Kei's Gift

by Ann Somerville

  “What...happened?”

  Loti’s mouth turned down in a grim line. “Diza passed out, that’s what happened.”

  “What?”

  Kei struggled against the pain and the lethargy to try and sit, but only succeeded in making his headache worse. Loti held him down easily. “Don’t move, I said.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Only if you stay still and calm.” Once Kei agreed, Loti told him. Apparently when Diza linked to him and Bikel had called up the memory of the executions, Kei’s pain overwhelmed them both, and though both Loti and Bikel had struggled to control what was happening, Diza couldn’t bear it and had eventually fainted dead away. Loti had given Kei more pijn and Bikel had taken Diza away to rest.

  “The screams from both of you brought a lot of people running, including Reji. Calming him down was fun,” Loti said grimly. “Fortunately, General Arman is out of the building so I didn’t have to deal with two over-protective men.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kei said quietly. “I didn’t want anyone hurt.”

  “Stupid boy, do you think anyone blames you?” Loti took the cloth and wrung it out in a basin of water on the table beside the bed, before placing it back on Kei’s forehead. “Bikel will be here later. If you sleep now, you should feel a little better—I daren’t give you any more pijn, so the cold cloth is all I can offer.”

  “It helps,” Kei mumbled, then he realised something else was wrong. “I can’t sense you—why?”

  “Partly the drug, I think, but Bikel did something, he said. It was the only way to stop what was happening to Diza. He said your control was shattered.”

  Kei closed his eyes, exhausted and hurting and utterly mortified. Not only had the experience been excruciating for all concerned, it hadn’t helped either. If he could do that to a gift master, those who had the best control of all of their kin—so good they could train others—there was no hope for him at all.

  He dozed fitfully for a couple of hours, and woke with the late afternoon sun blazing into the room. His head was less painful, and he could move without the pain crippling him. Loti was also dozing a little in the chair by the bed, but in response to Kei’s quiet call, came instantly alert. “How do you feel?” he said, taking the cloth away and replacing it, even though the water in the bowl was now tepid, bringing less relief than before.

  “Better. I could get up, I think.”

  “And then I could be set upon by your anxious supporters and torn to bits,” Loti said tartly. “You sit still, my boy. Get out of bed and I’ll feed you tirsel leaf until you explode.”

  Kei nodded. Healers all over the country had learned that threat was highly effective. He disobeyed Loti only so far as getting himself into a sitting position, pillows behind his back. He felt empty and depressed, wondering what now could be done for him. This had been what he’d feared—that there wouldn’t be any answer to his problem, because the damage was too grave.

  A few minutes later, Loti returned with Bikel behind him. Loti was then abruptly dismissed and Bikel closed the door behind him before coming to sit at Kei’s bedside. “How is Master Diza? I’m sorry he’s been hurt, Master Bikel.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Kei, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, save mine.” Bikel looked drawn and tired. “But he’s fine—resting. He’s not coming near you again today, though.”

  “I understand. So it’s hopeless? You can’t help me?”

  Bikel shook his head regretfully. “I can’t, no. Neither can he.” He wiped his face with a weary hand. “I’m going to explain this carefully. It will take some time because it’s complex, and I confess I’ve never encountered anything quite like this before, so some of it’s guess work.” Kei nodded. “The problem has many layers. The first relates to your degree of sensitivity. When I was trying to break the connection between you and Diza, I found it very difficult, nearly impossible to block your gift. Normally I can do so easily even with someone as well-trained as he is. Your gift is far stronger than many soul-touchers, verging on the truly Gifted—and yet it was not thus when you were here two years ago.”

  Kei answered his enquiring look. “Jena—that’s the healer from Ai-Rutej who was taken hostage, a mind-speaker—thought gifts like ours got stronger with age and with certain experiences. Could a series of shocks, griefs, cause that?”

  Bikel looked thoughtful. “It might,” he said doubtfully. “Never seen anything quite like this—the only two factors which might explain it are that you have two gifts of very different types, and this experience with the executions. Either might be the reason. Whatever the cause, you’re much more sensitive than you should be, at least now. You’ll need to learn much greater control, and keep a constant guard on it until that control is second nature to you. This will take time and effort, and you’ll always be at risk of being overwhelmed if you’re not careful or don’t maintain your mental exercises.”

  Kei nodded unhappily—it looked like the control he had once taken for granted would never be so easy again. “Then there is the experience you had in Utuk which would distress anyone—the nightmares, the random memories, these will be afflicting your fellow hostages as much as you. For this, there is no answer but time, and the understanding of those who love you. In a way, it’s good you’ve alerted us to this. When we have the hostages home, we can warn their families and friends to be supportive. I suspect it will always be something that sets them apart from their clan.”

  Kei agreed. “It feels like wearing a brand sometimes, like a scar only I can see. My family...they were kind, but it’s not like having been there.”

  “No,” Bikel said sympathetically. “There are no easy solutions there either, but you’re fortunate in having many people who love you and want to help.”

  “Yes, I am. And the rest of it?”

  “The rest of it is peculiar to you as a soul-toucher. Has anyone explained how your gift works, exactly?”

  He nodded. “We form a link to the other person and feed a little on their emotions, like a parasite.”

  Bikel tsked. “What a disgusting way of describing it. Whatever you take, I assure you, you return tenfold. It’s more other people are parasites on you. Why do you think so many soul-touchers become healers? Or are otherwise centrally important to their clan and family? People love to be near you, to feel you—you’re like a balm on their souls, and the relationships with soul-touchers are often the deepest and longest lasting of all for that reason.”

  “Oh.” Kei felt rather embarrassed at the idea he was walking around donating emotions to his clan. “Does that harm us?”

  “Not normally, because while you give more, you have more to give. But there is a circumstance where this is definitely harmful—when the soul-toucher is strongly linked to someone who dies, especially if they are already emotionally close to them, and especially if that death is violent or occurs without warning.” He held out his arm and pushed back his sleeve. “We have veins and arteries, yes? And the veins pump much more slowly going back to us than the arteries do going out, correct?”

  “Yes, of course.” Kei was confused. How did this relate to his gift?

  “The heart feeds the hand and the hand returns a little, if you like. What would happen if I took a knife and cut thus?” He pantomimed slicing across the main artery in the elbow.

  “You would bleed badly—die eventually, if you weren’t treated.”

  “Exactly. Now, if I cut ten arteries, all at the same time?” Kei stared at him in mute horror. “Yes, we both know perfectly well I would die and very quickly. A soul-toucher who has their link severed in that way is exactly like someone having an artery cut. The experience you had was indescribably cruel to someone with your gift, unbelievably harmful. Even just the memory of it was too much for Diza. To be blunt, you should have ‘bled’ to death within a very short time that day. It’s probably only because you’re so young that your heart didn’t stop from the sheer pain and shock on the spot.”

  “I....” Kei rubbed his
chest a little in remembered agony. “Why didn’t I?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “Arman?” he said, frowning. “But how?”

  “I’ll come to that in a moment,” Bikel said, holding a hand up to forestall any questions. “So here we have a soul-toucher with a mortal wound who somehow does not die when he should have. Last night I spent several hours with Diza looking back through the academy journals. There have been thirteen recorded cases of soul-touchers suffering such injury, though none nearly so grave—but in almost every single case, they’ve died, either from pining away without apparent cause over a series of months, or, more commonly, suicide within weeks. A few lingered for longer than others, but in over a hundred years there are only two cases on record of a soul-toucher surviving such an event for more than six months. In both cases, the death they felt was not of a lover or close relative or friend, and in both cases, they formed a relationship with another person in a short period of time after the injury. In both cases, that relationship was of lifelong duration.” He gave Kei a penetrating look. “In other words, they found a lover who could heal them.”

  Kei blinked in surprise. “But Arman’s not my lover. Reji’s my lover, but he doesn’t make any difference at all.”

  Bikel’s cool stare was positively unnerving. “Then there must be an additional element in the relationships that enabled the others—and you—to survive.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Bikel sighed. “Neither do I, not completely. Fifty years ago, one of my predecessors wrote about this very phenomenon, and the best he could come up with was that some individuals are fated to be together—not just in this life, but across several lives, possibly forever. He thought it might be that soul-touchers are always unconsciously looking for these life-mates—the one who can fully sate their hunger for emotional energy—that this is somehow the source of their gift. In those rare cases where they find one, it completes them in a way that no other person can. If that were the case, and the soul-toucher is injured in their gift, their life-mate might compensate in some way for the injury.”

  Kei could only stare. “Do you believe that?”

  “It barely matters what I believe. Whatever the explanation, since it didn’t kill you, your wound is now slowly scabbing over, so to speak. I confess this is where I’m extrapolating a little from the situation where a soul-toucher loses control of their gift in the ordinary way. You know yourself when you’ve lost control, that you are very raw at that time. You feel things very keenly and painfully, yes? If I’m correct in my theory, every new, severe shock, every strong emotion, jars the wound, removes the scab on this terrible injury and so you lose more or less ground, depending on the shock. Arman can stop such things aggravating this injury while you’re with him, especially, I suspect, if you’re in physical contact, since that always increases the link between you and others. I suspect he’s a buffer against the emotional damage caused by other people, and even yourself because your own emotions also put stress on the injury.”

  Which was why things like the trial in Ai-Darbin and going home hadn’t been as difficult to manage as they should have been. It made a kind of sense, but it wasn’t much comfort. “He has only to touch me and all pain ceases, as if he’s a kind of pijn for my gift. But when he leaves, it’s as bad or worse than before, so he’s just acting as a palliative supporting the symptoms. I’m not actually getting better, I know. It’s becoming an addiction, I fear, since I can’t seem to keep away from him.”

  Bikel shook his head in disgust. “No, you’ve got the analogy wrong, lad—would you call a bandage on a wound addictive? He’s not helping the symptoms—he’s actually helping you heal, the way tirsel leaf ointment does a sprain. He’s not chuo sap or pijn on your heart, merely numbing the pain—he’s helping the cause of the pain itself. If you’re finding excuses to be with him, it’s only the natural reaction of an injured body seeking a remedy.”

  “But it hurts worse when he goes than it did before, and that’s the proof of it being palliative not curative.”

  “Well, yes, of course it hurts, because his leaving causes you emotional pain, and that itself is re-injuring you, like someone ripping a bandage off a burn.”

  Kei shook his head stubbornly. “I still have to find a way to get through this without his help.”

  “Are you mad?” Bikel said, glaring at him. “He’s the only thing that kept you from dying, and he’s the only thing from what I’ve seen that will help you recover in the future. You can’t do this without help, any more than a man with a broken leg can walk without crutches.”

  Kei looked at him pleadingly. “You don’t understand, Master Bikel. The general is returning to his own country in a few days. I won’t have the option of his help, need it or not. Is there no other solution?”

  The master sighed heavily. “Truthfully? The only other option would be to isolate yourself for however long it took to heal. It could take years, but it would be incredibly painful. Soul-touchers need people as much as people need them. You would feel like you were starving to death. I truly don’t recommend it as a merciful option.”

  Gods. Such a fate sounded worse than death, but death was the only other alternative. “But...why him? Is there any possibility Reji could do what Arman can?”

  “Lad, if he could, he would, I’m sure. As to why Arman—I don’t know, any more than why we fall in love with one person and not another, why nitre weed brings some people out in a rash and not others. I tell you this though—repeatedly separating from him is doing you active harm.”

  “Because of his special effect on me? Because it’s taken away?”

  “No, because of the pain it causes you.”

  Kei frowned at the man. “This is circular reasoning.”

  “No it’s not, actually,” Bikel said with some impatience. “This is the failing of all soul-touchers if you ask me—you all spend so much time immersed in other people’s feelings, you fail to stop and think about your own. However, if you and the general truly must part, then isolation is the only other sure cure.”

  “The exercises? What about this...block, whatever you’ve done to me...can you do it again?”

  “I could—but that’s just symptomatic relief and becomes ineffective within a couple of repetitions. I did that out of desperation to protect Diza—it’s no answer, any more than drugging you with pijn would be.”

  Kei slumped in dejected misery. Either he lived in exile, trailing around after Arman like a puppy begging for scraps, or he became a hermit. “If I do nothing...perhaps just limited contact with people, strengthened my control, kept doing the exercises...would I die?”

  There was only pity in Bikel’s expression. “Probably not, although you’d never heal properly. You might live a normal span, especially if you could find something that absorbed you, like intellectual work—but it would not be a happy life, nor one I would wish for you. I suspect you wouldn’t be able to begin or sustain any close emotional relationship, nor a sexual one—it would rip your soul to shreds.”

  This had only been what he’d been expecting more or less, but it still hurt to hear it confirmed. “I can live with that, I think. I can still be of use to my clan.”

  Bikel stood and went over to the window, staring out of it for long moments. Finally he turned, his expression no longer harsh. “Kei, until now, I have been speaking as a master, purely addressing the problem of your gift. Now, let me speak to you as a teacher, a lover of a soul-toucher, and someone who would not want anyone to suffer. I think you should speak to your general and simply ask for his help.”

  “No,” Kei said fiercely. “He has his own path to follow. I’ll find another way, or live with it.”

  Bikel shook his head sadly. “Then your bravery is greater than your common sense. The block I’ve put on your gift will last a few hours longer, but then you need to be alone. I’ll tell Loti—at the very least, you must try to avoid aggravating this injury, especially now. Yo
u’ve given it two severe blows in as many days and unfortunately I’ve given it another—you can’t sustain that. I can do no more for you, nor can anyone else in the academy. You should get out of Darshek as soon as you can, avoiding physical contact with people at least until you regain some control, and keep away from strangers or those with turbulent or passionate emotions as much as possible for as long as possible. No prolonged farewell to your general either. That’s all I can suggest. I wish I could offer more, but not even the truly Gifted could solve this for you.”

  Myka, Kei thought despairingly, and wondered how he was supposed to avoid her. “Thank you for what you have done anyway. Would you please tell Master Diza how sorry I am and that I hope he doesn’t suffer too long?”

  “I will, but you should turn that concern on yourself, healer. Farewell—and please consider my advice.” Kei nodded and Bikel left, closing the door after him.

  He felt like weeping with frustration and grief. This was so unfair. He was being punished for something he had done to save his clan, punished for a gift he’d always wished he hadn’t possessed—and now which would dominate his life whatever he did. If Kei went with Arman back to Utuk, he would suffer homesickness for the rest of his life, and he wasn’t sure the pain of his gift, the pain of the emptiness and sadness was worse than that. Even now, his soul tugged at him, trying to get him to go to Arman. It must have been his subconscious wish that made him so easily confused the day before.

  He got up and found a robe in the closet, before going to the outer chamber. Loti got up from his chair and came towards him with a worried look on his face. “Kei, you should be in—”

  Kei held his hand up. He had very little time, if Bikel was right. “Could you please send for Reji urgently, and then would you ask Ev or someone to find me a quiet place to sleep tonight, away from everyone? Reji can have these rooms, and then we’ll probably be leaving tomorrow.”