Chapter 28: Part 28

The doctor turned out to be some type of kin that was practically identical to realis humans in appearance. When I asked, he said that the closest word in English was bodhisattva. When he found out I wasn’t familiar with that, he explained that it was a sort of enlightened person from Buddhism. He wasn’t himself human, whereas an actual bodhisattva would be; instead the doctor (who went by the moniker ‘Empathy Guides the Greatest Healers; Hope Heals the Greatest Ills’, but happily shortened it to just Empathy) represented the enlightenment that such spiritual people sought.

The mystic was a crone. That’s not a commentary on her appearance or disposition. When I asked what type of kin she was, she told me she was a crone. I didn’t have to ask for clarification on its connection to her House or her profession. She answered only to the name “Her”, or references to her title.

Her was responsible for actually crafting the tonics, out of a blindingly horrible list of ingredients that I suspected I would later want to literally expunge the knowledge of from my mindscape. They tasted like nothing much at all, and I’m still not sure they actually did anything the modern medicine employed by Empathy didn’t do better, but Her insisted that here in the irrealis, the tonics could work wonders.

After about two hours of bland tonics and tinctures and Doctor Empathy reassuring me that the damage to my skull and brain were of a non-permanent nature, I started to feel better. Well, not better, really, so much as capable of doing any basic activity without wanting to throw up. My pain was fading, either from the tonics or from the intravenous painkillers Doctor Empathy delivered. Little Cousin came by to check in again, and with my physician’s and medium’s approval, she removed the rubber lining and the towel from the bed. Youngest Grandson hadn’t ever left, nor as far as I could tell, stopped talking about his video game. I felt a wry sort of kinship with him. I imagined I had been pretty similar as a child, from an outside perspective. Video games were cool.

Boddy, fully conscious, showed up as Empathy and Her were leaving. I think seeing my only ally these last two and a half days was probably doing more for my pain than the magic potions or the probably-addictive medicines. He was relatively uninjured.

“So, after that bastard from Opulence conked me, what happened?” I eventually got around to asking, after we had exchanged the necessary inquiries of wellness and Boddy had assured me we were in fact safely in Lady Liu’s House as her esteemed guests. Again.

“You let your dog off its leash,” Boddy answered. Somewhere, he had obtained a flask. He took a sip. I didn’t remember him ever drinking before, but then we’d not had more than ten minutes of relaxation even before the betrayal, and he’d been a bee for most of the time since then. “It made short work of that goon with the tree branch. Then it zeroed in on your old friend, the thought construct. Before today, I’d never seen a thought construct in such a state of fear. If you’d graced his insides with a bladder, I imagine he would have wet himself.” He chuckled at his own sense of humor. “The creature seemed to change as it zeroed in on him. It became more sleek. Less a ball of limbs and more some sort of stalking, specialized predator. It still had way too many limbs, mind. Like a centipede, except instead of columns the legs came in rows, so it was only about as long as you are tall despite the oh…five or six dozen legs, arms, and leg-arms.

“Anyway, the construct--that is the other one, not the one that was busily turning into some sort of mix between centipede and cruise missile--just up and ran off. He didn’t get very far. I think he’s probably been dismantled, down to his rawest threads of existence. Then the sleep-thing went right over to you and crawled back inside you like it was nothing. Left me and Maps completely alone.”

“Where are Maps and Cudgel, then?”

“Is that what they call the leprechaun? Cudgel?” Boddy took another gentle sip, then offered the flask to me. I declined. I could barely keep down the ultra-bland tonics Her had given me. I did not need anything stronger at the moment. “After you lot were all down and the beast was, apparently, safely back in your mindscape, I secured them more properly. Mean Uncle found me a few minutes later, brought a few of the Cousins along. Apparently, Lady Liu had agreed to stay out of any fighting ‘for her own safety’, but Mean Uncle decided that didn’t mean him. But everything was under control by the time he could round up enough Cousins. At least someone was there to help haul you lot up to the House. I’m strong, but I’m not that strong.”

I took a moment to absorb that. Boddy drummed his fingers on the flat side of his flask, then capped it and tucked it into his belt. “You said the construct--the sleep metaphor construct--crawled back into me of its own volition?” I turned my thoughts inward. Shockingly, despite what Doctor Empathy had described as a “moderate to severe concussion with secondary complications likely for several days after the incident”, my mindscape was…it was unharmed. Well, other than that apparently the sleep construct had been busy while I was unconscious. In fact…it was still active, even though I was awake. Huh. Had its nature changed, somehow?

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The cityscape portion of my mind had been reduced half to rubble. The creature had focused its efforts on the centermost region, and seemed to be working its way out from there. I opted not to fully manifest inside my mindscape right now, but planned to check on it a little later.

“That’s right,” Boddy answered. “Damndest thing. I’ve worked with freelancers before, and not a one of them has ever manifested a construct that could reintegrate on its own. Sure, plenty that didn’t fight the process. Most of the time, thought constructs made by pros are pretty reliable. As long as your actions correspond with their underlying purpose. They’re not completely free-willed, so they can’t ignore that. But even the ones who really wanted back into the mindscape needed help from the constructor. Or at least from another constructor nearby.”

“Is that my jacket?” I gestured feebly to the back of a chair, where a jacket lay, folded carefully. Boddy nodded, turning one ear to me in the hob gesture of confused interest. “Left front pocket has a notepad. Write down the thing about the construct integrating itself.” The effort of sitting up and holding a conversation was starting to make me sleepy. Or maybe it was the cocktail of magic and science keeping the disorienting pain at bay. I slumped back against the pillows that Youngest Grandson had agreeably propped up so I could talk with Boddy, while Boddy dug out my borrowed hotel notepad and flipped to a blank spot, then scribbled something down.

After he wrote the note, he flipped back through the old ones. “Making plans for when you can find a proper teacher? Smart. Get some answers from someone who actually knows what’s happening.”

“Well, it seems like every time I figure one thing out I have two more questions.” That spun a wheel in my thoughts into a sluggish turn. Hadn’t we had a plan for finding someone who knew about this sort of thing? “Speaking of, have you seen our acquaintance from the House of Curiosity around anywhere? I’m not much up for walking, and I suspect that we have at least a day or two before Carver realizes his team has failed, since none of them really escaped. But the mindscape seems stable enough, other than one really dedicated metaphor slowly destroying everything that other constructor’s pawn carefully set up in there. It’s kinda fun to watch, actually.”

“Wanderer didn’t come back this way, I asked. Lady Liu has put in calls to a couple of freelancers that she knows, though.”

Yup, keeping my head turned to the side to look at Boddy was too draining, now. I let it relax until I faced the corner above the day bed. “Trustworthy?” I managed, despite my fading thoughts.

“I asked the same thing,” Boddy admitted. I thought I could hear humor in his tone. He was probably smiling. No, grinning. Bodyguard didn’t smile, he grinned. Like he knew what pain was coming your way and he knew you didn’t know. Menacing-like. “She said, and I quote, ‘More or less.’ So, you know. Should be interesting lessons. She did add that ‘None of them will agree to work with me if they’ve got a contract to work against me.’, so we’re at least not going to go up against whoever made that inflitrator construct.” Boddy did good impressions of Lady Liu. I wasn’t sure if she would find that funny or extremely irritating.

Boddy continued talking, but at that point, my mind was fuzzed out. I drifted off peacefully to sleep.

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