“Answer me, woman!” he roared, lifting a huge hand as if to strike her. “How have you destroyed my powers?”
Torio stepped in front of Melissa. “You destroyed them yourself, Maldek,” he replied, Reading deep into the core of the man’s mind and body, discovering in his mental presence strange scarlike effects such as he had never Read before. “When you loosed that force through yourself,” he interpreted, “you overloaded your abilities. Whether time will heal you, I cannot tell-only that because you refused to yield your life, the power burned in you much longer than it did in Melissa, and consequently did far more damage.”
“This is nonsense!” said Maldek. ” Any damage can be healed. You think to cripple me, but I can use ordinary healing on myself-it will simply take longer, and then I will have my revenge,” he said, looking past Torio to Melissa.
It was obvious he was not Reading perfectly, either. “I am stronger than you, Melissa,” he warned.
“When I am well, you will be as helpless before me as Rokannia was-and you, too, will beg for my favors!”
“Rokannia defied you,” Melissa replied. “So will everyone you cannot cow into submission. Maldek-
why can’t you learn from your experience?”
“I don’t take lessons from people less powerful than I am!” he replied, and, shoving Torio aside, he stalked out of the throne room.
Melissa went to Torio. “Why did you let him do that?” she asked.
“I’m not used to thinking like an Adept,” he told her. “Besides-what good would it do Maldek to know that I now have more power than he has? He’ll find out soon enough.”
Indeed, Maldek discovered it the next day, when he came out of healing sleep and found his guests hard at work in the City, restoring his people.
The sun was shining, and a warm breeze had begun to melt the ice left from the freezing night. Torio and Melissa had spent part of the night shifting the prevailing winds into a pattern that would bring them over warm ocean currents before they crossed the island. They would not keep to that pattern without constant vigilance, but there were surely Adepts with the power to control the weather in Maldek’s land.
Torio was astonished at the uses of his new powers. He was not accustomed to being exhausted, like an Adept-but even Readers became tired after the loss of a night’s sleep. Now Torio found that he could call upon that source of power to refresh his own body, and go on working.
Torio, Melissa, Zanos, Astra, and Cassandra were all at the City infirmary when Maldek made his appearance-but by that time Zanos and Astra had exhausted themselves, and were sound asleep on a pallet in one of the wards. Cassandra and Melissa set people who were already well to gathering food for those recovering.
Maldek strode in to the usual starts of fear from his people-but today they were followed by resentment he could not miss. Everyone had lost friends and family, and they knew that out in the countryside others were dying simply because the healers could not spread themselves far enough.
More people came to the infirmary every hour. Here, away from the center of the attack, some without powers had survived-but they were both burned and frozen, and the healers wore themselves out healing them. All those who worked regularly in the infirmary were by now in recovery sleep, and Torio worked alone. Even with the speed of healing via the cold fire, he fell farther and farther behind as wagonloads of injured were brought in.
Concentrating on a patient, Torio was only vaguely aware of Maldek entering the room where he was working. But when the sorcerer began to Read what he was doing, it was with such lack of finesse that he was forced into recognizing Maldek- who registered both shock and fury.
“You’ve stolen my powers!” the Master Sorcerer accused.
Too busy to put up with trivia, Torio snapped, “If you’re awake and better, Maldek, use what powers you have to heal some of these people, or get out of here!”
But Maldek strode across the room to where Torio was turning from one bed to the next and grasped the Reader by the arm. “I am rested and healed so far as I can manage alone. But you have cut off the power-redirected it to yourself! Give it back to me!”
“So you can loose it again, to do even more damage?” Torio demanded. “If I could keep it from you, I would-but I suppose you’ll get it back eventually” he added, Reading that some of that peculiar
“scarring” he had noticed before had disappeared from Maldek’s presence.
The Master Sorcerer dropped Torio’s arm and cocked his head to one side, his cold blue eyes staring into the Reader’s. “You,” he stated flatly, “can see me.”
“Yes,” Torio told him. “As you said, it is convenient. But you are not. If you’re not going to be useful, at least don’t prevent me from healing your people.” And he turned to the next patient.
Maldek Read the woman’s wounds, then the line of patients outside-and more wagons approaching.
“My people,” Maldek murmured. Then, “Torio- there are no healers working but you.”
“The others worked all night-every one of them is exhausted.”
“So are you,” said the sorcerer, “but you don’t know it. One of the effects of drawing power from outside your own body is that you don’t realize how tired your mind is becoming. Beware the temptation not to sleep at all.”
“Thank you for the advice,” Torio replied acidly, “but I have Read more than thirty people die while waiting to be healed, simply because I could not work fast enough. You are disturbing my concentration, Maldek.”
“I will help you,” the Master Sorcerer replied, and turned to the patient who had just been brought in.
Using ordinary healing fire, Maldek cleansed the man’s burns of infection and started them to healing; the patient was carried out in deep restorative sleep. The sorcerer rapidly took care of three more, but then-
“Torio-you have healed fifteen people while I have healed four, and your patients are able to get up and help others, while mine must sleep for hours or days, and then rebuild their strength before they will be good for anything.”
The Reader stretched his muscles, relieving the tension of concentration. “That’s still four people who won’t die waiting for me,” he replied. “I’m grateful for your help.”
“You’re-?” Maldek laughed sardonically. “Why are you giving me your help, you fool? You and your friends could have walked out last night, sailed away from Madura, and left me to my problems. You know the condition I’m in. What’s left of my population would rise against me, exhaust my powers, and kill me-and then you could come back and claim this land as your own.”
“Is that what you would have done?” Torio asked.
“Yes,” the sorcerer replied, “that’s what I would have done… before.” Torio Read confusion in Maldek’s mind. “Now-I don’t know,” he confessed. “Perhaps your ways are better. They were my father’s ways, and Borru’s. When I followed them for a few days, I found it pleasant to be greeted with hope instead of fear. Even now, it is welcome to Read the gratitude of those for whom I can do so little.”
“Then you will regain your powers,” said Torio.
“… what?”
“It is what I was taught-and what the Adepts were taught in the savage lands. Abuse your powers, and you will lose them. Use them for good, and they will grow. Even though it sometimes seems to be untrue for a time, inevitably the debt must be paid.”
“Then give me back my powers,” said Maldek, “that I may do good.”
“Maldek, I haven’t stolen them,” said Torio. “I can’t just return them, like giving back a borrowed cloak!”
“No, for you will not lose what you have gained. But Read that line of injured people outside. Even the two of us. can’t heal them all before some die-but we can save more.”
Even as Maldek spoke, Torio Read a young man far back in the line give up his weak grasp on life.