“Hyper what?!” Lizeth interrupted.
“Hyperbole… Um…”
She shook her head, “Apparently I heard you right the first time. Where do you get words like that?”
“Um, it means… Exaggerated or, maybe, embellished would be better.”
“Embellished! Only you would explain one word with another I’ve never heard!”
“Um, sorry,” Tarc said, looking abashed.
“Oh hell. Don’t worry about it.” She winked, “I like your oversized brain.”
“Um,” Tarc said hesitantly, “my head’s not any bigger than other people’s.”
Lizeth snorted, “Okay, I like your overly smart brain.” She studied him. “Roper says Hood may be modeling himself on some hero of the ancients called Robin Hood. That true?”
Tarc frowned, “I’ve never even heard of Robin Hood.”
“Good to hear there’s something you don’t know! Apparently, this Robin Hood guy went around stealing from the rich and giving the money to the poor. Killed off a lot of evildoers too.”
Tarc tilted his head as he digested this. “I’m not sure stealing from the rich and giving to the poor’s always a good thing. The rich are the ones who hire the…” he began.
Lizeth laughed, “You think too much.”
“Sorry…”
“So, you dodged my question.”
“What question was that?” Tarc said, obviously trying to look innocent.
“What about you and me? I heard you had a thing for that girl Nylin. Is that true?”
Looking down, he picked at a crack in the table with a fingernail. “It was.”
“So, just as soon as I left, you took up with some other hussy?”
Tarc was still focused on the table. He shrugged, “Not as soon as you left. It was a while. But, if you remember, you’d pretty thoroughly dumped me.”
“You accused me of being a witch!”
He looked up, his eyes twinkling, “Because you are a witch.”
“You know just what to say to a girl.” Then, feeling a tightness in her throat, Lizeth said, “So, you’re not still with her?”
“No, I’m in Denton’s Crossing.”
Lizeth snorted, “When you were talking about whether you had a thing for her, you used the word ‘was.’ Is that ‘thing’ over?”
“Yeah,” he sighed, “she dumped me too. It seems my destiny’s to live my life getting dumped by one girl after another.”
She looked at him for a moment. She glanced away and noticed an old man staring at Tarc. Lizeth felt vulnerable asking Tarc these kinds of questions.
She didn’t like feeling vulnerable.
But, she had to know. “So, they say when you get thrown off a horse, you should get right back on.” She looked him in the eye, “I’m sorry I threw you. But, would you like to get back on?”
Tarc glanced away. After a moment, without looking at her, he said, “Um…”
Lizeth slapped the table, “It’s a simple yes or no question. By the way you’re dithering, I assume the answer’s ‘no,’ but it’d be nice if you just said it.”
He turned and looked her in the eye for a moment. Then he grinned, “To use your analogy, that didn’t make me feel like getting back on the horse. I think you should wait until they’ve stopped kicking, bucking, and biting before you try to get back on.”
Lizeth snorted, “Yeah, sorry. But I feel like you’re torturing me here. Just like getting in cold water slowly only extends the pain. I’d like it if you just went ahead and told me whatever you’re going to tell me.”
Of course, the waiter showed up with their pizza at that moment.
Lizeth felt like gnashing her teeth. When the waiter asked if they needed anything else, she barked “No!” at him. She was already feeling bad for talking to him that way when Tarc made it worse by apologizing for her and reminding the boy that they’d ordered beers.
As the waiter walked away, Lizeth turned to Tarc with a sense of impending doom.
Suddenly the old man who’d been staring at Tarc stepped up to their table. “I’m so sorry! I’ve been waiting for a break in your conversation and it seems you’ve just had one. Are you from the Norton caravan?”
Lizeth was ready to lash out, but Tarc put a calming hand on hers as he turned and smiled at the old guy, “We are, can we help you?”
“You look like one of the Norton caravan healers? The Hyllises? Last time the Norton caravan came through someone told me their healers weren’t with them anymore.”
“Um…” Tarc said, obviously disconcerted. “I am one of the Hyllises, but I don’t have a lot to do with their healing. My mother, Eva Hyllis, she’s the master healer. She’s settled down in Clancy Vail. You could visit her there if you need help.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re the boy that did my treatment last time. She said my arteries were clogged up and you cleaned them out?”
Tarc nodded, “I do remember you, sir. I helped, but it was my sister that actually cleaned out your arteries.”
“Oh! Thank you! It helped so much! I was hoping you could do the same thing for my wife? Her chest hurts whenever she tries to do anything. My chest used to hurt too, though my legs were so bad I couldn’t walk fast enough for my chest to hurt much. But would you look at her? See if you can help her?”
Tarc looked distraught, “My sister’s the one who has the tal… The one who knows how to take care of that kind of problem. She’s in Clancy Vail with my mother. Could you take your wife there?”
The man gave him a pleading look, “Can you at least look at her? Do what you can? If you could just make her a little better, I’d feel a lot better about our chances of getting to Clancy Vail with her still alive.”
“Sure,” Tarc said placatingly, though Lizeth could tell he knew he couldn’t help. “I’ll come look. Is it okay if we eat our pizza first?”
“Yes, yes,” the old man said eagerly. He took a seat at the next table, still focusing all his attention on Tarc.
His posture reminded Lizeth of a dog begging for treats. After a moment, she said, “Sir, we’re trying to have a private conversation. Could you give us a little space?”
The old man apologized and got up, moving several tables away but still keeping eyes on Tarc—as if he were some magical being that might vanish. When Lizeth looked at Tarc, he was giving her an odd look. She couldn’t decide whether he was amused by her impatience, embarrassed that she’d asked the old man to leave, dreading the question between them, or maybe all three. She said, “Well?”
“Before I answer, I have a question.”
Lizeth rolled her eyes but nodded.
“If we tried being boyfriend and girlfriend again, how do you think it’d turn out?”
Astonished, she began, “I don’t know, we’d have to try it to see…” She suddenly realized what he was really asking. Asking about the future her talent could see. As soon as she wondered about it, a sense of doom filled her. Feeling her face tighten, she said, “I don’t know.”
Softly, Tarc reached out and took her hand. He said, “I think you do. I can see it in your face.”
Her throat started to hurt, “If you’re not right for me,” she choked out, “who is? Who even could be?! I couldn’t live with some… ordinary guy, you know? I’d just push him around?”
He shrugged, still holding her hand. “At least when you do meet someone,” he grinned, “you’ll know whether there’s any future in it.”
She felt tears welling. Something she hated because they made her seem weak. Forcing a smile, she glanced left out the window, trying to wipe at her left eye without Tarc seeing her do it. When she looked back she realized he hadn’t been fooled into looking out the window with her. He reached out and gently wiped away the tears in her right eye. She wanted to hate him, but couldn’t. “Can… can we be friends?”
Tarc leaned back and gave her a measuring look. “Can you stop yelling at me?”
She almost snorted, but didn’t because
her nose was running. She snuffled and wiped at it with the back of her wrist. “If you’ll stop saying stupid stuff.”
Tarc nodded solemnly, “Agreed, no stupid stuff.” He picked up his slice of pizza and took a bite. He drew back to give the remainder of the slice a cross-eyed look. “This isn’t very good! Not nearly as good as it was when we came here the first time!”
Lizeth laughed, “I told you you’d been spoiled!”
“No, really, their previous cook must’ve died or something.”
She shook her head, “I promise you. Their pizza’s always tasted that way. It’s good, but only if you’ve never had Eva’s pizza.”
Tarc stared at it for a moment, “What’re they doing wrong?” He took another bite.
“You’d know better than I would. You’ve helped Eva cook.”
~~~
When they finished eating and got up, Lizeth abruptly stepped close and gave Tarc a hug. After holding him tightly for several moments, she whispered, “Come by later. I need to practice my kissing.”
Tarc only nodded, not trusting his voice. As she walked away, he turned to the old man, “Shall we go to your place?”
The old man eagerly stood, nodding excitedly. As they started toward the door, he stuck out his hand, “John Albert.”
Tarc shook Albert’s hand. He said, “Tarc Hyllis.”
“I’ve been feeling so much better since you cleaned out my arteries,” Albert bubbled. “I’ve got several friends with exactly the same problem. They could really use some of your help too.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Albert. Like I said, I can’t clean arteries myself. I can check your friends to be sure they wouldn’t be wasting a trip if they went to Clancy Vail, but to get the kind of relief you did, they’ll have to travel to where my sister or cousin could take care of them.”
~~~
When they arrived at Albert’s house, his wife was ecstatic to learn the Hyllises were back in Denton’s Crossing. Like her husband, she ignored Tarc’s protests that he was the only Hyllis there and that he couldn’t clean out arteries. When he tried to tell her this, she interrupted to launch into an amazed description of her husband’s improved vitality since the day he’d been treated. Then she began detailing her own chest pain in painful detail.
While she went on, her husband went out to find the friends and relatives he thought had “exactly” the same problem he’d had. Tarc sat beside her and, while listening and listening and listening, used his ghirit to explore her body from head to toe. She didn’t have cancer. She did have arthritis and atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. Most of her major arteries were atherosclerotic, but by far the most problematic were the plaques in the coronary arteries of her heart. Several of the vessels supplying the heart muscle were almost completely blocked.
While Tarc was waiting for her husband to return—since he could barely wedge a word into the wife’s ongoing oration about her symptoms— he began to wonder whether he could use Vyrda’s technique of pulling a loose plaque out of an important artery, dragging it back to a less important artery and dropping it where it’d plug off the flow in a vascular bed that could tolerate the loss.
First, he explored a path through the arteries from her heart to the highly vascularized spleen. Then he gently used his telekinesis to tug on a big crusted plaque that was nearly occluding one of the main coronary arteries.
Interrupting Mrs. Albert in midsentence, Tarc said, “Ma’am I may be able to remove a little of the gunk plugging up one of the arteries in your heart. Would you like me to try to do it?”
She stared at him for a moment. Tarc wasn’t sure whether this was because her train of thought had been discombobulated, or whether she was simply irritated at having been interrupted. After a moment, she said, “Oh, my yes!” She looked about her kitchen for inspiration, then brightly said, “What do you need?”
Feeling guilty, since he didn’t really need anything, Tarc said, “A dishtowel and complete silence are the only things I really need. I’m going to roll up the dishtowel and press it against your chest bone. Then I’ll have to concentrate very hard.”
“Oh!” she said, shooting Tarc a look that told him she suspected he was just tired of her incessant talking. “Okay.”
Tarc had her lie back on the kitchen table, then rolled up the towel and pressed it firmly over her sternum (breastbone). Leaning closer, he used his ghirit to tug on the large crusted plaque, worried that moving it might tear the wall of the blood vessel. After several moments of wiggling, it came loose. He tugged the crust back up through the coronary and into the aorta, then down the aorta to drop it into the splenic artery. There, he followed it as it floated on down to plug off one of the vessels in the spleen. He thought the vessels there were redundant enough —that they had secondary or collateral vessels feeding the same tissue—that the tissue’d stay alive. But even if it didn’t, he knew that the surgeons of the ancients had often removed the entire spleen. There were some consequences to the immune system, but they weren’t as severe as losing other organs, especially the heart.
When he returned his attention to the heart, flow to the muscle fed by that particular coronary was much better.
Mr. Albert hadn’t returned yet, so Tarc tugged on a plaque in another vessel. It was more firmly attached, but he realized he could simply visualize his ghirit forming a little needle and use it to perforate the plaque’s attachment—something like a smaller version of the narrow punch he’d driven into Uray’s testicles. He worked at weakening it for a while, then tugged on the plaque again.
Tarc was alarmed when he pulled this new plaque loose and several of the tiny fragments he’d broken loose punching it came free and shot down the coronary artery. He quickly took the big chunk he’d broken loose and pulled it through the arteries, releasing it into the spleen. Then he went back to see what’d happened to the little fragments that got away from him. Hopefully, they’re tiny enough that the loss of the small area of heart fed by an artery that little won’t cause a big problem. In fact, his ghirit couldn’t detect most of the tiny fragments. He wondered whether some of them had broken up into even smaller fragments. Ones too small to find, or small enough they made their way on through the capillaries and into the veins. He did find one fragment substantial enough that he pulled it back out, then dragged around and released it in the spleen.
Albert still wasn’t back and Tarc was enjoying the silence, so he kept pulling plaques out of her arteries, working to clear smaller and smaller vessels.
Finally, the door opened and Albert came back in. Tarc leaned up away from the woman’s chest. She sourly said “I suppose you’re going to pretend you actually did something. Best I could tell you were taking a nap!”
Tarc felt weary, though at least he’d worked slowly enough that he hadn’t given himself a headache. He said, “Get up, walk around. See if your chest feels any better.” He turned to her husband, “Did you find any of the folks you wanted me to look at?”
Mr. Albert had brought several friends and one of them had brought his wife. Though Albert had felt sure their symptoms were “exactly like” his, they generally weren’t. They all had leg pain, though the symptoms were significantly different. Two of them proved to have knee arthritis while Maisie’s leg pain came from a pinched nerve in her back. Tarc confirmed it was the pinch causing the symptoms by putting just a little more pressure on the nerve at the tight spot—which significantly worsened the pain she felt.
Tarc punched some holes in the base of the bony spur that contributed most of the pinching. Having weakened it, he was able to break the spur loose and shift it away from the nerve. Breaking and moving it caused some pain in Maisie’s back but she experienced immediate relief of the pain in her leg.
She proclaimed it a worthwhile trade-off.
Tarc told the two men with knee arthritis that neither he nor the healers in Clancy Vail could do anything for them besides brewing up some willow bark tea.
The last man did have
leg pain resulting from narrowing of the arteries to his legs. Tarc advised him that a trip to Clancy Vail would be necessary and well worth his time.
By this time, Mrs. Albert had begun proclaiming her chest pain was gone. She was ecstatic about it and apologized to Tarc for accusing him of taking a nap.
The man with the poor blood flow in his legs turned on Tarc, “Why won’t you fix my legs?! You helped Masie and both of the Alberts!” He pulled out a couple of golds and shook them at Tarc, “My money not good enough for you?”
Tiredly, Tarc shook his head and stood up—which at his height left him looking down on all of them. He didn’t want to be intimidating, but he didn’t like being accused over and over either. “Your money’s fine,” he said. “It’s just that your problem’s… It’s a big problem. One I can’t do anything for. My sister and my cousin can, but they’re in Clancy Vail and unlikely to come this way.” He sighed, “If you can afford to take a caravan up there, I’m sure they’ll be able to help you.”
Masie and Mrs. Albert timidly asked how much Tarc was charging for what he’d done. He followed Eva’s principle of telling them to pay what they thought it was worth to them. They each paid him a gold.
Maisie apparently felt guilty. She caught up to him after he left and gave him another gold.
As he walked back to the caravan, he reflected that healing those people, crotchety as they were, felt more fulfilling than overthrowing the government of Realth. Rationally, he understood that getting rid of Uray had prevented a lot more misery than removing a bone spur and a few plaques. But, the one felt like he’d done something positive for a few people while the other had consisted of the elimination of some negatives. Is it just because Uray’s future victims’ll never know what I did for them? he wondered.
Am I so shallow I have to have someone thank me before I feel fulfilled?
And get paid a few golds?
***
When Daussie came downstairs to get the next patient, Farlin said, “Daussie, have you got a moment?”
She met Farlin halfway. He nodded his head to the side, “The woman at the corner table wants to talk to you. Says Tarc sent her.”
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