They began to make their way toward the infirmary. Michael and Ollie drew a fair amount of stares. Michael in his now patchwork armor, and Ollie in his garb that made him look like he was meant to be painted on the side of a van.

  “So, you clearly made it to Old Hume okay, but joining the knighthood? How did that happen?” Michael asked Lance.

  “The journey here was difficult. I’ve never travelled alone before, and the roads have been getting more dangerous as the rift problem grows. Luckily it wasn’t as severe then as it is now. Once I made it to a small town on the border I made a formal introduction to the local lord using the family name of my grandmother rather than my father. The lord there sheltered me for the night and gave me directions to the capital where my cousins live. On the way I found myself stumbling into a number of problems that I couldn’t ignore. Bandits preying on the vulnerable, rifts not yet tackled by patrols. I found myself frequently distracted by them and unable to make my way as directly as I would have preferred.”

  “Christ, mate. You may as well have stayed with us,” interjected Ollie.

  Lance laughed. “I found myself thinking the same a few times, but eventually I was able to reach the capital and make an introduction to my family there. It was tense for me, as I wasn’t sure that they would accept me, but Dame Bina remembered my grandmother and welcomed me. Shortly after I tried to join the army as a soldier, but when they saw my training they referred me to the knighthood. I expected to squire for some time, but apparently some of the actions I’d taken on my way to the capital had become a bit more widely known. Between that and my experience sealing rifts I was knighted almost immediately and put to work.”

  “You take any time to rest in the meantime?” asked Michael with a bit of concern in his voice.

  “I spent a good amount of time with my cousins and Dame Bina’s neighbors. Delia, the Lady of the Manor next to Bina's, had me over for tea frequently as well. I’d forgotten some of my manners from being away from other nobility for so long, but she schooled me in a few things.”

  “She schooled you, eh?” asked Ollie with a smirk.

  Michael gave him a light elbowing.

  “I’m glad things have worked out for you, Lance.”

  “Well, your blessing helped me more than once, though I didn’t realize it at the time. A crossbow bolt once exploded just before it hit my head and another time I could swear a horned man’s spear turned to the side at the last moment.”

  “I’m glad the gods looked after you.”

  Lance nodded. “I’ve actually prayed to Seras once or twice. When things seemed particularly hard. It was comforting. Not sure if she helped me directly though.”

  Michael shrugged. “They’re an odd mix of subtle and direct. Usually direct in my case though.”

  They reached the infirmary. Unlike the temporarily converted buildings Michael had grown used to, this was clearly meant to be an infirmary, or perhaps a hospital would be a more accurate description. There was the single line symbol that Michael had grown used to representing medical help back in Stent carved in stone on the wall.

  They walked inside through the door and saw a squire working hard to scrub the floor. Behind him there was a long room that fit a number of beds that could be separated by a curtain, but on the other side there were a number of small private rooms as well. There were only three or four medics working from what Michael could see, but they were all wearing bright red and seemed immaculately clean, even wearing red cloth masks around their mouths.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  One of the medics approached them.

  “Are you okay? Was someone hurt in training?”

  Lance shook his head. “No, we were sent by the Captain to speak with Carmen. Is she available?”

  The medic shook his head. “She’s with a patient at the moment, but she’ll be available soon if you’d like to wait.”

  Lance nodded, and before Michael could ask he held up a hand to him and asked himself. “My friend here is a healer of injuries, may he help those here?”

  “I can heal diseases and toxins as well,” said Michael.

  Lance raised an eyebrow. “That’s new.”

  The medic frowned. “We have no cases that would require immediate healing. Some men with a flu that has been going around, and a few sprained and broken limbs. Carmen usually reserves her own healing abilities for priority and emergency cases and I presume she’d ask any visiting healers to do the same.”

  Michael raised his right hand, feeling divine power grow in it as it began to glow and spread divine energy around the room to feel the illnesses and injuries around himself. It was as the medic had said, mostly minor injuries that needed some care, but no emergencies. He healed all of them simultaneously anyway, as well as a small nick on the right hand of one of the medics, and a badly stubbed toe that Lance had given no indication he was suffering from. He even healed a dislocated shoulder in a room in the corner that he presumed was who Carmen was with. In the case of the men with the flu he brought a bit of divine fire to bear to burn the virus from their bodies in a single blazing instant. It was over in only a moment, and Michael smiled at the medic in front of him as he finished.

  “I’m a bit of a special case.”

  The medic blinked some of the blindness caused by Michael’s hand from his eyes and looked over to see the other medics talking to very suddenly better and confused patients.

  He frowned. “Ohhh, that’s going to really piss the doctor off.”

  “She doesn’t like when sick and hurt people get better? Seems a bit backwards to me,” said Ollie.

  Michael wasn’t fixated on that so much as the fact that the medic in front of them had just used the word ‘doctor’ in English.

  “Oh, that part isn’t what she’ll be angry about.”

  A door slammed open at the far end of the hall, and a short woman wearing the same red uniform as the rest of them with short hair tied back and tan skin stormed her way toward them. She stared at each of them for a moment, and when her eyes hit Michael he felt the brief recognition of someone divining him. She stared at him for a few moments, blinked, cursed, stared a bit more, then looked him in his eye.

  “You just healed my patient from across the room without even seeing him. I just spent fifteen minutes numbing the bastard and was about to pop his arm back into place.” She looked across the room to see a number of the other patients out of their beds and she walked toward them, cursing a bit more in what Michael recognized as a mixture of Spanish and Hume. Lots of putas were being thrown around.

  “And you healed everyone else at the same time?” She returned and poked Michael in the chest with enough force to make the armor make a muffled tinking sound. “You. Are. Bullshit. I spent fourteen years becoming a doctor. Left my home, studied in that shithole where all the idiots live, and then I died because an idiot brought a gun into an MRI room and then I arrive here, work my way through decades of indenture, find that I’m able to heal people with magical nonsense, learn an entirely new system of medical treatment with new plants and animals, and you are able to come in and just what? Wave your hand and boom! Everyone’s all better!?”

  “I mean, he didn’t really wave it, just sort of raised it,” said Ollie.

  She ignored him. “You’re a taker. I can tell from your titles. Were you a doctor before you got here? A nurse? A fucking orderly?”

  “An office worker.”

  “And how the fuck did you manage to heal everyone at once? That would have me on my ass for days.”

  “The gods have blessed me with a number of gifts.”

  “Gods? What the fuck are you even talking about? The divine? The locals barely mention it.”

  Michael shrugged. “They’re back, and I’m spreading them.”

  Her eye twitched. “This world is bullshit.”

  Michael shrugged. “Our world was too.”

  “True, but it was my bullshit and I was used to it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Do you at least feel bad for having all that unearned power at your beck and call?”

  “Not at all. It lets me help people.”

  She paused, gritting her teeth a bit. “Dammit. That was the exact right thing to say.”