Teleporter (a Hyllis family story #2) (7 page)

The bigger of the two guards stepped over to stare down at Farley’s face, “Aw, man, the side of his face is droopin’ like my granddad’s did when he had his stroke.”

Eva said, “Yes, it looks pretty bad. But I’ve seen this trick with the carotid massage work before,” she gave Tarc a knowing glance. Making the guards think she’d saved Farley should earn them some good will.

Tarc tilted his head slightly and gave a minute shrug. Farley didn’t seem to be coming around and Tarc was beginning to think he’d kept the pressure on long enough that it had caused permanent damage.

Suddenly Daussie appeared and stepped up close to Farley’s head. Tarc assumed that she was probing Farley with her own talent and wondered whether she would be able to figure out what had actually happened. She kept her eyes on Farley for a moment then glanced up at her mother. “It’s a left middle cerebral stroke, isn’t it?”

Astonishment washed over Tarc.
How did she figure that out?!
First of all, Tarc found it surprising enough that she knew the name of the artery. He knew its name because he’d
just
been studying it while wondering whether he could do something like this. Daussie however, must have committed the names of
all
the arteries in the brain to memory! Then he realized that she had arrived
after
he had let normal flow resume in the artery.
If the flow is normal how had she been able to tell which artery had been blocked?

Tarc sent his own ghost into Farley’s head. He immediately recognized that there was something different about the brain tissue in the area fed by the middle cerebral. It wasn’t very different, but he could imagine that Daussie found it easy to recognize that something had happened to that part of the brain. Still, without a blockage still present in the artery, he thought it was amazing that she could deduce that something
had
cut off the blood flow in that area and that was what had made the tissue sick.

Daussie said, “He seems to be getting better though.” She cut her eyes up to Tarc, narrowing them suspiciously then glanced back at Eva’s hands where they still gently rubbed Farley’s neck. “Massaging his carotid seems to be helping a lot, isn’t it Mom?”

Tarc sent his ghost back into Farley’s head. It was starting to get hard to tell which part of Farley’s brain had been different.

Farley let out a groan.

Eva said, “Yes, I think he’s going to recover! Let’s move him over to the treatment table.”

To Tarc’s bewilderment, Eva soon had the two big guards picking Farley up and carrying him over to the big table near the kitchen where Eva usually treated patients. She continued massaging Farley’s neck the entire time she was bossing the two big men around.

By the time they got him over to the table, Farley was beginning to speak. “Wha’ happen’d,” he grunted confusedly.

The biggest guard said in an awed tone, “You had a
stroke
Bossman! The lady here,” the guard nodded at Eva who was still gently massaging Farley’s neck, “she started rubbin’ your neck and you been gettin’ better!” He lowered his voice, “I never heard of nobody getting better from a stroke before.” He leaned down a little closer to Farley’s ear and said, “She’s
really
good! Wish she’d been around for my Gramps.”

Farley slowly woke up, acting confused like anyone else who’d been unconscious for a while. He kept asking what had happened, and the big guard patiently explained it to him over and over again.

Eva stopped massaging the man’s neck and slowly wandered away. She seemed to be wandering aimlessly and Tarc looked at her curiously. Her face had a stricken expression so he got up and walked over to ask her what was the matter.

She stared at him for a moment, then said, “You used your talent to harm another human being!” She looked aside for a moment then turned back to him, “I know, I know, you used your talent to guide knives and harmed a lot of, of, of men when Krait was here. But,” she looked away to gather her thoughts, “those men were… evil.” She turned back to Tarc, “And then… then I… carried out a subterfuge with you, pretending that Mr. Farley had a natural stroke and even worse that
I
was curing him.”

Wide-eyed, Tarc said, “But Mom! Farley was threatening dad!
That’s
pretty evil in its own right.” After a moment he continued, “Besides we didn’t hurt him permanently!”

“We don’t know that!” Eva said almost vehemently. “Cutting off blood flow to that part of his brain might have some permanent effect we don’t recognize.”

“Oh come on! People get choked by the neck, which does the same thing, and recover completely all the time!”

Eva shook her head, “There may be some subtle changes in their mental function that we just can’t detect.”

Tarc shrugged, “If we can’t even tell it happened, I don’t think the loss of function is very important.”

Eva looked off to one side and gave a minute shrug, granting that he might be right. Then she turned back to Tarc, a tear running down her cheek, “Even if we didn’t do him any permanent harm, we did him temporary harm. And then I
lied
to him, well, to the guard, by implying that
I
was the one that made him better.”

Tarc tilted his head as he studied her curiously. “Mom, you
lie
to patients all the time. Your placebos… and telling them you’re ‘thinking’ when you’re actually sitting there sending your talent inside their bodies.”

Eva stared at him for a moment, then her eyes crinkled a little bit at the corner in amusement. “Well, I guess you’re right. I
do
lie to patients all the time, but those are “white lies” intended to help the
patient.
This lie wasn’t intended to help the patient, it was intended to help
me
.”

“And your family! It wasn’t just a lie for you.”

Her eyes drifted away, then returned to him. “Well, that’s true.” She put her arms around him and gave him a hug, Tarc feeling surprised to realize that her head barely reached his shoulder. She whispered, “Thanks. I still feel guilty, but I think I’m going to be able to rationalize it now.”

Tarc clumsily patted her back, feeling like he hadn’t really done anything except tried to justify his own actions.

After about five more minutes, Farley said he wanted to get up. To Tarc’s surprise, his guards wouldn’t let him up until Eva came back over and checked on him. Tarc wasn’t quite sure how Farley had gone from being the bossman to being restrained by his own guards at the whim of a woman whose family he’d been shortchanging on a deal.

Eva proclaimed him ready to sit up and the guards slowly maneuvered him into that position while he protested that he could do it himself. After he sat without trouble for a few minutes she declared him ready to stand. That he did do on his own.

During this whole time, Tarc hadn’t really looked at his father who’d been standing motionlessly over by the bar. When he looked that way now, he saw that Daum appeared to be seethingly angry. Tarc walked over to him, “Do you think this might change Farley’s mind?”

Almost through gritted teeth, Daum said, “I can’t believe Eva’s helping that son of a bitch after what he’s been trying to do to us. She’s always been too much of a do-gooder, but this time she’s gone a little far. She should have just let him die!”

Tarc blinked a couple of times before he realized that Daum didn’t really understand what had just happened. “Um, Dad,
I
stopped the blood flow to part of his brain for a couple of minutes. He didn’t have a
real
stroke.” He paused then worried that Daum didn’t understand the rest of it either. “Mom didn’t really do anything for him. She just pretended to. He was going to get better anyway, as soon as I let the blood flow resume.”

Daum had turned to look at Tarc, realization dawning on his face. Consternation warred with amazement for a moment; then Daum said, “Oh.” He glanced over at Farley, “If you’d kept holding back the blood flow, he would’ve had a permanent stroke wouldn’t he?”

Tarc gave a little shrug, his own eyes going to Farley. “I think so, yeah.”

“Jesus!” Daum whispered.

A subdued Farley eventually left the tavern. On his way out, he stopped at the door and dug in his pocket. “Thank you for saving my life,” he said pulling out a gold coin and handing it to Eva. He looked at Daum who still stood on the other side of the room staring stonily at him. “Tell your husband I apologize for my actions. My offer for your tavern still stands. If you don’t get a better one, you can take advantage of it so that you don’t leave town without anything. The way sentiment is here in town, I don’t think you’ll want to stay, even though I will no longer support any efforts to force you to leave.”

After he was gone, Eva stared at the gold coin for a long time. Eventually Tarc said, “Do you think it’s a counterfeit?”

“No,” she whispered, “I think it’s an ‘ill-gotten gain.’”

After a pause, Tarc said quietly, “Well then, the next time you provide free care for someone who can’t afford it, think of it as working off that gold coin.”

Eva looked up at him for a moment, then said, “Sometimes you know just the right things to say.”

Tarc shrugged, embarrassed. He wandered away to check on the status of his chores.

***

Once Tarc had topped up the wood racks and filled the water barrels and tanks, he headed out to the stable. As he approached, he heard wood banging together. Inside, he wasn’t surprised to find several of the guards practicing with wooden practice swords. He kept a surreptitious eye on their impromptu bouts, while he checked on old Shogun and those of the caravaners’ horses which were stabled in there.

There were three of them in the stable, all larger than average. Not as big as the two guards who’d come with Farley, but they looked much more fit.

While two of them went at each other with small shields and practice swords, the other one turned to Tarc. “You want to give it a go?”

Tarc started and looked at him wide-eyed, “Oh, no! I’ve only had a little training. I’m not much good.”
In fact,
he thought to himself
, I’m pitiful compared to these guys.

The guy grunted, “Somebody said you guys might be going with us on the caravan.”

Tarc nodded uncertainly.

“Well, then you need to
get
good with a sword. If the caravan is attacked, the guards do what they can, but
everyone
needs to be ready to do their part.”

“Um,” was all that Tarc managed in response to this admonition. The man held a practice sword out to him and he took it.

“My name’s Jason,” the man said turning and picking up another practice sword. “We’ll practice without shields since you don’t have one.”

Tarc shuffled slowly back away from Jason, but the man took a lunging step and knocked Tarc’s practice sword out of his hand. He stood slowly up and said, “
That
was pitiful. You need to hold on to that thing like your life depends on it… because it does!” He waved his sword towards where Tarc’s lay in the straw. “Go get it. If your sword ever gets knocked out of your hand in a real fight, you’d
better
be scrambling after it!”

Tarc trotted over to the sword and picked it up. When he stood and turned, Jason was right behind him and knocked the sword out of his hand again. Sullenly, he stood there, flexing his stinging fingers and glaring at the man.

“Jesus kid, aren’t you even going to
try
?”

“You’re not even letting me get ready!”

“Yeah, good fighters
don’t
let you get ready. That’s how half the fights are won, by attacking
before
the other guy’s ready.” Jason gave a little sneer, “Now, are you even going to
try
? Or are you going to hide
Or are you going to OrOr
in the wagons with the girls?”

For a moment, Tarc considered claiming that he was an archer not a swordsman and telling Jason to leave him alone. But then he decided he really should try to learn how to use a sword. Fighting might get too close for arrows or knife throwing and he
should
be able to do something. Suddenly he turned and scrambled after his sword, scrabbling it off the floor and dodging around the other side of one of the stable’s posts. When he stood, as he’d hoped, the post blocked Jason from taking another swing at his sword. Tarc gripped his sword with both hands and held it up on guard like he’d been taught.

Jason stepped forward, “That’s better. Now, let’s see if you can defend yourself.”

He smacked Tarc’s sword point to one side and stepped in.

However, Tarc had tensely been expecting him to try to knock the sword away again and had assumed a rigid grip. Jason’s stroke didn’t move Tarc’s tip very far. When Jason stepped towards Tarc, Tarc had already forced his tip back on line.