Healers Read Online Free PDF Page B

the rudders over and they were deflecting the water. The force of the deflected water pushed the platform across the river!
    Tarc found the entire set up ingenious. Next he sent his ghost out to study the large rolling pulleys that guided the platform along the ropes on the far side.
    Tarc blinked. Within the field of his ghost a man had leaned up against the side of the Hyllises’ wagon! Tarc knew it wasn’t Daum, because he could see Daum standing at the front of the ferry with Kazy and Daussie. He turned his attention back to the man and realized the man had an arm slid behind him, underneath the canvas bonnet that covered the wagon! The guy was feeling around in there! Tarc started that way.
    Coming around the corner of the wagon, Tarc shouted, “Hey! What’re you doing?! Get your hand out of our wagon!”
    Pulling the hand back out from under the canvas, the large man turned narrowed eyes on Tarc and leaned away from the wagon. “I was just leaning up against the wagon. Is that a crime?”
    Hotly, Tarc said, “It is when you stick your arm in under the bonnet!”
    The man stepped towards Tarc who suddenly realized the guy was very large. He growled, “I said I was just leaning up against it!”
    Tarc stepped backwards, but realized the man was holding his hand out of sight. Probing with his ghost, Tarc could tell the big man had one of the Hyllises’ cooking knives in his fist. If he’d stolen something that wasn’t sharp, the man probably would have slipped it into his pocket by now. Tarc held out his hand and said, “Give me our knife!”
    The man’s eyebrows rose, probably finding it hard to believe Tarc knew what he had in his hand. He didn’t deny having the knife though; instead he lifted the knife and said, “This’s my knife!”
    Tarc gave him an incredulous look, “You just walk around carrying a kitchen knife in your hand?! You don’t even have a sheath for it!”
    The man glanced down at it, probably somewhat surprised to realize it was a kitchen knife, but then he looked back up at Tarc. “This ain’t no kitchen knife, it’s my work knife. And, yeah, I carry around a knife. Is that a crime?” He stepped closer.
    Warily, Tarc stepped back again. Not wanting to take his eyes off the man, he felt behind him with his ghost to make sure he wasn’t about to step off the platform. He kept his hand out, “You know that’s our knife. Give it to me and that’ll be all there is to this.”
    “I said it’s my knife!” the man growled, beginning to plod after Tarc, holding the knife in front of him threateningly.
    Tarc backed away, but realized he was about to run out of room. He glanced around. No one seemed to have noticed their little altercation. The river noise probably drowned out their argument. Tarc reached out to the man’s neck with his ghost, using his talent to push against the flow of blood in the carotid artery.
    The man shook his head; then stumbled. He went down on one knee, then put out a hand. The knife in question fell from nerveless fingers. Tarc stepped around him, picked up the knife and backed away as he let the pressure off.
    By the time the man sat back up and looked around in some confusion, Tarc had slipped the knife back under the bonnet. Warily glancing back, he headed up to the front of the platform to tell Daum what had just happened. He worried the big man would try to cause trouble, but the thief just sat where he’d fallen until the ferry docked at the other side of the river. Once docked, he got up and walked off the ferry before the Hyllises, but then sat to one side and glowered while they unloaded their wagon.
    With a sick feeling, Tarc worried the thief was the kind of man to hold a grudge.
     
    Sitting on a ledge of the big concrete piling, Bork Jonas scowled at the wagon unloading off the ferry. He didn’t understand what had happened back there.
    Bork made his living with petty theft and had done it successfully for years now. Stealing things off of