The Baldari (Book 3) (29 page)

Jeen screamed and almost without thought reached out with her power and pulled at the closest device.  She was able to pull it toward her, but the second one was constrained to move with the closest rod.  At least the movement pulled the device away from Ash’urn, who was no longer trapped in the beam.  He fell forward onto his table, inert.  Realizing she didn’t want either of the objects near her, Jeen reached out to the far one and pushed it the opposite direction, while trying to hold the nearer one in place.  Nothing had happened until the two devices had come close enough.  Perhaps if she could simply separate them?

She couldn’t believe the force required to push the objects apart, but slowly she could sense she was making progress.  Then abruptly, the violent energies ceased, and the two objects flew apart.  Jeen flung the far one into a distant corner, and the one she had been carrying out the door.

She spun and hurried into the hall, where the display had caught the attention of several passers by. 

“Get help!” she shouted.  “Ash’urn needs medical attention!  And stay away from that thing,” she said, pointing to the rod that had fallen into a corner down the hall.

Without waiting to see what anyone was doing, she turned and hurried back toward Ash’urn, dropping the books and all important map thoughtlessly aside.  She could see that he hadn’t moved since falling forward onto the table.  She was afraid he might be dead.

As she ran to the table her own medical skills were flowing toward the body.  She gasped when she saw his arm.  His entire left side was badly burned.  The skin on his arm was cooked and burned away to the bone all along his forearm.  The skin on his hands and upper arm were angry red and she knew badly burned as well.  The clothing on the left side of his chest had been burned away, and angry red skin showed underneath.  The left side of Ash’urn’s face was damaged as well, and looked almost skeletal, the left eye open and cloudy, the eyelid skin fused to hold the unseeing eye open. 

Jeen was fairly capable with medical magic, but she knew this was beyond her ability.  Nonetheless, she pushed forward, diving into Ash’urn in hopes of finding a pulse.  She sighed in relief when she determined he was still alive, and quickly worked to isolate him from the worst effects of the damage.  The shock was killing him.  She pushed magic into him to sustain him, and started rebuilding those things she could.  Vaguely she sensed the arrival of others, and felt their skill and power joining her own.  Somewhere along the way she realized she was providing power, but the guiding of how it was being used had been passed to another.  A long time later, she felt as her consciousness was pulled from the body.

“That will hold him until we can get him downstairs,” Ashli said when Jeen  felt herself back in her own form.

She looked at the medical wizard, and then to Ash’urn.  He looked better, but not good.  There was skin, of a sort on his arm.  The bones were no longer showing.  He looked gaunt, and little had been done for his face.  His good eye was closed, but the other remained open as before.  Jeen had been able to sense that it was that one which had been seriously damaged when she had been inside.  Ash’urn would never use the eye again.

“Will he live?” Jeen asked hesitantly.  The extent of the damage had been so great she couldn’t tell.

Ashli grimaced.  “I honestly don’t know.  It is going to take a team working on him to bring him back to where he has a chance.  Come, we have no time to waste.  We need him downstairs.”

Jeen realized that others were here now and they were already lifting the inert form of her friend into the air, floating him out of the room with a soft ride only magic could provide.  Exhausted, Jeen watched him go, then stood shakily and walked over to the table.  It was split in half, the wood dry and aged where the bright orange energies had struck it.  Tired as she was, Jeen knew something had to be done with the dangerous rods.  She picked up the one near the far wall of Ash’urn’s workroom and placed it in a sturdy chest in one corner.  She had no intention of triggering magic around the blasted thing.  Then she walked out into the hall and retrieved the second one.  This one she took to the library, and sent it through to Daim’s Hideaway in the Ruins.  She shuddered and wiped her hands as if they were somehow dirty from touching the dangerous rods.  That would keep them far enough apart until she could talk to Daim about them and they could decide what to do.

Wanting to go to check on Ash’urn, she realized she would only be in the way.  As spent as she was, she couldn’t help.  Slowly she made her way back to Ash’urn’s workroom, recovered the books and the map, and then went in search of the old wizard, where she would wait until he regained consciouness.

“Is he going to die?” Rigo asked worriedly.  He, Mitty, and Suline had returned to the Outpost only a short time earlier to learn of the distressing news of Ash’urn’s unfortunate accident.  Jeen had been filling them in on the details of what had happened.  He couldn’t believe that his good friend could be near death.

“They won’t say,” complained a tearful Shara, who looked as if she had been crying continuously for some time.  Her face was blotchy and her eyes red and swollen.

“They simply don’t know,” Nycoh explained.  She had just come out from working with those tending to Ash’urn, hoping that her own skills might be of use.  As it turned out, while she was more powerful than any of those attending Ash’urn, sheer power wasn’t the answer this time.  Others who had specialized and seen multiple cases of severe trauma were better equipped to deal with the situation, and Nycoh had found herself more in the way than as help.  When she realized this, she had excused herself and allowed those who were more talented in this area to work undisturbed.  What she had seen was frightening to her, and she was surprised her old friend and fellow scholar was still alive.

Rigo listened to Nycoh attentively, and couldn’t help noting that her eyes were a bit red as well.

“What does he look like?” Shara asked, finally having someone who had seen him since he went into treatment.

Nycoh shook her head.  “Not good at all,” she replied honestly, her worry overflowing her caution and sensitivity.  “The only reason he is even alive is the burns sealed the skin so that blood loss was contained.  His left arm was burned to the bone, and the other burns were extremely severe. 

Jeen swallowed uncomfortably.  She had seen the burns firsthand and had been able to draw some of the heat from them as part of her brief attempts at stabilizing Ash’urn before other help had arrived.  She had seen how badly he was hurt.  She wanted to ask about his face, when Daim suddenly appeared, demanding to know what had happened.

Jeen explained discovering the strange rod that was the twin to the one Ash’urn had kept on his desk for many months.  Having other questions for her old fiend, Jeen had been taking it to him when the two rods interacted somehow, trigging a burst of uncontrollable energy between them. She had been fortunate, but Ash’urn had been between the two interacting rods.

“Were you using magic of any kind?” Daim asked.

“Not at all,” Jeen replied. “Nor was Ash’urn.  The rods interacted on their own.”

“Where are they now?” Daim asked.

Jeen explained what she had done to separate the rods.

“No one goes to the Hideaway,” Daim ordered.  “Someone will have to see to the removal of the second rod that’s still in Ash’urn’s lab.”

“It should be safe enough there,” Jeen said.  “It has been in the workroom for months without being a problem.  Without the second rod, I doubt there will be a concern.”

Daim wasn’t as sure.  “Perhaps it has been activated in some way.  I don’t want any chances taken with it.  Besides, now that we know it has some power, I can’t help but wonder if it might be responsible for the poor health that Ash’urn has been exhibiting of late.  He has been sitting right next to the cursed thing for weeks.”

Jeen hadn’t considered that, but now that the idea had been raised, she had to admit it had merit.  No one had been able to explain what had been ailing the elder scholar.

“I’ll see to it,” Jeen said, feeling responsible for what had happened.

Rigo objected.  “I’ll deal with it.  I believe we might have discovered the source of the corruption that affected Daria’s
Doorway
.  That thing was in the cave when she tried to open her portal back to the Orphanage.”

“Both of you go,” Daim ordered.  “I don’t want anyone to be around that thing alone.  Get it out of here, and no experimenting with it for now.  Understand?”

Rigo nodded slowly.  He knew just the place to take it.  It was far from here, and would be in a place where no one would bother it.

Daim was about to go inside and check on Ash’urn when one of the medical wizards appeared at the door.  “He wants to see you,” she said.

Shara stood, interpreting the request to mean herself.

“He wanted to see all of you,” the wizard explained.

Jeen, Rigo, and Nycoh exchanged a quick glance.  That didn’t sound good at all.  It sounded like a request from someone who wanted to see his closest friends before he passed.

“I told him he was weak and needed to rest, and that he should constrain his visit to one or two, but he was adamant.  He said if I wouldn’t fetch you, he’d get up and come looking himself.  He is a stubborn old man.”

Rigo couldn’t help but smile at the woman’s frustration and the apt description of his friend.

“What are his chances?” Rigo asked softly.

“If he’ll follow orders, he’ll live through this,” the woman replied.  “He won’t be pretty and he won’t be the same.  He has lost the eye, and for some reason nothing we do seems to help the damage to his face.  We repaired the damage to his body.  His arm has new flesh, although it is soft and will take time to fully regenerate.  That arm will be of little use for a time.  He will need to take it easy until he fully recuperates.”

Shara gasped at the description.  She hadn’t seen Ash’urn after the accident, and didn’t know what she was facing.  Jeen looked at Nycoh.  They knew they would have to support her.

Daim considered overruling the group, and insisting that only one of them go in, then thought better of it.  He knew Ash’urn well enough to know that would only complicate matters.  Instead, he withdrew himself, tasking Rigo with reporting the scholar’s status to him after the visit.

The group followed the medical wizard into the sickroom, Shara leading the way, and Jeen bringing up the rear with Rigo.  They were led to a room in the back, where three medical wizards still hovered around the bed where Ash’urn lay.  Both arms were out from under the white covers that hid the rest of his body.  The left looked pale and soft, akin to the skin of a newborn.  The right looked wrinkled and worn and more familiar.

“Only a short time,” they were cautioned.  “He needs to rest.”

As the medical wizards withdrew, Rigo had his first chance to see his old friend.  He suddenly understood what the doctor had been telling him.  The left side of Ash’urn’s face appeared shrunken, almost skeletal.  His left eye had a patch over it, covering the pale cloudy orb that Jeen had warned Rigo about earlier.  Shara hurried to his side, a gasp escaping involuntarily as she saw the damage to his face.  “Ash,” she whispered.

“Not pretty, I’ll bet,” the figure on the bed managed to croak.  His voice wasn’t entirely normal either.  His uncovered eye moved between the figures spread before him.  They could see that he was still in some amount of pain.  The magic could only block so much without preventing healing.

“It’s going to take a little time for this to heal,” Rigo warned him softly.

Ash’urn’s eye found him and held him fixed.  “My eye?” he asked pointedly.

Rigo considered lying given his old friend’s condition, but then decided against it.  Ash’urn would want the truth and would probably sense the evasion.

“They say there is nothing they can do about it,” he said softly.  “You’re going to have to make do with just the one from now on.”

Shara gasped and looked at Rigo angrily, but Ash’urn smiled weakly.  “I wondered if you’d be truthful,” he said.  “Maybe I can trust whatever else you tell me.”

“You knew?” Jeen asked.

“Of course I knew.  I can tell what has been done to me, even if I can’t see it.  That cursed rod had been killing me slowly for some time I’d guess.”

“You’re going to be alright,” Shara insisted. 

“Is that what they tell you?” Ash’urn asked.  “I guess I’ll survive this after all, but I won’t be what I was.”

No one knew what to say, and while they sought words that might be of some comfort, one of the medical wizards returned and ordered them out.  Their time was up, so it seemed.

“Is there anything you need?” Rigo asked as he grasped the right hand of the scholar.  He felt the need to touch his friend, if only to reassure himself that he was still there.

Ash’urn scanned him with his remaining eye, and smiled weakly.  “I’d like my staff,” he said.  Ash’urn was truly a Caster these days.  He felt lost without his staff, something that Rigo could relate to.  In the early years he’d taken great comfort from the staff that had linked to him, and of late he’d started to feel the same about the special staff that Nycoh had created for him.

“He doesn’t need a staff while he’s in here,” objected the medical wizard.  “We don’t allow them.”

“I’ll get it for you,” Nycoh said, fixing the doctor with a glare.  Nycoh was the most powerful wizard in the Three Kingdoms, and no one would stand up to her if she chose a path.  The staff would be given to Ash’urn, and woe to any that raised an objection.

“Get some rest,” Shara said, planting a soft kiss on Ash’urn’s forehead.  “I’ll be back when they allow it.”

Silently the group allowed themselves to be  escorted out of the infirmary and back out into the waiting area.  Nycoh went in search of the staff, while Rigo and Jeen went in search of Daim.  Shara refused to leave the waiting area, just in case Ash’urn needed someone.