Nyasha felt herself to be floating. The man who had saved her life, Bron from Jalseion, led her through Averieom. She looked at everything they passed, but it seemed that she couldn’t truly see anything. The Well was a yawning emptiness, the generator building had been ripped apart from within, and shops on Capital Street were broken and hollow and burned. They passed people, too, but none of them spoke to her, and it was just as well. She didn’t think she would recognize their voices, their faces. Nothing seemed real.
Ahead was the Sanctuary, that small cluster of buildings that had taken all of her focus in the last year and a half. The student dormitories, the classrooms and labs. The clinic. She had pestered the doctors and nurses until they’d started giving her tasks, even though she wasn’t a student and would never be–her family could never afford tuition there, and she knew it. She hadn’t cared. It was the most interesting thing in Averieom, and therefore it was where she wanted to be.
Dr. Pemry said she worked harder than even the best and brightest student assistants, and if she wanted to work, she might as well, as long as she followed procedure. It helped that she had never asked for pay. She knew they thought of her almost as a mascot, the Sanctuary’s own little pet peasant. She hadn’t minded.
Strange that the lights outside the door weren’t lit, the two lamps on either side of the entrance, built into the brick facade. Those lights were always lit, even all through the night. Dr. Vame had called them a symbol of the Medical Sanctuary, a beacon never-failing. But they weren’t lit now, and it was strange.
Oh, yes. The Well. The Well was empty.
“What happened?” Nyasha whispered. Even her voice was strange. Bleak and blank and blistered.
Bron still had his arm around her. He hadn’t let her go since he’d pulled her out of the house. She was grateful. It was an anchoring, that touch, keeping her from floating off into nothing.
“We don’t know,” he said, and his voice was bleak and weary, too. “Come inside, child.”
Dr. Burdock met them just inside the door, clucking and fluttering and touching her face, then his, as if he had to check them both. “Oh, Nyasha, you poor thing, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry I never thought to ask after you, what on Lomara has happened to you? Come in, come in, let me see to you at once.”
Bron’s voice was a deep rumble above her head, explaining what had happened as Dr. Burdock folded Nyasha’s hand in both of his and led her to another room. She’d never been in an exam room as a patient. She had always been a healthy child, and any passing illnesses and minor injuries her mama dealt with at home.
Dr. Burdock didn’t put her on the exam table, even now. He set her in the padded chair they kept in the room for family members, then went to the tap to draw a tumbler of cold water. He was still tsking, appalled by Bron’s story. “Oh, that’s horrible. That’s horrible. I never dreamed.”
He stepped back over to Nyasha and put the tumbler in her hand, then folded her fingers around it when they didn’t seem to want to move on their own. His friendly young face bent near hers, watching gently as he lifted her hand, tumbler and all, to her mouth. “You must drink, my dear. Two days! That is entirely too long.”
The first sip tasted dusty, like plaster and heat and days trapped in the sunlight and the dark. Then the taste of water flooded her mouth, delicious, necessary, and Nyasha wrenched her hand from Dr. Burdock’s and tipped the cup upward. It overran the edges, down her chin, up her nose.
“Not so fast, not so fast!” Dr. Burdock grabbed it again and pulled it down, and Nyasha tightened her grip, panting. Desperate. “Shh, Nyasha, softly now. You mustn’t drink too fast. I’ll make sure you get plenty, don’t worry.”
She nodded, and he let her drink again, keeping his hand on the tumbler until she proved her compliance by continuing to drink in tiny sips. When she emptied it, he filled it again and gave it back, then sat on the stool facing her as she continued to drink. “Tell me, now, do you hurt anywhere? Were you injured in the collapse?”
Nyasha shook her head. “Scratches and bruises. I was lucky.”
“Yes. Yes.” Dr. Burdock paused for a moment, then said, very softly and sincerely, “I’m sorry for your loss, Nyasha.”
She blinked at him, unable to imagine why he had said that. He shook his head and smiled crookedly. “Later. We can talk about that later, if you like. No, I’d better look you over anyway. Then we’ll see about some food, all right?”
It was surreal, being on the other side of this procedure. She had observed a standard exam dozens of times and had even assisted when there had been a runaway coach several years ago and the clinic had been flooded with too many injured for the usual staff to deal with. It was much harder to answer the questions rather than ask them. He kept wanting to know what had happened, where she’d been trapped under the debris, what position she’d been lying in, if she’d been able to move at all, and many other things, and she just…
Nyasha’s breath started coming faster, and she looked around, head pounding, eyes darting uncontrollably. “Where’s Bron?” That touch was gone, that anchoring arm keeping her from floating off.
“Where…” Dr. Burdock stuttered to a halt and sat back. “I believe he stepped out so I could examine you privately.”
“Where is… No, I need…” Nyasha stood, not knowing why, and swayed and reached a hand up to touch her temple. Dusty. It was dusty, the grit scraping against her fingers, coating her skin. “I don’t… Doctor…”
Dr. Burdock stood, too, hands on her shoulders, and he was spouting more words. Then Bron stepped in toward her out of the haze, face grim. He reached out to her, a big hand on her back spanning her shoulder blades, and the world lurched into focus. Nyasha dragged in a breath and knew where she was again.
“I was just in the hall,” Bron said. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
Nyasha sat. Bron didn’t leave the room again until Dr. Burdock was done.
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