Storms of Destiny (41 page)

Perforation of the stomach wall and the spleen.

“How did this happen?” Khith repeated.

The young woman in the wagon bed stared at him silently, her eyes glassy with shock and exhaustion.

“I am the physician,” Khith said, speaking as if to a child.

“Tell me, how was this man wounded?”

She shook her head. “It was Boq’urak,” she mumbled.

“He was partly Changed …”

Khith abandoned its effort to get sense from her, and turned back to the slave. The man spoke up. “We were in a battle, Healer. The enemy grabbed him and clawed his stomach. Then he threw Jezzil against a rock.”

Khith blinked.
What kind of enemy could inflict such a
wound?
But there was no time for that now. It nodded. “Yes, he is bleeding inside. We will have to transport him to my surgery. Ask my housekeeper to give you the stretcher-board I keep for that purpose. Hurry.”

The woman and her slave raced off.

Khith continued the examination, discovering a large lump on the back of the man’s head, as well as numerous contusions.

“Please, Doctor, will he live?”

Khith had almost forgotten about the young woman with the strange, silvery hair. Hearing her timid question, it glanced up at her. “I don’t know. I will do my best.”
I’ve
never seen anyone like this before. Where is she from?

Something in her eyes, some gentleness, some vulnerabil-ity, touched the Hthras. “You are his wife?”

She started. “Oh, no, sir! I am Thia, his friend. Jezzil is like a brother to me.”

Khith’s fingers were moving again, returning to the worst wound, the one in the belly. “He may live,” the Hthras said.

“But he is in great danger until such time as I can stop him from bleeding inside.”

For the first time, the injured man moved. His eyes half opened, though the Hthras could tell he was not really conscious. His arms and legs jerked, then flailed. “No!” he grunted, striking out at the Hthras. Only the young woman’s quick thinking saved the physician from a hard blow.

“Jezzil, no!” Thia gasped, flinging herself across his arm.

“Lie still!”

Khith saw the fear and desperation in the patient’s eyes, and realized the young man was delirious, probably reliving the battle where he’d been injured. He thrashed and— —disappeared.

Khith gaped at the place where he had been; was still, judging by the way Thia was lying. But the young warrior was gone.

Magic!
Khith realized with a thrill. The Hthras had met a few humans here and there who possessed some abilities, healers and herbalists, mostly, but it had never seen anything like this.

As suddenly as he’d disappeared, the young man was back, lying exhausted and limp in the bed of the wagon.

Khith looked up to meet Thia’s wide-eyed gaze. “What happened?” it demanded. “How did he do that?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know, sir. He did it during the battle, too. He’s … he’s a sorcerer, isn’t he?”

“An adept of some kind, doubtless,” Khith replied absently. “But all such questions will have to wait. Here are your friends with the body-board.”

Minutes later Khith had the young warrior on the table that had been specially made for surgery. Its young human nurse, Beldor, was busily boiling suturing material and instruments, while Khith ground a dark brown substance to a powder in a mortar.

“What … what is that?” asked Thia, who was standing beside her friend, lest he thrash around again in his delirium.

The patient was much quieter with her present, Khith had discovered.

“Epena,” Khith said, measuring the powder carefully. “It will take away the pain of surgery, and keep him still while I work.”

The physician took the measured dose and let it sift down into a long, narrow tube with openings on both ends. Stoppering the bottom end with its thumb, Khith took the tube over to the table. “Hold him still,” it commanded.

Inserting the end of the tube into the patient’s right nostril and pinching the left shut, Khith blew the epena into the young warrior’s nasal passages. Jezzil gasped, choked, thrashed briefly, then lay still. His taut muscles relaxed and he lay unmoving.

“You can let him lie now,” Khith said. “He cannot move.”

Thia stared at her friend’s slack features. “Can I … can I stay, Doctor?”

Khith regarded her searchingly. “I will have no time for sickness or swoons at the sight of blood or organs. Have you ever seen the insides of one of your kind?”

Thia nodded. “Hundreds, thousands, of times. I shall not faint or be sick.”

Khith blinked again.
These people are an odd lot,
the Hthras thought.
When this is over, I shall have to ask them
some questions.

But at the moment it had other, more pressing concerns.

“Very well. Stand out of the way, here. Talk softly to him.

He is not conscious, but he might hear you and take comfort from it.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Khith was back at work again, mixing up yet another in-halant. “I shall be repairing the internal wounds using the fingers of my mind.” It glanced at the nurse. “I shall go inside, as I did for Madame Gendavese. Do not speak to me or touch me. Understand?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Beldor replied.

“Are there any questions before I commence the spell?”

The young man indicated a rack of suturing instruments.

“Everything has been boiled, including the thread, sir. Will you be needing the tray?”

“Yes. I will close the outer layers manually, so I may check that all the bleeding has been halted,” Khith said. “Are there any other questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. I begin the spell. Let no one interfere. It could be dangerous.”

“Yes, sir.”

Khith checked the patient’s pulse and respiration one more time, then, using the tube, inhaled the snuff twice, once in each flattened nostril. It felt the tingling, the roaring in its ears immediately. The drug worked quickly. It could see the walls of the room pulse in and out, as though they were all enclosed in a giant, beating heart …

Taking a deep breath, it closed its eyes and began the focusing chant:

“Still the muscle, bone, and tendon
Slow the heart, the blood, the brain
Bring the sleeping

Bring the nothing …

Bring the refuge
From the pain

Let the heart beat
with the tide-time,

Let the lungs
breathe season-slow

Bring renewal,

Bring the peace-time
Hibernating
creatures
know …”

Khith repeated the chant, all the while “reaching” with its mind into the stricken human’s abdomen. When it did this kind of surgery, it envisioned a hand, a hand of the mind.

And that hand was at the end of its own mental “arm.” Its mental “fingers” were long, slender, and dexterous past any physical digits.

Khith repeated the focusing chant, feeling the drug take effect. Everything glimmered, glowed, as the life-spirit of each person present shone forth. Looking down at the patient’s abdomen, Khith could see that this man’s life-spirit was fading, not nearly as bright as it should have been. Over the abdomen was a dark patch that was spreading, growing ever larger, like some dark, malign blossom.

Chanting, Khith concentrated, flexing its mental “hand.”

Against the darkness that was growing outward from the patient’s wound, it saw the hand glimmer, then begin to coalesce. It concentrated, focusing its will, working to strengthen those long digits.

Finally the “hand” was as solid to Khith’s eyes as anything else in the room.
Time to begin,
it thought. Slowly, deliberately, it reached inside the man’s belly, using its mental “eyes” to find the great tears in the organs.
There,
the stomach …

Slowly, carefully, Khith brought the two edges of the rip together, fitting them to each other as it would have pieced together a sheet of ripped parchment. As it drew together the edges, it concentrated, pinching the edges together, then causing the ends of its mental fingers to become white-hot, cauterizing the wound as it fused the ripped edges together.

It was slow, painstaking work, but finally the wound in the stomach was sealed.

Now for the spleen …

As Khith worked, it could sense the flow of life-force growing stronger as the internal bleeding slowed, then stopped. The man was rallying. Khith sensed his aura growing stronger, brighter. It recalled the way this human had disappeared.
He has the power,
the Hthras thought.
Possibly
great power. But untrained, undisciplined. Power without
discipline is dangerous—if he does not learn to control it, it
will be his undoing.

Finally the painstaking job was done. The man … what was his name?
Jezzil? Yes, that’s it.
Jezzil would have to lie still for several days, to allow the tissues to knit completely, but barring infection, the warrior should make a full recovery.

Slowly, deliberately, Khith withdraw its mental “hand”

from the patient’s abdomen. Now for the external layers of tissue, which would require manual stitching. The cauteriza-tion process was exhausting, and Khith reserved that healing technique for serious internal rips.

The Hthras stood braced against the table until the effects of the drug began to dwindle. It had timed the dosage well; it took only a few more minutes until the drug-induced haze was gone.

Slowly, Khith opened its eyes, saw Beldor and Thia staring at it. It held up its physical hands, flexed them. “Cleansing soap, please.”

Beldor produced the special soap that Khith had the

herbalist make for just this purpose. It had a strong, astringent scent as the Hthras lathered its hands repeatedly.

Finally the physician was ready. It began removing the pressure pads one by one and stitching up the layers of tissue, then flesh, that were revealed. It was a long, slow process. “He will be scarred,” Khith commented. “The wounds are more than half a day old, yes?”

“Yes,” Thia replied. “We came as quickly as we could, but we were attacked in the barren lands, and it took us all night to get back to Q’Kal.”

Khith took two more stitches, then knotted the gut it was using in lieu of thread. “Finished here,” it said. “Now, let us see to these other injuries.”

After examining and cleansing the head wound, which was bloody but superficial, and resplinting the broken leg so it would heal straight and clean, the Hthras stepped back with a sigh of weariness. “That’s all for now. He must remain quiet and prone for at least a week. Quick movements too early could undo the healing I have wrought.”

“We will stay with him,” Thia promised. “We will make sure he is not left alone.”

Khith shook its head. “Taking him elsewhere would not be wise. I wish him to remain here so I may check him several times each day. I have a few beds in my infirmary, and none are occupied at the moment. For the next day, he must not be left alone. Are you and your companions willing to sit with him, mistress?”

“Of course,” she replied.

The Hthras glanced over at Beldor. “You can instruct Miss Thia in what to watch for, and you will administer his medication.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“I shall give you a draught to administer if the pain becomes too great. No more than three per day, with at least seven hours to pass between doses.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Beldor said.

Thia looked at the Hthras, concern shadowing her expression. “Doctor, we have little money.”

Khith gave her a stern glance. “Without proper care, your friend could still die. He will stay here. We will discuss my payment later.”

She grimaced slightly, but nodded.

Khith looked down at the young warrior’s sleeping face.

Now that the terrible internal wounds were closed and the bleeding stopped, it had regained a slight tinge of color.
Poor
youth,
Khith thought.
Carrying around this power inside
him, probably not lessoned in its use … what a terrible burden. And dangerous. If he is not taught, the power will consume him, or drive him into madness. As he recovers, we will
explore his abilities. To find one with such latent power, it is
almost like finding a new discovery in my lost city.

The Hthras had not felt so intrigued by anything since it had come to Q’Kal. This young warrior, this Jezzil, posed a fascinating puzzle.

Khith looked up to see Thia’s anxious expression. “Relax,” it told her. “Be calm. Your friend will live, with proper care. He will live, and he will grow. He must. That which ceases to grow begins to die.”

Eregard sat in the Hthras physician’s parlor, waiting, while Thia and Talis conferred together. With its dull red carpet and heavy, woven draperies, it was a very human room that gave no indications that the proprietor was Hthras. Eregard had seen Hthras before, when a delegation of them came to court when he was a lad. He could remember seeing some of their art in presents they’d made to Agivir, but there wasn’t a hint of anything like that in this room, which was so neat and spare it looked like a stage setting in a playhouse. Only the fireplace, swept and empty, showed any sign that it had ever been used.

Eregard strained his ears. He could hear most of what Talis and Thia were saying as they divided up the task of sitting with Jezzil. He was angry. Talis had not included him as one of the watchers.

He’s my friend, too,
he thought resentfully.
I helped to
bring him here.

He thought of the afternoon he would face, going back out

into the wasteland to retrieve Clo’s body so she could be buried by her guild-fellows.
I am trusted to deal with the
dead, but not to watch the living.

He dropped his gaze, so Talis would not see the resentment in his eyes.
You fool. You keep forgetting you’re a slave,
and thinking you’re a man.
Anger rose up in him, and he forced it back. Slaves could not afford to be angry. Anger led to actions like the ones that had brought him here to Q’Kal.