Chapter 27: New Responsibilities

“What do I have to do?”

“What do you have to do?” Itela asked. “Not a thing. I however, have to do sort of a lot.”

Itela stood from her desk, suddenly glowing with light.

“Being a god is about being part of the universe, a medium that everything resonates with. Being a cleric is about resonating a bit harder with that material than most.”

“What’s she doing?” Arthur asked, nudging Milo.

“Shh. Let her work.” Milo’s eyes were open. “Normally, you have to be hurt to see this.”

“Hear me, goddess. A child is lost. They are not where they should be.”

Everywhere in the room, runes started to light. On the walls, floor, ceiling, and even on some of the furniture, intricate shapes started to shine, shaped by glowing lines as fine as a hair. Arthur could feel the air vibrating with sheer power.

“They say she’s the highest level of anything in the whole city. Higher than the mayor.”

“Shh, boys. This is the tricky part.” Itela walked over to Arthur, placing her hand lightly on his chest, palm spread. “Look at the heart of this boy. See beyond his words, goddess. Beyond what he says to what he feels is true.”

She raised her hand from his chest, bringing a glowing mote of light out of him as she did.

“Find the child, goddess. Wherever she is in this city. Find her, if she wants to be found. And if she wants to be found by this boy, help them. Bring them together, regardless of what words they might say.”

Raising her hand towards the sky, Itela suddenly pulsed with power as the mote of light began to spin and brighten, shooting away unhindered by the walls of the room into the world beyond. Itela’s hand suddenly came down, slapping into Arthur’s shoulder as she braced herself on him for balance.

“Whew.” All the glow was gone from around her. “That confirms it. The spell is absolutely not supposed to be used that way. It fought me every step.”

“It didn’t work?” Arthur looped his arm around Itela’s back, supporting her as she made her way back to her chair and plopped down.

“I wouldn’t say that, but you tell me. Are you feeling anything out of the ordinary?”

“No, I don’t think…” Arthur stopped talking as he realized he really did feel a bit different. “Actually, how is this spell supposed to work? I feel like I’m getting sucked into something. Or somewhere.”

“That’s it.” Itela smiled, weakly. “At least all that majicka didn’t go entirely to waste. I’m absolutely tapped.”

“So I just… follow this? The feeling?”

“It looks like it. Of course, that just means it worked on your end. If that little girl doesn't want you there, it’ll just lead you around the city for a bit. Nowhere near her, of course. You have to hope she wanted help, and you’re who she thought of as maybe able to give her that.”

“Any reason she should?” Milo said. “You haven't known her very long.”

“In a way, I sort of hope it doesn't work,” Arthur said. “If I'm her best shot at help… that means she doesn't have much to rely on at all.”

—

Ten minutes later, Arthur and Milo were racing through the city, dodging slower-moving pedestrians as they ducked through alleys, streets, and even through parks.

“Are you sure this is working, Arthur?”

“Nope. Not at all. But it seems like this is the way we should be going.”

“Could she even have walked this far? This is getting pretty close to the wall.”

“I was going to ask about that. Why is it so sparse?”

“When the city was built, the wall was built soon after. The idea was to leave room to grow.”

The closely packed residential and business-related buildings of the more central part of the city had long since given way to warehouses, salvage yards, and even the odd completely vacant lot here and there.

“And the ring of nothing? By the wall?”

“The city will only let people build so close to the wall. For their safety, and I guess so they can organize supplies and people when we get swarmed.” They were standing at the edge of the cleared ring now, able to look miles in each direction across the flat, packed earth that ran the perimeter of the city.

“It doesn't look like there's anything here.” Arthur's heart sunk. It was beginning to look more and more like the spell hadn’t worked.

“Oh, don't give up yet. Are you still getting directions from it? It's still telling you to move forward?”

“Yeah.” Arthur could still feel the subtle pull of the spell deep in his chest. “But now it's just pointing at the wall. A little to the left there. And there's nothing here.”

“Well, maybe,” Milo said. “But we came all this way. We might as well see it through.”

They walked across the cleared area.

There can't be anything here. Which means I can't help. But it also means she doesn't want me too. Why are those things equally sad to me?

Then, all of a sudden, he saw it. There was a board on the ground. It was one of many. Bits and pieces of various litter and debris apparently found their way out here pretty often. But this particular board was special, not only because the spell was screaming to him, but because it was just big enough, flat enough, and intact enough to conceal something underneath it.

Arthur bent down to the ground, curled his fingers under the wood and flipped it over, revealing what against all odds looked like an honest-to-god tunnel dug into the earth.

“What in the world?” Milo said. “How is this here? Do you think she dug it?”

“Only one way to find out.” Arthur was already on his hands and knees in the hole. The tunnel extended onwards at least a bit, but how far was hard to say. He thought he could see a bigger space in the distance, but it was entirely possible it was just an illusion of some kind, a trick of the light.

“There's no way it's safe in there. And if it doesn't cave in on you, you'll get stuck.”

“If it could cave in on me, it could cave in on her, too.” Arthur crawled forward a bit, brushing the sides of the tunnel with one shoulder, but not quite both. “I think it's wide enough, anyway.”

“Barely.”

Arthur ignored Milo's squawking as he continued on into the tunnel, praying that the girl had cut it uniform throughout, and he wouldn't actually get stuck halfway through. Or that the spell wasn't just leading him to literally the worst, scariest part of the entire city just to screw with him.

Luckily, it seemed the tunnel stayed wide enough for him to make his way through. He was getting covered with clay and dirt everywhere, and had to stop occasionally to spit out particles of dirt his hair had rubbed off the roof and dropped into his mouth.

As Arthur’s eyes adjusted to the light, he was able to confirm the tunnel did, in fact, open up at the end. After several feet of travel, he eventually came to a chamber about three times as wide as the tunnel and dug just a bit deeper into the earth, reinforced by boards propped up with planks.

Here and there in dug-out ledges on the walls were a few belongings, mostly of the practical object variety interspersed with little chunks of shiny scrap, set up like the porcelain knick-knacks on an old lady's hallway shelves. There were candles, what appeared to be a bundle of socks, a basin and washrag, and a few other necessities packed into the room. In the center of it all was a pile of rags, cast-off-towels and blankets that bulged several inches from the ground.

A pile of rags, blankets, and towels that appeared to be breathing.

“Hey. Hey!” Arthur said, shaking the pile of cloth and feeling a small, fragile form moving beneath it. “Wake up.”

“I can't.” He heard a muffled voice coming from under the blankets. “Too tired.”

Arthur uncovered the head and found a clammy, sweaty face, one he could tell was feverish somehow even through the feathers.

“I'm gonna need better than that. Are you okay?”

“I'm...” She stopped talking for a few seconds, eyes scanning the room. “Fine. I'm fine. Cleaning more cups. Will have them done soon.”

“Ok, I think that's enough.” Arthur reached under the blankets, hooking Lily's arms and dragging her after him into the tunnel. It was just possible to move her and move back at the same time, however slowly, and however much she complained through her delirium that she didn't need help.

“Let me sleep,” she said. “I'll have the ice up soon. Let me sleep. Don't need help.”

“Shh. I'm gonna get you somewhere safer.” Arthur finally managed to get his feet out of the hole, yelling at Milo to drag him the rest of the way out.

“Oh, wow, you got her. She doesn't look good at all, Arthur.”

“No, she doesn't. We need a doctor. Or a cleric? I don't know how it works. I haven't been sick here yet.”

“Doctors first, and they call the clerics if it's something they can't handle. There's overlap between what they do, but this looks like normal sickness.”

“She's delirious. That's not normal.”

“It's not good, but still in the range of normal sickness. Come on. We need to get her somewhere that can help. That means finding people.”

—

“And what is this?” Ella said. “And who is this? Milo, this child needs a doctor. Now.”

“She's had one. Four fever-break spells, a pill, a potion, and a bed-rest plan somewhere clean and soft. That's here.”

“This is your little assistant?” Ella reached over to Arthur and half took, half jerked Lily out of his arms. “How'd she get sick?”

“No idea. She didn't say anything about feeling bad. She just didn't show up to work one day.”

“And you still found her?”

“Arthur got Itela to cast a missing child spell. Led him right to her.”

“That shouldn't have worked.”

“Mom, we know. It was quite the thing. But we have… bigger things.” He waved at the little girl. “Little invalids who need care. We can cover the details later.”

“Fine, fine. Point taken. Arthur, I’m going to give this girl a bath. A nice, cool one. Take money from the jar in the kitchen, and go buy her some clothes. Pajamas, probably. Fit doesn't matter much with pajamas.”

“I can pay for that,” Arthur said. “My responsibility.”

“Says who?”

“Says the spell working.”

“Can't argue with that. See you in a few.”

An hour later, the tailor got the clothes done. Telling people he had a sick orphan to take care of was more than enough incentive for the tailor to get the work done quickly. Arthur gave up his bed, and within a few minutes from the delivery of the pajamas, Ella had the little girl cleaned, deposited in warm sheets, and looking a good deal better.

At that point, Arthur had nothing to do besides wait. He tried that for about five minutes before he came to the conclusion that just waiting was an impossibility.

He didn't have a lot of tools in his toolbox, but people made chicken soup when they were sick. If tea could help, he was going to figure out how.