Oh, Kwinn-I had to come back for you. I couldn’t leave you in his evil power, my brother!”
Chapter Five
What the Readers wanted to do was examine Kwinn, but Maldek had other plans. First they were taken from the throne room to a banquet hall, where only the three who had used Adept powers did justice to the meal.
Maldek did not eat-causing Torio to Read the food carefully for drugs or poison. He could find nothing.
The Master Sorcerer came up behind him. “The game has not begun, Torio. You may safely enjoy the food provided. You are my guests now, and the rules of hospitality obtain.”
For how long? Torio wondered, but Maldek did not respond. Gray voiced his opinion of their host’s sincerity with a soft growl. It rose in volume when Maldek laid his hand on Torio’s shoulder, but the dog didn’t move. Without the healing fire, the last traces of Torio’s injury vanished!
Melissa looked up, startled. “How did you do that?”
“Come and I will show you,” the sorcerer replied. “Here”-he pointed to Torio’s thigh without touching-“your friend has a deep puncture wound that has healed over, but will come to restrict those muscles if it is not soon healed cleanly.”
“I planned to set it healing again tonight,” Melissa replied. “By morning-”
“But there is no reason to wait so long,” Maldek told her. “Put your hand over the wound.”
Melissa did so-and Maldek placed his left hand over hers. Torio tried to Read what they did, but both the healer and the sorcerer braced to use Adept power. The healing fire touched his wound for a moment, but Maldek, his face between Melissa’s and Torio’s, murmured, “No-that way is long, and takes too much power. Like this.”
This deeper wound took longer to heal-long enough for Torio to feel a strange cold sensation quite unlike the healing fire, as from the inside out the wound knitted together, clotted blood dissolving and dissipating.
He could Read what happened to his injury, but not how it was done. Melissa turned her face up to Maldek’s. “Where… where did that power come from?” she asked. “I feel no weakness.”
“Of course not,” he replied, remaining just a moment too long with his hand over hers. Then he straightened. “There is a ready source of power-if one can tap it. You do, Melissa, but inefficiently. Try it on your other friend, Zanos. His wound still pains him.”
Indeed, Torio had admired the gladiator’s stoicism on the long day’s ride, for he had to breathe shallowly to avoid pain, but deeply to keep mov-ing with them. Yet he had not uttered a word of complaint.
Melissa put her hand over Zanos’ wound… but nothing happened. She frowned, and healing warmth spread beneath her hand.
“No,” said Maldek, beside her in one rapid stride. “Melissa, think of healing the wounded after a battle.
Of how much use is a healer who falls asleep after treating twenty, when a hundred more are waiting?”
“It’s not that I disagree, Lord Maldek,” she replied. “It’s that I cannot Read what you do to heal so quickly and cleanly.”
“My master taught me by directing the power through my hands until I could control it. Here- try again.”
Again he placed his hand over hers. When they lifted their hands, Zanos took a deep breath- without a stab of pain. “Thank you, Melissa,” he said, but looked up at Maldek and continued, “I’ll not thank you, Master Sorcerer. You owed me that-it was you who caused my wound!”
Maldek laughed. “Then we begin our contest even, point to point.”
“Even? When you have powers beyond anything we’ve seen before?”
Maldek smiled his cold smile. “It disturbs you to find the tables turned, Zanos the Gladiator, undefeated Champion of the Aventine Games? How many men did you defeat with powers they could not understand?”
“Zanos!” Astra whispered sharply, putting her hand on her husband’s arm. “Whatever he may be, we are his guests.”
“Prisoners, you mean,” the gladiator replied. “We could all end up like that poor creature!”
He gestured to where Dirdra sat, food untouched, cradling Kwinn’s head in her lap.
“Ah, but Kwinn is happy,” said Maldek. “He has what he wants now: his sister home again. Under my care, you will discover, everyone receives exactly what he wants.”
“That’s a lie!” Dirdra snapped. “Do you think Kwinn wanted to be turned into a mindless animal?”
“He wanted you to be well cared for, Dirdra… and he wanted to be with you. Now he has just that. And you, my dear, will soon give me what / want.”
It was obvious that all were finished eating. Maldek bid them good night, and servants showed them to their rooms, all clustered in one wing of the castle.
As soon as the servants left them they all gathered in Dirdra’s room, to examine Kwinn. Gray lay down in front of the door.
Astra was the only one of the group to have completed medical training at Gaeta, and she was also the most skilled among them at the fine discernment required to Read down to the level of nerve synapses and minute chemical changes.
“Dirdra, your brother’s mind Reads something like that of a stroke victim,” Astra said. “What Maldek has done is very cruel, but very easy given his combination of Reading and Adept talents. He has injured the part of Kwinn’s brain that controls language-he can no longer find words for what he wants to think or say.”
“Can he be cured?” Dirdra asked.
“I don’t know,” replied Astra. “I don’t think I could sort out and reconnect all those tiny fibers. Melissa?”
“It would be like trying to-” She searched for a less painful image than the one that came to mind, but Dirdra knew it already.
“To unscramble an egg,” she said bitterly. She rocked her brother in her arms. “It was his mind Maldek took first. Only when that did not persuade me to come to him freely did he begin to amuse himself by twisting Kwinn’s body.”
Melissa shivered. “He has such power for healing! Why would he distort it to do deliberate harm?”
“As a demonstration of strength,” said Zanos. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone capable of opposing him-those empty beaches we passed to the south are an open invitation to an invading army.”
“Oh, they’ve tried,” said Dirdra. “Three years ago, Rokannia of the Western Isle sent a fleet of ships against Madura. Maldek did not even bother to raise the wind. He let the army come ashore, and met them with his minions-no army, just Maldek and some forty minor sorcerers against an army of over a thousand.
“Rokannia and her sorcerers sent fire and thunderbolts, but Maldek ignored them. Using his minions to shield him, he took her army, turned them orbu-and when Rokannia had exhausted herself he sent her own army against her. She was brought to his castle in chains, and there was a great celebration.
“Rokannia still rules the Western Isle, but she pays tribute in gold and grain every year. And it is rumored that every year when she comes to pay her tribute she begs Maldek to let her bear him a child to carry on his powers-but he refuses.”
“I can see why you intrigue him so, Dirdra,” said Zanos. “A Master Sorceress begs for his favors, but you spurn him.”
“And what would you have me do?” she demanded. “Let him use me and cast me aside as he does his orbu?”
“Not at all,” replied Zanos. “I spoke out of admiration for your courage.”
“Besides,” added Astra, “it is clear that Maldek does not want you unwilling-and he is too good a Reader not to know your feelings. What is intriguing is that he has never simply implanted the desire for him in your mind.”
“It may be,” Melissa said pensively, “that Maldek is just discovering that his power has limits.”
“What do you mean?” asked Torio.
“He can have anything he wants,” she replied, “except friendship… and love.”
“He’ll never have that in this land,” said Dirdra. “The only people who want to be friends with Maldek are those who seek to profit by the association!”