Free Beyond the Boundary Stones (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 3) by Angela Holder Page A

so that blood pools in them?”
    Sar guided their attention to the place. Josiah felt a heavy sense of pressure against his throat, like someone slowly strangling him. He heard a wheezing noise, and saw dull purple blobs overlaying the usual blue whirls of blood flow. “That’s the problem?”
    “It is. Would you stand up please, Lord Renarre?”
    The effect got much worse with Renarre’s shift in posture. Elkan gestured as he explained. “The valves in the veins which usually keep the blood moving toward the heart are damaged, so blood flows backward and builds up in this area. There’s an artery—see it, Josiah?—that carries blood to the tissues in the testicles where the seeds of life are created. The distended veins put pressure on it, constricting it and reducing the flow of blood. Without sufficient blood, the tissues can’t function properly. Feel how much less activity there is than normal.”
    Back home, many people who didn’t want children at the moment, men and women both, came to the Mother’s hall so the wizards could suppress their fertility. Elkan had taught Josiah how it was done. Men’s testicles constantly produced great numbers of tiny sparkling seeds, which the Mother’s power could speed to the end of their lives. That would give a man a few months of infertility until new seeds matured.
    But in Renarre, the tissues that would usually have glittered with life in Josiah’s altered sight were a dull grayish-yellow, only a few dim sparks sputtering. No wonder he wasn’t able to pass that life on to a child. Josiah made a face. At least Elkan had said they could fix the problem.
    Elkan paused and looked at Renarre. “We can restore your fertility. You’re certain that’s what you want us to do?”
    Renarre glanced at the Matriarch. Her expression remained stony. He sighed. “Yes.”
    “All right. Sit back down. This will take half an hour or so.”
    Elkan murmured explanations to Josiah as he and Tobi worked, and occasionally had Josiah and Sar do part of it. The weakened valves had atrophied past repair, and the body had no way of creating new ones, so they couldn’t salvage the distended veins. But there was a whole network of tiny vessels in the area, with many paths for blood to work its way through and travel back to the heart, and most of them were still healthy. Elkan showed Josiah how it was possible to close off the damaged vessels and redirect blood through the sound ones. As one by one the enlarged vessels were sealed, the cramped artery expanded, sending fresh blood into the starved tissues.
    When it was fully clear, Elkan turned his attention to the places where the seeds were generated. “Now that the blockage is cleared, this would heal itself in time, perhaps two or three months. But since time is of the essence, we’ll spare the energy to speed it up.”
    He let Josiah and Sar take one side while he and Tobi attended to the other. This was the simplest sort of healing, just accelerating what would happen anyway. Sar flooded the area with the Mother’s power without any need of direction from Josiah. It was fun to watch how the dull grey brightened to lively yellow and orange. Soon a few seeds appeared, then more, brightening until the whole region sparkled just as Josiah was used to seeing in any healthy man.
    “That will do it,” Elkan said. Sar ended the flow of power and Josiah sat back with a satisfied sigh at a job well done.
    Renarre blinked at them. “That’s it? I feel no different.”
    “Yes,” Elkan told him, as he stretched his fingers and scratched Tobi’s ears. “You should have normal fertility. It’s possible the problem will recur at some point in the future, but we can deal with it again if that happens. For now, I suggest the two of you enjoy relations as usual and allow nature to take its course.” A touch of wariness entered his voice as he looked between Renarre and the Matriarch. “If that’s what you choose to do.” He inclined his