The Healer (21 page)

One of the cadre presented an analysis of the current political situation in Aksagetta, which, he believed, was unstable. Economically, the city was teetering on the brink of ruin. Its leaders, of course, corrupt to the core, denied this, but the fact was, even some of the humans were clamoring for a change. It was a time for action, a time for A New Day to move from theory to practice, from talk to making concrete plans. He proposed that they do so, and do so soon. He made a fist to emphasize this point, then with a glance at Shay, who nodded his approval, sat down.

Thereafter, the discussion centered on what action to take. One member suggested leafleting to publicize their plight. Another, a work stoppage. There was debate over how confrontational to be. Most of the cadre favored passive resistance and remained opposed to violence.

Shay allowed the discussion to continue for a while before offering his own opinion. Quietly, he pointed out that passive resistance had been tried. He paused, then added that perhaps it should be tried again.

“Conditions change. History teaches us that. What doesn't work at one point may possibly work at a later time. Unfortunately, what hasn't changed is us. Our condition and our servitude. We give our lives to humans. When will we take back these lives? We heal them, but who heals us? Who heals the healers?”

Brand had coined this phrase, and it had become something of a party slogan, though Brand had always been quick to deflect credit for it. In the history of healers it was certainly not the first time that the question had been asked. He had used it as a teaching tool, a way to stimulate discussion. Shay seemed to be using it somewhat differently. On the one hand, to pay homage to Brand's contribution to the party. On another, to be recognized as his successor. And yet another, as a call to action.

He turned to Payne.

“Brother Payne, stop scribbling for a moment and talk to us. Tell us what you think.”

Payne put down his pencil. “I think it's a good question. Who does heal us?”

“No one,” someone said.

“We heal ourselves,” said someone else.

Shay quieted them. “Let the brother speak.”

“I'm not sure,” said Payne. “I don't really have an answer. What do you think?”

“I think,” Shay said pointedly, “that you do have an answer. Why not share it with us?” He waited half a second, then added, “Come now. If you have special knowledge, let us in on it. Secrets don't serve anyone.”

There was silence in the room. Payne became aware that everyone was watching him. He wasn't sure what Shay wanted of him, but he didn't like being put on the spot.

“I don't keep secrets. Are you saying that I do?”

Shay regarded him, as though judging just how far he could push. In a flash of recognition, Payne saw his brother Wyn. This was just the sort of thing he would do: push and prod and poke until he provoked a reaction. He'd had a habit of measuring himself by the level of the competition. Shay seemed to have the same habit, but apparently he decided that the time was not ripe, or the competition perhaps too stiff, for he backed off.

“No,” he said. “I'm not. We'll take it as a good and honest lesson. Trust must be earned. Anything not freely given is not worth the price.”

For Payne the remainder of the meeting was a blur, and after it ended, he was the first one out the door. But before he reached the tunnel, a hand stopped him.

“Don't run away,” said Shay.

“I'm not.”

“Just walking fast. I know the feeling.” Holding out the olive branch. “I'm sorry for singling you out like that. If you have the time, I'd like a word with you.” He lowered his voice. “In private.”

It was an invitation Payne, at that moment, would have liked to
skip, but he saw no way to do so gracefully. When the room had emptied and the cadre all had disappeared into the tunnel, Shay steered him back inside.

His first words were aimed at Brand. He asked how he was. Payne replied, as he had in the past, that he wasn't doing well.

“I'm sorry to hear that. How long do you think he has left?”

“I don't know. But I doubt very long.”

“I'll miss him,” said Shay, then turned to snuff out the candles. Over his back and in a deceptively casual voice he asked, “And what does he have to say about us?”

This was a subject, Payne thought, that was best left alone. “To me? Not much.”

“Come now. You scribble everything down. I know you talk to him. What does he think?”

Payne professed ignorance, but Shay kept at him, until at length he relented. “I expect you know.”

“Yes. Go slow. Be patient. Don't do anything that might actually lead to change.” He gave a snort. “You're right. I expect I do.”

“Actually, the last thing he said was that you deserve a chance. That I…that we should listen to you.”

Shay was not expecting this. Spear raised but shield down, he was caught unaware.

“You could visit him,” said Payne.

He wanted to. Payne could see it in his face. But his pride wouldn't allow it, and with a sigh he shook his head.

“That, I think, would be a mistake. But please, give him my regards. Tell him that when he's gone, we won't forget him. Tell him we'll make sure that the humans won't forget him either.”

“I don't think that's his main concern.”

“No. Of course not. He wouldn't be Brand if it were. But it could be ours. We could make a statement. Send a message. Light a torch.”

“A torch? What do you mean?”

Shay was lost a moment in thought. Then he got excited. “A funeral pyre. We could build one for him. Right here, above us. In front of the Easytime. Light the fire and let the good citizens of Aksagetta and all the tourists watch him burn.”

Payne was appalled. “That's horrible. It's a gruesome idea.”

“Not while he's alive,” protested Shay; then seeing Payne's face, he laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, as though it were all a joke and Payne naive for taking it seriously.

“I'm glad to have you with us. I know it's hard with your mentor gone, but it's healers like you who make us strong.”

“Strength comes from all of us together,” Payne replied, echoing Shay's own words. And while “mentor” was accurate enough, he didn't appreciate the way Shay used it.

“Yes. It does. Though some are naturally stronger than others.”

Shay was a tall, broad-chested man, and he had yet to release his grip on Payne's shoulder. Physically, if he chose, he could be intimidating.

“It's the responsibility of the strong to help the weak. That's what I was getting at, or trying to, in the meeting. If you, or anyone, has a gift, they have a duty to share it. That's what I want to convey by forming a circle in the beginning of our meetings. The idea that we're connected, we depend on one another. If one person breaks the circle by holding back, it's a threat to us all.”

He clasped Payne now with both his hands, face to face with him, as if to prove, indeed, that two were stronger than one, although for Payne the discomfort of being so tightly held had something of the opposite effect.

“Without trust,” he said, “we're nothing.”

Payne agreed.

“So tell me then, are the rumors true?”

“What rumors?”

“That you healed a healer.”

“No,” said Payne. “That isn't true. I didn't.”

“Did you try?”

“Yes.”

“You failed?”

“Yes.”

“Did it hurt?”

He had never been asked this question before. “Yes. As a matter of fact it did. A lot.”

Shay's eyes bore into him. One, at least. The other pointed elsewhere.

“Would you ever try again?”

“Never,” he said, shocked that Shay would even think to ask. Then shocked again when he understood the real question, or thought he did. He broke out of Shay's grasp.

“Is that what you were asking in the meeting? Is that what you want from me?”

“I want your allegiance,” said Shay. “I want what's best for us. We're entering a new stage in the struggle. We need to stick together and help each other. Unity, Payne. That's the meaning of the circle. I want you in it, not somewhere else.”

“Healers don't heal healers.”

“Yes. That's what they say.”

Shay studied him a moment, then let the matter drop, turning his attention to the room, stowing the candles, along with the pillows and scraps of carpet, underneath a tarpaulin, then checking for anything that might have been left behind.

“We can't be too careful. Up to now we haven't attracted attention. But soon, I think, we will.”

“But we're still so small,” said Payne, relieved to change the topic of conversation.

“Don't mistake lack of size for lack of impact. A single stone can fell a giant. A single match can start a blaze.”

Satisfied with the room, he closed the door and started down the
tunnel, Payne at his side. “It's true that not every healer is with us, not right now. Despite what they know will happen to them, despite the inevitability of it, they're afraid of change. I understand this fear. They need a spark. A catalyst. They need to know what's possible. We can be that spark. We can ignite them.”

His words echoed in the tunnel and, dying, gave way to the sound and echo of their footsteps, two lone soldiers marching toward the battlefront, one eagerly, the other haltingly, with profound reservations. To Payne it seemed a vast and unbridgeable distance from where they were to what Shay spoke of. But Shay was not concerned with distances. Sparks bridged distances. Given enough juice, they leapt them.

“It's time for action. Time for A New Day to step forward and put its theories into practice.” He paused, and a light came into his eyes. “We could start by giving ourselves a new name. More appropriate to this point in the struggle. The Spark…How does that sound? Sweeping Fire? Burning Fist? Or maybe simply Ignition.”

“We have a name,” Payne pointed out.

“Brand's name. It's time for a change.”

“Aren't you rushing things a little? People move slowly. They don't like to change. You yourself said that. It takes time.”

“Our lives are short,” said Shay. “We don't have time.”

He stopped at the end of the tunnel and faced Payne. The air vibrated with the hum of generators. His presence seemed to vibrate too, charged with the force of his conviction.

“Come out from Brand's shadow, Payne. Open your eyes. Look around. The Drain is killing us. It's killing him. How can you say it isn't time?”

“I can slow it down.”

“What? By doing Brand's dance?” He gave a laugh.

“No,” said Payne. “There're things that we can do. Pay closer attention to the details of healing, for one. Shift our focus in the early stages. Change our technique. Little things, but they help.”

Shay looked at him with interest. “I've heard something about this.”

“I can teach them. The skills aren't hard to learn.”

“And we'd be grateful to you. All healers would.” He paused, then frowned, as though bothered by something, a fly in the ointment, an incipient snafu. “Though maybe not. More healers lasting longer means what? More time to serve humans. More time to give everything we have and not get anything in return. That would certainly make the humans happy. Perhaps it's them, not us, who'd be grateful to you.”

“You misunderstand me.”

“Do I? Forgive me then. It's a common error among the oppressed to mistake the oppressor's good for his own.”

Payne felt the bite of sarcasm, and encased within it, as was often true with Shay, the kernel of intelligence and truth.

“There's something else I've heard,” said Shay.

“What's that?”

“That you're unaffected by the Drain.”

“That's not true.”

“They say that you're immune.”

“I'm not. I feel it like everybody else.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” he lied. He felt he had to lie. “Of course I do.”

By the end of the following week A New Day had A New Agenda. Stage One called for nonviolent action. A work stoppage was organized, which was joined by a handful of other healers and broken by the Authorities within a day. A month later, another one was staged, which evoked a similar, though more aggressive, response. Healer conditions did not improve and in some ways worsened. Still, Shay judged the
action a success, as it drew attention to their plight, and furthermore, it exposed the brutal, authoritarian and vindictive nature of the system.

That accomplished, Stage Two of the New Agenda was implemented. This involved setting fires. In back alleys and untrafficked streets, storerooms and the occasional store, always under cover of darkness. Random acts designed to foment fear and shake the pillars of the state and therefore directed at property, which was the linchpin of these pillars. Care was taken not to injure human beings, who were expressedly not to be targeted in these attacks, although on one occasion—a small blaze that was started in a Musque boutique—a late-night janitor was inadvertently exposed to a lungful of smoke, and in a bit of irony ended up on the healing bed beside Shay, who himself had set the blaze and was now called upon to undo its damage, which he did professionally and without a word.