Surgery

[Urs Wardell]

The Tranquil Gardens

16 Searing 121

When Urs first began his apprenticeship at the Tranquil Gardens, he learned he’d been using the wrong sort of words. The healers of the Tranquil Gardens didn’t call a corpse a corpse, but a cadaver; a knife was preferably a scalpel; a poultice, potion, or powders were to be called medicine. Curses weren’t curses, not at the Tranquil Gardens, but were known as the flu, gout, or the measles.

Mother’s teachings earned him little with his instructors. They weren’t impressed by the stories he’d memorized. His talents with necromancy weren’t enough and his skill with Semblance did less than he expected; he could see where a patient hurt, but he didn’t have the education required to prescribe treatments.

Mother had taught him to give honey for a throat or a stumbling tongue. The Tranquil Garden explained that honey was fine to calm a sore throat and tongue, but was better used in a mixture to keep a wound or cut clean. He’d learned that grains, like oats, could be milled into a cream to cure rashes of all sorts; this was true, but the Tranquil Garden used various oils to cure rashes without the worry of a scar.

Urs had spent the vast majority of his life in the shallows of the Middens. There, in the underbelly of Kalazi, healing had been scarce and Mother respected. She wasn’t questioned because she never asked her patients any questions. It didn’t matter who or what they were, or why they were injured. The Tranquil Garden was a kind and fair place, but he hadn’t seen the same sort of patients he’d known to visit Mother. Here, they asked questions and were asked questions in turn, busybodies and nosey about the how and the why of treatment.

That sort of thing got your throat sliced in the Middens.

You weren’t supposed to slice throats, not in the upper city but especially not in the Tranquil Garden. His instructors had been firm with that rule, especially.

Everything he learned had been for a more dangerous sort of place. The Tranquil Garden was, well, a more tranquil sort of place.

[Urs Wardell]

Urs was wearing a strange costume made from a thin, hard fabric. It was a sort of blue dress. Strings and ribbons had been used to tie it in place. He imagined he looked like a fancy ham or turkey, all dressed up for a special holiday feast. It seemed unnecessary, when he knew an apron would do just fine; but he’d been assured this was the same uniform worn by all of the practicing surgeons and necromancers at the Tranquil Gardens.

He was fumbling with a strange slip of blue material, not unlike the rest of his costume; a mask, they’d called it. It wasn’t like any sort of mask he’d seen before, barely large enough to cover his nose and mouth, let alone the entirety of his face. That too, they’d promised, was important. Hygiene, they’d explained.

It all felt neurotic to Urs. He’d seen Mother cut open a leg with a pair of shears; the only thing Mother made sure of was that her body was cleaned and cleansed before any sort of flesh cutting.

That, and if the body was alive, to make sure her hands were fresh and recently washed. She used a variety of powders to keep them clean throughout the process but those were lost to him. Apparently, the Tranquil Gardens hadn’t the recipe either, because Urs couldn’t imagine any of the surgeons enjoying working in this strange blue outfit. It rubbed uncomfortably against his skin.

He sighed, his breath caught in his mask - it inflated slightly, like a sad - what was the word? - balloon. He hadn’t imagined his apprenticeship to be easy. He didn’t know much about surgery. Urs had expected there to be a learning curve; but he couldn’t have guessed how precariously steep that curve would be.

There’d been new words to learn, because his hadn’t been appropriate. New protocol, because while clean hands were important, the surgeons at the Tranquil Gardens had all sorts of things they prepared before surgery.

He hadn’t left an easy life, back below in the Warrens. Still, it’d been a life he knew to navigate. Urs was starting with little, aside Mother’s book, and it was becoming clear that even that wasn’t enough.

[Urs Wardell]

A dead body - no, a cadaver - had been arranged on a metal table that had been wheeled in before him. Three of his instructors, their masks arranged so he could only see the colors of their eyes, stood on one side of the cadaver; Urs was standing on the other side.

A test. There weren’t many cadavers in the city. There were funerals and memorials here, where the body was displayed and buried or burned. There weren’t many who asked that their bodies were given to the hospital for training. The Tranquil Gardens did reuse what they had, but after the third or fourth reconstruction, the bodies didn’t hold up in the same way.

The Tranquil Gardens hadn’t explained where they acquired new cadavers.

And so, the surgical apprentices were asked to prove their talent and knowledge. Urs had readily demonstrated his understanding of anatomy and was quick to memorize the hygiene protocols. His instructors asked him to the surgical laboratory for his final test.

If he ever hoped to practice on flesh again, at least legally, he needed to prove he was familiar with the various surgeon tools. Urs had spent the last few days studying. He wasn’t sure what they’d ask, but if his previous tests were any indication, he needed to come prepared.

“...and these?” The taller of the three asked, pointing at a page.

“Retractors,” Urs said, “A surgeon would use those to peel back the skin, or retractors of a stronger material, to peel back the ribs or other corporal material.”

“Good,” the shortest of the three said, before flipping the page to show a different picture. “Tool name and use, please.”

The picture detailed a strange sort of scissors, thin and sharp, but of a sturdier metal than those used to cut the flesh. “...bone scissors,” he tried to sound more confident than he was, “You’d use them to break bone neatly.”

“Explain,” the last of the three said, “How you would seal a body.” There wasn’t any image to accompany his question; he closed the book and placed it to the side.

“...cautery,” he starts, “Fire can cleanse as well as seal. You could sew it shut, depending on the wound. A cast could be used as well, to bind it.”

The three left without a word - he knew the process; pass or fail, they’d go to deliberate his answers. If he’d satisfied each of the instructors he would be allowed to practice on the hospital’s cadavers.

[Urs Wardell]

It’d been a few days before his instructors sent him any word of his examination. Urs had spent his time waiting as an anxious mess. He wasn’t usually one to get all wrapped up in something so silly; there wasn’t anything keeping him from testing once. A failure would hurt his ego but did relatively little else.

And yet.

He’d felt nauseous with worry. Urs couldn’t help but think whatever reputation he’d built with his instructors would be smashed if he hadn’t answered their questions correctly. He felt that he’d sink in their estimation, if that were even possible. He’d almost been to the point of tears when he’d discovered he’d passed; and then he cried from joy.
…
Urs found himself back in the same room of the examination, with the same cadaver. It was his, they’d said, to practice on and to learn with; they’d suggested small incisions first.

And so that’s what he did.

He had his scissors in one hand and steady the cadaver’s left leg with the other. There, just below the knee, he stabbed the cold, pale flesh and snipped. It wasn’t anything too big, just to practice. Urs measured the incision at about three finger widths. It shocked him that the cadaver didn’t bleed, even if he knew better. It was about six hours after death that the body didn’t bleed.

Mother had taught him that; or her clients had. It wasn’t unusual to have people who’d help dispose of bodies hiding in the Middens until their next job. That, and some of the more colorful ones, would often try to scare a child given the chance. Silly them, to think Mother hadn’t already scared the fear out of him.

He wrote down in his notebook about the incision. Urs wasn’t sure why the doctors here kept detailed notes about their surgeries, but Mother had done the same. It made some sense. More than some, if he was being honest. It’d help in the future, if he saw something similar - a perfect cut like the one he’d made could only be made by something sharp after all.

Better to help him remember. Better to help him learn, too.

[Torin Kilvin]

R E V I E W

Lore:

Surgery:
A Surgeon's Tools
The First Incision
Cataloging Injuries
Hygiene Protocols
Cautery
A Surgeon's Uniform

Points: 5, not to be used for magic.

Injuries/Ailments: None

Loot: None

Notes: A very enjoyable read, makes me want to get my characters injured just so I can watch Urs operate on them. (Seriously, I may want to do this.)