Chapter 36

The Mill Of My Grandfather

I wake up sore and stiff of course, when don’t I? But my head feels clearer than it has in weeks….In an emotional sense, my face is practically stuck to the cot with dried snot, tears, and drool.

I don’t know much about the mind beyond easy ways to insert sharpened metal into it. But I think you need to cry occasionally to get your emotions back in balance. I hope it isn't just me, that would be really embarrassing.

I get myself some water from the metallic-tasting hall-three barrel, stretch, and make my way past the still-stirring boys of my hall. Ever since I started my morning routines with Xael and Kalon I Maybe it’s just me? I tend to be the earliest riser in my hall. Well except for the youngest boys. Both of them have this weird habit where they wake up well before the sun rises and then just lying there in silence. I see the glint of their eyes watching me in the gloom some mornings. Little kids are creepy.

Nodding to the pair of guards out the front of the youth barracks I start my morning run. When I pass the practice pit I’m unsurprised to see Xael and Kalon absent. Even BloodRock makes us stick to light work the day after a match. If the boys push too hard they will end up in bad shape or worse injured. I know that goes for me too, but after twelve years of slavery, I’m not very good at doing nothing.

Ending my run at the animal pens I greet the trio of servile slaves who are already up and working. Two bovine cursed, and a dog-man are busy moving the cow things from one place to another? I don’t know, they are doing whatever it is they do.

I help myself to some of the dusty brown water in the animal troughs as the sun rises. It doesn’t taste any worse than the water in my hall’s barrel, and a lot better than the weird salt combination Ilexa plies us with.

I've been grappling with the issue of what to do with myself today and I think I’ve found at least a partial solution. With my mind feeling refreshed the way it is, the seeds of other ideas feel like they are getting some water too, but those will have to wait until I get a better look at my opposition in the tournament.

Today however my only real plan involves enduring what is definitely going to be a weird and awkward conversation. At least this time the awkward one won’t be me.

I give it an hourglass or so for the sun to rise a little before I make my way over to the tower. I haven’t been there in months, not since I fought Kalon and Morean’s teams at once. I think that might be some sort of record for me, a record that I personally consider to still be going as I’m not here for treatment but for information.

The bottom floor of the tower is laid out the same as every other floor in BloodRock’s hospital, a circular room with four doors and a stairwell.

It functions very differently, however. Whereas the rooms on the other levels are used as both operating rooms and cells for injured slaves. The rooms down here are where the surgeon-slaves live. I had thought there were four of the surgeons, but as the first two rooms I open turn out to be purely for storing medicinal supplies and equipment I guess we are down to two.

I knock twice on the third door and open it without waiting for a response. Inside I find Coil; the old surgeon-slave whose hand I mangled. He is crouched in front of a little altar featuring a larger version of the weird triangular religious icon he wears. There is annoyance on his face, but it quickly turns to fear when he realizes who he is looking at. I might think it's stupid but if the old man is still holding onto his fear of me, he will probably answer my questions without argument.

The rest of the room is nice. He might be a slave but surgeons are rare and valuable regardless. Red cloth hangs on the walls, and even over the windows. It bathes the room in a warm sort of shadow that puts me at ease. There is a large table in the center of the room. Half of which is devoted to large bound tomes of what I assume is knowledge, the other half is all but covered in various little metal tools that mostly look like they cut things. Surgical equipment I assume. Coil’s bed is more than twice the size of my own cot, and you could easily fit me, Gorri, and that little kid he’s friends with inside the cupboard opposite the bed. Having only ever seen Coil in the robes he’s wearing now, I have no idea what he does with so much storage space.

The wild-haired old man leaps to his feet sputtering.

“N-North! Are you hurt?”

I don’t think it would be nice to have everyone react to me the way Coil does but the old man's unreasonable fear does fill me with a giddy sort of confidence. Humans tend to act so superior, even though we cursed are human. So it’s just nice to see one who understands I could kill him if I wanted to.

“Nah,” I say. Keeping my distance from the old man so he doesn’t get too intimidated.

“I have some questions you can answer.”

He looks at me suspiciously for a moment before slowly replying.

“Alright. What did you want to know?”

This is where if Viscarra is right things are going to get tricky.

“Magic healing. How is it done?”

Instantly the suspicious look evaporates. Replaced by a very obvious nervousness. He even looks past me out into the first-floor landing as though someone might be there to help him. This early in the day there isn’t much chance of that.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Well… there are many kinds of mystical healing, for example, the LighTouched of the Isen Plateau channel energy through their connection to the World of Light. Which stimulates and accelerates the body's natural healing, legend has it they can even resurrect the newly-”

He’s obviously stalling so I cut him off. “You aren’t them though, and you do magical healing.”

The old surgeon stiffens a little. “I’m not a mage North I can’t do any sort of magic.”

I stare at him for a few heartbeats trying to figure out why he is being so evasive about this when I realise the answer is obvious. The old man is worried that I am going to snap and attack him once he tells me about it.

“You aren’t a mage, but you can stick things that are already magical inside us. BloodRock doesn’t keep a mage in the compound, but we get healed from horrific injuries all the time. Tell me how.” Before he can answer I add “ I promise I wont get angry.”

I don’t think he believes me but the old surgeon does eventually start to answer the question.

“Alright alright, you are correct. We purchase an enchanted substance in fairly large quantities that does the magical healing on our behalf. It-”

Deciding I’m sick of sneaking about the issue I cut him off again.

“It's Forspoken stone isn’t it? When we get hurt too badly for your skills you don’t heal us at all, you just replace the damaged parts with Forspoken stone.”

I’m not sure if it’s conscious or not but while I've been talking Coil has been inching backwards. It has reached the point where now he is pushed right up against the wooden shrine to his weird eastern god.

He lets out a long breath and nods. “Yes. It is Forspoken stone, and before you ask we tell you it only works on bone so you don’t dig it out. By the time most slaves find out, it doesn’t matter.”

I can feel that strange hollow fear well up in me but with an edge of panic.

“Does that mean every single piece of me that has been replaced can be tracked by BloodRock?” I ask, trying to keep any emotion out of my voice.

“Oh North listen to me if you ever get free it won't be from escaping, this isn’t the way.”

My response is almost a growl. “I’m not trying to escape, so just.” I Ball my fists. “ Just answer the question.

“No, it is what’s called unaligned stone. Each of the houses…well basically every rich person in the city has a large piece of specially enhanced Forspoken stone that can be linked to smaller pieces inside a slave.” He moistens his lips before continuing. “You need a mage to do the linking and they like to charge a lot for it so only the one piece of stone inside you can be tracked or..you know blown up.”

A large part of me is relieved to know half my body isn’t subject to detonation at a whim from the houselord. The confirmation that my wounded organs have been eaten and then replaced by little black pearls still leaves my head spinning.

“A-am I even me?” My voice sounds small and weak to my own ears and I hate it. Something resembling sympathy flashes in the old man’s eyes and he bids me to take a seat at his cluttered work table. I do and to my annoyance, the old man doesn’t immediately join me. Instead, he potters around for a little bit pouring us both a drink of cold tea into clay mugs.

The drink is initially kind of nice, tasting of rosewater, sugars, and something else. The aftertaste though leaves much to be desired. Still, I don’t complain, and in fact find myself grateful for something to focus on that isn’t my own grim thoughts.

“That's a difficult question to answer.” He eventually says with a sigh.

“Wise men and women have been arguing about what it means to have part of you replaced ever since the magic was discovered. I suppose if you don’t feel any different it doesn’t matter. Do you feel different?”

I look at him flatly.

“I don’t know. I think I feel the same but what if I’m already different and, and”

“And you can’t tell?” he finishes for me. I nod and take a long sip of the tea.

“It’s a scary thought” Admits the older man “ But there isn’t anything you can do about it, and if you don’t notice a difference does it really matter?”

I stare at him for a long time as I grapple with that question. He might be right I guess. I can’t do anything so why let it bother me? Because if it's true at some point I might stop being me entirely. I can imagine turning into one of those gelem things Viscarra talked about and not even thinking for myself anymore.

“It feels like it matters,” I say finally.

The surgeon nods again and takes a sip of his own tea. “While there might not be a correct answer there are some ideas on this subject that might help you figure yourself out.”

It sounds like I’m not going to get anything better than that out of the surgeon. Which honestly is better than I expected when I walked in here so I nod.

“What sort of ideas?” I ask tentatively.

“Probably the most pertinent is a thought experiment called The Mill of My Grandfather.” I don’t know what pertinent means, or what a thought experiment is. So I do my best not to let my face go blank and hope that he will elaborate in a way that makes sense.

I think he can tell I have no idea what he’s talking about as Coil sighs and starts again.

“ So you know what a mill is, yes?” He asks. I tongue the side of my mouth and glare at him.

“Yes.”

“Right, so let's say my grandfather builds a mill. Inside it are great wheels and gears, and stones that grind grain.” He says before taking another sip.

“I know what a mill is,” I growl back. This causes the old man to flinch back like I’m about to leap over the table at him.

It takes a moment for him to continue but when he does I start to understand what he’s getting at.

“By the time my father inherits the mill he has to replace some of the gears and repaint it several times. By the time the mill gets to me I need to replace even more inside it, the wheels, the stones, the blades. So the question becomes is it still the mill my grandfather built?”

I furrow my brow as I genuinely don’t know the answer. It’s a complicated idea to chew on. If you replace everything it isn’t right? Or is it? The mill still does the same things, still belongs to the same people, and it even still looks the same.

“So are the new parts absorbed into the whole and it continues as the same mill? Or do they replace the mill with something that simply looks the same? Personally, I like to think it's the former.” He says all this while I drain the last of my tea. The drink still isn’t exactly amazing but it certainly grew on me by the time I finished the cup.

“Which one is the former again?”