Elf-Boy's Friends 38
Healing
by George Gauthier
[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']
Chapter 1. Healers Collegium
"So Corwin, how are you doing in your classes?" Drew Altair asked Corwin Klarendes at the offices of the Capital Intelligencer where they both worked as reporters.
"My class in anatomy is fairly easy since I learned the basics during my training as a combat medic. General biology is a lot harder. There is so much to learn. I hope I can master it all. The magical gift itself is not worth very much without the knowledge to wield it properly."
Corwin was a part-time student at the Healers Collegium where he would learn to use the gift of magical healing recently engendered in him by the Order of the Druids and the New Forest. A healer had to distinguish between ills which should be dealt with by herbalists, chirurgeons, midwives, and other specialists in natural medicine while reserving magical healing for when ordinary methods would not work.
Hence a trainee needed a solid grounding in biology, alchemistry, and medical subjects like anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology. A part-timer like Corwin could take only two courses at a time, so he had signed up for introductory courses in anatomy and biology. At that rate it would take him more than two years to earn his certification. Full-timers took only fifteen months.
The biosphere of the planet of Haven was partly natural and partly the result of seeding by at least two space-faring species including ancestral humans. The gamut of life forms ranged in size from those visible only thru the microscopes of natural philosophers to brontotheres and elephants, which were the largest creatures to walk the land, and various sorts of sea monsters from cetaceans to mosasaurs.
The next day it was Corwin's turn to be examined by his seventeen classmates, most of whom were females of the four main races of the Commonwealth: humans, elves, dwarves, and frost giants. Their teacher Josip Holm was fully human and was at least a score past the century mark, but the only outward sign of his chronological age was a touch of gray at the temples which gave him a distinguished look. As a male his gift might not match the best of his female colleagues, but he was esteemed for his intellect, his diagnostic skills, and his ability to teach and inspire students.
"Now Corwin, if you would disrobe and stand before the class... "
Corwin had expected this and slipped off his stylish square-cut short-shorts and moccasins to stand before his classmates in a state of nature.
"Students, take a good look at our subject. Now without invoking your gift, what can you tell about him from casual scrutiny. All right Klare, you go first."
A pretty red-headed Frost Giantess started off:
"I know that Corwin is supposed to have a considerable admixture of elven blood, but in his outward appearance he very much favors the human side of his heritage. At only four inches over five feet he stands shorter than all but a few elves, and no pure blooded elf has hair the color of corn silk. On the elven side, his eyes are the green of growing things, and he is totally glabrous, without any body hair on chest or limbs or even in the three usual places.
"Your turn Matt." Holm said indicating a young full-blooded elf.
"No body odor at all which would indicate that, like elves, his skin has only only one kind of sweat gland: the eccrine sort that produces only salty water to cool the body. He is lacking in the apocrine glands which produce sebaceous oils that can turn rancid and smell bad."
"Good, good. Anything else? Marta." he said pointing to a female human.
"Though he is slight in build, Corwin's physique is more robust than that of pure elves like Matt who has the willowy build typical of his race. I hail from the town of Harben a junction of iron roads situated on the Eastern Plains. So I was interested enough to read Corwin's book on the Lighting War, which was fought not far from my hometown. Yet I cannot see a sign of the scar on his ribs left by an enemy quarrel. He mentioned in his book that he told the healers that he wanted to keep that scar as a sign of his courage in battle.
"In other words a girl magnet." Holm nodded, but frowned as she shook her head.
"Definitely a boy magnet in Corwin's case."
"Oh, I see. You fancy boys, do you Corwin?
"Very much so, sir."
"So what happened to your scar?"
Corwin shrugged.
"It disappeared when I acquired my healing gift. It was there when I lay down for my transformation, but when I got back up, it was gone. All that healing magic must have made me whole."
"Exactly the point I was trying to make. Students, your gift will keep you healthy and youthful for a very long time. You do have to consciously invoke it to deal with serious illnesses and injuries, but only then."
"Now I want the class to scan Corwin's body magically. Delve into it with your psychic awareness. What is the first thing that you notice?"
"He's backwards!" Matt blurted out.
Holm nodded.
"By which you mean that his internal organs are transposed left to right. Corwin's heart sits in the right center of the chest rather than the left center, his liver is on his left side while his spleen is on the right. And his stomach and intestines are similarly transposed. What health effects would you expect from this odd arrangement, Matt?"
"Er... none I hope, for Corwin's sake."
"Correct! Corwin is perfectly healthy, as are all who share his rare transposed anatomy. I always love it when someone in the class manifests this phenomenon. Having seen it for yourselves you will never forget it, and you will be know not to make assumptions when you treat wounds and injuries."
"Anything else you can say about him, Matt?"
"Well he's awfully cute and sexy!"
That brought a chuckle all around. Everyone knew how strongly elves were same-gendered.
After class the two youths got to chatting. It turned out that the elven vale where Matt had come of age in had sent him to the Healers Collegium for the very best in a medical education. After completing his studies, Matt would be obliged to practice back home for a period of twenty-five years, which was not terribly much in the lifespan of a full-blood elf who might easily live for half a millennium, even without the benefit of healing magic to enhance his longevity.
"So you won't mind going back to the country after spending almost two years amid the bright lights of the big city?"
"No, not at all. When I go home as a Healer I will no longer be obliged to serve as a boy toy for any adult male who fancies me. Our laws say that Healers are considered adults as much as any male who has passed his first century."
"A sensible law since it recognizes the necessities of the situation."
"What do you mean, Corwin?"
"Just this. No one can force himself on a Healer who can invoke his gift to cool the ardor of any unwelcome suitor. And if there is any rough stuff, a rapist would find himself without the ability to perform, either temporarily or permanently."
"Gosh I hadn't thought that far ahead. But wouldn't such tactics make a frustrated male thirst for revenge?"
Corwin shook his head.
"Healers can stop a heart or tear a blood vessel in the brain or paralyze the arm wielding a blade or blind a man. Consider your options carefully. If you spare your assailant then you would have to keep alert for an arrow in the back or a cosh on the head some dark night. My advice is that if you ever face a would-be rapist you should take care of the problem permanently."
"There speaks the combat veteran in you, rather than the healer."
"True. One thing you learn in combat is that when you are fighting for your life, it is no time for half-way measures. Make a maximum effort and hold nothing back. Make the outcome final."
"So instead of impotence or paralysis I should inflict a heart attack or a stroke or strike him blind?"
Corwin shrugged:
"Combat is no time to be squeamish. Sorry, but that is how it is. Anyway, to change the subject to something far more pleasant, namely yourself, let me ask you Matt how long have you been in town? How do you like what you have seen of it so far?"
"Actually I haven't seen much of the city at all. I got here three weeks ago. I live at the collegium, but I have yet to make any male friends much less a boyfriend. The girls are very nice, but of course they are female."
"Ha! Then what you need is a tour guide to show you around the city, and luckily for you one of the most knowledgable happens to be available, meaning myself. We should start with a visit to Twinkle Town."
"Twinkle Town?"
"It's the liveliest part of the city for young guys like us. Named after the cute twinks who are its prime denizens, Twinkle Town is a district or rather a cluster of dining, drinking, and dancing establishments favored by males who fancy pretty boys and by pretty boys who favor being fancied."
"In that case lead on!"
"We'll start with dinner at the Sign of the Whale."
Chapter 2. Twinkle Town
The Sign of the Whale was a popular tavern on the edge of Twinkle Town. It had a well-deserved reputation for fine food and drink at reasonable prices. Since Corwin was a regular, the proprietor Konrad Quentin made sure the couple had a good table out on the veranda which was decorated with potted plants and hanging baskets of flowers. In the shade of the veranda and with a steady breeze blowing, the temperature was pleasantly warm rather than oppressively hot as it could be during the planet's closest approach to the sun on its annual swing around its elliptical orbit.
Cute serving boys rendered prompt and attentive service. An attraction in their own right, the lissome servers were dressed, if that is the word for it, in linen kilts that reached just past mid thigh only because they hung so low on their narrow hips as to offer a glimpse of rear cleavage. The white fabric contrasted nicely with the sun bronzed skins of boys who spent their mornings outdoors exercising in the nude to keep themselves fit and presentable for their discerning clientele. Soft moccasins and a thin gold neck chain completed their ensembles.
At least the serving boys did wear something, which is more than could be said about the svelte wine boy named Lorien, who, by tradition, went about in the nude, the better for patrons to see what was on offer as he refilled their mugs, glasses, and goblets. The bolder sort might reach out to pat his bum or run their fingers over his taut belly as a foretaste of what was in store for later.
Patrons willing to part with a full silver for a brief assignation with the beauteous elf-boy, could arrange it with the proprietor. For the wine boys this was a coveted perquisite of the job since the boys kept all but a fourth of their fees and all of their tips. The wine boys at the Sign of the Whale were in great demand since all three were elves though neither Corwin nor any in his circle of friends ever sought their favors on a commercial basis.
After sipping their aperitifs, Corwin and Matt launched into the main course, which was grilled rack of elk served with garlic potatoes and garnished with a medley of asparagus, cherry tomatoes, walnut meats, and raspberries. The boys relished the tasty combo, washing their meal down with cold beer. Inevitably Corwin raised his mug and declared:
"As our friends the Frost Giants like to say, cold beer is surely proof that the gods love us and want us to be happy!"
"You are so right Corwin. Beer does taste better served chilled. Bless the Frost Giants for inspiring the invention of refrigeration by fire wizardry in the Commonwealth. I wonder now how we ever got along without it. And I don't just mean for cold beer or even scrumptious iced-cream."
"Refrigeration is so much more than a convenience. It is an important public health measure, isn't it? The low temperature in an ice-box retards spoilage especially of perishables like milk, meat, and fish. That means fewer people get sick from milk or meat that has turned. And refrigeration makes shopping so much more convenient since households don't have to send someone by the shops so often. Nor does butter melt into a puddle the way it can on a hot day, which is most days in the tropics."
"You're thinking like a healer already, Matt. Everyone can see that yours is the keenest mind in the class."
"Thanks Corwin. As males we may never be as strong in healing magic as our female counterparts, but Healing is also about applying medical knowledge and diagnostic skills. Taking a patient's medical history is a lot like an investigator for the city watch or the constabulary working a case."
"That's an apt way of putting it. Forest rangers do the same thing as I learned from the rangers who operate out of Elysion, the seat of the Count of the Eastern March who happens to be my uncle."
"I wonder how you manage to do it all Corwin: study medicine, work as a journalist, and write books too. I read your latest work on the campaigns in Amazonia in which you yourself took part. You write so vividly, it makes the reader feel like he is on the scene himself an eyewitness to history. What I like best are your profiles of the people you met, the humble as well as the famous, the front line fighters and the support troops who seldom get the credit they deserve for the victories they make possible."
"Thanks. I am hoping for another Writers' Prize. I had to publish this year so my book would not compete with Drew Altair's forthcoming book about the Corps of Discovery. That book will be in the running for the award next year. It wouldn't be right for such close friends as us to compete directly. Better we take turns."
"So what is next for you as an author?"
"I'll be writing a series of articles about the inventions that have transformed our times: iron roads, street cars, refrigeration, bicycles, autogyros, sun mirrors for metallurgical and industrial processes, air guns, and magnetic cannon. Later this year the Capital Intelligencer will start publishing my stuff in fascicle form, which can be collected in a binder to make a book."
"Anyway, now that our meal has had a chance to settle, let's go dancing. Afterwards we shall see what the evening has in store."
"Won't we ever!"
At one of Corwin's favorite night spots, the couple stepped out onto the dance floor, Corwin in his white shorts and Matt is a green sarong. Corwin followed the elf-boy's lead as they glided slowly over the polished stone in time with a languid tune played mostly by the woodwinds in the band. A short while later they picked up the pace when the brass section invited them to step lively.
Their finale was an energetic pas de deux, with Matt leading his partner through an erotically charged routine, a courtship display virtually indistinguishable from foreplay. As they say, dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal intention. Many of the other dancers stopped to watch Corwin and Matt's kinetic expression of their mutual attraction.
At the finish of their number the dancers' slender athletic physiques gleamed with perspiration as they breathed hard, looking like lovers who had just climaxed in sexual congress. Matt drew Corwin into a clinch, pressing their bodies together. As he kissed him long and hard the inevitable physical reaction occurred.
Someone yelled: "Get a room!".
So they did, Matt's room, and continued what they had started on the dance floor.
In sex as on the dance floor, it was Matt who took the lead. By nature the elf-boy was a top who preferred to be the dominant partner, something almost unheard of among elves in their teenage years, but there it was. Matt's magical gift of healing was his way to attain adult status despite his tender years.
Not that Corwin had any complaints about bottoming. The cute blond had long accepted that he was one of those boys destined to be fucked hard and often by dominant males who knew just what boys of his sort needed. Which was why he let the raven-haired beauty take the lead in their lovemaking, first pulling Corwin's shorts off and having him kneel submissively before him.
Standing tall Mat presented himself for oral service, batting Corwin's chin and cheeks with his turgid member. He let Corwin kiss and lick its head and circle the rim of the glans with his tongue but did not insert it fully, teasing the panting blond boy. Corwin pleaded with his eyes and Matt relented, letting the full length of his manhood slid into the warm wet channel of mouth and throat.
Though still quite young Corwin was no beginner at sucking cock or taking it down his throat. Matt closed his eyes savoring the twirling and sucking sensations and the way the moist walls of the throat clutched at his shaft. It was not long before he reached climax, his gism spurting out of his cock and into the welcoming mouth of his lover.
The raven haired elf drew back and let the last of his juices spurt onto the pretty face turned up toward him, then used the head of his cock to paint the complaisant boy's lips and cheeks and chin. Matt squeezed one last gob of gism from his cock, offering it to the kneeling boy. As a token of his submission, Corwin touched his tongue to it, drawing it out in glistening string connecting his mouth to tip of the elf-boy's cock. Corwin thought of how he must look, down on his knees, bare ass naked, his face all slicked with another boy's gism, the very image of sexual submission. He clutched himself down there and shivered with the frisson of his own naughtiness.
Later with Corwin stretched out on his back, Matt straddled his legs and reached out to stroke the blond boy's chest and belly. His touch sent a rush of heat to Corwin's belly. Next Matt tweaked Corwin's nubbins which stiffened with arousal. Then Matt bent forward and laid a series of gentle kisses on his lips which soon lead to more fervent ones.
Hands roamed eagerly over lithe bodies, rubbing and stroking and squeezing. The blond youth quivered with the lascivious feelings and sexual desires as hormones were again released into his bloodstream to course throughout his body. His cock filled with blood and lifted off cantilevered over his flat belly all the while throbbing and empurpled.
Pleased with Corwin's arousal, Matt slid back off his legs then lifted them to rest on his own shoulders as he prepared to prong his lover. He first stretched Corwin's ring with his thumbs and lubricated the hole with a bit of oil the thrust inside with a couple of fingers to stroke and simulate Corwin's love knot setting the boy to shuddering with sexual excitement.
Finishing with foreplay Matt grasped his member, aimed, and slipped into Corwin's welcoming hole. He closed his eyes savoring the velvety warmth of Corwin's innards at they clutched at the invading shaft. The elf boy did not take long to reach climax, his gism spurting out of his cock and into his lover's sheath. The sensation of that wet warmth spurting into his body set off Corwin's own orgasm. His cock spit gism all over his chest and belly. Some even found its way to his face
After Matt orgasmed himself he laid down on Corwin's sticky torso and listened to the beat of his heart. Spent and content, the two boys lay quietly in post coital lassitude savoring their closeness.
Chapter 3. Mobilization
The next two courses Corwin took at the Healers Collegium covered physiology and emergency medical care. As a full-time student Matt had already taken physiology, so emergency care was the only course he shared with his boyfriend. Their teacher once again was the esteemed Josip Holm.
"Now that the war with the trolls is over, some of you students might well wonder whether your time might not be better spent on other medical subjects, learning things more applicable to the practice of medicine in peacetime. You should know that emergency medical care covers more than just combat medicine. Emergencies come in all sizes, from a pile up of freight wagons on a road to an earthquake which levels a town."
"We are lucky to have Corwin Klarendes in this class. Corwin was trained as a combat medic and, young as he is, he has already seen more combat than many a career soldier. Not only is he a well-regarded war correspondent, he has fought as a participant in the Lightning War against the Eastern Barbarians, against the orcs, and most recently against the trolls in the final two campaigns of that war. In recognition of his courage and accomplishments, Corwin was awarded the Military Cross for Valor and has been twice Mentioned in Dispatches as well as earning two Wound Stripes."
"You would do well to seek Corwin out during your spare time and learn from someone who has seen war at first hand. Today though I want to focus on emergency medicine off the battlefield. Corwin has experience in that area as well, starting with the rescue last year of passengers from a downed autogyro and later in the company of his friends Drew Altair and Axel Wilde in the mobilization to deal with the earthquake which devastated the town of Darken, which lies at the foot of the Western Mountains."
"I have asked Corwin to speak to you about his experiences. Please save your questions till later. Now without further ado, I give you, Corwin, Lord Klarendes to give him his proper title."
Corwin winced inwardly. He knew that by using his full title Holm was just being polite, but the boy had always thought it silly for grown men to address a kid like himself as a social superior just because of an accident of birth, he being the son of a baron. Corwin felt it would be presumptuous for someone so young to insist on an aristocratic title. Now titles which you earned were a different story. Someday he hoped to be knighted for his accomplishments like many of his closest friends, none of whom was shy about using their hard-won titles. For one thing, it got you a better seat at a restaurant where you were not known.
Matt nodded encouragingly as Corwin launched into the presentation his boyfriend had help him prepare. Matt's critique of Corwin's two rehearsals had sharpened its wording and pacing, and Matt had helped with the illustrations drawn with a charcoal pencil on large sheets of oaktag.
Corwin launched into a vivid description of the kinds of injuries he had treated in his rescue missions. He stressed that many victims of crashes and collapsed structures might have multiple trauma. Victims might be trapped for days suffering not only from broken limbs and crush injuries but also from dehydration. One man of middle years trapped under the ruins of his bureau suffered not only a broken back, he also struggled with psychological trauma from an inordinate fear of confined spaces. Indeed, many victims of structural collapse already had or might well develop a fear of enclosed spaces and/or of the dark. Their feelings of helplessness while awaiting rescue made things even worse. Healers had to be as much aware of psychological trauma as the physical sort.
As in combat so in major disasters triage was an important part of the work of healers who must direct the injured to the appropriate level of care. There were never enough healers, magical or otherwise, so bonesetters should attend to most fractures while nurses and chirurgeons attend to internal injuries that could be set right by surgery.
The hardest part was rationing magical healing when the number of victims for whom nothing except magic could help exceeds the resources available. How did you choose? In battle the military divided the wounded into three groups: those who need just to have their injuries disinfected, bandaged, or stitched, at which point supportive care and their own recuperative powers would restore them to health. The second group was those who needed surgery and were likely to survive both it and their wounds. The last group was those who would die not matter what else might be done for them short of all-out magical healing.
"So how does the Army choose who lives in such cases?" the red-headed frost giant Klare asked. "Those with higher rank?"
"Absolutely not. Rank has no bearing. Only war wizards are privileged for triage and only because there are so few of them -- under a hundred -- and their contributions to victory potentially the greatest. That is why the enemy makes them a priority target. None of the senior war wizards has fewer than three wound stripes, and some have double that. War wizards have earned their priority."
"No, its basically a matter of doing the most you can for the most victims with the magical energy of the Healers on hand. Sometimes all you can do is ease a person's pain and let him die peacefully because a full healing would take energy that might go to save three others. It is one of the hardest things to do in medicine, but it is unavoidable."
Holm thanked Corwin and endorsed everything he had told his fellow student healers. Holm himself had served with the forces as a very young man. He could confirm that the worst part of battle medicine was not the often hideous wounds but the heart wrenching choices healers had to make.
After class Corwin and Matt went dancing and wound up in Corwin's bed, as they had been doing once or twice a week. The couple enjoyed their time together though theirs was really a casual relationship, an extended summer romance which would run its course till Matt left for home, leaving fond memories behind but nothing more. Neither youth thought theirs would become a life-bond. For Corwin Matt was entertaining company not a member of the "family" of nine who lived together in their residential hotel.
A few days later Corwin, Matt and their fellow students were abruptly summoned to a meeting. Their instructor Josip Holm told them that a giant tornado had struck in the northwest. Spawned by what had stared off as an ordinary summer thunderstorm, it had abruptly swollen to monstrous proportions.
A weather wizard had sensed the danger and given warning locally but could do not save his city entirely. His powers were limited, which is why he worked as a weather forecaster for the local new-paper. Nevertheless he managed to change its vector enough to avoid the most densely populated area, though nearly killing himself in the process. Once the emergency was over, the man would be publicly recognized for his heroism.
"The whirlwind left a trail of destruction more than a mile wide and eighty-three miles long, with a few skips in between. The tornado smashed three towns and half of Feldspar, a major city and the site of the teaching hospital for that entire region. Many injuries were from debris flung by the powerful whirlwind. Roof tiles made of fired clay were a particularly deadly missile . A tornado could strip a typical roof of hundreds of these weighty tiles which became deadly missiles when flung about by tornado force winds.
The locals are mobilizing resources to respond to the disaster, but the regional disaster coordinate has asked for help. So additional rescue workers and medical personnel will travel from the capital to the stricken region to help those already on the scene."
Faced with a widespread disaster the government mobilized rescue workers from the largest pool of trained medics, fetchers, delvers, and healers in the Commonwealth: the population of the capital, both civilian and military.
Also being deployed were autogyros to collect victims from the countryside and fly them to field hospitals the civil authorities were setting up as well as to local infirmaries, which was why Drew Altair's reserve commission had been activated. His red speedster had been fitted with stretchers, one on each side of the fuselage.
Eike Thyssen had come up with a design that could be fitted quickly to the fuselage of the smaller aerocraft that had no internal cabin and turn them into flying ambulances. Really bamboo baskets fitted with belts and buckles to strap the patients in, they would let Drew transport the injured to where full medical care was available. A medic would fly with him to stabilize the patients for transport.
It wasn't just medics who were needed. Delvers could sense the location of victims trapped in cellars and collapsed structures. That was why Nathan Lathrop, as a naval sounder, and Jemsen, as an earth wizard, were called up. Since the twins were inseparable, Karel went along too though just how an air wizard might help was not clear. Fetchers not only could fly autogyros, they could lift beams and heave blocks of masonry aside to free those trapped beneath.
Axel Wilde went along too. Axel's skill and experience as a combat and rescue medic would make up for his lack of the gift of magical healing. In addition he would teleport groups of rescue workers where they were needed.
"The victims number in the thousands so we are calling on you students too, even though you are not yet half-way through your course of study. Each of you will be paired with a licensed Healer. Let her take the lead and join your powers to hers. That will let us treat and save more victims. Save your questions till you get there. For now, get the kit bags you all keep here for just such a contingency. Oh, and Corwin, take your combat medic kit as well. You will be doing double duty, employing both natural medicine and magical healing."
"Understood. How will we get there, sir?" Corwin asked.
"Through a space portal. Afterwards we will get around locally by whatever means are available including on foot, horseback, bicycle, and autogyro."
With that the students went to their rooms and got the kits which they had packed really as an exercise, not really expecting to use them until they finished their studies. They gathered in the courtyard where they rendezvoused with Sir Ahndray who would open the space portal to the town which was the headquarters of the relief operation. He himself would not travel with them. Relief operations were not the job of war wizards.
The seven friends split up and stood in the ranks with their colleagues: Corwin and Matt with the student healers, Axel Wilde with the medics, while Nathan Lathrop and the twins Jemsen and Karel stood with the mages. All were in military field dress which meant without badges or medal, and wore cuirasses plus helmets to protect torso and head from falling objects. All bore arms. You never knew what sort of trouble you might run into out in the field, even on a mission of mercy.
Sir Ahndray's aide Lemuel double-checked the personnel roster then nodded to his boss who opened a portal wide enough not only for the personnel on foot but also for a dozen autogyros like Drew's which rolled through on the ground.
The stricken city was set on the flat land just east of the mountains, it was connected to the rest of the Commonwealth by a good road alongside which ran the heliograph line which had transmitted the distress call from the civil authorities. A long ugly scar marred the landscape. In places the tornado had torn the top soil away right down to bed rock. Debris was scattered everywhere. No structure of brick or wood had withstood its two hundred fifty mile per hour winds.
Standing atop a low dais, an authoritative-looking human of middle years addressed the new arrivals in a parade ground voice:
"Listen up. My name is Commissioner Donner. I'm the disaster coordinator. Thank you for coming to help out. All new staff are to report to their functional group as indicated by the placards at each station. You guys in autogyros park over on the right then line up."
On his left was a row of tables with placards for healers, medics, mages, and pilots respectively. The friends lined up at their appropriate tables and gave their names and function. When it came the turn of the twins the registrar added Jemsen to the rolls as a delver but was taken aback when Karel announced that he was an air wizard.
"But we didn't ask for an air wizard. Besides I cannot see what good air wizardry could do in this situation. No offense."
"You don't understand. My twin and I, we always work together. Always."
"That's right." Jemsen confirmed. "He goes where I go."
"What seems to be the trouble here?" Donner asked frowning.
The registrar explained the situation.
"What makes you two kids so special we should take you both? This isn't a family outing, you know."
"It's like this, sir. Karel and me, we are literally inseparable. I cannot remember when we haven't been within shouting distance of each other. And we're psychically linked."
"Wait a minute. Those tattoos... You're the famous twins Jemsen and Karel."
"In the flesh." Jemsen acknowledged.
"Still the point my man raised is a good one. What use is air wizardry?"
"You need to dispose of the dead before decay sets in and they turn into a public health hazard. That is where Jemsen and I come in. He's not just a delver, he is a full-fledged earth wizard. That means he make the earth heave open for mass graves, then cover them with earth once they are thrown in. That takes care of humans and dwarves who traditionally bury their dead. Elves and Frost Giants cremate theirs."
"True, but I don't have the manpower to chop down enough trees for hundreds of funeral pyres and wouldn't not have them do it if I did, not to mention the last thing we need around here is more smoke. The urban fires are still smoldering."
"Exactly why you need air wizardry to create mirrors which focus the heat of the sun to incinerate dead bodies completely and turn them into ash without any smoke at all. Nor are there any bones left behind as when a body is burned on a funeral pyre."
"Are you sure these sun mirrors of yours will work as advertised?"
"Don't worry about that, sir. I have witnessed my brother's sun mirrors turn whole regiments of troll cavalry into ash. And he can blow the mess away with jets of air or perhaps a dust devil."
Karel nodded.
"The ash improves the fertility of the fields downwind so choose the sites accordingly."
"All right, we'll sign you both up. Glad to have you."
"What about us?" Corwin and Drew asked the commissioner before he turned away.
"We want to work together too. I'm Drew Altair and this is Corwin Klarendes." Drew explained.
"Work together doing what?"
"I'm a fetcher, a pilot of a flying ambulance. I need a trained medic like Corwin Klarendes to stabilize patients till I can get them to the hospital. We've done rescue work together in the past."
"So what is the problem?"
"Corwin is also a student Healer. The Healers will want him to work with them."
"A Healer too? More power to you then. Nothing says you have to work with just one healer. You can link up with any of them wherever the flying ambulance takes you. All right, I'll clear it with the healers. You guys can fly together."
"One more thing, sir." Drew interjected. "Keep me in mind if you need some really heavy lifting done."
"Oh, I thought that pilots of autogyros were the weaker sort of fetcher, those who had trouble flying with yokes. Just how strong are you anyway?
"I can levitate a pair of brontotheres easily enough." Drew told him simply.
"Two brontotheres, eh? In that case you'd better sign up as a mage as well as a pilot."
He indicated the next table over, the one for mages where Axel was trying to explain that he was there in a dual capacity: both medic and mage. The registrar wasn't sure how to handle dual status and motioned Donner over. The commissioner told Axel:
"You should register as a mage. Your gift of teleportation is far more valuable than anything you might do with your combat medic kit but keep it handy. Assist the medics as and when you can."
Once Corwin registered as the medic assigned to in Drew's flying ambulance, he stepped over to the next table and said that he was in the same boat as his friend Axel Wilde, only he was a three-fer: medic, trainee Healer, and a war mage who could wield ball lightning.
Donner told the registrar that he had already agreed to let Corwin work with Drew, but to put him on the rolls as a mage as well, even if a use for ball lightning was not immediately apparent.
Nathan Lathrop registered as a delver, or sounder as the Navy liked to call them. The elf-boy Matt went on the rolls simply as a student Healer.
Chapter 4. Missions of Mercy
Since Drew had the fastest autogyro, he and Corwin were dispatched to the town farthest from the headquarters of the rescue operation. It was about fifty miles away, so they reached it in twenty minutes or rather what was left of it. The town had been flattened. Brick chimneys were all that were left of many homes. The public buildings had been hit too but at least they were still recognizable as buildings.
The siren at the firehouse had screamed a warning only minutes before the tornado hit, not enough time for everyone to scramble into shelter. Alas their cellars, root cellars, and storm shelters were not always up to the challenge of the monster storm and became their tombs.
As disasters go the area hit by a tornado is one of the easiest to get help to. Not only is the devastated area smaller than from an earthquake or flood, it was a long narrow zone of destruction with untouched territory close by on both sides. By contrast an earthquake did its worst damage at the epicenter which lay in the middle of a wide zone of destruction. Rescuers had to get past collapsed bridges, tree fallen across roads, even chasms in the earth. In a flood, the only way to get around would be by boat of which there would likely be very few which could be pressed into service.
Local folks were doing all they could to help the injured. That included local healers plus practitioners of natural medicine: nurses, midwives, chirurgeons, herbalists and apothecaries, and bonesetters, some of whom were nursing injuries of their own. A young healer named Margot, a pretty brunette, welcomed them.
"At this point I am pretty well tapped out magically, which is why I am mostly doing triage right now. Corwin is it? Can you suture the lacerations on these three teenagers. I have already poured spiritous liquors on the wounds to prevent infection. Now I'll numb the site of their injuries while you sew them up."
Corwin nodded and told her. "Will do," and went to work.
"Meanwhile, I need your pilot to load those other two on his autogyro and fly them to Feldspar for further treatment. We've done all we can do for them here."
Drew Lifted the stretchers with the two injured women, one of them clearly pregnant and set them into the carriers on either side of his autogyro.
"Get back here as fast as you can. A dozen more just like those two need transport." the healer told Drew.
As Drew took off, a young woman came up to Margot and pleaded with her to save her grandfather who was sinking fast.
"I am sorry, but I cannot in good conscience expend any more magic healing him."
"You didn't heal him at all. You just eased his pain and left him to die! You have to do more, much more, and don't tell me that you can't."
Margot shook her head sadly. "All right. It is not that I cannot help him but that I will not. Your grandfather is nearly six score, isn't he? He has had a full life. These other victims are young. Their lives have to matter more. I am sorry."
"You're sorry? Damn you!"
As the young woman rushed off Margot shook her head. Speaking more to herself than to Corwin she said.
"I keep telling myself that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or of the one. I know it is true, but in the face of so much death and injury the words are like ashes in my mouth. So I could hardly expect a loving granddaughter to understand."
"The fact is that even if I were capable of further magical healing today, I wouldn't expend my powers on one old man, not when that young married couple over there has head injuries which I am too spent to remedy. The man with his face in bandages is a firefighter who nearly died rescuing children from a burning school. I healed his lungs, but could not restore his face."
"Maybe I can help you heal these folks." Corwin told her. "You see I am not just a medic. I am a trainee healer too. If I joined my magic to yours, could you fix them up?"
"Why yes I could. Understand, when we join our powers, you must relax your control and let me guide your magic to effect the healing. Don't worry. I will make sure it won't drain you too much."
Both healers knelt beside the stricken couple and invoked their magic. A pearly nimbus engulfed the husband and wife, pulsating in and out as the magic healed them enough that time and their recuperative powers would finish what magic had started. Next it was the turn of the badly burned man. That took longer. He had second and third degree burns on much of his body as well as his face. Not only did the magic have to repair the damage, it had to rebuild his face lest he be shunned for a hideous appearance. A hero deserved better.
Over the next couple of hours Corwin and Margot rationed their store of magic to help as many as they could. Meanwhile Drew flew the seriously injured who could be moved to the teaching hospital in Feldspar.
As all three of them ate supper around a campfire, the young healer told Corwin:
"For a male your healing magic is strong, nearly to my own level when at full strength, and here you are just coming into your powers."
"I should tell you that I didn't become a healer the normal way. My gift was not conferred by nature but by the druids and the New Forest."
Corwin explained that partly in reaction to all the death and destruction he had seen in two wars he had become a medic. He also wanted to be able to help his circle of friends who were always going off on dangerous missions. Later, during a rescue mission to a downed autogyro he had had to watch a young boy bleed out, unable to stop the hemorrhaging. He knew then that he wanted to become a full-fledge healer. His friends the druids joined their magic to that of the New Forest to bestow his gift on him.
"That is quite a story, Corwin. I never encountered anyone who's gift of Healing was not simply a manifestation of their innate nature. We lady healers don't chose our gift. It really chooses us."
"Yes, like my gift of wielding ball lightning, which is terribly effective in combat but has few peaceful applications. None actually that I can think."
"You have a good heart Corwin and a good head. I expect you find some way to use that gift constructively."
With that they took to makeshift beds and slept till dawn when they got up, ate, and went back to work.
Meanwhile Donner had given orders for mass graves and incineration sites to be staked out at every large settlement. Axel Jumped the twins to each site in succession. The dead had been inventoried and their bodies laid out in long lines shoulder to shoulder. It was not a pretty sight, not with flies swarming around and maggots breaking out of some of the corpses. The smell was awful.
Jemsen invoked earth magic to make the earth heave and form a deep trench with the spoil piled on the side opposite the bodies. Workers with masks over their faces dropped the bodies into the hole without ceremony. Jemsen gestured as the spoil slumped into the trench to cover the bodies. A simple post and sign marked the interment.
Then it was Karel's turn with the bodies of elves and the Frost Giants. Invoking air magic, he created a trio of sun mirrors, which were mirages in the sky made of hardened air. Two flat mirrors reflected the sun into a parabolic mirror which focussed sun's heat into an intense beam which he swept along the line of bodies.
Neither ordinary combustion nor the subatomic plasma called white fire but simply the concentrated heat energy of the sun, Karel's beam was nowhere near so hot as white fire but was ten times hotter than the flames and fireballs of a firecaster.
Visible more as a shimmer in the air than as a beam of light, it scorched the ground and incinerated the bodies. In that intense heat flesh and fabric did not simply burn; they flash-charred into ashen simulacra of the people they had once been, sculptures which, lacking cohesion, slumped into formless piles of cinders. Finally Karel called up a jet of air which dispersed the remains downwind over the fields.
Nathan Lathrop delved under collapsed structures for people trapped in the shelters in which they had taken refuge. At one house, the weight of the bricks from a fallen chimney kept the family from opening the hatch of their root cellar. At another house, it was a large oak tree that the tornado had dropped as it went by which barred the exit of their storm shelter. At Feldspar he found bank tellers trapped in the vault where they had taken shelter only to have the roof collapse on it.
Workers freed those trapped in the root cellar and the vault, but the fallen oak was too massive to move with the means at hand. Drew stepped in and Lifted the tree and set it next to the local saw mill, which was inoperative at the moment because of a twisted blade. The spares had gone sailing off who knew where. A blacksmith collected the saw blade intending to turn its fine steel into tools like spatulas, kitchen and pocket knives and the like.
In another town the tornado had picked up an entire livery stable and dropped it atop a rambling villa that had seen better days. The inhabitants were trapped inside and the rescuers were worried about a total collapse, especially if the rescuers started shifting timbers and breaking through walls to get at the inhabitants.
Axel said that he could safely Jump the wreckage of the livery stable off the house. It did not matter that it was a jumble of walls and doors and timbers that had lost its original cohesion and integrity all mixed in with bales of hay, sacks of grain, dead horses, and even a rack of bicycles for rent. Even a fetcher as powerful as Drew could never have psychically grasped such an disconnected jumble of objects.
Extending his psychic awareness to encompass the wreckage, Axel jumped it to an empty field then jumped away from it as it slumped to the ground. That made it safe to free the people who had been trapped under the fallen stable.
Over the next five days Matt and the other student healers helped save hundreds. Sadly the need was greater than the resources and natural medicine could do only so much. The result was the deaths of nearly two hundred still waiting for their chance for magical healing, adding their number to those whom the storm had killed outright.
And so it went, day after day until Commissioner Donner announced that the rescue phase was over. The task now was to recover and rebuild. Wagons arrived from nearby farms with foodstuffs, plus tents, and tools including a new blade for a local saw mill from town left untouched by the twister. Meanwhile Sir Ahndray reopened the space portal to return the cadre sent out from the capital six days earlier.
Tired but proud of what they had done, the rescuers were given a couple of days to rest before resuming their daily routines. Drew and Corwin nevertheless worked up articles about the rescue operation in the Capital Intelligencer. They made sure to celebrate the efforts of the locals as much as those of the group they had served with.
Axel helped Corwin start searching the library of Institute of Wizardry and Magic for records of ways in which ball lightning could be used constructively besides as a source of light at night. Unfortunately the indexing system furnished few clues, so they were in for a long slog.
All nine of the roommates plus Matt attended the dinner at the Sign of the Whale to celebrate their success and safe return. By sheer size and his formidable presence Finn seemed to sit at the head of the table though it was actually shaped like an oval. On his left sat the twins, Drew, Corwin. Nathan, Liam, Eike, and Axel sat on his right, while Matt's seat was at the "foot" of the table.
The dishes served at the Sign of the Whale were always hearty stick-to-the-ribs food, just the thing to restore one's depleted energies and engage the taste buds with something better than the bland field rations the boys so often had to put up with on their adventures.
Everyone could see how animated Corwin was, more now like his old self and no longer as troubled by his wartime experiences. The young man was looking forward to dual careers as both a journalist and a Healer. And yes, he still hoped to join his friends on future adventures like that of the Corps of Discovery. However, if he ever got dragged into another war, it would not be as the eager and naive kid he had been during the Lightning War. No, that headstrong boy was no more. He had seen too much death and destruction, and much of it by his own hand.
So things were back on an even keel, though likely not for very long, not with this group of inveterate adventurers.
Author's Note
This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead.
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This story is one of an occasional series about the further adventures of the characters introduced in the fantasy novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends' and published by Nifty Archive. The chief protagonist of the novel, Dahlderon, elf-boy and druid, will appear in these stories in a supporting rather than starring role. Each story in the sequence stands on its own, with the focus on one or a few of the original characters.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy' and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. My 'Jungle Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section. The recent series 'Andrew Jackson High' relates the trials and tribulations of five of its gay students. For links to these and other stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.