CHAPTER 12
“SINCE WE AREN’T GOING raiding tonight, I propose you two assist me in a healing spell,” Kim said to his two brothers. He had several hours until midnight when M’Berra might return his call.
Since he was the tallest of the three—by three centimeters over Konner and five over Loki—he did his best to command them by staring down at them. They each outweighed him by several kilos—most of it muscle—so if it ever came down to a physical fight among them, Kim would, and usually did, lose.
They shouldn’t have to exchange blows to cooperate on this chore. Their fights were usually just an opportunity to vent anger and frustration at problems they couldn’t easily solve. At the end of these bouts, all three of them came up laughing.
“For the good of the family and this village we have to try to heal Pryth,” he urged.
“Do you know how to do this?” Loki asked. He stood with his fists on his hips and his feet braced for a fight. But then he was always braced for a fight.
“None of us have done this before, but we have to try. We are running out of options,” Kim insisted.
“This won’t be like the last time,” Konner reminded them.
“Last time with Raaskan, a seven-metric-ton rock dropped on him,” Loki reminded him. “After Konner levitated it off him, we had to push bones back into alignment and stop internal bleeding. What do we do with Pryth? We don’t even know what is making her sick.”
“She has all of the classic symptoms of pneumonia,” Kim said. “We have to clear her lungs of fluid and bring her fever down.”
“The locals swear by willow bark tea for fever,” Konner mused. “I’ve seen it work. But how do we drain fluid from the lungs? Bringing it up might gag her. Or if we do it wrong, we could drown.”
“A little bit at a time?” Kim suggested.
His brothers remained silent, shaking their heads.
“Too dangerous,” Loki finally decided.
“We have to try! This village, my wife, depend too much on Pryth. We have to try!” Kim cried.
“Maybe we should read up on this before . . .”
“I have read up on this. We are running out of time. Pryth is so weak she might die tonight if we do nothing.”
“If she’s that weak, maybe we should leave well enough alone. What if she dies under our hands?” Loki said.
All three brothers shuddered. Each had a memory of another person dying either by their hand or by their negligence. None of them wanted a repeat performance of their spirits trying to follow another into death.
“If we don’t do something, then who will deliver my baby? Who will know what to do if Hes has trouble delivering? Are either of you willing to take the chance that my wife and son might die in childbirth without Pryth?” Panic edged Kim’s voice.
Both Konner and Loki looked at the ground.
“With or without you, I have to try to heal Pryth.” Kim turned his back on his brothers and walked slowly toward the round hut where Pryth lay coughing and moaning, her life slipping away a little bit at a time.
As he walked, he left his mind open, “listening” for some kind of emotional reaction from his brothers. Telepathy was Loki’s primary talent. Konner moved objects with his mind—the heavier the better. The first talent to manifest in Kim was precognition. He’d never have found the weird jump point to this planet without it. That weird jump point had been their only escape from the pursuing Judicial Crusier Jupiter. Commander Leonard had to break off the chase and go off on other errands and then come back several months later before her helmsman, Kat, had found the same jump point.
After the brothers had landed in this isolated system, Kim had discovered an ability to speed healing in others. He did not know how he did it, it just happened. Now he had to try to make the talent work on demand.
He’d studied hard over the last year to expand all of his talents and add new ones. Control over his talents increased daily. Except when he needed to heal. It either happened or it didn’t. Even when he ate the addictive Tambootie leaves.
He reached inside his pocket for the fat leaves he always kept at hand. He licked the oil off the pink-and-green veins. Then he nibbled on the succulent flesh of a leaf. A surge of adrenaline filled his body. He looked out upon the night with new clarity. Vague shadows in the distance jumped into view as clearly defined objects.
Then he heard the shuffle of feet behind him and mental grunts of agreement. His brothers had come to his aid after all.
Some of Kim’s hesitation and fear evaporated.
They squeezed into Pryth’s round hut one by one. The old woman with gray streaking her Rover-dark hair lay propped up against a makeshift bolster made up of a wolf hide draped over a basket filled with aromatic herbs and leaves. A small fire smoldered in the central hearth. More green smoke—born of the copper sulfate impregnated in the firewood—filled the room than escaped the hole in the conical roof. The smoke smelled sweet and astringent at the same time. Someone, probably Pryth, had sprinkled herbs over the coals.
Kim’s sinuses cleared upon his first full breath inside the hut. The smoke might be doing some good for the patient, but not enough.
He handed the remaining Tambootie leaf to his brothers. Loki tore it in half and eagerly stuffed his portion into his mouth. Konner ate his more delicately, taking only as much as he needed to open his mind and his talent.
Kim felt their hands brush against his in rapport.
A coughing spasm racked Pryth’s body. She leaned forward, hacking and choking until she could barely draw breath. Sweat poured off her brow. She shivered all the same.
The old woman began to gag. Alarmed, Kim knelt beside her. Instinctively, he reached into her mouth and pinched a wad of phlegm between his fingers. Slowly he drew out a long rope of greenish slime. He cast it into the fire. The flames sputtered and stank of garbage left out too long in the sun.
“Is that all you are going to do?” Loki snarled. “You could do that without us. It’s disgusting.” He turned to exit.
“We need to do more, Loki. She needs magic as well as mundane cures. Without antibiotics, we have to find a way to kill the bacteria infecting her body.”
“Pryth packs moss into open wounds to prevent infection. Maybe if we made an infusion with the moss and some willow bark,” Konner suggested.
“After we try this. I’m getting some ideas,” Kim said. He sat cross-legged on the packed-dirt floor. His rump turned cold almost immediately from the winter chill that had soaked into it. Summer heat had not yet had time to warm it, despite the fire.
No wonder half the village had contracted various forms of the disease that had felled Pryth.
Kim concentrated on breathing. His brothers sank to the floor on either side of him. Each placed a hand upon his shoulder. They matched their breaths to his.
In on three counts, hold three, exhale on the same three counts. “Breathe deep, exhale deeper. Purge your body of foreign thoughts, alien impurities. Breathe,” Kim chanted.
Gradually, the three minds merged into one. Their talents and strength combined.
The world retreated from Kim’s awareness. He knew only his breath and the power he inhaled. His vision tilted slightly and colors took on strange casts, as if the spectrum shifted slightly to the left toward ultraviolet.
A web of silvery-blue lines beneath the ground jumped into view.
Shadows retreated. He looked more deeply into himself and saw the essence of Pryth, saw the rampant infection that had invaded her body. He watched her will to live fade.
Panicked, he almost lost his trance. Konner squeezed his shoulder, reaffirming the strength his brothers gave him.
One more deep breath and Kim concentrated on the red aura that surrounded Pryth, flowed in and out of her with her labored breathing. He reached out to touch the symbolic fire of infection. It burned his fingertips. He jerked his hand away, shaking it to dispel the heat.
Fortified with knowledge of the aura’s nature he reached again and twined the fiery-red coils around his fingers and drew them away, as he had the phlegm. A section of red broke free of Pryth. Kim cast the pulsing red light into the hearth.
Sickly yellow-and-black smoke roiled up from the embers. It stank of rotten flesh, old sweat, and stale air.
Pryth heaved a sigh of relief. Then she began coughing again.
Kim sagged with exhaustion.
“I can’t do anymore,” he choked out.
“You have to,” Konner urged him. “You have to get more of the infection out. Concentrate on her lungs.”
“Use the ley lines,” Pryth whispered.
“How?” Kim leaned forward eager for new knowledge.
Her answer was lost in another coughing spasm.
Kim took several more deep breaths. He thought he heard a rattle in his own lungs. Loki squeezed Kim’s shoulder with both of his hands.
A little bit of strength trickled through Kim. He needed more of the Tambootie leaves.
He had no more with him. To leave to fetch more would break the trance. He might never achieve this level again.
Resolutely, he reached again to grasp the pulsing red aura of infection in the region of Pryth’s lungs. The infection pushed his hand back. He pressed harder. His arm and shoulder ached as if he’d carried his own weight and more a long distance.
Loki supported Kim’s overly heavy arm with his hand.
Kim tried again, feeling the strength drain out of him with every passing breath. At last he grasped a wad of the red light. It burned his palms.
“Hold on. The pain is not real,” Konner whispered. He was sweating with the effort of maintaining the trance.
“Hold it tight and pull,” Loki coached. His words came out on panting breaths.
Kim closed his fist and his eyes. He pulled. He had to lean back to extend the length of his retraction. In his mind he saw the infection drain out of Pryth. When he had as much as he could hold, he cast the long rope of it into the fire.
Rancid smoke filled his lungs. He coughed it out. Coughed again and again.
“Saint Bridget and all the angels,” Loki breathed. “You’ve done it.”
Kim sagged and coughed again, too weary to move. The pressure in his chest increased and he coughed again, and again. And again, until he could not breathe.
“Shite!” Konner exploded. “He’s taken the disease into himself.”
“You . . . must . . . take . . . it . . . out of him, now, before it spreads,” Pryth whispered.
“I can barely lift my arms,” Konner breathed. “I already worked magic tonight with the fuel cells. I’ve nothing left to give.”
“Do it now,” Kim whispered, afraid if he spoke aloud he’d cough again and never stop.
“We have to try together.” Loki sounded as weary as Konner, almost as tired as Kim.
Kim felt his brothers each reach a hand to his chest and draw it away.
“Got it!” Konner said. Some of his fatigue had left his voice.
“Not all of it.” Kim collapsed onto the cold floor, grateful that it leeched some of the fever heat from his face.
Then Pryth lifted a shaking hand and touched his chest, just above his heart.
The fever and pressure left him.
Kim opened his eyes. The fever pulsed again, raw and angry around Pryth.
“I cannot let you die for me,” she whispered. She collapsed into unconsciousness.