During the afternoon of April 12th, 208 AR.
It did not take long for word to get out, even from the Rememdium.
* * * * *
The nurse seated in the reception area did not immediately look up at the sound of the door opening. She just said, "Welcome to the Rememdium. Have a seat, and the doctor will see to you momentarily."
"No," replied a hollow, flat voice -- a man's voice, devoid of any feeling, of any warmth. "The doctor will see to me now."
The nurse, having dealt before with insistent (and, sometimes, outright rude) people, had a response prepared before the man even finished speaking. But something in the man's voice, or perhaps a distinct lack of something, gave her pause; and then she looked up...
She bolted to her feet, shouting for help.
* * * * *
Coran had visited the Rememdium in the past, when friends had been wounded and were recovering. Too, he and another channeler -- Pasi -- had both worked the miracle of Power-based Healing in the building. As a result, his face was not unknown there -- just uncommon. So it was something of a surprise to see the tall, young channeler in the Rememdium...
... particularly as a patient.
* * * * *
"This," said the doctor, "is going to hurt."
"Do it," Coran told him. Still wrapped in the cold comfort of the Void, he was distantly aware of the pain in his shoulder, the warmth of the blood trickling down his arm, chest, and back; but he did not actually experience these things. They were happening to someone else. Light, Coran thought, catching a brief glimpse of growing weariness, of dwindling shock. Why? Why me?
Coran glanced at the arrow protruding from his left shoulder. It had gone through cleanly, so far as the doctor had been able to tell. An inch or two lower, however, the doctor had said while pushing his glasses to the bridge of his nose, and we'd been having an entirely different conversation. The arrow head -- a sharp, triangular thing -- had narrowly missed scraping his collarbone, which would have introduced Coran to a whole new realm of pain. Bone pain, the doctor had said while gently touching the exit wound, ensuring the skin had not already begun to seal around the arrow's shaft, was the worst possible pain for a human being to experience.
Coran did not wince; he did not even blink. The Void was all. The Void enveloped him in unfeeling solitude. Aislinn, Coran thought, an image of his wife flashing through his mind. Light, she must be hysterical by now. Surely she felt something through the--
Pain. Pain erupted around the Void, first a dusky red cloud, then a violent, bright carmine, like arterial blood. It poured itself over the Void, covering it completely; and it pulsed quickly, harshly, threatening to collapse it. Coran held on, though, clinging to the protection the Void provided, mustering every ounce, every scrap of willpower he could to maintain the calm focus required to even summon the Void into existence.
He did not utter a sound. He barely seemed to breathe.
Coran stole a sidelong glance at what the doctor was doing.
The doctor had retrieved a small saw, and was now cutting off the rear quarter of the arrow. The doctor was obviously being careful, but that did nothing to lessen the pain. Without the Void, Coran knew he would have been in absolute agony. Another swift, sharp pulse; the Void trembled in response. Coran looked at Ariane, who was seated on a three-legged stool across from him, and he could only wonder how strange, how unsettling, it must be to watch this.
The doctor, apparently finished, placed the saw and the severed piece of arrow on a nearby tray. Removing a kerchief from a pocket, he wiped the protruding end of the shaft to clear it of any dust and debris. Then, to Coran, he said: "Alright. That was the easy part. For the next part, you'll want to take a deep breath. It'll be quick, but it's still going to feel ... unique."
An interesting choice of words, Coran thought. He sensed a flicker of wry humor flutter across the surface of the Void.
Already the pain was dissipating; too, the Void had solidified. Regardless, he exhaled slowly ... and then closed his eyes and took in a deep, steadying breath, as the doctor had recommended.
The doctor took it as a sign of readiness. Placing one hand on the young channeler's shoulder and gripping the arrow's shaft at the point just in front of the exit wound, he paused for a split-second to check his grip ... and then, in one swift, smooth motion, pulled the arrow out.
* * * * *
"I know that young man," said one of the nurses.
"So do I," said another, checking the freshness of a vial of ground herbs. She was older than the first, but had started working at the Rememdium only in the last year or so. "I remember the flood, too. That boy saved a lot of lives."
"I've seen him in here before," said the first nurse. "Never as a patient, though. I thought, maybe, you know, considering..."
"What? Because he can channel, he's invincible? Faugh!" said the older nurse, shaking her head. "If that were the case, girl, you'd have every would-be hero lined up to learn. Yet there's only a handful of them, or so I hear, so there must be some kind of risk to it."
"Couldn't he just ... I don't know, fix himself?"
The older nurse shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know how it works -- and to be honest, I don't want to know. I like the boy for what he's done, but..."
* * * * *
Later on in the day, around the time for dinner, the nurse from the reception area would tell her family and friends about the man with the strange voice and an arrow in his shoulder, and how that voice had frightened her when she later thought about it. It had sounded ... cold, empty. Soulless.
The first, younger nurse would tell her family and friends about him, too -- but that she had recognized him, and knew him to be a channeler. His name was Coran, but that was all she knew aside from the extent of his injury. Out of curiosity, she'd taken a look at the doctor's record of the channeler's visit. He would be fine, she surmised, just sore and weak in that shoulder and arm for a good, long while.
The next day, their family and friends went on to tell their family and friends, and they then told their family and friends -- and so on, until the word had spread like ripples on a pond.
The other, older nurse, however, had told no one, for she knew better. She knew what kind of trouble that news might stir up, at least among the common folk.
What she did not know or realize, however, was the deeper, more important problem...