Bane by Viola Grace Page B

and pain.
    “The sick have been asked to remain in the cities. We have kept them informed as to our efforts to bring in a healer, and now that you are here, the other cities will send their ill to us.” He carefully shepherded her down a wide set of stairs, and she could hear folk below, speaking in low tones.
    “What can you tell me about the illness?”
    “I will leave that for the doctors who have remained. They have been investigating it for two weeks now.”
    “Are we going there now?”
    “We are. Your rooms are on the third floor. Patients are housed on the first, and the medical staff are working on the second.”
    She nodded and followed him down the hall with the definite scent of medicines wafting in the air.
    To avoid accidental contact, she folded her hands together and shifted her sleeves to cover them. Folks didn’t try to touch you if they didn’t see your hands.
    A door had the marker of Research and Treatment on it, and it was through that door that they went. There was a quiet desperation to the occupants of the ballroom. Row upon row of cots lined the walls and formed aisles where the attendants moved back and forth, carrying meals and trays.
    “Oh my. Where is the head physician? I need a briefing as quickly as possible.” Seeing the pain and devastation that the illness was causing, she wanted to be of use before it got out of control completely.
    Kondr waved over an attendant and spoke quietly to her. She nodded her glossy black head and whispered to him. He hesitated for a moment before he returned to Ava. “This way. He has been struck by the plague that he was treating.”
    She was led past fifty beds, and finally, she passed through the curtains attended by a woman in a pale gown. The woman’s emerald eyes lit with hope, but she let Kondr and Ava pass.
    “Oh, my.” The man was wearing nothing more than a minimal loincloth and a rainbow of splotches with yellowish edges covered his body.
    The man sat up and smiled weakly. “Are you the healer?”
    Ava sat next to him and stripped off one of her gloves. “Let’s see, shall we? If I can affect any change in you, you can tell me everything about this pathogen. Now, where is your heart?”
    The man chuckled. “A healer who doesn’t know where a heart is. This isn’t going to end well.” Despite his words, he indicated a position on his chest two inches below his sternum.
    Ava removed her other glove and tucked both under her belt. An immediate healing would take a lot out of her, but if she could heal him, this would give them a better start for affecting a larger cure.
    “Are you ready?
    “You can call me Rathos. Most call me Dr. Rathos.” He squinched his eyes shut.
    “This won’t hurt, but it also won’t give you immunity. It will simply buy us enough time to synthesize a cure using my talent.”
    Kondr was standing out of the way, and Ava didn’t blame him. With this much disease, it was amazing that he came in to guide her. Most would have remained at a safe distance, but he was different. He was both brave and determined, which were oddly endearing in the face of a plague.
    Ava rubbed her hands together and placed one on either side of his heart. She washed his blood with energy, and as she sat there, the marks of the disease faded to mild discolouration.
    “Amazing. That is amazing. How many more folks can you heal like this?” Kondr was next to her, staring at the healed black flesh.
    Rathos shook his head. “She didn’t heal me, precisely. She reset my body, washed away the active pathogen and put me in the state of a person who was never exposed.”
    Ava smiled and removed her hands, replacing her gloves. “Excellently deduced. I will need to have a piece of infected tissue inserted under mine to begin to create a cure, in theory anyway. Can you synthesize what you need from plasma?”
    Rathos smiled and got to his feet. “We will see. First, we will find a compatible donor cell, and then, we will insert it