The Law of Isolation (6 page)

Hold on.

Power surged through him, far more than was necessary for most purposes. Light spilled from his hand and flowed into a cloud that wrapped Master Tava in sparkling gold. Josiah felt Sar’s effort as he took control of every process in Master Tava’s body and slowed them nearly to a standstill. His heart raced, and he panted. Would they be able to keep up this level of exertion long enough?

“We’re ready,” he choked out.

“We’ll be quick.” Elkan placed his left hand on Tobi’s head. With his right, he gripped his knife. Gold light flowed around the knife and pulled the skin of Master Tava’s belly taut. With a smooth motion, he drew the blade across.

A line of blood welled out. Belatedly, Josiah remembered that they were supposed to be taking care of that, but Sar was already pushing as much blood out of the area as he could. Josiah’s breath stuttered as the donkey drew more strength from him. It had been a while since they’d worked together on something so strenuous. Josiah remembered how much he disliked the sensation of his energy being sucked away without his control.

Elkan cut deeper. Josiah couldn’t look away. He was both fascinated and disgusted by the red layers of muscle and yellow layers of fat opening beneath Elkan’s knife.

He tried to reconcile the physical sight of the organs in Master Tava’s abdomen with the sense of them flowing into his mind through the Mother’s power. He thought the purplish mass must be the liver, and those ropy things the intestines, but he wasn’t sure.

He recognized the bile reservoir when Elkan uncovered it, though. It was just as distended and diseased-looking through his own eyes as through the Mother’s power. Its presence within the healthy body felt horrifying, like a desecration of something holy. He was glad when Elkan made a few tiny slices with his knife, severing it from its connections. Gold light filled the space, healing the cuts even as he made them.

Elkan withdrew his hand and set the knife aside. He extended his fingers, and the Mother’s power flooded out. The infected organ floated up on a golden cloud and settled into the small metal bowl.

Josiah’s legs shook. Sweat soaked his tunic. He struggled to breathe deeply enough. He knew Sar wouldn’t draw too far on his reserves of energy, but it felt as if he might. An edge of panic urged Josiah to pull his hand away from Sar’s neck, but he ignored it and gripped the donkey’s mane harder.

Elkan and Tobi stared into the incision, pouring light from Elkan’s hand into the cavity. Layer by layer, it sealed shut. Last of all, the skin drew closed. The line of the incision passed through the stages of healing, from livid red to soft pink, all the way to a faded white scar.

That’s enough, Josiah thought, careful to keep the resentful words within his own mind so Sar wouldn’t hear. Wizards usually didn’t heal cuts past the point where they were thoroughly sealed, leaving their patient’s body to do the rest. Anything more was a waste of precious energy. At least, that was what Elkan was constantly telling him.

Finally Elkan nodded at him, and Sar released his hold on Master Tava. Josiah leaned against the donkey, breathing hard. Master Tava blinked while Elkan wiped smeared blood from his hands with a towel. “That’s all? You’re done?”

“Yes. Lay still for a moment.” Elkan passed a damp towel to Josiah. Together they cleaned the blood from Master Tava’s belly. “How do you feel?” Elkan helped her sit.

She drew a cautious breath, then deeper. “Odd. A little sore.”

Elkan nodded. “That will go away over the next few hours. You should take it easy for the rest of the day, but tomorrow you can go back to your regular work.”

“Good. I’m so far behind, half of Elathir will be dark this winter if I don’t catch up.” She glanced at the bowl and turned away with a shudder. “That’s it?”

“Would you like to see?” Elkan reached for the bowl.

Master Tava held up a hand. “Please, no. I’ll let you wizards deal with it.”

“As you wish.” Elkan moved the bowl out of Master Tava’s sight. “Josiah, clean up. I’ll be back in a moment.”

He escorted Master Tava out of the cubical. Josiah collected the dirty towels and wiped up the last scattered droplets of blood. There wasn’t much; Sar had done a good job keeping the blood inside Master Tava’s body. He hauled the basin across the Hall to the drain where the washbasins were emptied and poured out the pink-tinged water. He bundled the bloody towels and added them to the pile of soiled linens for the Cleaners’ Guild to pick up.

Elkan still wasn’t back. Josiah took a last look around the cubicle. It was spotless, ready for the next patient. He hoped they could break for the midday meal first. His energy was coming back, but he still needed to rest. Sar had the right idea. The donkey stood, eyes closed, one back hoof cocked up, to all appearances asleep.

Josiah eyed the cot wistfully, but it was reserved for patients. He was about to flop in one of the chairs when he spotted something he’d missed in his cleaning. On the table by the front screen, where Elkan had put it, was the bowl containing the removed organ.

Josiah went to stand by it and looked down with mixed disgust and curiosity. It looked smaller than he remembered, just a lump of dead flesh not much bigger than his thumb. He glanced at Sar, but he didn’t want to disturb his familiar’s nap. The Mother’s power wouldn’t show them anything, anyway. Once living tissue died, it became opaque to the Mother’s healing power. He bent closer. Elkan had said there were stones inside. He’d felt them. Were they really rocks? How could stones get inside a person’s body? Unless you swallowed them, but he couldn’t believe Master Tava would do that.

He jumped at Elkan’s voice. “Hard to believe such a small thing can cause so much trouble, isn’t it?”

Josiah backed guiltily away from the bowl. He’d been trying hard to curb his impulses to poke into things he shouldn’t. It had been at least a week since Elkan had scolded him for eavesdropping on the wizard and patient in the next cubicle. He’d lost track of how many times Elkan had lectured him on the importance of their patients’ privacy and of keeping the confidences imparted to them. This probably fell into the same category.

But Elkan came to stand beside him and gazed into the bowl. “But it’s often small things at the heart of the problem.” He drew his knife from its sheath and used it to turn the lump on its side. He probed the base of the tiny duct with the tip. “Fetch some fresh towels, and I’ll show you more while we let Tobi and Sar rest.”

Josiah ran to fulfill Elkan’s request. Elkan spread a thick layer of towels on the table and slid the bile reservoir onto them. With delicate motions, he sliced through the wall of the organ, releasing a gush of greenish fluid. He spread the walls open, revealing dark, lumpy sludge within the pocket.

“Here’s the culprit.” The tip of the knife pried a pale lump from the wall of the reservoir. Elkan picked it up, wiped it on a towel, and handed it to Josiah.

Josiah wrinkled his nose, but took it and turned it in his fingers. It was about the size of a pea, a dirty yellow color, and clumpy, as if several smaller stones had fused together. He tried to remember where he’d seen a similar shape. “It looks like a hailstone.”

“Hmm. I guess it does.” Elkan stroked his knife through the rubble of other stones. Some were even larger, but most were no bigger than grains of sand. “Yes, I can see why Master Tava was having so much trouble.”

“Where did they come from?” Josiah was sure there was no opening into the reservoir big enough to admit the larger stones.

“As far as we can tell, they form from the bile itself. Have you ever seen a candymaker make rock candy from sugar syrup? The water dries up and leaves sugar crystals behind. We think something similar happens here.”

“Why?”

“No one knows. It seems to be a little more common in folk who are heavy, like Master Tava, but plenty of thin people get them, too. Usually they’re healthy otherwise.”

“But why—never mind.” No matter how often Elkan tried to explain the theology behind illness to Josiah, he was never satisfied with the answer. He still thought the Mother could have saved them all a great deal of trouble if she’d taken a bit more care to get things right when she created the world. “You said sometimes you can crush the stones?”

“That’s right. Surgery is always a last resort. We don’t interfere with the way the Mother has designed our bodies without great need.” Elkan bent closer to the organ, turning it with his knife. “See these gray patches, here and here? That’s where tissue was already dying.” He sighed and nodded. “We made the right call. It would have had to come out eventually, even if we’d cleared the blockage today. Still, often crushing the stone will fix the problem. Let me show you how, so you’ll know when you encounter this again. Sar?”

The donkey’s hooves clopped on the stone floor. He put his head against Josiah’s arm.
It takes a good deal of force. Point at that one, in the middle.

Josiah put his finger as close to the sludge-covered stone as he could without touching it. The less distance the Mother’s power had to travel, the easier it was.

Gold light flowed out and encircled the stone. For a few moments nothing happened, though Josiah felt Sar drawing strongly on his energy. Then, with a soft
crack
, the stone crumbled into powder.

“That’s all there is to it,” Elkan said. “The pieces can pass out through the duct easily. Usually, that’s all you would need to do.” He wiped off his knife and scooped the organ back into the bowl. “Stones can form in the kidneys, too. There you definitely want to try crushing the stone first; removing a kidney is much more serious. Although it can be done.” He gathered up the towels. “I’ll take care of these. It’s about an hour until the midday meal, if this hasn’t totally ruined your appetite. You can have a break until then. Sar pushed you hard, and you held on well, right to the end. I can tell you’re getting stronger.”

Josiah glowed with the praise. “Why did you heal her so far?” He trailed Elkan out of the cubicle. Sar plodded behind him, and Tobi uncurled in a golden wave and padded after them. “I expected you to stop once the cut was closed.”

Elkan nodded. “I wanted to make absolutely sure there was nothing left open where infection could take root. With a nasty festering mess like this, there’s always the possibility that it can spread. Not much of a chance as long as it stays contained, but I’ve seen cases where the reservoir burst before we could get it out, and the infection spread through the abdomen.” He shuddered. “There’s something in the fluid that contaminates anything it touches.”

He stopped and dipped a finger into the bowl. He smeared the greenish liquid between his thumb and forefinger. “You can feel there’s something alive here, if you look close enough.” He held his finger out toward Josiah and nodded at Sar. “Show him.”

Josiah touched Sar and reached out toward the smear of liquid on Elkan’s finger. At first when the gold light probed it, he couldn’t sense anything but the warm life of Elkan’s skin. But as Sar focused more narrowly on the stain, he felt it, like a tickle in the back of his throat.

“How can it be alive?” He peered at it as the light died and Elkan wiped his fingers. “It’s just liquid. Don’t things need a body and blood and stuff to be alive? Or I guess plants have roots and stems and sap, but it’s the same thing.”

“We can only guess. The general consensus is that it contains creatures too small to be seen. Perhaps they’re like seeds, carrying a bit of life until they take root and grow in fertile soil. Or perhaps they’re like fish, swimming upstream to spawn. No one knows.” Elkan shook his head. “There’s a great deal going on within living creatures that’s too small to see. We can only make conjectures about what’s happening from what we observe. A similar sort of life can be felt in anything that decays, rotting meat or moldy fruit or sour milk. And also in people afflicted with the sort of diseases that can pass from person to person, fevers and such. Wizards have spent a lot of time and energy studying it.”

This was all so interesting Josiah nearly forgot about the promised break. He followed Elkan to the basins and scrubbed his hands as vigorously as his master, imagining tiny living creatures swarming over his hands. “Why? The Mother’s power can heal those diseases easily.”

“The hope is that if we understand more about why they happen, we can learn ways to prevent or cure them without the Mother’s power. Then our energy could be put to use on other things. There’s always more need than we can meet; you’ve seen that.”

Yes, he had. He could see it now, in the rows of people sitting in the chairs and benches outside the screened area, waiting for a wizard to help them. On a busy day like today, many of them would be bandaged or dosed with a herb draught and sent home. Only those whose injuries or illnesses were sufficiently serious would warrant a wizard’s attention. And even so, every wizard on healing duty would fall into bed tonight exhausted.

“Run on, now.” Elkan waved him off. “Grab a nap, or better still, read a few more pages of the Histories. Meet me in the dining hall. After the meal, we’ll get back to work.

“Yes, sir.” Josiah trotted toward the stairs that led to the fourth-floor apprentice quarters. Sar followed him up the broad, shallow stairs that had been built with the needs of four-footed creatures in mind.
Sar, want me to brush you for a minute first?

I’d appreciate that.

Being brushed was one of Sar’s favorite things in the world. Sometimes Josiah tired of the chore, but usually he enjoyed the chance to spend a little quiet time with his familiar. Occasionally the donkey would carry on a conversation about the work they’d done together, or points of philosophy or theology from his lessons. But more often Sar was content to remain as silent as any ordinary animal, letting the set of his ears and the attitude of his body convey everything he needed to communicate. It wasn’t much different than the year Josiah had spent in his company before they bonded, when the donkey had been Elkan’s familiar. Sar leaned into the brush just as he had then, needing no words to express his pleasure.