Page 54 of Boundless
Healer-Sercha frowned at the paper for long minutes, then handed it back to Len with a shake of her head. “I can’t ready this, dearie. You’ll have to explain when I’m done, aye?”
Len chuckled, flushing even as he’d nodded. “Of course. Th-thank you.”
Healer-Sercha and Aerel disappeared inside the tent and were gone long minutes, during which Len did his best to act unbothered and comfortable. He didn’t think he did a very good job, judging from the looks he got.
“…tell your mums I said hello. And I mean it—rest that leg, Nera!” Aerel walked out with a much smaller Istariin youth perched on their back. The younger girl waved.
“Alright, Sercha! Thank yooou!” she called, her voice high-pitched but rough from her earlier crying. One knee was thickly bandaged, Aerel’s hand cradling that leg just behind the bandage. Then he was being waved in, following behind the much larger woman obediently.
“So what’s this about? You sick?” She stopped beside an exam table just like Yollyn’s, crossing her strong arms over her chest. “Don’t have any experience with elves, but I’ll try my best.”
“A-actually, um—” Len swallowed, hoping it wasn’t too obvious just how much he was sweating from his nerves. “Yollyn thinks I sh-should study. Um, under the—under her and the other h-healers in camp. I’ve taught myself a l-little healing magic over the years, and sh-she seems to think I could s-stand to learn more.”
“An apprenticeship, then?”
“Oh—um, yes! If you h-have the time, of c-course.”
“Sad to say I don’t, lad. I just agreed to take on a second two days ago, and with my daughter about to have her first babe I’m fair swamped. Have you checked with Gero?”
Len’s heart sank. “I’m heading there next,” he told her, swallowing his disappointment. “Th-thank you for your time, though. I appreciate it. Would you mind pointing me in the direction of Gero’s tent?”
Healer-Sercha clapped him on the back, guiding him back out of her dark, herbal-scented healer’s tent. “Of course, lad. And if you’re still here in another year, feel free to pop back in. My first apprentice is nearing the end of their training, so by then I’ll likely have more time to take on another.” She pointed him in the direction of the next healer’s tent, then wished him well and called for the next patient waiting outside to come in.
Somewhat dimmed by his rejection, Len was quieter on the walk to the eastern side of the horde camps, but he was no less enraptured by the chaotic activity happening all around him. The Istarii Drakan camp was so much louder and more vibrant than the castle, feeling more like a small city than the central stronghold of an entire people, but he found that he rather liked it. It was jarring, of course, but now that he’d gotten a chance to see how bright and lively a people could be, he found that his home culture looked less and less comfortable. He missed being able to blend more easily into a group—a feat which was impossible when he was the only elf as far as he could see in all directions—but he hadn’t beenthatinvisible even back home, being the crown prince.
He passed smaller food tents offering snacks to passers-by, a tannery that positively reeked but which was full of Istariin chatting and laughing and seemingly having a grand time, a long line of smaller but more lavishly decorated tents that might have been residences, and so many people it made his head spin. He even saw another elf at one point, a female he was shocked to realize hadn’t been a part of his traveling party and who strode hand-in-hand with an Istarii Drakan woman at her side. When he reached the artisan’s sector he knew from Healer-Sercha’s instructions that he was nearly at his destination.
Gero’s tent looked more like Yollyn’s, when he managed to find it, tall and imposing and undecorated on the outside. Len rattled the charms hung by the tent flap and waited to be admitted.
He wasn’t waiting long. The tent’s flap pulled open a moment later, and an Istariin male waved him inside. Len was surprised to realize that while Gero appeared much like the Istarii Drakan he’d seen milling all over the camps, that there were some differences, as well. His skin, while still a dark gray, had an olive cast to it, and he lacked any wings whatsoever, with a tail that was shorter and more bunt than the average. His hair was kept in a neat braid that fell far down his back, though the back and sides were shaved close to his scalp. The eyes that turned to him with an inquisitive arch of his brow weren’t all-black, looking more like his own, with with a much narrower ring of white sclera.
“How can I help?” the large man asked, his voice gentle despite his size, and Len noticed that two small tusks jutted from his lower jaw, obscured by his full lips when his mouth was closed. And he didn’t have hooves—rather, his feet looked almost like a dog’s back paws, with high ankles that hovered over the ground and long toes that ended in sharp claws.Perhaps his is not wholly Istariin, then, Len mused. He was wildly curious, but knew better than to pry.
“I don’t think this w-will help anything, but Y-Yollyn wrote this for you,” Len told him, handing Gero the note. “I’m Len, by the way.”
“Gero. Pleased to meet you, Len…” he said as his eyes darted over the paper. When he was done looking it over he put it on a small desk tucked into a back corner beside a screen window, nodding. “I have no apprentices at the moment, so I can take you on. She says in her note you’re self-taught?”
Len blinked, surprised. “You can read that?” he blurted.
Gero smiled. “She was my master when I was studying, so I had to learn. Took me a fair while, but it was that or keep grabbing the wrong bottles and risk poisoning a patient.” He leaned against the exam table, indicating Len should have a seat at the chair beside it. “So tell me about yourself. What you can do. Why you want to learn.”
Len’s hands twisted in his lap, desperately trying to recall the details of his life to be able to tell them to Gero. “I g-got sick when I was a young boy,” he managed at last, his body soaked with sweat. “It was right around w-when my mother p-passed—from a different illness—so I must have been s-seven or eight. My h-heart doesn’t pump in a regular rhythm, and almost stopped ent-tirely a few times before the elf healers f-found a spell that would s-stabilize me. I d-decided to study up on healing magic while I r-rested, to…understand, I think. What was happening to me. Wh-what had gone wrong. Why what they d-did worked. And I became f-fascinated. I didn’t bother with m-much herbcraft, I’m afraid. But I have some natural talent for m-magic, and I taught myself all I c-could.”
Gero nodded, his eyes intense as he listened. One thing he particularly appreciated about the Istarii Drakan people is that they never rushed him when he spoke—they let him get out everything he wanted to say even when he stammered badly. Their patience meant so much to him. “I thank you for sharing your story. How sensitive is your magecraft, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Oh. Um, well I—I don’t know what the official level would be.”
“Of course, my apologies. Why don’t you tell me the most difficult things you’ve done, then?”
Len thought, sifting through his memories. “I put my friend Sevren into s-stasis when he w-was poisoned with bloodvein. And I’ve been able to adapt the way I inspect people’s b-bodies to allow me to m-monitor my unborn child.” Len beamed, feeling pride in what he’d accomplished; he’d never taken the time to think on that, before. “And on two s-separate occasions, I’ve modified the spell used to st-stabilize my heart rate. T-to make it more efficient. And effective.”
Gero cocked an eyebrow. “I’ll be honest, Len: I might not be able to teach you anything more of magic. You’re already much more capable than I am. But we can study herbcraft and anatomy, expand your knowledge base, and I’d bet that’ll allow you to refine the magical side of things all the same. How does that sound?”
Len beamed, feeling just like how he’d felt on his birthdays as a child, about to open a great big present. “I—thank yousom-much, Gero. That’s…that’s perfect. And you’re sure you have the time?”
Gero smiled, waving away his concerns. “Plenty of time. I’m the youngest healer in the horde, so folks tend to come to me for minor injuries and save the heavier lifting for the other two.”
Len stood and shook the larger man’s hand enthusiastically, still smiling wide enough that his face hurt. They arranged to begin meeting in the late afternoons, when most of Len’s meetings would be over and Daega would be less likely to need his help, since the nausea only seemed to bother her in the mornings and at night. Then Len took his leave and went back to Yollyn’s tent to thank her once more and give her an update.
