The Shifter Part 8

"Yes, please."

He spooned it in and stirred. "No, dear, I don't need you for anything so cra.s.s," the enchanter continued, handing me my tea, then reaching for his own gla.s.s. "I need a Taker who can transcend the limits of pynvium."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It means to rise above-"

"I know what transcend transcend means, but what good is a Taker who can't get rid of her pain?" means, but what good is a Taker who can't get rid of her pain?"

"You misunderstand. I'm not concerned with getting rid of it, only shifting it." He grinned and sipped delicately. "Although I have more mundane requests we can discuss later, my most pressing need is for a client whose daughter was injured in last night's accident. The child is dying and the League can't help."

The twins' pained faces flashed through my mind, and I shuddered. "Then I can't do any better. Their Takers are trained Healers; I'm not."

"I didn't say they didn't want want to help. They to help. They can't can't help. They're out of pynvium." help. They're out of pynvium."

The gla.s.s slipped in my hand and tea spilled on my shirt. No pynvium? That was impossible! They had the huge Slab, big as a bale of hay. Something that big could hold the pain of hundreds....

"The ferry accident," I whispered. "They used it all up? How could they use it all up?"

"They're expecting more, but my clients can't wait for a new shipment to arrive. Their little girl will be dead by then."

Not just the child. How many had been injured last night? How many were injured every day? What would folks do if they knew healing was unavailable? Panic for sure, possibly even riot. Maybe worse than the food riots when the Duke's soldiers had first captured the marsh farms and tried to starve us into surrender.

Bile stung my throat. Was that why Tali wasn't on rounds? She'd been healing last night. What if she wasn't able to dump the pain before the Slab filled up?

"Merlaina?" The enchanter rapped his knuckles on the table. "The girl?"

"You...you have to have some pynvium left, right? Why can't your Takers help?"

He glanced at Jeatar and cleared his throat. "My pynvium shipment is also en route, delayed due to the Duke's recent interest in Verlatta. I don't have enough on hand for this kind of healing. Just a few sc.r.a.ps really, hardly good for anything but holding a few broken bones."

The cold tea I'd spilled on my shirt seeped through to my skin, but I was already chilled. That explained their secrecy and why they had kidnapped me. If folks thought I could help, they'd be on me like barnacles on a boat. Still, Jeatar could have been less scary about it. As long as he hadn't lied about getting information on Tali. "So they want me to heal their daughter and shift the pain to them until the League gets resupplied."

He laughed and my weak calm vanished. "Oh, no, dear, not at all. They have another another recipient for the pain in mind." He stood and motioned me up. I set my gla.s.s down on a table worth a year's earnings and followed. recipient for the pain in mind." He stood and motioned me up. I set my gla.s.s down on a table worth a year's earnings and followed.

We stepped into yet another room. A small, dark-haired girl lay on a table to one side, her limbs bent and b.l.o.o.d.y, her skin gray. Beside her, a silk-draped woman sobbed into the shoulder of a man dressed even finer than the enchanter. He looked up as we entered.

"That's her?" A flash of disgust rose above his despair. "Did she agree?"

An untidy blond man stood behind them, clutching a worn fisherman's cap in his hands. A weed in a vase of flowers.

Every street-honed instinct said I should run as fast as I could. Baseeri aristocrats didn't a.s.sociate with fishermen, not unless they wanted something they couldn't easily take. This man had only one thing to give.

"Dear, this lovely family is willing to pay you thirty oppas to heal their daughter and shift her pain to that man there."

Everything after "thirty oppas" was a little fuzzy. I could work six months straight and not earn that much. If I did this, I wouldn't have to worry about looking for work while I searched for Tali.

I glanced at the fisherman. Faded cap, faded pants, faded shirt. Were they paying him or forcing him to do this? "I don't know...."

"You told us she'd do this, Zertanik," the father cried.

Zertanik the enchanter held out his hands, bobbing them like he was putting out a fire. "Give her a moment-we did spring this on her. Dear, the child is dying. This is no time for waffling."

"She just wants more money. Fifty oppas."

I bet they heard my gulp in Verlatta. Fifty Fifty oppas! With that much I could oppas! With that much I could hire hire someone to look for Tali and have enough left over to last me months. Still..."I'm sorry, but this isn't right. He won't be able to work after I shift the pain." someone to look for Tali and have enough left over to last me months. Still..."I'm sorry, but this isn't right. He won't be able to work after I shift the pain."

"He's being well paid, dear," Zertanik murmured.

Maybe, but it felt all wrong, like they were buying us the same as any other sack of goods. "I have no idea what that much pain will do to him."

"But we do do know what it will do to know what it will do to her her" the mother wailed. The father hugged her, patting her back.

"You'd let our daughter die?" he said, glaring as if threats would convince me. The guilt was far more likely to.

For the love of Saint Saea, this wasn't my fault. It wasn't up to me who lived or died. I had my own family to take care of, and Tali was all I had left. "I'd do it if you two took some of her pain. Spread among three will be easier to bear until you can get a League Healer to heal it."

The mother cried out again, this time sounding horrified. The father looked at me like I had asked him to eat a live mudsnapper. "Us? We have important obligations to the Duke, young lady. Obligations we can't fulfill if we're bedridden."

A pinch of my guilt vanished. No wonder they thought their daughter's life was worth more than a fisherman's. Just like every other Baseeri aristocrat who'd thrown families out of their homes when the Duke's occupation began, ensuring we'd behave ourselves and not interrupt his flow of precious pynvium. Hard to rebel when you were scrambling for food. I folded my arms across my chest. "Sorry, the answer is no."

Voices exploded. The father yelled, the mother wailed, Zertanik hollered over everybody. For a moment, he succeeded in forcing calm, and a small voice rang clear in the room.

"Please? For me?" said the fisherman.

So much sadness in his words I almost cried. "You don't know what you're asking."

"I do. Please, miss, I lost my boat a few months back. I can't get work no more and my wife is carrying our fourth child." He tipped his head toward the parents. "They offered to pay our rent for a full year if I'd help them. My oldest boys have been sc.r.a.ping barnacles since they was six, so they can get work while I'm down. And they can fish, so we won't go hungry."

Saints no, I didn't want to do this again. "You could die."

He nodded. "I know. Either way my family has a year to get back on their feet. We could sure use that right now."

I looked at the dying child and her family. The enchanter and my fancy man. Jeatar looked hesitant, his unreadable eyes on the dying child; then he leaned over and whispered into Zertanik's ear. The enchanter's eyes flared wide for half a breath; then he nodded.

"Dear, if you do this, I'll ask my sources at the League about your sister. My contacts are very very influential." influential."

Five faces stared at me, all hopeful, but for different reasons.

"Please, miss," the fisherman said again in that soft voice.

He was trying to save his family. They were trying to save their daughter. I needed to save Tali. This wasn't so different from helping Danello and his family, was it?

My guts still said no, but fifty oppas! And I didn't even have to dodge crocodiles to get it.

I nodded, and the mother started sobbing again. I placed my hands on the child and tried not to think about the fisherman's chances. It was hard once I felt how injured she was. How injured he'd he'd feel once I healed her and shifted all that pain to him. It wasn't real injury anymore, but could so much pain kill? feel once I healed her and shifted all that pain to him. It wasn't real injury anymore, but could so much pain kill?

"You're sure?" I asked the fisherman. "This is"-I glanced at the parents-"bad."

"I'm sure."

I turned to Zertanik. "Do you have another cot or table?"

He flicked a hand at Jeatar, who slipped out and returned with a cheap vendor table like the shopkeeps used at the market.

"Put it next to her," I instructed, "with me in between. I'll need to do this at the same time." Though they didn't deserve the sparing, the fisherman did, and I didn't want to say the child was so injured that I didn't think I could hold her pain long enough to shift it. Some things folks were better off not knowing.

I put one hand on each, gritted my teeth, and drew drew. Agony raced into my arm, cut across my chest and down my other arm, faster than I'd drawn drawn, like it wanted out before something caught it. Bright specks flashed around my eyes, shifting to red, pale at first, then darkening, tinting the room. Then the pain poured into the fisherman, and nothing I tried would stop it.

Struggling to stay on my feet, I blocked out his screams and thought of Tali.

Jeatar set a damp cloth on my forehead while Morell mopped up my puke in the front hall. I'd almost gotten his shoes in my rush for the door, but that didn't make me feel any better. Jeatar had carried me to the couch after I'd emptied my stomach, and even lying down, I felt the room wobble.

"Feeling better?" he asked, real concern on his face. Morell glared at me, but he looked better, so there had to be a little pynvium somewhere if they were able to heal him.

"Some." The fisherman had finally stopped screaming. I'd tried to keep some of his pain, but it had poured through me fast as the Cyden River and I couldn't dam it. Closest I'd ever come to feeling death, and the poor man had to live with it now. Please, Saint Saea, let him live Please, Saint Saea, let him live. "What's going to happen to him?"

"Zertanik made arrangements to get him home. He'll be taken care of."

"He can't hold that much pain for long. Even if you only have a few pynvium items left, take some of it from him, please. It was so much worse than we thought. He can't take it." My stomach rolled again.

"Easy." He put a steadying hand on my shoulder, but I spotted doubt in his eyes. He masked it quick. "In a day or two the pynvium shipments will arrive and we'll buy the pain from him."

"How can you be sure the shipments are even going to get here?" He couldn't promise anything with Verlatta under siege.

Jeatar glanced at Zertanik's door. "He pays very close attention to those things. Don't worry, the fisherman will be fine."

He wouldn't be fine. Who could be fine with all that pain? Enough to kill a child, maybe enough to kill a man. I closed my eyes, but that made it easier to see his agony. I opened them again. This was all for Tali. I could stand it if I remembered that. "He'll ask his sources about Tali?"

"I'll make sure he does, I promise."

"When will you know something?"

"There's not a lot of information coming out of the League right now. Might take me a day or two to hear something."

Would the fisherman still be alive then? What had I done?

The door opened and the Duke's rich couple walked out, the sleeping little girl clutched in her mother's arms. The father reached into his pocket, then dropped a handful of coins on my chest. I flinched, but they didn't burn. They should have after what I'd done to earn them.

Ten oppas.

I sat up and they slid down into my lap. "You said fifty."

"You didn't help her for us-you did it for that man and for yourself. You're lucky I gave you anything at all." They stomped out of the building and slammed the door shut behind them.

Jeatar frowned in disgust. "They should have paid you double," he muttered.

"I have to get out of here." My shirt suddenly felt too small, keeping me from taking more than tiny, shallow breaths. I pocketed my coins quickly, not wanting to touch them longer than necessary. "Find me the instant you hear something about Tali."

"Where will you be?"

I hesitated. I had no home anymore. Would he even keep his promise, or would he trick me like the Baseeri had? "I'll find you. I'll come back every day."

He glanced again at the door to the fancy rooms. "No, don't come back here. Send in a note and I'll meet you somewhere. You pick."

"I will. I need to go."

"You should rest longer."

"I can't stay here."

Zertanik appeared as I started for the front door. "Well, dear, your att.i.tude was certainly uncalled for. Those people offered a fair price for a service only you can provide, and you treated them most terribly. I hope that doesn't happen next time."

Jeatar cleared his throat. "Sir, I don't think we should-"

"Nonsense, she's a natural."

My heart banged against my chest. "I'm not doing this ever again."

"Think of all the money you could make."

"Yeah, ten whole oppas." Papa used to say principles were a bargain at any price, and I'd sold mine for cheap.

He frowned and smoothed his sleeves. "Well, they were were a bit stingy there at the end when you refused to help. If you'd been more agreeable, I'm sure they would have paid more." a bit stingy there at the end when you refused to help. If you'd been more agreeable, I'm sure they would have paid more."

I grabbed the front door latch, but he s.n.a.t.c.hed my arm and stopped me.

"We have other clients willing to pay dearly for this service."

"No."

"You'd never go hungry again. You could get a place with your own washroom."

My old house flashed through my mind. A room of my own, two washrooms, rooms for eating and cooking and sitting by the fire reading. A yard out back, small but ours. Without Tali, without family? Meaningless.

How had I been stupid enough to think this was real healing? Real healers didn't hurt people. Ever. Blood rushed in my ears, but not loud enough to drown out the screams in my head. "I'm not doing this ever, ever again."

"Oh, I'm certain you will, my dear. Not a doubt in my mind." He smiled like a man who knew things I didn't.

I yanked my hand away and pushed out the door, running as fast as my quivering legs would go.