Mornings smell sweet, the poets say, but they have never lived among goblins. To the more discerning senses of an elf, their city is a monument to a creative variety of stinks. Aytheur felt relief when passing out of it, despite the much-increased stares and whispers of the populous.
Aytheur's was quite relieved as they passed to the sprawling fields just beyond the gates. Just out of bowshot of the city wall (what must have been a valuable property), they came to a dense hedge, about the elf's height. A large gate was cut in this. Aytheur marveled, for a moment, that goblins had discovered the wall-hedge such as elves use around their forest fortresses. But as they came closer he realized this was a normal plant, carefully domesticated, cultivated, and manicured, but no magic supported it.
The gate was guarded, if you could say that, by a young goblin who seemed so weary he might have been lifeless. He leaned against the gate, dozing, until the approaching party woke him. “Hai, Kliet,” the leading guard cried. “King Crelocthen greets you, and sends a healer. Is your captain inside?”
“He will be beneath soon enough.” Nerith replied bitterly, hardly even glancing at them. They formed a single file to pass through the half-open gate, as Nerith made no sign of moving the other half for them. Curious hospitality.
Within the hedge stood a courtyard of patchy grass around flagstone paths. Three buildings formed an equilateral triangle inside: a house, a barn, and some matter of workshop. Aytheur supposed this must be a manor to the goblins, who seem to have no real energy for building. 'Or perhaps they have no patience for it,' he thought, 'even on the ground, a well-made house would take a significant portion of their lives.'
The moment they were within the hedge, a new smell assailed Aytheur. Rot, and death reeked from the house opposite the gate. “If that is the smell of the patient, he is well beyond any aid,” he commented.
The guards snickered. “If you're the master of all things, now this is beyond your magic. Tell us, what face will you wear next?” He prepared to spit on the elf, just in case his decision translated poorly. At the word 'magic,' Nerith looked at them for the first time.
“Are you an Orc?” he said, and was about to continue “did Ket send you,” but even in his exhausted state, Nerith remembered that should remain secret. Instead, he weakly finished, “a mage-physician?” The leader of the guards, in mock courtliness, introduced them both.
“Sir Kliet Nerith, I present the elf or orc or troll or somesuch who calls himself At-thur! And to you, mage-physician, I give the sleepy knight!” The others laughed.
Aytheur had the queerest feeling he was swimming up a waterfall. Or perhaps, he was standing beneath it, and wondering what swimming would be like. The realization, that most of his knowledge of goblins was a fiction, came upon him slowly. Plainly, though, he would need a different tack.
“I am here,” he said. “Let us go inside.”
The smell intensified. Nasch lay in the common room, which had the general appearance of a day old battlefield. There were half a dozen tall oil lamps, which smoked gently as they burned off the last of their oil. Two parchment tomes, commodities of great value, sat open on tables. A scattered collection of implements filled the room, each discarded when the need for it passed. Many had uncleaned blood on them. An open bottle of vinegar, and another of strong grain alcohol added to the overpowering fragrance. In the center of the space lay the patient, his woulds covered, but slowly oozing. He seemed to doze uneasily.
Aytheur noticed the books first. He supposed they contained medical suggestions which largely involved jumping around in circles or poking tiny holes in one's face. Real medicine, of course, sought balance in the four humors: the two biles, mucous and blood. Fortunately, Aytheur did not rely on such complexities to understand an illness. He wondered, while looking over the torturous* tools, whether the alcohol was for the patient or the practitioner. Nasch seemed to sense the new presence, and tried to roll over on the couch. He moaned, but did not open his eyes. It was impossible to be certain if he was awake or asleep.
*the older meaning of this was simple “causing torture,” which I can reasonable take as “torture causing.”
Great injury tends to provoke one of two responses. Either a compassion that boils over, or a clamped-down mechanical coolness. Aytheur had long considered himself the latter, but in this moment he had to fight to achieve it. Nasch's shoulder and ribs, his should right side, was crushed. It looked like something huge and heavy fell on him. To Aytheur, the injuries were the same as those that killed his father*.
*Gah! Did I never mention this? Dangit, it's in the notes. Look, Gheant was crushed by a falling tree. It happened while Aytheur was at the university in Ballea, not long after he started. He returned home rapidly, but his father did not recover. Since Gheant was alone at the time, there's no evidence of foul play, but the odds of one of the massive trees falling like that are very small. Even if it did, he'd called this portion of the forest home for so long, surely he would be used to, and prepared for it. Having been “the Wizard” is more than enough to deserve death, according to more than a few elves. Note to self: find a reason to tell this story before that one!
Embarrassment overcame Aytheur. It chased out the compassion, and made room for icy concentration. “Get out, all of you! And take your smoke and your butcher knives with you!” In an adjoining room, the physician Tyisch hired woke up. He burst into the common room, wearing only a nightshirt, and demanded information.
“What is this doing here? My patient is fine! With no thanks to any of you, the worst is behind us! Not even an assistant did you leave me,” he shouted. “If you touch my tools, you'll be cleaning them for a month!”
The guards had yet to move on either order. They were quite content to let these two shout it out before they acted. Nerith, though, was not. He had been up all night with the physician, fetching tools and dipping them in an increasingly bloody basin of water to clean them. He often found them discarded immediately afterwards on an increasingly blood floor. The physician, perhaps, had a great reputation, but Nerith had a few doubts. “Nasch would have been in better hands with a fence-maker,” he'd commented to Krina before she vanished for “practice.”
The physician shouted again, “Come now, collect the tools! We must wash them!” Then Nerith stepped in and summoned what authority he had left. “Pick them up, and go. Take the Physician with you! If Nasch has an hope left at all, it is with this orc.”
So the guards listened to Nerith. He was Kliet, after all, so in Tyisch's absence (where is he, anyway?), he should have authority. Besides, cleaning a bloody knife was a small chore, but remaining in that place would be far, far less pleasant. As they were leaving at last, Aythuer stopped one. “Can you help me take him outside?” The guard, a largish goblin with a found face and poor complexion, who happened to be the leader of this squad, obliged him. They moved Nasch and the entire table into the courtyard.
“That's not enough,” Aytheur said, “We need to take him off the table.” He laid a blanket on the ground, 'because dust won't help us. Yet.' then slowly they lifted Nasch off the table. Nerith tried to push in to help, but Aytheur kept his place at Nasch's head, leaving Nerith to awkwardly support his middle. He seemed more a corpse than ever, except the movement broke open the physician's wrappings and caused blood to weep from his side. Aytheur didn't want to waste more time, but he realized there was one thing more to explain.
“Do you know him well?” he asked Nerith. The Kliet had little patience for small talk, and so said nothing. “Look,” Aytheur continued, “what I'm about to do may save his life, for now. There's a chance he's too far gone, and there's a chance he could recover anyway. But if I do this, it will change him forever. Orc magic, like the kind my mother has, and I have, trades good for ill. I can not bind his bones like a mason filling chinks in brick. It is only within my power to increase his body's natural ability to repair itself, to fuel that power, and to hope it is enough.
“But once begun, this does not change is not reversible. He will recover, for now, but he will be immutably changed. Or, I should say, irreversibly mutable. His body will continue trying to grow, and heal, and advance, and no magic, orc or otherwise, can stop this. Fifteen years, perhaps, I can grant him. Twenty at most, before the changes I begin today will inevitably end his life. And the last of these years are decreed to be painful.”
Nerith looked at the orc, sizing up his honesty as best he could. It isn't easy to read the faces on strange species, particularly ones so pale and clean and featureless as this one. Nerith hasn't met many orcs, but this did not seem much like those he'd seen. He seemed thin, tall but weak. Breakable, fragile even; except for his eyes. They burned. Actually, his eyes reminded Nerith just a little of Ket, although he could not exactly say why, for color, shape and size all varied.
“At-thur,” he said, addressing Aytheur, “my captain is near death. I can not imagine a more painful way, than an infected wound from a minor battle on the first days of the war which may well decide if our tribe – our clan even! – will survive at all. Nasch will take your twenty years. Work your healing.”
“You don't understand. Nasch was born as well-made as he can ever be. This magic I can work – it is not a healing art. I can change him, but I can't improve him. The average must decrease. It is nature's law: no new creation. He's far gone, and if I can give him the strength to mend, he will loose that strength, and more, from somewhere else within him. Do you understand,” then Aytheur paused. He wanted to say the goblin's name. It seemed a powerful revelation that he hadn't asked it, but the name existed. “..clanmate.” Aytheur finished.
“I am Nasch's tribesman, and no clansman of a timid orc!” Nerith screamed now. His eyes flowed, though Aytheur could not decided if the tears were of sorrow or rage. Both, perhaps. Though the goblin stood shorter than his arm, at that moment the smaller man was terrifying and powerful. Nerith beat his fists against Aytheur, not in an attempt to cause injury, he did not hit so hard as that, but in sheer frustration. “Save him...” he said, “save him. He's more than a captain: he's the best of us. He's to foster* my son... so soon... But Nasch agreed...”
*Ok, I haven't mentioned this because... well.. it was only a footnote on a notes page, but I like it. Nerith's fiancé is pregnant, she discovered a little after the flood of Fuspmar. Only Nerith and Nasch know, beside Ealea (A-la) and her mother. When a goblin marries outside his tribe, the couple must choose someone as a foster-parent (of the same gender as the child). The child is born into the tribe of that foster parent. This insures there will be no orphans unclaimed by a tribe. Naturally, it also effects the child's prestige to have a high-ranking foster parent.
The commotion woke Tyisch, who had collapsed in an adjacent room. He saw them, and asked simply, “Are you the orc?” When Aytheur nodded, Tyisch gently guided Nerith from the room. He said, “start.”
Aytheur knelt beside the table where Nasch was stretched out. His breathing was shallow, gasping and very weak. Aytheur decided moving him now would be a mistake; they'd lose too much time. He lay his hands on Nasch's head and his wound. Then he made no visible movement for a very long time.
Krina returned, eventually. She was drenched in sweat, and nearly half the arrows in her quiver were broken. Nerith had long since recovered his control, but his face plainly showed the emotions. He and Tyisch sat restlessly in the garden, with a sleepy physician. The guards were not with them – probably breaking into Tyisch's wine cellar, but it was plain he didn't care just now. There was little need to exchange words, she's heard the important part. “The orc?” Krina asked.
“Working.” Nerith replied. His voice almost didn't shake.
She nodded, and silence closed about them like claustrophobic night in a cave.
