by A Van Wyck
“So?” he questioned. “More than half of Tellar Province is of Kender descent. I have some Kender in me myself. I’d be surprised if you didn’t as well.”
“Your racial blindness does you credit,” Cyrus complimented, “but ill serves you in this.”
“How do you mean?” As usual, the smug satisfaction he sensed from his friend offered no clues.
“With this stocky frame,” the healer gestured, “that broad nose and those eyebrows? Or shall I say eyebrow.” Cyrus smirked. “Kender? Not with his bronze skin and that’s for certain.”
Now that he made the mental adjustment for paleness due to illness, the skin might be naturally dark…
“A Hillman?” his voice ran up in surprise. “On no more evidence than his pubescent height and a tan?”
“And then there’s the red pine needles stuck in his hair – those only grow up near the snowline. Same for the black dirt smeared all over him.”
He stared at the boy, wondering whether it could be true. If so, that would mean…
“He’s been running for a long time.”
Cyrus growled his assent. “Quite remarkable he survived all this way. You’re going to give him back to the family he so narrowly escaped?”
“We don’t know he was running from his family,” Justin croaked, aghast. “Or anyone else for that matter.”
“Uh huh,” Cyrus breathed distractedly, his crystal moving in gradually smaller circles as a frown slowly grew on his wizened face.
“What?”
“Help me turn him over,” the healer commanded.
Together, they pitched the boy gently onto his stomach. Justin bit his lip at the near insubstantial weight.
Still frowning, Cyrus resumed his examination, head cocked as though listening.
“There,” the healer whispered, inviting him with a glance. “Have a look.”
He leaned closer. Fevered skin stretched tight over shoulder blades, the reef of vertebrae more closely resembling that of a boned fish than a living child.
“What am I looking for?” he finally asked.
“Wait,” Cyrus commanded. “Watch…”
The old healer’s face grew slack as he concentrated. Incrementally, the glow of the crystal brightened, drawing harsh shadows on the boy with its violet light. The illumination grew more and more intense until it crossed over the threshold, shifting into pure white.
Justin gasped.
Shadowy and barely discernable, the light painted the edges of two ghostly marks.
“Are those what I think?”
“If you’re thinking that they’re arrow wounds,” Cyrus assured, “then no.”
Unconsciously, his hand drifted to the back of his thigh where his robes hid an identical scar.
“The resemblance is uncanny,” he challenged.
“And yet,” Cyrus continued, “there’s no damage to the scapula beneath or the muscle in between.”
The crystal’s light faded, taking the unreal scars with them.
“Do Hillmen practice ritual scarification?” the healer wondered aloud, replacing his crystal in his satchel.
“I’ve no idea,” he admitted, staring at the now unblemished flesh.
“You mean to say,” Cyrus baited, “there’s an Empire-dwelling culture you’re not an expert on?”
“The world is filled with things I don’t know,” he countered. “Including how scars like those are invisible to the naked eye.”
Cyrus shrugged. “Children are resilient. They heal fast. And for all we know Hillmen shamans could be healers of unmatched skill.” The old priest stared speculatively into the distance. “Now wouldn’t that be something…”
“Focus, Cyrus. All this is pure speculation. If you want real answers, tell me the boy will live.”
“I’m not sure how he’s alive right now,” Cyrus observed, not unkindly. “He’s a tough kid, but he’s overtaxed himself badly. I transferred what energy I could,” the old priest assured, patting his satchel, “without sending him into shock and we’ll try to dribble some food into him. But it might be too little too late. It’s really up to his own fortitude, now.”
“Do you think he’ll survive?” he pressed.
Cyrus sighed. “I’ve done all that’s humanly possible, Justin,” the older man said tiredly. “If you’re looking for more, take it up with Helia.”
Cyrus didn’t deserve his anger. He nodded, ashamed. “Forgive me, old friend.”
Cyrus waved the apology away, staring at the pitiful bundle of bones on the bed.
“Help me turn him over. He’ll get a crick in his neck, sleeping like that.”
Together they righted the boy, being careful of the fragile limbs.
“I’ll leave some instructions with the brothers and sisters here. They’ll inform you of any change.”
“Thank you, old friend.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
And then the old healer was gone and he was left alone with the unconscious boy. He sat in the one chair, staring at the haggard face, watching the shallow rise and fall of the bony chest, his thoughts a tangled mess.
There came a time when a gentle hand on his shoulder woke him, though he could not remember falling asleep.
“You should go, brother,” a priestess said kindly into his ear. “If you stay much longer, you shall drive yourself to illness with worry and then we shall have to find a bed for you as well.”
Blinking sleepily up at the soft-spoken priestess, he realized the infirmary had darkened as dusk set in. He glanced at the bed. The boy didn’t seem to have moved.
“He has not yet woken,” the priestess offered, following his gaze. “But we’ve managed to spoon some broth into him.”
“Will he be alright?” Justin asked, rubbing at his grainy eyes.
“Time will tell,” the priestess responded noncommittally.
“Thank you, sister,” he managed, rising to his feet. She smiled and disappeared from the cubicle.
The boy did look better, he noticed. But whether the improvement stemmed from some physical recovery or simply from the fact that he’d been washed down and his hair combed, Justin couldn’t tell.
Sighing, he ducked out of the cubicle. Healers drifted up and down among the orderly rows of curtained beds and the hush of night had begun to settle on the infirmary. He started the trek back up to his quarters, cutting through the main atrium. The stairs gave him grief and he winced at the twinges in his neck and back. He was too old to be falling asleep in chairs.
Pushing open the unlocked door to his cell, he padded across the raw stone floor, neatly navigating around the stacked piles of books and scrolls. He reminded himself again to put in a request for another bookcase. He glanced around, noting the books and scrolls crammed into overfull shelves, spilling from under his unmade bed, preventing the lid on his travel chest from closing and stacked haphazardly in the dark corners of the room.
Maybe two bookcases, he amended. Big ones.
The day’s events had tired him and he lit his little ceramic stove the old fashioned way, setting his striker to the oiled wick. He put the kettle on to boil and went around lighting his handful of lanterns, thankful for the little device that combined flint and striker into one, pocket sized appliance – the latest innovation from the chapter of metalworkers.
Done, he viewed the results. The place didn’t look any better in the lamplight. He said a silent prayer of thanks that he was no longer subject to neatness inspections. Maybe he should stop resisting his promotion to Keeper. Then he could get an assistant to sort out all this mess. And maybe get some glow globes in here.
He wandered over to his stacked desk, rifling through the papers. There was still a report due on the trading customs of the Neril tribesmen of the high savannas. Some well-meaning soul had mentioned him as an expert.
Worst luck.
It was useless of course. To the Neril, their ponies were closer than family. You had a better chance of bartering with a Neril tribesman for his wife th
an his mount. And the Neril had long memories. Generations of Imperial citizenship notwithstanding, their absorption into the Imperial fold had been less than seamless. They numbered among those handful of peoples, like the Atrians and the Inith, who fiercely retained their cultural identities – within the strictures of Imperial law.
The oral histories of the Neril recalled the Imperial settlement campaigns all too clearly. They had no great love of Imperials. Even less now that the Chapter of Beasts had announced its newest venture: to breed the hardy Neril ponies into suitable workhorses. He was trying desperately to word his report to the noble merchants of the Chapter in such a way as to avoid an uprising on the grassy plains of the north-east but it was slow going.
The Empire was rich in many things but horseflesh was not among them. All the best stock came from the Purlian cities, of course, but that supply was strictly regulated by the desert princes and the cream of the crop went either to the emperor’s private stables or the military. There had been talk of an equine influx from the Skordian frontier, across the ocean. But that war had also ground to an unexpected halt.
War, war, war. He could quote not a single period from the long history of the Empire where they had not been the aggressors in at least one war.
If only they could end this stale conflict with the Renali and open trade routes, the horse problem would be solved. Along with so many other problems. He sighed. Maybe he'd publish a paper about it. An extremely carefully worded, non-seditious paper. He glanced ruefully at the partially translated bamboo scroll from the Jade Islands he’d managed to procure. He’d made some inroads but at this rate, he’d never finish his research on the fascinating practice of acupuncture.
There was plenty of administrative work to be taken care of before he got around to either. Sighing, he made himself a cup of tea before tackling the first of the tedious pages. He tried to be quick and thorough in his work but his mind kept returning to the little boy in the infirmary below. He turned the problem over and over in his head. That led to thoughts of the last time he’d seen such scars, during the last Renali war, ten years ago now. He rubbed at the back of his thigh where his own arrow scar ached on cold nights.
He’d been a young man then, a newly raised priest and he’d been thrilled at being placed on the front lines, idiot that he’d been. As he’d soon discovered, patriotism was just another casualty of war – one of the unlucky ones that took forever to die. That’s what he’d done on the border. Watch people die. Without proper healer training, all he’d been able to do was hold the hands of those soldiers awaiting Helia’s embrace, praying over them amid the blood, screams and chaos of the field hospital.
Some had been grateful. Others had cursed him as their faith failed in their final moments. Most had been too delirious with pain to do either. Many young, wide eyed men like him, had cried and begged for him to save them. Had begged for that most primal thing: to go home. He’d lost count of the mothers, wives and relatives he’d promised to carry final remembrances to. Few things could weigh so heavily on the soul as the dying words of a man crying for his mother.
He could still smell the greasy ashes of the mass funeral pyres. Could still feel the oily residue on his skin and taste the sweet stench of the smoke as he dragged wrapped corpses to the piles waiting to be burned.
He’d learned about death on the border. He’d learned that death was a master of ambush and possessed, for lack of a better word, a morbid sense of humor.
His detachment had had to retreat to one of the newly annexed border forts as the tides of war turned against them. The enemy had washed up outside the high walls and the noise had been deafening. So much confusion.
He remembered running across the courtyard when the stray arrow, arching over the wall, found his thigh. His leg had crumpled beneath him and he’d fallen, losing his grip on the back end of the stretcher. The two arrows that would have found his back had he not stumbled had found the poor soldier on the stretcher instead. A war hero who, just bells earlier, had come bursting into the field hospital, having carried his wounded colonel all the way from the front lines. They’d spent the last few bells trying to save the brave soldier from two arrows to the chest, finally managing to remove them only to have them abruptly and unexpectedly replaced.
Lying beside the stretcher, his ears ringing with shock, he’d watched the stricken soldier, two new arrows sticking from his chest, gurgle his last. The pounding of the enemy rams upon the hastily repaired gates had begun then, overwhelming the chaos of shouted orders and screams of pain with brief, loud concussions. He remembered listening to that pounding, imagining it as the heartbeat of war. He remembered crying to the sound of it pounding on the wooden gates again.
And again…
…thud…
…thud…
He woke to the sound of pounding on his door. He jerked upright at his desk. A piece of parchment stuck to his cheek.
“Father Justin! Father Justin, wake up!” Someone was shouting urgently from the hall.
He jumped up, tripping over his chair and nearly upsetting the inkpot. Reaching the door in three long strides, he jerked it out of the way.
“It was open–” he tried to say.
The frenzied young initiate’s next attack on the door met no resistance and she tumbled into his arms. He caught her just in time and then had to duck her flailing fists. Without pausing for breath, she bounced from him.
“Father! Please come with me!” And she set off at a dead run down the hall. He stared after her, confused, until his sleep-addled mind recognized her green healer’s sash.
The boy…
He set off after the initiate.
Close on her heels, they hared down the stairs and cut through the atrium, unmindful of the sleeping patients all around. He didn’t use breath he could ill afford to waste on questions. Even so, the young woman drew steadily away from him. He followed her around the last corner and she barely threw open the doors in time as he burst through into a nightmare scene.
People were shouting, scrambling across a floor littered with overturned furniture and scattered medical tools. Their general panic was as nothing to the waves of animal terror that pummeled him. The muffled screams of a child sounded from within a closed huddle of healer priests, massed around a high infirmary bed. He stumbled toward them.
“Pin that leg!”
“I’ve got his arm!”
“Someone help me hold this!”
“Ow! My nose!”
He shouldered his way in among them, elbowing aside a slight priestess who had blood streaming over her lips. The boy was putting up a terrific fight, clawing, kicking and biting mindlessly while inhuman wails rode his every breath.
The priests weren’t having much luck. The boy moved as fast as fear could make him and his stick thin limbs were a virtual blur. Whenever someone managed to get a grip on an arm or leg the boy’s terrible trashing saw that person injured. The circle of healers was a mess of scratches and bruises.
A small hand slowed momentarily as it collided with his midriff, tangling in his robes. Grunting at the blow, he seized it, pinning it to the bed. Fever sweat had slicked the boy’s flesh and the arm was difficult to hold. He bore down on it with his full weight, pressing it into the hard mattress.
Across from him, a burly masha’na shouldered easily through the crowd. The warrior monk had bandages wrapped about his head and he was wearing an infirmary gown but he caught the boy’s other arm and held it easily. The boy lunged wildly, trying to sink his teeth into that burly arm. With his free hand, the warrior pushed the boy’s bucking torso back onto the bed. The boy fought, stiffening like a drawn bow, toes curling into fists.
They weren’t going to get a sedative into him if this kept up. Not without someone losing a finger. Tapping into his own power, he tried to radiate a sense of calm, of peace – it shredded as it came near the boy.
The blow to the stomach had left him winded and the words wheezed from him painfully.
“Someone get Father Cyrus!”
In the midst of the chaotic press he wasn’t sure if anyone heard.
“No need,” the elderly healer forestalled from the door, “I’m here.”
He recognized the emotionless tone that said his friend was already midway through working a spell.
“Make way,” the harsh voice commanded, “old man coming through!”
The violet light of a charged crystal intruded as Cyrus pushed his way to the boy’s head. Resolutely, he smacked the stone down on the squirming boy’s brow.
There was a brilliant flash as if a bolt of lightning had struck among them. People staggered back.
The dizzying backlash of Cyrus’s exertion hit him like a wet towel in the face. His legs buckled. Disoriented, he fought to retain his grip on the boy’s arm but there was no need. His vision cleared.
The boy was unconscious, his breathing slowly deepening. The waves of panic had fled.
He let go of the thin arm, watching guiltily as white indentations left by his fingers faded.
That was going to leave a bruise.
A moment of silence hung heavily in the air as everyone took stock.
“Goddess’ blessing!” someone sighed fervently. Tangible relief ran through the room. People began to move again.
Justin regarded his surroundings. The place was a shambles.
The young initiate from before was helping the priestess he had jostled to stand.
“Are you alright, mother?”
“I fink de shild bloke my gnose.”
Another was binding a neat row of teeth marks on an elderly priest’s forearm. The bearded priest himself did not seem to think it too serious.
“I don’t blame ‘im,” the man was saying around a tight smile. “Food in ‘ere is foul!”
Justin got the impression the little joke was intended more for the benefit of the initiate, who still exuded a sense of horror.
Two youthful healers were trying to make light of the whole thing, though unease hung on them both.
“I’m warning you Gaspin, you tell anyone a five-year-old gave me this split lip, I’ll die of embarrassment and come back to haunt you.”
