"Gray, Julia - Guardian 03 - The Crystal Desert" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)
'No! Stay away from her!'
'I swear I'd never harm her. If she's hurt I can save her some pain at least.'
'What do you mean, if she's hurt?' Mlicki shouted. 'Look at her!' He stood aside so that Terrel could see Kalkara. The little girl was lying on her back, and her eyes were shut, her face screwed up in agony. She was trembling, and her face and arms were covered in livid red weals. It did indeed look as if she had been badly burnt. The genuine horror that registered on Terrel's face inadvertently aided his case.
'I don't think Terrel had anything to do with this,' Algardi told Mlicki.
'And the salves I've tried aren't doing any good,' Bubaqra added. 'Let him try to help her.'
'He is a healer,' the old man pointed out. 'We've seen that. Let him do what he can now, for Kala's sake.'
Grateful for the elders' support, Terrel turned to Mlicki in mute appeal, and saw that suspicion still lingered in his friend's mismatched eyes.
'All right,' Mlicki said eventually. 'But if you harm her, I'll kill you.'
Terrel was in no doubt that this was a serious threat.
'I won't harm her,' he promised, then moved forward quickly to kneel beside the girl. Mlicki stayed close by, watching him like a hawk.
Terrel reached out and gently took one of Kalkara's hands in his own. She did not flinch, for which he was grateful. Indeed, she didn't even seem to be aware of his presence. Such physical contact - a simple touch - was usually all it took for Terrel to establish some sort of link with his patient. His first experiences of healing had been unconscious; he had literally not known what he was doing. Later, when he'd tried to make deliberate use of his supposed talent, it had been a journey into the unknown, in which instinct was his only guide. Initially he'd been aided by the advice of Babak, the self-styled apothecary, who had told him that if someone believed they were going to get well, then they usually would. The human mind was a wonderful physician. For a long time Terrel had been convinced that he was merely helping people to heal themselves, but he'd eventually realized that there was more to it than that. He'd helped in several cases where the sick person had had no faith in him to start with - or was even unaware that he was trying to help them. At the beginning he had not truly believed in his healing powers, but then results had made him reconsider. His talent, it seemed, was real.
Even so, his powers were limited. Some diseases and injuries were beyond the scope of his abilities. He could not make a broken bone whole again - but what he could do was help control the associated discomfort, and make sure that the patient suffered as little as possible, and had the best possible chance of an eventual recovery. There were even those who claimed that his ministrations speeded up the natural healing process, by removing the anxiety and weakness that pain caused. In a way, this made sense to Terrel, who had been in pain his whole life - from a time even before he was born. He could recognize its sources in others, and trace its patterns. He understood. But this time it was different.
Whenever he made a connection with someone, it was like falling into a waking dream, into a realm where everything looked and felt different. Terrel would see beyond himself, into a landscape of mystery and raw sensation. He had never been able to describe this alien landscape properly, but in some way it corresponded to the patient's state of being, the unseen systems and balances within their body. In this way the healer actually shared their symptoms, burning with the heat of a fever, feeling the lethargy induced by a long illness or the pain of an injury. And in sharing the symptoms he was able to control them, to make even the worst torment bearable - and was then able to pass on this knowledge to his patients. With experience had come confidence - and expectation. Moving into the waking dream was now a process Terrel took for granted, usually finding that the touch of a hand and simple readiness were enough to set him on his way. But with Kala he found himself floundering like a novice again.
The dream was there. He could sense it. But it was remote, and it spurned his increasingly desperate efforts to enter its preserve. Shields within shields protected Kalkara, so that his instincts were of no use. Terrel closed his eyes and concentrated, the outside world fading as his struggle continued.
Deliberately, he took a mental step back, trying to see why she had erected such defences against him. But it did no good. There was simply no way in.
Kala, please. I want to help you.
There was no response. Ordinarily, Terrel would have avoided using psinoma - which he considered an invasion of privacy - as part of the healing process. But he was at a loss now, and was willing to try anything.
'Mlicki?' he whispered aloud. 'Help me.' He raised his right arm, and felt his friend's hand close over the clawed fingers. His left hand still held Kalkara's.
'What should I do?' Mlicki asked anxiously, his voice seeming to come from very far away.
'She needs to feel someone she trusts absolutely,' Terrel replied, then was silent, concentrating once more on the inner struggle. He thought he heard Mlicki speak again, but the words fell on deaf ears as the healer tried to relax and seek out the dream again.
Let him help you, Kala. Mlicki's silent voice was gentle, but his fear imbued every word. Even so, his intuitive contribution proved effective. Terrel felt himself falling at last - into a world that was unlike any he had ever encountered.
It was not like the dreams of the unborn babies in the fog-bound valley - those dreams had been terrifying, quite beyond his healing. It was not the unreachable isolation of the sleepers. Nor was it the final surrender of the dying, those who Terrel had not been able to save but whose passing he had eased. There was nothing here to match the malice of poison or the malevolence of disease. This was different because he could find nothing wrong.
Kalkara's pain was real enough, but there was no reason for it. Terrel could find no source of her torment, no pattern to its assault. Her body was whole, unharmed. How was he supposed to heal a non-existent injury?
His confusion made the dream-world seem a place of chaos, when it should have been perfectly ordered. His instincts were still useless; they were leading him nowhere. He realized that what he needed to do was apply logic. If the burns were not real, then they must be imaginary. If her body was whole, then perhaps it was her mind that was hurt? Was it possible to apply Babak's theory in reverse? If someone believed they were going to be harmed - even if it was not really the case - would they fall ill? That was how curses worked, after all. But who, or what, could have put a curse on Kalkara? And why? There was only one chance of finding out.
Tell me what happened, Kala, he said tentatively. What hurt you?
There was no response, but the dream shifted uneasily.
Please, Kala, he persisted. I don't know how to help you unless-
Terrel broke off abruptly as her reply came, not in words but in flashes of memory. He was back in the desert now, looking over the gully as the animals relaxed and went about their usual business. He experienced the eerie sensation of sitting next to himself, and knew that he was seeing through Kalkara's eyes. Contentment and wonder seeped through him as he remembered the earlier dance, but that suddenly changed when he heard his other self whisper, and all but one of the creatures fled.
His perspective lurched as Kala leapt to her feet, and as he saw what she had seen, terror flooded through him. The last remaining djerboa was surrounded by a blinding sheet of flame that blazed and then flared out so that he was engulfed. Heat, pain and panic assaulted him simultaneously, but he fought against it, telling himself that it was only an illusion, willing himself to believe it. Defeated, he turned and fled. And the memory released him.
Terrel clung to his own sanity, searching for an explanation. Kalkara had seen something that was not of the real world. Had she somehow been able to sense Alyssa's presence within the creature? That seemed unlikely, given that not even Terrel was able to do that in any visual sense. And in any case, why would she think that Alyssa - of all people - would want to hurt her? Why would that have invoked the false flames that had scorched her skin? The only interpretation that made any sense was that Kala had somehow seen Alyssa's spirit, but that she had mistaken her for someone or something else. Something so evil that her fear had been strong enough to produce her injuries.
Kak, listen to me, he begged. What you saw was my friend. She meant you no harm. You only imagined the flames.
Again there were no words in reply. Kalkara's response came in the form of stark disbelief. What she had seen had been real to her.
It wasn't real, Terrel went on urgently. Her name is Alyssa. She wouldn't hurt you. She didn't hurt you. I know her, and she's the gentlest person I've ever met. The flames weren't real. There's no need to torture yourself like this.
The child's resistance was wavering, and Terrel persevered - repeating his assurances and hoping that his sincerity, his own belief, would eventually register.
When she comes to visit me again, I'll tell you, he added. So you can meet her properly.
This idea produced a spasm of fear, and he worried that the offer might have been a mistake, but in the next moment he knew that Kalkara had finally been convinced. The pain began to retreat.
Terrel released his grip on her hand, feeling faint from exhaustion. He opened his eyes long enough to see that the ugly weals were fading to nothing, leaving Kala's skin smooth and brown again. Before he passed out, he just had time to hear Mlicki cry out for joy.
Chapter Eight
A dozen or more voices intruded into the last fragments of Terrel's dream. As the crimson sea released him, his fear retreated too, leaving him alone again. He realized gratefully that he was no longer blind, that all he had to do was open his eyes to see where all the voices were coming from, but he decided to lie still for a while and simply listen. He felt almost unbearably weary, and the thought of actually moving any of his lead-weighted limbs was out of the question. Eventually, however, because he could make little sense of what was being said, he couldn't resist opening his eyes.
He found himself looking up into a pair of deep brown eyes, and for one heart-stopping moment he thought they belonged to Alyssa. He hadn't seen her in her own form for more than three years now - and his longing to do so had been growing more acute in all that time. Even on the rare occasions when Alyssa appeared in his dreams, it was in the guise of one of her animals, or simply as a disembodied voice.
An instant later he was brought back to reality. This girl was beautiful, but her oval face was full, her skin dark and, unlike Alyssa's uneven crop of short blonde spikes, her hair was a mass of lustrous black curls. Even her eyes, now that he saw them properly, were older, without the child-like wonder that marked Alyssa's gaze. Her smile was familiar, but for the moment his sleep-fogged brain could not recall her name.
'He's waking up!' she called, and immediately the hubbub of voices fell to an expectant hush.
Terrel forced himself to lift his head and glance around. He was in Algardi's tent, one of the largest in the camp. Several generations of the elder's family lived under its woven roof, and it appeared that most of them were there now. It was certainly very crowded.
'Are you all right?' Bubaqra asked as she came to sit beside him.
'I'm just tired,' Terrel replied, struggling to sit up. 'Is Kala all right?'
'As right as rain,' Algardi reassured him, coming to join his wife. 'You'd never know there'd been anything wrong with her. She's sleeping now.'
'And Mlicki?'
'He's with her,' Bubaqra said. 'We thought it better to bring you here. There are already too many patients in Vilheyuna's tent.'
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