The Sorcerer's Legacy (24 page)

By far, the worst thing he had on his mind was little Roger. Stephanie’s feet had healed quickly and completely but Roger’s foot had suffered too much damage and his potions had done all they could and it was not enough. Azerick had put the problem off as long as he could in hopes that there would be an improvement in his condition with further administrations of potion and poultices, but his efforts proved futile.

Now with the new snow, getting him to a healer in North Haven would be near to impossible. To make matters worse, the dead tissue on his toes had begun to give off an odor and if the infected portion of his foot were not excised soon he would die of blood poisoning. Azerick’s potions had staved off any infections thus far but they were rapidly losing their ability to do even that. Roger had started a fever last night and Azerick knew that something had to be done today or it would be too late for the young boy.

With the profound weight of what he had to do hanging over him, he wearily dressed and descended the stairs, forgoing the opportunity to break his fast, his appetite was so completely absent. Azerick was surprised to find Zeke and Evan apparently waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. Evan was the one man that had a descent enough education to help teach the children to read. Although he was an exceptionally quiet man, he seemed to enjoy teaching.

“Zeke, Evan, is there something you needed?” Azerick asked as he approached the two men.

“Aye, Azerick, Evan here has somethin' he’d like to talk to ya about,” Zeke replied and gave Evan a small push forward.

Zeke was one of the few that managed to drop the honorific attached to Azerick’s name when Azerick insisted it was not necessary.

“What is it, Evan?” Azerick asked wearily.

“The boy, the one with the frost bitten foot, you have done all you can for him?” Evan asked just above a whisper.

“I am afraid so,” Azerick nodded in resignedly.

Evan nodded with him. “The foot has begun to fester and he has started to run a fever, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, how did you know? Have you talked with one of the women that are watching over him?” Azerick asked in surprise.

Evan shook his balding head. “No, Master Azerick, I merely saw him from a distance. The boy will have to have least a portion of his foot removed then,” the slight, quiet man stated not asked.

“Yes, I am certain now, but I only came to the conclusion last night. How do you know this?” Azerick asked even more confused.

Evan took a deep breath and swallowed hard as if wrestling with a very sensitive and difficult subject.

“I was a field surgeon, a bone cutter they call us, in the army. The unit I was assigned to often engaged raiding parties and fought heavily armed bandits out of northern Sumara. I often had to remove shattered limbs from soldiers that had received the most grievous wounds. I would like to offer my help with the boy,” Evan offered even though the thought seemed to pain him terribly.

“Evan, I would greatly appreciate any help, particularly from someone with experience with these things. I was afraid I would have to rely solely on my best judgment,” Azerick replied, breathing a sigh of relief.

Evan nodded in resignation and soon both men were in Azerick’s laboratory looking down on Roger who lay bravely on one of the wooden tables.

“I am to lose my foot then?” Roger asked with remarkable stoicism.

Evan closely examined the extent of the damage then looked up at the boy. “It is not as bad as I feared. You will lose the toes and perhaps a bit beyond that, but you will not lose the entire foot.”

Roger nodded in acceptance. “That’s good; I can get around well enough with a club foot. Better than I could with a peg leg,” Roger stated with a small smile.

Azerick could not help but admire the boy’s courage and acceptance of his fate. He knew that a great many grown men would have been reduced to tears of anger and fear at the prospect of losing even a portion of their foot.

“Drink this, Roger,” Azerick told the boy as he sat him up and tipped a vial of liquid to his lips. “It will let you sleep through the operation. When you awake, it will be all over with.”

Azerick laid the boy back down gently resting his head on the pillow. Both men scrubbed their hands thoroughly with soap in a wash basin. The tools they needed to use, which consisted of little more than a razor, a small saw, file, and a needle and silk thread were in another basin of boiling water. The tools had been boiling for a while now and it was time to take them out and set them on a clean towel.

“Why do you boil the tools?” Azerick asked Evan as they waited for them to cool down.

“It was discovered that doing so greatly reduced the occurrence of infection, though no one has discovered why. Many say that it may have some sort of ritual significance and drives out whatever it is that causes the corruption,” Evan answered in his usual reserved tone.

“You are obviously quite educated to know so much about surgery. How is it that you found yourself in North Haven and homeless?” Azerick asked.

“Zeke and I served together in the army. By the time our conscription duties came to an end, we had both become weary of battle. Zeke was as tired of all the bloodletting he was forced to do as I was trying to patch it. It came to the point that I was barely able to even perform my duties without a couple of stiff drinks to keep my hands from shaking,” Evan admitted to his shame.

“I could have tried to start my own practice, but people generally do not think well of bone cutters and avoid them at all costs. It would not have mattered though; I have not picked up another razor or saw since leaving the desert for cooler and less violent climates,” Evan informed the sorcerer.

“Will you be able to do this?” Azerick asked the surgeon with concern.

Evan shook his head. “I don’t know. If I have trouble, I can talk you through the worst of it. Such a procedure is a test of nerve more than skill.”

Evan patted the sleeping Roger firmly on his thigh but the boy did not stir. “I sure could have used that concoction when I was in the field. I can still hear the screams of men when I go to sleep. All right, let us begin,” Evan declared and picked up the extremely sharp razor.

Evan first made a cut along each side of Roger’s damaged foot from where the toes began to about halfway through the arch as well as straight across and just below the frostbitten area. He then cut away most of the thin top portion of skin before pealing back the thicker skin and muscle from the balls of Roger’s feet.

Azerick helped by using clean strips of loosely woven muslin to sop up the bleeding to keep the area Evan was working in visible. Evan then reached for the small saw, set it against the bone, then stopped and stared at it as his hands shook uncontrollably.

Evan lifted the saw away with tears in his eyes. “I can’t do it. You must cut the bone away,” he informed the sorcerer.

“Evan, I have never done such a thing!” Azerick exclaimed in dismay. 

Evan looked Azerick in the eye. “It doesn’t matter. As I said before, it is more a test of nerve than of skill. I still have the skill but I lack the nerve. I will tell you where to make the cut.”

Azerick took the saw and willed his own nerves to calm. He nodded to Evan to let him know that he was ready.

“Cut swiftly but cleanly through the bones two inches beyond the base of the toes,” instructed Evan.

“Why so far back? Why not one inch back where the dead tissue stops?” Azerick asked.

“Because we will need to fold the thick flap of tissue over the end of the foot to pad the bones and suture it to the top of the foot. If you do not leave enough tissue to do so, it will stretch the skin uncomfortably thin and possibly pull the sutures out as it heals,” Evan explained.

Azerick took a deep breath, let it out, and then sawed through the bones precisely where Evan told him.

“Good, now take the file and round off the bones,” the bone cutter instructed Azerick as he swabbed the area clean.

Azerick did as he was told, gritting his teeth with every rasping stroke of the file. Once that was finished and Evan declared the work acceptable, it was time to stitch it up.

“I believe I can handle this part. Putting good sutures in is a test of skill,” Evan thinly smiled.

Azerick was impressed with the deftness with which Evan put in the sutures, tying each one off individually with a clever knot.

“And it is done,” Evan declared as he tied off the last stitch.

It was a shocking wound but it looked far better than Azerick had thought it would once the stitches were in place. Azerick was able to get a small amount of healing potion down Roger’s unconscious throat to help speed the mending but Evan suggested that he keep the boy asleep for at least a day to allow the pain of the fresh surgery to pass before he awakened. Azerick agreed and carried Roger to his bed in the main hall where his siblings anxiously awaited.

“Is he all right?” they all asked in one form or another at the same time.

“Yes, Roger is just fine. I am going to keep him asleep until tomorrow so that his foot will not pain him as much when he awakens,” Azerick informed the children who crowded around Roger’s bed.

For the remainder of the day and night, Roger’s brother and sisters took turns dribbling small amounts of water into his mouth as well as the necessary amount of sleeping potion Azerick prescribed them to use.

Azerick returned to his room that night but stopped at his door as he heard a chorus of giggling coming from the floor above. Curious, he climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, paused just outside Ellyssa’s room, and listened to the laughter emanating from beyond the door. Azerick quietly pushed the door open and saw that Ellyssa and five other children were seated on the floor playing.

This in itself was innocuous enough, but what shocked Azerick was that each of the children had one or more glowing balls of colored light swirling around them or darting about the room. Ellyssa looked up and gasped in surprise when she saw her magus instructor watching them. All eyes turned toward Azerick and the luminous flying orbs winked out of existence.

Ellyssa looked like a child who had just gotten caught filching pastries from the kitchen. “Master Azerick, we were just playing,” Ellyssa explained nervously.

“Did these children create and control their own lights?” Azerick asked far more in surprise than in anger.

Ellyssa knew that she was not to cast spells without Azerick present much less teaching other kids how to do so, and thought she was in a great deal of trouble.

“Master Azerick, it was just a tiny, simple spell for fun. It couldn’t have started a fire or anything. It was just lights,” she defended nervously.

Azerick took a seat in his apprentice’s desk chair so he would not appear so threatening. “You taught them how to make and control the lights; to cast a magical spell?”

Ellyssa nodded mournfully. “It was just for fun,” she quietly repeated.

Azerick’s mind raced with the implications of what he had just witnessed here. These were only five of the one hundred forty-three children that now resided at the keep.

How many have a propensity for using magic?
Azerick wondered to himself.

Moreover, what consequences did this new discovery herald? Azerick looked up at his nervous apprentice.

“Am I in trouble?” Ellyssa asked timidly.

“No, Ellyssa, you are not in trouble. I think I am in trouble though, a great deal more trouble than I had originally realized. Go ahead and keep playing with the lights, but nothing else,” Azerick told them all firmly.

“We won’t I promise!” Ellyssa swore excitedly.

These children had already been introduced to magic. It could be dangerous to let them leave now untrained. Some might pursue higher levels of magic without proper instruction and that was very dangerous indeed. He needed help, he realized for the second time that day, and not just any help; he needed help from someone who knew magic. Azerick sat at his desk and pondered the situation for some time before picking up a quill and pulling a piece of blank parchment from his desk drawer.