Restoration

The healer’s hands glowed slightly as she moved them over the child’s head. Her fingers danced in the air, matching the rhythm of her humming like she was playing an instrument. Her dress was a pale blue, and she wore her hair tied back in a low bun, safely out of her face. She was spotless, despite the blood on the boy’s face.

With a start, the apprentice realized that her master was speaking and hastily refocused.

“Sadly, this is not an art I can teach you,” she whispered, voice rising and falling in time with her dancing fingers. Each word sung more than spoken. “But everything else I do you can use. I would not impart prayers which will only take space, crowding out the important pieces.”

“It is a wonder that there are not more of you,” responded the apprentice, eyes on the woman’s hands as the green light began to solidify. Forming into crystals that attached to her hand like tiny clumps of snow.

“Not really, child. It is the way of things, and the reason we rarely accept outsiders at the schools.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know.”

The final sound was short, clipped, punctuated by snapping her finger down to rest just for a moment on the large gash beside the boy’s eye that ran up into his scalp. The green crystals that had stuck to her skin vanished, sinking into her skin before a brief light glowed from the wound. The edges slowly knit together, and a healthier colour returned to the boy’s cheeks. But he did not open his eyes.

Sitting back, the healer smiled down at him. She took a white cloth from one pocket and carefully wiped a single drop of blood from the tip of her finger.

“Can’t you teach me,” the apprentice’s voice was tinged with longing as she stared at the boy. It dripped from her words, a selfless desire to help and heal. But layered underneath that longing, hiding among the pure tones of her natural benevolence like an orchestra rising slowly to a violent crescendo, was envy.

“I could teach you every piece of it,” the healer soaked her cloth in a basin of cool water and began gently wiping the drying blood from her patient’s face. “I could teach you the nature of the world, draw back the veil and lead you from the cave into the light. But what I cannot teach, and you cannot learn, is the smallest and most important piece. Sadly, you’ve already moved beyond the ability to attain it.”

“But why? Why can’t I learn? Would it… would it require leaving to join one of the priories?”

“Don’t call them such things, child. A priory is not a thing for those like us. It belongs to the Unitists and what they call heretics who long predate them. What we do, the others and I, is beneath and beyond them. But no, even if I were to walk the long road home with you, teaching every step of the way and put into the hands of the Masters. You would never learn it. I’m sorry, but you’re only human.”

“And you’re not,” the question was a short, bitter thing. It slithered from the apprentice’s tongue, coiling in the space between her and her master, separating them beyond an insurmountable gulf. “If only the divinely chosen can hold these powers, then what is the point in teaching me?”

“Are you the sun?”

“What?”

“Are you the sun? Can you give light and warmth to the world, do you rise and set in concert with the stars, does your very presence define the changing of the seasons?”

“No. Of course not. I’m-”

“You’re only human. But you can learn from the sun, can you not? Learn how to live in its warmth so that you can share it with your friends, your family, a stranger met on a crowded street. You can learn to follow the sun; let it guide you as would a compass if hung in the sky. You can heed its passage and plant or harvest according to the lessons it teaches.”

“What does this have to do with why-”

“Child,” the apprentice hated being called child by any other person. She was grown, a woman for some years and beyond such diminution. And yet, there was something in the tone the healer used that reminded her of her grandmother. Of the soft hands and earnest smiles which had healed the many small miseries of childhood. “Please do me the courtesy of listening without trying to respond. Do not think of this as an argument, either I will be able to explain such that you can understand. Or I will not. But still, you must let me try.”

The music had fled from the healer’s voice as soon as the magic was done. It no longer resembled a choir on its own. No longer matched itself to the beating of a drum that no one present could hear. But it was still mesmerizing. And the coiled resentment slowly slithered back into the apprentice’s heart. She owed the healer a hearing, even if it hurt to think that she could never give a gift such as the other woman had.

“It is… hard to explain,” looking up and to the left, the healer’s eyes lost focus for a moment. The barest hint of a moment that would have been easily missed if not for the dead silence of the healing lodge. Then her eyes snapped back to the apprentice, nearly black in the shadows cast by the room’s fire and her voice changed. Deeper, measured, almost akin to the beating of a ceremonial drum at Light Day, the longest day of the year.

“Please do not interpret this as a criticism. It is not meant as such. But you will never achieve what I have because you do not believe in the right way. Please, do not interrupt,” the apprentice closed her mouth, which had snapped open to protest. “I do not insult you. And I do not mean to say that you do not believe. All I mean is that your belief is not of the incorrect kind, but it did come about in the necessary way. Not a lesson the Unitists would share, I think. And perhaps they are correct in that, their numbers ever swell, do they not?”

Her listener remained silent, so the healer continued.

“I was not born in the High Valley, you know. My family is from a small village in the South Dutchies, a place where the majority belonged to the cult of the Footman and/or the cult of the Grower. Few Blessed emerged, but then, it is always few that do. We are a rare breed, even among those in places like the High Valley. My father had been a soldier, and he told wonderous stories about his time in the army and the feats that the Blessed of the Footman could bestow.

“Not that it ever interested me terribly. I followed my mother at first, venerating the Crone as had her ancestors for the divines alone know how long. But my heart was with the old man who lived at the edge of town. A small cottage in a clump of trees with a well, and a barn that housed no animals. He taught me to heal.

“In very similar ways to how I have taught you, though his knowledge in those days was not a match for what I have now. He would be proud of me, I think, to know that the student has surpassed the master. You see, he was from High Valley, and it was he who convinced my family that we should go there. My father had long since left the army and worked in town as a cobbler. The cobbler, as it happened. And my first master had told him that there was steady work and safety in the mountains, safety from the rising threat of the High Patriarch out of Reminar.”

“I’m sorry,” the apprentice, despite her promise, interrupted the story. “But your master was not Blessed despite being from High Valley? Was he exiled for his… erm… lack of faith?”

“No, child. No,” the healer’s words were soft, her continued motions of cleaning the boy’s face gentle.

The boy’s wound was nearly gone. Leaving behind only a thin and fading scar that started from just beside his eye and followed the arc of the scythe that had landed him in the healer’s care. But even as the apprentice watched, that mark too faded away, almost as though the damp cloth carried it off his skin alongside the blood.

Still the child did not open his eyes. Eyes that were now moving underneath their lids, quickly darting back and forth as though he were deep in a dream. The healer had said nothing about him, so the apprentice knew he would be safe, that the wound would heal and eventually the boy would open his eyes and likely have no memory of being carried into her home.

“My master did not teach me much about faith. That part of my education was from my parents and the community in which we lived. Wonderful rituals and dances for the Grower; contests and games for the Footman; and, of course, there were the mysteries of the Crone. No, what my master taught me was the skill of how to heal.

“He showed me to stitch a wound, as I have now shown you though I say you were not lacking education or ability in that skill. He showed me how to set a broken bone, so it healed correctly and taught me the importance of cleanliness. Though that often brought derision from some of the townspeople. Importantly he showed me how to make potions, balms, salves and tincture to cure infections and diseases. All of these I have taught you

“And yes, he did mention his god. Now mine more so, I sometimes think, than it was ever his. But he did not teach me about miracles, nor the powers of the Blessed. In the Dutchies we,” she paused her ministrations and waved vaguely at herself, “are not spoken of. It’s considered bad luck and for good reason.”

“Because of the Unitists?”

“Yes and no. Their Seekers do have a bad habit of killing people they believe to be ‘unclean’ in the eyes of the One. Not to mention most people who have at least a passing familiarity with that person, but no. The reason is old, and I do not know for certain if I have the right of it, but once people know about us, they lose their chance to learn.”

The Apprentice scowled, trying to understand but burning at once with envy and sorrow. How was it possible for her to see, to firmly in her heart and soul believe that what she saw was real, but have it denied to her? What kind of god would flaunt its power only to withhold it?

“The problem comes with the nature of gods,” the Healer was still talking. “We understand them so little, and yet through that mystery comes their power. I was Blessed for reasons that I will never understand, but it was not something I could seek. Not a path I could follow nor a map I could read.”

“But you are a Healer? You’re Blessed as a result of your learning?”

“That implies that there is something against which to measure me. My first master was a great healer; he came to a backwater of the Dutchies to share his skill and knowledge for the betterment of his neighbours. To save lives where he could and ease passings where it was merciful. Upon arrival in the High Valley, we were welcomed like family, thanks to a letter that he sent by way of me. But he was not Blessed.

“Despite all his skill, and his learning, he was never Blessed. I don’t know why, and neither does he. There is no grand council, as the Unitists have in Reminar to ordain their elders. There is no qualification that one can attain from masters at an academy. There is only one’s selfless faith.”

“Please,” the Apprentice fought to keep the pleading from her voice. Fought to bury the blazing need to hold in her hand the power to heal all who crossed her path. But still, she could not let that go unchallenged, the insult to the foundations of her belief. “Please explain what you mean. I do not seek glory, or riches, or fame. I only want to heal.”

“Yes, child. And I think that might be part of the reason. You want to heal. You want to possess the power of healing and use it to spread joy and love. To reunite families, even if they never thank you. That is selflessness, that is a desire to attain power and use it for good. A good defined by your own view of the world and the nature of suffering, but that is, I’m afraid, the challenge. You want to be the one doing it. You want to hold the power so that you can do good.”

“And you do not?”

“No child. I only wished that it were done. Some things I take hold of, it is true. I am only human, much like you. My master taught that to me, as he worked his way through the thousand tiny things that are brought to a person such as he. ‘Are you going to heal them,’ I asked once, I remember well. ‘I am going to see them healed,’ he responded.”

“Is that different?”

“Yes, child.”

The Apprentice thought about the words for a long moment, eyes lingering on the boy’s face as it contorted briefly. The Healer’s hand gently cupped his cheek and though the Apprentice saw no more hint of magic, the boy’s sleep quieted again, and his face returned to serenity.

Her master was trying to tell her something, just as her own master had done. The Healer did not look at her, only continued cleaning the boy’s face, and when that was done, moving on to his hands. Always the gentle touch that did not disturb his sleep, and with every stroke of the now dirtied cloth, it seemed he grew stronger, his breathing more even and regular.

“I think I understand.”

“Oh?”

“You channel the Divine into the patient the way one guides water. But also not.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“You can perform miracles because-”

“No. I cannot.”

“But you… oh I see. Or I think I do. The power of your belief is what guides the power of the god. You’re more… a vessel for the power than a director of it.”

“Again, I say that it is hard to learn and hard to teach. Things like this come slowly and with time, but I’m afraid that no matter how much you question, the power will not come to you. True faith is a thin string by which to dangle your life. But in short, no, I do not perform a miracle.”

Sitting back, the apprentice stared into the shadows that danced around the ceiling. Watching them shift and change as the fire and candles flickered and danced. There was a block in her comprehension, one that she thought she was approaching an understanding of, but not yet one she could put into words.

Clearly the power was not for her. It could not be taught unless…

“How did you learn to be Blessed?”

“I did not.”

“But how?”

“That is still another reason you cannot learn. Magic cannot be understood, controlled, bargained with. It simply is, a force of nature like the weather or the eruption of volcanoes. Some things can be arranged, an avalanche in the mountains can be triggered, but it cannot be controlled. It is a force unrelenting and ever present but rarely seen.

“I was not taught how to perform magic. I have met some who had masters and teachers, but theirs was a god I do not understand even half so well as I do my own. To be Blessed is to simply be, to have in your heart a selfless faith so powerful that it in itself enters and shapes the world. I can heal with the work of mortal hands, and sometimes with the aid of the Divine my patients are healed.

“It is not always a choice. What I do, or rather what I do not do but merely experience, is beyond understanding and explanation. In trying to study it, I could kill it.”

The Apprentice nearly exploded. But swallowed her disquiet and asked one more question.

“What more can you teach me?”

“I can teach you all that I know. I can share the knowledge passed to me by my first master and the teachers from High Valley. You can, if you wish, go there and learn still more than I can teach you. If you desire, I can write you a letter of introduction. But, child, do not go seeking a Blessing. That quest will destroy your happiness and taint your healing. What is, is. What is not, is not. And what can never be, can never be.”

Setting aside her cloth, the Healer sighed and adjusted herself to sit more comfortably. One hand went to the small of her back and her apprentice immediately offered a massage to ease the stiff muscles there. She did not know, could likely never know, what toll a Blessing took. But she was a student so long as her master remained with her. And so she would learn.

To be Blessed would be a wonderous thing. But, looking at her master as she accepted the offered massage and directed eager hands, she thought that it must also be a burden. The Healer never knew when the magic would take hold. Never knew if what she did would work. Except when she did, as shown by the green magic used on the boy.

But even then, she could not consider it. Could not take pride in it being her own work. Could never study it so that she could share that magic with others in need or teach it to eager minds.

Fingers quickly finding the knots in her master’s muscles, the apprentice wondered how long the Healer would stay with her. There was so much still to learn, and so little time it felt to do it. Everyone knew that the Blessed were, at their cores, wanderers until they found a place to settle. Perhaps this would be that place.

Perhaps she could convince… and she was doing it again. Trying to influence, to understand, to control.

The Healer was right. She could never be Blessed if the rules were as the Healer explained them. But there had been a something in there. A something about faith and how it alone can influence the flow of magic. Perhaps, if the apprentice arranged things to be so, some generations hence, a new Blessed would blossom in her village. And so, another farm boy might survive an encounter with a scythe that he would never otherwise have done.

That Blessed would outshine any legacy that the apprentice could hope to leave behind. She would be forgotten save as a woman who once had healed, her name buried under weight of years.

So long as her work could be done, she was content with that.

Unnoticed, a single green spark filtered through the thin fabric of her master’s dress and sunk into her fingers. “Never to be Blessed,” did not mean that she could not unknowingly carry a single blessing. Did not mean that the god would deny her the power to heal, as her master said, “with the work of mortal hands.”