Dirdra-”
“I will walk in the forest with my brother,” she replied.
“Then, Torio-?”
“I’ll come with you, if you don’t object,” he told Maldek. “I may have no Adept powers, but perhaps I can help Melissa Read just what happens when you heal people.”
They went into a long, hall-like room on the ground floor. It faced the courtyard, where it was safe to have large, many-paned windows to admit sunlight. In the morning, when all the fires but the cooking fire were out, it was the warmest room in the castle.
This was the infirmary. Although it was clean, Torio could tell that it was seldom used. There were only two beds set up with fresh straw mattresses, although he could Read frames for a dozen or more stacked in a nearby storage room.
In Wulfston’s castle, and in Lilith’s, at least a dozen beds were always available, frequently occupied with people in healing sleep. There were healers in every village, but people whose illness or injury was beyond the powers of such minor
Adepts were always taken to the Lord Adept. Here, it appeared, the Lord of the Land rarely bothered with his people’s needs.
Or perhaps it was the payment he exacted that made people fear to come. The guards had to drag in a man all bent and crippled with rheumatism. Despite pain that made the Readers wince, he flung himself at Maldek’s feet, saying, “Master, I dinna ask to be brought here. Please, Master-I be content!”
“But wouldn’t you be happier without your pain?” asked Maldek. With a wave of his hand, the man’s pain disappeared.
“Now,” said Maldek as the man stared down at his body as if he’d never seen it before, “we must cool the inflammation and straighten those limbs.”
The guards lifted the patient onto one of the beds, where he clutched at the mattress with his poor bent hands and asked, “What do ye want of me, Master?”
“Why, nothing but to make you well,” Maldek told him. “You will be cured-and then you will be able to work. Instead of begging in the streets, you will pay your tithe to my support, which is the support of my people. Rest now,” he added, touching the man on the forehead, at which he promptly fell asleep.
Maldek’s rationale was precisely what Torio had heard Aradia say as to why it was in the best interest of a Lord Adept to expend his energies in healing. But the unused state of the infirmary and the reaction of his patient showed that this was not Maldek’s usual practice.
“Now, Melissa,” said the Master Sorcerer, “show me how you would heal this man.”
“I have done this kind of healing before,” she replied. “The poor man’s body is fighting itself.” She lifted one of the gnarled hands, Read it, and then became blank to Reading as she concentrated. Healing heat spread beneath her fingers. The inflammation yielded, dissolved away, and the swelling went down as improved circulation carried away the accumulated fluid.
“I can make the muscles relax,” she said, “but after he becomes accustomed to being without pain it will take exercise to bring his limbs back to full function. The tendons have shortened; only time and use will lengthen them.”
Maldek Read Melissa’s work, Torio Reading with him. So far he had seen no sign that their host was a better Reader than he was, nor did the examination of the patient’s hand give any such indication.
“You have done your work well, Melissa,” said Maldek, “but you have wasted too much of your own energy. Tell me-do you know what Adept powers are?”
Melissa studied him, looking puzzled. “I don’t think you mean that they are powers to affect material objects with the mind.”
“No-I mean what they are, not what they do.”
“Then I don’t know,” Melissa replied.
“They are forces from a different realm,” replied Maldek. “We can use them to catalyze our own efforts, which is what most Adepts do-or we can simply guide them, let them pour through us, and thus use very little of our own energy. That is what Master Sorcerers do.”
“A different realm?” questioned Torio. “What do you mean? Another plane of existence? Such planes are not physical, and can only be reached out of body. How can they provide power?”
Maldek smiled disarmingly at him. “An excellent question. You have ventured onto other planes of existence, Torio? You are very young for such a quest-it is said that one is hardly rooted in this world until he has lived in it for a generation- thirty years.”
“And I suppose you waited that long?” asked Torio.
“Almost,” replied Maldek, frowning. “Do they teach you this in your Academy training while you are so young? That is dangerous-you could lose yourself.”
“It is not something I would do for amusement,” Torio replied. “One of my teachers was lost on the planes of existence, and it took a circle of Readers and Adepts to draw him back. I know of others who have been lost forever, their bodies left behind to die.
“But you are avoiding my question, Maldek. One does not enter the planes of existence in his body, for they are immaterial. So how can they have anything to do with physical power?”
“How? That is something I do not know. That there are planes of power, though, I am witness to. And those planes must be tapped while one is in the body. Out of it, one cannot control them-or at least no one ever has except in legend.”
“The ghost-king,” Torio identified.
“It is legend here in Madura, too,” replied Maldek. “Even if that tale is not pure fable, in living memory no one has tapped the planes of power out of body. Our version of the legend says that when the king did so, the power flowed through his conscious link with his helpless body, and destroyed it. That is how he became a ghost.”
“That part’s not in our story,” said Torio. “But… how can you reach other planes of existence without going out of body? And how can you Read and use Adept powers at the same time?”
“I’m not Reading when I do it,” Maldek replied. “That is why I can teach Melissa only as I was taught-and until you develop the Adept half of your powers, I cannot teach it to you, Torio. But this is what Melissa came here to learn. Let her learn it.”
“Go ahead,” Torio replied. “I’ll try to Read what you’re doing.”
But it was the same as the night before-he could Read what happened to the man’s arthritic joints, but not the source of the change.
Perhaps he found it difficult to concentrate on the healing because he was too aware of Maldek touching Melissa. In fact, he was Reading the Master Sorcerer so closely that when he stood behind her, wrapping his huge body around hers to put his hands over hers on the patient, Torio could smell Melissa’s fresh scent in Maldek’s nostrils.
And Maldek’s reaction-the reaction of a normal, healthy man to having his arms around a beautiful woman.
Torio gritted his teeth and concentrated on the healing. As before, it seemed to take place spontaneously, without the healing fire. Not only did the inflammation disappear, but the muscles relaxed and the shortened tendons… grewl
Torio could not believe what he was Reading.
Healers had used traction in the Aventine Empire, when normal exercise would not restore full function.
Adepts might work on deformed limbs daily, making small progress each time until they were restored-but he had never Read anything like this. Of course Melissa had to learn it!
But, “I just don’t know what you’re doingl” she protested when Maldek took his hands off hers for the dozenth time, and for the dozenth time the healing stopped abruptly.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I couldn’t do it when I first tried, either. It will come with practice, Melissa. But now, Read your patient.”
Both Torio and Melissa did so. The man was sleeping quietly, all inflammation gone from his joints, muscles relaxed, connective tissue restored to normal. He would require food and exercise to restore his strength-but then he would be able to resume a normal life!