–-
Fawn was ecstatic when Dag told her the news, which made him right proud of his husbandly insight. The next morning as he took her along to introduce to her new task makers at the medicine tent, she skipped down the road, caught his amused eye upon her, stopped, tossed her head, then skipped again. But she was walking sedately by the time they arrived.
Dag watched her welcome carefully, not above letting it be seen that he was watching. Challa was politely resigned. Levan, the aging herb master, had the air of a man with a long view enduring a temporary burden.
His two female apprentices and Challa’s boy, at first stiff and cold, grew more pliant as they realized that Fawn would be taking over many of their most tedious chores, from washing pots and bedding to peeling stems and sweeping the floor. As the first days passed, her uncomplaining cheer and enthusiasm softened the older makers, too. Within half a week more, even camp residents stopping in for treatment or to pick up medicines ceased being surprised to find her about the place.
Dag’s own heart was comforted and mind eased by having her so often within his sight and hearing, and by her obvious happiness at being so. Gradually, Dag began calling her over to give him a hand, as opportunities presented, and gradually, the other members of the tent became used to the picture. The first time Challa absentmindedly assigned a two-handed chore to the pair of them, Dag smiled in secret victory.
–-
One morning, as Dag made to rise from the breakfast table, Arkady said, “Wait.”
Dutifully, Dag sat back down.
“Have you made any further progress overcoming your asymmetry? ”
Dag shrugged. “Can’t say as I have.” Which seemed better than I’ve hardly given it a thought.
“Try now.”
Dag laid his right arm out on the table and attempted a ground projection, with the same lack of results as before.
“Uh-huh,” said Arkady, and walked over to rummage on his shelves.
He came back carrying a couple of lengths of rope and a penknife. After tying one rope around Dag’s hook, he bent Dag’s left arm behind him, and wove the end through the chair back and around to secure firmly in front. Dag cooperated uneasily.
“There. Will that hold? ”
Dag tugged. “I expect so.”
“Right arm feel free? ”
Dag wriggled his fingers. “Aye.” Fawn finished packing up the breakfast basket and slid back into her chair to watch. She met Dag’s look and grinned. Arkady had evidently paid better attention than Dag had thought to Fawn’s words about how his ghost hand had first emerged.
Arkady lit a candle by waving his hand over it, sat on Dag’s right, and picked up the sharp little knife. “You claim you’ve reattached blood vessels before, in your farmer healing? ”
“Aye,” said Dag, watching in worry as Arkady began passing the knife blade through the candle flame. “In Hod’s knee, and Chickory’s busted skull. They’re stretchy, and coil up when they’re busted, but the ends seem to want to find each other again after. Just the bigger ones. They got littler and littler till I couldn’t follow them down and in without risking groundlock.”
“Mm, yes. I’ve always wondered if the little arteries empty into a pool in the tissues, and then the veins suck up the blood again, or if they’re connected all the way through, unimaginably tiny. If only Sutaw had advanced enough to pull me out of the deep groundlock, I thought I might try… well. Never mind. That doesn’t concern us today.” He held the knife in the air to cool. “Let’s give you something more interesting than a piece of paper to work on, shall we? ”
He drew the tiny blade across the back of his own left hand, slicing through a plump vein. Fawn squeaked as blood began to well. Arkady laid his oozing hand down in front of Dag.
Dag, eyeing the red trickle with a mixture of alarm and annoyance, attempted once more to coax a ground projection from his right hand.
His left arm jerked at its bindings behind him, but from the right… nothing.
“What,” said Arkady, “you’re just going to sit there and watch while your teacher bleeds? For shame, Dag.”
Dag flushed, grimaced, clenched and stretched his fingers. Shook his head. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
Arkady waited, then shrugged, passed his right hand over his left- the flash of ground projection went by almost too fast for Dag to perceive- and mopped at the drips with a napkin. The bleeding stopped.
He tilted his head for a long moment, eyeing Dag in a shrewd way that made him feel even more of a fool.
“Ye-es,” Arkady drawled. “Perhaps…” Taking the second length of rope, he knelt by Dag’s chair. “Fawn, give me a hand, here. I want to tie his feet firmly to the chair legs.”
“Why? ” asked Dag. “No one does ground projections from their feet.”
“Safety precaution.”
Fawn touched Dag’s shoulder in encouragement and knelt on his other side; she and Arkady passed the rope back and forth and consulted on the knots. Fawn was inclined to be thorough. Dag craned his neck and tried to see what they’d done, but couldn’t quite. He flexed his ankles against their restraints, which held tight, and waited while the pair seated themselves, flanking him once more. Arkady cooked his knife blade in the candle flame again, looking bland.
Then, abruptly, he pounced across the table, yanked Fawn’s hand down in front of Dag, and sliced across its back. “Ow!” she cried.
Dag nearly fell over, trying to lunge out of his chair. Safety for who, you blighter? He strained at his bindings, clawed at the knot in front, thought wildly of ground-ripping the rope apart, then barely controlled his rocking as Arkady continued to press Fawn’s hand down, squeezing to make it drip. Her eyes were wide, and she gasped a little, but she did not struggle to withdraw. Instead, she looked hopefully at Dag.
“You can fix this. Can’t you?” Arkady purred in Dag’s right ear.
“Blight your eyes…” Dag growled. Arkady hadn’t plotted this with Fawn in advance, hadn’t asked her permission; her surprise and distress had been spontaneous and loud in Dag’s groundsense, for all that she’d quickly overcome both. Her pain lingered, shivery sharp like shards of glass.
Arkady let Fawn’s hand go and leaned back as Dag extended his right hand above it, fingers not quite touching her pale skin. The slice was barely half an inch long, precisely placed across the blue vein. Dag forced himself to breathe, to open his ground, to concentrate. Down and in. The back of Fawn’s hand expanded in his perceptions, the wider world tilted away. He felt for the shuddering vein ends. The ground of his right hand seemed to spurt and sputter. Blight you, Arkady, I’ve no skill on this side…!
Skill or no, Dag managed to push his ground beyond the confines of his skin. Clumsily, he caught up the two cut ends of the biggest vessel, guided them back together-they seemed to seek each other, which helped-and shaped a strong-no, not quite that strong, right-ground reinforcement to hold them there. There. He forced himself to calm, lest he set Fawn’s hand afire and do more damage than Arkady had. Down and in… he found the living fibers of skin, and began weaving them back together. Farther down, farther in…
He was broken from his beginning trance not by a ground-touch, but by Arkady simply slapping him on the side of his head. Dag came back blinking and shaken to the morning light of the room. He inhaled, looked down. Fawn was wiping the blood from her hand with Arkady’s napkin. Nothing showed of the attack but a faint pink line.
Dag drew a deep breath. “You like living dangerously, do you, Arkady? ”
Arkady’s shrug was devoid of apology. “It was time to move you along. It worked, didn’t it? Now, let’s see that projection again.”
His right-side projection felt weak and clumsy, but it was there. And again. And again. Dag was light-headed and nauseated when Arkady at last ceased his badgering and allowed Fawn to untie him.