Chapter 10: Learning

A flickering campfire was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. The heat and light of the fire were obvious to me before I even awoke. As I slowly opened my eyes I could see the embers glowing and tongues of flame licking around a large log.

“I swear I’ve done this before...” I moaned as I sat up. But the world spun around me several times and my head exploded with pain in protest and I started to fall back down.

A pair of beautifully soft hands caught me and kept me upright long enough for their owner to sit down and lie my head in her lap. Her hands stroked my head lovingly and I felt the pain of my headache begin to melt away.

“Shhhh. Just rest, Master... everything is going to be alright... let me take care of you. We are safe. You are safe. Everything is going to be alright.”

The world faded to black again.

I awoke the next morning to a rubbing of my hair and I opened my eyes to look into the face of Erica, peering back at me.

“Hi there, sleepyhead.” She grinned through tears. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Master.”

I chuckled, painfully, at that. “You have no idea how appropriate that is.” And then, when I saw her frown in confusion, I added. “I’ll tell you later.”

I sat up with much less effort than when I tried it the night before. At least I thought it was the night before. I really didn’t know how long I’d slept.

Erica was staring concernedly into my eyes and I could see she had been crying for a long time. We were in a different location, surrounded with dense brush and larger trees, hidden from any road that might be nearby; so I knew that some time, at least, had passed.

“How long was I out?”

I felt a pair of arms hug me from behind and a head press up against my back. It was accompanied by Asha’s soft, but worried, voice.

“You were unconscious for the entire day, then you woke up and we thought you were OK... but then... you didn’t... we thought... we thought...” she sobbed in relief.

Erica continued, “We thought you weren’t going to wake up. You slept for 2 days. We moved camp after the first night, in case someone came and found us. You didn’t stir even though you were dragged behind a horse for an entire day.”

I frowned in confusion... “What?... No, that can wait. What happened to Gregory and Pheros?”

The girls froze. They looked at each other in that telepathic way that twins seem to all use.

“What happened?” I pressed quietly.

“You began to glow... really brightly. Then you screamed. We couldn’t look at you, the Knights held their shields up but the light just went through them. It felt warm, right?” Erica checked with her sister.

“Like a hug.” Agreed Asha as she snuggled into my back. It felt weird to be clung to like that, especially from her, but I wasn’t arguing; it also felt really good. The contact was comforting and after what I’d just been through… I think I needed it.

Erica continued. “But the knights didn’t like it. They grabbed their heads and fell over... they were obviously in pain. When you stopped, they were dead, unconscious we don’t know… even the other two that you’d just hurt in the fight were dead; well, they might have been unconscious… we didn’t check. Then you collapsed and we thought... we thought...” she threw her arms around my neck and sobbed into my shoulder.

Asha lifted her head off my back. “Laura woke up about an hour after everything... happened. She told us what to do. We built a litter and we strapped you to it. She rubbed something into your wounds to stop them getting worse.

“Where is she?” I asked, concerned. “Is she OK?”

Erica shook her head. “Laura felt her head and said something about a... ‘temporary bone fracture’?”

“Fuck, where is she?”

“Over there, she looked really bad when we travelled, getting worse and worse and then passed out the day before yesterday, after we made camp. We haven’t been able to wake her either.” Erica pointed sadly to Laura, lying on a bedroll near the fire.

I rushed over to her far faster than I would have thought possible with a broken rib and multiple lacerations to limbs and torso. Maybe I healed faster now? Questions for later. I felt around her skull tenderly. “Shit, she’s not wrong.” I cursed as I looked over her bruising behind her ear. She had evidence of bleeding from her ears and nose and I despaired over not having my EMT med kit with me.

“What’s a temporary bone fracture?” Asha asked quietly, as if she didn’t really want to know.

“Temporal bone fracture....” I corrected her. “…where you’ve broken the bone on the side of your skull... and this one is bad.”

I checked Laura’s pulse and vital signs as best I could, scratching the numbers into the dirt. I took her wrist but couldn’t feel a pulse, so I pushed my hand under her gambeson and palpated her groin above her femoral artery. Both the girls gasped and I realised that they had misunderstood.

“It’s not like that. I need to measure her pulse and blood pressure! I’m an EMT.”

No sooner than I had said the words, I realised that it wouldn’t mean anything to them, but getting a weak pulse from her femoral I moved my hands to her neck and took her carotid pulse where it was slightly stronger.

“70-80 systolic at a guess,” I muttered. I knew the inaccuracies of such a method, but it was all I had. “Pulse around 140-50, her body is trying to compensate... Girls, she’s not well.”

I placed my hand on her trapezius and squeezed hard. Laura moved and her face grimaced, but she did not wake.

“She moved though!” cried Erica, “...that’s good, right?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what I can do. But to be honest, I would have expected a much higher blood pressure than this. I suspect she may have intracranial bleeding... but I can’t tell without a CT scan...”

“She drank a lot of her vials before she passed out. She said something about interchangeable pressure and high prevention?”

I thought for a moment and then smiled in awe and looked down at Laura with new respect. “Clever, clever girl.” I muttered in awe. I smiled and the girls insisted on me filling them in.

“Intracranial pressure and hypertension...” I explained, “...wherever Laura got her medical training, they certainly knew their stuff.” I rummaged through her bag to find the empty vials labelled ‘vasodilator’ and ‘anticoagulant’. There was more that said ‘constitution supplement’ and these made up the majority of what she had apparently imbibed. The first two to attempt to deal with the injury and, my best guess was that the others were some kind of immune-booster to give her body the best chance to heal. She’d probably gone too far with the lowering of her blood pressure, but there was no way for her to have known that in the moment.

I sat back from Laura and looked up at the twins standing over us. “There is nothing I can do for her...” I said grimly. “We just need to see what happens.”

The girls nodded and Erica hugged me on one side in sympathy. Asha, to my surprise, hugged me on the other and together we sat in silence for a while.

“Tell me about your past,” Erica asked softly, after we had held each other there for about ten minutes.

Asha defended me. “Don't press him, he’ll remember when it’s time.” Erica must have told her about my ‘amnesia’ and kept my confidence. Asha didn’t know I could remember everything.

I scratched another set of observations into the dirt and sighed... there had been no change in her vitals. Not that I could do anything about it if there was... but it was habit at this point.

“I apologise for the deception...” I tilted my head towards Asha, “...but I know exactly who I am and where I come from. And now the Iron Shield knights aren’t a problem anymore, I guess I can tell you girls too.”

The girls cuddled in closer as I tried to think about where I should begin.

“I’m not from this world... Dromin.” I started. “I’m from another world called Earth. Yes... we named it after the dirt.” I grinned at my own little joke. “I lived a life there as a musician and a music teacher. Ah... I guess you are familiar with the concept of not looking as old as you are... so it shouldn’t be too much of a shock to learn I’m actually 40 years old, not 18 or 19.”

The girls were slightly surprised at this but, being elves, they weren’t too concerned. Their own mother looked 25 despite being over a century old.

“I enjoyed learning things and I became an Emergency Medical Technician and, when I wasn’t working as a music teacher, I would help people who got sick. Actually, I was quite like Laura here, except it wasn’t my full-time occupation and I wasn’t assigned to a full team, I helped everyone in my village who needed it. That’s how I learned medicine.”

I paused... wondering how much to tell them, but something within me felt like I needed to and I continued, though my voice began to crack.

“I had a wife, for a time, and I loved her fiercely. Her name was Sasha, and we met when we were around your age. We remained as friends for a few years, then fell in love and got married. But... she was taken from me. An illness called... well it doesn’t matter what it was called. It was sudden and incurable.”

I felt the tears run down my cheek and the two girls squeezed me tight. They had a head on each of my shoulders and Erica was stroking my hair again, making calming shushing noises as I sobbed for a while.

I regained my composure and continued. I told them of the train station, the girl on the platform, the fight and my death.

“Yeah... I died,” I confirmed as they looked at me shocked.

I told them about Bambinae and the offers she made. I recounted how I’d come to this world and they listened intently with mouths agape at every word.

“THE GODS LIVE?” they gasped.

This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I was expecting a surprised or even doubtful reaction at my talking with a Goddess, but disbelief that the Gods were even still alive caught me off guard.

“Why is that surprising?” I asked, clearly confused.

“The Gods disappeared before Mother and Father were born. Their magic, their blessings, everything that they used to do to guide the world disappeared centuries ago. Only the oldest elves can remember when the Gods answered prayers.” Explained Asha, grasping my hand with excitement.

“You said Bambinae was the Goddess who brought you here?” Erica asked thoughtfully, and I nodded.

“That makes sense. The Goddess of Hearth and Home. If any fragment of the Healing Mother survived anywhere she would try to make things right!”

I shrugged at that. “I think that’s why she brought me here... to help her gain power so she could help others. She gave me gifts to help me...”

I stared at Erica as a thought occurred to me. “What did you call Bambinae?”

“The Goddess of Hearth and Home?”

“No, after that!”

“THE HEALING MOTHER!” cried Asha, realising what I was thinking. “Do you think you could?”

I crawled over to Laura and felt next to her temple. I couldn’t feel any power at the moment, so I prayed to Bambinae to let me help the sick woman. Sure enough, a trickle of power left my fingertips and I could feel Laura’s injuries in extreme detail. She was worse than I had even thought. I concentrated and channelled more power into her wound and at my will the broken pieces of bone slowly began to knit. Her aneurysm, which I had been right about, began to heal and I grinned with triumph. It was intuitive, I could see her injuries, I could see what needed to be fixed. I simply willed it to be and the power of Bambinae flowed from my fingers to the wound.

It wasn’t difficult at first, but Laura’s injuries were so severe that it took several minutes of concentration to repair. The girls sat silently in awe as the yellow and white light moved from my hands to Laura’s skull. By the end of 5 minutes, I was sweating profusely and my head was spinning. When I finally finished after 15 minutes, I slumped back into the waiting arms of the twins and took several deep breaths as they wiped my brow with a damp cloth.

“I couldn’t... fix... it all...” I breathed. “But she will live... before... she would have almost certainly died. The medicines she took bought her time… but they wouldn’t have fixed her.”

I sat up again and looked at the young knight. I had no idea when she would wake, but I could try the healing again later to get her the rest of the way if her body didn’t do it on its own.

The girls offered me water and Erica kissed my head tenderly.

“You’ve done much more than either of us could have done. With your power or without.” Erica cooed softly. “Please rest, Master. You must be hungry; let me get you something to eat.”

I nodded. Regardless of whether I wanted her to serve me or not, I felt weights in my feet and arms from the power that I’d just passed into Laura. But once I’d eaten breakfast, as meagre as the trail rations were, I did feel better, and the twins seemed to notice as their worried looks faded to satisfaction.

“I can’t believe my Master speaks to the Gods! Oh, I’m so lucky! Bambinae’s chosen champion steps in to save my life and he’s kind and handsome and muscled and...”

Asha cut in. “Handsome and muscled?” she giggled. “You’re so smitten! Fallen in love already?”

Erica blushed, “Shut up!” she chided. “I’m just excited ok? He could have been a horrible Master and he’s just not so I’m lucky.”

Asha nodded in mock understanding. “Uh-huh. SURE. Are you certain Mathew is even going to accept your offer?”

Erica frowned at her sister. “He promised we'd discuss it properly, but I still don’t understand... Master, why don’t you want me as a slave?”

I drew in breath. I felt I was ready now. “My world has a terrible history with slaves.” I began, “The word holds a bitter legacy of abuse and dehumanising behaviour. People were captured, sold and worked to death. Women were sold into sexual slavery, men were forced to fight to the death for entertainment. Men, women and children were worked to death. It was called chattel slavery, where the slave had fewer rights than an animal in some cases. Children of slaves didn’t belong to their families, they belonged to the slaver and lived their whole lives and died at the hands of an owner’s cruelty.”

“The worst of it was that no matter how many times the institution of slavery was struck down, someone, somewhere would find a way to coerce someone else into a situation of slave and master. Sometimes they would use violence, sometimes they would use drugs, sometimes they would use fear of the law. Women were forced into ‘marriages’ which in those cases was little different to being a sex slave. Most recently, we had the rich engineering the economy so that the poor were forced to work for them just to get enough food to survive. It’s called ‘financial slavery’. But any way you cut it, it’s abuse of the worst kind.

In my world, the idea of slavery is so vile to good and honest folk that the average person would deny outright that it could ever be done in a positive way. And anyone who tried to argue that slavery could be good, would be called a monster and ostracised from society.”

I looked at Erica kindly. “Every fibre of my being has been conditioned to not only reject the notion of slavery, but also to believe that you have been brainwashed into thinking it is OK. Many times, on my world, the first step slavers took to subjugate their ‘property’ was to convince them that it was ok for them to be a slave, even convincing them it was better than being free.”

I sat back and smiled sadly at them. “Regardless of how I accepted your service, by my world’s standards, I would be a monster.”

Erica sat quietly, and her eyes showed she understood the differences in our two societies. “Dromin has that kind of slavery too, but not here. Our village is different. Our philosophy favours duty. Your philosophy favours freedom. Either could be abused, you know.” she said quietly.

“Oh yes... the concept of freedom certainly has caused issues within our society.” I groaned. “I will never deny that.”

“So what does that mean for me?” Erica asked nervously. “You saved my life. Twice! It would devastate me if you rejected me now.”

I shook my head and reassured her. “I won’t send you away. Bambinae has made it clear I am to take care of you and has endorsed what you call ‘slavery’ as being alright; as long as I don’t abuse it. So… if you will let me treat you kindly and take your wants, needs, hopes and dreams into account… I would be honoured to accept your service.”

Well, after that I had an Erica magnet gripping the life out of me as she squealed with delight and peppered my face with kisses.

“ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT!” I laughed, pushing my hands gently on her shoulders to create some distance. To be honest, I was enjoying the kisses and they were heavenly, but my conscience was still not clear about how far this “service” was going to go. “I’m still not sure how you’re comfortable with being so affectionate so quickly.”

“You’re my master. You saved my life twice,” she answered cutely as if it was so simple for her. “I know you won’t hurt me and I feel safe around you. How could I be more comfortable?”

“Alright… I'll try to be better, OK?”

Erica nodded eagerly and then started a little dance around our campsite celebrating her win. I guess from her perspective, she didn’t have any prospects for success if I had abandoned her. She couldn’t return to her village and pass the debt back to her father. And without any connections in Westfall, it would be very difficult to start a new life there. She was understandably relieved, I guessed, to be assured that someone would be looking out for her. Even though my prospects weren’t any better than hers. We’d figure it out together. Goodness, it really was like marriage. No. It wasn’t. There was still a power imbalance. I’d have to figure that out.

I turned to make a funny comment to Asha, but she was staring at me intently like she’d been struggling with making a decision and had finally made up her mind. Her eyes were locked upon me, focused with a determination I wasn’t sure boded well.

“Guess what?” she purred with a wicked grin.

“...What?” I did not like where this was going. I had no idea where this was going, but I still didn’t like it.

“I invoke the right of indebted servitude.”