Sisters

by Laurence Dahners

  “Really?” Hareh said, surprised but thoughtful. Also, he realized, a little dismayed.

  “Yes, so let’s figure out what you can do. The easiest thing to test for is to see whether you’re a telepath. Focus on me and try to figure out what number I’m thinking of.”

  “You aren’t going to tell me that it’s a number between one and ten or something like that?”

  “No.” She snorted, “And the fact that you had to ask that means you’re probably not a telepath. But, please make an effort. I’ll think of the number again.”

  “Um, ten?”

  Eva shook her head, “Before we give up, you should try harder. Really focus on me and wonder what I’m thinking.” She looked off into space, “Okay, I’ve got another number.”

  Hareh grimaced, “Twenty-five?”

  “Nope.” She looked around. They were passing between some farms. “Tarc,” she said, “is it okay if we walk the horses a while?”

  He nodded, swinging down off his own horse.

  Eva swung down off her own horse while speaking to Hareh, “Walking part of the time gives the horses a break and breaks our seats in slowly so we’re less likely to get saddle sore. We want to do our walking out in big clear areas like this. When we’re in the woods we want to be on the horses so we can move quickly if we have to.”

  Hareh found this unsettling, but he got off his horse as well.

  Eva waved at a field holding a small herd of sheep, “Which is the farthest sheep you can detect with your ghirit?”

  “That’s going to tell you whether I’m a telepath?”

  “No,” she said, sounding like she was rolling her eyes. “Are you always going to ask questions rather than doing what I tell you?”

  Chagrined, Hareh said, “No ma’am.”

  “Well, to answer your question, you’re not a telepath. I’m just trying to figure out whether you can stand watch.”

  It suddenly clicked for Hareh. “Tarc’s not watching with his eyes, is he? He’s using his ghirit.”

  “Exactly. Your eyes can only detect people in your line of sight. Your ghirit can detect them hiding behind trees. Now, if you’ll just tell me which of those sheep is the furthest one you can detect, we’ll know how far away you’d be able to detect an outlaw.”

  “Sorry,” Hareh said, then closed his eyes so he could push his ghirit out as far as it’d go. With his eyes closed, the warm bodies of the sheep were easily detected all the way across the field. Can I detect anything even farther away? he wondered, keeping his eyes closed. Oh, there’re animals in that barn. He tilted his head, “And a couple of people too. He reported this to Eva.

  “That’s great,” she said. “I think that barn’s about eighty meters away. That’s quite good for someone who’s just learning about their talents.” She went on to explain how, with practice, he should be able to increase his range, perhaps doubling it. “You’ll be able to stand watch with the rest of us. The first couple of times you do it, one of us will watch with you to make sure you’re not missing things.”

  Eva bent over and picked up some pebbles. Resuming her walking, she sorted through them, then held out her palm to display four of them ranging from a tiny flake that was hard to see, on up to one as big as the last segment of his thumb. “Reach out with your ghirit and feel this tiniest little stone,” she said pointing at the tiny flake.

  Hareh did so, expecting that the motion of their walking would make it difficult, but finding it to be relatively easy. “I can feel it,” he said. “It’s a tiny spot of coolness against your warm palm.”

  “Okay, now try to push it from my palm out to the tip of my finger.”

  “Push it?” he asked, studying her. When she nodded, he reached out with his index finger—.

  “No,” she said, closing her fingers over the stones and sounding a little frustrated. As he pulled his finger back, she flattened her palm again, “Push it with your ghirit. We’re trying to see if you’re telekinetic.”

  “Oh,” he said, feeling stupid. He sent out his ghirit again and found the little flake. Then he imagined himself pushing on it. Nothing happened. “I’m not sure what to do. Or, I’m just not a telekinetic. Nothing’s happening.”

  “To get it to work, at least the first time you have to really imagine that you’re gripping it with your ghirit and you’re pushing it as hard as you can. Really hard.”

  Hareh focused on it again, imagining it pinched between the fingers of his ghirit, then trying to move it along Eva’s palm. Still, nothing happened. He tried to imagine the finger of his ghirit pulling back so he could flick the little stone. He flicked, and the tiny flake of rock vanished. What the hell just happened, he wondered.

  Eva was looking at him with wide eyes. “Do that again with the next smallest pebble. But try to move it just out to the tip of my finger.”

  “That’s what I—”

  “No,” Eva interrupted, “you moved it way too far. Just move it to the tip of my finger.”

  Hareh found it with his ghirit and pictured it moving to the tip of her finger. Suddenly it was there. He didn’t understand what’d happened, thinking he’d moved it too quickly. “Should I try to move it more slowly?” he asked, then realized Eva had turned to look back at Daussie.

  Eva said, “Dauss! Hareh’s a teleporter!”

  “Dang,” the pretty teenager said, “I used to feel special. Now it seems like everyone we test can teleport.”

  Hareh turned to look back at Daussie, wondering if she was truly upset.

  Her smile was huge. “Welcome aboard,” she said. “I’ve been our only teleporter and we really need more people who can do it.”

  Eva reached out and clapped Hareh’s shoulder, “I’ll say! At first we didn’t think teleportation was all that useful in healing, now it seems like it’s by far the most important.”

  “Hey,” Tarc protested, “we telekinetics are getting our feelings hurt!”

  Buoyed by everyone’s excitement over his talent, Hareh took a shot at Tarc, “I thought you were on watch? Too busy to talk.”

  “Yeah, but all that shouting back there’s distracting me.” Tarc glanced back, “Congratulations Hareh. Having another teleporter’s really going to be helpful.” He started walking faster, calling back over his shoulder, “I’ll move ahead a bit so you guys can yammer to your heart’s content.”

  Eva turned to Hareh, “I’m going to go back and take Daussie’s spot leading the horses. I’ll have her come up here and teach you about teleportation.”

  Hareh leaned closer to Eva, “What is teleportation?”

  “Oh! It’d probably help if we explained that, wouldn’t it?” She set about explaining what teleportation was and the miracles it could create for patients.

  When she finished, Hareh asked, “You can’t teach me?” He’d realized it’d be weird to be taught by the young girl.

  A little laugh escaped from Eva, “I’ve never teleported anything. Don’t you think it’d be better to learn from someone who can actually do it?”

  “Um, yes ma’am.”

  Eva laughed again. “And stop calling me ‘ma’am.’ It makes me feel old. And like you’re not even my nephew.”

  “Yes, auntie.”

  “That’s worse. Call me Eva.”

  “Okay… Eva,” Hareh said, thinking he’d find that difficult.

  Since they were about to enter the trees again they all mounted up. Eva moved back to guide the mules and Daussie kneed her horse up beside him. Opening her palm, she showed him the bigger three rocks of the original four Eva’d picked up. She said, “Try porting the smallest one from my palm into your hand.”

  Daussie ran him through his paces until he got a headache. She told him headaches came from using a talent hard. She explained how, as soon as he started to get a headache, he should back off if possible. Otherwise, the pain quickly became excruciating. She taught him about how usually she exchanged the object with the air at the other end so the teleportation didn’t make no
ise, but had him do some without exchanging since it’d be necessary to keep from moving air—that might have bacteria floating in it—into the patient when porting stones and other objects out of a patient.

  Then, to his astonishment, she had him port a little sphere out of the center of the biggest of the three rocks she’d had in her hand.

  “That’s amazing,” he said, “but why would we need to do that? It seems like any time we were going to port something out of the patient, we’d want to port the whole thing, wouldn’t we?”

  She grinned at him, then indicated the little sphere. “Now come on. Isn’t that little ball just the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?” She reached into the front of her shirt and pulled out a teardrop amulet that looked like it had been polished from a piece of agate. She lifted an eyebrow, “Just imagine the kind of points you’ll make with the ladies if you can make them something like this.”

  He stared at it for a moment, then said, “You ported that out of an agate?”

  She nodded, “Even better, I ported a sphere out of the inside of it to make a cavity. Use your ghirit and you’ll be able to feel the space.” While he was sending his ghirit into the stone, she said, “You’ll notice it’s filled with a liquid. That’s extracted from cayenne peppers.”

  Hareh felt a sharp tickle in the back of his nose and suddenly sneezed.

  “And,” she said matter-of-factly, “if you port a microscopic droplet of cayenne extract into the back of someone’s nose, they sneeze.”

  Hareh thought it was weird that he’d sneezed right when she was explaining this, then his eyes widened. “You ported some of that into my nose?!”

  “Yeah,” her eyebrows bounced, “try to imagine what it would’ve been like if I’d ported a substantial droplet.”

  He stared at the amulet, then glanced at her, wondering whether he could try to get revenge by porting a tiny drop into her nose.

  As if she read his mind, she said, “Don’t try to port some back into my nose in some kind of macho retaliation. There’s a good chance you’d move way too much and make me really sick.”

  He narrowed his eyes, “You’re just saying that.”

  She shook her head, “It really will take a while for you to get the kind of fine control you’d need. Make your own amulet, port some water into it, then try porting tiny drops out of it into your own nose first. After you’ve practiced some and can move a tiny drop onto my palm, then I’ll let you take your revenge on me if you want.” She looked ahead into the distance and lifted her chin pompously, “I’m sure once you get to know me you won’t want to.”

  He straightened in his saddle and lifted his own chin, “Taking revenge is far beneath me.”

  “Sure it is,” she laughed. “I could see the wheels grinding in your head.”

  “Grinding?! You mean smoothly rotating?”

  She snorted, “If they were smoothly turning, what was causing that awful grating noise?”

  Hareh took a breath for a retort, then let it go. “So, is this your weapon? Porting cayenne is how you protect yourself if you’re attacked?”

  She shrugged, then nodded. “Unless they were threatening my life or someone else’s. Then I’d do something more drastic.”

  “Such as?”

  She swung down off her horse and picked up a stick from the roadside. Vaulting smoothly back into the saddle, she held up the stick. As he watched, it simply fell into two pieces. Catching the piece that fell she handed it to him. Soon she was explaining how to cut different shapes out of the piece of wood, including ultra-thin slices that essentially just sliced the stick into two pieces. “You can cut through someone’s bone if you want to disable them more long-term than cayenne pepper will do. If you need to kill them, take a slice out of their brainstem.”

  She had to explain the nature and location of the brainstem to him. He sent in his ghirit and explored the base of his own skull. After a few moments, he thought he found it but couldn’t be sure. She told him that he’d have to study their anatomy books before he could really make sure he was finding the correct things inside of himself. “Alternatively, you could find the aorta. That’s that huge pulsatile blood vessel running down along the left side of your spine from the chest into the abdomen. Can you find that?”

  Hareh nodded, feeling more certain of the aorta because of the strong pulsations flowing through it.

  “Cut a big hole in that and your assailant should bleed to death in under a minute.”

  “Why wouldn’t you just do that? Why search for the brainstem?”

  “The brainstem’s instant. Cut a hole in the aorta and he might not even know he’s dying for a few seconds. If he’s trying to stab you with a sword, it might not work fast enough.” She scowled, “Though, when you cut the spinal cord, sometimes the person spasms. So, if they’re holding a knife to your back, the brainstem might not be a good choice. They might stab you when they twitch.”

  Feeling somewhat horrified, but still morbidly curious, Hareh asked, “What do you do if they are holding a knife to your back?”

  “Cut through the bone of the arm they’re holding the knife with. They can’t stab you with a floppy arm.”

  They kept talking, Hareh becoming more and more impressed with the breadth of the girl’s knowledge. I’ve got so much to learn, he thought with dismay. His mind went back to how he’d wanted Eva to teach him rather than a girl who was so young. He thought, I’ve got to get over that kind of pride. She knows so much she’ll probably be teaching me for years.

  ***

  Rrica and her friends stood watching Hareh ride away with the teacher they’d come to find. From what they could understand, the little group was riding away to almost certain death. Neither Kazy or Daum seemed terribly worried, but tears were streaming freely down Vyrda’s face.

  Vyrda had argued with Eva right up to the last moment, trying to get her to wait for a caravan. You could say ‘beyond the last moment,’ Rrica thought, since she trailed behind Eva’s horse for about thirty paces, still pleading her case.

  Once the party of four rounded a gentle corner in the road and could no longer be seen, Vyrda turned around. She wiped her face with a sleeve and studied Rrica, Jadyn, and Seri. She cleared her throat, “I suppose, if she never returns, the three of you’ll never know what we’ve lost.”

  Voice cracking, Seri said, “We’ve only known her for a day… but we already know why everyone loves her.”

  Vyrda turned to look after Eva one last time. She shook her head, “Eva’s convinced their talents can protect them. I once protected myself by spinning the fluid in someone’s semicircular canals, but…” She shook her head, “I just can’t see them protecting themselves from a large group, or an arrow, or…” her ruminations petered to an end and she turned back to the three young women. “Well,” she forced a smile, “Eva’s almost always right. We’ll just have to hope she’s right this time. Let’s take the three of you upstairs and assign you some stuff to learn.”

  Up in the clinic, Vyrda first showed them a locked door on one of the ancients’ stainless steel cabinets. Opening a drawer at the other end of the counter, she got out a small block of wood. Rrica was puzzled for a moment, then Vyrda showed them a slide that pushed an irregular bit of brass out of a slot on one side of the block of wood. “This,” Vyrda said, pointing to the grooved brass blade with one irregularly notched edge, “is one of the ancients’ keys.” She showed them how to slide it into the slot in the lock of the cabinet and open it.

  Looking at the elegant little block of wood, Rrica said, “Where did you get this?”

  Vyrda shook her head in her own amazement, “Just one of the many things Daussie can make with her teleportation. She ported the part of the key you normally hold onto into one little block, then ported that block into the outer block.”

  The shelves inside the cabinet were nearly full of ancient books. When Rrica gasped and reached out toward them, Vyrda said, “No, don’t touch. They’re fragile and we only actua
lly use these books when the copies we’ve made by hand aren’t good enough.” She reached into the cabinet and carefully slid out a book titled, “Epidemiology.” Placing it gently on the counter, she showed them how to wipe the dirt and oils off their fingers, then gently open and turn the pages.

  Rrica asked, “Why would you ever use one of the original books? Why not always use the copies?”

  Vyrda grinned, “Some of the books, like this one,” she pointed to the book on epidemiology, “haven’t been copied. So, you’re going to have the joy of learning by copying the original. Essentially, unless it’s an emergency, whenever you’re reading the original, you should be making a copy.” She took them around the corner to show them the writing supplies.

  “Wow,” Jadyn said, studying the stacks of paper, jars of ink, and the variety of pens with different nibs. “This stuff has to be worth a fortune.”

  Vyrda nodded, “Eva’s very serious about the importance of good copies. Print carefully so there’s no doubt about what you’ve written. Don’t think about how you’re wasting your time, think about what you’re writing. Think hard enough about it that you’ll remember it when you need it without having to look it up.” She took a moment to explain how they should try to write their copies as if they were knowledge they’d received verbally rather than a verbatim copy of the original ancient book. “Which is hard to do, but might save your life someday if someone accuses you of using copies of books written by the ancients.”

  “So we never actually use the original books?”

  Vyrda gave an unhappy shrug, “If there’s any doubt about what someone else wrote when they copied the original, especially when you’re making a copy of a copied book. The copies that you’ll take with you when you graduate.” She sighed, “You’ll also need to look at the originals when one of the pictures in a book’s important to your understanding. This is especially true of the atlases of anatomy. Some of the ancient atlases have beautiful color pictures. None of us can draw well enough to copy them as line drawings much less reproduce the color. Tarc’s a fine artist, but even his drawings aren’t like the originals.”