Kal stumbled into the surgery room, the open door letting in bright white sunlight. At ten years old, he was already showing signs that he would be tall and lanky. He’d always preferred Kal to his full name, Kaladin. The shorter name made him fit in better. Kaladin sounded like a lighteyes’s name.
“I’m sorry, Father,” he said.
Kal’s father, Lirin, carefully tightened the strap around the arm of the young woman who was tied onto the narrow operating table. Her eyes were closed; Kal had missed the administration of the drug. “We will discuss your tardiness later,” Lirin said, securing the woman’s other hand. “Close the door.”
Kal cringed and closed the door. The windows were dark, shutters firmly in place, and so the only light was that of the Stormlight shining from a large globe filled with spheres. Each of those spheres was a broam, in total an incredible sum that was on permanent loan from Hearthstone’s landlord. Lanterns flickered, but Stormlight was always true. That could save lives, Kal’s father said.
Kal approached the table, anxious. The young woman, Sani, had sleek black hair, not tinged with even a single strand of brown or blond. She was fifteen, and her freehand was wrapped with a bloody, ragged bandage. Kal
grimaced at the clumsy bandaging job—it looked like the cloth had been ripped from someone’s shirt and tied in haste.
Sani’s head rolled to the side, and she mumbled, drugged. She wore only a white cotton shift, her safehand exposed. Older boys in the town sniggered about the chances they’d had—or claimed to have had—at seeing girls in their shifts, but Kal didn’t understand what the excitement was all about. He was worried about Sani, though. He always worried when someone was wounded.
Fortunately, the wound didn’t look terrible. If it had been life- threatening, his father would have already begun working on it, using Kal’s mother—Hesina—as an assistant.
Lirin walked to the side of the room and gathered up a few small, clear bottles. He was a short man, balding despite his relative youth. He wore his spectacles, which he called the most precious gift he’d ever been given. He rarely got them out except for surgery, as they were too valuable to risk just wearing about. What if they were scratched or broken? Hearthstone was a large town, but its remote location in northern Alethkar would make replacing the spectacles difficult.
The room was kept neat, the shelves and table washed clean each morning, everything in its place. Lirin said you could tell a lot about a man from how he kept his workspace. Was it sloppy or orderly? Did he respect his tools or did he leave them casually about? The town’s only fabrial clock sat here on the counter. The small device bore a single dial at the center and a glowing Smokestone at its heart; it had to be infused to keep the time. Nobody else in the town cared about minutes and hours as Lirin did.
Kal pulled over a stool to get a better vantage. Soon he wouldn’t need the stool; he was growing taller by the day. He inspected Sani’s hand. She’ll be all right, he told himself, as his father had trained him. A surgeon needs to be calm. Worry just wastes time.
It was hard advice to follow.
“Hands,” Lirin said, not turning away from gathering his tools.
Kal sighed, hopping off his stool and hurrying over to the basin of warm, soapy water by the door. “Why does it matter?” He wanted to be at work, helping Sani.
“Wisdom of the Heralds,” Lirin said absently, repeating a lecture he’d given many times before. “Deathspren and rotspren hate water. It will keep them away.”
“Hammie says that’s silly,” Kal said. “He says deathspren are mighty good at killing folk, so why should they be afraid of a little water?”
“The Heralds were wise beyond our understanding.”
Kal grimaced. “But they’re demons, father. I heard it off that ardent who came teaching last spring.”
“That’s the Radiants he spoke of,” Lirin said sharply. “You’re mixing them again.”
Kal sighed.
“The Heralds were sent to teach mankind,” Lirin said. “They led us against the Voidbringers after we were cast from heaven. The Radiants were the orders of knights they founded.”
“Who were demons.”
“Who betrayed us,” Lirin said, “once the Heralds left.” Lirin raised a finger. “They were not demons, they were just men who had too much power and not enough sense. Either way, you are always to wash your hands. You can see the effect it has on rotspren with your own eyes, even if deathspren cannot be seen.”
Kal sighed again, but did as he was told. Lirin walked over to the table again, bearing a tray lined with knives and little glass bottles. His ways were odd—though Lirin made certain that his son didn’t mix up the Heralds and the Lost Radiants, Kal had heard his father say that he thought the Voidbringers weren’t real. Ridiculous. Who else could be blamed when things went missing in the night, or when a crop got infected with digger- worms?
The others in town thought Lirin spent too much time with books and sick people, and that made him strange. They were uncomfortable around him, and with Kal by association. Kal was only just beginning to realize how painful it could feel to be different.
Hands washed, he hopped back up onto the stool. He began to feel nervous again, hoping that nothing would go wrong. His father used a mirror to focus the spheres’ light onto Sani’s hand. Gingerly, he cut off the makeshift bandage with a surgeon’s knife. The wound wasn’t life- threatening, but the hand was pretty badly mangled. When his father had started training Kal two years before, sights like this had sickened him. Now he was used to torn flesh.
That was good. Kal figured this would be useful when he went to war someday, to fight for his highprince and the lighteyes.
Sani had three broken fingers and the skin on her hand was scraped and gouged, the wound cluttered with sticks and dirt. The third finger was the worst, shattered and twisted nastily, splinters of bone protruding through the skin. Kal felt its length, noting the fractured bones, the blackness on the skin. He carefully wiped away dried blood and dirt with a wet cloth, picking out rocks and sticks as his father cut thread for sewing.
“The third finger will have to go, won’t it?” Kal said, tying a bandage around the base of the finger to keep it from bleeding.
His father nodded, a hint of a smile on his face. He’d hoped Kal would discern that. Lirin often said that a wise surgeon must know what to remove and what to save. If that third finger had been set properly at first…but no, it was beyond recovery. Sewing it back together would mean leaving it to fester and die.
His father did the actual amputation. He had such careful, precise hands. Training as a surgeon took over ten years, and it would be some time yet before Lirin let Kal hold the knife. Instead, Kal wiped away blood, handed his father knives, and held the sinew to keep it from tangling as his father sewed. They repaired the hand so far as they could, working with deliberate speed.
Kal’s father finished the final suture, obviously pleased at having been able to save four of the fingers. That wasn’t how Sani’s parents would see it. They’d be disappointed that their beautiful daughter would now have a disfigured hand. It almost always happened that way—terror at the initial wound, then anger at Lirin’s inability to work wonders. Lirin said it was because the townsfolk had grown accustomed to having a surgeon. To them, the healing had become an expectation, rather than a privilege.
But Sani’s parents were good people. They’d make a small donation, and Kal’s family—his parents, him, and his younger brother Tien—would continue to be able to eat. Odd, how they survived because of others’ misfortune. Maybe that was part of what made the townsfolk resent them.
Lirin finished by using a small heated rod to cauterize where he felt the stitches wouldn’t be enough. Finally, he spread pungent lister’s oil across the hand to prevent infection—the oil frightened away rotspren even better than soap and water. Kal wrapped on clean bandages, careful not to disturb the splints.
Lirin disposed of the finger, and Kal began to relax. She’d be all right.
“You still need to work on those nerves of yours, son,” Lirin said softly, washing blood from his hands.
Kal looked down.
“It is good to care,” Lirin said. “But caring—like anything else—can be a problem if it interferes with your ability to perform surgery.”
Caring too much can be a problem? Kal thought back at his father. And what about being so selfless that you never charge for your work? He didn’t dare say the words.
Cleaning the room came next. It seemed like half of Kal’s life was spent cleaning, but Lirin wouldn’t let him go until they were done with it. At least he opened the shutters, letting sunlight stream in. Sani continued to doze; the winterwort would keep her unconscious for hours yet.
“So where were you?” Lirin asked, bottles of oil and alcohol clinking as he returned them to their places.
“With Jam.”
“Jam is two years your senior,” Lirin said. “I doubt he has much fondness for spending his time with those much younger than he.”
“His father started training him in the quarterstaff,” Kal said in a rush. “Tien and I went to see what he’s learned.” Kal cringed, waiting for the lecture.
His father just continued, wiping down each of his surgeon’s knives with alcohol, then oil, as the old traditions dictated. He didn’t turn toward Kal.
“Jam’s father was a soldier in Brightlord Amaram’s army,” Kal said tentatively. Brightlord Amaram! The noble lighteyed general who watched over northern Alethkar. Kal wanted so much to see a real lighteyes, not stuffy old Wistiow. A soldier, like everyone talked about, like the stories were about.
“I know about Jam’s father,” Lirin said. “I’ve had to operate on that lame leg of his three times now. A gift of his glorious time as a soldier.”
“We need soldiers, father. You’d have our borders violated by the Thaylens?”
“Thaylenah is an island kingdom,” Lirin said calmly. “They don’t share a border with us.”
“Well, then, they could attack from sea!”
“They’re mostly tradesmen and merchants. Every one I’ve met has tried to swindle me, but that’s hardly the same thing as invading.”
All the boys liked to tell stories about far-off places. It was hard to remember that Kal’s father—the only man of second nahn in the town—had traveled all the way to Kharbranth during his youth.
“Well, we fight with someone,” Kal continued, moving to scrub the floor.
“Yes,” his father said after a pause. “King Gavilar always finds people for us to fight. That much is true.”
“So we need soldiers, like I said.”
“We need surgeons more.” Lirin sighed audibly, turning away from his cabinet. “Son, you nearly cry each time someone is brought to us; you grind your teeth anxiously during even simple procedures. What makes you think you could actually hurt someone?”
“I’ll get stronger.”
“That’s foolishness. Who’s put these ideas in your head? Why would you want to learn to hit other boys with a stick?”
“For honor, Father,” Kal said. “Who tells stories about surgeons, for the Heralds’s sake!”
“The children of the men and women whose lives we save,” Lirin said evenly, meeting Kal’s gaze. “That’s who tell stories of surgeons.”
Kal blushed and shrank back, then finally returned to his scrubbing.
“There are two kinds of people in this world, son,” his father said sternly. “Those who save lives. And those who take lives.”
“And what of those who protect and defend? The ones who save lives
by taking lives?”
His father snorted. “That’s like trying to stop a storm by blowing harder. Ridiculous. You can’t protect by killing.”
Kal kept scrubbing.
Finally, his father sighed, walking over and kneeling down beside him, helping with the scrubbing. “What are the properties of winterwort?”
“Bitter taste,” Kal said immediately, “which makes it safer to keep, since people won’t eat it by accident. Crush it to powder, mix it with oil, use one spoonful per ten brickweight of the person you’re drugging. Induces a deep sleep for about five hours.”
“And how can you tell if someone has the fiddlepox?”
“Nervous energy,” Kal said, “thirst, trouble sleeping, and swelling on the undersides of the arms.”
“You’ve got such a good mind, son,” Lirin said softly. “It took me years to learn what you’ve done in months. I’ve been saving. I’d like to send you to Kharbranth when you turn sixteen, to train with real surgeons.”
Kal felt a spike of excitement. Kharbranth? That was in an entirely different kingdom! Kal’s father had traveled there as a courier, but he hadn’t trained there as a surgeon. He’d learned from old Vathe in Shorse broon, the nearest town of any size.
“You have a gift from the Heralds themselves,” Lirin said, resting a hand on Kal’s shoulder. “You could be ten times the surgeon I am. Don’t dream the small dreams of other men. Our grandfathers bought and worked us to the second nahn so that we could have full citizenship and the right of travel. Don’t waste that on killing.”
Kal hesitated, but soon found himself nodding.
