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wasn't just a matter of curing physical damage; part of being a healer was in
not hurting people unnecessarily in the first place, and there was a
gentleness in the way she was handling Arnie, manipulative though it was.
"Ian?" Arnie raised his head. "When was your last tetanus shot?"
"I was just trying to remember. Six years ago, I think I took a broken point
in the thigh during a bout."
"Mmmm. Doc Sherve should have made sure you were up to date." The corner of
his mouth twisted. "Maybe taken out your appendix, too, for that matter?"
"That occurred to me, too. Too late, but it occurred to me, too."
"Not your job, though. It's Doc's." Arnie made a tsking sound between his
teeth. "He wouldn't have let either of those slip by, ten, twenty years ago.
Doc's getting on in years. Not going to have him around forever, eh? Thank
you, dear," Arnie said, as he accepted a bucket of water from Freya. She held
a basin, which appeared to have been made by slicing the top third off a
barrel, under Ian's ankle, while Arnie poured fresh, cold water over Ian's
wound. There was just a twinge of icy pain, but it definitely
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Hidden Ways 3.htm hurt. Spraying Lidocaine into the wound had probably been
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
just a waste of the stuff.
Damn.
"I'm not sure, though, that you'll be able to do anything with this," Ian
said, looking at Freya, who was watching Arnie's cleaning of the wound as
though she had never seen anything quite so miraculous in all her centuries.
Arnie didn't seem to be looking at her, but his chest puffed out just a
trifle, and he nodded sagely to himself as though this was some sort of big
deal.
"Why would that be, my Silver Stone?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said quietly, intensely, willing her to believe him, "but I
just don't think you can." The ring pulsed against his finger, painfully hard,
so much so that he was surprised that the finger didn't start to swell from
the lack of circulation.
"I think he's right," Arnie said. "It just looks too, I don't know, too
something too substantial, maybe? to heal so quickly." He tore open a sterile
sponge and dried off the wound, ignoring the small amount of suppuration. "But
I guess it's worth a try."
She seemed puzzled, but then nodded. "Let me see." Her hands were soft and
warm against his ankle. Gently, slowly, she cupped one hand over the wound,
and the other under the other side of his ankle.
You can't do it, he thought. It won't work. There is something wrong, and you
can't heal me now. Maybe you're getting old, maybe my body is just rejecting
your help, or maybe it's something else entirely, but you can't heal me, not
now. It's hopeless.
Harbard's ring was tight against his finger, at least in his mind, although he
wouldn't have been able to tell by looking at it, and when he forced his hand
to clench, it closed without difficulty.
The pulsations came faster and faster, the interval between them shorter and
shorter, until they merged into an ongoing painful tightness that only relaxed
when Freya shook her head, released his ankle, and with a puzzled shake of the
head, sat back.
"That was frustrating," she said. She looked at his ankle again, and again at
her hands. A streak of wet red blood and pieces of dark clotting lay spread
across her right palm. She rubbed her two hands together at first gently and
then harder and harder, until smoke began to rise from them, accompanied by an
awful charring smell.
Arnie laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay," he said, softly, gently,
patiently.
She rinsed her hands in the basin, the water steaming and sizzling for just a
moment at her touch. When she looked up at him, she looked older and sadder.
"I'm so sorry, my Silver Stone. I guess your Doctor Sherve isn't the only one
who is getting old these days."
Now it was easy. All he had to do was bring up the subject of the jewel, and
of the Scion, yet again. He had good reasons, and she would melt beneath the
heat of the jewel in the ring, like butter on a hot summer day.
"Freya, I..."
She looked up at him and smiled. "Why, my Silver Stone, I don't think you've
ever called me by my name, save for that first time, when you realized that I
wasn't just a simple ferryman's wife. Please don't stop. Now, you were
saying?..."
He couldn't. He couldn't look down into a trusting face, and bend her will,
overrule her judgment by the force of his will,
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Hidden Ways 3.htm amplified by the ring and jewel. She was wrong, and he was
right, and a loving father would suffer before the eyes of his beloved son if
she didn't change her mind, but molding a friend's mind was to treat her like
an object, a thing, to be controlled.
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