The Brightest Shadow, page 61
Slaten blinked down at her, looked to see if she was joking. He couldn't help but smile. "Sorry, Teren, but I don't think that will happen."
"But... but..."
"When you get older, you'll probably want to marry someone your own age. By the time you're grown up, I'll be an old, old man."
Teren's eyes grew wide as if this concept was alien to her. "Old? As... as old as Auntie Elima?"
"Not right away, but one day I'll be that old." Assuming that he didn't die in combat before then.
Before Slaten could think of what to say next, they were disrupted by Elima herself approaching them. She had her gray hair tucked up in a cloth behind her head and otherwise wore her usual tunic. Though Elima was somewhat rotund, he'd seen her hold down struggling patients with her thick arms and knew she had real muscle as well.
She smiled cheerily and - to his shock - spoke in rough Okeni. "How many years old do you think I am, Teren?" Apparently just as shocked, Teren stared at her in confusion. But after that, she spent a while thinking seriously before answering.
"Thirty years old?"
Elima chuckled and laid a hand on her hair. "At least, child, at least."
Despite Elima's Okeni, Teren had answered in Coran and the conversation switched to that. Slaten wondered why Elima had taken the time to learn Okeni, but the old woman had quite a few secrets he didn't know. After they sat for a while, Elima spoke again, this time looking at him.
"Teren is very helpful, though. Quite a bright young child."
"Do you think it would be possible to take her back home?"
"If you don't ask Destrela for permission and just do it... yes, probably." Elima scooted her chair near them and sat down, shifting a little before she became comfortable. "As helpful as you are, Teren, this isn't a very safe place. You could be a lot more helpful to people back in your village."
Teren beamed at her. "Thank you, Auntie!"
Elima gave her a few simple tasks to do and Teren waved goodbye before hurrying to complete them. That left Slaten beside the old healer and he nervously wondered if she had an ulterior motive, but she only smiled at him. "You'd be a good father, Slaten."
"I, uh, I respect your superior experience on the matter."
That earned an unreserved laugh from deep in her belly. Elima wiped away a tear and smiled more broadly. "Always so polite, you Oken. If we had more of you and fewer Corans, maybe we wouldn't need to do so much unnecessary healing."
"I apologize for the additional work required due to my training."
"Oh, pish. All that bloody training might strike me as a little foolish, but I'd rather young warriors hurt themselves training than get injuries from fighting each other over foolish things." Elima gave him another warm smile. "Did you need something here?"
"I was only taking a break."
"Well then, so long as we aren't getting overwhelmed by new arrivals, you're welcome to join us. You might want to speak to Laeri, she seems... where did that girl get to? Remarkably talented, that girl, if more naive than any adult woman I have ever laid eyes on. She could really be something one day."
Before Elima could say anything else, a roar of anger sounded from across the room, followed by a cry of pain. Both of them looked up and saw the scene: one of the seinshocked men was roaring and beating another. Beside them, a man rocked back and forth, sobbing, while a woman huddled in a corner with a dagger that she shouldn't have had.
Another of the seinshocked men let out a battlecry and rushed toward them. His eyes seemed to see not them, but the battlefield he had never truly left. Slaten started to draw his sword on instinct before realizing that was a mistake. The man was already upon them, surprisingly fast.
Elima slapped him across the face.
Her blow didn't carry a great deal of force, but it did carry sein. The flow of it was too complex for Slaten to have any idea about the details, he just tasted blood. And a moment later, he saw the man sink to the ground, whispering to himself.
Though Elima moved down with him, keeping him from crumpling to the ground, her eyes were on the fight still ongoing. She glanced at Slaten and he nodded, approaching the seinshocked group. Usually they would calm down with a little comfort, but the aggressor was wildly beating the man beneath him, screaming about Deathspawn.
There was no choice but to bring him down until the healers could do their work. Slaten walked up behind him and raised a han-
An elbow caught him in the stomach, sending him staggering backward. The seinshocked man whirled about with a roar, bloodshot eyes focusing on Slaten. Many victims of seinshock couldn't flow sein properly, but this man... he definitely could. Slaten still felt the blow to his chest painfully.
"Calm down," Slaten said. "You're not fighting in a battle anymore."
It didn't do any good, the man rushing toward him with fists flying. How was he going to restrain someone that strong and angry? Slaten decided to switch to the new defensive techniques he had been practicing. They might not turn aside a blade, but they might let him endure the man's reckless blows while they subdued him.
The man swung wildly and Slaten ducked underneath, closing in to grab the man's shoulder. He'd planned to swing him to the ground and pin him there, but he'd underestimated Coran wrestling. Not only was the man able to twist out of his hold, he felt substantially stronger than Slaten. The man pushed him back, then lashed out with a kick.
Slaten heard his leg break and let out a strangled cry.
As he dropped to one knee, desperate to get pressure off the broken leg, all his defensive techniques shattered. In fact, they had twisted when the blow landed, making the injury worse instead of defending him. Though he cursed himself for not taking the fight seriously and experimenting, he didn't have time for that. The seinshocked man might have backed off, but it seemed he was menacing the others.
No, he was grabbing at the knife from the seinshocked woman. She landed a few wild slashes but imparted no sein with them, so they only opened shallow wounds. Though the seinshocked man pulled back from her once he got the knife, he turned on the sobbing man and flipped the knife into stabbing position.
"Hey!" Slaten yelled out as he forced himself up, putting all his weight on his good leg. He got the attention of the attacker, which wasn't a good thing.
Slaten drew his sword, not willing to face the knife unarmed. Unfortunately, that made the seinshocked man glower and turn aside, considering attacking someone else. Though his range was limited, Slaten took a swing over several of the cots, forcing the attacker away from the other seinshock victims.
Growling like a beast, the man looked past him. Slaten dared to look back and saw that several of the young healers were still nearby, frozen in surprise. If they were attacked, he doubted that they had the resources of Elima. The older healer was still calming the other man, watching the situation grimly from the corner of her eyes.
The seinshocked man lunged at him and Slaten barely managed to deflect his blows, eventually forced to hop back awkwardly. Even at his best, this might have been difficult. Without use of one leg, he didn't have many options. He'd wanted to end the fight in the first exchange but hadn't had time, his opponent's blows coming too quickly.
With a ghastly chuckle, the man turned away from him and toward the healers. Slaten realized that his hop had taken him further out of the way and given his opponent an easy route past him. He could try to hop in the way, but he would be too slow. Worse, he would enter the enemy's range while off balance, and against such a strong opponent that might be fatal.
There was no more time. The seinshocked man was moving past him, lifting his knife...
Slaten lunged forward onto his broken leg and swung.
His leg buckled an instant after his weight landed on it, but that instant was enough. Slaten felt his sword bite deep into the other man's arm, failing to cut through but throwing him to the ground. He crashed down a second later, crying out in pain and clutching his leg.
Though the seinshocked man growled and grabbed at his injured arm, a moment later Elima knelt beside him, her hands touching the sides of his head. His eyes drooped, briefly flared open in anger, then he slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Elima glanced over the two of them and sighed. "You almost took off his arm."
"I did the best I could." Slaten could have tried to make his sein blunt, but he had little practice with nonlethal blows and didn't want to risk another experiment.
"Straight onto your leg, too... you should know better... young people never have any sense." Elima approached him, shaking her head and looking over his injury. The other healers kept their distance, eyes on the man who was now snoring soundly.
When Elima touched his leg, he felt the difference immediately. Laeri's healing always felt like a flood of warmth, while Elima was far more subtle. Not just blades through his leg, but a thousand tiny knives doing healing work that he couldn't come close to understanding. He realized that there was another element there he could just barely perceive, outside his usual understanding of sein, but he was in too much pain to contemplate it.
"That's enough for now. Girls! Help get him onto a bed!"
Once Elima started giving orders, the others hurried to obey. She returned to the man who had attacked, gently brushing his hair away from his face and soothing him with more complex sein. But she also tied his arms and legs tightly before returning him to the ground and healing his wound.
Even with support from the healers, getting onto one of the cots was painful. Once he settled in, Slaten let himself lie back and just breathe, trying not to think about the pain in his leg. For some reason, Elima's healing rarely removed much pain, and it also didn't heal as quickly as Laeri. Though it extended recovery time, he assumed that she knew what she was doing.
Slaten watched cautiously at first, then slowly surrendered the situation. There were others taking care of the injured and some going to bring more help. Everything was taken care of except for his injury, but now that the emergency was past, he understood that he might not be the priority.
One of the younger healers came to stand beside him and gave a nervous smile. "Thank you. I don't know how much I can do f-"
"Tch, none of that!" Elima waved her off. "Leave his leg that way for now. And go find Laeri, she needs to see this."
"I... yes, Auntie!" The healer hastened to obey, leaving him with the older woman. She moved a stool next to his bed and glanced down at his leg thoughtfully. Since she wasn't working, Slaten decided he could ask a question.
"Is the injury that bad?"
"Hmm? Oh, no, it should be fine. It will take some time to heal properly, but it will be as strong as before. There's just something odd about it, something Laeri needs to see." Elima patted him on the cheek. "You don't mind being a lesson, do you? The girl doesn't believe an old Coran healer could have something to teach her, so I wanted to show her proof."
"If it's not serious, then that's fine." Slaten closed his eyes and lay back, trying to rest while Elima cut his pant leg away from the injury.
It took some time, but eventually he heard Laeri enter the room. Slaten opened his eyes just in time to see her gasp and cover her mouth as she stared down at his leg. Elima gestured toward the injury with a grunt.
"Alright, girl, look carefully. How quickly could you heal that?"
"An hour, perhaps?" Laeri started to reach out with healing sein, but Elima swatted her hands away. "An hour to fighting again, two hours to being fully healed. But a skilled Estronese healer could do it much faster."
"That's very nice, but the leg isn't what I was asking about. Not the break, I mean that." Elima poked at his leg, thankfully not causing any more pain. But he felt sein shift strangely and he tasted blood as if it had been an intense attack. Laeri was silent for several heartbeats, then gasped.
"Oh my! What... what is it?"
"Huh, no Estronese name for it? I don't have one either." Elima folded her arms and frowned down at Laeri. "These are the knots of flesh I told you about. This one is small and not harmful. But knots can grow anywhere in the body... in the heart, in the lungs, anywhere. And when they grow big enough, men die."
"Oh dear... I wonder if I can..." Laeri sent healing sein flooding into him. It felt good, but a moment later she pulled back with another gasp. "It... it got bigger? Why?"
"Because it's not an injury you can just flood away, girl. It's part of him. The more you heal, the larger it grows."
"How terrible... what causes them?"
Elima leaned down and captured Laeri's eyes with hers. "Some of them appear naturally, but most of them come from healing. Don't gasp, listen! When you flood sein into a wound and force the body to heal so quickly, some of these knots form. And over the course of a warrior's life, they add up. Have you ever noticed how many warriors die early, healing no longer doing anything for them? In my experience, most of them have bodies filled with these."
Laeri pulled back, hands covering her mouth, tears in her eyes. She gave a muffled sob and shook her head. "No... does that mean people I've healed... have these too?"
"I don't want you to blame yourself, girl. I want you to listen to me when I say there's a reason to do things slowly."
"I... I..." Laeri sniffled and then wiped her face with one sleeve. "Is that how you can avoid causing them? But... what about when you're on the battlefield? And is there anything that can be done to get rid of them?"
"Easy, girl, easy." Elima gently smoothed her hair away from her face and smiled. "One question at a time. The better you know your craft, the less likely you are to cause such unintended consequences. An Estronese master could no doubt heal instantly without causing any problems. But I see too many young healers rushing out to use their skills without taking the time to really know the human body."
"I understand... I'll try harder." Laeri clenched her hands in her robe and closed her eyes. "I feel so awful about this... but sometimes people have been so badly hurt, what do I do then?"
"Think critically, girl. These knots might end a man's life years in the future, but if his life is going to end that very hour, do you think he'll blame you? Warriors do all manner of crazy things to win," Elima cast Slaten a glance there, "so they'll understand if healers do as well. The important thing is to understand."
"I do, I do! I'll work to make sure I never do anything like this again! Do you think I can?"
"Of course you can. You have exceptional talent, girl - it actually surprises me. All you need to do is apply it properly."
Laeri gave her a relieved smile. "Then... is there any way to, uh, get rid of the knots? Can they be cured?"
"I think you're more likely to cause more trouble, so I don't want to see you trying. But yes, I've heard stories. There was an old woman I knew - even older than me - who claimed that it was possible to cut out the knot before it grew too large. And I've heard credible tales of a man who could use his sein so deftly that he could kill only the knot and leave the surrounding flesh alone. But in all my years, I haven't seen many with such control."
Nodding eagerly and wiping away a few final tears, Laeri began asking more questions and helping with Slaten's healing. Their conversation quickly grew too complex for him to follow, as did the sein flowing into his leg. His injury wasn't healing instantly, but based on what Elima had said, that might be a good thing. What she had said still bothered him, however, so when Laeri finally left, he spoke up.
"Elima... is the knot of flesh in my leg going to kill me?"
"Don't you worry yourself about that." She patted his knee and beamed at him. "I was scaring the girl a little. The truth is, some of them don't grow so quickly and might never be a problem. Just remember this the next time a healer takes some time with an injury."
"I will, thank you."
"No, thank you, young man. You might have done it in a foolish way, but you stopped the situation from getting much worse. Now you just relax, we'll get your leg good as new!"
She moved away, beginning to hum to herself. Slaten closed his eyes and let the matter ease from his mind, since there was nothing that he could do about it.
But he did not relax. Instead Slaten began circulating his sein, focusing on the technique that had failed him, seeing how he could fix it and fail less seriously in the future. That, he could do something about.
Chapter 46
-
"I confess I am a bit uncomfortable with some of those who gather to repeat the Legend over and over. This might be a good practice on its own, but many seem to believe that they can add more to the story. Given how our original, perfect understanding of the Legend has been fragmented, it is all too easy for charlatans to pretend to have uncovered another piece of the story.
"Worse than that are those who have allowed themselves to become organizations devoted to worship of the Hero or the Legend. Worthy as these causes may be, no such groups are mentioned in the Legend. As such, I cannot believe they have any significant role to play."
- excerpt from a letter written by Lady Karerela of East Corah
-
Though Tani rapidly drew and threw her knives, the real battle was between the mission wasting her time and her trying to salvage it. Grimacing in concentration, she drew another three knives in her right hand and did her best to focus before her target could reach her and attack.
Instead of simply using familiar patterns, Tani focused on the sein flowing down her arm and into her hand. Placid thoughts had worked well enough for controlled, targeted strikes. Those wouldn't be sufficient in every situation.
Instead Tani drew upon much sharper memories. She started with her frustration at how useless their assignment had turned out to be, then went deeper, letting her disgust and anger at what had happened to her flow into her arm. As she focused, her hand felt heavier and heavier, yet the weight was only for her foes, so she could move easily. Tani gritted her teeth and recalled the raw hatred she had felt in Celivia's memory, let that fill her, then fused it all into a unified flow of sein.
Her hand snapped out in three vicious movements, each releasing exactly a third of the sein she'd gathered. The second knife was out before the first had even struck her target and the third came soon after, striking the staggered man and knocking him back a step.
"But... but..."
"When you get older, you'll probably want to marry someone your own age. By the time you're grown up, I'll be an old, old man."
Teren's eyes grew wide as if this concept was alien to her. "Old? As... as old as Auntie Elima?"
"Not right away, but one day I'll be that old." Assuming that he didn't die in combat before then.
Before Slaten could think of what to say next, they were disrupted by Elima herself approaching them. She had her gray hair tucked up in a cloth behind her head and otherwise wore her usual tunic. Though Elima was somewhat rotund, he'd seen her hold down struggling patients with her thick arms and knew she had real muscle as well.
She smiled cheerily and - to his shock - spoke in rough Okeni. "How many years old do you think I am, Teren?" Apparently just as shocked, Teren stared at her in confusion. But after that, she spent a while thinking seriously before answering.
"Thirty years old?"
Elima chuckled and laid a hand on her hair. "At least, child, at least."
Despite Elima's Okeni, Teren had answered in Coran and the conversation switched to that. Slaten wondered why Elima had taken the time to learn Okeni, but the old woman had quite a few secrets he didn't know. After they sat for a while, Elima spoke again, this time looking at him.
"Teren is very helpful, though. Quite a bright young child."
"Do you think it would be possible to take her back home?"
"If you don't ask Destrela for permission and just do it... yes, probably." Elima scooted her chair near them and sat down, shifting a little before she became comfortable. "As helpful as you are, Teren, this isn't a very safe place. You could be a lot more helpful to people back in your village."
Teren beamed at her. "Thank you, Auntie!"
Elima gave her a few simple tasks to do and Teren waved goodbye before hurrying to complete them. That left Slaten beside the old healer and he nervously wondered if she had an ulterior motive, but she only smiled at him. "You'd be a good father, Slaten."
"I, uh, I respect your superior experience on the matter."
That earned an unreserved laugh from deep in her belly. Elima wiped away a tear and smiled more broadly. "Always so polite, you Oken. If we had more of you and fewer Corans, maybe we wouldn't need to do so much unnecessary healing."
"I apologize for the additional work required due to my training."
"Oh, pish. All that bloody training might strike me as a little foolish, but I'd rather young warriors hurt themselves training than get injuries from fighting each other over foolish things." Elima gave him another warm smile. "Did you need something here?"
"I was only taking a break."
"Well then, so long as we aren't getting overwhelmed by new arrivals, you're welcome to join us. You might want to speak to Laeri, she seems... where did that girl get to? Remarkably talented, that girl, if more naive than any adult woman I have ever laid eyes on. She could really be something one day."
Before Elima could say anything else, a roar of anger sounded from across the room, followed by a cry of pain. Both of them looked up and saw the scene: one of the seinshocked men was roaring and beating another. Beside them, a man rocked back and forth, sobbing, while a woman huddled in a corner with a dagger that she shouldn't have had.
Another of the seinshocked men let out a battlecry and rushed toward them. His eyes seemed to see not them, but the battlefield he had never truly left. Slaten started to draw his sword on instinct before realizing that was a mistake. The man was already upon them, surprisingly fast.
Elima slapped him across the face.
Her blow didn't carry a great deal of force, but it did carry sein. The flow of it was too complex for Slaten to have any idea about the details, he just tasted blood. And a moment later, he saw the man sink to the ground, whispering to himself.
Though Elima moved down with him, keeping him from crumpling to the ground, her eyes were on the fight still ongoing. She glanced at Slaten and he nodded, approaching the seinshocked group. Usually they would calm down with a little comfort, but the aggressor was wildly beating the man beneath him, screaming about Deathspawn.
There was no choice but to bring him down until the healers could do their work. Slaten walked up behind him and raised a han-
An elbow caught him in the stomach, sending him staggering backward. The seinshocked man whirled about with a roar, bloodshot eyes focusing on Slaten. Many victims of seinshock couldn't flow sein properly, but this man... he definitely could. Slaten still felt the blow to his chest painfully.
"Calm down," Slaten said. "You're not fighting in a battle anymore."
It didn't do any good, the man rushing toward him with fists flying. How was he going to restrain someone that strong and angry? Slaten decided to switch to the new defensive techniques he had been practicing. They might not turn aside a blade, but they might let him endure the man's reckless blows while they subdued him.
The man swung wildly and Slaten ducked underneath, closing in to grab the man's shoulder. He'd planned to swing him to the ground and pin him there, but he'd underestimated Coran wrestling. Not only was the man able to twist out of his hold, he felt substantially stronger than Slaten. The man pushed him back, then lashed out with a kick.
Slaten heard his leg break and let out a strangled cry.
As he dropped to one knee, desperate to get pressure off the broken leg, all his defensive techniques shattered. In fact, they had twisted when the blow landed, making the injury worse instead of defending him. Though he cursed himself for not taking the fight seriously and experimenting, he didn't have time for that. The seinshocked man might have backed off, but it seemed he was menacing the others.
No, he was grabbing at the knife from the seinshocked woman. She landed a few wild slashes but imparted no sein with them, so they only opened shallow wounds. Though the seinshocked man pulled back from her once he got the knife, he turned on the sobbing man and flipped the knife into stabbing position.
"Hey!" Slaten yelled out as he forced himself up, putting all his weight on his good leg. He got the attention of the attacker, which wasn't a good thing.
Slaten drew his sword, not willing to face the knife unarmed. Unfortunately, that made the seinshocked man glower and turn aside, considering attacking someone else. Though his range was limited, Slaten took a swing over several of the cots, forcing the attacker away from the other seinshock victims.
Growling like a beast, the man looked past him. Slaten dared to look back and saw that several of the young healers were still nearby, frozen in surprise. If they were attacked, he doubted that they had the resources of Elima. The older healer was still calming the other man, watching the situation grimly from the corner of her eyes.
The seinshocked man lunged at him and Slaten barely managed to deflect his blows, eventually forced to hop back awkwardly. Even at his best, this might have been difficult. Without use of one leg, he didn't have many options. He'd wanted to end the fight in the first exchange but hadn't had time, his opponent's blows coming too quickly.
With a ghastly chuckle, the man turned away from him and toward the healers. Slaten realized that his hop had taken him further out of the way and given his opponent an easy route past him. He could try to hop in the way, but he would be too slow. Worse, he would enter the enemy's range while off balance, and against such a strong opponent that might be fatal.
There was no more time. The seinshocked man was moving past him, lifting his knife...
Slaten lunged forward onto his broken leg and swung.
His leg buckled an instant after his weight landed on it, but that instant was enough. Slaten felt his sword bite deep into the other man's arm, failing to cut through but throwing him to the ground. He crashed down a second later, crying out in pain and clutching his leg.
Though the seinshocked man growled and grabbed at his injured arm, a moment later Elima knelt beside him, her hands touching the sides of his head. His eyes drooped, briefly flared open in anger, then he slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Elima glanced over the two of them and sighed. "You almost took off his arm."
"I did the best I could." Slaten could have tried to make his sein blunt, but he had little practice with nonlethal blows and didn't want to risk another experiment.
"Straight onto your leg, too... you should know better... young people never have any sense." Elima approached him, shaking her head and looking over his injury. The other healers kept their distance, eyes on the man who was now snoring soundly.
When Elima touched his leg, he felt the difference immediately. Laeri's healing always felt like a flood of warmth, while Elima was far more subtle. Not just blades through his leg, but a thousand tiny knives doing healing work that he couldn't come close to understanding. He realized that there was another element there he could just barely perceive, outside his usual understanding of sein, but he was in too much pain to contemplate it.
"That's enough for now. Girls! Help get him onto a bed!"
Once Elima started giving orders, the others hurried to obey. She returned to the man who had attacked, gently brushing his hair away from his face and soothing him with more complex sein. But she also tied his arms and legs tightly before returning him to the ground and healing his wound.
Even with support from the healers, getting onto one of the cots was painful. Once he settled in, Slaten let himself lie back and just breathe, trying not to think about the pain in his leg. For some reason, Elima's healing rarely removed much pain, and it also didn't heal as quickly as Laeri. Though it extended recovery time, he assumed that she knew what she was doing.
Slaten watched cautiously at first, then slowly surrendered the situation. There were others taking care of the injured and some going to bring more help. Everything was taken care of except for his injury, but now that the emergency was past, he understood that he might not be the priority.
One of the younger healers came to stand beside him and gave a nervous smile. "Thank you. I don't know how much I can do f-"
"Tch, none of that!" Elima waved her off. "Leave his leg that way for now. And go find Laeri, she needs to see this."
"I... yes, Auntie!" The healer hastened to obey, leaving him with the older woman. She moved a stool next to his bed and glanced down at his leg thoughtfully. Since she wasn't working, Slaten decided he could ask a question.
"Is the injury that bad?"
"Hmm? Oh, no, it should be fine. It will take some time to heal properly, but it will be as strong as before. There's just something odd about it, something Laeri needs to see." Elima patted him on the cheek. "You don't mind being a lesson, do you? The girl doesn't believe an old Coran healer could have something to teach her, so I wanted to show her proof."
"If it's not serious, then that's fine." Slaten closed his eyes and lay back, trying to rest while Elima cut his pant leg away from the injury.
It took some time, but eventually he heard Laeri enter the room. Slaten opened his eyes just in time to see her gasp and cover her mouth as she stared down at his leg. Elima gestured toward the injury with a grunt.
"Alright, girl, look carefully. How quickly could you heal that?"
"An hour, perhaps?" Laeri started to reach out with healing sein, but Elima swatted her hands away. "An hour to fighting again, two hours to being fully healed. But a skilled Estronese healer could do it much faster."
"That's very nice, but the leg isn't what I was asking about. Not the break, I mean that." Elima poked at his leg, thankfully not causing any more pain. But he felt sein shift strangely and he tasted blood as if it had been an intense attack. Laeri was silent for several heartbeats, then gasped.
"Oh my! What... what is it?"
"Huh, no Estronese name for it? I don't have one either." Elima folded her arms and frowned down at Laeri. "These are the knots of flesh I told you about. This one is small and not harmful. But knots can grow anywhere in the body... in the heart, in the lungs, anywhere. And when they grow big enough, men die."
"Oh dear... I wonder if I can..." Laeri sent healing sein flooding into him. It felt good, but a moment later she pulled back with another gasp. "It... it got bigger? Why?"
"Because it's not an injury you can just flood away, girl. It's part of him. The more you heal, the larger it grows."
"How terrible... what causes them?"
Elima leaned down and captured Laeri's eyes with hers. "Some of them appear naturally, but most of them come from healing. Don't gasp, listen! When you flood sein into a wound and force the body to heal so quickly, some of these knots form. And over the course of a warrior's life, they add up. Have you ever noticed how many warriors die early, healing no longer doing anything for them? In my experience, most of them have bodies filled with these."
Laeri pulled back, hands covering her mouth, tears in her eyes. She gave a muffled sob and shook her head. "No... does that mean people I've healed... have these too?"
"I don't want you to blame yourself, girl. I want you to listen to me when I say there's a reason to do things slowly."
"I... I..." Laeri sniffled and then wiped her face with one sleeve. "Is that how you can avoid causing them? But... what about when you're on the battlefield? And is there anything that can be done to get rid of them?"
"Easy, girl, easy." Elima gently smoothed her hair away from her face and smiled. "One question at a time. The better you know your craft, the less likely you are to cause such unintended consequences. An Estronese master could no doubt heal instantly without causing any problems. But I see too many young healers rushing out to use their skills without taking the time to really know the human body."
"I understand... I'll try harder." Laeri clenched her hands in her robe and closed her eyes. "I feel so awful about this... but sometimes people have been so badly hurt, what do I do then?"
"Think critically, girl. These knots might end a man's life years in the future, but if his life is going to end that very hour, do you think he'll blame you? Warriors do all manner of crazy things to win," Elima cast Slaten a glance there, "so they'll understand if healers do as well. The important thing is to understand."
"I do, I do! I'll work to make sure I never do anything like this again! Do you think I can?"
"Of course you can. You have exceptional talent, girl - it actually surprises me. All you need to do is apply it properly."
Laeri gave her a relieved smile. "Then... is there any way to, uh, get rid of the knots? Can they be cured?"
"I think you're more likely to cause more trouble, so I don't want to see you trying. But yes, I've heard stories. There was an old woman I knew - even older than me - who claimed that it was possible to cut out the knot before it grew too large. And I've heard credible tales of a man who could use his sein so deftly that he could kill only the knot and leave the surrounding flesh alone. But in all my years, I haven't seen many with such control."
Nodding eagerly and wiping away a few final tears, Laeri began asking more questions and helping with Slaten's healing. Their conversation quickly grew too complex for him to follow, as did the sein flowing into his leg. His injury wasn't healing instantly, but based on what Elima had said, that might be a good thing. What she had said still bothered him, however, so when Laeri finally left, he spoke up.
"Elima... is the knot of flesh in my leg going to kill me?"
"Don't you worry yourself about that." She patted his knee and beamed at him. "I was scaring the girl a little. The truth is, some of them don't grow so quickly and might never be a problem. Just remember this the next time a healer takes some time with an injury."
"I will, thank you."
"No, thank you, young man. You might have done it in a foolish way, but you stopped the situation from getting much worse. Now you just relax, we'll get your leg good as new!"
She moved away, beginning to hum to herself. Slaten closed his eyes and let the matter ease from his mind, since there was nothing that he could do about it.
But he did not relax. Instead Slaten began circulating his sein, focusing on the technique that had failed him, seeing how he could fix it and fail less seriously in the future. That, he could do something about.
Chapter 46
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"I confess I am a bit uncomfortable with some of those who gather to repeat the Legend over and over. This might be a good practice on its own, but many seem to believe that they can add more to the story. Given how our original, perfect understanding of the Legend has been fragmented, it is all too easy for charlatans to pretend to have uncovered another piece of the story.
"Worse than that are those who have allowed themselves to become organizations devoted to worship of the Hero or the Legend. Worthy as these causes may be, no such groups are mentioned in the Legend. As such, I cannot believe they have any significant role to play."
- excerpt from a letter written by Lady Karerela of East Corah
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Though Tani rapidly drew and threw her knives, the real battle was between the mission wasting her time and her trying to salvage it. Grimacing in concentration, she drew another three knives in her right hand and did her best to focus before her target could reach her and attack.
Instead of simply using familiar patterns, Tani focused on the sein flowing down her arm and into her hand. Placid thoughts had worked well enough for controlled, targeted strikes. Those wouldn't be sufficient in every situation.
Instead Tani drew upon much sharper memories. She started with her frustration at how useless their assignment had turned out to be, then went deeper, letting her disgust and anger at what had happened to her flow into her arm. As she focused, her hand felt heavier and heavier, yet the weight was only for her foes, so she could move easily. Tani gritted her teeth and recalled the raw hatred she had felt in Celivia's memory, let that fill her, then fused it all into a unified flow of sein.
Her hand snapped out in three vicious movements, each releasing exactly a third of the sein she'd gathered. The second knife was out before the first had even struck her target and the third came soon after, striking the staggered man and knocking him back a step.
