They moved from the inn to Hasamemorri's house the very afternoon that Wendee and Derian rented the s.p.a.ce. The landlady descended like a pink cloud to supervise their arrival, although she seemed disappointed that they didn't have more baggage.

"Perhaps," Wendee said with a soft giggle as she hurried past Elise with a double armful of groceries, "she thought we would be burdened down with exotic foreign trade goods-salted fish, maybe."

Elise grinned, her happiness continuing unabated when the next day dawned and the work of settling in began in earnest. Hasamemorri might be disappointed, but Elise was not.

Everything about the house-including their pink-painted landlady-filled her with delight. Elise had always enjoyed reading about foreign lands. Bright Bay, cousin as it was to Hawk Haven, had proved to be something of a disappointment. New Kelvin most definitely was not, and now she had escaped the shelter of the inn and was actually living among the native people. It was all she could do to keep from hugging herself with excitement.

The large central hallway that split the ground floor of the house into two parts was transformed into their waiting area. The room to the left of the front door was to be Doc's consulting room. The chamber to the right would double as a short-term infirmary and dispensing area.

At night Edlin would sleep in the consulting room; Derian and Doc would, share a chamber that backed onto the infirmary. Elise and Wendee would share the nice, well-lit side room that, owing to its gla.s.s skylight, would become a surgery when one was needed.

Firekeeper had made clear that she didn't want any special s.p.a.ce in the house reserved for her. If the night grew cold, she would sleep in the kitchen. Otherwise, she preferred the stables. As this provided protection for their horses and mules, no one-not even Edlin-protested that these were quarters far beneath the rank of a lady.

Edlin, Elise thought with a wry smile, was learning something about the reality of the girl he thought he adored-learning that she was often taciturn, that when she did speak she was often disturbingly literal, and that she was as loyal as the sun was bright-most especially to Blind Seer, but also to those humans for whom she felt responsible.

At this very moment, Edlin, however, was presumably too busy to moon over his wolfy lady. Wendee had somehow tricked her young master into supervising the maids Hasamemorri had graciously loaned them. As this meant a.s.sisting with the lifting and water carrying-Doc was being a stickler for cleanliness, especially in the surgery and consulting rooms-Edlin was kept quite busy.Firekeeper and Derian had been excused from anything to do with setting up the household and medical practice. Their job was to learn everything they could about Dragon's Breath. Since the innkeeper's boy had been quite happy to continue as guide and translator, Elise was free to translate for Doc-a necessary task, since without a.s.sistance he could not understand anything his patients said to him.

Even before they hung the Healer's Guild emblem out over the door, Sir Jared set very strict limits as to whom he would see. As her very first task, he asked Elise to letter a sign in New Kelvinese stating his limits.

"I am not a miracle worker," he explained, steadily sorting the supplies Wendee had bought for him in the market earlier that morning. "I cannot cure any illness. I cannot make tumors melt away. My gift is for strengthening. I can help a broken bone to mend more quickly; I can convince the blood to replenish itself at a greater rate. I can give the body's own soldiers courage to carry on their fight against an invader but I cannot, cannot..."

He almost shouted the word.

"I cannot do miracles. Moreover, I will not try. Even the little things I can do drain me so that I sleep at night as one dead. I will not waste the capacity I do have to help fussing over those who are beyond my powers."

Elise reached out an impulsive hand to hold one of Doc's. She felt his long, dexterous fingers wrap around hers, grateful for the human contact, forgetting for a moment anything but that they were two people.

This was the man she knew and liked, the man who had taught her how to bind wounds and to mix healing ointments. On the eve of the early battles of King Allister's War, he had also taught her how to recognize a person capable of being treated from one who could not be. That had Been a terrible lesson, one that had been given its first test when her own dear cousin Purcel had been brought in from the field.

"I understand, Doc," Elise said softly, "and I'll make certain the patients understand, too."

Sir Jared nodded and when he pulled his hand out of hers it was not with that sudden, embarra.s.sed jerk that she had come to dread but simply because he needed it to unpack a box of cloth bandaging strips.

"Derian did take care of our paperwork with the local guilds?" he asked.

Elise nodded, busying herself with sketching out Doc's manifest on a sheet of wood with a stick of charcoal. One good thing about New Kelvin-there was never a shortage of writing materials.

Antic.i.p.ating their need, Hasamemorri had loaned her tenants some interesting color sticks in which the pigments were suspended in wax. They weren't as versatile as paint and had a tendency to smear, but they also didn't need long to dry.

Elise paused to squint critically at her draft, rubbing out the end of a line where the letters had started to slope.

"Yes, he and Wendee went out this morning. They registered us with the local-I guess you'd call it mayor's office-and picked up a list of the regulations we'll be expected to abide by. Then they went over to the Healer's Guild and paid for your license."

"Any problems?"

Elise heard Doc pause in his unpacking as if antic.i.p.ating trouble."Not really," she a.s.sured him. "They were happy to take our money. Derian and Wendee were very careful to explain that you would be doing more than simply binding wounds and dispensing potions.

Derian said that the Healer's Guild officer seemed intrigued rather than challenged."

"That reaction's interesting in itself," Doc said thoughtfully. "I wonder if Wendee's conjecture that the talents don't flourish here is indeed true."

Elise finished the rough lettering for her sign. In the interests of speeding the opening of their business, she'd kept the legend brief and to the point.

SIR JARED SURCLIFFE, HEALER.

SPECIALIST IN BROKEN BONES, WOUNDS,.

AND COMMON AILMENTS.

NO MIRACLES!.

"What do you think?" she asked, holding it up for Doc's inspection.

"Neat and concise," he said approvingly. "Since you'll be continuing to a.s.sist me, my lady, I'll give to you the task of separating the patients into those we can treat and those we cannot."

Elise-threatened at first by the seeming formality implied in "my lady"-warmed to the inclusive "we."

"I can try," she said.

"Good." Sir Jared rubbed his hands briskly. "Now, my hope is to reserve my talent for where it is truly needed. The rest of our patients we will treat by more usual methods."

"Right," Elise said. "Shall I send in your first patient? There's a friend of Hasamemorri waiting upstairs in her parlor."

Doc looked about his makeshift consulting room.

"I suppose you may as well get her. You can color in the sign later."

That first day-their first full day of residence in Hasamemorri's house-they saw three people. First came the friend of Hasamemorri's-an elderly woman with very bad swelling of the joints. Doc gave her a powder for the pain and an ointment for her joints.

Their second patient was the result of a chance accident a street away. A young man had been caught between a cart and a wall when the donkey pulling the cart was frightened by a sudden noise. Someone had noticed Edlin hanging out the emblem required by the Healer's Guild and Brought the injured man there, not caring about credentials as much as proximity.

Elise's battlefield experience kept her from blanching when the pale, blood-smeared youth was hauled in on a makeshift stretcher constructed from someone's winter cloak. She knelt by him out in the street, checked for blood on his lips, the odor of bowel on his breath.

The brownish red stain the young man had used to pattern his face was distracting, but a gentle inspectionwith her fingertip was enough to show her what was dye and what was blood.

Doc heard the commotion and came to the door, but he didn't rush to take her place.

"Do we have a chance?" he asked, almost conversationally.

"I think so," she replied.

"Have his friends bring him into the consulting room. The surgery isn't ready yet."

With that, Doc retreated. In the background, Elise could hear him bellowing to Wendee for hot water.

With the part of her mind that wasn't completely absorbed in directing the bearers, she made a note to make certain that water was always kept warm on the hob for just such emergencies.

The youth looked more badly injured than he really was. Most of the blood proved to be from abrasions.

His worst injuries were cracked and broken ribs, but those that were broken had missed the lungs. There was no bowel perforation.

An hour after he had been carried in he was set in the infirmary, sound asleep from one of Doc's potions.

Their third visitor arrived a few hours after the young man had been brought in, when Doc was sitting in his consulting room drinking very strong tea and recovering from the ordeal.

Knowing how exhausted Doc was, Elise nearly sent this patient away. Superficially, he looked quite healthy. Then he held up one of his hands. It was withered, the muscles gone, the fingers collapsed loosely onto themselves.

"I'm sorry," Elise said to him, wishing her New Kelvinese weren't so formal. She thought it made her sound more severe than she wished. "Sir Jared cannot heal old injuries. His ability is limited to strengthening the body when it must battle new wounds."

The man-she had trouble judging his age because of the concentric lines of yellow and orange he had drawn about his eyes and mouth-frowned. His dull blond hair was drawn back into a tight braid and his loose robe hid the shape of his body.

"I saw that on the sign," he said. "Still, I would speak with Sir Jared. I will pay for a consultation."

Something in the patient's gaze-his eyes were a weird, pale shade without tint of their own-made Elise feel that she could not send him away. There was an aura of command about him that made her suspect he was not accustomed to being denied.

She longed to pa.s.s the decision onto Doc, but that wouldn't be right.

"Very well," she said. "Sir Jared is recovering from a surgery and must look in on his patient in a bit, but he is available now."

The man glided past her into the consultation room without further comment, without even bothering to knock. Elise followed him in, signing her apology for the interruption to Doc over the visitor's shoulder.

"Sir Jared doesn't yet speak New Kelvinese," she explained when their visitor looked back at her quizzically, as if wondering why she was still there. "I will translate if you wish."

"I do," he said, "for I lack your tongue. I am Oculios." He continued bowing to Doc and then, a bit uncertainly, to Elise herself.Elise translated. "He says his name is Oculios."

Doc nodded, said, "Oculios," with a slight smile.

He did pretty well. There was something wrong about how he shaped the vowels. He made the "o"

sound too flat-a touch more "ah" than "o"-but it was. recognizable.

Elise settled herself into being nothing but a mouth as Oculios continued speaking: "I used my deformity to win the sympathy of your pretty a.s.sistant. Although," he said, casting a quizzical glance at her from those beringed eyes, "I don't think it worked. However, I have not come to consult you about that old wound."

"Good," Doc replied after Elise had finished, "because I can't do anything about that. Out of curiosity, what happened to the hand?"

"An accident with some heated chemical," Oculios answered after Elise had repeated Doc's question, "when I was younger. I am a member of the Sodality of Alchemists, though I myself am an apothecary by trade."

"Ah, the compet.i.tion has arrived," Doc murmured.

Elise expected Sir Jared to tell her not to translate that last statement-it sounded a bit obnoxious-but when he didn't, she did her job, not even softening the phrasing as she might have. The addition of a word like "honored" or "respected" or "long admired" would go a long way-and wouldn't be a lie, either, for she knew that Doc did admire New Kelvinese medicines.

Still, Doc wasn't stupid. If he had reasons for being blunt, even a bit rude, she wasn't going to mess up his gambit.

Oculios smiled faintly. "Actually, I am not. Not really. I prefer not to set bones and deal with raw wounds. I lack the training-even if my infirmity didn't make such work practically impossible. In fact, I refer such patients to others. Actually, I am here for two reasons."

He began to tick them off by raising a finger on his strong hand.

"One, I am here as a representative of my sodality. That's an organization quite different from a guild."

Elise frowned slightly, then spoke in her own right.

"Could you explain that, sir? I've never managed to understand that point and my books and tutors-they all seemed to a.s.sume that I did." She grinned. "Actually, I'm not certain that my tutor really understood either."

Oculios gave her a sudden smile-the first such that didn't seem like a bit of studied politeness. It turned the lines around his mouth into rippled crescents.

"I can do so," he said. "First, may I have your name? I am aware that I dismissed you unfairly as a mere apprentice to the healer, Sir Jared. You are clearly his partner."

Elise blushed. To herself she furiously tried to excuse the reaction as mere embarra.s.sment at not having made proper introductions. Deep inside, she knew she had colored at hearing herself named so innocently in such an intimate relationship to Sir Jared.

"One moment, Oculios. I must tell Sir Jared what we have been saying."She provided a quick summary.

Doc nodded. "Good. These sodalities sound important. Learn what you can about them and don't mind pausing every line or so to translate for me. I'll take a summary when you're done."

Elise decided that since this meeting was going to take a while, she may as well be seated. She made a neat curtsy to their visitor as she did so.

"I am Lady Elise Archer," she said.

"Lady Archer," Oculios said, not rising, but dipping his head in the seated equivalent of a bow. "Now, to explain. The guilds here are much like they are in your land-as I understand them, that is-organizations for regulation of business, setting reasonable prices for services and standards of quality for whatever is being sold."

"That seems a fair definition," she agreed.

"Here," Oculios continued, "the guilds are informally a.s.sociated with various sodalities. The sodalities specialize in related skills, but specialize in the magical elements of those skills."

Elise shivered at this open mention of the forbidden art of magic. If Oculios noticed her reaction, he chose not to comment.

"Most of my art," he said, "consists of tasks a healer or herbalist in your own land would recognize.

However, I also am devoted to endeavoring to perpetuate knowledge left to us at the departure of the Founders. In the case of my sodality, we attempt to combine elements into potions and preparations that our records tell us the Founders once used."

"Attempt?"

Elise felt the word slip out before she could school it back.

Oculios went stiff and formal. The lines around his eyes and mouth became rounded, like ripples spreading from a pebble dropped into a still pool.

"In our land, as in yours, much information was lost and damaged during the Burning Death. Where New Kelvin differs from Hawk Haven is that we have regathered much of that knowledge and have it available for our use."

Elise schooled her expression into something wide-eyed, awed, and maybe just a bit scared. Oculios relaxed slightly, apparently pleased by her respect.

"Additionally, it is from the sodalities that the Primes are elected-and from the Primes that the Dragon Speaker is elected."

Elise nodded, on firm ground again. She had studied this peculiar system of government with interest. The Dragon Speaker seemed to be the real king of New Kelvin, but the Speaker ruled at the whim of these Primes. She had thought that the Primes were n.o.bles, but apparently they were more like master crafters who might or might not also dabble in magic.

"One moment," she said, wanting time to adapt her own mental map. "Let me translate."