My Diagnosis spell listed the damage.

  Some of the golden text was highlighted in the same red as a Quickheal potion, and the highlight intensity varied. Normally I would take red highlights as an indication that I needed to make that a priority, but the readout included a list of ‘Active Factors’ and on it was, in the same red, ‘Quickheal potion (max quality)’ so presumably it was showing me what the potion was currently targeting. In white, it also listed ‘Bandages (2)’ and there were softer white highlights on relevant entries.

  A moderate concussion on the left occipital, the bone wasn’t cracked, the swelling was minimal and shrinking, which made me gd I’d taken Terenei’s advice. The red highlight was strongest on that, and there was an additional white glow around the golden letters. A note after it informed me that there was reted damage that was beyond the scope of any current factors.

  An anterior dislocation of his left shoulder. Swelling was being minimized, but the same note was attached to it.

  A fracture of the fibu, the smaller bone in his lower leg, but it was aligned properly. It had very little red, not much more than the white, and the same note.

  Below that, it gave a briefer summary of more superficial damage, none of it red or with extra notes. I took that to mean that the Quickheal was being exhausted on more urgent issues.

  Temperature, blood pressure, all his vitals, all came up in a reasonable range, if a little high and fast.

  “Okay, Hardcure and Softcure time,” I said. “He banged himself up pretty thoroughly. The Quickheal is working on reducing the swelling, that’s extremely helpful, but it’s not getting the real problems. Hardcure will make sure that shoulder’s in position before healing everything, right?”

  “That’s its purpose,” Terenei said. “I don’t know for sure how strong your abilities are, but a reasonable guess would be a single full dose of a properly-made potion, and that should be enough. Alternatively, I have both on me, although I wouldn’t use them without being absolutely sure.”

  “We have a limited number of those. Mine will recharge. I’d be really tempted to add some extra juice but more isn’t necessarily better and I don’t know if it would have the kind of negative effects that using it inappropriately could cause. But I’m a lot happier having an option other than setting that shoulder manually.” Technically, setting those was outside my scope of practice, but I could do it with a doctor from my home hospital on the phone, and had done so; in an emergency with no other options, I’d do it again, but I wasn’t exactly eager to. It was really best done with the right medications and equipment and training. “I’m only seeing significant damage in the three spots I mentioned. Once I do what I can, I guess we wait a bit. There’s no hurry on moving him, he has the cushions under him and the bare ground isn’t exactly going to be more comfortable.”

  “Moving him didn’t do further injury?” Serru asked.

  “Hard to say. It might have aggravated something that was already there, or we might have gotten lucky and it only added to the scrapes and bruises. Either way, he’s not going to die, so we just need to get him healthy enough to be back on his feet and make sure nothing heals the wrong way.” I spun the dial to Hardcure, the one that worked on bone and connective tissue.

  For just an instant, I saw golden light halo Aryennos’ entire body.

  I repeated it with Softcure. His brain had been rattled badly, and he needed that to function.

  He opened his eyes again, suddenly tense. “My bag! Did I lose...”

  “You did not,” Serru said. “The strap is cut, but I’ll fix that for you. Your journal is safe.”

  “Rex,” I told him firmly. He did, but only for a couple of heartbeats.

  “There’s a mossling...” he said urgently. “Was trying... didn’t want it to see me.”

  “What kind?” Serru asked.

  “Small... a fox?”

  There were foxes in a world with no carnivory?

  Wait, weren’t foxes fairly omnivorous? If there could be domesticated cats and dogs, why not foxes?

  “Possibly, we could overlook a fox,” Serru conceded. “So all your attention was on it and not on where you were stepping. Rest. You have the best possible care and we’ll keep watch for mosslings.”

  He nodded and closed his eyes. This time they stayed that way.

  “Pass me my bag?” I said to Terenei. “I want us able to keep track of his vitals without constant Diagnosis spells.” He obliged, and I dug out my monitor and the Wipes.

  I contempted Aryennos’ dirty and ripped and slightly-bloodied clothes. Trying to get his shirt off intact to access his chest was going to be impossible without strain on his shoulder; Terenei and I finally cut it off. The fractured fibia didn’t interfere nearly as much with detrousering.

  Since Terenei was watching with such interest, I turned it into a casual lesson, expining how I knew where each of the five locations for the sensors was.

  None of us had actually been given permission to access his bag’s contents, so we couldn’t do anything about re-dressing him, and had to settle for wrapping him in a couple of bnkets to keep him warm. It was probably just as well, really. His copper-and-green clothes, which were a serious mess, we left in the back of the wagon.

  I hadn’t realized permission mattered so much, but Terenei expined it briefly: just like personal living space, permanent or rented, couldn’t be entered without invitation, any personal bag could not be entered without invitation. Once given, it persisted until revoked. For some reason, probably just because Aryennos didn’t carry anything we all needed like kettles or any gathered items, no one else had that permission. The bag of camping supplies was not personal and thus not protected. Wardens were the exception: they could open any door, cross any threshold, and reach into any bag in the course of their duties.

  Well. That was neat. Just inconvenient.

  Aryennos’ vitals were within the green, but still showing the effects of adrenaline and pain.

  I left the monitor at the head of the travois so any of us could check it easily. According to the instructions, it would beep to announce anything deviating out of normal, but I’d still rather keep an eye on it. Possibly equipment could glitch even here.

  “I’m staying in this form so I can do another Diagnosis spell after that has time to work,” I said, getting carefully up to all fours. “Feel free to take a look at that monitor any time you think of it. You two are all right? And the ornithians?”

  “They hardly noticed the weight,” Terenei assured me. “And they were never on insecure ground. I’m going to unharness them again and tether them to groom and rest and have a drink, since I think this time we’re done for the day for real.”

  “I really, deeply hope we are.”

  “You fell,” Serru said. “Perhaps a more relevant question than the condition of those of us who stayed up here on solid ground is, how badly are you hurt? Even the felid ability to nd on one’s feet does not protect from a fall of sufficient height, and from the amount of rope necessary, it was not a short drop.”

  “Ah... that’s actually an excellent point. Staying in motion and my adrenaline being high and being more worried about Aryennos is only going to keep me from feeling that for so long. I’m fairly sure it’s nothing but bruising and some strain on muscles and joints.”

  “Then do something about it,” Terenei said over his shoulder, already on his way to the ornithians. “I have more potions and I’m happy to use them, my grandfather will mail more to me any time I ask, or heal yourself the way you healed your hands.”

  “Yes, do,” Serru said. “I understand that making sure a patient is safe and recovering is your highest priority, but since, by your own words, he is, it’s now time to look after yourself.”

  Diagnosis was a cheap spell. I cast it on myself, confirming what I was already fairly sure of. Clinging to the rope to be pulled up probably hadn’t helped, in retrospect, but nothing was too bad. One regur-strength Quickheal and a half-strength Hardcure for my much milder connective-tissue damage should rapidly fix everything including the compints of joints strained by the fall, or rather by the nding after the fall. I’d still have enough juice to re-Diagnosis Aryennos after an hour or two and add more healing if necessary. Not much more, mind you, until I recharged.

  “Okay, all done, and I probably would have really regretted that pretty soon otherwise. What’s next?”

  “Let’s go sit by the fire and take a look at what you found below.”

  “Terenei...”

  “Can look after the ornithians alone. Come show me what you found, up in the trees and down in the cave.”

  “Well, there isn’t much space left in that bag, so sure, might as well see what’s worth keeping.” The inventory capacity between bags, I’d discovered, could be quite dramatic. I doubt I could ever fill that yellow-and-blue backpack with my personal stuff, healing supplies, and gathering, but running out of room in my saddlebags looked possible, and it was definitely a risk with my waist-bag. On the other hand, the tter could be useful and not awkward regardless of form, which gave it a different sort of utility.

  While I showed her what I’d found, Serru threaded a needle with oddly-colourless thread and neatly stitched the severed strap of his bag back together, since waiting for it to self-repair could apparently take days.

  I’d been gathering under directions above-ground, so the pnts and mushrooms from my small waist-bag were unsurprising. I was less confident about the cave finds in the coral bag but everything would, apparently, have some kind of use—in one case, as a treat for ornithians, which I would never have predicted, and one I’d found several of was tasty in stew, but some of it could be used as potion ingredients or sold because I didn’t know those potions. One gently-glowing crystal was a mystery to Serru and, when he joined us, to Terenei as well. That neither recognized it surprised me more than anything else.

  “If someone wanted to sell that at the shop,” Terenei said, “I have to admit, I’d go ask my grandfather. I can identify all the common ingredients and I know roughly how rare they are in Coppersands so I know what they’re worth, but that’s completely the wrong colour for the shape of the crystal formation. If it was green, not orange, I’d tell you that you could get a lot for it from an alchemist who does some of the most complex sorts of formus, but I’ve never even heard of them coming in different colours. Probably in a school town someone would be more than happy to buy it as a curiosity and to investigate what it is.”

  “This isn’t the stretch of coast Jaelis and I usually gather in,” Serru said. “Some very bad storms arise without much warning along here. But I’ve made a mental note of where that one came from, so if we find out what it is, or someone wants more in hopes of identifying it, I know where to find them.”

  “Bad storms?” I asked. “How bad?”

  “Thunder, lightning, high wind, heavy rain. We wouldn’t want to travel during one, and while tents can bear some abuse, a storm like that will cause them to colpse outside of a shelter. I usually loop innd from Coppersands to Whalesong Landing, but it...” She sighed. “It would be a longer and inefficient route to reach the Quincunx and the risks are not so high that we need to make that choice, can we leave it at that? Don’t fret over it, I’m keeping watch on all the factors that tend to combine to create that sort of storm. How are you feeling?”

  “What? I...” I paused to take stock. It wasn’t as easy as it might sound, trying to transte the sensations I’d registered when nding as a felid into how I currently felt as a centaur. “I think healing is well underway, at least.”

  “Good. One less thing to be concerned about. Supper should be ready.” Serru tugged at the strap of Aryennos’ satchel to be sure that it was secure, and got up, leaving it in the wagon with his damaged clothes.

  “The ornithians have eaten,” Terenei added. “I’ll give them a st serving just before we call it a night. Aryennos? Food can help potions work more effectively.”

  “Let him rest a bit,” I said. “We can try to get him to eat after we do. With any luck, by then he’ll be feeling better. But I’m keeping Anodyne ready.”

  “The potion you used should be effective for much longer than this,” Terenei said, “but anything can be overwhelmed by enough pain. I’ll get the food, don’t get up.”

  There wasn’t much conversation over the meal, which was one of Serru’s usual tasty mixtures.

  I did a quick Diagnosis on Aryennos before we disturbed him. The concussion was greatly improved, and his shoulder now read as “damage to connective tissue, nerve, and muscle secondary to an anterior dislocation” which prompted me to do a no-contact visual re-assessement. His shoulder no longer looked out of pce.

  That should reduce the pain massively, all by itself. It didn’t mean he was getting full use of his arm back yet, though. I did adjust the sling so that it no longer included the rolled bnket.

  Aryennos was more lucid when we gently roused him. While I stayed there to be a backrest and keep an eye on him and offer extra hands, and Serru and Terenei did what they could to compensate for the fact that he still had only one good arm, he could at least eat without difficulty. When patients start getting frustrated about limitations, I take it as a good sign.

  Aryennos was sharing my tent overnight, I wasn’t accepting arguments on that, and probably by tomorrow he’d be mostly back to normal—although I was gd that walking wasn’t going to be in the cards right away. In the back of the wagon, he could finish healing. Which meant we’d weathered another crisis successfully.

  Despite the first of the Lulbye Drops, I still woke up in the night to find that Aryennos had somehow migrated to snuggle against me in his sleep. There should have been plenty of room, I was in my felid form, but possibly he was just rattled and had been looking for some reassurance. I stayed where I was, and fell back asleep without difficulty or dreams.