Suggested Listening

Elruin devoted much of the rest of her week's free time to studying the nature of resonance, though she didn't take long to come to the conclusion that nobody understood more than the basics of this field. Which might explain why Scratch was the only one who knew an artificial method, when it was such a simple ability. Or perhaps it was because his version was much weaker than natural synchronization.

In the end, both literature and her own experience agreed that the best way to improve resonance with a location was to spend a great deal of time tending to that area with one's magic. Alone, if possible, otherwise the jumbled mess of other human essences would cleanse away the effort in hours, or minutes in a city this size. And the best way to improve synchronization was to practice magic with the person you wanted to share resonance with, and more difficult or stressful situations sped the process. Perhaps that was why half the books equated strong resonance with romantic entanglement.

She had no interest in that outcome, but she wanted as many safe, happy friends as possible, so she found Lemia in the lab with a plan in mind. "Can we practice potion-making?"

Lemia looked up from her notes. "Ell? Is it morning, already?"

"Almost noon," she said. "I thought we could practice together with potions."

Lemia stretched. "Ooh." Elruin's eyesight identified the problem right away: the shard may counter the mind's need for sleep, but it did nothing to help physical recovery. "A potion sound like a wonderful idea."

Lemia went through the usual process of drawing energy from the environment to fill her cup with enhanced water. As she drank the concoction, Elruin studied the magic rushing through her body and mending all the damage that her days of tireless work had done to the flesh and bone. "Seven above! I think that's the best healing potion I've ever made!"

Elruin kept watching the whole thing. "You're getting stronger."

"More like you're making me stronger," Lemia countered. "Don't worry, I'm fine with it. I'm not so proud that I can't accept charity."

Charity. "That's a great idea." Resonance magic worked better in real situations than it did just practicing rituals in the school, else everyone here would have synergized with everyone else in the building. "We should go heal people, for charity."

Lemia smirked at the girl. "They wouldn't let you within shouting distance of the Respite houses. But, if you don't mind getting a little unorthodox, I can get us somewhere the healers don't often tread."

"I'll go get my stuff." Elruin went to find her training outfit, since it and her school uniforms were her only clothes that could withstand her magic for long, then met up with Lemia at the entrance to the school.

Lemia handed her a cheap flax cloak. "Here, when we get out of the noble district, wear this and keep your head down."

They traveled for some time, as the buildings grew more numerous and less grand, until they reached a point where instead of buildings at all, there were shacks made from scraps stolen from older projects. Elruin looked around as best she could, while obeying Lemia's instructions to continue looking down. She didn't want to get in trouble, but trouble had its way of finding her.

"What do we have here?" A man, older than her, and quite rude to approach. "The uppity whore returns."

"We're just passing through." Lemia mumbled. "C'mon, Ruk, old time's sake?"

"Without saying hello to your old friends," he said. "Guess you're worn out anyway. Decided you'd rather sell someone else? Little young for my tastes, but-"

"Don't touch her!" Lemia moved, a little too late, as someone grabbed Elruin's arms from behind.

Reflex, and remembrance of the other bad men who tried to hurt her, caused Elruin to act. What sounded for a moment like a scream of fear evolved into a song of cold, cruel certainty. Black lightning burned away her cheap cloak, then much of the bad man's fingers. His voice joined her song, screams of fear and pain as he flopped on the ground.

"Merat!" The man who'd troubled Lemia took two steps back. "Enge Protect!"

"I told you." Lemia sighed, then pulled her cloak down. "I wanted to get through without causing any trouble, Rukan. In, out, nothing more. But now you went and laid hands on Lady Elruin. We all know what happens to men who touch a noble's child."

The one who Elruin zapped managed to bring himself to his feet, despite both his arms having been numbed to paralysis. He'd recover, but without a good healer he'd lose a few fingers.

"You brought a noble's brat here?" Rukan hissed. "Are you insane?"

Lemia looked him in the eyes. "Lady Elruin can defend herself, in case you hadn't noticed. Now be a good little lapdog, run back to Lerulan, and tell him I am heading to the shelter. Any trouble, any at all, and there are only two outcomes. Either she does that-" Lemia pointed at the man stumbling away. "-to all of his men. Or you hurt her, and her family comes looking. No matter how it goes down, he loses."

"Entek." Rukan backed away. "You better never come back here alone, whore!" He ran into the direction of one of the larger cluster of shacks, ducked through a tight passageway, then zigzagged along in a way that reminded Elruin of the rodents she once hunted.

"Sorry I ruined your gift. Am I in trouble?" Elruin kept her eyes down.

"Gift? That old burlap trash?" Lemia smiled. "You've done nothing wrong. It was my fault for thinking we could get through without being noticed. I'm not welcome in this neighborhood, if it wasn't obvious."

"Why?" Elruin could sympathize, given what happened with her siblings. "Why do they call you bad things?"

"Not everyone is lucky enough to have rich parents, or incredible power." Lemia gathered herself, stood tall instead of hiding away like she was before. "I was born here, to a mother who died from drugs a few years ago, and a father that I probably passed a thousand times on the street without recognizing. All I had was a strange quirk, and ambition. But without an education, it was useless, and without money I couldn't get that education. Ruk was a former... friend... who I allowed to believe was something more. You were never in any real danger, they just wanted to scare us away."

"They weren't bad men?" Elruin looked back, still able to spot the damaged flickering lifeforce of the man who grabbed her.

"No, they're terrible men," Lemia said. "They're men who'd poison innocent children for a sliver of copper. They hate me because I was one of the ones who got away. I made something better of myself, and that makes them afraid and angry."

"I don't understand."

"They're afraid, because they don't want others to see me. They think that if I come back successful, then others will realize they, too, can be successful. Then all of their power and control evaporates. They're angry because I'm a reminder of their own inadequacy. If I, a former prostitute, can make it and they can't, what does that say about them?"

"Like Kasa," Elruin said. Then realized she never told Lemia about her. "She's my sister, she hates when anyone is smarter or better than her. She tried to feed me to morks."

"Three above, four below," Lemia muttered. "I always thought it was the cities that made people act like this, but even Lerulan wouldn't murder children. Sell them poison, yes, but not butcher them. You're far more merciful than I'd have been in that situation."

Suggested Listening

"Lady Cali didn't understand, either," Elruin said. "She said I was a sai- what's that?" Elruin looked forward to the marble pillar which stood out on a literal and metaphorical level, but radiated magic like she'd never seen before. It was some blend of all creation-aspect magics, but also a great deal of fundamental patterns as well. Around the pillar sat many temporary shelters, as they did everywhere else.

"This is the shelter. All the happiest memories of my childhood happened here," she said. "I've dug through every historical record I could find, but none of them mention who made it or when. I'm convinced it's older than the empire itself."

As they walked deeper into the field of magic, Elruin observed the dense, intricate patterns. Around them, children poked their heads out of their shelters to observe. None showed any sign of fear. "It reminds me of Lyra. Not the same aspects or abilities, but her level of skill and power. I think I could spend years studying it and not understand everything."

"So, there still exists magic beyond you," Lemia said with a smile. "I have studied it for years, and all I have are guesses. I think at one time it was a prison, meant to show criminals the path of peaceful reform. For us, it's a shelter from criminals. In here, no one can attempt an act of violence. Even thinking about inflicting harm is impossible. Sadists who hurt others for fun fall to their knees and weep. Doesn't play nice with intoxication or sex, either."

Out of curiosity, Elruin attempted to consider using her magic, targeting a bad person to harm. The closest she could get was knowing that her magic could be used to kill, but having trouble imagining how it could do so. It was a disorienting experience, so she gave up in seconds. "I think it would be a good prison."

"I think so, too," she said. "But who knows how ancient civilizations thought? Maybe this was a public bathhouse?" Now they were near the center of the pillar, where Lemia knelt in front of an older woman.

"Little Mia, what brings you back here?" The woman might have guessed Elruin needed shelter, but the girl was in quality clothing, and had the look of someone who had nothing to fear of the world.

"Grandmother." The woman wasn't her real grandmother, but here she was everyone's grandmother. "I'm here to provide healing, for a time." Lemia set a her cup and tools in font of her, at the woman's feet.

"She's with the church?"

"No, ma'am," Elruin said with perfect politeness. "But my Elder Sister is Priestess Calenda."

"We're here to do alchemical healing," Lemia added. "We're somewhat limited in what we can do, but when I lived here we needed all the help we could get. Even minor healing will make the task of caregivers much easier. All we need is a place to set up, and water to enchant."

"We had an outbreak of Seizing Sickness. Can you help?"

Lemia didn't know how their magic would work on the disease. "Can't promise more than the symptoms, but we'll try."

"Then lives may yet be saved. Lemia, you know where the sick houses are. Children, spread the word that a minor healer is here, we'll focus on treating the young. Don't get anyone's hopes too high."

Elruin followed Lemia along until they reached the small shacks that were smaller than many of the sheds they had back on the farm. The essence of death was here, but the pillar's magic somehow prevented the lingering death from blossoming into taint, no matter how rich the metaphorical soil was for it. Even the ground was dry, ashen, and struggling to support life.

"What is this place?"

"Sick houses," Lemia said. "When we fear an illness is too dangerous, we erect a little shelter. We pray, the illness runs its course, then we burn the shelter. There is only a question of if it's a celebration pyre or a funeral pyre. All diseases I've ever read about will die in the fire."

"I see." Perhaps this was where Kasa got the idea that burning the undead would work. Now that she got a look at this place, she was more certain than ever that taint could not be cleansed by physical means. She contemplated explaining the not-taint building here, since these were Lemia's friends. "You should move the sickhouses, never keep them in the same spot more than a few weeks. It creates dangerous death magic."

A makeshift table was carried in by four adult women, set down so Lemia could begin charging temporary potions using buckets of rainwater. Lemia started working on the first wave of potions as she talked to Elruin. "You're certain? I don't feel anything."

"I'll show you." Elruin began to sing, drawing upon the vast well of necromantic energy in the region. Water bubbled over the edges of the buckets, unable to contain even a brief exposure to the available energy.

Lemia looked wide-eyed at the area. "How... how has no exorcist seen this before?"

"I don't know, perhaps they don't know how to look under the shelter magic?" It was sitting like a plug atop the death energy. "You didn't notice it, and you were here with it for years. It's not dangerous, and I can control it."

"Then looks like we've got plenty of power to work with." Lemia grinned, as she started to twist the available energies, with Elruin's help in refining and controlling that power for safe consumption. In pure state, the water in those buckets could kill a man in seconds, and have the body walking again in under a minute.

Soon, a young boy was brought to them, sickly, sweating, and having trouble moving while minor tremors wracked his weakened muscles. Elruin could see the poison inside him, disrupting what Elruin might some day learn was called the nervous system.

The man who brought the boy held a mouthful of the magic-charged water for the boy. It was enough to cleanse the poison, though it did not dislodge the cause. The woman next to him spoke for them. "Is he better, now?"

"No, the cause is still there," Elruin said. The disease itself, however, did not seem all that resilient. More than that, it was different than the human essence, and its ability to resisting the life energy of the healing potion made it all the more visible to her lifesight. Combined with her new experience with resonances, she was confident she could target the disease, while only causing minor damage to the boy.

"I think I can cure him," she said. Unless the illness had a special surprise, it was weaker than any rat she'd ever killed. "It will hurt."

The woman looked at her husband, then back to Elruin. "It can't be worse than the pain of the disease."

A soft, targeted burst of death energy caused the child to gasp in pain, forced his father to hold him down as he struggled against the soft waves of death energy that burned his body, but scoured the illness. In time, he stopped, gasping for breath.

"He'll need another dose of the healing potion," Elruin said. Here, she was the expert, and she had a well of power the likes of which she had never imagined before. Soon the boy, carried by his father, was moved in favor of the next victim of this terrible disease.