I don’t remember most of that day, nor that night. Nor the three days I lay bloody and feverish, in a medical tent upon a hill overlooking the Abyss.
When I woke up, the sounds of battle had ceased. One of the Ishtar healers came to me, made me drink some water. I was thirsty, but pumped so full of painkillers I couldn’t feel the cup between my lips. I dribbled upon myself, shamefully.
I fell asleep again then, and awoke in terrible pain.
I felt as if my right leg were on fire. I would not scream, but croaked for a healer.
She came to me then, with the blissful abyss of a cool compress and another injection.
Somewhere in that oblivion, I felt myself being moved onto a stretcher and carried away. I could do nothing about it, and I was still so sleepy...
I awakened again in the familiar antiseptic environment of the infirmary in the Ways of Hendrake. I realized I was lying upon a bed, hooked up to IVs and monitors.
I tried to sit up, but managed only to lift my torso a few inches. Over the horizon I could see a few healers at work upon other patients. It looked like all the beds were full. My right leg was throbbing and achy. I had probably broken my leg. Yes, that was it. That black-haired bitch with the axe had gotten in a lucky shot. Well, that wouldn’t happen again.
“Healer,” I managed to whisper, but nobody even turned. Then, “Healer!” a little louder. One heard me then, said something to one of the others, and hurried over.
“General,” said she, as she felt my forehead. “Just lie still. Don’t try to get up.”
I have never been good at following healer’s orders. I struggled, but finally lay back in exhaustion.
“Lady Minobee will be here shortly. She wished to be informed when you awoke.”
A few minutes later, my lady Belissa Minobee entered and approached my bedside.
“Welcome back, T’Gana,” said my cousin. “I was worried. How do you feel?”
I glared at her as best I could.
“What happened?” I asked, without preamble, looking from one to the other. “What is wrong with me?”
Belissa gave the healer a look, and the healer found something more important to do on the other side of the room.
“A few nicks and scratches,” she said. “And...”
“And what?” Why would you have a broken leg be so difficult to say? I hadn’t been too upset the last time I’d broken something.
Belissa gave me a sorrowful look, and sighed. “You’ve lost your right leg below the knee.”
I did a double, triple take before it sunk in. “What?” I asked, incredulously. This was impossible! I could feel my leg. I couldn’t move it, but I could feel it.
“Your leg was severed below your knee.” Belissa repeated, and pulled back the sheet so that I could see. I strained my neck to pull my head up.
Never mind what I could feel. My left leg was there, and I could see my toes. But my right...my shin and foot were gone, replaced by emptiness and a bandage.
“This is a trick, right?” I said weakly, mustering a chuckle. “Heh...heh...I can still feel it there. Is this one of your little lessons? How I should be more careful?” In my younger years, Belissa had often chided me on my impetuosity, saying and doing things before I had had a chance to think of the consequences.
The bottom of my right foot began to itch. It HAD to be there! “That black-haired bitch was an open target, I got a swing in on her. How was I supposed to know she could move so fast? It wasn’t impulsive in the least.”
She shook her head and pulled the sheet back. I could see the bulges made by my left leg but not my right. By the Serpent, this was one good illusion. She must have gotten one of the sorcerers to help her.
“Gana,” my cousin said gently, using the diminutive I had not heard since childhood, “I’m sorry. I wish I could say this was one of my lessons, or a trick, or a dream. But it is real.”
I would not cry. It would not sink in for many hours, and I still would not cry.
If only I’d lept back a second sooner, I would think. Or thrusted instead of swung. These thoughts and many like them would swirl around my brain for months, playing tag among my memories and inadequacies.
I was permitted to leave the infirmary a week later, with a healer’s helper ordered to my quarters to watch over me. A floating chair was ordered for me, and I was confined to that for a long time. I was permitted out only to bathe, an humiliating process that demanded the helper’s involvement.
Perhaps I did indeed grow surly and churlish. I certainly had justification. My career was ruined, my body was ruined, and my usefulness to my House was over. I had all but stopped eating. The helper was patient, of course, but perhaps it was she who finally called Belissa.
---One morning, nearly a year after the battle, Belissa called upon me, bearing a small, many-punctured box from which snuffling sounds emerged.
“T’Gana.” Her tone was brisk as she took a seat near my chair. I could not even look at her in my shame. I had adapted a pair of trousers to cover my loss, but still felt my dismemberment keenly. How could she stand to look at me, I thought to myself.
“I don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll make this brief. My niece’s thraa had offspring a few weeks ago.”
Well, now I could identify the snuffling noise.
“Her father only lets her keep the thraa if he can show them in competition. The other offspring were fine, but one was born sickly and too small. He said he would destroy it, but my niece had me intercede. I asked him if I could find it a home, would he keep it alive, and he agreed. I tried to take it home, but you know Petrarch, he refused to have anything to do with it.” Petrarch was Belissa’s oversized hound, a jealous creature fiercely loyal to Belissa.
“You are the only person I can trust to take good care of this thraata. Would you please help me, and look after it for a while? Perhaps if it grows up well my niece will be able to take it back.”
In later years I would chuckle over Belissa’s clever ploy--helping me by asking me to help her. Chuckle as I stroked the humming thraa in my lap. But back then, it was not nearly as transparent. My dispair was all-encompassing.
I tried to turn her down. I gave every reason in the book. I was confined to a chair, maimed, handicapped...and not exactly mother thraa material.
Belissa shook her head, and, placing the box in my lap, removed the lid.
A tiny furred creature no bigger than my palm turned around, sat upon its hind legs, and stared me full in the face with huge blue eyes.
“It’s a female, and her name is Khar,” my cousin said softly. “Have one of your staff stock up on thraata food, and find her a sandbox. She’s already been trained.”
Belissa stood. “Gana, thank you for your help. I know you’ll take good care of little Khar. Now, I have a meeting I must attend.”
With that, she was gone.
I sat there, still eye-locked with this diminutive thraata. I tremblingly raised my hand to pet her, and she shrugged into my cupped hand with a humming sound.
She was so perfect.
It was then that I cried.
I cried for Khar, for myself, for my leg and my friends who had died on that battlefield beside me. I wept for dispair, for embarrassment, for loss, and for pain.
My new friend, perhaps sensing my distress, used her tiny claws to climb up my blouse to my shoulder, and thence to the top of my head. I had to stop crying then and hold still so she wouldn’t fall. A tiny cry emerged from Khar’s mouth, confused as to how she got up there and how to get down. I started to laugh and called for a servant to get Rama. Khar simply dug her pinprick claws into my hair if I tried to lift her off. Rama, I knew, had some experience with thraa.
Rama, the best chef this side of Ygg and the “other mistress” of my Ways (as some put it), entered, and, seeing my predicament, coaxed the creature off me with a bit of a treat. She gathered Khar into her arms and started to gush.
“Oh, what a beautiful girl, my lady!” she said, tickling Khar under her chin. Khar hummed happily. “Aye, she’s a small one, but a beauty. I’ll tell you what, little one,” she addressed Khar, “I’ll go out shopping, and we’ll have a little feast to welcome you home.” She stopped then, and looked at me. “Will that suit you, my lady?”
Perhaps she expected a sharp answer, but I knew what I said next surprised her. “Yes....actually, I am feeling a little hungry.”
“Serpent be praised, she’s hungry!” Rama exclaimed, handing me Khar. “I’ll have one of the boys send up a sandbox while I collect fresh oola eggs. I haven’t had an opportunity to cook a soufflé in ages.”
That evening, we feasted, Khar upon livers and eggs, me upon oola soufflé. Rama had outdone herself in enthusiasm, and became a faithful devotee to my smoke-blue-smudged thraata.
A few weeks later I invited Belissa over for a formal dinner. We dined as Khar crawled among our feet, pouncing upon bootlaces and my empty trouser leg.
Belissa watched with interest. “She seems larger and stronger already, T’Gana. Before the month is over, I am willing to bet she will be full-sized. Would you like me to talk to my niece, see if she is able to take Khar back?”
There was no trace of a smile upon her face.
“No...I don’t think so,” I replied, in case she was serious. “Rama spoils her so, and her cooking would suffer if Khar were gone. Besides...” these words would cost me to say, but I spoke them anyway. “I love her.”
Belissa nodded. “Well. Now that that’s settled.” She shifted topics smoothly. “You remember Grenane, part of my diplomatic team? He retired last month, and I’ve been looking for a replacement. Ever consider trying your hand at diplomacy?”
“Oh, Belissa, I don’t know...” I frowned, as Khar pricked my good leg with her little claws...
~end~