“There is a hospital in Tsabong,” Ngubi hedged.
The woman dropped her gaze, and Nikolai said, “It’s okay, Ngubi. We are here, anyway.”
Ngubi’s mouth pulled straight, but he nodded.
The woman’s eyes flashed up to Nikolai, and away, before she led them through the huts to her own.
The baby burned with fever. Nikolai sensed the flickering life essence the moment he ducked to enter.
The mother crouched beside the infant’s bed, her concern causing her own essence to spike. Nikolai saw it as jagged orange emanations from her body.
The baby’s were even worse.
He laid down his bow, his arrows, his collecting bag, his bedroll, and his spear before he knelt beside the raised crib. Thick locks of steel-gray hair swung out over the child, and Nikolai took a moment to rewind them into the ponytail that hung almost to his waist. With that, his height, his coppery skin, and his weird pale eyes, it was no wonder many viewed him not only as a giant but also as supernatural.
But they weren’t afraid to ask for Nikolai’s help if they needed it. Sometimes it bothered him. He’d gone to school with a few of these people. But they were now in their forties, and their children had children of their own. Whereas Nikolai had spent the last few years finishing his growth, as though he were twenty, and not twice that age.
Ngubi had told him that giants took a lot longer to grow. As he was the only one he’d met, Nikolai had no yardstick to judge it by. But the hand he placed over the child almost spanned the tiny body. He pulled back the blanket to reach the bare skin, and then pushed aside his shirt at the throat, and folded his free fingers around his amulet.
The carved crystalline figure of a rearing horse was the only remnant he had of his mother. It helped him to focus, and as he closed his eyes, the crystal warmed within his hand.
He’d tried to explain what he did to others, but when it only added to the general state of angst and awe, he’d stopped doing so. To him, injury and illness conveyed as disruptions of the life essence. Rather than healthy blues and greens, they ranged from yellow through red, or more ominously, black.
The mother had been right to worry; this baby was very sick. Black flickered throughout its energy.
Whether it be viral or bacterial, it didn’t matter to Nikolai. He set to work, pushing the ominous essence of the illness from the baby—not a neat and tidy process as he used the natural orifices to clear the child of the miasma.
He spoke to the mother, taking care to keep his deep voice calm and soothing. “You’ll need a cloth to wipe the stuff away. Don’t touch your face, and if you have open cuts, keep them away too.”
The baby writhed and cried, but he lacked the knowledge to ease its discomfort while he healed. The man from last week, whose leg he’d mended, had screamed like a banshee.
“You’re hurting him,” the mother said, tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” Nikolai paused the process. “I cannot heal without causing pain. But it will be a temporary thing.”
“Do you want him to stop?” Ngubi asked.
The mother glanced from him to Nikolai.
“He is very sick,” Nikolai said. “I do not know if you will get him to the hospital in time, but you might.” He didn’t add that even if she did so, the doctors might not be able to save him.
The jaw firmed. “No. Please go ahead.”
Nikolai’s heart warmed—she had more faith in him than in modern medicine, but it didn’t mean she trusted him. If he failed, she’d turn on him in an instant. And he wouldn’t blame her, either.
He resumed his healing, and the mother cleaned and wiped. As he cleared the last of the red jaggedness from the child’s life essence, the baby quieted, blinking sleepy eyes up at him. His skin no longer burned hot.
“I think he’ll be fine, now.” Nikolai sat back on his heels.
The mother scooped up her baby and hugged him to her breast. She shot him a quick, grateful look. “Thank you,” she said. But she still couldn’t hold his gaze.
“Time to go.” Ngubi gestured toward the hut exit.
Nikolai nodded and picked up his gear before following his dad. The number of curious onlookers had only grown, and a man gestured to them from the edges.
Mosode, a schoolmate of Nikolai’s, and Ngubi’s nephew, grabbed Ngubi by the arm and led them away from the staring crowd.
“You’ve got to go,” he said. “One ofthemvisited Tsabong today. Asking about a healer.”
