Tales of Anyar

by Olan Thorensen

  She turned back to Etullo. “We’ll be strapping you down to prevent any accidental movement.”

  Etullo was starting to fade in and out but asked an obvious question. “Have you ever done this before?”

  “Yes. Several times.”

  “Yeah,” she said, continuing to speak, though in English, “with a team of doctors and nurses helping, precision-made titanium screws, and a proper OR. What could go wrong here?”

  Suhandro looked at her, puzzled. “What did you say?”

  “Just some incantations to prepare myself,” she said.

  She pulled Suhandro aside. “I spoke the truth about preventing him from moving. What I didn’t tell him was that I can’t be sure I’ll finish before the morxtin extract stops working on the pain, and we can’t give him any more. If that happens, even the straps might not be enough to keep him completely immobile. In that case, you and your men will have to help hold him completely still while I work.”

  She went back to the table, as Rafo and two of Etullo’s men finished strapping him down.

  “I’m going to start by injecting the morxtin extract, then I’ll immediately begin to work on the leg.”

  Rafo held out one of Marta’s hypodermics—she’d had it made by the same jeweler and a glass blower. The needle was in the range of a sixteen gauge and more appropriate for use by a large animal vet than for injecting humans, but it was all the technology this place could produce. The ungraduated syringe pulled in the appropriate amount Rabo had pre-measured for the first injections.

  Ready, she nodded to Rafo and the men and began. Etullo twitched as she pushed the needle into flesh above the break point at the shin and below the tourniquet. She slowly depressed the plunger to expel about one-fifth of the extract. Two more injections went into muscle below the tourniquet, and the last two directly adjacent to the protruding bone ends. Etullo began to relax by the third injection, as the toxin took hold.

  She waited a few minutes, then checked whether Etullo felt anything as she gently, then with more pressure, moved the leg.

  “Do you feel anything?”

  He shook his head, eyes never leaving her face. He would be awake during the entire procedure and would hear everything said. A strap across his forehead prevented him from looking down at the leg. As tough as the man seemed, what would happen next could test anyone.

  She began.

  She saw no choice but to open the leg above and below the break, move aside the bone pieces between the two break points, and search for the anterior tibial artery. She loosened the tourniquet enough to allow the blood flow to lead her to the cut end of the artery. Three minutes after the first incision, she found the artery and re-tightened the tourniquet. The ends of the cut were ragged, but she could resection small pieces of each end and sew together the flush ends. She re-loosened the tourniquet and watched the resection. She observed minimal leakage and tightened the tourniquet to allow partial blood flow to keep the tissue alive while she worked on the breaks.

  First came the fibula, the smaller of the two lower leg bones. She found clean breaks, but she had to work around pieces of the larger bone, the tibia. Rafo used cloth to absorb and wipe away blood. They had worked together before, and on her instructions, he irrigated away blood with warm saline using a foot-pedaled pump she’d had made the previous year.

  “Urk!” uttered one of Etullo’s men, who stood by to help hold the patient still. Marta glanced at his greenish-cast face.

  “Pussy,” she said in English. “I bet you’ll kill men in battle, but it’s different when you have your hands inside a human and his life depends on you.”

  The man weakly grunted. Suhandro gave a more forceful noise. When she glanced his way, she wasn’t sure but suspected he understood her meaning, if not the words. Plus, for the first time, his look might have revealed respect.

  Once she’d maneuvered the fibula pieces into place, she used the craftsman’s fine-work tools to drill a hole slanting through both ends of the first break. Then, with small pliers, she gripped the end of a screw and twisted it into place. The hole was slightly smaller than the screw diameter, and she had to strain gently to work the screw into the bone without separating the pieces. She was constrained to work around the tibia and access the fibula from only one side. What she was doing was radical enough without introducing a second incision behind the leg. Securing the second break went smoothly, and she stopped for a moment to inspect her work and check the artery resection. Both looked good.

  From decades of experience, her internal clock told her they were at the one-hour mark.

  “Water,” she directed, and a village woman standing aside rushed forward to tip a cup of water to her turned-aside head. She took several deep swallows, and the woman wiped Marta’s mouth with a cloth.

  “Amazing,” said Rafo in awe, having forgotten his previous fear of the strangers. “Later, you’ll have to look at my notes from what I’ve seen. I wouldn’t dare try this myself.”

  Hush, man! Marta thought . Don’t give listening ears any more to wonder about than they already have.

  Training and a lifelong career took over, as her momentary concern about remaining hidden receded.

  “Now to the larger bone, the tibia.”

  Before she started, Etullo twitched. “I think I’m starting to feel pain,” he said in a strained voice.

  “ Starting to feel or have been feeling it for some time?” she asked in her “I’m a surgeon and don’t fuck with me” voice.

  “For a while,” he conceded. “But it’s been bearable.”

  “God damn!” she exclaimed, then switched to words he could understand. “I don’t care who you are or how brave you think you are. I’m the doctor here, and you’ll do as I say. You’re to tell me as soon as you feel any pain, is that understood?”

  Only later did she realize that instead of referring to herself as a “healer,” the only medical person typically available in rural areas, she’d used “doctor,” the highly-trained profession found in larger population areas.

  Etullo looked at her for a few moments, expressionless, then his eyes shifted to Suhandro. “I think she is either a high caste or should be. What do you think?”

  The retainer grimaced, then chuckled. “I have a feeling that in this situation, we are all best advised to assume she’s of a caste higher than any of us.”

  Marta harrumphed. “More extract,” she ordered Rafo. He handed her the same syringe, refilled. Once again, she felt grateful for the minimal risk of infection, while imagining the horror of her surgeon colleagues if they saw her reusing the same syringe. After the next set of injections, she focused again on the large bone. The first part went smoothly. The broken ends were slanted enough that a single larger screw held the pieces firmly in place. The last break point proved the most difficult. It was nearly perpendicular to the length of the bone, leaving no overlap to screw the ends together. Instead, she used three smaller screws in diagonal holes forty-five degrees slanting from one bone end to the other. The first screw was behind the bone, and she had to use Rafo’s fingers to hold muscle tissue away so she could work.

  Halfway through the final break, they injected more venom extract, the last they could use without risk of killing the patient. She worked as fast as she could.

  At three hours, she took the irrigation device from Rafo, flushed out the tissue, did a final check of the screws and the artery resection, flushed out once more, and began closing. The last suture was in place at three and a half hours.

  Rafo helped her with bandages of clean cloth. Despite infrequent infections, the chances weren’t zero, and moderate pressure suppressed bleeding.

  It had not been a long operation—not compared to many she had performed. The difference was that it had all fallen to her, with no experienced supporting staff, no other surgeons to help or take over specific parts. When she finished, she stepped back and sagged until Suhandro caught her.

  “Steady, Pak Witwurt. Do you need to
sit?”

  “No, I’ll be all right. Give me a moment.”

  Only later did she realize Suhandro had used the more respectful honorific.

  “Is it over?” murmured Etullo.

  “Yes, Lord,” said Marta. “It went as well as is reasonable to expect, given the severity of the break. The extract will wear off soon, and you’ll feel considerable pain for several days.”

  “And the leg. Will I keep it?”

  “I can’t say, Lord Etullo. I repaired the artery, but it will take time before we’re sure it stays repaired. We’ll leave the leg as it is for now, and we need to keep you absolutely still the next several days. If it looks good three days from now, we’ll put on a strong splint to prevent movement that stresses the break points. I suggest you stay here for at least sixteen days before attempting to return to wherever your home is.”

  Even after three years, she still was not accustomed to eight-day weeks. She thought she’d read that the ancient Romans used eight days, though she didn’t remember the details.

  “If it still looks good after two weeks, then the main problem might be your body eventually trying to reject the screws. I can’t predict whether that will happen. If it does, it may become a problem two or three months from now. The surgeons at home would have to operate to remove the screws. If they are careful enough and keep the leg immobile, it should be fine.”

  “And if there is a problem and the surgeons can’t remove the screws?”

  “You could still lose the leg, but I doubt it will come to that.”

  Etullo smiled. “It’s unusual to hear so blunt an opinion of what might happen. Suhandro also tells me you didn’t perform many incantations or rituals before, during, or after the operation. Only once did you tell him your chanting was required.”

  “I had to tell him something to get him to shut up and quit bothering me.”

  Etullo laughed. “He said he suspected as much. He also seems to have developed quite a respect for you. Trust me, that doesn’t happen often with Suhandro.”

  Seventeen days later, two weeks and one day, Marta watched Etullo leave in a coach summoned from Duvelo, a city of two hundred thousand approximately four days away. The inside had been modified into a bed with several down mattresses, and the driver would drive the coach at half its normal speed—all designed to minimize jolts.

  Etullo’s men carried him to the coach, and Suhandro gruffly handed village chief Ramat three gold coins. Ramat turned bug-eyed, and his hands trembled. Marta wondered whether even a village chief had ever handled a gold coin. Suhandro then turned to her and held out a small leather bag.

  “Lord Etullo thanks you for your service, Pak Witwurt.”

  When she unthinkingly reached out a hand under the bag, Suhandro released it. Only her quick reflexes as her other hand darted out stopped the bag from falling to the ground.

  Holy moly! she thought. If he gave Ramat three gold coins, there must be a dozen or more in the bag!

  Suhandro grinned.

  You sneaky bastard. You did that on purpose.

  Both Suhandro and Etullo laughed. The tension the villagers felt about the six men from outside the valley had eased during the last two weeks. People had resumed their routines, and Marta had avoided proximity to Etullo and Suhandro as much as possible, claiming duty in other villages and needing to be home for Sonya. However, Etullo persisted in prying into her past when she couldn’t avoid checking on him. She stuck to the same story she had concocted soon after arriving: a distant homeland, wanderlust to see the world, not knowing the way back. Only months after fabricating her origin did she realize the story was pathetic, and no one believed her. However, that realization came only after she’d told the story so many times, she was stuck with it.

  As they left the village, Etullo looked out the coach window at the odd woman who had saved his leg. His escort commander, retainer, and friend sat next to him on a perch not occupied by the mattresses. “What do you think, Suhandro, of this woman doctor from a nothing village in a nothing valley?”

  “Out of place, Lord. Almost like she’s hiding here. Why, I wouldn’t know, but if what we saw her do was not some one-event miracle, I would think she could be wealthy and prominent by moving to Duvelo or even the capital.”

  “I’ve had similar thoughts. Enough so that I intend to see whether I can get an inquisitor to look into both Pak Marta Witwurt and these villages.”

  I hope I didn’t make a terrible blunder , Marta thought, as the lord’s coach and escort riders started off. Her last glimpse of them was when they turned onto the road heading toward Duvelo. Despite her worry, the sight of a team of large donkeys pulling a coach and accompanied by armed donkey riders brought forth a smile.

  Why donkeys and not horses? At first, I thought the damn braying would drive me crazy, but I guess you can get used to anything.

  When Joseph Colsco awoke on the Watcher’s spacecraft, Harlie, the AI with whom he interacted, told him there was an “obligation” to mitigate the consequences of the collision between Joseph’s airliner and the spacecraft. Left unexplained was the reason for the obligation or its limitations. The latter became clearer when Joseph was cast naked onto a beach and left to the mercies of local inhabitants and chance. The outcome for him could have been much different.

  GHOST

  “You shouldn’t have killed it, Youngling.” Untork, the hunt’s leader, snarled and pounded the end of his spear on the ground. “I saw you jump with fright when the creature moved. A man doesn’t react out of fear. He is aware of everything around him and controls his feelings.”

  “But . . . but it was a ghost!” protested Youngling.

  The youth didn’t have a man’s name. He and every other male were called “Youngling” until the clan declared that they had left childhood and deserved a name.

  “This is the first hunt we’ve allowed you to come on armed. If we can’t depend on you to control yourself, you’ll be a danger to yourself and all the men.”

  Youngling hung his head, shamed before the eleven other men who had gathered to look at the body.

  “Go stand away while the men decide what to do next. We may have to stop the hunt until we consult the shaman.”

  Once the youngling moved away, a muffled laugh came from Untork’s side.

  “It does look like a ghost,” said Mumertork, the youngling’s uncle.

  Untork looked down. Mumertork was right. The body was man-shaped, but the pale, almost white skin unnerved him—so different from a real person’s brown skin, as if a dead person had come back to life drained of blood and soul. He had never seen a ghost himself, but the clan shaman had described them often enough and what could happen to a real person when a ghost was angry. As a result, Untork had never wished to see one for himself.

  “You’re right. It does.”

  “Sorry, Untork,” said Tolatork. “It was my responsibility today to keep an eye on him during his first hunt. I admit I was surprised myself when the ghost moved.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t jump back then spear the creature, or whatever it was.”

  “But it bled and is clearly dead now ,” said Mumertork, stroking his dark beard, “so can it really be a ghost? The shaman says they don’t bleed.”

  “Who knows the ways of the underworld?” said Tolatork. “There could be different kinds of ghosts. Maybe this kind can bleed and die. We all know the shamans exchange incantations and potions when clans meet, so maybe this ghost is of a kind unknown to our clan.”

  “It must be an underworld creature,” said the party’s oldest member, gray-haired and scarred, though still spry for his advanced age of more than forty winters. “It appeared as if by magic in front of the cave we spent the night in. It wasn’t there at sundown, and no one guarding the entrance saw it arrive. The ghost must have come there by underworld powers we don’t understand.”

  “Well, we can let the shaman worry about such things,” said Untork. “The hunt is what concerns us now. The
sarkotik herd will begin grazing in the next valley within the hour. We need to decide whether to continue the hunt if we think the ghost is a bad omen.”

  Although Untork was the hunt’s leader, by custom, all the men had a say in major hunt decisions.

  “The clan hasn’t stored enough dried meat for the winter,” said Mumertork, “and we may not see a herd this size again before snow begins to fall.”

  Herds of the brown, heavy-bodied grazer passed through the clan’s territory twice a year, heading north after the snow melted and south before new snows. The clan had fared well when three different herds passed in the spring, but the meat gathered at those times had been consumed long ago. This was the only herd to enter the clan’s territory this fall. Years were hard when no herds came before the snows, and clans had vanished in such years.

  Thus, this hunt was critical and dangerous, as always. Untork’s father had died from being gored by the horn of a vicious sarkotik bull. It turned on his hunting party when they tried to drive part of the herd over a cliff. Though large and too fearsome to face alone, a herd could be startled by screams and men jumping and waving their arms.

  “I think we need to take the risk and continue,” said Tolatork. “This may be the clan’s last chance for such a hunt. From the number of hoof tracks, this herd is big enough to feed us through the winter. They will be in the best place soon, but that won’t last as they move on.”

  The clan had used the same site for generations. A fifty-foot-deep ravine ran down the side of a flat valley floor. If the men could get into position, they could drive part of the herd over the edge into the ravine. Harvesting the meat from dead and wounded animals could then proceed after the rest of the clan came to set up a temporary camp. They would let the meat dry before they returned to their wintering settlement. The previous spring, the clan had spent two extra days clearing the ravine floor of bones several feet deep, left from years of successful hunts.