Psychicians

by Laurence Dahners

  “What about?”

  She shook her head, “I don’t know. At this distance, I can only pick up strong emotions.”

  Wanting to know what was going on before actually having to talk to her with his parents nearby, Tarc reached out with his ghirit before they got there. To his relief, Daussie was alone in her room. Next, he reached out and grasped a little bit of the air in her room to create sound, “Daussie, it’s Tarc. Kazy says you’re upset?”

  “Yeah,” she responded, “The baron was just here. I thought you and Kazy were going to track him down and adjust him? If you think you did it already, tell Kazy it didn’t stick.”

  “We couldn’t find him. Walking around up here during the day… It was a problem. Kazy had to use her talent so much just getting guardsmen not to arrest us that she got exhausted. So, we’ve come back tonight. What was the bastard doing in your room?”

  “Pressing his suit. When I told him holding me prisoner wasn’t the way to get me to like him, he decided kissing me would probably work better.”

  “Did you break his arms?” Tarc growled.

  Daussie snorted a little giggle, “No, but I thought about it. I just gave him a cayenne induced sneezing fit. When he got that in control and looked like he might start trying to kiss me again I gave him a bloody nose.”

  “You punched him?!”

  “No,” she laughed again, “I ported a tiny hole into the membranes inside his nose.”

  “Oh,” Tarc said thoughtfully. “Do you have any idea where he went? Tracking him down was a big problem this afternoon.”

  “Probably to one of his other wives.”

  “Wait, ‘other wives’? Are you already considering yourself to be one of his wives? Did you have some kind of ceremony or something?”

  “No! But he’s already calling me his wife. When I tell him I’m definitely not, he says I should be patient. He thinks it’s just a matter of time.” She sighed, “At least he didn’t try choking me. I talked to one of the other wives and she said it hurts and not being able to draw a breath’s a horrible sensation.”

  “Okay,” Tarc sent. “Let me talk to the others and I’ll get back to you in a moment.” They’d all just arrived at the place where he and Kazy had talked to Daussie earlier in the day. The rest of them were looking at him questioningly. He filled them in on what’d happened, then said, “Daussie thinks the baron’s here in the apartment somewhere, visiting one of his wives. Let me see if I can tell where he is.”

  As Tarc sent out his ghirit, he could tell from the expressions on Eva and Kazy’s faces that they were doing the same. The big building had a big central room with a lot of smaller rooms around it. Tarc had been thinking he would find one person in each of the rooms—presumably one of the wives—and two people in one of the rooms, presumably the baron and one of his wives. Instead, he found one person, Daussie, in one room, two people in another, and three people in a third room. There were four people in a cluster, two inside and two outside the main doors on the opposite side of the building.

  Assuming the two people were the baron and a wife, Tarc spoke to Daussie and his family at the same time. “Daussie, the baron’s with one of his wives four rooms to the east of you. Can you climb out your window? Then we can all walk down to that room together. I’m thinking Kazy can make them ignore us while you cut their window latch so we can get into the room. Then Mom can put the wife to sleep while Kazy’s doing her adjustment.”

  Kazy touched his arm for attention, but Tarc was busy listening to Daussie. She said, “Um… Tarc, the baron’s with two of his wives in the room on the north side.”

  In a flash, Tarc sent his ghirit over to the room with three people. He felt himself blushing with embarrassment as he realized that two of the people in that room were having sex. The other person… He wasn’t sure what she was doing. She was very close to the two that were having sex but at this distance, Tarc’s ghirit couldn’t give enough definition to tell whether or not she was actually involved in whatever they were doing.

  He glanced at Kazy. She said, “The baron’s in—”

  “I know,” he interrupted, feeling self-conscious all over again. Stifling his curiosity about what the baron and his wives were doing, he surveyed the building’s layout and again sent his words to Daussie while speaking aloud to the others, “Um, sorry. Can you let us in your window, then we’ll walk through the middle of the building over to the north side?”

  “There’re bars on my window,” Daussie said. “I’d have to cut a bunch of them for you to get in. How about if I just cut the latch on the west door? You guys are pretty close to it, right?”

  “Um, sure,” Tarc said. He explained the plan to the others as he started moving toward the west door. The door was very heavy and had two bars across it on the inside, each secured by its own lock. It was obviously intended both to keep people out and to keep the wives in. As Daussie approached the door from the inside, Tarc spoke to her, “Instead of cutting the latches, let me undo the locks. That way, after we’re gone no one’ll be wondering who cut the locks.”

  “Okay,” Daussie said, sounding unhappy. “But I’d rather the wives weren’t locked in here. Hopefully, once Kazy makes her adjustment, they’ll be allowed to leave if they want.”

  “Agreed,” Tarc said leaning his head down close to the door, “but then we’ll have destroyed some perfectly good locks the good baron might’ve been able to use for something else. Just leave the bars off the door.”

  One lock fell open just before and the other one just after Daussie reluctantly said “Okay.” She lifted the bars off the door and let her family in.

  As they were greeting and hugging Daussie, Tarc had a sudden thought, “The four people on the far side of the building, are they guards?”

  Daussie nodded, “Two guardsmen outside and two eunuchs inside.”

  “Eunuchs?”

  “Men with their testicles cut off,” Daussie said, starting toward the room on the north side. The idea is that they won’t—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Tarc said embarrassed to find himself discomfited again. “I get it. We’ll have to watch out for them.”

  Arriving at the room with the baron, Tarc realized the people inside were still having sex. Should we wait until they’re done, he wondered. He didn’t want to embarrass the wives by breaking in on them, on the other hand, if they didn’t like what the baron was doing… He glanced at Kazy, wondering whether she could tell what the women would prefer.

  She was leaning her head against the door. A moment later, she leaned back and looked up at the others. “They’re on the far side of the room. I won’t be able to put him to sleep from here, but I think I can keep him from noticing while Daussie cuts the bolt. He’ll probably notice us as soon we open the door… when I get a lot closer I should be able to make him ignore us.” She shook her head, “I’ll have to be really close before I can put him to sleep and try to make some changes.”

  “Try?!” Daum hissed. “Why couldn’t you?”

  She shrugged, “Haven’t tried it on somebody with a talent before. I think his talent’s pretty strong. Maybe it’ll confer some immunity.”

  Daum looked at Tarc. Speaking in a low tone, he said, “We should both have throwing knives in our hands. If he starts to attack us, we may need to be ready to throw.”

  Wide-eyed, Eva said, “We don’t want to kill him! That’d be a disaster!”

  Grimly, Daum said, “If it comes down to it, better him than us.”

  Daussie said, “Remember, if he closes off your throat, you’ll still have a minute or so to attack him before you lose consciousness.”

  Daum said, “I’m worried about worse things he could do. The kind of things Tarc could do. If I think he’s doing something like that,” Daum’s tone suddenly sounded like grinding rocks, “I’m throwing a knife.” He looked around at the other four. When no one said anything, he said, “I’m going first,” then stepped forward and put his hand on the door. He looked at Da
ussie, “Cut the bolt.”

  Eva said, “Wait…” but there was a “clunk” sound down at the bolt.

  Daum was pushing the door open.

  Tarc went through behind him. He saw the baron, on top of a woman, but starting to lift his head. His angry expression was changing to fear.

  Tarc stepped out wide of Daum so he’d have a clear throw with his knife. He had his ghirit expanded—it told him Daussie was sprinting out around them to the left.

  Suddenly Tarc had a painful obstruction in his throat. He couldn’t breathe!

  Daum’s knife hand swung back suggesting he’d been blocked too.

  Tarc blocked Daum’s right wrist with his left and threw his own knife…

  Tarc’s knife struck the baron in the right shoulder.

  Daum cursed over his blocked throw and what he thought was Tarc’s miss. He drew his arm back for another try.

  Tarc grabbed Daum’s wrist with both hands, immobilizing it.

  Daum turned angry eyes on Tarc, then appeared to notice the obstruction in his throat was gone.

  They both looked forward. The baron was staring in horror at the knife protruding from his shoulder. He sagged off to the side.

  Daussie and Kazy caught him, slowly lowering him down and keeping him from landing on the knife.

  Eva leaned down over the woman Baron Vail had been on top of, murmuring calming words.

  The other woman spun and ran for the door.

  Tarc threw out an arm and caught her about the waist.

  She twisted free.

  He took advantage of the fact the impact had turned him and followed her out the door. Three long strides across the big room and he tackled her.

  She squealed as they went down, but then he managed to clap a hand over her mouth.

  Despite the fact that Tarc felt sure the eunuchs must have heard her cry and the thud of bodies hitting the floor, he spoke quietly in her ear. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re here to…” he realized he didn’t know what to say they were doing. After a moment he settled for, “We’re here to try to stop the baron from doing some of the… the terrible things he’s been doing.”

  The woman frantically rolled her eyes all the way to the side so she could stare at Tarc. After a moment, she slowly reached up and gently tugged at his hand.

  Warningly, he said, “Don’t cry out for the guards.” Slowly, he lifted his hand away.

  Sounding disgusted, she said, “They don’t come when we’re screaming in agony. Why would they come because I shouted for help?”

  Tarc had been looking over at the eunuch guard’s station, expecting them to come bursting out at any moment. At her words, he relaxed in relief, then thought about what the woman’s words meant and found himself tensing again. He focused back on the woman he’d just tackled. “Would you like it if we helped you escape?” He wasn’t sure whether they could make that happen but felt they should offer to try.

  She gave him a thoughtful look, then shook her head. “No, then they’d go after my family.” Her eyes widened, “But, with the baron dead…” She looked around as if hoping to find answers.

  Tarc was surprised but realized he shouldn’t have been. To any reasonable person, “Stopping the baron from doing some of the terrible things he’s been doing” would require his death. He didn’t know what to say. Finally, he ventured, “Um, we’re not killing him. We’re just trying to convince him… that he has to do things differently.”

  She looked at him as if he were insane. “That’s not going to work,” she said as if she were speaking to a small child. She shook her head, “On second thought, I would like to escape. How’d you get in?”

  Wordlessly, Tarc pointed to the west door. She got up and darted toward it, then stopped indecisively for a moment. She turned and ran into one of the rooms. Tarc was just about to enter the north room to see what was happening with the baron when a movement caught the corner of his eye. He looked over and saw her running for the west door with a bundle in her arms. He called after her, “It’s going to be hard getting out of the palace and castle grounds.”

  She stopped and stared at Tarc for a moment, her eyes panicked. Then she turned, pulled the door open and slipped into the night.

  Wondering whether he should’ve tried harder to convince her to stay, Tarc stepped into the room with his family and the baron. The baron was unconscious, like the patients Kazy or Eva put to sleep for painful procedures. Kazy was crouched with her head centimeters from his. Eva was crouched by the baron’s right shoulder. She’d removed Tarc’s knife and was putting pressure on the wound.

  When she saw Tarc, she handed him his knife—already wiped clean. She said, “It was hard to get out ’cause it was stuck so deep into the bone.” She lifted an eyebrow, “With your accuracy, couldn’t you have just put it in his deltoid?”

  Not sure whether she was asking seriously, Tarc replied slowly, “I thought it’d get more of his attention if it was stuck into the bone.”

  Eva snorted a little laugh.

  I guess she was teasing me, Tarc decided. “How’s it going with…” he waved at the baron and the wife Eva’d been trying to comfort. The wife looked like she was asleep.

  Eva said, “She was pretty traumatized. She’s been living in utter terror. It seems the baron enjoys sex a lot more when the woman’s petrified with pain. Kazy was busy so I tried to make those terrible memories seem more distant… to soothe her hurts as best I could.” Staring at the woman, she shrugged, “She’s the first patient I’ve tried to do something like that for…” Eva shrugged, “So I have no idea how well I did.”

  Daussie volunteered, “I was watching her face while you were doing it. It went from tensely agonized to relaxed and peaceful. I think whatever you did, it’s going to make a big difference.”

  Tarc waved at the baron, “Any idea how Kazy’s doing with him?”

  Kazy looked up from under lowered brows. With a look of disgust and exhaustion, she said, “Being in his mind’s like taking a bath in a chamber pot.”

  Tarc shuddered, then tilted his head to study the baron’s face. Tarc’s first sight of him had been the brief glimpse as the man rose off his wife, his face a rictus of fear and anger. He knew Daussie hadn’t liked the way baron looked, but didn’t know whether his sister thought the baron was ugly or just leering. Tarc thought he had a weak chin but that it was well hidden by his wispy goatee. Right now he looked like a pleasant enough, slightly bug-eyed young man taking a peaceful nap. I hope that means something, he thought.

  ~~~

  The wife woke up slowly. She stretched, smiled, and opened her eyes. The way she did it, Tarc expected her to rub at them the way people do after a full night’s sleep, but after all, it’d only been ten minutes or so. Then he feared she’d jerk around at the site of strangers, crying out. Instead, her eyes turned to gaze at each of them, looking puzzled, but not fearful.

  She rose up to lean on one arm, taking in the strange sight of the sleeping baron.

  Eva was wrapping a bandage onto his shoulder. Kazy still crouched so her head almost touched the baron’s.

  The woman turned her eyes to Daussie, whom she apparently recognized. “Hi, Daussie. What’s happened?” she asked, sounding curious, but not at all worried.

  Daussie blinked, “Um, these… people came here to try to get the baron to be a… better leader and a nicer person.” She waved a hand at Kazy, “She’s praying over him right now.”

  The woman sat up the rest of the way, looking down at the baron. She gave a little nod, “That’d be nice. He’s pretty mean.” She got a distant look in her eyes and reached up, touching her head. “I feel a lot better.” She gave her head a little shake, then looked back at Daussie. Flicking her eyes at Kazy, she said, “Did she pray over me too?”

  Daussie looked a little uncertain, glancing at Eva. Whatever she saw in Eva’s eyes seemed to reassure her, because she pointed to Eva and said, “She’s the one who prayed over you, Kiri.”

  Kiri
gave Eva a pleasant smile, “Thank you. I’m not nearly as… frightened as I used to be.” She looked introspective, “Even though I know bad things happened and might happen to me again, I think I’ll be able to deal with them better than I used to.” She glanced at Kazy again, “Is she going to be able to do something like that for Baron Vail?”

  Tarc felt offended by the notion that his wife felt she had to call him “Baron Vail,” rather than using his first name.

  Daussie said, somewhat fervently, “We hope so.”

  “Me too,” Kiri said. She giggled euphorically, “I feel… pleasantly drunk. Am I going to stay this way?”

  This time when Daussie looked at Eva her gaze was intense. She flipped her head toward Kiri as if to say, “You answer this one!”

  Eva did, slowly saying, “We don’t think so.” She chewed her lip, “If… if you do we may have to… pray over you again.”

  Rubbing her temples, Kazy leaned up away from the baron looking pale.

  “Did it work?” Tarc asked.

  Kazy shrugged. “I hope so.”

  “How long till he wakes up?”

  Kazy shrugged again, “Don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Feeling impatient, Tarc was about to ask if Kazy couldn’t just wake him up now when Kiri looked around and said, “Where’s Linni?”

  At first, Tarc wasn’t sure who Linni was, but, when everyone else looked at him, he realized she must be the other wife. He said, “Is Linni the other wife who was… um, in here with you and the baron?”

  Kiri nodded.

  Uncomfortably, Tarc said, “She was upset. She left.”

  Kiri glanced around at them. “You didn’t offer to help her like you helped me?”

  Tarc looked at his parents, hoping one of them would answer, but they were just looking back at him. Turning back to Kiri, he said, “We didn’t. Sorry. Maybe we should have.”

  Kiri stood up, stretched, and said, “I’ll go get her.”

  In consternation, Tarc looked around at his family. They all looked as surprised as he felt. He followed Kiri out of the room. She only had to take a few steps across the big room before he realized she was going towards the room that Linni had gone into to get her belongings—presumably Linni’s room. He said, “Oh, she’s not in her room. She left the building.”