The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (howl and other poems TXT) 📗

and had developed more of a sense for waterfolk moods than the average human. Altiensarn didn’t obviously panic, whether that was natural or a habit learned by being a large furred being with a tentacled face among humans who tended to misinterpret sudden movements. All of his tentacles went still, though, and beneath them his voice, deeper than the usual chirping rumble, clicked out a series of sounds that Zelen would’ve wagered were prayer or profanity.

“More or less, yes,” he said. “There was a woman—military envoy from Criwath. She didn’t get much chance to describe the situation, but it sounds as though things there are in a damned bad state.”

“As would only be natural,” said Altien. The outer two of his tentacles waved slowly, and then he said, “But you and I can only tend our own sections of the reef. Does this news put different tasks in front of us?”

“No.” Zelen gave his partner a nod of acknowledgment as he sank into his chair and started taking off his doublet. “How has the afternoon been?”

“Relatively calm. We had one elderly man with a cut leg, three pregnancies to inspect and one to end—”

“Ourselves, or did we have to send them to the Mourners?”

“The woman wasn’t far advanced. Herbs and supervision sufficed.”

“Thank the gods.” Letar’s power could stop growth in the womb, but, as when it stopped any other growth, it was difficult for the host to endure—and ending a pregnancy so far gone was usually an emotional affair. That day, of all days, Zelen didn’t want to make the journey to the Threadcutter’s Temple to check on a patient. “Sorry, please continue.”

“A young man had a stomach illness that might easily have been bad meat or good wine, and there’s a child with a fractured arm in the chamber of rest. She came in perhaps ten minutes ago. I gave her dragon-eye syrup and was waiting on you, as you know my opinion regarding human bones.”

“Ludicrous unbendy mysteries, yes.” Zelen undid the final button of his doublet and pulled on a plain linen smock to match Altien’s, the thick fabric blessedly warm. He did what he could for the clinic, with fires and the help of an elderly wizard who could be bribed with court gossip, but it was always colder than the palace, which said much.

“I believe ‘inflexible’ was my term.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll take better notes next time,” said Zelen. Passing his partner, who’d poured his entire seven feet into a too-small chair, he took the left door out of their shared study.

The little room he entered was the warmest in the building, and he shut the door hastily behind him so it would stay that way. Inside, a narrow cot in front of a fire held a girl nine or ten years old, one arm in a neat sling. Despite his protests, Altien could manage some basic principles of human skeletons. She opened glassy hazel eyes at the sound of the door, but didn’t move.

“You,” said Zelen, “look like you’ve had a damnable time of it.”

She giggled, a good sign. It was hard to laugh when you were in overwhelming pain, and if she sounded a bit less than fully present, it meant the syrup was doing its work. “Mitri dared me to walk the roof,” she said, and wrinkled her nose. “And I can’t even get him back for it proper.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Zelen said, sitting down at his worktable. Altien had prepared all the essentials: straight lengths of wood, wide bandages, and a bowl of plaster. “My sisters would say, so long as you have your wits, you can take as much vengeance as you want. This next bit might hurt, I’m afraid—yell if you want. Altien’s heard worse, half of it from me.”

The arm was small and the break a thin one, the sort common in children. Zelen pressed, then pulled, picturing the lines that he knew by heart. The coiled muscles stretched, letting him draw the bones beneath straight and true. The girl gave several sobbing yelps, almost hiccups.

“That’s the worst of it,” he finally said, reaching for splints and bandages, “and you did sterling work. Here.” He passed a handkerchief toward her.

The child made a delighted sound—bright-red kerchiefs went excellently well with painkillers, Zelen had found—and mopped her eyes. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm. I’ve heard grown men yell like hunting dogs in full tongue for much less.”

“Huh!” she said, sounding obviously satisfied. Then, with the careless backtracking of children and those not quite with their wits about them, she added, “It’s not because of my arm I can’t get back at him; it’s because of his brother.”

“What about his brother?”

“Not around no more,” she said, the remnants of tears gradually leaving her voice as the memory of pain vanished and distraction occupied her. “Mitri’s mam thinks he was stolen away. My mam thinks he tumbled down a well someplace.”

Either was possible, Zelen absently thought, dipping and then wrapping cloth. The streets at Heliodar’s border were hazardous places for children, though accident was more likely than kidnapping. “I take it they’ve searched.”

“Oh, yes. My mam and da were out half last night.”

“Was that when he vanished?”

“So people noticed. When he didn’t come back for dinner,” said the girl. “Mitri says he bets Jaron ran off to sea, but who’d take him? He’s not but eleven and skinnier than me. But I don’t want to say it. Even if he did dare me. He didn’t mean for me to fall.”

“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders,” Zelen said, “whatever your arm might be doing just now. What’s your name?”

“Tanya. M’da’s Jan the Wheelwright, lives at the corner of Old King’s Road and Snakebend,” she said, with as much confidence as any baroness Zelen had ever heard announce herself.

“I’m sorry about your friend, Tanya, and your current misfortune.”

“Thanks,” she said. Zelen, absorbed in his work, couldn’t see her face, but there was a preparatory sort of silence about her. He half anticipated her next subject. “You