by Peter Hartz
“Darius Turraine?”
The man on crutches turned, smiling at the young man walking towards him. The fans meant everything to him, and he was happy to meet them wherever they sought him out. Inside, he was not happy about his injury, but that didn’t matter at the moment. The young man was smiling at him, and holding out his hand.
“That’s me. What’s your name?”
“I am Daniel.” Darius shook the young man’s hand, and wondered at the strength of the teenager’s grip.
“You have quite the grip, Daniel. You play ball?”
“Naw. I am more of a band geek, but I watch games whenever I can. Man, your knee got messed up, huh?”
Darius nodded. The hit had been clean, but he’d had his cleat planted, and the knee wasn’t meant to move that way and not suffer.
“Yeah, I’m gonna go up and see this surgeon, and see if he can put my knee back together. Maybe get a few more years out of it before I have to hang it up and do something honest with my life. But if not, well, I got my degree, and I can always go back and study more.” He said it with optimism, but inside it hurt to think that his dream of being a professional football player might be over almost as quick as it had begun.
Then he noticed something. Daniel’s eyes seemed to glow slightly as he looked down Darius’s body. Then the glow went away as he looked back up at Darius and smiled.
“I didn’t know you had so many injuries. A plate in your leg, screws in your arm and your foot; wow, you’ve been pounded on pretty bad in your career.”
Darius’ mouth fell open. It was almost like Daniel could see everything he was describing. Now that the glow was gone from his eyes, he wasn’t sure if it had been there or not.
“How do you know all that? You been following my career?”
“No, I can see it. I have some unusual abilities. It doesn’t matter. What does matter, though, is I can fix it all. Everything. Like it never happened. And I can erase the evidence of those concussions you’ve had. Here.”
Darius couldn’t move back at all on the crutches, but it wouldn’t have mattered one bit. Daniel didn’t need to touch him to cast the spells. He didn’t even have time to react before it happened.
He could only watch and wonder what was going on as the teenager raised his right hand, and first a red light flashed over him from that hand, then a yellow light, followed by a green light, the a blue light. Each one seemed to make his vision blur momentarily, but the blue one left him unable to see through his glasses. He pulled them off, and looked around to see everything clearly. Then he heard his foot hit something on the floor as he shuffled. He looked down to see a plate and several surgical screws on the floor next to him, and his mind swooned for a moment. He lost his balance and dropped the crutches before realizing that his knee didn’t hurt. In fact, nothing did. Not even that low-level constant headache he never talked about. It was all gone. He glanced up to look at Daniel once more, and the teenager was just standing there, looking at him.
“What did you do to me?” The words came out strained, as if it was difficult to talk.
“I healed everything that was wrong with you. I also cast cure poison, cure sickness, and cure blindness to fix your eyes. It would suck if you weren’t able to play anymore. You are going to have a great career.” The words came out in a level tone of voice, as if Daniel was talking about the weather or something.
Darius heard a sound and turned to see his brother, Donald, coming in through the front door of the small medical office building.
Donald had followed his younger brother’s career with pride and more than a little worry. He had seen the toll that the game was taking on his brother’s body and, without admitting it to Darius, his mind. There were times that he wondered if it was worth the price that Darius would pay later. The plight of the older retired NFL players was big news right now, as the lawsuit they had filed against the league was the ‘A’ topic around the family when Darius wasn’t there.
Donald had noticed things. Darius wasn’t the same some days. It was obvious that a concussion he’d had in his sophomore year of college had had an impact on him. He was still great on the field, but off the field he’d had a few mental issues with his memory and his ability to process new ideas. It scared Donald to think that a twenty-four year old in the prime of his life was having those problems.
Secretly, Darius’s older brother was happy when the latest injury happened. He selfishly hoped that Darius would get out of the NFL and not be taking the huge risks he ran with his future and his health. The family was not hurting financially, and Darius had already made millions the first two years of his rookie contract. He could get an injury settlement from the league, and never have to worry about his finances again. Donald was most impressed with how Darius had managed his money so far. He lived an almost Spartan existence, with almost everything going into investment accounts for the long term. He drove a seven year old Toyota Camry he had acquired used that had seen better days. He laughingly told Donald that his teammates had given him no end of grief about an early first-round draft pick showing up in a “beater”, but he had turned the joke back on them when he asked them how much it cost to insure the AMGs, the Lamborghinis, and the Ferraris that they drove.
Donald stepped into the main lobby of the building, and frowned when he saw his brother standing in front of the building directory. His first thought was that Darius had forgotten the name of the clinic he was here to see, but he relaxed when he saw the teenager standing next to him. Then he noticed something else when Darius heard him come in, and turned towards him. Donald was completely stunned to see that Darius had tears running down his face. And the teenager had his right hand on Darius’s far shoulder as his brother turned towards him. Then he noticed something else: Darius had dropped the crutches on the floor, and was standing up straight, almost as if –
“My knee doesn’t hurt! Nothing hurts! And look at this!” Darius held something out towards Donald, as the older man came closer. And when Donald saw what it was, he stumbled slightly.
“Is that… did that come from… what is going on? How did this happen? Who are you?” The last was directed at Daniel, who smiled at Donald, and offered his hand.
“I’m Daniel. I healed Darius of everything that was wrong with him.” The teenager, Donald thought he was no more than seventeen, spoke with a quiet confidence that seemed totally at odds with the impossible statement he’d just made.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Get away from my brother, you nut-job!” Donald started to push Daniel away from Darius, but his brother grabbed his arm and stopped him. It wasn’t that difficult, as Darius was almost ten years younger, and in the nearly perfect physical condition required to play in the NFL.
“Stop, Donald. He healed me. Look! I don’t even need glasses anymore!” The joy in Darius’s voice stopped him. He paused, and in the moment, Daniel spoke up again.
“Why don’t you go in to the appointment, and see for yourself? I will wait here. Come see me when you are finished. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here when you get back.”
Donald couldn’t stop staring at Darius, and his mind stuttering to a halt as the unreal situation seemed to try to become real to him.
“Yeah, let’s go, Darius. Leave this whacko. You have an appointment.” Donald firmly grabbed his younger brother’s upper arm and started to try to lead him towards the elevator, but Darius pulled free with a word.
“Wait.” He bent down and picked up a handful of screws that seemed to be on the floor before grabbing both crutches in his left hand and stood. “Ok. Let’s go. See you in a while, kid. If you’re gone when I get back – “
“I won’t be.” The quiet words were inserted into the sentence.
“ – then thanks, if for nothing else than fixing my eyes. Let’s go, Donnie. Don’t wanna be late for the doctor!” The cheerful tone of voice from Darius brought Donald up short. It was a sound that he hadn’t heard from his brother in months, as the g
rind of training camp, pre-season games, and then the meat-grinder of the long regular season pounded down on his brother.
Nearly an hour later, Daniel was sitting in the comfortable, padded chair in the lobby, leaning back almost into a reclining position, with his eyes closed, when he heard someone coming out of the elevator. The footsteps came closer, then stopped in front of him. He knew it wasn’t Darius, because the shoes had hard soles, Darius had been wearing athletic shoes, and the stride was different. His ears detected two other sets of feet coming along behind, though. One of them was Darius, which mean the other was Donald.
He opened his eyes, and smiled up at the man in the tie and the doctor’s coat.
“Hi, Doctor. How are you today?”
“What the hell did you do to my patient?” Daniel was not prepared for the hostility in the doctor’s voice, but in retrospect, it made sense. The doctor was not going to get paid for operating on Darius’s knee. The realization made an entire new line of thought course through his brain that had to do with the economic impact of what he was capable. Sekur was right in preparing him the way he had; this was going to get messy. Not that he would do anything differently. He knew what his teacher wanted from him and the impact it would have, and frankly, he was glad to do it. It was overdue.
Now he looked up at the furious doctor standing in front of him, and stood abruptly. The motion was filled with a confidence that the doctor didn’t expect from someone so young, but Daniel simply smiled inside.
“I healed him. It was simple, really. Here, let me look at you.”
His back was to the windows, and the three older men were looking directly at him, when his eyes glowed brightly enough for the color of his eyes to be completely obscured by the light. His gaze swept over the slightly overweight man in front of him while the doctor stepped back in sudden consternation. What was happening here? Who was this teenager, and what was up with his eyes? In nearly twenty years as an orthopedic surgeon, he had never seen anything like it. He was speechless and mesmerized by the glow coming from those eyes in front of him, watching as they swept down his body, then back up. The glow went away when he looked the doctor in the eye again, a look of concern and compassion on his young face.
“Do you know you have prostate cancer? It doesn’t really look that bad yet; probably not very aggressive. Also, you used to be a smoker some years ago. In a few years, you will have lung cancer, if I don’t do anything about it now. Also, you have some pain in your left hip, and you had your ankle repaired some time ago. And, you’re infertile, but not by choice. I can fix all of that. It won’t take more than a moment, if you want.”
“What are you talking about? Cancer? How do you know that I used to smoke? How can you do this?”
“Magic. I don’t know how I can do it, but I know that I can. Look at Darius. Does he look like he needs surgery anymore? Or anything else, for that matter?”
The doctor was a man of science, and science demands proof in the form of repeated tests that reliably produce the same results, before belief can happen. The trained skeptic in him wanted to see it happen again, but the human wanted it more. He knew about the prostate cancer, and was facing the uncomfortable reality that he would have to have it taken out, along with some unknown level of his functionality in that area, but he was surprised by what Daniel had said about his lungs. He’d quit smoking more than twenty years before, at the end of med school.
The young man in front of him couldn’t be more than a teenager. But there was something about his eyes, when they weren’t glowing, that was, that drew the much older doctor in. It was almost as if the person in front of him was way older than he appeared. Those eyes watched him patiently, with a calm confidence that he rarely saw in competent surgeons older than himself.
He realized that he had simply been staring at the young boy in front of him for almost a minute, when Darius behind him spoke up, his voice almost shocking in the silence.
“Didn’t I tell you, Doctor? There’s something about him; like, in his eyes or something.”
Donald had also been staring at the young man, wondering what it was about him that was so disconcerting. When his brother mentioned the boy’s eyes, it all clicked, and he gasped almost silently.
Darius turned to his older brother, and asked, “What? What is it?”
“It’s like looking at Grandpa Kevin. You know, like he could look right through you. He seemed like he had lived forever…” Donald spoke in a hushed tone, like he was in church, or at a funeral.
Darius nodded in surprise, realizing that the resemblance was uncanny. He remembered the surreal way that their grandfather had seemed to look at them as if every secret were written on their faces.
Daniel simply waited with a slight, content smile on his face that said he was comfortable with whatever happened. The truth was, the endless months and years he had spent in training with Sekur had changed him. He saw it in the mirror every morning he woke up from the sessions. He looked older somehow, as if he had lived a full life in the nights that he had spent training with Sekur in his dreams.
The training sessions had started out simple, with what Sekur called the Cardinal Spells, and moved on from there. After those were mastered, and fairly easily at that, Sekur had told him that they were going to find Daniel’s limits. As the endless training sessions went on and on, seemingly months were compressed into every night’s dreams, as days and nights were cycled through endlessly. And during those endless days, Daniel learned and mastered everything that Sekur had presented to him.
Simple spells were just that - simple. More advanced magical skills were introduced, and made part of Daniel’s rapidly growing repertoire. Spells that seemed simple when first cast suddenly became complex as he learned to cast them over distances, then over multiple subjects first close up, then also at a distance. The ability to transport himself very far away would come in handy as he was called upon to do more and more tasks for Sekur, something he was happy to do in exchange for the training and skills he was learning.
Spells and magical abilities that had to be cast and used during combat had been a stressful and painful time, as the scenarios he was thrust into in the meadow became more complex and dangerous every night. He didn’t always succeed, and in some cases, he thought he even might have died more than once. But he learned and got better. And he went on to master those skills and abilities as well, no matter how difficult or painful it was to do so. And the months went on and on.
When the subject of what Daniel would do with the skills he was learning from Sekur came up, Daniel was adamant about only doing things that benefitted others. He would not harm anyone, unless it was necessary to save someone else, or was clearly the right thing to do; but even then, it could only be after everything else had been tried first.
Sekur had agreed with a smile, saying that Daniel would be a force for good in the world, and would accomplish great things. He asked Daniel to remember two cardinal rules: if an act harmed no one, do it, and protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. However, he cautioned Daniel that there would be times when Daniel would have to harm someone in the defense of someone else, or in the cause of doing what was good and right. He said that Daniel needed to not be paralyzed by indecision if those moments came up. Almost anything done wrong in the innocent pursuit of doing what was best could be set aright again with Daniel’s magic skills, and Sekur was available to assist with what Daniel needed, so long as those actions served the Greater Good.
Daniel had listened gravely, understanding that sometimes one needed to make difficult decisions, and do hard-to-understand actions, or even impossible-to-understand actions, if that is what it took to do the right thing. He thought about the civics class he’d had the previous year in high school, where the teacher had talked about the choices a soldier needed to make to protect civilians: take a life to save a life. While the teacher had talked in terms that made it clear he thought that soldiers never needed to kill someone to prote
ct someone else, Daniel had not agreed. He had read enough history, especially about the events surrounding World War II in which his grandfather had served, to know that sometimes people needed to be stopped permanently. When he had brought it up in class, the teacher had all but berated him for his views, saying that the Allies didn’t try hard enough to find a solution to the “German Crisis,” which made Daniel laugh out loud, and got him sent to the office.
Daniel explained that it was ludicrous to call World War II, a seminal event in human history that had cost billions of dollars and millions of lives, a Crisis. The principal had tried to tell Daniel to just agree with the teacher, but that didn’t go over well, so he got Daniel to agree to keep his opinions to himself, do the work, and answer the questions from the material that was part of the class if he wanted to keep his 4.0 grade point average. Daniel agreed, but with the statement that he knew the teacher was wrong, which got a nod from the principal while he reiterated that Daniel better toe the line in the class.
Now he looked at the older man in front of him as the doctor started to speak again, listening intently.
“Prove to me that you can do this.”
The smile on Daniel’s face grew wide. This is what he was waiting for. He looked one more time, seeing a middle-aged man with the usual excess weight around his middle, maybe forty pounds or so. This would be interesting.
“Hold on to your pants, please.” He spoke gently, waiting for the response he knew was coming.
“Excuse me?” The doctor was befuddled. Why did he need to hold on to his pants?
“Your pants are about to become much too big. You might want to hold on to them, so they don’t fall down. That wouldn’t be good.”
The doctor’s eyes got suddenly very wide, indeed, as he scrambled to grab his pants at his sides.
Daniel nodded, and then cast the spells again. First, cure poison, because poisons can cause sicknesses and injuries. Then, cure sickness, because sicknesses can cause injuries. Then he cast the healing spell, to erase injuries and the impact of poisons and sicknesses. Finally, cure blindness. Sekur had told Daniel that a healing spell didn’t cure blindness; it only repaired most of the physical damage to the tissues of the eyes and the nerves. He explained to Daniel that it was because of how complex the ability to see really was.