The Wheelwright's Apprentice (6 page)

As soon as Art was introduced, Garmgo’s face lit up with a big smile, and he bounced over to give Art’s hand a vigourous shake, saying, “Art, it’s great to meet you I have so needed some more help and this is such a fascinating place, I know you’ll love it here, my my there is so much to learn...”

Art tuned him out while looking around. There were no corpses in sight which was a welcome relief, however he knew tomorrow would be different.

“...will be the foundation of nearly everything you learn in the future. Once you know your own body you will truly own yourself.”

Art woke up at these words, and thought, “There has
to be something very important for me to learn here if this is my first real assignment!”

8

The next morning, Art dressed in one of the many sets of shirt and pants that he had been given. He was surprised that he had been given so many, but perhaps laundry did not happen so often here. Garmgo was waiting for him just inside the entrance and welcomed him by saying, “Good morning young Art. Here we are at the wonderfully interesting morgue, where more secrets can be found than anywhere else. I will teach you all you need to know.”

“And I lot I don’t!” thought Art.

Garmgo was already going strong, and went on, “You are in luck. We had several bodies come in overnight and one was a boy your age. You should be able to learn a lot by dissecting him. First I want you to watch me do a couple myself.” It was rapidly becoming obvious that all Art had to do was to say a single word now and then just to prove he was listening. “Now this man,” Garmgo said as he waved his hand in the direction of a shrouded figure, “is an excellent specimen. Let’s look at him first.” So saying he whipped off the covering sheet, and there was a naked corpse underneath. The corpse was of a strong man, and therin e were several wounds in his arms and shoulder and one livid one across his neck.

“Here we are,” Garmgo rattled on. “One of my jobs is to determine the cause of death. Right now that’s not your concern, and anyway this one not only looks pretty obvious but there were lots of witnesses. It was the result of a tavern brawl. Here hold this.” Garmgo handed a funny looking knife to Art. “Now come over here,” He was told, and Art walked over to another shroud which Garmgo removed as he arrived there. He was hit immediately with an overpowering stench and he could see that the body beneath was heavily discoloured and very bloated. Garmgo told Art, “Stand here and give me that knife.” Garmgo immediately stabbed the bloated corpse with it and a spray of smelly sticky unidentifiable fluids hit Art full in the face. There were some laughs and chuckles as two men came into view clapping. Garmgo observed, “Now that is the worst thing that can happen to you here. Things can only get better from now on! Hurry up, go and change and come back.” One of the men who had been clapping earlier handed him a striped bag while Garmgo told him, “Put your clothes in this bag before you take it to the laundry.”

Art was still in shock and at last managed to blurt out an incoherent screech. He then simply turned and ran out.

Half an hour and a bath and a scrub later he was back.

“One day you will thank me for that. Bad experiences bring out strong emotions and memories, and they can become a strong impetus for you to focus your Will. Now let’s get back to the original cadaver.”

The two men from before now came over and one said, “We hope you enjoyed your initiation. We went through one like it too. It sort of makes things easier afterwards! I am Wingo, and this is Horam.”

They all walked over to the first table with the tavern brawler on it, and Garmgo said, “There are two things I need you to do, first take a really good look at the corpse. His relatives will want him looking at least as good as this after I have worked on him, and you are going to have to repair him later. This is a lesson too; Will your memory to work, so I don’t have to repeat myself again tomorrow!” Garmgo paused and then said, “If you can’t do that, I’ll have to spray you with some more unmentionable stuff.”

Art swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment, then dryly said, “I believe I have done that.”

Garmgo chuckled and said, “See! Your earlier experience has come in useful already!”

Art settled down to watch while Garmgo expertly dissected the cadaver, pointing out every little visible anatomical detail and telling Art what each was for. Veins, lungs and other internal organs were professionally displayed. He kept up a droning commentary which Art never found the need to interrupt. It was both repelling and fascinating at the same time. Horam, who was a thin dark haired man, hovered over the scene and handed Garmgo all the various tools he needed without a word ever being spoken.

Lunch came, but Art had no appetite and went instead to calm himself at a cloister where there was a tree and a few shrubs garnished with a smattering of flowers. It wasn’t exactly a work of art, but it was a lot more soothing than what he had been looking at that morning. The ambience allowed him to reach a state where he was able to face returning. The afternoon was more of the same. A flash anatomy course that was drilled into his psyche by a spell he had set on himself. Being squirted with rotten body fluids did not now seem so bad. It was just that watching and remembering evwo memberiery cut and slice was worse.

“That’s it for today,” Garmgo said as he popped the top of the skull back in place. “Now, can you make it into something the relatives would like to see?”

It took Art many minutes to find the necessary tranquility within himself to do the repair. It was eventually his imagined image of the relatives seeing the body in its piecemeal state that gave him the impetus to do the job. It looked perfect on the outside. He was grateful about the fact that none of the relatives would be cutting up the body, as he wasn’t sure that the innards were all where they were supposed to be!

Wingo and Horam grabbed him and said, “Come with us to the refectory. We didn’t see you at lunch. We don’t have to guess why, so we know you need a proper supper.”

Art allowed himself to be led to the refectory where they helped themselves to a good supper, and where Horam added a couple of extra desserts onto Art’s tray. They sat down towards the end of a long table, where with minimal conversation, Art slowly began to eat. After a few minutes, Art looked at both of them and said, “Please forgive me, today has been a hard day. In fact recently every day has been a hard day for me. My whole life has been turned upside down, and I realize that there is so much I don’t know, but also so much is expected of me.”

Wingo said, “Let me try and work you out. You look like the Count. We have seen that you have the Will. You act like you have never seen anything outside of wherever you have lived for all your life.”

Art faced him with a stoic expression, “That’s pretty much it. Am I that much of an open book?”

Horam butted in with, “Yes, you are, and that is something you need to change. Even having the Will doesn’t mean that much in Red City. This is a place where bad people live and bad things happen. We don’t want to rob you of the innocence of youth, but if you have to leave the Temple, remember people are not always what they seem.”

Art finished his meal and thanked them both, saying, “I lost my innocence when everyone in my village was slaughtered. I have been tossed all around lately and you know what? I haven’t cracked and I have learned an awful lot. Most of it was really awful. I think I can handle the bad. I have noticed that I can think about wishing things on people, bad things, that I would not have dreamed of before.” With that he picked up his tray and left.

Wingo and Horam looked at each other and Horam said, “Kid has come real far real fast. I am glad I’m not him.”

“Yeah,” Wingo replied, “He’ll be lucky to see thirty!”

The next day, Art had the job of dissecting another corpse and telling Garmgo everything he had learned by watching the day before. He did well and three days and three corpses later, Garmgo greeted him with a cheery voice, “We have got something different for you today!” Visions of another swollen, bloated corpse floated in front of his eyes, but when Garmgo said, “Here look at this”, as he whipped the shroud off a body, Art saw a middle aged woman who had no apparent wounds. “We have to find out why she died. Go on have a look and see what you can see.”

Art had never seen a naked woman before, let alone an older dead one, so he was understandably reluctant to get too close. “Come on boy have a closer look! You can’t see anything from that far away!” Garmgo urged. “This woman died of one silly thing. Do you know what it was?”

Art looked mutely at the body and replied, “No idea.”

“She didn’t come to the Temple to be cured. We could have cured her. You, after today could have cured her, but she never came,” he paused, “until now.” He let Art digest the fact. “A trained, Willed healer can cure almost anything, but not if the patient doesn’t come to us.”

Garmgo had a knife in his hand, and said, “Having talked to her widower I am reasonably sure what it was. Now watch closely.” So saying he made a long slit across her abdomen and started pulling out the large intestine. Soon he said, “Look at this. There is a growth on the bowel. You can see what the healthy bowel looks like, and you can see where the growth is. This is the question. How would you cure a live patient like this?”

Art thought for a moment and then guessed, “I would wish it all looked the same.”

Garmgo shook his head and advised. “Two wrong things. You haven’t removed the problem and you have no idea as to whether the new, ‘lookalike’ bowel would do the job Try again.”

“I could simply remove the affected bit.”

Garmgo smiled and said. “That would cure the patient but with that much bowel missing she’d still have problems.”

Art gave in and asked, “Tell me then. I know that’s what you want me to ask!”

Garmgo drew himself up to his full height, smiled, looked down at Art and said, “You have to improvise a lot. There are many different ways for you to use the Will for healing. In this case the best way I know is to Will that the diseased length duplicates another healthy length. There may be other ways, but if you find a way that works, use it! Always think of what can go wrong before you try something new.”

Art then buckled down to the lesson and eventually repaired the corpse. As they were tidying up, he asked Garmgo, “How many healers with the Will are there here in the Temple?”

“Two,” was the quick and discouraging reply. When Garmgo added, “Including you, Art,” Art felt weight descending even more heavily upon him. When Garmgo saw his face droop, he said consolingly, “There are several others in the City, one in each quarter, and one who stays at the Count’s palace. The workload is spread around reasonably well. Once you are trained and have learned the trade, you will be sent to work on your own. The High Priest is usually the only Willed healer here!”

So Art asked, “So how long will I be in training?”

The totally useless and predictable answer, “As long as it takes,” was of no help or encouragement at all.

His round of instruction was intensive. With the basics of anatomy absorbed thanks to his Willing it so, he moved onto watching the High Priest heal. He had a busy schedule, so Art was given some patients to work on after the High Priest had seen to the worst of the supplicants. Simple fractures, sprains, contusions, bruises and anything that could be easily sent back to the memory of what was before became his staple. When his impetus was flagging he would imagine how upset his brother would be if he failed to do something so simple. A week turned into a fortnight, and he realized that he was doing nothing but sleeping, eating and working. He had no time for leisure; there was no leisure time. Always after supper he would collapse into a deep exhausted slumber. There was no opportunity even for reflection. But he learned and thanks to his Will he learned fast. The more he learnedthee he le of the healing process, the more he learned about his ability to focus his Will. The more he learned about the ability to focus his Will, the more he learned about himself.

He was not too happy with everything that he learned.

After a month of this whirlwind existence, Art was attending the High Priest when an emergency much worse than any he had seen before was brought in amidst a great commotion. There was a body with a severed leg which someone else was carrying. Art acted immediately and willed the bleeding to stop while the High Priest examined the other injuries. The man was a total mess, but he was still alive, somehow. While Grammon was examining the rest of the body, Art knew he had to act. He had the leg positioned touching the torso and Willed the two together again, calling on all the knowledge he had gained from dissecting that part of the body. He then focused on the heart and felt for the pulse. He made himself ready to Will the heart into action should it falter while the High Priest was working. A few seconds later it did and Art managed to get it and keep it going until Grammon tapped him on the shoulder and said, “He should be okay on his own now.”

At the end of the day, Grammon told Art, “You acted fast, you instinctively did what had to be done, while leaving me to do what I had to do. He would have died without you. In fact you did very well and you deserve a little reward. You need to have some time for yourself, but time off in a City like ours means you will need some money, more than you needed in a little village.” He passed across a purse, and
said, “You had better find out how much it’s worth before you spend it. Take tomorrow off, and have a pleasant evening!”