'It is peace,' said Zozimus impatiently, for after listening to Morsh Bataar's agony he wanted peace for the man more than anything else.
'It is peace,' agreed Sken-Pitilkin. 'But sometimes death is the measure of that peace.'
Then the two wizards went to see Morsh Bataar.
From the gruesome account of Morsh Bataar's injury which had been delivered to him in Gendormargensis, Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin had got the impression that the boy's broken thighbone had ruptured through the skin, an injury which would have virtually guaranteed his death.
But on being admitted to the tent which sheltered the boy, Sken-Pitilkin found the skin unbroken. Battalions of leeches were feasting on the thigh, doing their best to suck every drop of blood from the injured limb.
'It was Jarl who insisted on the leeches,' said Zozimus.
'We've had half a thousand people looking for them, and still they look for more, though leeches in such quantity must surely kill.'
'The blood must be drawn from the wound,' said Sken-Pitilkin equitably, 'and the leech is a precision instrument superbly designed for that express purpose. How do you feel, Morsh?'
Morsh Bataar spoke his pain in pain, spoke it in a mewling cry which evidenced long torture and the imminence of death. His pain was the measure of his strength, for a weaker man would have long since lost the power of protest.
'The opium,' said Zozimus impatiently.
'There is more to healing than ramming strong drugs down the throats of your patients,' said Sken- Pitilkin.
'But Jarl said – '
'Since when do wizards command themselves by the sayings of the Rovac?' said Sken-Pitilkin sharply.
'I am in danger of my life,' said Zozimus, 'hence will command myself by whoever knows best.'
'Then be commanded by me,' said Sken-Pitilkin, endeavoring the calm the Witchlord's over-agitated slug-chef. 'Be commanded, for I fancy that I have more of the healing arts than have you.'
'So you say,' said Zozimus. 'But Jarl says that pain will be the death of the boy even if nothing else kills him.'
'The pain,' said Sken-Pitilkin, 'is consequent upon the fracture. The boy's bone is broken.'
'That much I have divined,' said Zozimus stiffly.
'The bone of the thigh lies broken in the flesh,' said Sken-Pitilkin, continuing in his best classroom manner. 'With the bone broken, the muscles of the leg strive to shorten the leg. Thus broken bone is pulled against broken bone, and the result is an agony your most expert torturer would be hard put to better.'
'Why,' said Zozimus, in sarcastic imitation of admiration, 'you speak with the fluency of a very pox doctor!'
'Thus have I made my living in the past,' said Sken-Pitilkin, admitting this secret without shame. 'It is the truth, Pelagius. A broken bone is no big thing in itself, but the gritting together of the ends of the bone is living hell.'
'So,' said Zozimus, seeing the nature of the cure now that he understood the problem, 'we must separate the ends of the broken bones to ease the pain of our patient. Do you think your wizardry the equal of the task?'
'I would not trust my wizardry with a tenth of it,' said Sken-Pitilkin, who, as a wizard of Skatzabratzumon – an order dedicated to the mastery of the mysteries of levitation – had no special powers relevant to the cure of the flesh. 'Still, mere mechanical skill may succeed where wizardry fails. I believe I can build something efficient for our purposes. Guest! Guest Gulkan!
Where are you, boy?' Guest Gulkan manifested himself in response to this shout, and, at Sken-Pitilkin's orders, mustered up a raiding party. Sken-Pitilkin led this party aboard one of the barges tied up by the riverbank – the barges earlier commandeered by the Witchlord for the feeding of his multitude – and this barge they then looted thoroughly.
'What now?' said Zozimus, once the looting was done, and Sken-Pitilkin had a great heap of rope, sticks, spars, planks and sailcloth at his disposal.
'Now?' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'We build!'
As the power to levitate objects can be enhanced by the adroit use of pulleys, levers and inclined planes, wizards of the order of Skatzabratzumon had long been diligent in their studies of such devices, and Sken-Pitilkin was well equipped to oversee the building of a stretching machine. Under his supervision, men worked through the night, and by dawn had finished the thing. The contraption looked very like a torturer's rack, and worked on exactly the same principle.
'Tenderly, now,' said Sken-Pitilkin, as his team of well- briefed assistants gathered around the recumbent Morsh Bataar.
'Guest. Thodric. Secure the harness.'
Working as carefully as they could, Guest Gulkan and Thodric
Jarl secured Morsh Bataar's shoulders and the foot of his injured leg in the padded imprisonment of leather harness-work.
'Ready?' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'Very well. On my command, begin to pull. Steady but sure.'
'Don't!' cried Morsh Bataar, piteous in his fear. 'Don't hurt me!'
'This is not pain but its cure,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'Guest.
Thodric. Are you ready? Well – remember you work against muscle, so be ready for resistance. On the count of three. One. And two.
And three.'
Then Thodric Jarl and Guest Gulkan applied their strength, the one hauling on the foot of the injured leg, the other pulling back on the shoulders.
Morsh Bataar screamed.
'Steady, boys!' said Sken-Pitilkin.
'You're hurting him,' said Eljuk Zala, advancing on Guest Gulkan as if to attack him. 'Let him go! You're hurting him!'
At that, the sagacious Sken-Pitilkin reached out with his country crook, slipped it round Eljuk Zala's neck, then dragged him backwards. Taken by surprise, Eljuk fell backwards, whereupon the nimble-witted Pelagius Zozimus sat on him.
'Keep it steady, boys,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'Now. Slow but sure. Use your strength. He's a strong man, and you work against his greatest muscles. Strength, boys!'
Then Thodric Jarl and Guest Gulkan stretched Morsh Bataar in earnest, and as the two ends of grating bone were dragged apart the most amazing relief came into Morsh Bataar's face.
'A little more,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'Just a little more.
Right. Hold him! If you let him go, you kill him!'
This was the devilish part of stretching the patient. Once stretched, he must stay stretched, for the broken ends of his own thighbone were weapons which might kill him if he was released from the tension under which he had been placed. Quite apart from the question of pain, the sharp edges of broken bones can be wicked devices for the severing of blood vessels.
'Gather round,' said Sken-Pitilkin.
The dwarf Glambrax and the Rovac warrior Rolf Thelemite knelt alongside Morsh Bataar, slipped their hands under his body and awaited the order to lift.
'Pelagius,' said Sken-Pitilkin, seeking to command his cousin into action.
'The boy,' said Zozimus, who was still sitting on Eljuk Zala.
'This boy Eljuk. He's not safe to let loose.'
'Then I'll sit on him,' said Sken-Pitilkin, and matched deed to word so Pelagius Zozimus could join Glambrax and Rolf Thelemite alongside Morsh Bataar. 'On the count of three,' said Sken-Pitilkin, speaking from his new- found throne. 'One. And two. And three.'
Morsh Bataar groaned as he was lifted, then cried out sharply as he was set down on the stretching machine with a slight bump. A slight bump it was to those who were handling him, but Morsh himself – why, poor Morsh felt as if he had just been dropped off a mountain.
'Easy, Morsh,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'We're almost done.'
Then, while Guest Gulkan and Thodric Jarl maintained the tension on Morsh Bataar's foot and shoulders,
