aHow does it feel to be expendable?a She sucked in a breath; the chemicals in the air werenat as sharp as the hurt. She smiled brightly. aIam not expendable.a She faced his mocking lips and straightened her shoulders. aI was given some of your blood two days ago to help me stave off any infection. Iave been drinking NewBalm tisanes, plenty of liquids, and Iave partic.i.p.ated in two blessing rituals.a His eyes narrowed. aI wasnat aware I gave blood to anyone other than Opul.a She was angry enough to put mockery in her gaze. aWe Healers have our ways.a Moving impatiently, his coins dropping and his s.n.a.t.c.h at them too slow, he said thickly, aI guess you do.a She regretted snapping at him.

His breath came on a ragged cough.

aHere.a She handed him a water tube with floating green bits.

aWhat is it?a aNewBalm mixture and spearmint.a Her smile was quick and compa.s.sionate. aIt will soothe your throat.a He frowned at his trembling hand, wrapped all his fingers around the cylinder, and drank it all. She took the tube away.

He closed his eyes. aYeah. The throat. Iad forgotten that.a One of his shoulders lifted and fell. aIt was minor. n.o.body was talkina.a aYou donat have to talk, now, either.a aGood,a he said. His eyelids cracked, too narrow for her to see the color of his pupils. aI ainat gonna.a His fingers scrabbled, found the coins, fisted around them. aGotta fight.a aNo, relax . . .a she soothed.

He jerked upright, eyes open. aNo! I. Must. Fight. Thatas whaa, what, saved me before. Fighting to save . . .a aI understand.a aNo. You donat,a he croaked, then flicked the coins and the rest of his magic paraphernalia into his bag, coughed, and grimaced, subsiding back onto his pillows. His dark amber gaze met hers, then he set his arm over his eyes. aYou donat understand. But you will.a She was afraid of that.

Ten.

As the minutes pa.s.sed, his great strength faded and his eyes dulled as sickness marched through his body. She laid her fingers over one of his fists, compelled to rea.s.sure him. aYouare safe. I wonat let anything harm you.a That he was hurting now caused a twisting ache inside her. She was too close to this case, this patient, this man.

He jerked. aNo!a She flinched back. He grabbed her hand, hung on hard. aI didnat stop fighting the first time. I wonat now.a He blinked, as if trying to keep heavy lids from shuttering his vision. aHave to fight.a aAll right.a He breathed unsteadily, his eyes glinted at her. aArenat you afraid?a aYes, I donat want the Iasc to . . . I donat want you to succ.u.mb.a He barked a laugh. aArenat you afraid for yourself? Bad sickness. Lot of people died.a His face set into a mask covering deep hurt. aEpi . . . epia"a aEpidemic,a she finished for him.

aThaas right. Afraid?a She could die. Hurt her Family with her pa.s.sing. Not do all the things she wanteda"forge a family of her own, have a child or two. Despite their religion, despite her motheras cross-folk faith, no one knew what came after death, and death itself could be hard. Shead seen that.

aYou are afraid,a he whispered roughly.

She couldnat deny it when her body quivered. aYes.a Even with all the precautions, all the knowledge and Healing skill, even with TQas help, she could die. As could he.

His eyes were wide now, bright amber. Feverish.

aYou look hot,a she said.

aHot. Sweating.a He shuddered. His lashes closed and his hand fell from hers as if he needed to fight alone.

Her breath trapped inside her chest, knowing she was losing him to fever dreams.

aHave to fight. Have to drive this bus,a he said, grabbing the linens, thrashing, entangling himself in them.

She yanked with hands and Flair to free him. Sweat slid from his body, suffusing the room with sickness and his determination. His hands opened and closed, curving around an imaginary steering stick. aHave to fight. Have to get Dinni and the baby to the clinic.a Who was Dinni? Probably a woman that Primross cared for. Artemisia should think of him as Primross or patient now, not Garrett. Head been healthy when theyad met and worked together in TQas HouseHeart, but now he was sick and dependent on her. Put away any tendrils of attraction. Strictly forbidden to fall for a patient, to encourage any patient who might be aware of her as a woman instead of a Healer. So dishonorable. Until he walked from TQ, shead be strictly professional.

Her hands had been checking his temperature, the fluids belt, wiping away his sweat, while she scolded herself. Time to draw blood again, make notations to her own report.

aI have the time of 10.29.46 as when the Iasc sickness overtook GentleSir Primross,a TQ said softly.

aThatas right.a * * *

p.r.i.c.kles of heat bloomed on his body, from scalp to soles. He moaned. No! He didnat want to experience this again! Too late. Sweat slicked, turned steamy, and tormenting visions began.

He walked toward the looming one-story medical clinic in Gael City that stretched tall and fearsome, made of sickly yellow blocks. All his muscles tightened in horror. This was how it started. Head gotten an emergency call from Dinni on his perscry that she needed him.

Of course head gone.

No. He would not go into that clinic. He would not see Dinni holding her sick baby son and others from the Smallage estate where head grown up.

He dug in his heels before the double white doors. He would not press the latch. He would not open the door. He would not go in and agree to help Old Grisc drive the quarantine bus to the mountain clinic.

He refused to budge.

The world revolved around him in a slow swoop. He coughed, retched, spewed. Low and monstrous roaring pierced with garbled words. .h.i.t his ears and he curled. Hands punched his sensitized skin and he yelled.

He flopped, spun, saw the clinic with an open door gaping at him and set to run backward. Again reality looped, narrowed into a pinpoint tunnel of darkness that squeezed him through. Blessed dimness and quiet enveloped him. As he drew in a breath, the room lightened and he sat once more in FirstLevel Healer Ura Heatheras office.

She frowned at him; her writestick tapped on the desk like a hammer. aWe must hear of every moment of your journey,a she said in that priggish demanding voice of hers. Tap-pound-tap-pound-tap-POUND!

aNo,a he muttered. But shead gotten him in her clutches, forced him into the past.

He was in the clinic with the Healers and Dinni and Old Grisc and the refugees from Smallage. Again. Nausea inundated him.

Ura Heather stared at him, writestick lifted, lip curled. Lark Hollyas violet eyes were wide with compa.s.sion as she shook her head mournfully.

And the gorgeous woman, who was the HeartMate head avoided, had an expression full of pity. They watched.

Watched. Judged. Saw everything that head never told.

He fought, as head fought every moment, but memories tore into his brain . . . to rip him to pieces again.

Dinni cradled her crying two-month-old son. She begged Garrett to take the job, to go with them. In her eyes was the utmost faith that he would save her child, all of them.

Head looked at Old Grisc, the others, and agreed.

The HealingHall loaded every one of those twenty-three into the vehicle, even the sickest. The first died only a half septhour into the journey. An old man whoad been hot but shivering. The first death smell. Even in the cab with doors closed to the main compartment, Garrett and Old Grisc could smell it. They shared a bleak glance, wondering if theyad fall ill.

The quarantine bus was separated into three parts: the driversa cab, seats in the main compartment for the living, and the refrigerated back compartment with corpse shelves for the dead.

Garrett had moved the man to the chill dead area, cleansed in the sanitation tube, figured it wouldnat help.

People deteriorated and a lot of them died. The stench rose around him.

He moved bodies to the back, but there wasnat enough room for them all. He had to raise the shelves against the wall, stack bodies.

Old Grisc, the driver, succ.u.mbed to fever eight septhours in. Garrett had to stop. The road was bad, the weather got bada"sleet and mud. People were dying, and head never driven such a vehicle.

The very worst memory rose like a ghost. Vivid and horrifying. Icy pellets had battered the windshield. It was full dark, and the console in front of him was lit, but the timer was nothing but a blur. Night was deep and dark, no bright twinmoons or stars, but they were finally off the mountain.

An eternity of time had pa.s.sed. He thought head been in the h.e.l.lbox forever. He stopped the bus and rested his throbbing head on the steering bar, felt the cool press of padded metal against his hot forehead.

A time later head lifted his aching bones from the driveras chair and moved into the main compartment. No reason to keep the doors shut.

Old Grisc trembled and sweated in a front seat. Another old woman had died. Garrett picked her up and shuffled down the broad aisle. There were few enough nowa"eight? ten?a"that everyone slumped across a row.

He glanced at Dinni. She was pale with a gleam of sweat. He nodded, but she didnat look at him or the woman he carried. He opened the door and put the sh.e.l.l of the person atop her husband. Theyad been bonded HeartMates, so theread been no hope for her. HeartBonded died within a year of each other. That hadnat helped the grief of loss. Head known the pair. The little town head grown up in, Dinni had grown up in, was attached to the Smallage estate.

The dead section of the bus was colder than outside and a relief to Garrett. Cold to preserve the lost for study.

After a while he got his feet moving and went into the main compartment.

Dinni was crooning a little sleep song to the baby that mothers sang. He moved to her and everything in him simply stopped.

The baby was dead.

Dinni didnat seem to understand or acknowledge that.

Garrettas knees gave out and he fell into the seat next to her. aDinni,a he said and his lips cracked and he tasted blood-salt.

She lifted big blue eyes to him, smiled sweetly. aYouall get us to the safe place, Garrett.a Her voice was barely a rasping whisper.

aI love you,a he said.

aI know you do,a she said.

He closed his fingers over her upper arm. aDonat leave me. Stay with me. Stay alive. Please. Please, Dinni.a She nodded solemnly. aWe will.a Her lips cracked, too. aWhen will we get there?a He levered himself away from the horror, back into duty that would force him to the driveras seat, to the clinic, to more of this h.e.l.l. He wanted to stay with her, hold her. But he couldnat face the dead child.

aStay with me,a he demanded as he had before.

Unlike when shead left him, this time Dinni said she would.

aStay alive.a aWe will.a Didnat matter if he thought she lied. Didnat matter that shead never love him as he loved her, would never be his wife. He only wanted her alive. If he could get her to the clinic, they would help her.

His steps back to the cab dragged as if chained weights were attached to his ankles. His hands whitened around the steering bar. He could set the autonav now. They were close enough for that. Nothing else on this road and only a couple of septhours to the HealingHall. He would make it. So would Dinni.

He had to. He had to save Dinni, so he couldnat give up.

And he didnat. He jolted from a daze as they pulled into the clinic yard. Healers rushed out, spellshields surrounding them in lovely colors, seeming to pick up the light of the dawn. He moved back into the bus. Old Grisc was dead. So were most of the others.

Dinni wasnat and Garrett prayed and prayed. aWeare here. Stay with me.a aWe will,a she croaked.

Head helped her out, and the other three.

Healers took her away, but after a moment he heard screams.

Then time pa.s.sed as he fell into nightmares. Felt cool hands and sipped liquids. They took care of him. For a while.

He fought to stay alive for Dinni, pa.s.sed out, revived, succ.u.mbed. His head finally cleared enough for him to smell his own filth days later.

He was the only one alive in the entire clinic. That had been another horror head dealt with, cleaned up.

He yelled, aDinni!a And the bright light of the mountain clinic glared on and on, revealing only death.

It dimmed and he was in Heatheras office again. That FirstLevel Healer continued to tap her writestick and judge. Lark Holly was no longer there.

Artemisia Mugwort Panax held out her hands and wept.

He didnat want her; he turned away.

Garrett had quieted except for the fever tremors. Artemisia didnat know whether that was good or bad. She sensed he fought.

For the first time in two septhours, she took a deep breath, wiping her sleeve across her forehead. She was sticky with perspiration. TQ had adjusted the atmosphere of the room for Garrettas comfort and shead suffered through the changes.

aHe seems to be resting more easily,a TQ said.

aFor now,a Artemisia agreed, standing and shaking out her limbs.

TQ creaked.

aYes?a she asked.

aI reviewed my records. Dinni Spurge Flixweed and her two-month-old son died at the mountain clinic. She had recommended and requested Garrett be a driver for the quarantine bus. Dinni had a prior personal relationship with Garrett.a Artemisiaas heart gave a large, dull thud. aThe child wasnat Primrossas?a aNo, the childas father was one of those who found the fish and contracted the disease first. He died and left Dinni Flixweed a widow.a Artemisia put a hand to her chest. How horrible that must have been for the woman, for her husband to die fast of an unknown sickness, for her baby to contract the same illness. To leave her home for sanctuarya"and be turned away. What a terrible situation. Artemisiaas throat closed at the pity of it. She swallowed tears.

No one at the mountain quarantine clinic had survived except Garrett. So Dinni and her baby had died.

So sad. Tragic.

aShouldnat you take a blood sample?a TQ reminded gently.

Artemisia shook off the bleakness of the past. aYes.a Again she automatically did what needed to be done. But Dinnias story haunted her, and after she took Garrettas blood and stored it, she found herself in the dressing room, shivering with effort to suppress fear. She could die. Worse, the epidemic could arise, mutate, kill off every single being of Earthan origina"human, Fam, and animala"on Celta. They could be a dead race.

She let the brain-numbing fear whirl through her, coat her skin in cold sweat, drip tears from her eyes as she trembled and gasped, visualized all that could go wrong. Not a technique she used to weather terrible events, but this time it worked. When she was on the far side of panic, she felt stronger, able to recapture serenity.

Once again she checked on Gara"GentleSir Primross, and he appeared to be as well as possible. aCan you monitor our patient while I take a quick waterfall and change my clothes?a aOf course, Artemisia.a aThank you.a After shead washed her panic-sweat away, was cleansed and smelling of fresh herbs, dressed in shabby, loose clothes that she could sleep in, she felt steady. She wouldnat let the sickness win. Nor would any of the Healers.

Garrett wouldnat, either. Even now he fought, muttering, back in that terrible time.

This time they would all win.

She was hopeful until he began shouting again.

aDinni! Dinni!a He called so desperately it squeezed her heart and brought more tears. She bent and covered his fist with her palm. His fingers turned, grabbed, his eyelids opened. aNot Dinni!a His voice broke. He flung her hand aside and thrashed until he rolled and his back displayed a purple-bruised rash.

She gasped and hurried to smooth ointment onto his skin. When she touched him, he moaned and writhed . . . and pled for Dinni. Artemisia forced emotions away. She could not fulfill the manas cry for the woman. He was a patient who needed her help and that was all she could provide.

By the time the cream was gone, head sweated through his trous and sheets again. This she could deal with. And now he couldnat mind if he were nude, and it was better for them both.

aClothes off!a she ordered and the spell-melding seams disintegrated. aCleanse!a Garrettas body lifted and clothes and linens whipped from under him and rolled, dry sides out. The scent of fresh herbs flooded the room. aFit!a New sheets skimmed over the bedsponge, tucked themselves in, again adding fragrancea"clover in bloom.

She quickly replaced his fluids belt. He groaned again as she reactivated the spell, then checked it, sighing when all was working properly.