Dr. Burdock rounded a corner and found them standing just inside the back entrance, leaning on the wall. A man in his forties, looking near dead from exhaustion, and in his arms was a young woman. One of her arms was hooked around his neck, holding herself up, and the other arm…
The other arm was missing. As well as the opposite leg. Dr. Burdock blinked and, after that glance, returned his gaze to her face. Crippled patients did not like overlong attention given to their deformities.
Her face was sharp, grim, and pale with emotion. Her fist was knotted, her lips thin. “Put me down, Bron,” she said, words ground out like stones rubbing against each other. “I didn’t want you to carry me, and you’ve defied me long enough.”
“Not until the good doctor tells me where to put you,” he replied, unbothered by her cold anger. It was as if this was the normal state of affairs between them.
“I…” Dr. Burdock blinked again, then finally swept a hand toward an exam room. “Please, in here.”
Bron moved inside and set Calea Lisan on the wooden table, then stood beside her, almost at attention, though he did not have the bearing of a military man. Guide Lisan pressed her fist against the table she sat on, holding herself rigidly still. They were both keeping themselves upright by will alone, he could see that at a glance. They must have traveled through the night to get here.
Dr. Burdock moved to the cabinet against the opposite wall, ready to fetch whatever supplies were necessary. “What can I do for you, Guide Lisan? What are your injuries?”
“Calea will do,” she said, lips twisting bitterly. “There is nothing left of Jalseion worth Guiding. As for my injuries, are they not obvious? It would be just my luck to find myself, against my will, in the care of yet another man too stupid to see what’s in front of his face.”
He turned toward her, careful to keep his face still. He must be professional. She is Select. She has had the same horrible shock as me. “Please show me, Calea.”
Bron opened his mouth to speak, but she held up her hand, forestalling him. “They’re gone. No need to mention it. I mean this, of course,” she said to Dr. Burdock, with a thick hiss of air, and gestured sharply to where her other arm should have been. “I need new prosthetics. Mine were…taken from me.”
“Madam…Calea…this is far outside my expertise. Everyone else has gone to the city to help with the rescue efforts. If you will wait here in Averieom for a few days, the other doctors will eventually return, and Dr. Randle…”
“That’s not good enough.” The words were rapped out, abrupt. Calea paused and took a breath. “They need not be perfect. Once we get where we are going and I have magic available to me again, I will re-create my old ones.”
“Calea, the magic is gone.” He turned a sob into a laugh. “The Well here in Averieom…more of a pond, it was, really…it’s drained….”
Shock flashed on her face. He kept going, unable to stop. She understood; she had to understand. No one else did.
“I felt it. Didn’t you feel it? The wells are empty. The magic is gone. Not that I was ever any great shakes at magic, poor little Eman, washed out of the Academy, almost bottomed out the Falsan scale, but I could feel it. I could touch it. I could change the temperature of objects at will…. Such a useful skill, wouldn’t you agree? If you ever needed a hot flannel, or a cold one, Eman Burdock was your man. So, I became a doctor. But I felt it. I felt the virtue go out of the world. The wells are empty. We are cold and alone and barren once more….”
Pain flared across his face. Someone had slapped him. Startled, Eman opened his eyes and looked up. Bron held his shoulders in a firm, painful grip, staring steadily into his eyes. Telling him to be silent, to stop babbling, to find his courage and be a man.
Behind him, Calea’s white face stood out against the whitewashed wall. She looked about to faint.
Dr. Burdock pulled in a breath. “I’m sorry. Please forgive my disgraceful behavior.”
She nodded, once, and Bron released his shoulders and stood back.
Dr. Burdock raised his hands to his face, pulling himself together. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. I’m a generalist. I have never fashioned prosthetics.”
“Anything you could do would be helpful,” Bron said.
“I wouldn’t know where to start.” He paced away, waving a hand in the air to show the enormity of the task. “There would have to be measurements, mechanical tooling, a number of fittings. You’d have to stay here for several days while it was all worked out, and I don’t have the supplies to keep you. It’s dangerous here, anyway, perhaps especially for a Select from Jalseion. There is animosity in the people now, against the magic and magic-users who have failed them. And there could be vandals out there, brigands. It’s…”
He stopped. He was babbling again. He turned back to them, raising his chin. “It’s impossible.”
Calea snorted. “Impossible? You said you wouldn’t know where to start, then went on to list several steps. You obviously know something of the process.”
“Calea Lisan is one of the most promising Select of this generation,” Bron said. “She will be needed to figure out what happened and restore things to the way they were. You must help us.”
Dr. Burdock shook his head, even though they were making sense. If there was even a chance that Calea could fix this… Hope flared in his chest, as hard as he tried to shove it down. “Still…it’s too dangerous. The people…”
“I am a bodyguard of some skill,” Bron said. “I will keep you and this building safe until the prosthetics are finished. By then the unrest will have passed.”
That sounded far too optimistic to Dr. Burdock. But he found himself nodding along. “I… Yes, very well. I will do what I can.” This was why he was here, he reminded himself. Bron seemed like a very capable man. And a thin thread inside him latched on to the opportunity to share this empty place. It was too strange, being the only doctor in a campus of buildings that usually hummed with activity.
He turned away, mind running ahead to what he would need. “I’ll need to take measurements….” He sighed. “Too bad that little assistant isn’t here. She used to help Dr. Randle sometimes, but she hasn’t been in since the earthquake.”
“Assistant?” Bron’s hand was on his shoulder again, turning him around. “Who is she? She didn’t go to Jalseion?”
Dr. Burdock shook his head. “I haven’t seen her since… But everything has been disrupted, businesses, homes… I assume she and her family left, or else she surely would have come in. Nyasha loves working here. She’s helped all of us at various times.” He chuckled, hard, and it ripped at his chest. “She’s so young, not even an official student, but you know, she just started coming around here and wouldn’t leave, and eventually we started giving her jobs….”
“She can help,” Calea said. “She knows more than you.”
“On the subject of prosthetics, yes.”
“Tell me where she lives,” Bron asked. No, demanded. “I will fetch her.”
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