The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [59]
“Am I dying?”
“Yes.” In the beginning, Telev had offered hope to any who needed it. False hope. Most of the patients had died, as had those who mourned them. He had no strength left for telling untruths.
Evalla managed a weak smile. “I haven’t paid my reckoning, Healer.”
“You’re in luck. Our collector is out sick today.”
Shaav did not react to their words; he was too intent on salvaging crumbs. He had keened loudly when his mother died last month and railed at the death of his young sister soon after, then watched in silence as his father, two brothers, and a cousin were carried to the kilns in rapid succession. He took meticulous care of his sworn consort, but he talked very little these days.
As Telev rose back to his feet, an old woman scurried down the central aisle of the ward. She spotted him immediately, the only standing figure in a sea of recumbent forms.
“I need a bed for my son,” she demanded in a voice that was loud enough to rise above the moans and cries of the sick.
The healer pointed toward the dead Assan.
True, there would be no time to change the laying cloths, but then Telev doubted there were any clean ones to be had. “If you dispose of the former occupant, that place is yours.”
“Fair trade,” she said with satisfaction, and scurried away to summon assistance in the chore.
A new patient.
And when he was done with this one, there would be another one, and yet another after that as the dead were carried away and the dying took their place. So much to be done but so little that he could do.
Telev fled the ward.
All available rooms, even those that had once served as studies and bedrooms for the healers, had been turned over to the care of the sick. Nonetheless, he had managed to keep one small closet reserved for his own use as a refuge. There was just enough space for a narrow cot, but he had given that up yesterday, along with the last of his extra shirts. All that remained was a hard pallet on the floor. The supplies that had been stored here were also gone.
Except for a canister of talla bark. It had no medicinal value and normally just was used to fill the stomach before a purge, nonetheless he still experienced a sharp pang of guilt for hoarding it away from others.
Telev opened the canister and measured out a small quantity of the dry flakes into the cup of steaming water he had snatched off a passing soup wagon. After a minute of steeping, too impatient to wait any longer, he eagerly sipped the hot brew.
Ah, that brings warmth back to my chilled …
Yes, his hands were cold and the air, so balmy for the last few weeks, seemed unusually biting tonight.
So be it. Even healers must die.
He took another gulp of the bark potion. It was a poor substitute for tea, but it was the only indulgence left to him. If only this were srjula that he held in his hands, but the wealthy merchants had fled the city at the first news of the spreading plague. If there was any tea left in Andor, it was locked in warehouses awaiting the return of owners and customers with the money to pay for their merchandise.
I’ll probably never taste srjula again.
A small window in the outside wall of the closet afforded a view of the city below, bathed in the orange light of the setting sun. He leaned his forehead against the glass and searched for signs of life people walking in the streets, lights springing up in houses, or even just the flutter of newly washed clothes hanging out to dry. Here and there he caught some reassuring indication that survivors endured, but they were very few in a city that once held a half million inhabitants.
He scanned the horizon as well, looking for the trails of smoke that had curled around the mountaintops for the past few days, but they seemed to have finally dissipated. Rumors of vast fires beyond the ridge were impossible to confirm.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The rapping on the door was soft with apology.
Telev crossed the room in two steps and peered out into the corridor. “What is it, Sathev?