Hello and welcome to meet this pod episode 10. I'm your host de
Mitas. Our story for this episode comes to us from Alex
Schwartzman. Alex is a writer, translator and indologist from
Brooklyn, New York. Over 100 of his short stories have appeared
in nature analog, strange horizons, intergalactic medicine
show and many other magazines and anthologies. He won the 2014
W SFA small press award for short fiction, and was a two
time finalist for the Canopus Award for Excellence and
Interstellar fiction 2015 and 2017. He's the editor of the
other notified funny objects annual anthology series for
humorous science fiction and fantasy, and of future science
fiction digest. His epic fantasy novel or Adonis crown was
published in October of 2019. His website is www dot Alex
schwartzman.com. There are links to Alex's site and where to buy
her Danny's crown in the show notes. Without further ado, the
law cars fortune by Alex Schwartzman.
Who Nothi is making house calls thank you for coming lekar the
man's voice is both tired and hopeful. The lecarre notes the
cheaply made furniture and bare walls of the small home. A woman
sits on the couch her eyes red and puffy. She stares into space
and makes no move to acknowledge you Nothi. Her husband looks
grim and determined his hands tremble slightly, as he offers
her a bundle of bank notes. Who Nothi glances at the notes. It
isn't much but there is more than one way to pay for her
services. You understand how this works? Who not the asks.
Both of them nod. Neither will look her in the eye nor each
other. Lead me to him. She says the man shows her to the next
room where a four year old boy is lying in bed and healthy,
walks in and shakes her head when the father tries to follow.
She shuts the door behind her. The boy is burning up with
fever. She lives her hands on the child's forehead and focuses
on his illness. It's merely pneumonia, and disease that
should have been treated with herbs and mixtures instead of
magic. The family was too lacks or too poor to seek such
treatment in time. The sickness lingered and grew. It had taken
firm hold of the child's lungs. It's too late for the healer.
She realizes as she studies his small sweat drenched frame.
without her help. The child will be dead within a day. No Nothi
closes her eyes and readies herself. She focuses on the
prison in her mind which holds 1000 deaths. She wills the
tiniest opening into existence taking great care not to permit
any of her wards to escape. She begins to hum softly using her
magic to draw the pneumonia out of the boy. She traps the malady
contains it within a mental cell. A few minutes later, the
boy's fever is gone. His breathing steady. The lecarre
feels bloated like a balloon overfilled with water, stretched
to its limits and ready to burst. She exhale slowly forces
herself to focus again and begins humming a different tune.
She grabs hold of another sickness, one that is more
potent, more dangerous. One that takes up far more space and her
prison. She pours it into the boy she feels instantly lighter,
as if an enormous pressure is lifted off her temples. The
malignant tumor she expelled had been a challenging prisoner to
contain a burden that required vigilance and fortitude. One
that she bore for far too long. It Nestle's in the child's brain
now. Bonatti exits of the room without looking at the boy
again. I bought you a decade. She tells the father perhaps
longer then he will need another lacquer. But she knows that this
family will never save up enough to pay for a lecturer to take on
this tumor by the time it is fully grown. The man Thanks for
profusely but his wife stares daggers that do not be until
finally she can hold Back no more doubt. She's tells her
husband don't thank her. The witch has done us no favors.
When off he has heard it all before, but she can't help
responding. Your son will live longer. He has a chance now.
Without my ministrations he would have had none. The woman's
tears are directly in the eye. Your user is merchant, not a
healer. You tray death for worse death and profit from the
exchange. I don't know how you let us live with yourself. Then
she spits on the ground that do not these feet. Do not the
pities the woman's lack of facility for logic. This forlorn
creature knows nothing of the burden she bears of the strain
of containing so many deaths for so long. She thinks back to her
years of training. To her mentors patient guidance, it
takes a special mind to become a lecarre a special strength. His
words reassure her just as they did back when he lived. Without
another word she turns to leave. The father trails her tries to
apologize for his wife's discourtesy, who Nothi ignores
him and walks away.
Back in her home, or not the gradually releases the pneumonia
into her own body. Her adult immune system would be able to
handle it, and she cannot afford to hang on to every sickness she
captures. Her prison is nearly full as it is replete with much
worse things. It isn't often that she can unburden herself
the way she did with the tumor. And even with it gone, she can
feel the rest of her deaths constantly pushing probing
against her prisons walls. Four days later, she is coughing,
nauseous and feverish. When her Stewart arrives with news go
away, she croaks I won't see any clients but another week. This
can't wait insists I found a vessel. The news Joel to Nothi.
If true, this is a rare once in a lifetime find. A vessel is a
healthy body of someone with a talent for magic, which also
lacks a conscious mind. Her mentor searched desperately for
one late in life when he felt himself becoming too weak to
contain his captive deaths, but didn't succeed. The steward who
served her mentor before her was well trained to never see
searching. She has to hurry before the other lecarre is to
find out about the vessel to some would spend all their
treasure to possess such a prize. Who not the chance to
pneumonia back into her mental sell. She needs to be in her
best form for this. She arrives at a house in the prosperous
part of town and she is ushered to a young woman's bedside. The
girl fell in her temple on a sharp edge or so her widowed
father claims there are telltale signs that insinuate a different
story. Her body is perfectly healthy though. Besides a few
bruises, her mind is gone. She will never wake up from a coma.
Oh, nothing can sense the magic within the girl. She is indeed a
vessel. The greatest fortune immature lecarre could hope to
possess. What's more, the father eager to keep the circumstances
of the girls injuries discreet demands only a small fortune.
The word of the vessel hasn't spread sparing or Nothi the
necessity for a bidding war against other like ours. She
hands over the money and is alone with the vessel at last.
The girls magic is strong. It takes a special mind to become a
car. Had things turned out differently. She could have made
a fine one. And healthy wonders briefly if her magic could
overcome the girl's death wake her from the coma. But even
attempting this would be ludicrous, akin to a diver using
a mallet to shatter the finest largest Pearl she found in her
lifetime just to learn if it would break. Who not the places
her hands on the vessels warm forehead and opens the gates of
her prison wider than ever before. She chants cancers and
plagues heart disease and stroke schizophrenia and smallpox pour
into the vessel until for the first was time in decades, who
northeast prison is vacant. The lecarre staggers out of the
house lightheaded and weak. She can't think can't focus. Is this
what she's supposed to feel like? She lets a steward help
her into the carriage and drive her home. Moments after she
crawls into her bed and permits herself to lower her eyelids.
Sleep claims her. In the morning, she wakes with a
feeling of anguish, guilt and revulsion of the things she's
done the way she is, her calling as a car hit her all at once.
She has never felt this way. Not before her apprenticeship to
become a car nor sense. It is infinitely worse than corralling
a multitude of deaths within her mind, and she can't bear it. And
Aarthi remembers with perfect clarity, her calm demeanor, her
ability to survive and even flourish. While plying her
trade. The detached clinical manner, she can no longer muster
and takes a special mind to become a car but perhaps what
makes it special is a flaw rather than a gift.
She comes to believe that whatever depression or mental
block had allowed her to function must have somehow been
poured into the vessel, along with all the other sickness.
Whatever thing made her broken and allowed her to live with
herself. She must have it back. She rushes over to the vessels
home but she's too late. The young woman passed away
overnight extinguished by one of the many deaths meant for
others. The body has already been burned. And Aarthi leaves
the vessels home and stark and Windows staring at her with
cincher. She picks up the bass as she struggles to cope with
the guilt in her heart. The weight of decisions she made
feeling much heavier than her mind's prison ever had. Her feet
hit the cobblestones faster until she was running down the
streets of her city. eyes stung by sweat her lungs burning in
agony. She is an expert click are able to capture any sickness
contain any disease, but she doesn't know how to outrun her
humanity
meet a spot is always looking for great stories with some
fantastical element. Check out the Submissions page over at
Metis pod.com/submissions. And where did working on some fun
stuff for the show and the community surrounding it. So
stay tuned and remember to rate and review and share the show
all around. The music you're hearing is into the unknown by
odd Sprite. More of odd sprites work can be found at odd
sprite.com links in the show notes midis pod is released
under Creative Commons Attribution non commercial no
derivatives license. That means share it all you like just don't
change it or sell it. We'll see you next time folks. Have a good
one.