[Hlaeth] Ch 37 - The Power of Healing Hands

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            “Oh, oh, oh…” the old woman gasped, shaking as I eased her cane from her hands. Magic sparkled up and down it as I fixed it up, and added Reed, Stone, and Ironwood spells Sieged to it, because I could.

            “Please rise and move to the bench for those who’ve lost limbs, unless you are hungry and need to eat. It will be some time, but I will restore your teeth.”

            Trembling, not knowing what to say for such a momentous gift, the old woman rose to her feet without help, raising her back straight and tall to all of her five-foot-four height, and clutching the cane I had restored to her grip, she took a step forward on feet no longer bent and gnarled.

            Then she seemed to realize something, and turned back to me. “What, what do I owe the Master Healer?” she gasped out, knowing she did not have the money to pay for what I had done for her.

            “You have lived a good life, Grandmother. Please continue to do so. That is reward enough, in my eyes.”

            Shaken, she could only nod at me, and as everyone watched, she turned and walked with ease and surety to the edge of the bench to sit down.

            “Someone with funds go buy the Grandmother a lunch,” I said to nobody in particular. There was a moment of hesitation, then one of the Neutrals who was better dressed rose and hurried toward the local tavern.

            I gestured to Kord, who completely carried up a young girl with a very crude crutch, missing her left leg below her knee, and with clear signs of starvation about her. But her eyes were still bright and clear, and her soul hadn’t suffered for her deprivation.

            I just nodded at her as I took her hands, and she smiled a smile that was missing at least six teeth, from at least two blows that had distorted her cheek and her chin. “Your name is Trinada, is it not?” She gaped at me that I’d actually known her name. Easy Assay to make.

            “Has the one that did this to you been dealt with?” I asked up at Hano calmly, reaching up to palm her chin.

            “He’s the son of…” I glanced up at him without moving my head at all. “No, Lord Magos,” he said softly.

            “It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak, and the duty of the weak to care for the strong. When that duty is broken, things like this happen. Someone make it a point to show that person what it is like to be the weak who are preyed upon.”

            A ruffle went through the crowd, while Hano’s white eyes glittered. “It will be done, sir,” he said softly, looking at a pair of burly fellows in the second row.

            Those two fellows rose to their feet and strode away without another word. Children both, looked like an urukhar and another dhatun. Someone was about to have a bad day, and I wasn’t going to Heal them from it.

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            Hano carried Trinada over to Grandmother Marta, with instructions to take care of one another. The older woman shared her lunch with the young girl, both of them crying as they tasted the hot food, and a cloak was thrown over the pair of them to help keep them warm.

            So the day went.

            I would be healing the missing teeth, appendages, eyes, ears, and whatnot with a Mass Regeneration, as applying the spell singly would take far too long. But the other problems, ranging from physical to mental, were easily and summarily dealt with.

            The dozens of people soon swelled to a hundred and more. If new arrivals came who were Good, I politely brought them forward to be treated first, but other than that, my helpers vetted each of the new arrivals, and those in more pain and distress were brought to the front, while the numbers seated on the stands behind never really went down.

            At some point, a rakishly handsome dark-haired halvyr minstrel set up shop nearby and began playing for everyone, then some of the locals began selling bread and other goods.

            They didn’t have to sell drinks, however, because there was now a fountain rising behind me, spilling clean water from the mouths of four horses out over three levels of sculpted stone, free and sweet and being scribed and Shaped even as I sat there and they gaped at it.

            It would be self-cleaning, too, and the birds would restrain themselves to the top level.

            I charged every Neutral something. It might have been a service, it might have been goods, it might have been kindness to others equal to my kindness. I was also fully capable of reinforcing that price with Lesser Geas, so I knew they would deliver on what they promised.

            None of them had enough money to actually pay me for the value of what I was doing, after all. Some of the wealthier ones coughed up gold… and a lot of it, after withering under my stare. I promptly began to send out people to buy this or that thing for some of the poorer folk here, especially the Good ones.

            If some of the Neutrals wanted to complain about favoritism, they were welcome to leave, and so nobody said anything after I ejected the first drunkard who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

            I Cured a lot of venereal disease, much to my lack of surprise. The prostitutes in the town all came up and sat down, and if the other women sneered at them, I said nothing when it was their turn.

            The last of them was halvyri. I took her hands as she looked at me with challenging eyes, doubtless wondering what ‘price’ I was going to ask of her.

            “You’ve none of the magic that is the legacy of your people,” I asked the raven-haired, pale-skinned beauty, who was not nearly as frail as she looked, but doubtless had a lot of regular customers because of it. “Have you not had a teacher?” I asked her calmly as I took her hands.

            A bit of malnutrition, the expected VD, and some breaks on her bones that hadn’t healed perfectly. Her elven blood had done good things for her, I reckoned.

            She fidgeted slightly as the magic moved through her system. “No. No teacher,” she said, in a raspy voice that didn’t fit her image. A lot of hard liquor on her vocal chords. I lifted a hand, and she caught it on reflex. “Leave me my voice as it is,” she whispered hoarsely.

            “As you wish. You will join Kord as my student in learning magic. You’re both starting from the same place, so it will work out well for both of you. You can take care of one another until you can take care of yourselves.”

            Her dark eyes were very wide as she stared at me. “That… is all?” she asked, stunned.

            “Well, you won’t be engaging in the trade, because you won’t need to. What people will be paying you for in the future will be your knowledge, not your beauty. I am a married man and have no interest in exploiting you like that. If you’d like to pay me, go buy my aides some food. They haven’t eaten in a while, and would appreciate it.”

            She looked up at the towering figure of Hano, and then the incredibly solid and muscular bearded Kord. “Yes, Master. Right away!” She almost jumped to her feet, and raced away smoothly for the nearest bakery, which was doing brisk business today.

---

            The urukhar had a couple of puncture wounds on him, several bruises under his leathers, and a busted knuckle from very recently cracking the skull of a privileged young man who thought kicking a poor crippled girl in a drunken rage was perfectly acceptable behavior.

            “You seem to know my aides, Warborn,” I said to him, taking both callused hands bigger than mine. He had heavily tanned skin with a touch of the green around the edges, crude features that angled towards the porcine, with sunken eyes of sullen red and a broad jaw with two tusks that weren’t contained by his lips.

            “Did some work with them in the past, Lord Magos,” the urukhar replied haltingly, clearly being careful with his words. He grunted as cool energy flowed through his injuries, washing them away, and then began to work on other, older problems that were the fallout of the very physical life of a warrior.

            “I have openings for more aides. I don’t have excessive amounts of money for some reason, probably related to the fact I don’t charge what my services are worth. But I can pay in knowledge and training, if nothing else, and I’m good at providing for my people.”

            His rather blood-shot eyes considered me as his bones and tendons crackled, his knees crinkled, and the shadow scars of old injuries flared coldly and vanished one by one all over him.

            “Will I get permission to crack the skulls of rich arseholes, Lord Magos?” he growled.

            “I’m famously uncaring if arseholes are rich or not if they need skull-cracking, Master Pounder.”

            The urukhar blushed a rather unsightly green. “Ain’t, ain’t no master, Lord Magos,” he growled, lowering his head.

            “Well, then, I’ll just have to turn you into something worthy of the axe that you bear.” I grabbed his thick jaw, and he mumbled as Healing energies played around his mouth and straightened out his teeth for him, including one that was very loose right now. “You have any problems taking orders from Kord?”

            “He’s alright, fer a beardy,” the urukhar admitted. “Don’t take any of that orc and dwarf feud to heart.”

            “That’s good, because you’re both of the Children, and you’ve got far more in common with one another than you do with humans, orcs, or dwarves,” I agreed, clapping him on the shoulder. “Kord! Find something for this fellow to do!”

---

            What the dhatun companion of Master Pounder had wrong with him was visible on the stump of his hand. He was a shorter fellow than Kord, more slender, more built like a thick human than a tall dwarf. His beard was dark orange, his eyes deep brown, and he had a lot of scars about him from a lot of fighting.

            “Pit-fighter, Master Blackaxe?” I asked him, taking his good hand calmly.

            “Caught by slavers, Lord Magos. Had me fighting whatever they thought was entertaining. Me and Pounder broke out together, been together ever since,” he replied evenly, doubtless a tale he told often.

            “Kord your older or younger brother?”

            “Younger brother. We were both adopted by old Krumweil Blackaxe. I left home when Kord was still a lad.” His eyes were hungry as he paused, and then forged ahead, “Is it true you can restore me hand, Lord Magos?” he asked with great longing.

            “Yes. And I will, but the nature of the magic makes it easier to treat many people at once, instead of one by one.” I indicated the dozen people sitting in excited anticipation on the benches of stone I’d Shaped up for them.

            “You get me my hand back, Lord Magos, and I’ll be your man forever!” he swore fervently. If my cheek twitched, he didn’t know why.

            “No, you won’t. But it’ll be a start to being my man willingly, and on the road to being your own free man. Remember that,” I corrected him mildly.

            His eyes were keen and assessing as he nodded slowly. He’d suffered badly at the hands of humans, and while he was eager to get his hand back, he wasn’t at all eager to be taking orders from a human. He’d put up with it until he figured the debt was paid off, and then likely find an excuse or reason to leave, maybe with Pounder, maybe not.

            That was fine. I didn’t want anyone following me who didn’t want to, and this fellow’s heart had some hefty revenge floating in it.

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