Forest Mage

“Wouldn’t hurt you to miss a meal or two,” he said meaningfully.

I scowled at his jab, but he only grinned. I nodded and set out for the infirmary.

In the last few balmy days, some misguided trees had flowered. They wore their white and pink blossoms bravely despite the day’s chill. The groundskeepers had been at work: all the fallen branches from the winter storms had been tidied away and the greens manicured to velvet.

I had to pass one very large flower bed where precisely spaced ranks of bulb flowers had pushed up their green spikes of leaves; soon there would be regiments of tulips in bloom. I looked away from them; I knew what lay beneath those stalwart rows. They covered the pit grave that had received so many of my comrades. A single gravestone stood grayly in the middle of the garden. It said only, OUR HONORED DEAD. The academy had been quarantined when the plague broke out. Even when it had spread through the city beyond our walls, Dr. Amicas had maintained our isolation. Our dead had been carried out of the infirmaries and dormitories and set down first in rows, and then, as their numbers increased, in stacks. I had been among the ill. I had not witnessed the mounting toll, nor seen the rats that scuttled and the carrion birds that flocked, despite the icy cold, to the feast. Dr. Amicas had been the one to order reluctantly that a great pit be dug and the bodies be tumbled in, along with layers of quicklime and earth.

Nate was down there, I knew. I tried not to think of his flesh rotting from his bones, or about the bodies tangled and clumped together in the obscene impartiality of such a grave. Nate had deserved better. They had all deserved better. I’d heard one of the new cadets refer to the grave site as “the memorial to the Battle of Pukenshit.” I’d wanted to hit him. I turned up my collar against a wind that still bit with winter’s teeth and hurried past the groomed gardens through the late afternoon light.

At the door of the infirmary I hesitated, and then gritted my teeth and stepped inside. The bare corridor smelled of lye soap and ammonia, but in my mind the miasma of sickness still clung to this place. Many of my friends and acquaintances had died in this building only a couple of months ago. I wondered that Dr. Amicas could stand to keep his offices here. Had it been left to me, I would have burned the infirmary down to scorched earth and rebuilt somewhere else.

When I tapped on the door of his private office, the doctor peremptorily ordered me to come in. Clouds of drifting pipe smoke veiled the room and flavored the air. “Cadet Burvelle, reporting as ordered, sir,” I announced myself.

He pushed his chair back from his cluttered desk and rose, taking his spectacles off as he did so. He looked me up and down, and I felt the measure of his glance. “You weren’t ordered, Cadet, and you know it. But the importance of my research is such that if you don’t choose to cooperate, I will give you such orders. Instead of coming at your convenience, you’ll come at mine, and then enjoy the pleasure of making up missed class time. Are we clear?”

His words were harsher than his tone. He meant them, but he spoke almost as if we were peers. “I’ll cooperate, sir.” I was unbuttoning my uniform jacket as I spoke. One of the buttons, loosened on its thread, broke free and went flying across the office. He lifted a brow at that.

“Still gaining flesh, I see.”

“I always put on weight right before I get taller.” I spoke a bit defensively. This was the third time he had brought up my weight gain. I thought it unkind of him. “Surely that must be better than me being thin as a rail, like Trist.”

“Cadet Wissom’s reaction to having survived the plague is the norm. Yours is different. ‘Better’ remains to be seen,” he replied ponderously. “Any other changes that you’ve noticed? How’s your wind?”

“It’s fine. I had to march off six demerits yesterday, and I finished up at the same time as the other fellows.”

“Hm.” He had drawn closer as I spoke. As if I were a thing rather than a person, he inspected my body, looking in my ears, eyes, and nose, and then listening to my heart and breathing. He made me run in place for a good five minutes, and then listened to my heart and lungs again. He jotted down voluminous notes, weighed me, took my height, and then quizzed me on all I’d eaten since yesterday. As I’d had only what the mess allotted to me, that question was quickly answered.

“But you’ve still gained weight, even though you haven’t increased your food intake?” he asked me, as if questioning my honesty.

“I’m out of spending money,” I told him. “I’m eating as I’ve eaten since I arrived here. The extra flesh is only because I’m about to go through another growth spurt.”