Council of War (52 page)

In addition to potions and elixirs, Kalmar was also adept in the healing arts, but he seldom practiced them any more. He abhorred traveling to the homes of the patients and considered it a waste of his valuable time. He would still treat a wealthy client if the person would travel to his laboratory, but those few souls willing to pay his exorbitant prices were often too ill to make the journey. That suited Kalmar just fine as he was moving away from the healing arts and becoming an investor. He had so much gold from his business that he was purchasing buildings by the block. He was a shrewd investor having learned at an early age the benefits of leveraging. Many of his buildings were purchased with contracts that required only a small deposit to secure the holdings and then the renters made all of the remaining payments. Kalmar estimated that he would own half of Herinak by the time he reached his father's age.

Kalmar's Laboratory and Potion Shop was located on the main street of Herinak, right across the plaza from the gates to Herinak Castle. The shop occupied the ground floor, and it was an extravagant showcase of colorful bottles. In the basement of the building was Kalmar's laboratory, and it was packed with a wide array of instruments and ingredients. It was there that Kalmar made his incredible cures for the showcase above. The three floors above the showcase used to be apartments, but Kalmar had converted all three floors into his home, and he had lavished it with exotic furniture and fine paintings.

Outside his showcase passersby often stopped and marveled at the colorful displays he created near the door. Sometimes others stopped and only stared in wonder at potions they could only wish to afford. And once in a while, a stranger to the city might not understand the cost of a healing potion. That person might wander in and inquire about a cure for a particular ailment. On this particular day, that is exactly what happened. Two old men sat in the plaza feeding the squirrels. One of them looked around the plaza with an enquiring eye, but the other grimaced as he called a squirrel to come and get his treat.

"Haven't you suffered enough?" asked Fakir Aziz.

"I will be fine," groused Zynor. "I just haven't ridden in a very long time."

"I do not understand you," retorted Fakir. "You are not an obstinate man. Why don't you heal yourself?"

"Why do you keep asking me to?" countered Zynor.

"Because it is what you should do," replied Fakir. "Have you forgotten how?"

Zynor didn't answer, and Fakir smiled inwardly. A few minutes passed until Zynor groaned once again. He turned to glance at Fakir and saw the old man staring at him with a smile on his face.

"Alright," snapped Zynor, "I have forgotten how. I can't even remember the last time I felt so sore. Why don't you heal me?"

"I could," admitted Fakir as he nodded towards Kalmar's shop, "but I think there is another option. There is a potion shop right over there. Why don't you go get a potion, and I will refresh your mind on the healing arts later while we travel."

"Travel to where I wonder," groused Zynor as he painfully rose from the bench.

"Who can tell?" Fakir replied cryptically as he rose to accompany his companion.

The two men walked across the plaza and entered Kalmar's Laboratory and Potion Shop. Fakir stopped and admired the colorful display of bottles while Zynor pulled a rope to summon the proprietor. A moment later Kalmar stepped into the room from behind a curtain. The Koroccan's eyes narrowed as he gazed upon the two old men. The smell of the closest man caused Kalmar to crinkle his nose in disgust.

"What can I do for you?" Kalmar asked.

"I fear I have ridden too long for the welfare of this aged body," replied Zynor. "Have you a potion that will ease the pain?"

"Certainly," Kalmar replied. "It costs three hundred in gold."

"I don't have any gold," frowned Zynor. "I just want a simple soothing potion, not to buy your store. Perhaps I could do something for you in exchange for the potion?"

"I don't think so," Kalmar replied with disdain. "Your very presence in this shop would lose me customers. Be gone."

"I thought you were a healer," Fakir Aziz said as he turned to face the shopkeeper.

"I am the finest healer in the horse countries," Kalmar replied proudly.

"Healers have an obligation to care for their fellow man," declared Fakir. "Yet you are turning this man away."

"I do care for my fellow man," retorted Kalmar, "and they pay me very well for it. Now if you two will move along, I have work to do."

"You were given a gift," Fakir said sternly. "That gift was given with an expectation of its proper use. Heal this man."

"No one gave me anything," scowled Kalmar. "Everything I own I have earned for myself. Now get out of my shop before I call the soldiers to have you thrown out."

Zynor shook his head and frowned in disgust, but he hobbled out of the shop. Fakir paused in the doorway and stared at Kalmar.

"May your sales be splendid this day," Fakir said before turning and stepping out the shop.

Kalmar stared at Fakir as he left and shook his head. He mumbled something under his breath about crazy old men and went back to work. A few minutes later the bell rang again. Kalmar returned to the showcase. He found six soldiers waiting for him, and he briefly wondered if the two old men had complained to the authorities. He shrugged with the knowledge that the king would not lift a hand against him even if his sales were illegal, which they weren't. He was too famous for the king to make a spectacle of him.

"One of our patrols encountered a swarm of angry bees," stated one of the soldiers. "We need forty bottles of a cure for the swelling. You can add the cost to the Baron Stikman's bill."

"Certainly," smiled Kalmar. "Let me get you something to carry them in."

He went behind the curtain and filled a pack with the bottles and hastily drew up a bill for the soldier to sign. When he walked back through the curtain to deliver the pack, there was a line of customers stretching out the door. Kalmar's eyes grew wide with excitement. For two straight hours The Healer sold potions and elixirs as he never had before. Before the sun had set, his shelves were bare, and he had to turn away the rest of the customers. As he closed the door to the shop and hung out a sign telling customers to come back tomorrow, he saw the two old men sitting on a bench in the plaza. He chuckled inwardly about his superiority over the common man and hurried down to his laboratory to make up more potions.

It was less than an hour later when Kalmar knew that something was amiss. None of the ingredients would mix properly, and none of his spells worked. He dumped the batches and mixtures into the garbage and began again, but there was no improvement. He grew increasingly anxious and tense as spell after spell failed. As he struggled through the night to replenish the empty shelves upstairs, his temper grew beyond his limits to control it. He started throwing glass beakers against the wall and shoving delicate measuring instruments onto the floor. In a few moments of uncontrolled fury, his laboratory was destroyed. So tired and distraught that he refused to walk up the stairs to his plush home, Kalmar curled up in a ball on the floor of the laboratory and fell asleep.

There were no windows in the laboratory, so Kalmar was unsure of the time, but the distant shouting and banging woke him up. He slowly rose to his feet and gazed down at his clothes. They were wrinkled and stained, and he smelled much too much like some of the vile components he used for the potions. He groggily climbed the stairs intending to go up to his home to freshen up, but as he reached the ground floor, he heard a loud crash followed by shouting. He peeked his head through the curtains to see what the noise was, and someone grabbed him and pulled him into the showcase.

"Here he is!" shouted the man who grabbed him. "We want our money back, you fraud."

Kalmar stared in horror at the mob of people crowding into his shop. He recognized many of the faces as belonging to customers who purchased the day before.

"Your potions did nothing," scowled a woman. "I want my gold."

Kalmar shouted for soldiers to come and rescue him, and sighed with relief as six of them pushed their way through the crowd.

"Get these people out of my shop," Kalmar demanded. "They are threatening me."

"With good cause," scowled the soldier. "Those potions you sold us yesterday only made the swelling worse. I should let these fine people drag you outside and have their way with you."

Kalmar's eyes grew wide with fear as he gazed at all the angry faces. He reached under his tunic and produced a hefty pouch of gold. He handed it to the soldier.

"This is all the gold I made yesterday," he said. "Pay each of them back. I do not know what went wrong with the potions. I have to make more. Get them out of here, please."

The soldier hefted the pouch to measure its worth and eventually he nodded. "Everyone outside," he shouted. "I will be handing out refunds for your purchases. Outside please."

The angry mob moved out of the shop and Kalmar gazed at the destruction left behind. The door was shattered and shelves were pulled off the walls. He leaned against the wall and sighed in despair.

"Ah, there you are," said the banker. "I stopped by earlier, but your shop was closed. What happened here?"

"I am not sure," lied Kalmar. "I can't help you today. My potions are all sold out."

"Business must be good," stated the banker. "I am glad for that because your investments are not doing so well."

"What do you mean?" Kalmar asked with alarm.

"The king has condemned several of your buildings," explained the banker. "It seems that they are infested with rats. The tenants all fled during the night. As those rents are used to pay for your other buildings, I have come to secure another method of payment."

"I can't deal with that today," Kalmar said. "I need more time."

"The contracts are quite clear about this," insisted the banker. "All of the payments must be certified. You have lost fifty tenants. You must make up the difference immediately, or you will lose the rest of your buildings. You have until sunset to comply."

The banker turned and left. Kalmar stood for several minutes, his mind racing for a way out of his predicament. Eventually, he made up his mind to appeal to the king. He raced out of the shop and across the plaza to the Herinak Castle gates. He announced that he wanted to see the king, but he was told the king was too busy to see him today. He asked for Baron Stikman and received the same reply. Reeling in confusion, he ran through the city knocking on the doors of his wealthy clients. None of them would see him. Seething about the way the city had turned on him, he returned home to bathe and change his clothes. When he climbed the stairs to his home, he found the door was open.

Cautiously he entered his home and stood in shock when he saw that the place had been stripped of anything valuable. The furniture was gone; the paintings were removed. Even his closet was empty. There was nothing left but bare walls. In desperation, he returned to the home of his parents and knocked on the door. His father opened the door guardedly and stuck his head out.

"What do you want?" asked Kalmar's father.

"I want to come in and take a bath," sighed Kalmar.

"You certainly need one," sniffed the father. "Why not take one in the palace you built above your shop?"

"Must we argue?" sighed Kalmar. "I only want to take a bath."

"I suppose that might be possible," replied the father. "Perhaps for a fee of thirty gold."

"Thirty gold?" scowled Kalmar. "I am your son."

"That must be convenient to say right at the moment," retorted the father. "You certainly weren't my son when I was sick. One would think the father of The Healer would be entitled to a little treatment for the sake of family, but not if you were the son they were talking about. You turned me away like every other person who wasn't rich and famous. I wasn't good enough to grace the floors of your shop."

"Stop bickering and let him in," shouted Kalmar's mother. "Goodness knows there isn't another place in the city that will have him."

Kalmar's father stepped aside and let the healer into the house. Kalmar made his way to the wash room and quickly peeled off his grubby clothes. His mother carried buckets of water and started filling the tub. She glanced at the clothes on the floor and crinkled her nose.

"I will wash those while you bathe," she said. When Kalmar didn't respond, she looked at him. "What happened to you?"

"I don't know," Kalmar replied softly. "Everything was going just fine and then all of a sudden it all collapsed. I can't understand why no one is even willing to talk to me."

"That part I can help you with," she replied in a motherly fashion. "You have become quite the obnoxious little brat. The more money you made the more you looked down on everyone else until you ended up looking down on everyone."

"But everyone liked me," frowned Kalmar.

"Everyone hated you," replied the mother. "They acted friendly because you were a good healer, and everyone gets sick at one time or another. It is not a wise thing to get a healer mad at you. As soon as people started calling you a fraud, you became like poison. No one wants to be seen near you, and frankly, I don't blame them."

"What do you mean?"

"Just who do you think you are to take a family's life savings to treat their illness?" lectured the mother. "Or worse, how can you dare to turn your eyes away from someone who is suffering just because they are not fortunate enough to have a lot of gold? When you were a baby you were deathly ill, and we didn't have the money to pay the healer. He healed you for free because that is what healers do. Had that healer had your attitude, you would not be here today. You would have died a long time ago."

"Maybe I did charge a little too much," Kalmar conceded.

"A little too much?" retorted the mother. "You charged a fortune for the smallest thing. What shames me the most about you is your total lack of compassion. You were given a very valuable gift, and you have squandered it in search of fame and fortune. Now you have neither."