2
AURIENNE WISHES DEATH UPON HER NEW PATIENT
Aurienne
t was hard, being perfect in an imperfect world, but Aurienne managed. IfI she had a flaw, it was that she was the Best, and she knew she was the Best. Some called it arrogance. She called it competence untainted by performative humility.
But if she was the Best—as brilliant as she was beautiful, a researcher unparalleled, a friend cherished, a daughter beloved, a lover sometimes (Did anyone truly deserve her? Frankly, no)—why, pray, had she just been asked to care for the Worst? Tasked to heal a Fyren, of all the foul things in the world?
The Fyren had had the gall to leave her his card. It was black, edged in gold, and proclaimed in an elegant script:
Osric Mordaunt.
Art. Acquisitions. Assassinations.
By appointment only.
The card was perfumed, which offended Aurienne more than the assassination appointments: Swanstone was a scent-free establishment.
She stepped out of her office and into the corridor, where she found poor Quincey in an unconscious heap under his desk. Once revived, Quincey remembered nothing of what had happened to him and decided that he must have fallen over. Aurienne healed his concussion and did not correct him.
It was tempting for Aurienne to conclude that Xanthe had lost the plot— that her mentor’s genius (and she was a genius, unrivalled in her field— peerless) had finally tilted into madness. However, as Aurienne tripped her way through halls heaped with victims of the Pox, she was forced to conclude that Xanthe wasn’t mad. Xanthe was an opportunist reacting to indifferent funding councils and apathetic monarchs. If the Fyren did come through with the gold—well, who was Aurienne to refuse?
A grey-robed apprentice sprinted past Aurienne and gasped, “Ward Fourteen—they’re asking for all available Haelan. Can you come?”
He was gone before Aurienne could answer. Aurienne pivoted and made for Ward 14. Honestly, the Fyren was only the newest complication in a day already bursting with them. And Aurienne was good at dealing with complications. She was good at dealing with everything.
She joined her harried colleagues in the temporary Platt’s Pox ward.
Breage—the Paediatrics matron, usually imperturbable—was wild-eyed and breathless. Aurienne was assigned to four beds and poured her seith into children at the brink of brain death.
A dishevelled deofol materialised in the ward. It took the shape of an osprey, her feathers all askew. Aurienne recognised the deofol as Lorelei’s, the head of Paediatrics.
“Twenty new arrivals at the waystone,” said the deofol. “We’re drowning. Who can come?”
The six Haelan at work in the ward, each retrieved from their specialisations to lend their tācn here, looked up from their charges.
“Twenty?” gasped Aurienne.
“Stop bloody admitting them,” said Cath, the head of Trauma and Acute Care. “Someone throw something at the bird.”
“Kindly don’t harm the messenger,” said the deofol, pulling her wings in close.
“This isn’t a hospital,” said one of the Haelan from Haematology. “We simply haven’t the capacity.” Élodie, pulled in from Virology, said, “The hospitals are full. There’s nowhere else for them to go.”
The deofol nodded. “Infected children are being rounded up and dumped at the Publish or Perish. The Wardens are helping load them up in carts to bring them in. You should see the waystone. Absolute nightmare.”
One of the Haelan from Biostatistics dragged a desperate hand across his face. “Gods. I shouldn’t be here. I should be running models on this disease.
Working out transmission dynamics. Forecasting. Élodie should be in the lab, not here.”
“Keep healing,” snapped Cath, bustling past him to the next bed. “You can save thirty lives in the time it takes a physicker to save one.”
“The Heads will work out resource allocations when they’ve had a minute to breathe,” said Aurienne. “I can’t believe the virulence.”
“It makes no sense,” said Élodie, kneeling at the side of a listless, scab- ridden girl. “There were only a hundred cases a fortnight ago.”
Aurienne saw signs of her exhausted colleagues’ approaching their seith limits; their Costs were making themselves known. Élodie’s jaw was beginning to lock. Biostatistics was starting to bleed from the mouth.
Haematology was hobbling as though hit by arthritis in both knees. Cath was lucky—her Cost was hair loss; it was why she kept her head shaved. As for Aurienne, her hands were chapping—a minor issue while she was fresh, but the more she used her seith, the more the wounds deepened, until they painfully exposed her metacarpals and phalanges.
“Where are the Heads?” asked a Haelan from Endocrinology, utterly out of her element among the children. “Where is our leadership?”
“Xanthe and Abercorn are at the waystone,” said the deofol, “draining their seith dry. Prendergast has gone to the king of the Danelaw to squeeze support out of him.”
Aurienne pressed her tācn to the forehead of an unconscious little boy.
“I’ll go to the waystone. At the very least, I’ll be on hand for seith transfers.”
“Don’t drain yourself in the process,” called Cath.
“I won’t,” said Aurienne.
And she didn’t. No one controlled their seith like Aurienne Fairhrim.
THE NEXT FEW DAYS BLED into one another as the Pox outbreak raged on. Every Haelan’s research was suspended. Platt’s Pox couldn’t be contracted by adults, but any apprentice Haelan young enough to be at risk was confined to Cygnet House. The waystone at the Publish or Perish continued its wretched deliveries; infected children were drawn up to Swanstone by the cartload.
There was no further news from the Fyren for the rest of the week.
Aurienne cherished conflicting hopes. On the one hand, she wished that he would do as he had promised and bestow a desperately needed windfall upon her Order to get the Pox under control. On the other, she hoped that he had gone and died.
At five o’clock on Friday, shouts of joy echoed through Swanstone’s halls. The handful of Haelan not on rounds gathered at Charity and Donations to find the usually staid Lambert dancing about with his secretary; the Haelan Order had just received an extraordinary anonymous donation in support of the Platt’s Pox inoculation. Élodie, the lead researcher on the inoculation, was in a state of teary shock. She trembled in the arms of Cath, who peppered her with kisses, and then threw herself around Aurienne’s neck. The room was all delight and laughter. Aurienne managed a brittle smile as Élodie sobbed into her shoulder. The money was wonderful; its provenance was not. Speculations, diverse and fanciful, were made on the identity of the donor: One of the kings or queens of the Tīendoms? Some millionaire who had lost a child to the Pox? The gods themselves?
No one speculated that it might’ve come from a Fyren, of course. That would be too fantastical. The idea simply did not occur.
“We’re so lucky,” said Cath. Élodie dashed away tears. “Frīa’s blessings on this donor.”
“A good and generous soul,” said Lambert.
“I should like to sh-shake their hand,” sniffed Élodie.
“I should like to kiss them on the mouth,” said Cath.
Aurienne said nothing, because, you know.
Haelan Xanthe made an appearance, partook in the general hugging, and, when no one was looking, gave Aurienne an apologetic pat on the shoulder.
Aurienne left Charity and Donations bitterly resigned to healing a Fyren for a —rather worthwhile, it had to be said—bribe.
As she entered her office, her tācn tingled. A deofol was incoming and requesting permission to take form. She recognised the sly, smoky seith; it was the Fyren’s deofol.
Aurienne locked the door and held her tācn towards the floor. Something dark and sinuous materialised next to her. The Fyren’s deofol took the shape of a wolfish shadow, ill-defined save for a sharp double line of white teeth.
“You’ve received the funds?” asked the deofol in a dusky hiss.
“Yes,” said Aurienne. “All seems to be in order.”
“Excellent.” The deofol’s disembodied grin floated upwards until it was at Aurienne’s eye level. “We’ve found a place to meet. Take a waystone to
the Gogmagog.”
“What sort of place?” asked Aurienne.
“A meeting sort of place,” said the teeth, uselessly.
“Tell your master that I require an aseptic environment,” said Aurienne.
“And it must be well ventilated.”
A golden eye appeared over the teeth. “I shall be sure to inform him of your preferences.”
“Specifications, not preferences,” said Aurienne.
A shrug rippled through the deofol. “Be at the Gogmagog at midnight.”
“Midnight?”
“The best time for mischief,” said the deofol.
“That’s far too late. I rise at four for my first rounds.”
“Have a nap, then.”
“A nap? You think I’ve got time for naps? We’re in the middle of a Pox outbreak, you impertinent—”
But Aurienne was speaking to nothing. The deofol had melted into shadow and disappeared.
Midnight came round. Aurienne, tired and irritated (she had not had the nap), packed her Haelan satchel. She descended snowy steps into Swanstone’s courtyard, from whence she made her way to the portcullis.
The Wardens were at their stations, a good head and shoulders taller than the guards. Their closed helmets shone under the moonlight; their wards shimmered across the snow at their feet.
The Haelan Order and the Warden Order had a long-standing, mutually beneficial agreement. The Wardens sent a complement of their best to Swanstone to protect the Haelan, and the Haelan sent a complement of their best to the Warden headquarters at Tintagel Castle to heal any Wardens in need. Aurienne’s next rotation at Tintagel’s infirmary would be coming up this autumn; she would have to see how to fit that into her many priorities.
She removed a glove and flashed the white glow of her tācn towards the Wardens.
“Late night, Haelan,” commented the tallest one as she drew the postern gate. Aurienne recognised her voice—this one was called Verity.
“Indeed,” said Aurienne. “Off for a drink. It’s been a long day.”
“Well deserved,” said Verity. “When shall we expect you back?”
“An hour or two, I should think.”
Verity inclined her helmet. “Take care of yourself.”
“Thank you.”
Aurienne passed through the gate with casual salutes from the other Wardens. Feeling like a liar and a criminal, she crossed the moat and went over the long bridge that connected Swanstone to the mainland. The fortress had originally been built on a peninsula, but the sea had long ago reclaimed the narrow isthmus. Fitful waves roiled far beneath Aurienne’s feet as she walked.
In the quaint village of Swanstone-on-Sea, Aurienne passed low sod-and- stone houses and arrived at the Publish or Perish. At this late hour, the pub’s waystone was, thankfully, devoid of travellers and new batches of sick children.
The usual etiquette when using a waystone was to have a drink at the connected pub—or, when one hadn’t the time, such as when skulking off to meet a Fyren, to leave payment upon the windowsill. Aurienne, unfortunately in the latter category, left a coin upon the ledge.
She held her tācn to the ancient standing stone and pressed seith into the runes that spelled out the Gogmagog. She took a steadying breath as she did so; she hated waystone travel. It was discomposing in a literal sense. One’s molecules ought to stay together, not be splayed into a ley line. The alternative, however, was endless journeying by carriage, and so Aurienne braved the waystone graticule, even if every plunge into it turned her stomach.
The waystone glowed into life, flashed Mind the gap—Aurienne minded the gap very much—and whisked her into a ley line.
The particles that made up Aurienne reconvened at the waystone just outside the Gogmagog. She pressed one hand against the stone for balance and the other, with her tācn aglow with seith, to her forehead to stem her queasiness.
The Gogmagog was set among desolate, snowcapped hills. A lonely gas lamp was the only source of light. The pub’s windows were dark. Aurienne left a coin on the sill and peered about, given the high probability that a Fyren was lurking nearby.
“You’re punctual,” came the voice of the Fyren. “Good.”
Yes: there he was. Lurking. That was what his sort did. Lurk, and murder innocents for money.
Deeming his remark on punctuality too jejune to merit a response, Aurienne said nothing. She could make out only bits of him among the shadows: the tip of a boot, the snow-sodden bottom of a cloak, the edge of a black hood.
Unfortunately, he was chatty, and was determined to inflict his conversation upon her. “I’d thought you might be cheeky and bring a Warden,” he said.
“I’m sure they would’ve been enchanted to meet you, but no. I don’t typically double-cross those with whom I’ve made agreements.”
“Charming habit,” said Mordaunt. “You don’t look remotely nervous.”
“I’m never nervous,” said Aurienne. It wasn’t boastful; it was true.
“Where are we going?”
“Up,” said Mordaunt, with a gesture towards the hill.
After more than fifteen hours on her feet that day, Aurienne wasn’t overkeen on the walk. She let Mordaunt take the lead and break a path for her in the snow. Their steps grew ponderous as they climbed higher and the snow deepened. Their trails added long veins to the white hillside. After a few minutes of this exertion, their breath streamed behind them in plumes. The February wind grew lazy as they climbed; it opted to pass through them, rather than around.
Their objective seemed to be a half-collapsed structure at the top of the hill. It was a barn, Aurienne realised as they approached. A literal barn. Was this a joke?
Mordaunt held the door open for her with vast gallantry, as though he were ushering her into the most fashionable assembly room in London.
“You needn’t look so cross,” said Mordaunt.
“I specified an aseptic environment,” said Aurienne, stepping over broken flagstones. “How do you expect me to heal you if you can’t follow the simplest of instructions?”
“It’s perfectly clean,” said Mordaunt. “There hasn’t been a cow here in months—present company excepted.”
So he was a Fyren and an arsehole. What luck.
The barn wasn’t perfectly clean, by the by. There was a heap of steaming excrement right in front of Aurienne, and it could talk.
This vulgar aside she kept confined, naturally, to her thoughts.
“Does the ventilation meet your standards at least?” asked Mordaunt. The wind whipped at his hood as he posed the question.
Aurienne caught a glimpse of a close-lipped smile bisected by a scar.
Brilliant. The arsehole thought he was funny, on top of everything else.
“I need a proper consulting room,” said Aurienne. “Or did you intend to sit in the trough to be examined?”
“Make do,” said Mordaunt. “I thought you were meant to be exceptional.”
“In normal working conditions,” said Aurienne. “Not in a derelict barn, in a blizzard, at midnight.”
The Fyren drew the door shut, which cut out the worst of the wind. He pulled a lantern out of his cloak, lit it, and sat upon the mouldy remains of a bale of hay. “There are too many eyes in normal working conditions. Can we begin?”
Aurienne had managed her seith carefully in the wards to ensure that she would have enough left for tonight. It disgusted her to waste such a precious thing on one of this man’s ilk. Now that it was time to use it, it felt like squandering—like throwing away something dear on someone utterly unworthy.
However, preliminary diagnostics would be a first step towards understanding what was ailing the Fyren. With any luck, he was well on his way to a horrid, drawn-out death.
“Diagnostics, then,” said Aurienne. She removed her cloak and gloves.
The Fyren did not follow suit. He kept his hood up, so that all Aurienne could see was that scarred, sarcastic mouth. The rest of his face was shadow.
The shadow looked at her and said, “The sullying begins.”
It was an attempt at flippancy, but the tension in his shoulders gave the lie to it. Mordaunt was not at ease.
After disinfecting her hands, Aurienne held her palm towards him and gathered her seith to her tācn. Its white light joined the yellow of the lantern.
She waited for the Fyren to free up a patch of skin for her to proceed, but he merely sat there.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Aurienne.
“What are you waiting for?” came Mordaunt’s response, both wary and annoyed.
“This requires contact,” said Aurienne, holding her tācn at him.
“Obviously.”
“Oh,” said Mordaunt.
“If you can bear to shed the cloak-and-dagger look for a minute, kindly undo this,” said Aurienne, with a gesture to Mordaunt’s neckline. “Clavicle or chest works best for general diagnostics.”
Mordaunt suffered the hardship with evident irritation. He undid the clasp of his cloak and began to work at the cravat and collar underneath.
His hood fell back, exposing silver-white hair, winsomely tousled, and pale skin. His features, Aurienne decided, suited him: insolent (the grey eyes) and sardonic (the cut of the eyebrows, the mouth). The various scars that pitted his face weren’t surprising, given his profession. They added something savage to a countenance that was otherwise patrician.
The sardonic mouth said, “Rude to stare.”
“Assessment requires observation,” said Aurienne. “Or would you like me to attempt it blindfolded?”
Mordaunt looked as though he had a retort ready, but decided to hold his tongue. He pulled his shirt open and exposed a bit of his chest to Aurienne.
Aurienne had touched a great many unpleasant things in the course of her career—secretions, purulent exudates, effusions of every description—but none were as loathsome as a Fyren.
As she pressed her tācn to the Fyren’s skin, his brows pulled together. He twitched under her touch. She could feel the tension in him—a desire to recoil, a disgust. He didn’t want to be touched by her as much as she didn’t want to touch him. Aurienne was pleased that they were jointly suffering in this regard.
Her preliminary diagnostics resulted in unsurprising findings: evidence of many years’ worth of physical trauma, mostly healed; an epithelium crisscrossed by scar tissue; a high heart rate; elevated cortisol and adrenaline.
The scarring was something. The man was branded by years of fights.
She could confirm that he had never been worked on by a Haelan. None of her Order would’ve left such a war zone behind.
Her attention was drawn to a mess at Mordaunt’s cervical spine. Burst fractures, poorly healed, had compromised his seith system, which was now headed towards putrefaction. He was indeed on his way to a horrid, drawn- out death.
No. Mordaunt was a Fyren. A drawn-out death wasn’t on the cards. A Fyren without his seith was useless. His own kind would make short work of him well before the disease did.
Which meant one less killer for hire terrorising the populace. Excellent.
Aurienne flicked diagnostic images into being. They floated, pallid white, between her and the Fyren.
She pointed at the largest image. “Tell me about the bodged surgery at
your neck. Was it done in a bush?”
“Yes. Literally. Field medic.”
“What happened?”
“A training injury.”
“Oh? Does training involve being bludgeoned by a sledgehammer?”
“A maul, rather.”
“Barbaric,” said Aurienne.
Mordaunt shrugged. “Valuable lessons were learned.”
“I thought those brutish training methods had been outlawed by the Peace Accords,” said Aurienne.
“I’ll let you advise my warchief of that. She’d be delighted to hear your input.”
“How long since the initial injury?” asked Aurienne.
“A few months.”
“And you’ve only just begun to feel the impact on your seith?”
“Yes. Fluctuations in the past weeks. I’ve had the best physickers available look at it—save for your Order’s precious experts, of course.”
“They’ve already told you the fractures at your neck didn’t heal as they should’ve? And that the injury damaged your seith system?”
“Yes. They said it’s seith rot.”
“It is. An advanced case.” Aurienne touched at the diagnostic image, illuminating parts of it in brighter white. “Fascinating. And incurable.”
In the glow of the diagnostic schema, Mordaunt’s jaw clenched. “The physickers said you’d be able to help.”
“You were lied to,” said Aurienne. “I suppose they fancied keeping their heads, given your Order’s reputation, so they threw you the most tentative of
lifelines and scurried away. Seith degeneration isn’t curable.”
“They said you dabbled in the Old Ways,” said Mordaunt.
Aurienne held back a scoff. Was that what this was about? Was that stupid venture still haunting her? Ridiculous.
“No one dabbles in the Old Ways,” said Aurienne. “I’ve got—I had—an interest in some folklore, nothing more.”
“They said you presented something at one of the universities.”
Aurienne made a note to find Fordyce and Shuttleworth and make them suffer for their idiocy. “I didn’t present anything. I discussed the most nascent of ideas, informally, with colleagues. Did Fordyce and Shuttleworth
mention that this was ten years ago?”
“Ten years?”
“Yes. It was nothing but a flight of fancy, when I was an inexperienced Haelan only just starting out. I didn’t even have a working hypothesis. I abandoned the idea long ago. We’re talking about fairy tales.”
“What was the flight of fancy?” asked Mordaunt.
“An integration of the Old Ways into modern healing practice. If it’s the Old Ways you’re interested in, I can give you a list of thirty academics far more versed in them than I. You can go kidnap them.”
“Are they looking at applications for curing seith rot?”
“No,” said Aurienne. “And neither am I. It was nothing but a thought experiment. An intellectual exercise. A scholarly fantasy at best. Are you seriously telling me you’d subject yourself to an unproven course of treatment informed by the worst parts of folk medicine and wishful thinking?”
A person of moderate intelligence would say no in response to this dire
assessment. An imbecile would say yes.
“Yes,” said Mordaunt.
Aurienne pursed her lips in the face of this unsurprising confirmation.
“Our agreement was for me to heal you to the best of my ability—which does not, I assure you, mean the clinical application of fairy tales.”
“What can you do, then?” asked Mordaunt.
“Based on what I’ve seen tonight—this was only preliminary imaging, mind—your seith system is hanging on by a thread. It’s like a disintegrating candle being held up by its wick. You’re suffering from a degenerative condition with limited treatment protocols. Normally, I would suggest seith
debridement—”
“Seith what?”
“Debridement. The removal of the nonviable tissues—the seith channels and nodes that are already dead—in the hopes of stemming the progress of the disease. In a case as extensive as yours, it would disrupt your channels completely, and you’d no longer be able to use your seith at all.”
Mordaunt’s mouth was set in an unhappy line. “Not an option, then, is it?”
“It is for most,” said Aurienne. “Losing your seith should be the least of your worries. The degeneration won’t stop there. It’ll progressively affect your nervous system, then your circulatory system. Did the physickers not tell you? This disease is fatal. Are your limbs numb?”
“They didn’t—it’s what? Yes, they are.”
“Torpraxia.” Aurienne nodded. “It’s already too late for debridement.”
Mordaunt ran an agitated hand through his hair. “Too late? I’m just going to die? What can I do?”
“Put your affairs in order,” said Aurienne.
“Your bedside manner could use some work.”
“Something about being coerced into healing a Fyren erodes my sympathy,” said Aurienne. “Also, there’s no bed. I can buy you a bit of time.
I can’t say how much.”
“I don’t want bought time,” said Mordaunt. “I don’t want to slow the inevitable. I want to reverse the rot.”
“Can’t be done,” said Aurienne. “What’s dead is dead.”
“The Old Ways hypothesis.”
“Unviable.”
“Do it.”
“I practise evidence-based healing. You’re asking me to attempt something on the basis of misplaced hope.”
“And your research.”
Aurienne, with additional slowness given that Mordaunt was so thick, repeated: “It wasn’t research. It wasn’t a hypothesis. It was a young Haelan’s
daydream.”
“Apply your daydream to me, then.”
“It won’t work.”
“Have you tried it?” asked Mordaunt.
“No,” said Aurienne.
“So you haven’t any evidence that it won’t work.”
Mordaunt sat back in satisfaction, as though he had just committed a masterful rhetorical stroke. Aurienne pressed a fingertip to the bridge of her nose.
However. The man’s fixation on this worthless course of treatment presented an opportunity. It wouldn’t work. He would die. Her Order already had his money.
Aurienne stared at the Fyren and pondered the sacrifice of her professional ethics in light of these excellent outcomes.
Mordaunt cocked his head at her. There was smugness in it. He thought he had argued her into a corner.
Perhaps the most painful part of this ordeal would be dealing with the
man’s stupidity.
“Fine,” said Aurienne.
“Fine?” repeated Mordaunt.
“Yes. I’ll do it.”
Mordaunt, suspicious, asked, “Why did you change your mind?”
“Your argument was so thoughtful. So well reflected.”
Mordaunt tapped a gloved finger against a thigh. “Was that sarcasm?”
Aurienne waved the query away. “If we’re going to do this, I need to examine you properly, with the right instruments—and not in a byre.”
“Where, then?” asked Mordaunt. “We can’t be seen.”
“So you’ve said. How have you kept the physickers silent?”
“My steward is adept at the brewing of paramnesiac teas,” said Mordaunt.
“Though, given their exaggeration of your research, I’m wondering if I
oughtn’t have killed the physickers outright.”
“Please don’t. We’ve already got a dearth of physickers.”
Mordaunt did not look as though he was considering Aurienne’s wishes in this matter. He replaced his collar and knotted his cravat. His gestures were oddly elegant, the movements of a sophisticate, rather than a murderer.
Everything about him was polished, actually—his clothes, his mannerisms, his speech. And then there were the scars—and the profession—marring it all. Strange contradictions.
Aurienne didn’t care enough about him to ponder them further.
“My Order hosts clinics in rural areas,” said Aurienne. “I should be able to find a quiet facility that isn’t knee-deep in manure.”
“You exaggerate,” said Mordaunt. “This was ankle-deep at worst. No Wardens at these clinics?”
“I’m usually accompanied by, at the very least, a Swanstone guard when out in the community. Xanthe and I will concoct a pretext for me to go alone.”
Mordaunt drew his hood over his head and became the thing of shadow again. The sight of his cloaked silhouette, so knavish, so Dusken, sparked fresh animosity in Aurienne.
In a patronising tone, of the sort one might take with one’s domestic staff, Mordaunt said, “See that you do. I expect your deofol shortly.”
This served only to reaffirm Aurienne’s opinion that he was not only a hateful Fyren but also a monumental twat.
“It won’t be shortly,” said Aurienne. “You’ve asked me to apply a hypothesis that doesn’t exist to cure a condition that can’t be cured. I’m going to spend hours sorting through archival material to piece together whatever I preserved of that project, and even more hours preparing some sort of treatment protocol based entirely on fairy stories. You’ll hear from me when you hear from me.”
Mordaunt made no indication that he had been chastened. Instead, he gave Aurienne a bow, and said, “I await your deofol at your pleasure, then.”
“I can assure you there is no pleasure involved,” said Aurienne.
“I do agree with you there,” said Mordaunt.
AURIENNE’S NEXT MEETING WITH XANTHE began with a request for an update on Mordaunt, whom Xanthe had taken to calling Onion Boy.
“That’s what he wants you to do?” said Xanthe when Aurienne had explained the substance of her exchanges with the Fyren. “Heal seith rot?
Who does he think you are? The goddess Frīa herself? I thought he merely had a blocked node, or something else nice and treatable.”
“His degeneration is extensive,” said Aurienne. “And, of course, he’s a Fyren, so he’s rejected all the usual management protocols, because the loss of his seith represents the loss of his livelihood and his life.”
“You told him it was impossible?”
Aurienne nodded. “Repeatedly. Unfortunately, he got wind of an old investigation of mine. Do you remember my work on the Monafyll Stone?”
Xanthe clasped her hands before her. “I do recall that project. One of your first forays as a principal investigator after earning your Haelan wings. I always thought it was a pity you’d abandoned that line of enquiry. There was something hopeful about it. Quaint.”
“Disastrous, rather,” said Aurienne. “An impossible dataset, a methodology best described as madness, experimental design so poor that I would’ve been rejected by every board from here to Pednathise Head, zero reproducibility—anyway, that’s what he wants me to try on him.”
“The man is bonkers.” Xanthe’s mouth, so wrinkled that it almost disappeared into itself, widened as she cackled.
“He’s drowning and he’s clutching at straws,” said Aurienne.
“Onion Boy, the Eternal Optimist.”
“I’ll go through the motions and let the thing follow its inevitable course.
His seith will stop flowing in a matter of months. The neurodegeneration has already set in.”
Xanthe observed Aurienne with something thoughtful in her black eyes.
“That is one means of proceeding.”
“What’s the alternative?” asked Aurienne.
“Giving this a real go. Don’t just go through the motions. This is ideal from an experimental perspective, isn’t it? You can test your idea completely off the books, without passing it through any of the usual bureaus or research ethics boards, on a willing subject who is entirely disposable.”
“But—but the research ethics boards exist for a reason—”
“He’s a desperate Fyren, and you’ve just said you’re going to let him die.
Are research ethics really a part of the equation?”
A fair point, really, and so Aurienne tried a different tack: “Right—but there’s also a reason I’d abandoned the idea. It’s not sound science. It’s not viable. It was a fantasy.”
“It wasn’t viable then,” said Xanthe. “You’ve got ten years of experience as a researcher under your belt now.”
“Ten years doesn’t change the fact that this will literally involve sitting next to rivers at the full moon and saturating him with my seith.”
“That’s the methodology?”
“That’s it.”
“Not ideal,” said Xanthe. “But if you discover that we can effect miraculous cures by sitting in the muck next to a river at the full moon, you’ll be well on your way to an early retirement.”
“I don’t want an early retirement,” said Aurienne.
“Aurienne?”
“Yes?”
“The man has paid us twenty million thrymsas for the privilege of having you apply your unviable fantasy to his case. Give it to him. It’s his dying wish.”
There was an undercurrent of command in Xanthe’s otherwise casual tone. The time for argument was over.
Aurienne bowed her head. “Yes, Haelan Xanthe.”
“Now, go put the re in research, and try, try again.”
