Hyllis Family Story 1: Telekinetic (4 page)

Tarc
’s mother looked up at him and said, “Tarc, have a look at Mr. Benson’s foot. What do you think?”

Tarc
, worried that Benson would be angry to have a boy involved in his care, bent over the foot. “Umm…”

His mother interrupted him, “
Be very gentle. It came on in the night and now it’s so sensitive that Mr. Benson can barely stand to have it touched. But,” she admonished, “don’t try to make a diagnosis without actually examining your patient.”

My patient?!
Tarc thought with dismay. Even more worried that Benson would be angry to have a boy examining him, Tarc reached out and gently stroked the angry red skin. It blanched white as Tarc’s finger rubbed over it, immediately turning red again after the finger had passed. Benson drew it away, obviously feeling pain from even such a light touch. The skin felt hot.
Red, hot, swollen, and painful,
Tarc thought,
the signs of infection!

Tarc
looked up at his mother, uncertain what he should do or say, but feeling dismayed for Mr. Benson.

His mother merely gazed at him, unperturbed. “Well, what do you think?”

Tarc cleared his throat; then mumbled, “It could be an infection?” He hoped this possible diagnosis didn’t upset Mr. Benson. He glanced at Benson out of the corner of his eye, but Benson didn’t look upset.

Tarc
’s mother said, “That could be. What makes you think it?”

“It’s red, hot, swollen, and painful.”

“Correct. And indeed, those
are
said to be the signs of infection. But, actually, they are the signs of inflammation. Infection is just one of several things which can cause inflammation. Can you think of any of the others?”

Inwardly
Tarc groaned. It seemed like every time he felt like he understood something, in this case the signs of an infection, it turned out there were exceptions. He cast about mentally, but could think of nothing. “No.”

His mother sighed, “There is so much to learn
Tarc. You’ve
got
to work harder!” Of course, she didn’t mention that by “work harder,” she meant that he should read more.

Mr. Benson said,
apparently hoping to be helpful, “Eva says I have a ‘classic case.’”

Tarc
stared blankly back and forth from Benson to his mother. “Sorry, I still don’t know.”

Tarc
’s mother said, “Here’s what’s classic… Mr. Benson,” she pointed to his rounded stomach, “eats too much.” She raised a finger at this. Raising another finger she said, “He’s a man.” Another finger and a smile, “He drinks too much of your father’s fine beer.” She lifted another finger, “It’s the joint at the base of his great toe, which is the most common joint to be affected by this disease. It is indeed red, hot, swollen, and tender, which is typical, but does make it
look
infected. It came on in the night and hurts so badly that he can hardly stand for anything to touch it. This,” she said staring into Tarc’s eyes and pointing at Benson’s foot, “is what gout looks like.”

Exasperated,
Tarc said, “But you just said it has all the signs of infection! How do you
know
it’s not infected?”

“
Well, I can’t be absolutely sure, but as the old saying goes, ‘if it quacks and waddles, it’s most likely a duck.’ That’s why I asked Mr. Benson to leave his shoes off until you got here. So
you
could see a foot with a case of gout and remember it. You don’t want someday to recommend an amputation for someone who only has an attack of the gout.”

Benson had flinched slightly at the word, “amputation.” Now, eyebrows up, he said, “No! Don’t be recommending anything like that!”

Eva Hyllis’ clear gray eyes turned back to Benson, “If it
was
infection, an amputation might be the only thing that would save your life.”

“I know, but it’s not…” his eyes suddenly grew much more worried, “is it?”

“No, it’s not. But, as you can tell from the way it feels, gout’s pretty obnoxious.” She stared at him with a serious look on her face, “You need to lose some weight. And, drink less beer.”

At first Benson appeared relieved when
Eva said it wasn’t an infection. But then his brow wrinkled with worry, “Are you saying it’s going to hurt like this
until
I lose weight?!”

“No, like I told you
, I’m brewing you some willow bark tea. I’ll give you more bark so you can brew your own. We’ll put a poultice of willow bark on your foot as well. The willow bark should help you get over this attack faster, but you would probably get over this attack in time even without treatment.” She held up a finger in admonition, “However, attacks of gout tend to repeat themselves and can happen in other joints. Losing weight and drinking less beer should keep you from having attacks quite as frequently.” She motioned to Tarc, “Come, let’s see how the tea is coming.”

In the kitchen Tarc’s mother swirled the small pot in which the shredded white willow bark had been steeping, “Your dad said that you’re showing some talent?”

Tarc
shrugged, wondering why they called it ‘talent’ when his father seemed to think it was useless.

“
Daum told me your talent lets you feel inside of things. Did you try to feel the insides of Mr. Benson’s feet?”

Tarc
’s eyes widened as he considered
that
possibility for the first time. He shook his head.

She poured the tea through a cloth to filter out the willow bark.
“Well, you should. I’m so happy for you because
that
talent is tremendously useful for a healer. Most of the time, it’s how I make a diagnosis.” She put a dollop of honey in the cup of tea; then turned her eyes back onto Tarc. “We have few enough treatments that are truly effective. Being able to make an accurate diagnosis lets us use the correct treatment on the few occasions that a treatment is available. When we go back out there, you sit and study the differences between his feet with your new talent. Hopefully, you’ll never forget what gout feels like.” With the cup of tea in one hand and the compress of willow bark in the other she waved him to come along and headed back out into the great room.

As they approached Mr. Benson,
Tarc’s mother kicked a small barrel up to the end of the table next to Benson’s feet. She pointed to it, so Tarc sat on it. Staring hard at Benson’s feet, he allowed his preternatural sensation to flow out over and into the feet. His mother gave Benson the tea and, when he complained, urged him to drink it despite the taste. She wrapped the cloth with the willow bark around the toe as a poultice.

Studying Benson’s feet,
Tarc observed with a growing sense of astonishment, that he could sense a number of different kinds of tissue inside of them. He recognized hard structures that were obviously the bones. The bones seemed to be much the same in their location and shape from the one foot to the other. There were spaces between the bones that must be the joints where motion occurred. Certainly, he could feel a space at the base of the great toe that must represent the joint there. There was a tiny bit of fluid in that joint in the good foot, but a great deal more fluid in the sick joint on the left. The fluid in the joint on the left also felt… thicker, or otherwise somehow, not quite right. In addition, Tarc could feel more fluid in the soft tissues all about that gouty joint. After a moment he realized that the extra fluid must be what their normal senses perceived as swelling.

Tarc
’s father brought over a pair of crutches. They had been made from fairly straight limbs that had a wide fork at the top. Padding had been wrapped around the fork and the bottom tips wrapped with wire. Daussie brought out a bag of dried willow bark.

Benson, very grateful for the help, paid more generously than
Tarc’s mother had requested and stumped out on his way back home to rest and elevate his foot as Eva had instructed. Tarc and the other members of his family started back on the many chores required to keep the tavern working.

As customers began to filter in for lunch
Tarc wondered whether, in a bigger city, enough patients would come in needing his mother’s skills that she could support the family without their having to keep a tavern. As soon as the tavern’s usual slow time in the afternoon began, his mother sent him upstairs with instructions to stop his other reading and begin studying their atlas of anatomy. At first he felt angry to be sent off early to study, but as he climbed the stairs he heard Daussie complaining. He grinned to himself, thinking of her downstairs working while he was up studying.

To his surprise,
Tarc found the world of anatomy fascinating. The atlas started with the arm. Inside his own arm his ghost found each of the structures shown in the book’s drawings. Somehow, he had been thinking that each person’s insides were different, but apparently they were similar to a surprising degree.

Later, Daussie came
upstairs to work on her own reading assignment. She told Tarc to head back down because the kitchen needed water. As he passed through the kitchen his mother grasped his wrist to stop him. “What’s the name of this bone?” she asked, pointing to the midpoint between his shoulder and elbow.

Staring wide-eyed at
her, he said, “I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you start at the beginning of the book?”

He nodded.

“And you didn’t see
the arm bone in there?”

“Yes, and I compared it to my own. Mine seems to be
shaped almost exactly like the ones in the book,” he said with evident surprise. “I’d thought that there would be a lot more differences.”

Eva
nodded but frowned, “Why don’t you know its name then?”

“I thought I was just supposed to learn where things were and how they were hooked up.
What do the names matter?”

“So you
and I, and other healers can talk to one another. If you’re going to take care of people, you not only need to know what their parts are, but what the names of their parts are. The language is
important
!”

Tarc
shrugged, “Okay, okay, I’ll learn the names.”

“With your talent, you can simply feel the insides of people to know what their parts
are
. The only reason to study that book is so that you can learn the names and how things are
supposed
to be arranged. It really helps, when you’re wondering whether there’s something wrong, to know how things are supposed to be.” She shrugged, “Of course if the problem is just with
one
part of someone, you
can
just compare it to the matching part on the other side of the same person. For those parts that don’t have both left and right versions, you can just compare them to someone else. Or yourself, if you know you’re normal. But if you want to be good, you’ll know what it’s supposed to be like before you start comparisons.”

She tilted her head, “That’s why I had you compare Mr. B
enson’s feet to one another. So you could see what was different about the sick foot.”

Now,
Tarc frowned, “But there’s so little we can
do
. What good is it for us to know that he has gout, and how gout feels, when we can’t really do anything to help him?”

With an exasperated look Eva said,
“We gave him willow bark tea!”

“So it makes his pain a little less. It doesn’t really make him
better
. He probably could have brewed his own willow bark tea.”

“When you’re hurting, having somebody
lessen your pain
does
help! Besides, gout causes inflammation, and willow bark decreases inflammation, so it really
is
helping him, not just the pain. Just knowing that it’s not an infection is
tremendously
important. If he went to someone who didn’t know what gout was, they might have thought he had an infection like you did. Supposing then they’d tried to lance it to drain the pus out? Then he’d have a wound that might actually
get
infected. A wound that did him no good at all!”

At this outpouring of words
Tarc put his hands up, covering his head as if shielding his skull from a beating. “Okay, okay… I
understand
… We helped him.” He shrugged and grinned shyly at Eva, “I just thought we’d be able to do something… better.”

Eva
’s shoulders drooped a little and she sighed, “Well, yeah. There are a lot of diseases that we can’t do
anything
for. In the old days they used to have medicines for most of them,” she shrugged, “or so we’re told. The medicines we have now, like willow bark, aren’t very strong.” She eyed Tarc sternly, “However, the fact that we can’t do all that much is no excuse for not doing the very best we can.”

Tarc turned the corner on his way to his afternoon of drill. With a shout, Jacob lunged at him, full-length, running him through with an imaginary sword. “Missed me!” Tarc exclaimed, twisting to the side like a matador.

“
If I missed, it’s only ‘cause my sword won’t penetrate ugliness!”

Tarc
sniffed ostentatiously, “What
is
that stench? Is that
you
?”

The two friends continued down the street trading insults.
They had only been old enough to drill with the defense teams for a few weeks now, but the fact they were doing it made them feel quite manly.

As
the name-calling wound down, the two friends talked about the events of their week. Jacob was excited because his birthday was nearly there and he hoped his father would get him a new knife.

Tarc
desperately wanted to tell his friend about his new talent, but his father had warned him of the dangers of talking to other people about the Hyllis family’s talents. If others knew that members of their family could do things that no one else could, it could cause a lot of trouble.

Instead, he told Jacob about the big soldier
who had caused the trouble in the tavern.

Tarc
’s friend didn’t seem surprised. “Daussie is… really pretty,” Jacob said quietly, as if he were somewhat in awe.

Tarc
shoved his friend off the sidewalk and out in the street. “Get out!” He searched for something to say. Something that would remind Jacob of just how annoying his sister could be.

“Really
Tarc, she’s your
sister
.” Jacob said, “You probably don’t see it ‘cause of that, but
I’m
not the only one who thinks she’s beautiful.”

They entered the
armory and drill center, Tarc’s head spinning with the ramifications.
Could it be that the big soldier wasn’t the only one who had a thing for Daussie?

Tarc’s first assignment in the drill center that afternoon put him on wall defense. He took his position on the defenders’ platform of the drill center’s practice wall. Armed with a practice spear that had a cushioned tip, he waited for his turn. His team would try to keep the other team from scaling the logs. Sometimes he thought the most important lesson of these practice drills came from being on the outside and trying to climb the palisade. Understanding how difficult it was to get over the walls gave the defenders more confidence.

However,
Tarc often wondered how difficult it would be for attackers to burn or batter down the wall. A stone wall would be much better, but timber was much more accessible in this region.

The attacking team charge
d towards the wall, shouting and waving their wooden practice swords. With a sense of panic Tarc realized that Sergeant Garcia, the head trainer, led the charge and Garcia had aimed himself right at Tarc.

He shakily
pointed his spear at Garcia and braced himself.

Garcia
ran straight at Tarc’s spear. Expecting to be driven back by the impact, Tarc started to push forward. Then Garcia ducked to the side at the last moment, dodging the point and grabbing the shank of the spear. He jerked it forward.

With
Tarc braced to resist being pushed back, the sudden pull jerked the spear out of his hands. Tarc’s body slammed painfully up against the palisade, trapping Tarc’s shield between his ribs and the wooden logs.

Sounding disappointed,
Garcia shouted, “Come on, Hyllis!” He leapt up, grabbed the top of the palisade with his left hand, and swung overhand with his right to smack Tarc painfully on the back with the wooden sword. “You’re dead!” Garcia swung the sword to the right and struck Jacob in the ribs, crying, “You too!”

Dropping the sword,
Garcia chinned himself on the palisade, rolling over the top to pick up his sword again. He began attacking the others on the platform.             

When Garcia called a halt, he began dissecting everything the defending team had done wrong, starting with Tarc. Flushed with embarrassment, Tarc stared down at the floor. Done haranguing all the other defenders, Garcia returned to Tarc. “So, Hyllis, you’re looking all sulky. You pissed off that I’m picking on you?”

“No
sir,” Tarc said without looking up. Though he’d tried not to sound surly he knew that he hadn’t succeeded.

“Hah! You are too pissed! Look at me.”

Tarc pulled his gaze up off the floor and glared at Garcia.

Garcia
grinned and said, “I don’t
care
if you’re pissed at me. You probably think it wasn’t fair ‘cause I’m bigger and stronger than you? And ‘cause I get a lot of practice at this while I’m training the others. But you remember this, if Walterston is ever attacked, they are
not
gonna line up according to size so’s to be sure that each of you get a fair fight! Think about it!
My
first objective, is for the town to survive if we ever get attacked. The town with your mothers and sisters, wives and girlfriends. My second objective, though it’s a distant second, is for
you
to live through the attack. This may seem like a big game to a lot of you now, but it’s not! Doing this right could make the difference between living and dying someday.” He had turned to address the entire group during this little speech, but now he turned back to Tarc, “You got that Hyllis?”

“Yes
sir,” Tarc said, still furious, but trying his best not to show it.

Next, Tarc and Jacob’s team took their turn attacking the wall. Once again, Garcia quickly reached the top and began wreaking havoc among the defenders on the platform. Tarc had charged the wall intent on dodging the spears like Garcia had. He’d pictured scaling the wall himself. Instead, two spears converged on him, one glancing off his chest and the other striking hard into his abdomen. Despite the padding it took the wind out of him and Tarc dropped to his knees gasping for breath.

Tarc
hadn’t even managed to crawl to the wall by the time Garcia called the exercise to a halt and began berating the defenders again. Fortunately, Garcia’s back had been turned while Tarc had been on his knees, so Tarc didn’t come in for any more abuse this time.

Jacob and Tarc moved on to practicing with the short swords that were the tertiary weapons for those defending the wall. Ideally the wall was defended with archery first, spears second, and swords only in desperation if attackers actually made it to the top. They expected every able-bodied man to participate in Walterston’s defense, but most specialized in one of the three methods. However, no matter how good you were at one of the defenses, you were expected to practice all three.

They wore padding, and the
practice swords were made of wood, nonetheless they delivered some serious bruises. Tarc hoped that he would be pitted against Jacob because most of the other men drilling that day were bigger and older. Instead, he found himself in the ring with Will Jonas. Will was twenty-two and liked to fight. He weighed forty to fifty pounds more than Tarc did and bragged that he could beat anyone in town.

Tarc
sighed as he stepped into the ring. Jonas was sure to give him a beating. Sure enough, as soon as Sergeant Eppley gave the signal Jonas drove Tarc’s shield aside with his own and struck hard into Tarc’s side with his sword. Eppley exploded, “Hyllis! That was pitiful! You’ve got to
resist
that shield strike. You
knew
it was coming! In a real fight you’d already be dead!”

Gasping and h
olding his ribs, Tarc hung his head. “Sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry! Tell me it won’t happen again!”

“Yes sir. It won’t happen again sir.”

Eppley rolled his eyes, “Okay, back in the ring.” As the two fighters stepped back in Eppley said, “Go!”

This time Tarc braced himself against Jonas’ shield strike, but he just wasn’t strong enough. Once again his shield was driven aside and Will dealt him a hard blow, this time to the back of the arm. He cradled his arm trying to keep the tears from his eyes.

Once Jacob had had his turn in the ring
too, Sergeant Eppley put Jacob and Tarc in another ring with only their shields. He assigned them to spend the rest of the sword training period trying to batter one another out of the ring with their shields. It was exhausting work. Anytime Eppley saw them slacking he threatened them with extra assignments. In the past Jacob had always had a relatively easy time pushing Tarc out of the ring. Tarc was pleased to find that, even with a sore arm, he was holding his own this time. He’d been growing a lot recently. His mother called it a “growth spurt.” Because of all the wood and water hauling he did for the tavern, he’d always believed he was intrinsically stronger than Jacob, but just hadn’t had the weight for it in the past.

Finally, Tarc’s group took their turn on the archery range. Tarc had always enjoyed shooting, though he’d never been as good as he expected. After all, his father Daum, was thought to be one of the best, if not
the
best archer in town. Sergeant Banes, their master archer, greeted them cheerfully as they trooped into his area. He had always been more pleasant than the other two instructors. “All right,” he exclaimed, “remember that you won’t have to spear or stick a sword into anyone that you shot before they even get to the wall!”

When
Tarc went to pick up his usual green bow, Banes stopped him. “Let’s see you pull a blue one young Hyllis,” he said, handing Tarc one marked in blue for its heavier draw. “You’ve been growing and I’ll bet you’re ready for a heavier draw now.”

Tarc
felt some surprise when he found that he was indeed able to draw the bigger blue bow without a great deal of difficulty.

Banes grinned at him
and slapped him on the shoulder, “Hell yeah, you’ll be moving up to a red one pretty quick!”

Tarc
strapped on a bracer and moved onto the range carrying a quiver of practice arrows. The arrows were also marked in blue since they were a little longer than the green ones he had used in the past. Lining up at the shooting line Tarc pushed the bow out with his left arm, holding the string back to his cheek with his right. He couldn’t hold the draw for long so he glanced down the shaft of the arrow and loosed it at the straw backed target. With a sense of dismay he saw the arrow fly down the range and completely
miss
the target! He’d shot high and to the right. He supposed he could blame the height on the more powerful bow, but there was no excuse for how far he’d been to the right.

He drew and fired several more, hitting the target
, but scattering the arrows wildly over it. Banes came by and snorted over Tarc’s shoulder, “Shooting
that
way Hyllis, you’re not ever gonna be an archer. Let me see if I can improve your technique at least a little. Surely you’ve inherited something from your father?”

Tarc
’s stomach twisted. He’d always pictured himself as an archer like his father. Actually, not just
an
archer, he’d envisioned himself as
the
elite archer. The best of the best. He’d imagined the envy of the other men in town who would point at him and talk of his skill. He’d fantasized about the congratulations he’d receive after he’d shot the enemy commander right off his horse while the man was still
far
out on the field. In his visions, Tarc would open big ragged holes in the front line of the charging enemy as his arrows struck home, each one felling an enemy soldier.
Tarc Hyllis
wouldn’t be called on to man the spears at the top of the wall because
everyone
would want to preserve the town’s best sniper for archery. Unfortunately, reality didn't seem to be matching his dreams.

Banes critiqued
Tarc’s stance and worked with him to improve his draw and targeting. Tarc did better and put a few arrows in the colored part of the target. Banes clapped him on the shoulder in congratulation, but Tarc could feel that Banes wasn’t actually impressed.

Looking around,
Tarc felt tremendous disappointment. Jacob had been next to him on the range and most of his friend’s arrows were somewhere near the middle of the target. He’d shot much better than Tarc. For all Tarc knew, Jacob might be the best archer in their age group and Tarc might be at least average. Nonetheless, it was becoming obvious that Tarc was far from the elite bowman he’d always envisioned.

Tarc
Hyllis’ feats of archery weren’t ever going to amaze anyone.

As he trudged downrange to recover his arrows, he realized he’d actually failed at each of the three training sessions that day.
He wondered if his father could give him some lessons.

***

When Tarc arrived back at the tavern the great room was bustling. Daussie hissed at him, “Mama needs water, hurry!”