“He was a Purifier, not a Dualist,” Josiah said.
“We don’t know that. And besides, there are more Purifiers than Dualists, or at least people who attend Purifier Temples. You know what they think of us. They’re not going to want demons messing with them.”
“Ask,” Elkan declared. “Get explicit consent from everyone. If someone is brought to us unconscious, wait until they rouse, or until a friend or family member can let us know they have no objections. Only if they’re dying right in front of you do you touch them, and even then look for signs that they may belong to one of the groups who reject us.” He frowned. “Maybe we can pass word among the Dualists and Purifiers to carry a statement of their wishes with them, or wear some identifying marker that will let us know to withhold the Mother’s power.”
“Better to make people who want to be healed wear something telling you that. Why should those who only want to be left alone be forced to brand themselves—” Nirel shook her head. “Never mind.”
“No, you’re right. I’ll speak to the Matriarch. And perhaps Vigorre can see what his father thinks.” Elkan sighed. “The soldiers told me they’ve pulled the last of the victims out of the rubble, so except for a few with minor injuries who stayed to help I think we’ve got all of them.” His voice went grim. “Finish with the patients I assigned you, and then we’ll see what we can do with the rest.”
Nirel looked at the three wizards’ drooping shoulders, bloodshot eyes, and gaunt faces. It wouldn’t be much. They were all close to exhaustion.
Suddenly she remembered something that should have occurred to her long since. “Nalini,” she blurted.
All three wizards looked at her as if she’d started speaking some other language. Nirel hurried to explain. “One of the healers Ozor brought from Giroda. She can close wounds with stitches, and she has medicines that ease pain and fight infection.”
Elkan brightened a fraction. “Send for her, please. Maybe she can help your Dualist woman, or at least make her more comfortable.” He sobered again. “Though nothing short of every wizard in the Mother’s Hall in Elathir could help the ones I set aside, I’m afraid.” He shook his head. “Let’s get back to work.”
Nirel grabbed a soldier and directed him where to find Nalini. If the Girodan didn’t get back to the tent in time for the evening show, Ozor would be furious, but Nirel didn’t care. He could go count all the coins he’d raked in from the opening show the night before while the rest of them got on with saving lives.
Fourteen
Nalini surveyed the rows of blackened, bloody corpses lying on the broken flagstone of the square. Oh, some of them still moaned and twitched, but they were corpses nonetheless.
She turned to the tall, handsome foreigner. If she were a few years younger she’d be sorely tempted to enjoy more than his looks. “I can ease their pain. If I give them more, I can ease them right into death. But nothing I have can pull them back from the Mother’s arms.” She shrugged. “I can’t sew together skin that isn’t there.”
“I understand.” The young man drew himself up as if all his bones ached and stroked the lioness at his side. “Please, any that yet live, give them whatever it takes to relieve their suffering. Not enough to kill—their injuries will do that soon enough. And maybe after we eat we can marshall enough energy between us to save one or two more. But if you can grant them sleep without pain, it will be a blessing.”
“That’s easily done.” Nalini went to crouch by the first corpse and put her finger below its nose. Moist warmth touched her skin, and the corpse emitted a faint, miserable whine. She shook her head and opened her bag. The wizard would never know if she added a few drops beyond the proper dosage to the sponge and sent this one into his final sleep, but she counted carefully and stopped where she always did. She was curious to see the fabled wizards in action. If they thought they had even a slight chance of reviving any of these corpses, they must be miracle workers indeed.
As she finished dosing the last of them, the girl from Ozor’s village approached her. Nirel, that was her name. She’d played a part in that farce the night before, delivering her lines so woodenly it was all Nalini could do not to laugh. The crowd had eaten it up, though. Just as Ozor had promised, they’d clamored to hand over their money. Nalini had gotten five surgeries from the business, one of them a rewardingly complex tumor removal. The boy might even regain the use of his leg.
Nirel—Nalini was almost sure that was her name—inclined her head with what passed for courtesy among the foreigners. “Excuse me, Nalini, but there’s a Dualist woman who won’t let the wizards heal her. Can you help her? I know you have medicines to prevent infection.”
“Not if she’s as well-done as the roasted meat over here.” Nalini had to admit the girl had guts—her eyes only widened a little at the joke. She picked up her bag. “Show me and I’ll see if there’s anything I can do.”
If the Dualist heretics were foolish enough to turn down magic that could save their lives, it served them right if they died. But many of them were wealthy, and they knew quality when they saw it. For all their legendary tightfistedness, they’d been eager to pay top coin for the healers’ services last night.
The woman’s burns were extensive, but Nalini had treated worse cases. A few of them had made it. She rummaged through her bag, humming to herself. “I need clean water, lots of it,” she told the girl. “And fresh linen sheets, straight from the laundry.” Most laundries boiled linen; Nalini suspected that’s why she’d had the best luck using it to dress open wounds. Something about the heat and motion cleaned cloth more thoroughly than any soap.
Nirel brought the water and went off to find sheets. Nalini tutted as she peeled back the strips of bandage from the woman’s burns. Had they bothered to clean them before they covered them up? Here were flakes of ash embedded in the tissue, and there was dirt from the ground where they’d dropped her.
The woman jerked and stifled a scream when Nalini started scrubbing out the filth, so she took a moment to prepare a sponge. Nirel had returned; Nalini assigned her to hold it and went back to work. It took a good while, but when she finished she was confident no foreign particles or dead skin remained to contaminate the wounds.
She used her shears to cut a piece of clean linen the proper size and smeared it liberally with her special salve, then applied more to the wound in the woman’s side. Nirel watched her curiously. “That smells good. What’s in it?”
Nalini wasn’t going to reveal all her secrets, but she enjoyed boasting. “Honey, mostly. Garlic, goldenseal, and cinnamon to prevent infection. Comfrey and calendula to promote healing. A few other things. It’s important to use lots of it to keep the wounds moist as they heal. I can’t promise anything, but if we clean the burns and apply more of this every day, she might survive. Assuming she doesn’t develop a fever.”
“You’ve got a drink you give them for that, don’t you?”
The girl must have been paying attention. “Yes. It helps some. But nothing’s foolproof. If the Mother wants her, nothing I can do will keep her with us.”
Nirel gave a bleak snort. “The Mother doesn’t want this one.”
“Nor she the Mother, from what you tell me, so they should both be happy.” Nalini moved on to the larger burned patch on the woman’s thigh. Nirel lapsed into silence, which suited Nalini just fine. The work went faster when she could concentrate.
At last all the woman’s wounds were dressed and covered with several layers of clean linen. Nalini scowled. “She needs a bed, not the hard ground. But I suppose there’s no hope of that.”
“Her family will come soon to take her home. Everyone in the city must know about the fire by now. I’ll stay with her until then.”
If the girl wanted to keep crouching on the filthy stone, that was her business. Nalini was going to get cleaned up, grab some of the food she’d been smelling for a while, and head back to the village.
But as she helped herself to slices of roast pork fro
m a nearly untouched platter at the abandoned table, a flickering gold glow caught her eye. The handsome wizard and the lioness knelt beside one of the corpses, along with his two apprentices and their beasts. Light flowed from their hands to bathe the prone body.
Nalini strode over to watch. The light was dim, not as spectacular as the legends led one to expect, but its effect was undeniably dramatic. The ravaged flesh of the man’s back moved through the stages of healing before her eyes. It was as if several weeks passed in only a few minutes. New pink skin was starting to form when the girl whimpered, swayed, and put her head in her hands, her portion of the light winking out.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered hoarsely. “Give me a minute.”
“It’s all right,” the handsome one said. “We need to be done with this one, anyway. He’ll make it, I think.” He sat back, and the rest of the light died.
Nalini suspected the wizard was right. He’d have nasty scars, and the muscles of his buttocks would always be weak, but he’d live. Even at the end of their strength, the wizards had power enough to snatch a soul back from the Mother’s doorstep.
“Nicely done,” she said, working hard to keep her voice casual. “I’m impressed.”
The wizard pushed stringy hair out of his face. “What about the Dualist woman? Were you able to help her?”
Nalini nodded. “She’s got a chance to recover.”
“Then I’m equally impressed.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Josiah, can you manage one more?”
The lanky youth lay sprawled flat on the ground. He groaned. “Do I have to?”
“No.” The man sighed. “A couple more are still alive, but we’ve already done far more than I thought we’d be able to.” He wrapped his arms around the lioness’s neck and dropped his forehead to rest against her fur. She nuzzled him wearily.
The boy rolled over and pushed himself up with a fair imitation of vigor. “Smash that! Come on, Sar. Nobody else is dying while I’m conscious.” The small donkey plodded behind him, hooves stumbling, as he lurched over to the next corpse.
The wizard shook his head into the lioness’s side, one corner of his mouth turning up. “That one was hit by falling debris. His burns aren’t as extensive, but he’s got multiple broken bones that will need to be set. Including his back, although the spinal cord is intact.”
The boy flopped to his knees beside the man. “Dear Mother, I hate growing bone.”
The wizard dragged himself to his feet and went to join him. “If there were a way to keep him still long enough the spine would heal on its own, but I think we’re going to have to spend the energy to stabilize it. Otherwise it will get damaged further when we set the other breaks. He’s going to wake up and start thrashing around.”
“Can’t we slow him?”
“I don’t think we’ve got enough energy between the three of us to do that and move the bones into place at the same time. We’ve got to save enough to heal his burns, too. They’ll kill him if we don’t.”
“I can keep him asleep,” Nalini said.
The wizard blinked at her. “That’s right. Please, we’d appreciate your help. It would save us a great deal of energy.”
“And I know how to set bones without your fancy magic. If you three take care of the burns, I’ll do the rest.”
The girl roused and came to help. Nalini dosed the man with sweet vitriol and worked on his unburned arm while the wizards dealt with his burns. It was a clean snap through both bones of the lower arm, fairly simple to position properly with his muscles relaxed by the drug. By the time she was done and the soldiers had fetched wood so she could splint it, the wizards were finished with the burns on his legs.
“When the swelling goes down in a few days I’ll replace these splints with casts. He’ll need to be swathed from neck to toes, but in a month or two he’ll be good as new.”
“Casts?” The wizard sat back on his heels and regarded her quizzically.
“Of course. Plaster, linen strips—” She shook her head in disgust at his ignorance. “Once it hardens it keeps the bones in place. You don’t use them?”
“Even in an extreme emergency like this, the most someone would have to wait for healing would be a few days. We’ll be able to see to him and the others who need further attention tomorrow or the next day, after we’ve slept and eaten.”
“Must be nice.” Nalini shrugged. “But my methods work just as well, if more slowly.”
“I can see that. Better, in some ways.” He bent back to their patient. “I’d like to talk to you sometime soon, if you don’t mind. I want to hear more about the sorts of things you can do. The other Girodans, too, if they’re willing. I’m eager to learn how you heal so effectively without the Mother’s power.”
Nalini eyed him cautiously. “What exactly do you want to know? A lot of our techniques are secret. We don’t share them with just anybody.” She heaved, yanking the offset pieces of the man’s femur into alignment. “We have to earn a living. Hard to do when others are giving away what we’re selling.”
“No one begrudges you a fair wage for your work,” he assured her. “In Tevenar people pay dues to their guilds, and a portion comes to the Wizards’ Guild to be distributed in stipends and shares.”
“Taxes.” Nalini snorted. “That’s how I was paid in Giroda. If you can call that measly sum payment.”
“More or less. We’ll have to make some sort of arrangement here as well. The Law doesn’t allow wizards to be rewarded individually for our services. We’re required to offer the Mother’s power to everyone, whether they have money or not.”
“No such law binds me.” Nalini tied the final knot on the splint and sat back. “Listen here, wizard. I’ve labored all my life for a pittance. Skills it took me years to perfect brought me less than I could have made working the docks. Yesterday all that changed. I earned more gold in one night than the Magistrates doled out in a year, and that’s after Ozor took his share.”
The wizard’s eyes narrowed. “I know Ozor cares more for wealth than for lives, but you’re a healer, not a trader.”
Nalini moved to the man’s other leg and shook her head. “You don’t understand. For the first time, my work was recognized for its true value. I give people life, I give them relief from pain, I give them functioning bodies.” She pointed at their patient. “How much gold would he give to walk again? I earned that gold, I deserve it, and I want it. If you don’t, that’s your business, but I won’t give you my secrets so you can steal my customers and rob me of my due.”
“I agree your skills are valuable. But surely you don’t allow people to suffer and die because they can’t meet your price?”
Nalini scowled at the condescension in his voice. “I came when you called, didn’t I? Maybe I should have negotiated a deal first, as I did with Ozor. I don’t expect I’ll be compensated for the hours I’ve spent here.”
The wizard ran a hand through his hair. “If you begrudge time spent saving lives, I’ll speak to the Matriarch on your behalf.”
“Don’t bother.” Nalini rose, leaving the bone set but unsplinted, and picked up her bag. Smash it if she’d continue to help people who despised her. “I’ll consider it an investment. Word will spread that the wizards of Tevenar called on the healers of Giroda for help. Folks will be even more eager to fill our coffers instead of standing in your lines.”
The wizard lurched to his feet. “There will never be enough wizards to meet the needs of everyone in Ravanetha. Your skills and those of your colleagues could help make up the difference. But not if all you care about is being celebrated for your brilliance and getting rich at the expense of the sick and injured.”
Anger burned in Nalini’s gut. “Are you calling me greedy?”
“What would you call it? That sleeping drug makes it practical to perform surgery without the Mother’s power. It could save thousands of lives if you teach others how to make it and use it. But instead you want to reserve it for the select few who can
afford your demands?”
Nalini took a step toward him. “I don’t see that it’s any concern of yours if I do. I’m not the Mother; I’m not responsible for the people of Ravanetha. Apparently you think you are.”
“She’s given me that responsibility! I have to figure out how a handful of wizards can spread her power to the whole world. Many times the population of Tevenar, which was already too big for us to serve adequately. I have to deal with leaders who care more for power than their people’s welfare, factions that oppose me at every turn, people who insist on believing our power—which the Mother has gone to great lengths to make sure can only ever be used for good—is evil. How am I supposed to succeed if those who might help make it possible are too selfish and gold-hungry to—”
He broke off and took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said heavily. “It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“And yet you did.” Arrogant bastard. His smooth manner had nearly fooled her. If his mask hadn’t slipped he might have sweet-talked her out of her one chance to gain the wealth and recognition she longed for.
The lioness pressed into the wizard’s side. He leaned against her. “Forgive me. May I speak with you again when things aren’t so chaotic? I can explain what I’m trying to accomplish and how I think you can help. I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement that gives us both what we want.”
“I don’t think so.” She scowled at him, and at the two apprentices who were watching with big eyes. “You’ve made it clear what you want from me, and I’m not willing to give it.” She turned and strode two paces toward the street, then glanced back for a final word. “If you need my help again, contact Ozor. He’ll negotiate a fair price for my services.”
The look on his face was priceless. Grinning to herself, she swept between the two guards and headed back to the village. She had a show to put on.
Beyond the Boundary Stones (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 3) Page 19
