Tomas heard a yell, and the carriage jerked to a halt. Recovering, he looked out to find Samuel up by the horses, leaning over a cloth bundle on the ground.
“Aw! Blast and damn!” Tomas swore.
They’d run into someone. That shouldn’t have been possible with the wards in place, but something had gone wrong. Tomas cast a general healing on the victim. There was a strange wrenching, and the spell disappeared.
That was an unpleasant shock! He’d never felt anything like it, before. A second heal and that one vanished too! This wasn’t good. He slammed the door open, leaped down, and rushed to the figure. It was a little boy, possibly eight or nine years old. He put his hands on the kid and jerked back. His nascent spell was torn out of him and taken away! What could he do? Everything he knew depended on his magic.
He’d heard of a few cases where mundane people had helped injured workers. Maybe something like that was called for here? Turning to Samuel, he exclaimed, “I can’t touch the boy! There’s a strange type of spell on him. Can you move him?”
“Are you sure, sir? I’m a bit rough for medicine work.”
“I don’t know! Just see if you can touch him!”
Samuel reached out and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder with no ill effects.
“Okay, let’s find his injury.”
Samuel’s huge hands engulfed the kid’s head as he turned it to the side, revealing a fair amount of blood.
“It looks like the cowl helped cushion the fall, sir. Might have a dead kid if he was a little unluckier.”
“We might still! My spells aren’t working! We need to get him to the infirmary at the College. I hope they’ll be able to figure out what to do.”
“Should we move him, sir?”
“Dammit, how should I know? We have to! Sometimes all you can do is what you can. You carry him. In fact, I’ll drive. You sit in the carriage and hold the boy.”
For a moment, Samuel looked like he would argue, then did as he was ordered.
“Quickly man, but for the Gods’ sake, be careful!” Tomas added, unnecessarily.
Tomas knew he was flustered, but he wasn’t trained for this! Samuel stepped into the carriage, looking very uncomfortable to be riding inside. Tomas scrambled up onto the driver’s seat, resisted the impulse to start the horses galloping, and clicked at them. They moved ahead with barely a jerk, and once underway, Tomas urged them to move faster. Although the College was close, Tomas was worried with how seriously the boy was hurt.
After passing through the gate, they rushed down the driveway running through the green space in front of the College. When they pulled up to the main entry, Tomas was somewhat apprehensive that security might over-react, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Tomas applied the brakes hard, and as they slid to a stop, several human Guardians ran out. His status as the Headmaster allowed him to sense some of the hidden ones as well.
“There’s an injured boy here,” he yelled. “We need to get him to the infirmary, but don’t touch him!”
Tomas jumped down and slammed the carriage door open. Samuel stepped out, carrying the boy. They hurried up the steps and into the College, with the guards trailing. The infirmary was just off the main foyer where it was easily accessible from all parts of the campus.
As they rushed across the foyer, Tomas received a notice that several wards they’d passed through were abruptly failing. That was troubling; these were supposed to be the best defenses anywhere! This boy was certainly something strange. Maybe he was what the God of Subtlety had alluded to? If so, this might be the break they needed! Immediately, he regretted the selfish thought.
As Samuel burst into the infirmary, the NP, Nurse Practitioner, assessed the situation and pointed to a bed surrounded by diagnostic equipment. Samuel laid the boy down and stepped away. At that point, all the equipment emitted various squawks and groans and died.
The NP pushed in.
Tomas only managed a, “Don’t tou…” as she placed her hand on his wrist, shrieked, and jumped away.
“…ch him.” Tomas finished, unnecessarily.
At that moment, the Head of Medicine, Madam Destine, barged into the room, did a fast assessment and rushed over to the boy.
As one, everyone yelled, “Don’t touch...” before she was leaping back.
Without a pause, she turned to the NP. “Get the gloves! Quickly, now!” then bellowed, “Everybody out!”.
Tomas declined the invitation. Madame Destine glared at him, but didn’t argue, which was a bit of a shock in itself.
Tomas knew the boy was in good hands. Madame Destine was used to working with half-trained Magisters and it was obvious there was more going on here than just a simple injury. The NP rushed up and handed her a pair of heavy gloves, which she donned before turning to the boy. With his magical sight, Tomas noted that the gloves were devoid of magic, completely mundane.
Madame Destine touched one finger of the glove to the back of the boy’s hand. When there was no reaction, she moved in and began her examination.
“Get the rest of the outfit and I need scissors,” she ordered.
Tomas wasn’t sure if she was talking to him, but the NP opened a drawer and snatched up a pair of scissors. After handing them to Madame Destine, she hurried out of the room, presumably to retrieve the “outfit”.
Madame Destine removed the cloak by cutting the tangled knot of his belt and pulling the boy out of the garment. During the process, a great number of things fell from various pockets onto the bed. In addition to that, several knives strapped to his arms and legs were revealed. After Madame Destine had unbuckled them, the nurse scooped everything into a box.
“Be careful,” Tomas warned. “I am not sure what about him is affecting our magic. It may be some object.”
“Don’t be daft! The field is evenly distributed over the skin of the boy, it’s an intrinsic ability.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do! Now shut up!” Madam Destine was in fine form tonight.
The boy’d had a hard life. There were a surprising number of scars and marks all over his body. He wasn’t overly clean, but was neither filthy nor terribly scrawny. At least, it appeared that he got enough to eat. Probably the umpteenth child of some peasant, or running on the streets. Maybe both.
“So, can you make a diagnosis?”
“Yes, he seems to have no issues other than his head. There’s a cut there, but without magic, I have no idea if his brain is bruised, or if he has internal bleeding. And even if I determine the injuries, I can’t do anything! We may be in a race to find a treatment before we lose him!”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
At that moment, the boy started snoring. Madam Destine reached over, turned his head and he stopped.
It was obvious that she was not happy. Modern medicine could replace limbs and bring back those who had recently died, but she was barred from using any of her normal methods, here. Tomas shared her frustration.
He thought for a moment. Being the director of the premier magical research institution gave him a certain perspective.
“Do you know of someone who may be used to treating people without magic? Some hedge witch, or something. Maybe a colleague?” he asked.
“No, no, everyone is working on modern techniques. Wait! There’s a girl here, a student. She said she comes from some rural area, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. She wanted to apprentice with me, but I didn’t find her suitable. What was her name?” She started hitting her head. “Splatene, Spinterine, Sporkine… something like that! I don’t know!”
While she was blathering, Tomas used the resources of the College to carry out a search for students that had applied from the more remote communities. There were three likely candidates, but only one was a girl.
“Does the name Gyri Jorgensdatter seem familiar?”
“Yes, that’s it! Just like I said!” Madam Destine was a brilliant doctor. The rest came with the package.
“I have had the Guardians alert her. She’ll be here shortly.”
Madame Destine resumed examining the boy.
After a few minutes, there was a soft knock on the door. The NP opened it a crack and spoke to someone on the other side. Tomas heard some quiet mumbles and then the NP opened the door all the way, letting the someone in. Tomas assumed it was the girl he had summoned, and as he looked over at her, his day, which wasn’t going that well anyway, tumbled to a new low.
Instead of some raw-boned country lass, Gyri Jorgensdatter was a Trachteur! She was short, lithe, and covered in a fuzz of black fur, with faintly catlike features. He’d been expecting the Envoy to arrive at the College sometime soon and had a welcome set up for the start of the term which was a couple of weeks away. The planning for her arrival had been going on for quite some time.
She was not supposed to be here yet!
And another thing she was not supposed to do was to ever meet with Madam Destine.
The Trachteur race was insular and stratified, where honor was exceedingly important. Jiri, the Envoy, which is what every member of the Trachteur was called when they went abroad, was one of the few members of that race to develop significant magical abilities, so the City and the Trachteur had negotiated a deal where she would attend the College to train.
“Get over here and help me,” Madam Destine barked at the Envoy.
“Yes, rude Magister,” the Envoy replied, then smiled.
That was bad… really bad! A smile for the Trachteur meant the exact opposite of what it did for humans. To top it all off, the Envoy let her canines show. Plus, the word “rude” to the Trachteur was a deadly insult!
Tomas leaped between the two.
“Just shut up!” he all but yelled at Madame Destine. “If you want to live through the next few minutes, you won’t say anything!”
One good thing about Madam Destine, and except for her medical ability, there weren’t many, was that she knew she had the social skills of a rabid dog, so she usually acquiesced to Tomas’ superior understanding. Tomas turned to the Trachteur.
He shifted mental modes. “If you do not mind, dear Envoy, I wonder if we could have a few words? Alone?”
She examined him with a predator’s eye. They had not met, and he hoped she had done her homework. The fact that she was here early and going incognito was probably a good sign.
“Certainly… Headmaster Tomas, is it?” Her voice was low and very smooth.
He felt a little poking at his magic. It was different from a human’s probe, more like a thousand snakes pushing and prodding.
“Do you mind? That is considered rude.” He used the word on purpose, then added, “Please, follow me.”
There was a small office paired with the infirmary. Tomas led the Envoy inside. In this situation, he had no idea if anything he did would be a breach of protocol, but she was the visitor, not him. He settled into the seat behind the desk as she seated herself in the facing chair.
“This is not how I had hoped we would meet. I had a plan to draw you into our society and avoid any unpleasantness like Madam Destine. We can hardly allow her to deal with undergrads, let alone foreign visitors. I suppose that hope is dead, now.”
Tomas permitted himself a moment of pity for the loss. It had been a really good plan.
The Envoy rebutted, “I did not want to be kept away from the real core of this society. I desired to experience the unfiltered truth.”
“Yes, well, that decision probably isn’t… optimal. I will be blunt; I know you appreciate it.
“Studying what we are like is not the same as being here. I had intended to expose you gradually to our daily life so you could get used to the differences between theory and reality. Your early arrival has forced me to adopt an alternative. I’ll pair you with one of our senior students to help define methods to deal with the various challenges that arise and allow us to find where the difficulties between us lie. Then we can generate solutions. Hopefully without bloodshed.
Tomas paused for a second, then continued, “I have just reduced your permissions from those of a new student to those of a level we call… guarded. It means you have restricted access and will require that you be escorted by the student I mentioned.
“This is not a punishment, but a realization that your society and ours are very different. You need time to adapt. Once everyone is comfortable, I’ll relax the restraints.”
Tomas was not only an accomplished mage, but had also dealt with hormone-driven teenagers for much of his career. He waited to see the results of this proclamation.
She went still, then, without any other warning, growled and lunged for him! Which resulted with her being suspended over the desk. Tomas sensed the Envoy mustering her magical resources, so he started her spinning. Over the years, he’d found a good variable three-axis spin to be quite effective.
He kept a monitor point in front of her face. Apparently, the Trachteur was more immune to disorientation than a human, but not entirely. He watched as she became less and less able to control her motions and magic. Fortunately, she didn’t throw up.
After what he felt was a reasonable amount of time, he let her spin down until she came to a stop. She wasn’t unconscious, but it did take her a while to recover.
“Now, please, let’s not repeat this. There are more important things that need to be done, and we can resolve our issues later. Oh, and don’t even think of attacking Madam Destine. She may be the pinnacle of offensive, but she is monstrously powerful and is incapable of sympathy.”
Thomas was fairly sure he had enforced his seniority at this point. He would have to watch his back, but that was what the monitoring was for. It was a pity. The idea had been to avoid this whole Trachteur dominance thing. The experts had told him that was unlikely, but he’d had such high hopes for his beautiful, but now dead, plan.
“If we are done with this unpleasantness, let’s go into the other room. You will do what Madam Destine requests. I recommend just filtering out her more colorful comments.”
By now, the Envoy had recovered from her disorientation, so he put her down and they returned to the others. If she tried anything, he would let the wards take care of it and she would find herself heading home as soon as could be arranged.
As they entered the infirmary, Madam Destine called over, “Girl, come here. Look at this boy and tell me what you see.”
The Envoy walked to the head of the bed, started to reach out, then jerked her hand back. That was interesting.
“He is… wrong. He looks like a hole. Magic enters and then goes away. As if it’s being eaten.”
Tomas found her phrasing to be intriguing. His own probes just vanished into the boy, returning nothing at all. Maybe later, when things had calmed down, they could talk.
Madame Destine was speaking. “So, girl, you told me that your people have some way to deal with injuries without casting spells. What would you do for trauma like this?”
“In the field, we would immobilize the patient, then cool him to reduce swelling and slow down any internal bleeding. Once they got to a treatment center, we would use one of our machines to peer into his head, using very high-pitched sounds. Has he been throwing up? Are his pupils the same size?”
Madame Destine took a long look at the Envoy. “How do you know this stuff, girlie? This is more detail than I would expect from someone like you.”
The Envoy bristled, but to her credit, answered, “As I told you when we first met, I was in training to be a physician. That was when you started insulting me and our medical practices.”
Maybe she had more reason than he thought to take a swipe at Madam Destine. He hadn’t lied when he had warned her that would be a very bad idea. At least the Envoy was keeping herself under control. For the moment.
“Well… I suppose you have a point,” Madam Destine grumbled.
Tomas decided to intervene. “This machine, how does it work?”
“It has a screamer which sends sound into the body. Those sounds bounce back to be captured by a number of hearers. The hearers talk to a bunch of thinkers, which make a picture. The picture is shown on a moving painting. I haven’t seen anything like that, here.”
Madam Destine actually shut up and appeared to be mulling over what the girl had said. After a few moments, she spoke. “We can do the same thing. If we bring in one of the beast handlers, maybe Magister Johannes, and a bunch of the fruit bats, then he could ride the creatures and show their thoughts so we all could see what the bats see. Quickly now, start moving!”
This ability to problem solve was why he kept her around. Fortunately, Magister Johannes was an old friend of his, a very down-to-earth individual who could deal with Madam Destine. Having him about would allow Tomas time to get something else done. Like, eat, sleep, and other such frivolities.
He sighed. This was shaping up to be a long night.