The Jasper Forest

by Julia Gray

  he touched them, but nonetheless he experienced a small measure of disquiet as he watched them die. Olandis, on the other hand, was jubilant, having landed as good a catch as he could have hoped for at the first attempt. He threw the lines back in as soon as they were free, without even bothering with bait, and was rewarded by a second, albeit smaller batch. In all, they now had over two dozen sizeable fish.

  'Not a bad start,' he commented. 'At this rate we'll be able to get back to Fenduca tomorrow.'

  As it turned out, his optimism was misplaced. They caught nothing more that day, and by the time they came to make camp, frustration had soured their mood. As Olandis set about the messy task of gutting the fish, Terrel did what he could to be of use, tending the fire and preparing food from their supplies.

  When darkness fell and they'd completed their appointed tasks, Olandis began to cheer up a little and seemed more inclined to talk. Even so, Terrel was nervous about raising the subject that had been on his mind for the last three days - ever since Janizar Yahn had made his announcement - fearing that it would spoil the mood again. In the end, Olandis did it for him.

  'I suppose the new fence'll be finished by now,' he remarked. 'It's a shame there wasn't another quake while they were building it.'

  The time of greatest danger, according to Farazin's calculations, had passed two days ago, and there had not been the slightest tremor.

  'Are the soldiers always so brutal?' Terrel asked.

  'That was nothing,' Olandis told him. 'I've seen much worse. With a king like Ekuban, what else can you expect?'

  'Is he so bad?'

  'He's a tyrant. He stays in power because he controls everything - wealth, food supplies, trade - and he has the army to enforce his laws. The gentry all lounge about in their jewelled palaces, while the rest of us have barely enough to eat. They say the floor of Ekuban's bedroom is made of solid gold, and that every chair he sits on has to be decorated with at least ten large gemstones. Any such stone would be a fortune for one of us. Riches are the only way to win a decent life, it seems, which is why-places like Fenduca exist. The only alternative is to join the army and become one of the oppressors. Only someone who has no conscience would do that, so it's not surprising most soldiers are bastards.'

  'It doesn't seem fair,' Terrel said.

  Olandis laughed.

  'Of course it's not fair!'

  'Don't the sharaken have any say in the running of the country?'

  'They don't concern themselves with matters of the world,' Olandis explained.

  'As Farazin keeps telling us, they are "of the spirit". Why should they help the likes of us?'

  'Has anyone ever asked them to?'

  Olandis looked shocked, then grinned.

  'I keep forgetting you're a foreigner,' he said. 'Look. The sharaken aren't like us. True, they're above the king's laws, but they live in a different world of dreams and magic'

  'But they must use the magic for something' Terrel persisted.

  'Why? I don't suppose they're even aware of what goes on outside their rarefied domain, and probably wouldn't care even if they did.'

  'On Vadanis, the seers advise the Emperor about everything.'

  'Well, it's different here. And it's not really your problem, is it? I thought you were going back to your islands as soon as you get the chance.'

  'I am,' Terrel conceded. He had not forgotten his promise to Alyssa.

  'Who's Alyssa?'

  For a few moments Terrel was too stunned to reply.

  'A friend,' he said eventually. 'How do you know about her?'

  'You still talk in your sleep sometimes. In your own language, of course, so we can't tell what you're saying, but her name seems to crop up quite often.

  Is it her you're going back to?'

  'Yes.'

  'You're a bit young to be in love, aren't you?'

  Terrel was too flustered to respond.

  'I'm only teasing,' Olandis assured him. 'You're lucky. I wish I could find someone worth going halfway round the world for.'

  'I thought there was a girl in the village?'

  'You shouldn't pay much attention to what Aylen says. Even if Elyce loves me I don't feel the same for her, and that's no good, is it?'

  There was a short, thoughtful pause.

  'Ysatel would follow your father round the world,' Terrel said quietly.

  'I know. In a sense she already has. The sad thing is I'm not sure he'd follow her.'

  'Do you miss your mother?'

  'Every day,' Olandis replied, then realized who he was talking to. 'But I'm not complaining. At least I got to know her for a while. And we both love Ysy a lot. Aylen even more than me, I think.'

  They were silent for a while, and then Terrel returned to an earlier topic.

  'Did you mean it when you said you might join the miners?'

  'Not really. I've thought about it sometimes, but there'd only be one reason good enough to actually make me do it.'

  'What's that?'

  'If I thought there was a chance of getting the miners to throw the soldiers out and claim the mountain for ourselves,' Olandis replied.

  Two days later, when they arrived back in Fenduca, Olandis and Terrel were greeted by Ysatel before they had even reached the hut. She was smiling broadly, and it was clear that she had more than the welcome arrival of food on her mind.

  'I hoped you'd be back today.'

  'Missed us, did you?' her stepson said, grinning.

  'Of course, but it's Terrel everyone's waiting for.'

  'Why?' Terrel was puzzled, and rather alarmed.

  'Little Jessett recovered from her fever the day you left,' Ysatel replied.

  'Only a few hours after you saw her.'

  'But I—'

  'It doesn't matter,' she went on. 'Tisa's been telling everyone you saved her baby's life. You're a hero now, whether you like it or not.'

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next few days were hectic. No one believed Terrel's claim that Jessett's recovery must have happened naturally, that the only possible thing he had done was to suggest loosening her clothing to allow her skin to cool. It was pointed out that the baby's return to health had been remarkably rapid given how long she had been suffering, and Terrel's belief that this was just a coincidence was dismissed as false modesty. Even Ysatel, with whom he tried to discuss the matter sensibly, told him that he 'couldn't argue with results'.

  After that, his attitude changed. He was more or less obliged to try to help others, and it would have been churlish to refuse, so he made the best of it -

  hoping for guidance, but not really expecting any. He was afraid that his true lack of ability would soon become apparent, and he dreaded the moment when the truth would dash the villagers' hopes - hopes that had been raised to unrealistic heights.

  His only consolation came from remembering something Babak had said, when talking about the efficacy of the potions he sold. 'If my patients believe they're going to get well, then they do. The human mind is a wonderful physician.' The self-styled apothecary had made a living out of that philosophy, and now Terrel had to try to do the same. The least he could do was give the villagers a chance to heal themselves. However, that still did not make him feel any less of a fraud when he held someone's hand or touched their forehead, but he persevered, hoping to do more good than harm. He soon found that the actual process - the contact between him and his patients

  -became an end in itself. Terrel had been in pain his whole life, from a time even before he was born, and he could not only recognize it in others but could also trace its patterns. He understood.

  There were no instant reactions, as there had been with the animals, and -

  just as with Jessett - Terrel did not fall into an obvious waking dream, but he nevertheless felt that some sort of connection was being made whenever he tried to help someone. He wondered whether this might be an unconscious extension of the psinoma, but made no deliberate attempt to pry into his patients' minds.
Instead he simply spent some time with them, talking if that seemed appropriate, and offering a few practical suggestions - things that to him were just a matter of common sense. Everyone was grateful for his efforts, and he could only wait until disillusionment set in.

  It never did. In each case, sometimes within a few hours but more often within a day or two, there was at least some improvement in the patient's condition.

  No one understood less about what was actually happening than Terrel himself, but his successes were too consistent for it just to be a coincidence. He ceased to question what was happening and simply accepted it, thinking that perhaps his own faith might actually be making whatever he was doing even more effective. There were times when he tried to analyze his actions, but the failure of such attempts was more than offset by the satisfaction he gained from helping people - and, as before, by the gifts he received in return, which allowed him to repay Ysatel and her family for their kindness.

  Terrel had no knowledge of the internal workings of the human body - in fact just thinking about it made him feel squeamish - but it seemed that he was more successful in dealing with the effects of illness or injury, rather than with the underlying cause. He could cool a fever without ever identifying the infection from which it sprang. He could stem the blood flow from a wound without being able to close the gash itself. He could not mend a broken bone, but seemed able to alleviate the pain associated with it. Whether a fracture healed properly or not depended on several other factors - the seriousness of the injury, how it had been splinted, the physical strength of the patient -

  but there were those who claimed that Terrel's intervention speeded up the process no matter what the circumstances were. That, in fact, was the most extraordinary aspect of the whole thing. Once relieved of some of the discomfort of their ailment, most of his patients improved of their own accord within a relatively short space of time. Terrel believed that they were healing themselves - they thought they were getting better, so they did - and this idea was backed up by the fact that many of his most obvious successes came with small children. Their faith in him was the simplest and the strongest - they were used to believing what grown-ups told them - and even though Terrel was still quite young himself, they regarded him with awe.

  Once they overcame their instinctive distrust of his strange appearance, they hung on his every word. Their developing minds held powers he could only guess at, but each child he treated got better again. And that, in turn, enhanced his reputation with the adults. Of course — as Ysatel pointed out when he tried to discuss his theory with her - this didn't explain Jessett's recovery.

  She had been too young to understand what was going on. Terrel had no answer to that, but was simply glad that he had been able to help.

  There were exceptions, of course — primarily the three men who now lay in the communal hut that was used as an infirmary for those who had no homes to go to. These unfortunates were tended intermittently by some of the village women, and no one believed that they would live for long. Two of them were discarded miners - the third had died while Terrel and Olandis were away fishing -and the other was Solan, the man who had lost not only his health but also his wife and daughter in the first earthquake. He had been languishing there for more than a long month, surviving much longer than anyone had expected.

  Terrel didn't hold out much hope for the three men and, even though this seemed callous, he spent little time with them, concentrating instead on cases that would derive a more immediate benefit from his putative talent. However, as the days passed and the demands on his time grew less, he found himself visiting the hut more often, hoping if not for a cure then at least to ease their suffering a little.

  Ysatel went with him whenever she could, aware that Terrel was still not back to full health himself. He protested that he was doing nothing strenuous, but she could see the weariness in his face, and guessed that becoming a healer and working for as many hours as he was able had stretched the boy's resources to the limit. He had had a few dizzy spells - which could possibly have been a delayed reaction to his efforts to help others - and Ysatel was determined that he should not wear himself out completely. She admired his compassion and selflessness, but knew that he would have to learn to pace himself. As a result she accompanied him to the infirmary to make sure he did not stay too long.

  Solan's plight was pitiful. He had been a strong man, not big but wiry and agile, but now he was wasting away, his life all but destroyed by the rockfall. When he was awake he was in constant agony, pain that Terrel's ministrations had only been able to dull, but things were even worse when he was asleep. Then he relived his hopeless attempts to rescue his loved ones, crying out and driving himself into a frenzy that only made his physical torment more excruciating. Terrel sensed the echo of his distress - of both body and mind — whenever he held the man's good hand in his own, and it was on one such occasion that he felt, with a certainty he did not question, that Solan was going to die soon.

  He also knew that if the man died in his present state, then his torment would live on in the next world, his spirit lost in an endless cycle of misery.

  Terrel remembered the anguished face of Kativa, whose ghost had been imprisoned by grief for two hundred years. He had been responsible for her being able to move on at last, and that memory gave him the incentive and the strength to act now.

  'It wasn't your fault, Solan,' he said softly, as the invalid groaned in his sleep.

  Ysatel, watching with some concern from her position by the doorway, was about to say that the injured man wouldn't be able to hear anything, but then Solan grew quieter and his sudden repose stilled her tongue.

  'It wasn't your fault,' Terrel repeated forcefully. 'You have to listen to me, Solan. You did all you could. It's just something that happened.'

  He paused then, and although his patient still seemed to be asleep, his face was more peaceful and his breathing had grown steadier. Ysatel found that she was holding her own breath.

  'They know you tried,' Terrel went on. 'You have no need of forgiveness, from them, from yourself, from anyone. The dream can be changed.'

  There was another pause, briefer this time.

  'I don't know why you didn't die too,' Terrel said, as if answering an unspoken question. 'Who can know such things? But that wasn't your fault either. You have to believe me, Solan. This is the most important thing you'll ever do, but you don't have much time. None of this was your fault.'

  Terrel's voice had been rising, his tone becoming more urgent, but then he felt the pressure of his own grip being returned by his patient's fingers for the first and last time, and he fell silent, hoping. Solan's face changed again. It was not a smile; that would have been too much to ask. But the pain was gone at last.

  'You can go to them now,' Terrel said quietly.

  The air in the hut became very still.

  'He's dead,' Terrel said a moment later, releasing the lifeless hand.

  'Did he . . . ?' Ysatel's voice failed her.

  'He understood, I think. In the end.'

  'You're . . . you're a good man, Terrel,' Ysatel whispered.

  He turned round to look at her, and was astonished to see that she was crying.

  It was the first time anyone had referred to him as a man, rather than a boy, and he didn't know how to react to that - or to her tears.

  The next day, Terrel headed straight from Solan's burial to the infirmary hut.

  When she realized where he was going, Ysatel ran after him and took his arm.

  'You've done enough for now,' she told him. 'Why don't you get some rest? You were talking in your sleep again last night.'

  Terrel had no memory of any dreams, but knew that she wouldn't lie to him.

  'I'm not tired.' The stoop of his shoulders and the drawn look on his face told another story, but Ysatel knew she had little chance of getting him to admit it.

  'I'll come with you, then.'

  'And make sure I don't stay too long?'
<
br />   'Exactly,' she admitted. 'Someone has to look after you.'

  They began walking again.

  'I feel responsible,' he said.

  'I know you do, but—'

  'I should save my energy for people who really matter?'

  Ysatel had been thinking the same thing, but hearing it put so bluntly made her feel ashamed of herself.

  'They don't have anyone else,' Terrel added. 'I was like that before Aylen and Olandis found me. I'm only alive because they thought I mattered.'

  'And they were right,' she said.

  'One of the miners is going to die soon, but Talker won't unless we let him.

  Apart from his eyes there's nothing physically wrong with him.' They had taken to calling the blind man Talker because that was what he liked to do. Nobody knew his real name.

  'But his mind has gone,' Ysatel said. While he was the only one of the infirmary inmates who ever spoke much, what he said was usually gibberish.

  Terrel's efforts had helped him to begin eating and drinking again, but nothing more. His eyes, when they were uncovered, looked normal but it was clear from his reactions - or lack of them - that he was completely blind. The villagers assumed that this was what had driven him mad.

  'Not gone,' Terrel corrected her. 'Different.' The miner's ramblings had reminded him of some of Alyssa's more bizarre comments. 'What he says might make perfect sense to him.'

  They had reached the hut by now, and were surprised by what they saw when they looked inside. Talker had left his own pallet, and was kneeling beside the other patient. He was holding the dying man's hand, just as Terrel had done on earlier visits, and the expression on his face was serene.

  'What's he doing?'

  'I don't know. I'd've said he was copying me, but he can't have seen what I did.'

  At the sound of their voices Talker turned his head, his sightless eyes staring past them.

  'Flying,' he said clearly. 'No pain now.' He patted the limp hand within his grasp.

  Terrel and Ysatel went forward and found, as they had expected, that the injured miner was indeed no longer in any pain. He was dead, but his passing had apparently been peaceful enough. And he had not been alone.