NOVEL NEXT 43. Into Motion
Excerpt from Yuje of Milur’s ‘Mundane Medicine in Perspective.’
“Due to the liquids contained within the brain, certain heavy blows or trauma can cause a physical and mental misbalance. When these fluids are dislocated from their traditional reservoirs, it is believed that one can experience everything from dizziness to hallucinations. My greatest example is the case of a young street performer who, after being struck on the head by a paving slab he had thought to balance atop his horn, believed he could read the thoughts of those around him with a glance.”
The world was filled with chaos and action. While Yenna held Tirk in her arms and let out the tears she had been holding, she could sense everything moving around her. It was nearly overwhelming—yelling in the manor, alarm bells ringing in sympathy, and so many people moving. A few people had come to check on them, and to witness the frozen beast-man—townsfolk, and crew members Yenna had never learned the names of. A voice in the back of her head berated her for that, having spent so long with these people to not even have a passing idea of their names. The ridiculous nature of this petty little worry clashed with the seriousness of the moments just passed, and Yenna couldn’t help but laugh aloud.
“Oh, Tirk! You wonderful little thing!” Yenna squeezed him tighter, and the boy squirmed in confusion. “You little marvel of modern magic! Why, I should pry that horn off your head and send it straight to the highest authorities!”
“Bwah?!” Tirk wriggled out of her grasp like his life depended on it and shot back a metre, covering his horn with his hands. “Y-You can’t!”
Yenna laughed, a loud belly laugh that turned several heads. Normally, the mage would have been embarrassed to have drawn this much attention, but a rush of emotions was flooding through her and it felt natural to let them run their course. Narasanha, still awkwardly holding Yenna’s broken wrist in place, tried her best to keep up.
“Mage, g-get a hold of yourself!” The bodyguard looked distinctly uncomfortable, and several of the people watching had also started to laugh at the interaction. “You’re going to hurt your wrist more.”
“Ahaha– argh! Y-Yargh!” Yenna turned herself to face Narasanha, only to twist the arm against her. Her face twisted in pain, and Yenna held back some choice phrases with years of teacherly discipline. Still, there was an odd feeling—Yenna knew that she should be seeing stars after an injury like that, but the pain was unusually bearable. Something in me has changed. Is this what it’s like to be a witch?
One of the members of the expedition crew took over for Narasanha, who ran back into the manor in a flash. The man, a yolm a bit younger than Yenna herself, had arrived with a small length of wood and a bandage. An older yolm woman that the mage didn’t recognise was guiding him through setting up a splint as she held the injured arm in a stern but gentle grip.
“All this fuss and excitement over a farmer’s meeting!” The woman, her face wrinkled from years of laughter and her horn a neat spike, seemed strangely happy about recent events. She doesn’t understand the full extent of what’s happened, and is just overjoyed to have something interesting happen here. The most excitement she has in life is to overhear gossip from the manor’s maids about noble meetings. …Wait, what? How do I know that?
Yenna stared at her, her mouth open as she blinked in surprise. “Did you, erm, say something?”
“Oh, it’s worse than I thought! How many fingers am I holding up?” Three. The woman held up three fingers. Yenna refrained from answering until she actually held them up.
“No, um, it really isn’t that big of a deal,” Yenna waved her free arm. “I must have misheard you, is all.”
The man splinting her hand finished with a well-practiced knot. It was tight and uncomfortable, but it prevented her from moving her wrist. “Is that okay, ma’am? I couldn’t get the bracelet off, so I had to go around it.”
He gave Yenna an apologetic smile. He always meant to ask me my name, but feels awkward asking now. Someone told him, but he forgot—he’s been calling me ‘the mage’ ever since.
It felt like someone was whispering directly into the back of her head. It had only appeared briefly, murmuring just at the edge of hearing, and only when these people were looking right at her. Am I hearing their thoughts, or am I going insane? … I suppose I could test my hypothesis. By talking to them. Oh, falling skies…
“M-My name’s Yenna, by the way.” Yenna directed it to a vague mid-point between the two, hoping for plausible deniability if she was wrong. The expedition member’s face flashed with surprise for such a brief time that Yenna couldn’t believe she even noticed it—the old yolm just smiled.
“Donu. I run the general store here.” The woman gestured behind her—the wall she had nearly met her end against was the side of the little store. Thinking how close it had been, Yenna shuddered slightly.
“Th-thank you, Donu. I’m sorry something like this had to happen right in front of your store.” Yenna rose to her feet, her eyes flicking towards the frozen beast-man—he looked for all the world like he might come right back to life and get his revenge.
“Don’t apologise, dear! The only interesting thing that ever happens around here is gossip from the manor. Still, appearing out of nowhere with some big monster—must’ve been quite the battle to do whatever you did to him, eh?”
Donu looked eager to pry all the details out of her, and Yenna looked around for an excuse to get out of reliving it. Tirk was still standing with his hands over his horn, but his face was scrunched into one of deep concentration, like he was trying to figure out a very difficult puzzle. Some instinct told her to look back at the man on the other side of her. He thinks he ought to tell me his name, as we’ve never been formally introduced.
“I don’t think I ever had a chance to introduce myself, what with how all that’s been going on. I’m Denn.” The man gave a sheepish smile.
“It really has been quite the time… Nice to meet you, Denn. Um. Should we, um…?” Yenna looked towards the manor—there was still the ringing of alarm bells, and the mage could faintly hear shouting.
“Are there more of those beasts? I’m no fighter, but if the captain’s in trouble…!”
Denn turned and called to a couple more of the members of the expedition before drawing a short blade and running into the manor. Yenna began to follow when Tirk grabbed at the edge of her robe.
“You can hear it too, can’t you? Even though you don’t have a horn like mine.” Tirk’s dark eyes locked with Yenna’s, and she felt like he was staring into her soul.
“T-Tirk, I… I’ve got to go help the captain. Can you stay here with the nice lady? I’ll be right back and we can talk about…that.”
Yenna felt uneasy leaving without hearing more, but there were more pressing issues. It’s not an immediate concern—I can just ask him later!
With a frown, she ran after Denn and joined them as they headed into the manor. The entrance hall had a mess of glass shards all over the ground, and several of the passageways were blocked off by barriers that resembled soap bubbles. Yenna retraced her steps back to the room they had been in when they were sent to the realm of stillness, Denn’s group falling in behind her as they realised they didn’t actually know where they were going.
Mayi and Jiin were crouched by the fallen kesh priest, working frantically in tandem to patch them up. The priest’s dark robes hid much of the blood, but the amount on Mayi’s hands was concerning. One of the nobles that had come to speak with Aroearoe stood awkwardly to one side, looking distinctly out of sorts—one of the brothers, either Shen or Hjin.
“Yenna!” Jiin looked up, her face lighting up. “We thought– yer– gah, later!”
The woman’s look of concern faded and her posture shifted subtly as she got back to work, passing her hands over bloody bandages. It took Yenna a moment to notice, but it was clearly Demvya helping out. The spirit was channeling a spell that really would have been more appropriate for a pot of ailing flowers—though Yenna wasn’t using her magic sight spell, she could still sense that the magic was designed for preserving life, preventing it from getting considerably worse but doing nothing to make it better. While Demvya stemmed the bleeding, Mayi could apply medicine-treated bandages from her seemingly bottomless bag of supplies.
The captain, her mother, and the priestess Suee were nowhere to be seen, along with the other two members of House Stormsea. The remaining noble just stared at Yenna like she had grown a second head.
“Are you going to stand there, or are you going to help me?!” Mayi’s voice barked out, and everyone jumped. The noble brother started to make an excuse, while Denn and his group got right down to help. Yenna also wasn’t sure what to do, but she hopped in all the same. While her knowledge of restorative magic was restricted largely to fixing up tiny cuts and burns, she knew enough about the general idea of medicine that she could at least assist…with some guidance from the doctor herself.
“You, fetch me some of those tablecloths to wipe this up. You, hold pressure here, both hands. You too, over here. Yenna– You’re hurt!” Mayi continued barking orders, stopping to look at her wrist. “Who splinted this? I’ll fix it later. Can you still use your magic?”
Yenna nodded, though Denn refrained from claiming responsibility for his handiwork. “Tell me what you want and I’ll do it.”
“I’d like it if you could wave your hands and make it better,” Mayi frowned, fetching another roll of bandages, “But I’ll settle. Can you lift her? Float her up or something? I need to reach her other side to tighten these bandages.” It’s not looking good. Mayi is doing her best, but she’s not confident. The cuts are quite deep and the priest has been bleeding freely since that monster appeared. If she had some of her equipment from the clinic, she could–
Pushing the frantic whispering of overheard thoughts away, Yenna gave another nod. Lifting things was quite simple—in fact, she had already tried moving a kesh priest in this very room with the same technique. The telekinetic grip spell worked by solidifying and moving the air and, with a hint of Joyous wind, Yenna had the priest floating at an appropriate height with a minimum of time and effort. Blood dripped off of them, highlighting the macabre pool they had been lying in. Yenna tried not to look at it too closely.
Denn returned with the requested tablecloths, and Mayi used them to soak up some of the blood pouring through the priest’s bandages. The fine pieces of cloth were irrevocably stained a deep red, but after a fashion the doctor was able to look past the worst of the pooling blood. The wounds were deep, but Yenna practically felt Mayi’s sigh of relief as they all saw that it only tore into muscle and fat—it wasn’t pretty, but it hadn’t hit any organs. The doctor turned to the mage.
“Yenna, can you–”
“Help stitch them shut?” The words had been on her lips before Mayi had even started saying them. The doctor looked at her in surprise for the barest moment before nodding.
“Do you have a spell that could do it? Something that can hold the flesh together while I stitch. Ji– Demvya, that’ll be enough.”
Demvya let loose a shuddering breath, and Jiin nearly fell over in surprise as she suddenly regained control. Looking a bit pale, the woman sat herself down—Yenna suspected she had burned some of her internal supply of magic to do so, and would have to have a stern talk with both the spirit and the woman about it later. The mage brought herself back to the moment at hand, formulating a spell.
Arcane Fetters came to mind, though Yenna didn’t want to block Mayi’s access to the wound. Infusing it with one of the six colours instead seemed reasonable, but which would work? Certainty would hold the wound shut, but it would also block the way entirely. Joy or Flow could be useful, but the movement would likely make it difficult to work properly. Wroth and Pride were right out, as they would only cause more harm than good. That left Stasis, the newest addition to her understanding of the colours.
Like how Demvya had used her power to stabilise the injury, Arcane Fetters infused with icy Stasis could lock things in place. With a bit of coordination, Yenna managed to cause a layer of frost to form over the kesh priest’s skin. The ice stopped the flow of blood from opened veins, and caused the edges of the sliced flesh to stick together. Nodding with approval, Mayi got to work on making it more permanent with needle and thread.
At some point, Denn and his group went off to search for the others. Jiin slumped in her chair, seemingly exhausted, while Mayi and Yenna stitched up the frosty wounds. Just as the pair were working in tandem to wrap the last of the bandages and remove the frost before it could cause any damage, the noble yolm approached.
When Yenna had seen him before, the man was upright and proud—his light blonde hair contrasted nicely with his jagged black horn and vivid travelling clothes. Now, he looked afraid, almost sheepish. Yenna got the sense he was about to make a demand, then thought better of it.
“Excuse me. Erm, I thought it best to stay out of the way, lest my inexperience in such matters, erm, spoil the broth, so to say…” He gave a nervous laugh that withered away under Mayi’s stern glare.
“You stood there while I shouted for you to help! I don’t care if you’re the bloody High King of Riyul¹, if someone’s injured you either come and help or go and get help.” Mayi gave a bitter sigh. “I need to go wash my hands. Yenna, could you keep an eye on our patient?”
And Jiin, she left unsaid. She’s worried that Jiin hurt herself somehow, worried that Demvya’s magic hurt her.
Mayi walked out of the room, her expression foul. Yenna felt the pressure of responsibility, though it wasn’t like the situation was about to collapse on her—the priest was stable, Jiin was tired but not in danger, and the noble was… Well. Not the noblest.
“I rather think that such a rebuke was unnecessary. Are we n-not all under some kind of pressure here…?” The man gave an unconvincing laugh. He’s hoping I’ll sympathise, though I can’t seem to bring myself to.
Yenna was getting rather sick of this whispering in the back of her skull, and a little bit tired of this nobleman.
“What exactly is it that you need?” Her response was a bit more aggressive than she had intended, but Yenna left it without apology.
“I’m, ah, hoping you might know where my sister vanished off to? We had a plan in case there was a problem with, uh. The meeting. Ah, Shen Stormsea, by the by. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, lady… ?”
“Mage Yenna will do.” Something felt off about what Shen had just said, but Yenna couldn’t put her finger on it—he had been disingenuous without being outright untruthful, and the fact that she couldn’t even tell why she knew that made Yenna want to throw her hat to the ground in disgust.
“Mage! Wonderful! Will you escort me? It’s imperative I find Seve this instant. She’ll know what to do about this whole situation!”
¹ - Riyul is a mythological kingdom that existed in the nebulous ‘long ago’. A great spellcaster-king discovered a mystical font that turned common stones to gleaming gems and used his newfound mineral wealth to build a glimmering kingdom encrusted with these precious rocks. It was said that every person in Riyul was so wealthy and powerful as to be a king or queen themselves, with each bearing a magnificent crown and jewel-encrusted robe. The spellcaster-king named himself High King, and wore a crown twice his own height studded with the finest diamonds. He sat himself on a throne carved from a single giant ruby, in a palace made of gemstone-bricks so brilliant that even the highest powers couldn’t stand to look at its shine.
