“Faster!” I yell.
He frantically flips the gauges. His terror is palpable. Part of me is shocked I can inspire such reaction. Another part feels pure satisfaction. This man’s fear makes me powerful. It makes me worth something.
We arrive at the station. “Open, now!” I shout.
“Just don’t hurt me, you maniac!” he cries desperately.
I situate Carrick over my shoulder. He’s no longer moaning. Not a good sign. I head straight for the healer’s hut. I drag the comatose man through the igloo portal. Formalities be damned!
Inside, Faria stands on one hand, poised on the tips of his thumb and forefinger in a feat of balance I’ve only ever witnessed in one other human being.
“Faria?” I ask.
The dark man flips back to his feet soundlessly. His milky eyes pierce me. “You’ve interrupted me again, Leontes.”
“This man is dying,” I say.
Faria comes to Carrick’s side and examines him. When he arrives at the tibia protruding from the skin, he stops. “This is beyond my means.”
That can’t be it after all I did to bring Carrick here?
“A broken bone should be rudimentary,” I protest.
“The man fell. He may have internal bleeding or complications from concussion. As for the leg, the tendons are severed. Even if I repair the bone, which would take months, he would never walk again. You should have left him for dead.”
“I don’t accept it.”
“My suspicion is that you were already told to leave him. Now you’ve wasted your time and mine.”
“A healer heals!” I fume. “If you try and fail, you’ve lost nothing, but you at least try.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me.” He remains still, but I feel anger radiating off him. “In this place, he’s already dead.”
I hold the stare of his clouded pupils. I don’t know why I care so much. Maybe I just like defying challenges. Maybe I’ve been presented with so much pain and death I want to win against them just once.
“There’s a way,” I say, “though I don’t know if it will work.”
“Oh?” the aged man asks.
“A bone graft.”
He stares as if I’ve suggested something out of a fairy tale. “That kind of medicine is possible,” he says carefully, “but only with proper facilities. You may as well suggest a brain transplant.”
“You’re afraid to try?” I challenge.
“We need a donor willing to undergo the procedure and take the proper recovery time. We’d need a warden that would allow such a thing. We have neither.” He turns away.
“You have a donor.” I stop him in his tracks.
“You won’t survive. Not with the tools I have. If you did, you wouldn’t have time to recover. They would force you both to return to work immediately.”
“I will recover.”
“How?” His white eyes narrow.
“First, you agree.” I dangle the bait. “Then you take me as your apprentice.”
“No,” he says flatly.
I know he wants this. Why else would he have saved me from the attentions of the Haulers? So why resist now? For show? Or do I have to pass some test?
“You want to know my secret? I’ll give it to you, but you give me something in return.”
“The Warden won’t allow it,” Faria argues.
“Whale dung,” I say, calling his bluff. “I’ve watched you. The Warden owes you enough to grant this. You won’t live forever. They’ll need someone to take your place when you’re gone.”
“Careful, boy,” he admonishes. “I’m still long for this world.”
“Now who fools himself?” I retort. “I want the freedom you have. Teach me what you know, and I’ll serve in whatever way you see fit. I’ll even help you escape if that’s what you wish.”
“You’ve pushed too far.” He laughs derisively. “If The Warden allowed me a pupil, you think he’d let it be you? Who do you think The Warden answers to, boy?”
The Wendigo is owned by House Wusong-Leontes. Edric is Patriarch of both houses now in deed if not in name.
“Nothing happens here without his consent, without his knowing.”
“He’ll allow it. You’re going to assure The Warden that under your watch I’ll receive harsher lessons in pain than I could ever get in the mines.”
He stares.
“None of this is going to work anyway, right? You said I wouldn’t survive. What have you got to lose?”
I’ve got him now.
“If you survive, I’ll take you as my assistant and show you what I know.” He gestures for me to lie next to Carrick. He moves to his cabinet, where he removes a small bag of sterilized instruments. “In return, you will be my servant. Now tell me how exactly do you heal so quickly?”
I take a brief exhale and relate the story of Talousla Karr.
He pulls a scalpel from a plastic pouch.
“This planet has lived so long in its own isolation that there is about to be a rude awakening,” he mutters. “Whether that awakening is for Tao or the rest of the Fracture remains to be seen. Your father allowed this?” the dark shaman asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Your culture has very strong feelings regarding artificial enhancement. Genetic engineering is outlawed. You throw defective babes out with yesterday’s refuse rather than fix them. It is curious your father allowed you to be experimented on.”
“What are you suggesting?” I play the fool, but I’ve asked the same myself over the years.
He let me live on purpose. Why?
“I’m suggesting you cut yourself and take a scraping of bone so that I may heal this Picker’s leg.” He hands me the scalpel. “Your enhancements still allow you to feel pain?”
“Acutely,” I respond.
I slowly bring the blade to the skin when a thought occurs. I’ve told him my secret. It’s time to expose his.
“Perhaps you should do that thing with your hands,” I suggest wryly.
His hand lashes out quick as lightning. He jams a finger into my hip. Electric pain shoots through my legs.
“By the twisted star!” I gasp.
“There are meridians throughout the body. They are like music. If one hears the sound, he may pinch off the melody or change its pattern. Do not move,” he instructs. He guides my hand, holding the scalpel, and slices into the skin. Rivulets of blood flow. My eyes widen. I feel nothing!
“A man can divert the music or turn it off or on. He can immobilize. He can heal . . .”
His cold dark fingers peel back the skin of my shin. I want to scream at the grisly sight, but there is no pain. It’s as if my leg isn’t there at all.
“Or he may kill,” he finishes mysteriously.
“That’s how you healed Toshi, how you performed surgery on me without anesthesia!” I realize.
“It takes decades to learn, a lifetime to master. The ancients called it the Dim Mak. The death touch,” he says.
“It’s how you killed Snaggletooth,” I say.
He takes a small bone saw from his pile of tools. “Legend says some masters could perform Dim Mak with the sound of their voice.”
“Is that possible?” I ask.
He shaves a sliver of my tibia and places the specimen in a jar. He expertly sets the muscles and flesh back into place and sutures the wound shut. “Anything is possible.”