Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [115]
Next to the bed, a small cauldron of silver metal roiled and bubbled. The liquid behaved as though it were boiling hot, but there was no fire under it, and it didn’t fume into the air. Either etherium boiled cool, or some magic in the cauldron was keeping it an unnaturally active liquid.
“Esper beings get etherium enhancements well into old age,” continued the healer, “but the first infusion is usually done on a young body, a body that’s still growing and easily able to heal. Healing helps the body incorporate the alloy. But in principle, this should work on an adult.”
“Don’t you worry,” Rafiq said. “She’s the best. She was our balmgiver on our mission, and she was right there with us when we captured the formula. She knows everything that anybody on Bant knows about this process.”
That didn’t sound entirely promising. “Should I be asleep?” asked Mubin.
“It’s better if you’re awake, so you can answer my questions,” said the healer. “I’ll need as much information back from you as you can provide me. If you feel anything strange, tell me, all right?”
Mubin looked at his legs, and at the cauldron of silvery etherium. He felt strange, all right. But he just nodded.
Mubin’s legs were numb as the balmgiver did her work on them. He couldn’t see much over the raised sheet, but if he craned his neck, he could get a glimpse of how his legs had been sliced from thigh to foot, and the skin flayed open. The healer was chanting quietly and pouring the silvery alloy into the long wounds. The sight made him dizzy, and he lay down.
He had no sensation in his legs, but it wasn’t long before he felt a flood of strange sensations throughout the rest of his body. He felt energized, as if all the systems in his body were being organized more effectively and efficiently. He felt strength returning to muscles that he didn’t even realize had atrophied since his injury. He felt strangely youthful. His dizziness turned to euphoria.
“Are you giggling?” Rafiq asked incredulously.
“Was I?”
“I think you were. It’s difficult to tell on a rhox, but I wouldn’t know what else to call it.”
“That’s enough, you two,” said the healer. “I’m almost done here, but I don’t need you disturbing the patient, Knight-General.”
Mubin grinned, and tried to relax, as the healer chanted.
“The filigree is taking shape,” she said.
Rafiq’s eyes widened as he stared down at Mubin’s legs. “You should be seeing this,” he said. “It’s amazing. The metal is twining in on itself, branching and … stretching, as it cools and sets. It’s making … something. Something beautiful.”
“It’s making knees,” the healer said quietly.
Mubin was hardly prepared for the electric pain that stabbed through his body. He moaned as blades cut their way through his veins and tiny lightning excruciated his nerves. He didn’t have time to ask what was wrong before it overwhelmed his mind, and he passed out.
Rafiq watched purple splotches spread their way up Mubin’s body. The process was sickeningly swift; he could see the rhox’s skin bruising from the inside out, starting at his legs, moving up his chest and neck and out into his arms.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. “Get it out of him. The etherium, it’s … poisoning him. Can’t you see that? Get your knives and cut it out of him now!”
The balmgiver was moving quickly, drawing angelic symbols across his body with sacred dyes, but she couldn’t contain the reaction. It was spreading too fast.
Mubin’s body jerked, and his back arched once, twice. His eyes were clenched shut, and sweat ran down his face. His lungs pumped up and down, making loose wheezing sounds.
“Do something,” Rafiq said. “You have to save him. Oh Asha, I’ve made a mistake. What have I done?”
“I’ll do everything I can,” said the healer. “I’m giving him a balm to ease the pain, but we have little knowledge of this kind of magic. It appears