Telepath (A Hyllis Family Story #4)

by Laurence Dahners

  “Oh! Wow!” Vyrda said. She stumbled on a stone.

  Tarc caught her elbow and steadied her, pleased to see she barely blinked her eyes open. “Things that aren’t warm like bodies, horses, and fires are a lot harder to sense. But if you work at it, you should be able to sense them too. For instance, that stone you just tripped over.”

  Her brow creased with concentration again. “You’re right. I can sense the ground and some of its bigger irregularities. Ooh, and the wagon too.”

  Tarc said, “You’ll get better at this stuff if you use it a lot. Don’t light a candle when you get up to empty your bladder at night. Use your… ghirit to find your way then too. How far away can you sense any of the warm bodies right now?”

  “The lead mule,” Vyrda said. When Tarc didn’t say anything, she said, “Is that good? Or not so good? I know my telekinesis isn’t as strong as yours…”

  “Um, most of us can sense things farther away than that. But you just started. There’s a guy walking a little way in front of the lead mule. Strain your ghirit and see if you can sense him.”

  Tarc saw her frown again, then a moment later, she said, “I can. I think. He’s pretty faint, so I can’t help but wonder if I’m imagining him.”

  “Open your eyes, see if he’s where your ghirit says he is.”

  “He is!” she said excitedly.

  “Great. So, your ghirit is sensing warm things up to about twenty-five meters away. That’s about the range Kazy had when she first started using her ghirit. She’s worked her way up to about seventy-five meters now. You should be able to do a lot better with practice. Just keep trying to sense things farther and farther away.”

  “Is that good for anything… Besides getting around in the dark, I mean?”

  Tarc shrugged, “As a healer, you might be called on to go visit someone at night. Even if you take a lamp to help you see where you’re going, you can keep your ghirit extended so no one can sneak up on you.”

  Vyrda pursed her lips, “That’s all well and good, but finding out someone’s sneaking up on me just gives me a few seconds of being frightened before he actually attacks.”

  “Ah,” Tarc said, understanding her fear. “Your telekinesis can also be a weapon. If you sense them approaching, and you’re sure they mean you ill, you can stop them.”

  “How? Am I supposed to poke them in the eye with my ghirit? Or something? My ghirit isn’t very strong.”

  “How much can you lift?”

  She looked surprised, “I don’t know. I’ve never thought of trying to lift anything with it.”

  They’d just passed through the gate. Tarc took her by the elbow, saying, “Let’s go sit over here against the wall.” He led her toward an adjacent building. Sitting down, he looked up at her and patted the ground next to him.

  After a moment, she slowly sat down, looking baffled. “And we’re doing this, why?”

  “Teaching you how to protect yourself.” He picked up a few small pebbles and spread them in his right palm. He used his left hand to hide them from the other people on the street. When Daussie looked back at him questioningly, he used his ghirit to whisper next to her ear, “I’m teaching Vyrda how to use her ghirit.”

  Daussie shrugged and kept walking.

  Tarc turned back to Vyrda, “Try lifting these pebbles. Which is the heaviest one you can pick up?”

  The smallest one lifted immediately. Tarc saw Vyrda focusing on it with an amazed look on her face. She quickly lifted each of the others in turn until she got to the largest one which only trembled. Tarc dropped all but the largest two, weighing them in his hands. “I’d say you can lift somewhere in the ten to fifteen-gram range. That’s within a distance of one to two meters”

  Vyrda gave a little laugh “Am I supposed to protect myself by throwing pebbles at people?”

  Tarc snorted, “No. But now we come to the reason we’re sitting down. Do you know what the semicircular canals are?”

  “No.”

  “They’re part of your body’s balance system.”

  She frowned, “Maybe? But not by name. I’ve explored the body pretty thoroughly, but I haven’t had any anatomy books to learn what things are actually called. Your mom says I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “Yeah,” Tarc sighed. “There’s way too much for anyone to learn, though Daussie’s making a good dent in it.” He pointed to his ear. “Use your ghirit to follow the ear canal in till you get to the eardrum.” At her nod, he continued, “Now just beyond that, you’ll find three little tiny circular tubes inside the bone. They’re filled with fluid.”

  “Oh, I guess I haven’t explored the body as well as I thought I had. What did you say they’re for?”

  “Yeah. They’re pretty small. They’d be easy to miss if you weren’t looking for them. They’re important for balance. Can you find them in your own head?”

  She nodded.

  He took a grip on her upper arm and said, “Lean your head back against the wall. Now very gently move the fluid in one of those canals.”

  Her head and her eyeballs suddenly jerked to the sides. She started to fall over, though Tarc held her up. He sent his ghirit in and stilled the fluid in her canals. “That was not what I would call gentle.”

  “I think I’m going to throw up!”

  “Hold it. It’s going to pass.”

  A moment later, her expression smoothed and she relaxed. She opened her eyes and stared at him. “What the hell just happened?”

  “The fluids in those canals swirl back and forth when you move your head. The motion of the fluid tells your brain which way and how fast your head’s moving. That way you know what’s going on with your movements. Also, gravity affects them so the position of the fluid tells you which side’s up. When you were a kid, you probably spun around until you got dizzy? What happens is that when you’re spinning, the fluid starts moving with your head, but then when you stop the fluid keeps on spinning and that motion—when your eyes tell you you aren’t moving but your brain thinks you still are—gives you conflicting messages that make you feel dizzy. When you used your ghirit to rapidly spin your own fluid, it made you really dizzy. That’s why I told you to be gentle, so that maybe it’d only give you a bit of a woozy feeling.”

  “Oh.” Vyrda frowned as if she were thinking for a moment, then she asked, “And you’re thinking that if someone comes after me, I can swirl the fluid in their canals and make them puke?”

  “Swirl the fluid in their canals and they’ll fall down. Then they’ll puke. This takes very little force from your ghirit, but still has an astonishing effect on anyone who’s trying to attack you.”

  “Oh, wow!” She turned to look at Tarc in amazement, “How’d you figure this out?”

  “Doing stupid stuff like swirling the fluid in my own canals. So I have personal experience… like you.” He laughed, “Not because I’m any kind of genius.”

  “That’s not what I hear,” Vyrda said enigmatically.

  Tarc had been getting back to his feet. Now he rolled his eyes and reached out a hand, “Feel like getting up yet?”

  She took his hand and he helped her up. They started after the wagon some distance down the street. Tarc said, “Just in case George gives you trouble, I’d suggest you practice moving things at some distance. You’d really like to make your attacker fall down before he gets a hold of you.”

  Vyrda got a startled look on her face, “I forgot about George. I’m sorry he attacked you, but why didn’t you swirl his canals?”

  “He grabbed my shirt and lifted me before I realized he was going to do it. If I’d swirled his canals then, he’d have taken me down with him.” Tarc shrugged, “That’s why I was telling you to swirl your attacker before he grabs you, not after.” Tarc gave a little one-shouldered shrug, “Though, if he does get a hold of you, I’d still swirl his canals if I were you. He might pull you down as he falls, because dizzy people grab onto things to steady themselves. But he’ll let go pretty quickly. Most of the
guys I’ve done it to, they spread-eagle belly down and look like they’re doing their damnedest to get a grip on the Earth itself. They’re definitely trying to hold onto something solid, not another person that’s mobile.”

  “So… Why didn’t you do that to George?”

  “Um, there‘re a lot of other things I could’ve done. It’s just that Lizeth showed up before I needed to.”

  “Are you going to teach me some of them as well?”

  He chewed his lip, “Maybe? But I think you should stick with this one for now. The others take more force from your ghirit and, until you’ve exercised it some, I’m not sure you’ll be able to do them.”

  They walked companionably for a little while, then Vyrda said, “I guess we both lost someone today. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Tarc shrugged uncomfortably, “You should probably give George another chance. He was probably just worried and so—”

  “I’ll give him a chance,” Vyrda interrupted. “But I’d already been worried about the way he acted sometimes. I think you guys just helped me see who he really is.” She pulled off one of her rings and slipped it in her pocket.

  ***

  Their new tavern proved to be pretty old. The previous owners were still moving stuff out when they got there. Daussie was horrified by how dirty everything was. She headed back out to the wagon and caught Tarc on his way in with a huge load of his own stuff. “Stop!” she said. “Put that stuff back. You won’t want it in there until you’ve cleaned the room you’re moving into.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m not a clean freak like you. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  “I’d say ‘trust me,’ but I suppose you’re going to have to see for yourself.”

  Tarc went in the door, but a moment later Daussie heard Eva yelling at him. He came back out with all his stuff. He grinned at Daussie, “Apparently Mom thinks the place needs cleaning too.”

  ~~~

  They slept under the wagon that night.

  ~~~

  They cleaned all the next day too. Tarc didn’t move into his room until that second night. Vyrda came over and helped clean, saying it was what an apprentice owed her master. She also brought one of her patients whom Eva diagnosed with gout. She advised him on a modified diet and willow bark tea. Vyrda found a moment to take Tarc aside and thank him for his help with George. He didn’t ask what happened or what she’d done, but she did say that George had fallen down hard. “And,” she said with a little smirk, “In view of his behavior, I told him I wouldn’t treat him for his dizziness.”

  ~~~

  Tarc felt like he spent the entire third day traveling around Clancy Vail, looking for supplies. At least he wasn’t cleaning vats in the brewing room with Daum.

  Or scrubbing the kitchen to Eva’s satisfaction.

  He was back to hauling wood. And water. And paint. And arranging for signs to be made up.

  ~~~

  On the fourth day, they hauled the old stove out of the kitchen and moved their traveling stove in. Tarc and Grace took down the “Hidden Underground” sign and hung the new one for “Hyllis Tavern.” Eva and Kazy did some trial cooking and rearranged the kitchen twice to make things function better. Daussie and Nylin helped Daum mill grain and start the mash to brew his first batch of beer.

  Once the new sign was up, a few people started stopping in to inquire. They got free samples from the cooking trials and were told to come back the next morning.

  ~~~

  The Hyllis Tavern opened the next day, baking fresh loaves of bread all day as a form of olfactory advertisement. They served spicy beans cooked overnight with bacon… and pizza. Vyrda said she didn’t think anyone in Clancy Vail had ever served pizza.

  It was a huge hit.

  The first few customers to trickle in were some of the people who’d been given free samples the day before. As those people came in, they often brought someone with them. Evidently, even the kitchen trials had been good enough to entice people.

  Then people started to come in, drawn by the smell of the baking bread. They got a bowl of spicy beans, “Which’ll be half-price for the rest of the week.” Eva hoped they’d bring in even more customers over the next few days.

  Tarc was back to hauling wood and fetching water, but Grace eagerly pitched in, saying she could do those chores. She fully understood making herself useful as a step toward her long-term employment.

  Chapter Seven

  The next day, Tarc bought two shovels and a sledgehammer and packed them on the mules with some rope. He found Daussie in the kitchen, “Today should be slow. I need you to help me salvage stuff in the underground rooms.”

  She gave him a doubtful look, “Why me?”

  He grinned and said, “Remember, Mom thinks it’s some kind of ancient hospital for healing. You’ve got to help me figure out what stuff we want to keep and what we can sell.”

  “Just bring it all back. Mom and I can look it over. You can sell whatever’s left over.”

  Tarc snorted, “I don’t want you to start feeling too important, but before I can bring all those pipes home you’ve either got to help me cut a bigger hole in the concrete, or you’ve got to cut those stretchers and wheelchairs up into small enough pieces that I can pass them out through the existing holes.”

  Daussie’s eyes widened. “Do not cut those up! They could be irreplaceable!”

  Tarc lifted an eyebrow.

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Okay. Let me grab us some bread and cheese.”

  ~~~

  They took a couple of mules and headed out.

  They’d walked in silence for a while, when Daussie said, “You’ve been moping. You upset about Lizeth?”

  Although Daussie kind of expected him to deny his feelings, he surprised her by saying, “Yeah. I’d been hoping… that we might… You know, get married or something.”

  Daussie’s first reaction was to tease him about how dopey he was over her but she restrained herself. “You really cared about her, huh?”

  He sighed, “Yeah, I was already crazy about her. Then, when I realized she has an ability…” He glanced at Daussie, “You know, like we do.”

  “You still think catching nails is some kind of special ability?”

  “Yeah, I realized the reason she can do it is that she sees a few seconds into the future.” He explained his reasoning and told Daussie about his coin flipping experiment. “So, you know, if we get married and had kids, they might have even stronger abilities. Like you and I do after Daum and Eva got married.”

  Daussie tried not to look astonished that her brother was thinking about having children with Lizeth. She’d thought only girls thought about those kinds of things before they got married. She felt warmed by the fact that they were having such a heart-to-heart conversation and restrained herself from teasing him about it. For her part, she confessed to her embarrassment over peppering the drunk’s nose at the Odd Duck.

  Tarc laughed, saying, “A guy who says stuff like that to my sister deserves nothing less.”

  Daussie told him what Eva had said about injuring someone for their words.

  “Well, yeah,” Tarc said, “I can see that.”

  “What about…” Daussie paused, not sure she wanted to go any farther.

  “About what?”

  “About changing someone’s thoughts?” Daussie told Tarc about how Kazy said Sam’s thoughts were disgusting and made him feel embarrassed about them.

  “Oh, man, another reason to hate that guy,” Tarc said. “And, I’m glad Kazy changed his attitude even if it doesn’t last. But, I’ll bet Mom would say Kazy shouldn’t go around changing people’s attitudes willy-nilly.” He shrugged, “I’d hate to think she was doing it to me.”

  Daussie couldn’t help snickering. Kazy’d told her Tarc’s thoughts were “nice.”

  Tarc turned wide-eyed to her, “What? Has she already done it?”

  “No! No, I was thinking about something else. Sorry…”

 
; ~~~

  Tarc marked out a much bigger opening and Daussie started teleporting ultrathin two by three-centimeter wafers out of the concrete beneath the mark. Porting wafers that size took about a second each. She thought that if she spent a lot longer, she could cut a much larger wafer. In fact, she wondered if she could cut the entire wall with one huge wafer. She and Tarc discussed trying it but decided that a huge, perfectly-smooth cut in the concrete would likely raise a lot of questions. She kept cutting out little wafers in a slightly staggered alignment so as to leave a rough surface behind when Tarc broke the rest of it. After a couple of minutes, she’d significantly weakened a substantial area.