The Serpent's Shadow

horticulturist, and taken a cup of tea with her in her conservatory. Somehow, over the course of a mere two hours, he had become her friend. He sensed both that she did not boast too many friends, and that it was not a gift she was inclined to extend too readily.

He had in his pocket a packet of herbal powders, a small box of pills, and a prescription to be compounded at the apothecary at the end of the street. And he thought—although it was difficult to be certain—that during the course of the time when he had sat upon the examination table, pants leg rolled up absurdly to disclose a rather unattractive, hairy shank, when she had manipulated his knee, she had done something more to it than simply prodding and poking.

Earth Magic was healing magic, and even the untaught Earth Master could heal by sheer instinct. If she had sensed his power, she would not have been too eager to reveal her own. . . .

Untaught. She knows that she's a mage, but she's untaught. That's the only answer. But how, how, how had that come about? She had grown up in India, a land swarming with mages both real and charlatan. How had she missed finding a Master to take her as an Apprentice?

Then, as he paused in front of the apothecary, he could have struck himself for his stupidity. Of course no mage of India would take her as apprentice, or priestess, or anything else! Her mixed blood would have made her of no-caste; no less than the English, those of the high blood of India shunned the Eurasians. She was ranked with the street sweepers, the Untouchables; no Brahmin would ever teach her, no guru take her for his disciple, not even an old street babu accept her as his chela except on terms no woman of spirit or sense would agree to.

My God, my God, what a waste! He entered the dark and redolent apothecary shop and wordlessly handed his folded piece of paper over to the old, skull-capped man behind the counter. That, and the mezuzah at the door told him that the doctor looked after yet another outcast here.

'Bad knee, or is it elbow or shoulder?' the old Jew asked, perching a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on the end of his nose to peruse the prescription.

'Knee,' Scott replied. 'Broke it in a storm at sea; went to the deck and hit it on a brass fitting.'

'Ah. Never set right, then.' The old man turned and began pulling ingredients from little drawers, muttering to himself as he worked—and sometimes adding a comment over his shoulder to Peter.

'This'll be what ye're to start on after ye finish what she give ye,' he said once. And then, a little later, 'No opium, no laudanum; she don't believe in that, no. I'll be giving ye two bottles and ye mind, ye look at the one, 'twill only have seven doses. And ye'll be gettin' no more from me without she gives ye a new 'scrip. That'll be for the bad nights, the stormy nights, when the pain takes ye. One of those, mind, for th' night. No more.'

'Why?' Peter asked, surprised.

'Hemp,' the old man said abruptly. 'There's them as calls it hashish. 'Twill let ye sleep, but if ye misuse it, there'll be no more getting of it from her or me.'

Well! Well indeed! There were doctors who handed out prescriptions containing opiates, laudanum, cocaine, and hemp as if they were no more dangerous than sugar pills. Peter had often considered a little hemp when the pain became too great, but he had feared it as well, for he did not know how much was enough, and how much would leave him with a craving he could not, as an Elemental Master and a member of the White Lodge, afford to have. Pain was preferable to a weakness that could all too easily be exploited. In fact, he doubted that he'd use those pills more often than once a month, and then only when he was not only within protections, but physically guarded.

'I understand your caution—and hers,' he said, with a little nod of respect that seemed to amuse the old man.

A bit more work produced a pair of stoppered brown bottles, both holding pills, the second, as promised, holding no more than seven. Peter paid his bill and pocketed the bottles. Then, with another genial nod and a tinkle of the bell over the door, he left the shop.

There was no doubt in his mind, after a walk of a few blocks, that Doctor Witherspoon had improved his knee. It was just a trifle, and perhaps no one else would have noticed it, but an Elemental Master knew himself completely, inside and out, and this Elemental Master noticed a subtle improvement in his weakest physical point.

It wasn't so much that there was less pain—that could have been chalked up to the weather. It was that it no longer made that aggravating click it was wont to do, every third or fourth stride.

Now, pills and attention and the warmth of the doctor's hands, and even the determination of his own mind to sense an improvement could account for the loss of a little pain. The mind played an abundance of tricks, even on an experienced mage. But nothing in the power of persuasion was going to make that clicking go away.

He had a great deal to think about, and since he always thought better on his feet, he let them take him back through the varied neighborhoods until he reached one where cabs were thick upon the ground, and his gradually- assumed, confident, man — about — town air got him one without the least bit of difficulty.