Tryal's Curse 20.0

Chapter Twenty:
To bid one 'Ague'~

One long train ride and an unfortunate carriage-crash later, Malkolm trudged past the gleaming gates into Durthnõt. The gatekeeper, upon seeing his considerably dirty—but still magnificent—Ixister robes, opened the gates for him without complaint. Malkolm headed straight for the castle, dragging his feet along the cobblestones and wondering dimly how long it would take for him to be authorised as Court Healer. He hoped it would be soon. He wasn't keen on running any more errands for Kelm's Meka ... especially not the kind of errands that constituted saving Elborn's stupid niece, anyway.

A slight sense of guilt tapered its way across Malkolm's conscience, but he shook it off. He had ‘parked’ the WAGON in a muddy ditch near Syti and made the journey to the train station on foot. Despite sleeping the entire way to Durthnõt, he felt about ready to collapse. His thoughts roved across his head as he made his sluggish way past the early-morning crowd of shoppers. Perhaps if he had been more awake, he would have been more perceptive of the stares that were being sent his way. But as it was, he barely noticed when a carriage came rattling down the walk until it was about to bowl him over.

‘Oi!’ a large man yelled at him, grabbing him by the arm and tugging him on to the pavement. Malkolm looked round abruptly, his neck jolting in a most uncomfortable manner. ‘Oof,’ he said, as his head missed colliding with the carriage by inches.

'Watch yer step there, son,' the man told Malkolm gruffly as he let go of his arm. 'Not that I blame you—that carriage shouldn't be on this road, anyway.' He nodded at Malkolm once, then, pulling the brim of his straw hat lower over his eyes, grinned. 'Say, aren't you that Ixister fellow that went flying up over the town yesterday? My grandkids were real excited—climbed all the way up on the roof to see that, they did.'

Malkolm grimaced and rubbed his neck. 'Yeah,' he said, 'I'm Ixister Malkolm. Er, thank you. For...' He motioned toward the carriage, which continued to rattle up the sloping walk, past the assortment of tiny shops—apothecaries, tanneries, armories, all clustered together on a side-road that everyone knew of, but not many people liked to use, despite it being the fastest way through town. Malkolm knew every inch of the city well—he had memorised maps of it during his days as a Sreya, so it was not difficult for him to get around.

The man patted Malkolm on the back before replying, 'Not a problem, son.' He frowned. 'That carriage shouldn't be here anyway,' he repeated. 'In a hurry, I bet. These royals do whatever they want. Although'—he lowered his voice conspiratorially, his mouth setting itself in a grim line—'it's not like Durthnõt's had that many royals o 'late.' Then his expression lightened, and his jowls quivered when he laughed. 'Hell, what'll my granddaughter say when I tell her I met the flyin' Ixister on the street, eh? You wouldn't mind coming to say 'hello' to 'er, now, would you?'

'Mhm.' Malkolm watched as the carriage stopped abruptly where the small, spindling street opened into the main road. Its windows were tinted black, draperies in the royal colours—red and purple—crossing over the tin roof and meeting in a neat bow at the back. 'I'm actually heading toward the castle...' Malkolm said slowly. He straightened up somewhat as a man hopped out of the carriage, and his terse features relaxed.

'Excuse me,' he said to the man, before hurrying up toward the carriage. It had stopped right next to a large apothecary. It stood out amongst all the other small shops with their cramped interiors; its walls were built of red sandstone and an elegant sign hung over the arched doorway. He went inside. The man from the carriage stood at the counter, running a hand through his now-iron-grey beard as he argued with the storekeeper. The interior of the shop was lined with shelves, all sorts of jars and bottles littering up the empty spaces where the dust had not managed to make its mark. Malkolm inwardly winced at the detritus that covered the majority of the marble countertops.

'Ye—no,' Kelm was saying to the storekeeper. 'Look, I understand that shipments are low, but ... I've searched every apothecary in town, I'm not going to wait another six months—'

'Nibrivilla,' the storekeeper said, scribbling the name of the herb down on a notepad, its edges stained as ugly a brown as his nails. 'That's the only replacement for Berant we have at this moment—we've run out of most ingredients, not that many imports, you see...'

'But the king—'

'Kelm!' Malkolm called to the man, sidestepping a large container with dried spider legs heaped inside it. Kelm looked over his shoulder, his mouth sagging as he regarded Malkolm with horror. The storekeeper stood looking at Malkolm impatiently; he drummed his fingers against the dirty countertop when silence ensued.

'So,' the storekeeper pressed, 'the Nibrivilla, then?'

Kelm did not reply. He ran a hand through his beard and asked, his voice cracking, 'Arlene, Malkolm? She—?'

'She's fine,' Malkolm said dismissively. 'She climbed out of Quixa's tunnel and into another one. I'm sure she'll make it to him. I'm assuming she has a mind-link connection with the Ixister, because there was this—this impediment in the link I had with her.'

Kelm blinked, his chest heaving as he stared at Malkolm. 'What?' he asked, disbelievingly. Rage flooded his eyes, the veins along his temples throbbing dangerously. His eyes darkened, just like they had the first time Malkolm had met him, and his hair and beard returned to their fiery red.

The storekeeper muttered something about bills before backpedalling into the small storeroom off the main shop. The lock clicked after him as he left, somehow sounding a lot louder in the cramped shop than Malkolm had expected it to. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked Kelm in the eye.

'She's fine,' he reiterated. 'The connection between us broke.'

Kelm gnashed his teeth before speaking: 'You had a duty—'

'And I fulfilled my obligations, thank you very much,' Malkolm cut in. 'As long as the mind-link between us lasted, as long as my pain and hers existed as a concrete, single force, I went to her. She seems to be capable enough—she'll look after herself,' he said, perhaps with more conviction than he felt. After all, he was talking about the Meka's niece, and Elborn hadn't proved very resourceful of yet, had he? Malkolm's lip curled, a strange sort of anger fuelling his sense of pride. He wasn't meant to be running errands for this twosome. He was meant to be in the presence of the court, in the presence of the king.

'As an Ixister, your "obligations" do not stretch to boundaries you mark merely out of self-interest,' Kelm said, his voice rising steadily with every word. 'As an Ixister, you are indebted to do whatever you can for the good of your assigned region, for the health of your Meka!'

'And I told you that I don't need a Meka,' Malkolm said levelly. 'I've committed to my end of the bargain, Kelm.'

'Your job is not a bargain,' Kelm said. He had grown so tall that his head brushed against the ceiling; the cobwebs on the wooden rafters seemed to drip down onto his forehead like a string of glittering snowflakes.

'We agreed!' Malkolm insisted. 'I shall take your place and you mine.' His fists curled up. ‘I’m the better Ixister—the better Healer; you can return to babying your Meka.'

'And do you think that I have the ability to take my powers back?' Kelm asked, his voice booming. The jars on the shelves rattled. 'The stripping of magic as based on location is a lengthy—a difficult—it's something that requires a vote from the Ixisters' Council, and—you ought to know this.'

'So get them to make a vote!' Malkolm yelled. 'Look—the girl—the council—'

'The council,’ Kelm said, his chest heaving, 'has dissolved.'

The jars stopped rattling. Malkolm's jaw dropped open.

'What?' he said. 'Why—no, it can't—it never—' He ran a hand through his hair in agitation, the warmth travelling up his scalp until his hair was a blazing pink. 'It's—the council can't just ... Kelm, it's not,' he spluttered, 'it's not possible.'

Kelm shook his head, the anger dissipating from his face as he shrunk to his normal height. 'The Council passed the notice to the palace this morning. It's no surprise, of course, Inspektor Luin's been blackmailing the Council for months...' Kelm rubbed his forehead.

'I didn't know,' Malkolm breathed.

'Of course you didn't,' Kelm snapped. 'Your promotion from Sreya was hurried and—in my opinion—a big mistake. They wouldn't have had the time to tell you anything.’ Kelm moved to snatch his required herbs from the counter, dropping a few coins for the shopkeeper to pick up later. He walked abruptly toward Malkolm and gripped his shoulder roughly. ‘Go back to the Meare. Find Arlene. I don’t care—transport yourself if you have to.’

‘I’d rather you drove a nail into my face,’ Malkolm said, through gritted teeth.

‘Don’t tempt me.’ Kelm’s hold on Malkolm’s shoulder tightened; magic started to radiate from him, waves of heat that seemed to burn at Malkolm’s skin. ‘Perom,’ he said, before moving away so quickly that he was all but a blur in Malkolm’s vision. No sooner had he stepped back that Malkolm’s sleeve caught on fire—a trail of skittering white flame that danced around his elbow and ate into the rich cloth of his robes. Malkolm yelled.

‘Ague!’ he cried, flailing his arm around like a wild hen. Water spouted from his fingertips, but the fire only burned brighter. ‘Hell!’ Malkolm cried, and several shelves around him fell to the floor. He swore again, louder, batting at his arm with his right hand. ‘Kelm—stop it! Ague! Goser!’ He manipulated the water to dance around his wrists, reaching up every now and then as if to join hands with the flame. But nothing changed, and Malkolm continued to panic as the fire scorched his skin. He turned his face away from it, wishing he could detach his arm from his body.

‘Will you go back to Arlene?’ Kelm thundered.

‘No—bloody … fine!’ Malkolm screeched, hating himself for his dependency. ‘Just stop it!’

Kelm waved a hand. Malkolm watched, relieved, as the fire vanished, leaving the barest trail of smoke behind. Malkolm’s left sleeve had entirely disappeared; it was singed where it met his collar, but that was the least of Malkolm’s worries. His skin was charred and black, and looked like a thousand pustules had cropped up like tiny volcanoes on its surface. It was a burn unlike Malkolm had ever seen before. He looked at Kelm, eyes glinting with anger, not daring to move for fear that his arm would drop off if he did. He turned his head slightly, hissing in pain.

‘It’s not fixed,’ he said. ‘I’d be crazy to go back with this—this.’

To his credit, Kelm looked slightly ashamed. He moved forward and tapped on the burn with his spindly, pale fingers, muttering under his breath as he did. ‘White flame,’ he said. ‘It burns like acid.’

‘I figured.’ Malkolm yowled as a bright beam of red light issued from Kelm’s hands. ‘No—can’t you get some herbs, some Arryclia?’ He twisted his head around painfully, trying to look at the labels on the jars. Most of them had crashed to the ground. An odd, yellow gooey liquid seeped from one of the jars and into the wooden floorboards; the pungent smell only made Malkolm feel more nauseous than he already did. He was also dizzy—very, very dizzy. He shook his head and sucked in a deep breath. The spells Kelm was casting made his skin tingle; every so often, a cold breeze washed over Malkolm’s skin, and he was relieved to feel the pain becoming significantly less worse.

The door from behind the counter creaked open. It was the man from the street. Malkolm looked over the forest of Kelm’s white hair at him, eyes widening in surprise. The man cleared his throat.

‘’Scuse me, gentleman,’ he said, ‘but Wendyll informed me that there were two Ixisters wrecking my shop here. The details of yer argument, too, he told me those, and I think I might be able to help, provided that you clean my store up, of course.’ His stomach wobbled slightly as he squeezed his way through a small door set in the counter. ‘Set the boy down a second, sir?’ he asked Kelm. ‘Doesn’t look like he’s had the best day of it.’

Malkolm sat down on the floor before Kelm could move him to a chair. He motioned as if to say, ‘I’m fine here’, and laid his chin against his chest while Kelm talked to the man, whom Malkolm now knew to be the owner of the apothecary he had just largely destroyed.

He didn’t know when he fell asleep, but when he woke up, he was sitting in a chair behind the counter. His arm was bandaged up and, he noted, the pain was very much gone. Kelm was standing some way down from him, stirring something in a large cauldron, his long, white beard thrown over his shoulder. He looked up at Malkolm, and grinned sheepishly.

‘I oughtn’t to have done that,’ he admitted, scooping something green and mushy into the cauldron. ‘My temper got the better of me. But what you did—’ here, his voice adopted a stern tone—‘was unforgivable. You shouldn’t have left Arlene like that.’

Malkolm swallowed. His mouth felt like it had been stuffed with wool. ‘What now?’ he forced out.

‘Smeth’s coming. I’m going to leave for the Meare. You’ll go with him.’

Malkolm blinked. His vision was slightly hazy again, punctured by black spots and littered through with stars. ‘But you said…’

‘Gunder has a role-reversal spell. Since Smeth was the instigator of the spell that sapped me of my powers in the first place, he needs to stir the potion for half-an-hour before we drink it.’ Kelm drummed his fingers against the cauldron’s greasy surface. ‘Arlene is important to my Meka, Malkolm, and she is important to me. Wouldn’t you do anything for your family?’

But Malkolm did not reply.

-

It was as the day retreated into night that the throngs in Durthnõt left the marketplace for the day, their feet dragging along the cobblestones, their weary tongues complaining of how ‘difficult it was, these days—everything’. 

When the streets were largely empty, Kelm left the large, grand-looking shop that lay on the cusp of two streets. He drew his purple cloak around his tall, stately figure, and muttered a spell that caused him to go streaking through the sky. 

He flew like a phoenix that has found its wings.