The Gospel According to Verdu (a Steampunk Novel) (The Brofman Series) (40 page)

“That’s good there, move up to this bleed here . . . that’s it. Not so deep, there.” He mopped her brow with a wad of gauze. Finally, she made it to the end of the gash in his chest. She dropped the knife and rocked back on her heels, letting Kingston have a better look at Verdu. Her dress was smudged with blood and stuck to her body with sweat. It had been excruciating to let her power flow out of her in such a measured way.

Kingston dabbed at the wound, cleaning away the excess blood and applying an ointment. “He needs to stay still, and with lots of liquids. He’s lost so much blood that the risk of shock is high. I don’t have any way of doing a transfusion, but if we can get the liquid up in his
remaining
blood, that should do for him for the next few days.”

“Wetter blood will do?” Chenda asked.

“Sure,” Kingston said. “The red blood cells carry what his body needs, if we can replace the liquid parts to his blood quickly, we can bring up the volume of blood in his veins back up. Thin blood is actually easier for his heart to push around, and the blood will move faster, taking more nutrients and oxygen around. In other words, his blood will do more with less red blood cells when it’s wet. For now. And we need to get that thing off his leg. That is just slowing his circulation.”

Fenimore and Kingston loosened the leg brace and set it aside along with Verdu’s crown. Kingston took a sidelong glance at Verdu and then shrugged. “I don’t think he would object if I took a closer look at this leg, do you?” No one said a thing, and he tore away the rumpled pants leg that had been under the brace. Kingston’s stout fingers felt along the scars and explored the dips and puckers of the muscles beneath. He grunted more than once, sometimes optimistically, other times with disgust. Finally, he motioned for more blankets to be brought from a stack nearby and he covered Verdu.

Everyone looked to Kingston for his analysis. “He’ll live.” The room eased from tense to not quite relaxed. “Don’t move him for a time, maybe a day or three. Leave him right there. Lots of liquids, not too much rich food—just rice, bananas, coconut water or drinks with molasses if you can get it; good iron there. I’ll talk with him about the leg later.”

He turned to the captain. “Which reminds me, what’s gonna happen next? Are we leavin’?”

The captain looked around at the others and could make no reply.

Chenda spoke up. “More than most friends in a tough situation, we are truly in this together, and I am sorry for that. I got all of you into this mess. I couldn’t see things would happen this way—”

“Hush,” said Candice. “We’re here now, we’ve come this far together. It’s not so important who’s to blame or how we got to this point. Here we are. Stuck together. Pranav Erato has explained it all. The only question that is relevant is
where
are we going to stay together? The solution is obvious. We can’t all go back to the Republic. We could spend our lives together on the
Brofman
, but then we will have betrayed all that we have been working for, and the Tugrulians will be in chaos. It’s simple really: this is where our lives have led us—halfway around the world to a broke-down empire on some very dry real estate.” She stomped her tiny foot for emphasis. “This is
not
where I envisioned my life going, not in the least! But”— she paused, her voice turning thoughtful—“the work I could do here, it’s so much more valuable than anything I could do in a dusty old room at Kite’s Republic University.”

Chenda nodded. “I am integral to Verdu’s plan. For a time at least, I need to stay here with him.” She was afraid to look into Fenimore’s eyes, worried about what she would see there.

He whispered to her, “My home is where you are. I have a lot of making up to do. Besides, I have no desire to go back to Kite’s Republic. I only want to be with you.”

Chenda nodded. “I wish I could give up the power of the Pramuc. I really do. I am so mad at the gods for this obligation that they put on me. I have nothing but sorrow to look forward to.”

She fell into tears before she could explain to the others what the pranav had told her about his slowed aging, and the possibility that she too would have an unnaturally long life. Her tears were angry, and Fenimore held her as she sobbed, patting her back and whispering, “There, there,” and other useless phrases.

“I would like to give the gods a piece of my mind as well!” snapped Candice. She turned on Pranav Erato. “Do it!” she ordered him.

“I don’t know what you mean, Professor. Do what?” he said.

“Go into a trance or something. Get some magic paper or smoke a sacred herb. Wave the mystical horn of a unicorn for all I care. Get the attention of the gods and get it now! We need confirmation. We want directions! Go on. Chop-chop!”

Candice’s tone made it clear that there would be no argument. Pranav Erato, a man who had lived a long time and gathered great wisdom, knew better than to cross Candice. He thought for a moment and then tugged on Chenda’s elbow.

A word please, Pramuc?
he thought at her. She nodded and stepped away from the others.

I was hoping to ask you about your gift before now, but it just hasn’t been the proper time. Have you found that you can set your power aside at all? I ask because that is what I must do to enter a trance. Do you know what I mean?

“No,” she said. “It’s always there, itching between the cells of my body. Holding it in takes a bit of concentration. When I use up all of my power at once, doing something big with it, I feel empty, but not apart from the power. But . . .”

Go on, child. But what?

“I was adrift at sea for a time not long ago, and this peculiar thing happened. I was floating on the water and I could feel the vastness of both the sky and the water, and as I lay there, I could feel the two elements bordering each other. I could hide, sort of, between them. Time meant nothing there, and I was safe, maybe even free of having to think about my power. It was warm and lovely,” she mused.

That’s it! I think maybe we can have a little chat with the gods. We can get a few answers, a bit of guidance.

Kingston grumbled about it, but he and Fenimore slid the carpet on which Verdu was lying through the royal apartment and out to an enclosed garden. The smell of tilled soil and flowers scented the air, and the sky above glittered with stars.

“Chenda, you sit there at Verdu’s head, and Fenimore, you sit on the other side behind her—yes, just there—and Candice, my dear, you sit to her right on the ground there.”

Satisfied, Pranav Erato sat down on the opposite side of Chenda from Candice, so that they all surrounded Chenda in a rough diamond shape..

“Everyone around Chenda take a hand,” the pranav said, scooping up Verdu’s limp hand and taking Fenimore’s as well. Candice did the same. “Chenda, a hand on my knee if you please.” He looked at Ahy-Me, the captain, and Kingston, who had followed the group into the garden. “Stand back,” he said. “Please.”

Shhh
,
he thought to the group touching him.
We are going on a very unlikely journey. Just relax and hold on.
The pranav folded himself over his knees and rested his forehead on Chenda’s hand.
Chenda, I want you to find that place, the place between the elements, between the earth and the sky. Can you do that? It is the place where the gods dwell.

Chenda felt the air above her. The vastness of it nearly crushed her. How high is up? How vast is big? How heavy is air? She pondered these things as she turned to the earth. She could not miss the solidness of the dirt and stone beneath her, the pressure and heat of the core of the world. She was a flea, crushed between the immense air and the forever ground. A nothing trapped between two very great somethings. As soon as she entered that equilibrium, let it pass through her, strip her of her elements, she was free.

Neat trick, girl. Well done.
The pranav’s thoughts were so easy to recognize in the white, bodiless nothing. She could feel Candice and Fenimore’s wonder near her as well. She had found the place, and the pranav had brought the Companions along for the ride.

Verdu was dreaming, but he acknowledged the presence of his friends. He was not so shocked as the others, as he had no idea what was happening. He believed himself to be having a fantasy. No one bothered to disavow him of that notion.

I guess I have the last leg of this journey
, the pranav thought. The nothing changed from white to gray to midnight flecked with thin, glowing threads. Chenda felt herself change from aloneness to a state of entering a presence. The continuum of the gods was there.

The chorus spoke; a line of thunder without sound rolled through the minds of Chenda and her companions. “Welcome back, Pramuc. You have done well. We are . . . pleased.”

“Then I am pleased as well. We are here for guidance.”

“We know. You need not have taxed our pranav so. You are all as you should be. We would not let you take a mistaken path. But there is more you want.” The chorus spoke with many inflections—some compassionate, others questioning, some accusing, some hoping.

“Yes. I have done all you have asked, and I have questions. The pranav says that your gift will prolong my life, it will sustain me. Is that true?”

The gods said nothing, but the feeling of confusion swirled around her. Finally a reply, heavy with ire, rolled through her. “That cannot be allowed. Did you not accept the gift of your own will?”

Chenda’s anger bubbled up. “I think not. Pranav Erato was right: gods
do
make mistakes.”

Sweet child, don’t bring
me
into this
, interrupted the pranav.

The gods swirled in indignation, but Chenda pressed on.

“You sent me forth as your messenger. You gave me the authority. I ask you to reconsider your ‘generosity’ before I lose faith and change the message.”

The gods roared as one, and the force of it nearly obliterated the Pramuc and her companions. “You would not!”

Chenda, however, stood her ground. She was willing to have a war with the gods, and this was the metaphysical hill on which she would live or die.

It took moment for the gods to collect themselves, and she had a feeling they were consulting, perhaps even negotiating. The webs of life surrounding them were jiggling, pulling and stretching; Chenda could feel the web being checked and redrawn.

The gods spoke again, “The connections were not easy to forge. In creating you, Pramuc, we have spent centuries of time and worlds of resources. The gift was made for you. Even we cannot
un
make it. However, there is an alternative.”

“I am listening,” she replied.

“Pramuc, you must understand that the powers given to you were not bestowed lightly. The gods and the elements live in harmony with humanity. Once given, the power cannot be returned, only transferred. We foresaw it passing to the next Pramuc, but there can be another way, if you are willing to make the sacrifice.”

“They will be able to part, but it will be as it was before: their natures will dominate their personalities, perhaps to the point of madness.”

“So,
no
then.”

“If it pleases you to think of it that way.” The gods’ tones were guarded, as if they were close to admitting a mistake they did not want to acknowledge.

“Two out of three; better than nothing. I accept.”

“This will hurt.”

Before Chenda could prepare, she felt herself being torn into quarters. If she’d had her mouth, she would have screamed for eternity; if her body were present, blood would have sprayed in every direction. She felt three of her pieces fly away from her, and her soul, tattered and abused, settled into flesh of her remaining self.

The snickering of the gods rang in her ears as she sat bolt upright in the darkness of the garden at the emperor’s palace. She gasped for breath, rolled onto her side, and wept. She felt stripped and violated. Much of what she had been moments before was simply gone, leaving bare nerves and torn edges in an invisible part of her.

She looked around. Her companions lay scattered on the ground, sprawled flat and facedown. Captain Endicott rushed to Candice, and Ahy-Me to Verdu. She rolled his limp form over and gaped at the slash on his chest. Rather than a cauterized line, there was the faint pucker of a long-healed scar. He breathed in, and the color in his face was better too.