Healers Page 7

  Tarc looked back out over the city, “Like what?” he asked wonderingly, but then before Roper could answer said, “Wait! A city that big should have had a huge wall. Why can’t I see any remnants of it?”

  “Cities didn’t have walls back then.”

  Tarc turned back to Roper, a frown on his face. “Really? How did they defend themselves?”

  “Well, two things. First, large groups of cities and the people around them banded together to form something they called a ‘nation.’ That nation then was their defensive unit to fight against other nations. They didn’t have to defend themselves against raiders from the countryside because the countryside was part of the same nation. Second, they had weapons so terrible no wall could possibly protect them.”

  “What?! How can that possibly be?” Tarc asked, an astonished look on his face. “Surely if they built those huge buildings, they could build a wall the height of four or five houses. If they built it out of rock and it was as wide as a couple of houses…” He ran down as he saw Roper shaking his head at him in amusement.

  Roper said, “The first things to make walls obsolete were cannons powerful enough to break down any wall, no matter how thick or how high. But later they built airplanes, big flying machines that could fly right over the wall like a bird would.”

  Tarc turned his eyes back to the ancient city, looking again for the wall he felt sure must be there. Not seeing it, he tried to imagine a flying machine that could cross walls. A wrinkle creased his brow and he turned back to Roper, “What’s a cannon?”

  Roper laughed again, “I thought guns and cannons were the about the only things you kids learned about the ancients nowadays!”

  Tarc frowned, “I think I’ve heard about ‘guns.’ That’s something like a tiny crossbow you could carry in one hand… or something like that, right?”

  Roper snorted, “Something like, yeah. But not very much like. What they actually used was a metal tube that was closed on one end. You’d put a powder, called gunpowder, in it down to the closed end. Then you’d put a little metal dart called a ‘bullet’ into the tube, right down on top of the powder. This powder, when you set it on fire, would burn so fast it would push the metal dart out the end of the tube faster than you can shoot an arrow.”

  Tarc looked dubious. “So you’ve got your tube, and first you pour powder into it, then you stick your metal dart into it, then you point it where you want the dart to go and then somehow you light the powder?”

  “Yeah, there’s a little hole in the closed end so that when you held a flame up to the hole it caught the gunpowder on fire.”

  Tarc shook his head, “But… my dad could shoot three or four arrows in the time it would take to do all those steps!”

  Roper laughed again, “So he could. Most people can’t, because it takes a good deal of training to become a decent archer. Apparently, any fool could kill people with a gun. And, what I’ve described to you is the very simplest form of gun. Realth, the next big town we stop at, is huge. It has a ‘Museum of the Ancients.’ If you want to go with me, we can look at some guns they claim could shoot so quickly they could fire several darts in the time it takes your heart to beat once!”

  Tarc raised an eyebrow, “That’s hard to believe of a device like you described.”

  “Come with me, we’ll look at it. They were like a lot of the ancients’ devices, filled with small precise parts that worked together in amazing ways.”

  ***

  They stopped that afternoon in a small town at the edge of the ancient city. The town specialized in selling materials scavenged from the city, steel being one of the most important commodities. Many caravans went out of their way to stop in scavenger towns like this, buying goods to be sold further on in their travels.

  Norton announced they would only stay overnight and ‘til noon the next day. Most of the caravaners quickly dispersed, trying to find bargains amongst the scavengers of the old city. The Hyllises really didn’t have room to transport goods nor expertise in that kind of trade, so they set up to make the evening meal. Tarc did go in to try to purchase supplies for what seemed to be the ever increasing appetite of Eva’s kitchen. Essentially, they never missed an opportunity to look for fresh meats, vegetables, and fruits.

  When Tarc returned with a load of lettuce, chicken, eggs, cucumbers, and cooking oil, he found Eva, Daussie, and a small crowd gathered around a crying child. Daum and Kazy appeared to be cooking the evening meal. Once Tarc had unloaded the old black horse, he went over to see what the fuss was about.

  Even with all the people crowded around, it only took a glimpse over someone’s shoulder to reveal the problem. The child’s forearm had an ugly bend near the wrist. Tarc had read that was a particularly common fracture in children, but he hadn’t seen one before. The broken bones he’d seen Eva deal with so far had not really been treatable. A smashed heel and a crack in the shoulder, neither of which needed to be put back in place. For those patients, all Eva did was provide poppy for the pain. This kid’s deformity needed to be straightened for the arm to have a chance to work right.

  Tarc worked his way around to where Daussie stood. He wedged himself close enough to quietly ask her, “Why did they bring the kid to us? We don’t even have a sign up this time!”

  Daussie whispered in return. “Apparently, Jesse Carter was trying to buy some glass when the shop owner’s kid fell down. The family was really distraught because they don’t have a healer anyone trusts around here. Jesse showed the father her finger, you know, the one Mom sutured after the arrow cut it off. Praised Mom to high heaven. She’s still going on about it. It’s kind of embarrassing to listen to. After Jesse’s sales pitch the guy decided to bring his kid here. Mom’s been feeding the kid poppy a little bit at a time, trying to get the pain down to a bearable level.”

  Tarc eyed the kid’s bent arm. He could imagine poppy relieving the pain enough to get the kid to stop crying, but how in the world would they relieve the pain of trying to straighten the bone?! Eva called him, “Tarc, come look at little Jimmy’s arm.”

  Eva’s call got people to step back enough for Tarc to work his way in next to the child. Knowing what his mother wanted, he sent his ghost into the child’s arm while she pointed out the obvious deformity and blathered on about how the blood flow to the child’s fingers was good.

  Eva gave the child a little more of the poppy paste even though the boy had stopped crying. She patted the mother on the shoulder and said, “It’ll probably take quite a bit more poppy before he’ll be ready for us to put the bone back in place. But we want to do it a little bit at a time. I’m sure you know too much poppy can be very bad?”

  The child’s mother, holding her boy in her lap, nodded, her eyes big and fearful. A crooked arm could cripple her son for life.

  Eva said, “We’re going to go to prepare splints for his arm. I’ll be back in a few minutes to check on him.”

  As they walked away, Daussie joined them. Tarc said, “You can’t give him enough poppy to overcome the pain of putting that bone back in place!”

  Eva smiled sadly, “You’re certainly right about that.”

  “How’re we going to do it then!?”

  Eva shrugged unhappily, “It’s going to hurt like hell.”

  “What?!” Daussie exploded, “You can’t be serious! Putting a bone back must be horribly painful.”

  Eva frowned at her, “So are a lot of other things.” She raised an eyebrow, “Childbirth for one. Would you leave him crippled for want of a little pain? I’m sure his parents won’t want us to do that. Nor will he, once he’s grown and realizes all the things he won’t be able to do with that arm.”

  Daussie said, “What did they do in the old days? Surely they didn’t just use poppy?”

  “No, they had a lot of other medications and precise ways to measure them so they didn’t just have to give a little and wait to see what happened. They even had medications they could inject around the nerves to make them stop working temp
orarily.”

  Tarc’s eyes widened as he remembered the thief in whom he’d briefly stopped blood flow to the spinal cord. The man had lost feeling and control in his limbs. Tarc couldn’t imagine doing something to the child’s spinal cord however. What if it never recovered?! But, maybe he could do something to the nerves?

  Tarc had stopped walking and Eva and Daussie stopped and turned to look back at him curiously. “Tarc?” Eva said.

  He held a halting hand up as he mumbled, “Wait, I’m thinking.”

  Eva waited a few seconds, then said, “Come on Tarc, we need to make splints for the child’s arm.”

  Tarc blinked at her a few times, then said, “What if… what if I could stop the nerves from working for a little while?! Like those old injections, but with my talent.”

  Eva gave him an intense look, “How… how are you thinking you could do that?!”

  “Well, um, remember how I slowed the blood flow to Mr. Farley’s brain to knock him out when he was threatening Dad?”

  Eva drew her head back in alarm, “That wouldn’t be safe! You can’t do that to a child!”

  “No! But…” Tarc went on to explain how he’d stopped the blood flow to the spinal cord in the thief that had attacked him by the outhouse.

  Eva, at first appalled that Tarc had defended himself from such an attack and she’d never even heard of it, then widened her eyes over what he was implying. “You can’t do that to the child! In many ways it would be worse if his paralysis never wore off than if he never woke up from being knocked out!”

  “I know, I know!” Tarc said exasperatedly. That’s why I need some time to think!” He squinted a little, “Maybe I could just stop the blood flow to some of the nerves?”

  Eva frowned as she thought about it, “Remember, the nerves only have transmission fibers in them. The actual nerve cells themselves live in the spinal cord. Cutting off the blood flow to them will eventually make them stop working but it won’t be fast like cutting off the flow to the brain of the spinal cord.”

  “Maybe I could stop the flow of fluids inside the axons?”

  Eva shook her head, “The nerve signals travel electrically along the outside of the axon. Not with the flow of the fluid, that’s really slow.”

  Tarc grinned at her, “It would sure be nice if you came up with a suggestion of your own instead of just shooting all my ideas down.”

  Eva gave a little laugh, “Yeah, sorry. Let me think.” She got a faraway look in her eyes as they rose to the horizon. “You said you can excite the molecules in something to make it hot, right?”

  Tarc nodded, “That’s how I burned that thief’s horse so it bucked him off.”

  “Do you think you could do the opposite? Hold the molecules still so something gets cold? Nerves don’t work very well when they’re cold; that’s why your fingers get numb in the winter.”

  Tarc’s eyes widened a bit, “I don’t know; let me try.” He held up a finger and looked at it. A moment later he said, “I guess I can; my finger sure feels cold.”

  Eva gently chewed at her lip, “Too bad there isn’t a way to try it out and see if it works.”

  Daussie said, “He could try it on an unimportant sensory nerve. Say one of the ones to the skin of my forearm.”

  Tarc said, “I’m trying it on some of my supraclavicular nerves. That way I can feel what’s happening and stop if it seems bad.” He reached up and rubbed at the skin just below his collarbone. “Huh, it feels numb already.”

  Eva said, “Well stop! Make sure it will recover.”

  Tarc said, “Okay, okay, I stopped.” He rubbed the area again, “Still numb though. Let’s make the splints while we’re waiting to see if it gets better.”

  Eva had measured the length of the boys forearm against her own. They sorted through some of the wood Tarc had collected for the fire and found a straight segment about the right length. Eva had Tarc split it and peel the bark off, then they shaped and scraped it until it had a hollow on the flat side they hoped would fit the child’s forearm.

  While they worked, Tarc repeatedly checked the numb spot below his collarbone. It only took a couple of minutes for the numbness to go away the first time. He did it again, this time making it a little colder. He felt better when he realized his talent gave him a feel for just how cold he’d made the nerve.

  He wasn’t quite sure whether it was actually the cold, or the fact he was slowing the movement of the molecules in the nerves, but he could pinch the skin below his collarbone with only a slight sensation of pain. The place he’d pinched itched and burned when the nerves started working again; confirming that he’d pinched it pretty hard. The skin only stayed numb for a few minutes, but it just took a few seconds to cool the nerves back down each time they started working again.

  Daum and Kazy had started work on making the caravan’s dinner. Daussie stayed to help them while Eva and Tarc took the splints back to the boy. They checked the fit of the splints against the boy’s uninjured arm. Eva gave him some more poppy paste, and they moved aside to continue working on the splints.

  As they scraped at the wood, Eva looked up at her son. “I forgot to ask you if your nerve woke back up?”

  Tarc nodded, then told her what he’d found with his little experiments.

  Eva looked a little worried. “Freeze my nerve, so I can see what it’s like.”

  Tarc sent his ghost in over her collarbone, found the little nerves, and cooled them.

  Eva’s eyes widened, “Oh! I can feel it cooling!” She reached up and rubbed the skin below her collarbone. “And, it really is numb!”

  When they’d shaped the splints to Eva’s satisfaction, they checked on the boy again and found him dozing under the influence of the poppy. Eva whispered to Tarc to start blocking his nerves while she got a wrap for the splints.

  When Eva returned, she had Daussie with her. She sat beside the boy and, pointing to his deformed arm, talked about how the bones had displaced. Of course, Tarc and Daussie could sense the displacement with their ghosts, but the main thrust of Eva’s description focused on how the current position of the bones could make it hard to get them back into place.

  Finally, she took the child’s forearm in her hands and looked at Tarc. He nodded as meaningfully as he could to indicate that he thought the nerves were blocked. Eva said, “First, I’ll have to bend the bones even a little farther. Hopefully, this will unlock them, so that I can pull them back out to length and straighten them.” She had already described this process to Tarc and Daussie a little earlier, but Tarc knew that she was really speaking to the child’s mother. Bending the bone even further, before straightening the arm, would look like the wrong thing to the child’s parents.

  Eva looked Tarc and Daussie in the eyes to be sure they had their ghosts in the child’s forearm. She bent the arm back, then pulled on the bend. Tarc’s eyes widened as he realized she was pulling very hard. His ghost felt the bones shift back out to lie end to end like they belonged. As soon as that had happened, Eva quickly bent the arm back out straight.

  Little Jimmy moaned and his eyes fluttered open for a moment as Eva performed the reduction, but he didn’t even completely wake up. It didn’t seem to be nearly as miserable an experience as Tarc had expected. He sent his ghost up to check the nerves. They were warming, so he cooled them again.

  Eva said, “Let’s have the splint for the front of his forearm.”

  Tarc picked it up and held it out to her.

  She frowned at him and said, “Both of my hands are holding his arm straight. You need to put the splint in place where it belongs.”

  Feeling chastised, Tarc laid the splint out along the front of the boy’s forearm as Eva slowly slid her fingers out of the way. She slipped her fingers carefully around the splint to hold it in place.

  “Now the dorsal splint,” Eva said.

  Tarc worked the dorsal splint into place as Eva gradually shifted her fingers out of the way, then around to grip both splints. His ghost told him
the bones were still quite straight, though not perfect.

  Eva said “Daussie, start wrapping the splints into place, starting down here near the hand.”

  Daussie picked up the wrap, but said, “The bones still seem a little bent. Shouldn’t we try to straighten them that last little bit?”

  “No, this is the position the splints will hold them in. If we wanted to change it, we’d have to carve completely new splints for the new position. While we were carving them we’d probably lose the position we’ve got now. Besides, an important thing for you to know is that children will straighten out small bends in their bones as they grow.”

  Eva cautioning her about wrapping them too tightly, Daussie started wrapping the splints into place. As they finished up, Tarc numbed the boy’s nerves again. He glanced at the child’s mother. She looked like she’d just witnessed a miracle. Considering the pain she must’ve expected her son to go through, the fact that he’d slept through the whole thing probably was a miracle.

  Eva began explaining to the mother how to care for her child’s broken arm, instructing her to elevate it to avoid swelling. She explained how to ration the poppy paste and told her to bring the boy back in the morning before they left so Eva could be sure everything was okay.

  Jimmy’s mother was effusively thankful. The boy’s father, who’d stood stoically uncomfortable through the entire procedure, bobbed his head in thanks as well. A tear running down his cheek, he promised to bring payment in the morning when they came back for final instructions. The little family started for their home.

  The Hyllis family all pitched in to finish dinner for the caravan.

  ***

  In the morning, as the caravan made ready to pull back out onto the road, the boy and his family reappeared. Eva checked to be sure little Jimmy’s fingers still worked and gave the mother instructions as to how to snug the splints if the wrap loosened. She told Jimmy’s parents the bone should be healed enough that they could remove the splints in six weeks.