Intending to check in a few minutes to see if baths were what the seven men were coming this way for, Torio returned his attention to the group at the cascade pool-just as Zanos, half dressed, picked up his huge sword and unsheathed it.
“Zanos-what-?”
As Torio opened wide to Reading, certain Zanos could not possibly have noticed something he hadn’t, Astra screamed.
Zanos swung the sword-striking at his wife!
But he was clumsy as Torio had never seen him. Astra ducked, and made a leap toward her own weapon.
But Torio was right there, his sword immediately at the ready as Zanos turned and grabbed Dirdra.
The astonished Maduran woman was helpless in the gladiator’s grip, and he held her in front of him as a shield. “Dirdra has returned to me,” he said in a voice cold with disdain. “Do not try to claim her again, for she is mine. You will return to your ship and bring her to Madura.” Then he turned Dirdra roughly to face him. “You have returned freely-so I will be kind. Kwinn is waiting for you, Dirdra. He lives… and longs for his sister.”
Astra was Reading full out now. Torio and Melissa joined minds with her, recognizing what terrified her so.
The man before them, holding them at bay with his sword and squeezing Dirdra’s arm so hard that at any moment it might break, had the appearance of the man who had journeyed with them all the way from Zendi.
But Astra knew-and the other Readers knew with her: it was not Zanos!
Chapter Four
All knew at once that it was Maldek who spoke through Zanos. The gladiator’s open, friendly features took on the cold disdain they had seen in Dirdra’s memory-but even as with one mind the Readers searched for a way to get Dirdra away from Zanos and subdue him without hurting him, they Read Zanos himself fighting for control.
Roaring like a wounded bear, he threw Dirdra from him and raised his sword-but there was nothing to strike at. “No man controls me against my will!” the gladiator exclaimed. Astra’s mind at once joined her husband’s to reject the Master Sorcerer’s influence.
Maldek was, of course, out of body, but he could project to the Readers. Melissa knelt beside Dirdra, Reading that her arm was badly bruised, but not broken. Then she became unReadable for a moment, as she focused healing power.
Torio, meanwhile, was wondering how far Maldek was from his body. It was somewhere on the island of Madura, obviously, across the strait separating that land from Brettonia. But the strait was narrow, if treacherous-less than a day’s journey by ship. If Maldek was near the shore, he was traveling no farther out of body than Torio had often done.
"I have no need to impress you, boy,” Maldek answered his thought. “If you are skilled at the inner sight, you may be useful to me… or at least amusing. Just what good do you think that sword will do you against powers such as mine?”
" I won’t know until we meet,” Torio replied, and Melissa looked up at him, smiling encouragement.
And that brought Maldek’s attention to Melissa. “Ahh… a dark beauty, as lovely in her way as Dirdra.
And with powers. My little Maduran minnow has lured quite a catch to my shores! Tell Dirdra I am pleased with the outcome of her adventure… as I trust all of you will be when you come to me. For come you must, will you nill you, though the way be hard and dangerous. By the end of your journey each of you will find what you seek… even if you do not now know what that is.”
With that, Maldek’s presence was gone-but they were not alone. The seven men Torio had noticed earlier were running into the baths, past the bubbling warm pool and into the cavern with the waterfall.
Brandishing their tools as weapons, they demanded, “Leave our land!”
“You Madurans-nothing but trouble!”
“You’ll bring the wrath of the Master Sorcerers down on us again!”
“Back to your ship-we’ll not shield you here!”
Zanos, Astra, and Torio could easily have subdued the seven poorly armed workmen, but they could Read their memories of Maldek’s search for Dirdra months ago-setting fire burning through people’s nerves, killing their livestock, blinding and laming their children as he demanded news of a beautiful red-haired woman no one had seen… for with all Maldek’s powers, he had not known that Dirdra had passed this way in the guise of a boy, and disappeared into the land of the Dark Forest before he knew she was out of Madura.
Rather than fight these poor people who had already suffered so much at Maldek’s hands, the five hastily threw on their outer garments and let themselves be pushed out of the caverns. The last thing Melissa reached for was the garland of flowers Torio had made for her… but it was brown and withered as if it had been seared with frost.
Outside, the workers prodded them along the cliff path. “Go back to Madura!” said one of the men, shoving Melissa with his pikestaff. “Stay where you belong-don’t bring your troubles on other folk!”
Torio pushed the man’s staff aside. “She’s not Maduran. She’s a healer!”
Another man laughed bitterly. “We know Madurans now, if we didn’t before! We send ‘em all back-even the dark uns!”
And Torio Read that the man saw him as obviously Maduran, even though his hair was brown, not red.
His eyes were a clear blue-green, revealed when one of the savage healers had removed his cataracts in the mistaken belief that that would cure his blindness.
I suppose I could pass for Maduran, he realized.
Dirdra remained silent, pale and tight-lipped, as they were herded to the ship. The crew were also being driven aboard, protesting all the way.
The captain was waiting for them. “If the sorcerers want you,” he told them, “let them come and get you!
I’ll not risk Madura now!”
“But you’ve been paid-” Zanos began.
“We’ll take you just as far,” the captain replied, “up north to Hrothsland. That’s a great seafaring nation-someone from there will be foolhardy enough to take you to Madura.”
“But we made an agreement,” Zanos protested.
Astra put her hand on his arm. “Let it go for now. No one’s been hurt. The captain will change his mind once we’re out to sea.”
But it was the sea that changed.
From calm swells, it developed into choppy waves that carried them inexorably westward-toward Madura.
The captain adjusted the sails and tried to steer northward, but the wind grew stronger… and colder.
Torio knew what was happening. He had been the Reader guiding Wulfston and Rolf when they had raised the storm to halt the attacking Aventine fleet. Melissa was a survivor of one of the resulting shipwrecks.
They wrapped up in woolen cloaks and stood at the rail, Reading as far as they could toward Madura-but it was beyond the range of any Reader aboard, unless one of them risked going out of body in the dangerously heaving ship.
No one had to do that to know that Maldek was causing the storm. The captain was forced to sub-mit, or lose his ship. Grimly, he ordered the helmsman to take a westward course. At once the sails billowed with a fresh breeze as, against the prevailing winds, the ship was carried toward Madura.
Once they had accepted the course Maldek wanted them to take, Torio expected the Adept influence to stop. But the breeze continued. “How long can he keep that up?” he wondered aloud.
“Maldek is not using his energy now,” Dirdra said in a hollow voice. “He controls hundreds of people with smaller powers. Some of his weather talents will drive themselves into collapse this night. Maldek won’t.”
She turned to her four companions, her face lit harshly by the late-afternoon sun. “I am so sorry. I did not think Maldek would even remember me-just another of the many he has used as his toys.”