Psychicians

by Laurence Dahners

  Tarc said, “I’m not sure there’s much you can do. I think we’ve got to do this by stealth, not by force.”

  Daum shook his head, “What if Kazy gets exhausted again? If she has to expend so much effort just getting you there that she doesn’t have the energy left to… alter the baron?”

  Tarc turned to Kazy, “Would you have to work harder to hide more people?”

  She shrugged, “Not if they stay together. What I’m doing has nothing to do with who I’m hiding. It has everything to do with how many people I’m hiding you from and how far away they are. It being dark is going to help, but we should be dressed in our best clothes as well. Between the poor lighting and the fancy dress, we won’t arouse suspicion until they get close—then I can do my thing more easily.”

  Daum said, “So, I’d just as well go along. If you needed any help dealing with guards, I’d never forgive myself if I wasn’t there.”

  “It’d be better if I was the one to go,” Eva said. “Then, if Kazy needs any help suppressing guardsmen’s instincts, I can try to help.”

  “But, if Kazy’s not strong enough to do it…” Tarc began, trailing off before pointing out how much weaker Eva’s telepathy was.

  Eva’s jaw set, “Maybe I’ll be able to help somehow.” She glanced at Daum, “I also don’t want to hate myself afterward if I could’ve made a difference.” She shook her head, “I’ve been hating myself this afternoon, despite repeatedly reminding myself that I probably wouldn’t be able to help.”

  Daum sighed, “We’d better knock off early and get a little rest before…” He paused at the sound of shouting outside. He pushed the door open and said, “Crap!” They could all see a man on a horse outside, shouting about needing a healer.

  Everyone knew setting up the tavern wouldn’t stand between Eva and caring for a patient.

  The man told them it was a knife wound to the back. Fortunately, the patient himself had been taken to the existing tavern where all their equipment was still in the clinic upstairs.

  Eva commandeered the man’s horse for Tarc and he rode off.

  Daum quickly saddled Brownie and Bayby so Eva and Kazy could follow as quickly as possible.

  ~~~

  By the time Eva and Kazy arrived, Tarc had evaluated the situation. The man had indeed been stabbed in his posterior flank region. A laceration of his right kidney was what was bleeding. He was laid out on his stomach on one of the tables. Tarc had one of the man’s friends holding his feet up in the air to drain blood out of his legs toward his heart.

  Tarc was holding pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. To the man’s friends, the pressure was coming from the bar towel Tarc had folded and pressed against the wound by hand. What was actually stopping the bleeding was back pressure on the bleeding surfaces from Tarc’s telekinesis.

  Tarc quickly explained the situation to his mother, “His pulse rate’s high. I think his blood pressure must be low from how soft his arteries feel. There’s some blood around the kidney, but from what his friends say there was a whole lot more on the floor where he got stabbed. He also lost quite a bit in transit to here.”

  Eva turned to Kazy, “Tarc won’t be able to hold back the bleeding forever. Get the collagen.” She looked around at the large gaggle of the man’s friends. They all looked concerned, but at present they were only standing around the tavern acting as spectators. Raising her voice, she said, “We can’t work with all of you in here. Two of you can stay. The rest need to get out and give us some room.” When they all started looking at one another and none of them started toward the door, Eva picked out the biggest man and said, “You. What’s your name?”

  He ducked his head and said, “They call me Little Joe.”

  Eva said, “Well, Little Joe, you can stay. You and the guy holding up our patient’s feet. If you care about your friend here, throw the rest of those guys out.”

  Eva leaned back down near Tarc so she could speak quietly enough that only he would hear. “This guy needs fluid. As soon Kazy’s back down here, stuff some collagen in that wound. I’ll be upstairs getting stuff for an IV.”

  “Um, Mom, without Daussie here, getting the collagen in there’s going to be a little more difficult.”

  “Oh,” she said thoughtfully, obviously not having considered some of the issues. “You mean because she can’t just port it out of the jar and into the kidney wound, right?”

  Tarc nodded, sending his voice into her ear canal. “Just getting it out of the jar without contaminating the rest of the collagen in the jar is one problem. Then getting the powder into the wound, and from there into the kidney, those are problems in their own right. Moving powder with my talent’s kind of like herding cats. At least some of the powder flies off out of my control.”

  “I could get one of our sterile spoons to scoop it out of the jar,” Eva said contemplatively.

  Tarc nodded, “At least then these guys,” his eyes indicated Little Joe and the fellow holding their patient’s feet, “probably wouldn’t think that looked as witchy as having the powder fly out of the jar and into the guy’s wound. But, I don’t think one spoonful will be enough.”

  “You’ll just have to scoop up some more.”

  “After I’ve taken the spoon over and poured some of the powder into the wound on the guy’s back, the spoon’s not going to be sterile anymore. When I go back for some more it’s going to contaminate the entire jar of collagen.”

  Sounding frustrated, Eva said, “We’ll just have to buy some more.” She grimaced, “We should’ve separated it into packets, each one big enough for a single patient.”

  “Yeah, we’ve also got to give more thought to the possibility one of us won’t be here,” he said, thinking about how difficult this was without Daussie. “We need to work on strategies for how we’re going to treat people without our best team.” He looked up unhappily at his mother, “If we contaminate that whole jar of collagen and someone else needs some before the Gellers can make more…”

  Kazy’d arrived back at the table with the jar of collagen, a bottle of moonshine, and one of their sterile spoons. She’d obviously been thinking ahead. She stepped to the head of the table and began murmuring to the patient and the man visibly relaxed.

  Eva began very carefully unwrapping the spoon, folding open the cloth it was wrapped in so that the sterile inner layers remained that way as a sterile field, face-up on the table with the spoon lying in the middle. She unscrewed the lid on the jar of collagen until it was loose but still on top, then reached for the spoon.

  Tarc said, “Wait. Pour some of the collagen out onto your sterile field.”

  “Good idea,” she said picking up the jar. She gently lifted the lid as she tipped the jar to pour out some collagen. She didn’t have to tilt it all the way because Tarc started pushing the powder up and over the edge once it got close. It poured directly onto the spoon, but spilled around it as well. Eva started tilting the jar back up to stop the flow as soon as the spoon was full.

  Tarc spoke into her ear, “Don’t stop. Pour quite a bit more in case we need it. Enough for five or six spoonsful.” Eva gave him a questioning look and he said, “Every time you open the lid to pour some more you’re upping the chance that you might contaminate the rest of the collagen in the jar. Better to waste a few spoonsful than increase the chance you’re going to contaminate the rest of it and possibly infect a bunch of future patients.”

  Eva gave him a sharp nod and poured more out onto the sterile cloth next to the spoon.

  She started to pick up the spoon, but Tarc spoke in her ear again, “Let me do that. It’ll give me better control. Can you prep the wound with a little moonshine?”

  Eva nodded and picked up the jar of moonshine. She started to loosen the stopper, then said, “Damn. We usually use the wrapper to wipe on the alcohol, but this time we’re using the wrapper as our sterile field. Can you hold the bleeding long enough for me to go get a packet of sterile gauze?”

  Tarc nodded. Ev
a quickly headed for the stairs. When she got back she started using some gauze to swab off the patient’s back, Tarc whispered into her ear, “Somewhere in my reading I saw something about ‘double wrapping’ sterile items. I think it was mostly to keep them more sterile, but it’d also give us a second piece of cloth for situations like this.” Eva nodded, but Tarc kept speaking, “I can keep the guy holding the man’s feet from seeing what I’m doing by blocking his view with the towel I’ve been applying the pressure with. Can you send Little Joe outside to tell his friends the patient’s doing well so far? That’ll keep him from seeing anything weird happening with the powder.”

  While Eva was doing so, Tarc picked the spoonful of collagen up carefully by its handle and moved it near the wound. As soon the big man turned toward the door, Tarc lifted the towel with his left hand and tilted the spoon into the wound, pushing the powder down through the wound with his telekinesis.

  It turned out the problem with moving the powder was less than he’d expected in terms of getting the powder off the spoon and into the wound. But once the powder got into the injury it got bloody and sticky, clinging to the tissue. It seemed to Tarc that almost the entire first spoonful got stuck to the surfaces of the laceration in the man’s flank. Only a few flakes actually made it all the way down into the bleeding site in the kidney. Fortunately, the next spoonful didn’t cling because the surfaces it might stick to were already coated with collagen powder. He managed to guide most of the next four spoonsful through the wound and into the laceration in the kidney, packing it in under a little bit of pressure.

  Eva was leaning close and observing with her ghirit. She said, “Are you going to be able to get that extra powder back out of the flank wound?”

  Tarc shrugged, “As far as my ghirit’s concerned it’s much like the tissue I’m trying to separate it from, so it’s not working very well.” Having an idea, he tried scooping and scraping it out with the spoon. That worked fairly well. “How about if we try washing the rest out with some saline? We should be washing the wound anyway, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Good idea. We probably should have done that before putting in the powder.” Eva straightened up and headed back toward the stairs.

  Tarc inserted his voice into her ear again. “Bring a clamp too. Then we can use it to swab the wound out with some gauze … Oh, and don’t forget your suture kit.”

  Tarc eased off the pressure he’d been keeping in the wound. The bleeding had essentially stopped except for one small arterial squirter. He successfully cauterized the artery with his telekinesis. Moments later the wound was essentially dry.

  By the time Tarc had washed out the flank wound, Eva had carried down one of the big saline bottles she’d had a local glass blower make. It even had a coiled glass tube like her old ones. Daussie had made and sharpened a hollow needle to fit the end of the tube. Eva had Little Joe hold it up and turn it into position so Tarc could insert the needle. He expected it to be difficult, but with his ghirit showing him where the man’s vein was, the needle easily popped into the back of his hand. This despite the fact that—because of blood loss—the vein didn’t have much blood holding it open to give him a bigger target.

  The difficult part was keeping the needle in the vein while the saline ran in.

  While Eva sutured up the wound in the man’s back, Kazy went out to get them something to eat. While Kazy was gone, Vyrda arrived and Eva was able to walk her through putting in the last of the stitches. While they were bent over the wound together, she also asked Vyrda if she’d stay with the patient that night—since the Hyllises needed to “see about Daussie.”

  She didn’t explain what they actually intended to do.

  ~~~

  Little Joe was astonished when the woman healer in charge sent the young girl out to buy them some food. It was dusk, not a good time for a girl to be on the streets. He thought about saying something, but the lady was bossy.

  So, he didn’t.

  Then Vyrda Soh came in. At first Little Joe expected Soh to take over since she was well known as the best healer in town. Instead, to Joe’s surprise, the boss lady started teaching Soh how to sew the wound in Robbie’s back.

  Little Joe shook his head. He was certainly going to have a lot of tales to tell. Holding up the bottle of water while they stuck a needle in Robbie and seemingly drained a couple of liters of water into the back of his hand—without it even swelling up. Then, sewing up the wound in Robbie’s back as if they were darning up a sock. The fact that Robbie was still alive was surprising enough, but the way he slept through all the stuff they did to him was astonishing.

  The teenage boy went upstairs for something, so it was just Little Joe and Terry, who’d been holding Robbie’s feet, still in the room with the two women. That was when Willie Pete slammed open the back door and strode in. Willie had a kerchief over his face, but there was no doubt who it was.

  Willie was carrying his infamous sword, already out of its scabbard. He had the kind of wild-eyed look he got when he’d been drinking. Pointing his sword at Robbie, Willie said, “Ladies, that there is some of my unfinished business. Step back.” He turned his eyes on Little Joe and Terry, saying, “I got no quarrel with you guys. You stand back and Lady Cynthia here,” he waved the sword, “won’t have no quarrel with you either.”

  Little Joe backed away, as did Terry. Little Joe was big and strong and liked to fight, but he was no match for a sword. Especially Willie’s Lady Cynthia.

  Vyrda Soh shrunk back as soon as Willie Pete came in, but the boss healer lady stepped between Willie and her patient, moving closer to Willie. She spoke calm as could be, saying, “He’s my patient now. If you’re going to hurt him, you’re going to have to go through me.”

  Little Joe thought, She has no idea who Willie Pete is, or she wouldn’t be saying that kind of shit! Nonetheless, he admired her courage.

  Suddenly, the teenage boy turned the corner out of the stairs. It only seemed to take him a second to size up the situation. He shouted at Willie, “Back the hell away from her!”

  Willie Pete swung Lady Cynthia from the woman toward the boy and said, “Now that just wasn’t polite!”

  Little Joe was thinking that those were the kind of words Willie Pete said right before he killed someone.

  Willie Pete stepped toward the boy.

  Unbelievably, the woman stepped toward Willie.

  The sword swung back toward the boss-lady healer, then Willie stumbled, staggered to one side, dropped Lady Cynthia clattering to the floor and followed her down. Once he was on the floor he shat himself and lay there quivering.

  Little Joe was blinking and wondering what the hell had just happened when the boy stepped over and jerked a knife out of Willie Pete’s eye socket.

  Where the hell’d that come from? Joe wondered. The boy quickly wiped the knife on Willie Pete’s shirt, then the weapon vanished.

  Little Joe’s next thought was, The kid didn’t throw that knife… Did he?

  The guardia chose that moment to finally arrive. Little Joe had heard they’d shut down the Hyllis Tavern and were forcing the Hyllises to move outside the walls, so he suspected their slow response had something to do with the location the guardia was coming to.

  Whether the guardia was on the outs with the Hyllises or not, they certainly hated Willie Pete. Willie’d been terrorizing people for a long time. He was an excellent swordsman and he’d simply intimidated a few guardsmen out of arresting him. The guardia sergeant in charge perfunctorily checked Little Joe and Terry for knives but didn’t even consider the kid. He immediately accepted Little Joe’s assertion that someone had stepped in the back door, thrown the knife that killed Willie and disappeared.

  A few hours later Little Joe had convinced himself that someone must’ve come in and thrown the knife. Or that, possibly, the kid had taken a wild throw with his work knife and just gotten impossibly lucky.

  ***

  When they got to the castle gate, the two guards looked like they we
re about to doze off. Tarc thought they’d have to wake one of them up so Kazy could influence him to open the gate. Instead, Kazy said, “Eva, if you’ll keep the guy on the right asleep, I’ll see what I can do with the guy on the left.”

  A moment later, the two women were in the guard shack with the guardsmen. The one Eva was assigned to started snoring. A moment later Kazy’s guardsman got up and, walking like he was in a trance, stepped around and opened the gate. After the four of them had walked through the gate, he went back into the guardhouse and slumped down in his chair again.

  As they continued on up the hill toward the offices, Tarc said, “Was that hard? Is it going to take the energy out of you?”

  Kazy shrugged, “A little harder than just making them friendly. At the next gate, why don’t you ask the guard to let you in? I’ll make him like you.”

  Eva said, “I should try doing that. Kazy, why don’t you just stand by in case I’m not successful?”

  When they reached the next gate there were two guards again. One looked asleep, but the other appeared to be fully awake. Eva walked up to them and said hello without disturbing the one who was asleep. She glanced at Tarc. He said, “Please let us in. We have an appointment with Ronald James.” He didn’t know whether the financier actually lived in the palace or not, but he was the only one of the baron’s associates they had a name for.

  The guard didn’t seem to be disturbed by the request. Without asking any questions, he calmly opened the gate so they could go in.

  Climbing the rest of the way up to the palace, Tarc decided it was much better wandering the grounds at night. There were far fewer people about, and even with a partial moon, you’d have to get close to someone before they’d notice you weren’t supposed to be there.

  The gates at the third guardhouse also let them through without difficulty under Eva’s influence. Once inside they went directly to the wives’ apartments so they could check on Daussie.

  As they approached, Kazy put a hand on Tarc’s arm, “Daussie’s upset.”