn’t cure you — all five of you had already recovered your senses by the time we rescued you.”
“Because of Yzyrchye?” Caro asked, speaking the name in a hush.
I hesitated before answering.
“Possibly. I helped Director Jaspin recover, but I think simply crossing the Line might have been enough to start the process.” I paused again. “But yes, I think it’s likely that Yzyrchye helped … stabilize you, maybe. Make your minds more adaptable to the conditions across the Line.”
The two children glanced at each other.
“Is there any way to find out?” Jack asked.
“Are you going to be upset, if it did affect your minds in some way?”
They looked at each other again.
“I think we need to know,” Caro said. She wasn’t talking to me. “It’s better if we know, isn’t it?”
Jack nodded, although he looked apprehensive.
“I think, if he did, you might find scars right around here.” I touched my own temple to indicate the spot. The children’s hands rose to touch their heads. I watched them carefully as their fingers circled the small, pale scars that I already knew were there.
“What did it do to us?” Jack asked, his fingers buried in his short blond hair as he felt the marks. “How’d you know what to look for?”
“I believe — although I’m not positive — that when Yzyrchye put you inside its cocoons, it sent probes into your heads. It probably neutralized the effects of the drugs. It almost certainly taught you how to open the Line and manipulate bale in new ways.”
“Does that mean we’re evil?” Caro asked, standing.
“No. You’re not evil, and I might argue that Yzyrchye isn’t, either.”
“Can it control us?” she pressed, looking tense.
“No. Remember, Yzyrchye tempts, but it doesn’t coerce.”
“What does that mean?” Jack asked.
“It means you can only fall under Yzyrchye’s control if you want to.”
“But we were under its control,” he protested. His face was pale as he stepped closer to Caro. “It was keeping us prisoner….”
“You were all nixed, helpless, and frightened, and you woke up in Blackstone Hospital alone and chained to your beds. I don’t think Yzyrche took you prisoner. I think it drew you across the Line when it heard your calls for help because it considered you petitioners.” I fell silent a moment, thinking of the Banishat and my anatomized corpse and some very old research I had once conducted. “Does that make sense? If Yzyrchye thought you were calling it, it was acting according to its principles.”
“But we didn’t know what we were doing,” Jack argued.
“No, and you probably didn’t call Yzyrchye in particular — you just sent calls across the Line, and Yzyrchye noticed.”
“It was going to turn us into Hounds like Droit,” Caro said.
“Or some sort of communicant, possibly,” I agreed. “As it is, you escaped, but not before it taught you some very powerful but very dangerous skills. All five of you have a responsibility to consider how many of those skills you’re willing to teach others. Remember that some people would use your talents to hurt others.”
“Do you think Yzyrchye wants us to teach people what we know?” Jack nervously looked around the room. “To, I don’t know, spread evil?”
Probably not. What I thought was that Yzyrchye hadn’t planned for them to be rescued at all, although with the Sovereign of Hell, who could be certain?
“I don’t think humans ever have much luck guessing what Yzyrche wants,” I replied, instead.
“I wonder if we should have stayed, instead,” Caro said softly. “I wonder what else we would have learned.”
“You might want to talk to General Droit about that,” I suggested, trying not to be too alarmed by her words. “Ask him how he liked being Yzyrche’s Hound.”
She made a face but sat back down, which I took as a victory. Perhaps Droit had already said a few things to her about his experiences.
“Does — does everybody know it was inside our heads?” Jack asked, his voice rising with panic. I reached into my borrowed waistcoat for Aronson’s handkerchief.
“No. You and I don’t even know, for certain. We’re guessing, Jack.” Caro awkwardly put her arm around Jack’s shoulders as he visibly struggled not to start crying. He sat, pulling his chair closer to hers and leaning on her.
“It’s all right to feel overwhelmed,” I said, holding out the handerchief. Jack pulled his hand away, refusing to take it. “Whatever happened over there, you’ve been given a wonderful, frightening, extraordinary gift, and I think all five of you are strong enough and mature enough to make the right decisions about how to use it.”
“But what if we’re working for Yzyrchye and just don’t know?” Jack still sounded upset.
“When General Droit worked for Yzyrchye, he knew. I think you would, too.”
“Would — would the cardinal know?” Caro asked. “The one we’re looking for?”
“Cardinal Croix. Maybe.”
“Then — when we look for him again — will you come with us?” Caro squeezed Jack’s shoulder, and he drew in a deep breath, nodding. I sighed. Caro was fourteen and extremely self-reliant. For her to ask me to go with them meant something, and I’d disappoint her if I refused.
“If — if you need me there, then I’ll do what I can to go with you. But you have to understand what will happen. My … my mind won’t be able to handle it. Not without help. And I’m not going to be much help to you if I’m insane.” I struggled to hide my own rising trepidation. I needed to stay calm to keep them calm. “Far might be the only person — being — who can take me across the Line safely.”
“Then we’ll talk to Milka,” Caro said. “She can ask Far to help.”
“All right. It’s worth asking her what she thinks. But please — don’t talk to strangers about this. It could be dangerous to them and dangerous to you. You have a responsibility to consider the risks before you take action.”
“We will,” Jack said, drawing a shuddery breath. “But we have to tell our friends.” He touched his head again, then pulled his hand back.
“Of course. But please tell them this, too: In my professional judgment, none of you are being controlled or influenced by Yzyrchye in any way. If General Droit could walk away from Yzyrchye after serving it for over a decade, then you can certainly walk away after only a few hours.” Or days. Time didn’t have much meaning across the Line. And I was deliberately avoiding the issue of Yzyrchye actively trying to tempt Droit back.
“Should we ask General Droit if he wants to help us find the cardinal, too?” Caro asked.
“No.”
“Why?” She bridled a bit. I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my leg. I was trying to keep my use of laudanum to a minimum, but I was going to have to take another dose soon.
“He doesn’t know you can move back and forth across the Line, does he? And he doesn’t know I asked you to find Cardinal Croix.”
Caro gave me a skeptical look.
“And he’s mad at you.”
I flinched.
“Yes….”
“Why?”
“I’d rather not discuss it.”
“You want us to discuss it whenever we get mad at each other,” Jack pointed out.
“I don’t make you, though.”
“You do, too!”
I raised an eyebrow. I supposed it was possible we perceived the emphasis of my questions differently. I decided to deflect.
“Does it bother you that the general and I had an argument?”
They both gave that nonchalant adolescent shrug that meant ‘yes.’
“Well, we weren’t arguing about you,” I assured them. “General Droit and I are very different people, and it’s inevitable that we’ll disagree sometimes. You’ve seen him argue with Captain Lorencz, haven’t you? And with his cousin?”
“But you never argue with anyone,” Caro pointed out. “You’re the one who stops the arguments.”
“Obviously, I do argue, sometimes. And fight.” I touched my bandaged leg. “Arguing’s normal. The five of you argue with each other, don’t you?”
“Mostly only with Milka,” Jack said.
“You never disagree among yourselves?”
“Not over anything important.”
I wondered if that was true, and if so, why. Had Yzrychye altered them in less obvious ways? There might be a way to test —
“Besides,” Caro added. “we’re not in love with each other.”
Her words yanked me back into the present, and I gave her a startled look.
“D—Droit and I aren’t in love with each other, either,” I stammered.
“Liar.”
“I never lie.”
“Then, you like each other.” Caro rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
“There’s a — I — I’m not even sure that ‘like’ is accurate, at the moment.” I collected myself and gave her a stern look. “I told you, I don’t want to discuss this. It disturbs me to think that you’ve been watching me so closely.”
“Welcome to the club,” Jack said flippantly. “Everyone watches us all the time.”
I considered and discarded a number of objections and clarifications of our respective roles.
“I’m sorry that you feel that way,” I said at last. “What can I do to give you more privacy?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I know everybody’s curious about us. We don’t hate it. But it’s only fair that —”
“Hey! Hey, Axton!”
I jumped, surprised by the sudden noise. All three of us looked at each other, eyes wide. Then I picked up my crutches and stood, limping to the doorway.
“We’re in here, General,” I said, looking down the empty, shadowed hall and trying to keep my voice neutral.
“Who’s ‘we’?” Droit turned the corner, hands jammed into the pockets of his Watch greatcoat. I glanced over my shoulder. Caro and Jack were on their feet again, looking obscurely guilty.
“Caro, Jack and I. Could you wait until we finish our consultation?”
“It’s okay, we’re done.” Jack shouted, as he and Caro hurried toward the door. I shifted to let them pass, but Caro grabbed my sleeve and yanked me down to her level.
“Don’t fight with him!” she hissed into my ear.
“Certainly.” I straightened, mustering a weak smile, and held out my hand. “Thank you both for stopping by. We’ll talk again soon.”
The three of us shook hands, and they grabbed their coats and slipped past Droit.
“Bye, Doctor Axton! Bye, General Droit!” they shouted, throwing me transparently meaningful looks behind Droit’s back. The coach from the Vigilance would be waiting for them outside, ready to return them to the dormitory.
I waited for the sound of the front doors closing before I steeled myself to look up at Droit.