48. Alar
ALAR
“A drowning man does not ask whether the rope is clean.”
—Elurian proverb
We had ten days until the ball, until my father stood up in front of the ruling families of the seventeen provinces making up the Elurian Federation, and named me his new heir.
Arlen was not doing well, and I had run out of options.
The work that had been slowly and painfully gaining ground had stalled and slid back, and the breathing and the grounding that had once pulled him out of the dark were now doing little good. They barely managed to keep him from sliding further down into the abyss.
I had hoped for a miracle, but the truth was that the Vedona healer's list of remedies had never been meant as an instant cure. The healing was supposed to take months, even years.
I had ten days.
Out of utter desperation and lack of options, I returned to Healer Lemil, the only other person in the palace who carried this with me.
"There's nothing more I can do for him," he said before I'd even finished asking. "I've done all I could with what I have. Rest, quiet, and the work you've been doing with Prince Arlen. There is no draft for this, Your Highness. I wish there were."
"There has to be something, Lemil. Some experimental remedy the scientists are working on at the university. I'm willing to try anything, no matter how controversial."
He shook his head. "If anyone were developing a medicine, I would have heard about it."
Something about the way he was avoiding my gaze and wringing his hands told me that he wasn't telling me everything he knew, and for a split second, an insidious suspicion entered my mind.
What if Lemil was working with Avren? What if he was part of the conspiracy to remove Arlen from the race?
The healer had lost weight since the last time I'd seen him, and it was evident that he felt guilty.
At first, I'd assumed the reason was his insistence on my father resuming his training sessions.
That was why my father had been in the gym the day of the attempted assassination.
But what if he felt guilty for another reason?
What if Avren was bribing or threatening him into cooperating?
I shook my head even though I hadn't voiced any of my suspicions.
I had no proof that Avren was involved in Arlen's misfortune, and even less proof that the healer was doing anything nefarious.
"Lemil." I leaned on his table and looked into his eyes.
"I'm not asking you as a prince asking his physician.
I'm asking you as a man who is desperate to save his brother.
If there is anything, anything at all, no matter how outlandish, I want to know what it is.
I don't care if it's witchcraft or something I can only get from a Sitorian priest. If need be, I'll hunt one down and get him to give me what I need. "
He let out a long-suffering sigh. "It's not witchcraft or Sitorian poison, but I've heard rumors about a contraband drug that is supposed to do wonders for people afflicted with all kinds of mental troubles, from addiction all the way to a soldiers' affliction.
It's a dangerous street drug, and the rumors might be fabrications.
" He lowered his voice further, though we were alone.
"It's made from a fungus that grows in the deep wet caves down the southern coast of the Catonian Sea.
I don't know the process of making the drug, or what else they mix into it, but I heard that it throws the mind wide open.
Users report long hours of visions, of connecting to the divine, or the universe, or other realities.
Its street name is greycap, and it's highly addictive.
At first, just a little is enough to bring about the hallucinations, but over time, more and more is needed to achieve the same results, and eventually heavy users fry their brains.
That's why I never mentioned it, and why I don't recommend it.
You might help Arlen recover from the soldiers' affliction but doom him to something much worse. "
I didn't care about the long-term addiction. I would not let Arlen get so far. But if there was a chance to help him now, I'd take it.
"Where do I find it? I'll pay whatever it costs."
He shook his head. "I'm a court physician.
I cannot procure contraband, and a prince of Catonia certainly cannot be seen anywhere near the slums where it's sold.
" He was still shaking his head and wringing his hands.
"I shouldn't have told you. The king will have my head if anything happens to you out there while you are trying to purchase it. "
"I need to know where I can find it, and anything else you know about it."
He insisted he knew nothing beyond what he'd already told me, but I kept pushing, and in the end, he told me that a good place to start would be the lower docks.
"I swear by Elurion that's all I know, Your Highness, but I implore you to forget what I've said and not pursue this dangerous drug."
I pushed to my feet. "Don't worry, Lemil. I will not breathe a word about where I learned about the greycap. But if it helps Arlen, I will reward you generously for throwing me this lifeline."
He uttered a sound that was a cross between a groan and a whimper. "It's not a line, Your Highness. It's a poisonous snake."
I snorted. "At this point, I don't care if the line is made from rope or snakeskin. I'll take anything I can get my hands on."
I waited for dark, not because I wanted to reach the shady part of town at the most dangerous time but because it made it easier to sneak out of the palace wearing my merchant disguise.
I went down through the servants' passages wearing the plain clothes that marked me as neither poor nor rich, but someone who could afford what I'd come to buy.
I also carried a short-barreled handgun under my light coat, a dagger at the belt, and another one in the boot.
My purse was heavy enough to buy what I'd come for, and, to some, heavy enough to kill for.
I walked a few streets away from the palace before flagging a hover-car transport.
"The lower docks," I said as I climbed in.
"Are you sure, mister?" the driver asked. "It's not safe for a gentleman like you in those parts, especially after dark."
"I'm sure."
He shook his head but drove me to my destination.
When he stopped the hover-car, I leaned forward and held out the fare. "Thank you."
He gave me one last questioning look, then took the bill, and after I stepped out, he drove away.
I'd grown up in Vedona, and yet I'd never been to the docks.
It was strange, walking through a part of my city I'd only seen as a smudge of masts and smoke from a high palace window. The lower city might as well have been another country for all I knew of it.
The streets were narrow and dimly lit, and getting worse the closer I got to the water, and then I came out from between two warehouses and the Catonian Sea was spread out in front of me, black and vast, slapping at the pilings, and the lower docks spread along it, a low tangle of wharves and storehouses and lit windows where men were drinking.
That was where I would find the next clue.
I found a dockside tavern that had only a few patrons gracing its stools. I bought a drink and nursed it while said patrons took my measure. After a few seconds, they were done examining the newcomer and went back to their conversations and their tankards.
"I can't sleep, I tell you," the man sitting on the stool right next to mine complained to his companion. "I lay awake and stare at the ceiling and nothing. Night after night. I have no energy to work and the super is on my case for being too slow."
I waited until he was done complaining and his friend was done making suggestions that ranged from warm tea before bedtime to a smoke of tobacco mixed with something I was not familiar with. The last suggestion was a vigorous tumble in bed with the wife.
"Have you seen my wife?" the complainer asked.
"Yeah." His friend lifted his tankard and took a swallow. "A vigorous tumble might break the bed. Maybe something a little less vigorous then?"
The two men laughed and clinked their tankards.
I leaned over. "I couldn't help but overhear your problem with sleeping. I heard that there is a grey sort of help to be had, if you know what I mean. Something that's good for calming restless minds."
"Oh, yeah?" The complainer turned to me. "What do you know about the grey stuff?"
"Only that it can help with troubled minds, and mine is troubled. If you know where I can find it, I'd gladly pay to be pointed to it. I'm at the end of my rope."
The guy exchanged a look with his friend, then turned to me again. "Buy us drinks, and we'll see what we can do for you."
What they could do was point me to the next tavern and a name, and when I got there, the story repeated itself, each man passing me along to another, none of them knowing more than the next link in the chain.
Two hours of that and I was half drunk myself from all the tankards I'd consumed.
The good part was that it numbed me to the lying.
I should have been used to that after sneaking into Elucia under false pretenses and then keeping up the charade for months.
But lying by omission was easier to excuse than complete fabrications.
I'd settled on saying as little as I could.
A brother, I said, when I had to say anything.
Caught in an attack on the road, a convoy set on by bandits.
Lived through it and came home not right in the head.
The details were lies, but the fundamentals were true, and saying the true parts let me say the false parts without choking on them.
I was following a boy down a narrow lane between two storehouses toward someone who could 'sort me proper' when two men came out of a doorway fast, and the boy ran off, which told me he'd been paid to lead me there.
One had a cudgel and the other a short blade.
"Purse," the one with the blade said, almost bored. "And the coat. Quick, now, and you keep your teeth."