9. Sam Medical Enchantment
Sam: Medical Enchantment
Understand that in healing the human body, the line between basic and advanced enchantment is blurred.
For the most part the skills are basic; mending skin is just like mending fabric, or stone.
But since medical enchantment is the sanctioned use of bone upon human beings, it requires considerable caution and, customarily, years of additional training.
—Fulgencio Prado, Encanto médico
For a short time through the weekend and into Monday morning, I thought that Quinn would escape the inevitable retribution that was coming for him.
Simeon spent the rest of the weekend pickling his liver and sleeping.
Happily, he damaged no one but himself in the process.
Quinn spent both days studying assiduously, as if paying penance for his fifteen minutes of debauchery on Friday evening.
Vera visited on Saturday to collect her dress, which Quinn had packed discreetly into a brown paper package.
She advised him to frequent Waverly, the smallest dining hall and the least popular, where he encountered very few fellow students.
The most popular, of course, was the Cloister, which everyone calls “the Oyster” on account of the high-end fare.
It’s a lovely building, with an inner courtyard and gardens that retain their beauty even in winter.
But the students who frequent the Oyster are naturally the wealthiest and their admirers; the furnishings are modern; on weekdays one can hardly find a seat.
Waverly, by contrast, hasn’t been altered in decades.
I believe it was the original dining hall, back when Commonwealth had fewer than fifty students, and some of the furnishings seem to date from that distant time.
A majestic mermaid figurehead presides over the room, smiling secretively over long, blackened tables and chairs of old oak.
The tall stained-glass windows overlooking the quadrangle show the seasons of an enchanted sea: treacherous with autumn fog; racked with icy winter storms; windy on a spring morning; and glittering in the summer sun.
I could see by the dreamy look in his eyes, as he sat placidly looking out through the seascapes, that Quinn appreciated the musty antiquity of Waverly.
He spent every other waking moment at his desk, wearing the peculiar helmet as he pored over dusty tomes full of appraisal formulas and foundational philosophies of enchantment.
I rather doubted that he could make any sense of them, but I admired his persistence.
By remaining at his desk, he managed not to immobilize, vomit upon, or set fire to anything else, and that was a minor victory.
On Monday morning, Quinn sailed out of his rooms in high spirits, headed to Medical Enchantment.
Spirit Casting met only once a week on Fridays, but the others met twice a week: Medical Enchantment on Mondays and Wednesdays, Access to the Spirit Realm and Advanced Appraisal on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
There was nearly a spring in his step as he strode along the brick walkway, a little on the early side, to the domed building where Medical Enchantment took place: the Cabot Camera.
He wore his tokens, of course—though I noticed that the spectacles had been carefully folded into an inner coat pocket for greater security—and he looked suitably of age as he took a seat and began, with a punctilious air, to unpack his satchel: the textbook, clean paper, and pencils.
Other young men began to take their seats, and the room was filled with a vibrant, rather careless chatter.
Quinn could not yet see what I could: a small procession filing into the building, consisting of the professor, a dour-looking servant, a man in a wheeled chair, and Simeon Trench.
Dashing into the classroom, I sent Quinn a warning.
He grew still for a moment and frowned, but he did not budge from his chair.
Not surprising, I reflected, exasperated.
And now it was already too late, for the small procession was just outside the door.
As the campus bells struck the hour, Professor Orin Hornsby walked into the room.
The Cabot Camera is a circular building.
On the ground floor, the students’ desks are arranged in concentric circles, with a broad table in the middle, the better to showcase demonstrations.
The treasured repository of bones required for medical enchantment lies ensconced on the Camera’s second floor, concealed from the classroom but well accessible to professors who require their power.
A hush fell as Professor Hornsby entered. He was of average height and weight, middle-aged, with a graying beard, close-cropped hair, and a furtive, guarded air. His sunken eyes scanned the students’ faces around him as if to quickly assess the promise—or peril—they held.
Hornsby paused by the broad table. His servant, a nondescript man with downcast eyes, quietly wheeled the chair toward him.
Simeon, with happy self-importance, stood at attention nearby.
And the occupant of the chair merely slumped miserably, pale, tattooed, barefoot, and shirtless, his only article of clothing a pair of mangled trousers.
Unfortunately, his problems went far beyond incongruous attire; he was also in considerable pain.
A long, red gash, bleeding profusely onto wadded bandages, ran from stomach to thigh along the right side of his body.
You will find this ridiculous, but I can’t stand the sight of blood.
I wasn’t always this way. As a living person, I had an ordinary distaste for blood and gore.
I once sewed up a nasty cut on my leg that bled abundantly, and I tended to more than a few of my mother’s burns from the iron.
But since those horrific moments before my death, I find the sight of blood and damaged flesh unbearable.
It fills me with the terrible sensation of being split in half, as if one part of me were attempting to leave the rest. I can’t stand it.
The probable sailor—for so he seemed, from the proliferation of tattoos—aroused no particular sympathy in me; he looked like a rogue.
Wild hair, unkempt beard, and a Nordic nose.
But the wadded cloths, the trails of blood on his leg and foot, pooling now onto the floor…
intolerable! I focused all my attention on Professor Hornsby and Simeon, whose gaze drifted lazily across the room and snagged, inevitably, on Quinn.
For the briefest moment, hostility flashed through his eyes, and then he smiled blandly once again.
“Good morning, class,” Hornsby said, visibly enjoying the awe and horror provoked by his display.
“I am Professor Orin Hornsby, and I’m here to teach you medical enchantment.
You’ll find that most classes at Commonwealth proceed cautiously”—he smiled—“and with good reason. Enchantment is a dangerous thing, and it must be practiced with caution. However, medical enchantment has always been the most audacious of the arts. We would gain nothing without great leaps, courageous leaps into the unknown, sometimes into the abyss. You will learn gradually how to practice medical enchantment yourselves, though sometimes you may feel that the progress is too slow and too cautious. It can become tedious, I recognize. And that’s why at each class meeting I will demonstrate for you one of the great leaps.
That way, you will never lose sight of what your hard work is for.
“Before you sits a patient whom I whisked away from the Salem hospital fifteen minutes ago, seeing that there were four men with greater injuries ahead of him and little chance of his being attended within the hour. His name is Giles.” Professor Hornsby looked pleased.
Giles, occupied by his pain, made no acknowledgment.
The servant, standing behind him, was scanning the room with half-closed eyes.
Was he staring at Quinn? I could not tell.
“As you know,” Hornsby continued, “dueling with enchantment is strictly forbidden.” He smirked.
“Ordinary dueling, on the other hand, happens with shocking regularity. Giles has a knife wound that has penetrated his rib cage. Another cut lacerated his groin and upper thigh.” He gestured at the wounds, as if pointing out destinations on a map.
“Because these injuries are entirely to the physical body, and of a straightforward nature, we are able to address them without my spirit thew. In future classes, to address more complex conditions, she will assist us. But for the moment we are able to treat Giles’s injuries with only basic enchantment.
The able Mr. Simeon Trench, a distinguished third-year student”—he turned and gave Simeon a smile—“will assist me. Mr. Trench, would you lift Giles onto the table?”
Simeon nodded. Smiling cheerfully at the miserable Giles, he put a hand out theatrically. I will remind you that no hand gestures are required to cast enchantment; it is pure affectation. Giles began to float upward from his chair. He groaned with pain, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Excellent,” Hornsby said, unconcerned by the patient’s groans. “For the elucidation of the class, Simeon, what are you using?”
“I am using eighteen point three dead worth to lift Giles,” Simeon said pleasantly, “and I am using an additional two point four at the same time to counter his resistance.”
“Very good,” Hornsby said approvingly, as Giles was transported the short distance to the table, where he hovered over it, twisted with pain. “If he were uninjured, of course, the degree of resistance would likely be greater. You may need more just now,” he advised Simeon, “to stretch him out.”
Simeon complied, and the unhappy Giles was stretched out bit by bit, as if pressed down by a giant rolling pin, until he lay flat on the table.
“Excellent,” Hornsby said. Simeon gave a little bow, looking satisfied.
And then Hornsby removed the wadded bandages. Oh, spirits! The oozing blood, the torn muscle, the unexpected sight of bone. Giles gasped in pain, lifting his legs with difficulty, and his innards shifted like glistening serpents. I couldn’t take another moment.
I was gone.
The green outside was pleasantly deserted.
But not distracting enough. I flitted from class to class for a short while, which gave me a view of Walter Ainsley in a dull lecture about dead reckoning and, next door, Barney and Sikes attempting unsuccessfully to grapple with philosophy.
Still not distracting enough. I took my attention to the nearby cliffs, where the ocean waves crashed against the mottled stones and the bright sun made jeweled nets across the surface of the water. Bit by bit, I began to feel better.
Damn that Orin Hornsby.