The healer was not a narrow-minded person. Of course, she understood the logic in Elrhain’s words. Not to mention her heart squeezing like a sweet and sour berry at Agwyn’s upturned, eager eyes.
But she, like everyone else in this era, grew up with a rigid understanding of the world just as the generations before her. From the time she was an apprentice to now, she had essentially never ventured outside what her master had taught her.
Treatments, elixir creation, spells, everything that she learnt came from knowledge passed down through hundreds of cycles of accumulated wisdom.
The only thing remaining was to gain enough experience in the real world. To know when to apply which knowledge for the best viable treatment of any patient. This had always worked for her, and even if the existing knowledge could not help a patient in time like servant Nana’s case, it was okay because that was but fate. Nobody would hold her responsible.
As for experimenting, she had neither the resources, the talent, nor the courage for it, unlike her genius peers training under the great shamans and mages in the Elder’s rest.
So, her rigid knowledge of healing told her not to accept the drivel of the two kids, who had obviously never laid their hands on a genuine scroll of medicine. Yet, her real-world experience told her the exact opposite.
Her experience told her that if she didn’t use every conceivable mean to treat the cursed who now fought with pain, the unborn babe who warred with death, then was she still a healer?
She took a deep breath and again massaged her temples with two fingers. Finally, after much hesitation and rumination, the healer pushed back the rigidness and agreed to Princess Agwyn’s idea, making the little girl jump up in glee.
*******
Onthoakt Slanout immediately had his men bring a few clay jars, a large basin of stream water, salt rocks from his dwelling, and a broken honeycomb from the cold cave used as food storage.
Agwyn yelled from the side that the water had to be boiled for at least fifteen minutes, then cooled, to be drinkable. So the ape-faced nobleman ordered his servants to bring a heating stone from Apprentice Adol’s place of work. It was one of those heat inscribed stone slabs used to boil the alchemic mixture. But the healer interjected.
She asked Agwyn, “Will a purifying spell do?”
Agwyn nodded.
Thus, after half a minute of hand signs and mysterious incantations, a soft glow enveloped a jar that had been poured full of water.
The stream water inside seemed to discharge murky impurities as tiny dark brown specks, which gathered into a small bead above the water’s surface. The healer nodded in satisfaction at her handiwork, then removed the bead before getting a servant to throw it away in the dirty pits.
And thus, all the glistening water that was left was perfectly safe to drink!
The little girl wow’d at the convenience of magic. She then eyeballed the jar to measure the amount of water.
「Um, about 2 litres?」
「I think so. 」
Getting Elrhain’s confirmation, she pinched some crumbled rock salt from a small pouch and added it to the jar. She continued until approximately four or five teaspoons were mixed. Then, she took a clay cup and filled it with honey halfway, adding to the mixture.
“Stir it!” Agwyn told the healer, and the older woman complied.
That’s how a simple homemade oral rehydration solution was created for the first time in Earthloch Siorrakty.
The healer and the Onthoakt looked at Agwyn with uncertainty as she drew a bit of the solution with a cup and drank it. It was pretty comical how she gagged while crying, “Salty!”
She added more honey and water while taking a sip now and then until she was satisfied.
“It’s done. I can save the weak servant auntie now!”
Slanout and the healer exchanged a glance.
“My lady, does it not need alchemical-”
“I’m not a lady. I am Annie, a cute little girl. You can call me Princess Agwyn, okay?”
“…. Princess Agwyn, does this remedy not need any other manna-rich ingredients?” Slanout asked.
“Nope! It’s done. Healer auntie has to make weak servant auntie drink a fifth of this jar every fifteen minutes until… um….” Agwyn put her fingers on her chin, then muttered, “Until she stops twitching?”
Even before the Onthoakt could say anything, Harund took the jar and a clean cup and dashed to his wife’s side.
“Gently! Gently! She is weak.” The healer shouted. Then with a groan, she helped the young man carry out Agwyn’s order.
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Agwyn patted her skirt with a serious grunt as if she had worked a long and tiring day, then scurried back to Elrhain’s side.
「You can’t. You have to supervise them to know when to stop. Or if the saline is really working. 」
「…. fine.」Agwyn pouted, then hopped her way to the healer’s side.
Elrhain looked at the scene with an obscure expression. No one knew what was going on in his mind.
“My lord-, erm, Prince Elrhain.” Slanout said with an awkward smile, “It is truly lamentable that you had to see our village’s incompetence today. Whatever may take place, we are all grateful that your honourable selves care so much about the weak of our Earthloch.”
“You don’t believe the remedy will work?” Elrhain grinned. He hid the fact that even he was unsure if this magical variation of severe dehydration could be treated by non-magical means.
The direct question from the three-cycle old took aback the experienced Slanout. But he only sighed, saying, “The Grand Shamanka and Grand Elder sing high praise of the prince and princess every chance they get. Of course, everyone in the Siorrakty, whether or not noble, bears full trust in the two inheritors.”
Elrhain didn’t ask the man any further questions. He clicked his tongue, then turned towards the watch member standing at the side. “I reckon the main house will send some people to pick us up in a while?”
“Yes. Depending on how fast lord Vesiphis reaches the Earthloch manor, an hour or two if I am to guess.”
He then looked up at the evening sky, continuing, “Before the 10th night hour at the latest.”
Elrhain nodded, his gaze returning to Agwyn’s busy back.
‘Heh, she was so squirmy before, but now look at her enthusiasm. Baby girl’s growing up.’ Compared to her clinginess a few months ago, this independent activity was a tremendous improvement.
***
The healer wiped the sweat from her forehead. Even though she was a low Earthen realmer and her physical strength was admirable, it was strenuous to carefully hold servant Nana up and make her drink the remedy the princess had concocted.
She had to keep repeating this every ten to fifteen minutes, and it had been almost two hours already. Two moons had been unveiled, and the third had peeked its pink-red face in the dark of the sky.
At first, servant Nana showed a violent reaction which was typical for anyone cursed by the swampling. The moment the healer held the clay mug at servant Nana’s lips, she fiercely resisted, her weak arms finding strength from who knows where to push it away.
Her body kept jerking as if struck by thunder, and her eyes opened wide with only a hint of life in them.
Young Harund had jumped up in horror, and the healer wanted to wait until servant Nana’s condition was more manageable before administering the concoction.
But the princess was adamant.
“Force it!” She spoke.
The few times after that were just as rough. Sometimes only a few drops of the medicine would enter Servant Nana’s mouth, and other times most of it would spill on her clothes. But even though a lot of it was wasted like this, the materials were readily available, and more jars of this ‘saline’ as the princess called it had already been prepared.
The only other time the healer had to force an ailing person to undergo treatment was when wounded hunters were brought back from perilous hunts. To treat the ripped flesh and shattered bones despite the patient’s pain was her duty.
But this was different. The healer felt as if she was going against her creed.
However, as time passed and her body became more fatigued, the healer noticed a peculiar change in servant Nana’s situation.
Her skin was no longer so wrinkly.
“T-This…” The healer could not help but gasp out loud, bringing her hands to her mouth. Servant Harund, apprentice Adol and even the Onthoakt looked at her in confusion.
But she had not the mind to care. She carefully ran her fingers over the cursed’s skin.
Agwyn grinned, “I told you Annie could save her!”
The lustre of the skin was not the only change. Servant Nana no longer spasmed like a deranged beast. Her muscles had relaxed as if she was asleep. The swelling at her joints had visibly receded, and her limbs were no longer so tedious to move.
This expectant mother was still visibly famished, with thin arms and sunken eyes. But her breath…
The healer put away the distracting thoughts. She could dwell on them afterwards. For now, she had to take careful notice of any other change in the cursed’s situation.
A quarter of an hour, one more cup of the mixture.
And again, and again.
Finally, the healer once more put her hands on servant Nana’s stomach. A gesture of a spell and a glow of blue light.
The healer’s face grew complicated. She removed her hands and placed her ear on servant Nana’s slightly enlarged belly. With each of Nana’s breaths, the healer’s head would bob up and down with the rhythm. She carefully took in the body’s condition and the babe inside. And as those breaths drew by, the countenances of those beside tensed.
On the eve of the third moon ultimately unveiling and the dancing choir of the night cicadas as a backdrop, the healer let out a long, tired sigh and relaxed her body as she plopped on the ground.
“Kond!” Apprentice Adol hurriedly supported her.
Kond, the healer as she was called, shook her head as she said, “It’s fine. It’s just that my arms feel sore.”
Adol wanted to continue, but Onthoakt Slanout cut him off. He asked the question that everyone wanted answers to.
“How… is her condition?”
Kond looked at servant Nana. Young Harund quietly sat beside the ailing maiden, wiping her forehead with a cold grass weave. The young man should be the one most anxious for answers. But the long hours that passed seemed to have returned the servant to his bearing.
…. That is how most servants were. Rage, denial, and acceptance of their fate. Kond did not know if Harund had calmed down with a sense of trust that the princess’s remedy could save his wife and child. Or if he had simply given up all hope seeing his wife not gaining sense since she had last purged her filth.
Kond smiled, thinking of the little girl who was biting her fingers standing at the side. Truly, she was the divine daughter of the spirits!
“It worked.” She blurted out, not wanting to keep the impatient audience waiting any longer. “The manna in Servant Nana’s flesh flows smoothly again. And so does her womb. Aha ha, salt, water, and honey.”
“Yes!” Agwyn cheered from beside with a great jump. While Elrhain also spontaneously broke into a smile.
Apprentice Adol, Onthoakt Slanout, the watch member, and all the onlooking cultivators collectively let out a sigh in absolute liberation, then turned their complex gazes toward the two little celebrating kids now chasing each other around the sleeping Red Pengyte. In their eyes, there was reverence.
Servant Harund stared at them blankly, but his mother thwacked him with her scrawny hands on the head. The youth broke out of his trance, then a colour of profound veneration flushed his pale face.
He kowtowed towards Kond and the two kids, then the Onthoakt, and finally towards the lakes of the mountains of Earthloch, voicing,
“Blessed be the princess! Blessed be the prince! Blessed be the lands and many lakes of Earthloch!”
“Blessed be the princess! Blessed be the prince! Blessed be the lands and many lakes of Earthloch!”
“Blessed be the princess! Blessed be the prince! Blessed be the lands and many lakes of Earthloch!”