by Jean Lorrah
Torio let the Master Sorcerer’s image enter his mind, Maldek’s body lying as he had left him with Cassandra, before the fire. Around him he envisioned the ruined throne room, and his own body and Melissa’s side by side, Gray curled up against his, Zanos and Astra sitting cross-legged, concentrating on keeping Melissa alive-He was cold!
Cold and weak as he had never been in his life!
In shock, Torio let his “self drift upward again, and found that he had been drawn to Maldek’s body, not his own, as he had been visualizing the throne room from that perspective.
All he had felt was the physical discomfort-Maldek was still unconscious, in body but without thought.
His own body drew Torio home; he settled in to the unwelcome weight and clumsiness that he always felt upon returning, this time accompanied by cold and numbness. Before he dared move, he Read his body’s condition.
His fingers and toes were frozen, as were his ears and the tip of his nose. They would have to be warmed carefully, blood pumped through, healing fire sent—
Even as he thought it, not the heat of healing he had experienced so often, but the white fire of the plane of power tingled throughout his body, sliding into every cell, every nerve, restoring, then… warming? He didn’t understand how cold could warm, but it happened even as he Read.
In moments, all was well-he was even comfortably warm, although the room was still unbearably cold.
He sat up, opened his eyes—
And saw blurred light and hazy figures.
Torio blinked. When his eyes were closed, he Read the room perfectly, but when he opened them—
He was seeing!
Gray nudged him, and he absently patted the fuzzy gray blur.
“Torio-are you all right?” asked Zanos.
“Yes,” he replied, closing his eyes to blank out the disturbing vision-he would worry about that later. At the moment-“Melissa?”
He Read her, back in her body but, like Maldek, unconscious.
“She’ll be all right,” said Astra. “She started breathing on her own a few moments ago, and her heart’s beating. Read her, Torio-you succeeded. Melissa’s there.”
“Why didn’t she heal her own body first?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” asked Zanos, and then Read Torio in his clumsy fashion. “I see-you’ve been healed already.”
Torio was still Reading Melissa. “Why isn’t she healing herself? I don’t understand!”
“Torio, she’s unconscious,” said Astra. “There’s other damage to her body besides freezing. Maldek hasn’t gone naturally into healing sleep, either-they’re too badly injured to do so without the aid of another healer.”
“Then… who healed me?” he asked-opening his eyes when he turned to Astra, a polite gesture of ingrained habit, to appear to be seeing the person he spoke to.
But he did see Astra, blurrily in the flickering firelight. He frowned, and her image came clear. Then he understood: he had to learn to focus his eyes.
“It wasn’t me,” Astra answered his question. “It’s been all Zanos and I could do to keep ourselves from freezing while we maintained Melissa’s body.”
“But…”
A frightening suspicion formed in Torio’s mind.
He squatted down beside her and tentatively reached out to touch Melissa’s forehead, envisioning her warm, her ravaged nerves soothed and healed, her cells restored—
The cold fire tingled through his Fingertips and spread through Melissa’s body, performing its work as speedily as before. Melissa opened her eyes, looked into his, and smiled.
Torio was so astonished that he rocked back on his heels and sat down on the cold stone floor, hard.
Zanos and Astra were staring at him in amazement. “You’ve Finally learned-?” Zanos began.
“He’s learned Maldek’s technique!” said Astra. “Torio-”
“Yes-I know how dangerous it is,” he replied. “Melissa-can you do it now?”
“Melissa’s just been healed,” said Zanos. “You can’t expect her to have any strength until she’s had a meal and a good long sleep.”
“But I’m neither tired nor hungry,” said Melissa, sitting up. “I’m just frightened of that power.”
“You think I’m not?” asked Torio. “But if it means I can heal-”
“Yes,” she said, and got gracefully to her feet. “I really do feel perfectly well,” she reassured Zanos and Astra. “Torio-show me how to do that.” And she knelt beside Cassandra.
“All I did was to envision you well,” he replied.
But when Melissa tried it, she produced the usual heat of Adept healing, drawing on the energy of her own body as she had always done.
“You’re still afraid of that power,” said Torio. “It’s only dangerous when misused. Think of the plane of power.”
Tentatively, Melissa reached out-but could not tap the power. Yet she needed it-she was a healer who would do only good with it. Torio put his hands over hers, as Maldek had done before-and the cold white fire spread outward through their patient. In moments, Cassandra was sitting up, warm and healthy.
“Now,” said Zanos, “what are you going to do about Maldek?”
Melissa stared at him. “You’re not suggesting that we let him die, are you?”
“He ‘ tetyou die,” the gladiator countered. “Surely Torio wouldn’t think of-”
“Zanos,” Torio said quietly, “would you have us do nothing?”
” Yes! He was supposed to die, wasn’t he? You’re the one who said it-”
“Unless someone died his death. Which Melissa did. Now… it is Melissa’s decision,” Torio stated.
“Maldek owes her his life. She has the right to give it back to him or not-and also the power.”
“You say power is good or evil according to what we do with it,” Melissa reminded Torio. “It is also according to what we don’t do with it. Maldek did evil when he refused to use his powers for healing. I will not make his mistake. Help me, Torio.” And she knelt beside the Master Sorcerer.
When Maldek’s eyes blinked open a few minutes later, he stared at Melissa in disbelief. “You? Am I dead, too?” He sat up and looked around.
“No, you’re not dead yet,” said Zanos. “You just ought to be.”
Maldek frowned and climbed to his feet. “It’s cold in here.”
“It is cold everywhere in Madura,” Cassandra told him. “Read what you have done to your land, Maldek.”
“I will restore it,” he said, looking from one to another of the survivors. “Why did you revive me?” he asked suspiciously.
“Only because not to heal you would have been to let you die,” replied Melissa.
“Fools!” he sneered. “Now I suppose you expect gratitude?”
“No,” said Torio, “just a sign that you have learned something.”
“That I must restore my land and heal my people? I agree. It was foolish to neglect my property. Now, though-what shall I do with you?” He glanced toward the corpses of Dirdra, Kwinn, and Bryen. “I see you allowed Dirdra to die. That is a waste-she amused me. But then you also amuse me, Melissa. You will take her place.”
He held out his hand toward her, and became blank to Reading-but the power that he commanded merely tugged gently at Melissa. She resisted easily.
Maldek stared. “What have you done to me?” he demanded, bracing to use more force. Again it was not enough to make Melissa take a step in his direction.
“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 b
urned 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.
Others hung on tenuously, infection eating at their wounds. Many were tossing in fever, some in convulsions.
“How do you think I can give you back your powers?” he asked.
“Direct the power through me, as I did with
Melissa. Put me in touch with it, and I will quickly have my strength back.”
Torio stared. If it worked, would Maldek use his powers for good? Or was this a trick? The Master Sorcerer did want to heal-and if his motives were not purely selfless, how many people’s motives were?
Besides-his own powers were now equal to those Maldek had had. The man had to know that Torio could c
ounter any sinister move.
The death in convulsions of a child out in the hallway tipped the scales.
“Very well,” said Torio. “I will try.”
Together they bent over the next patient. Maldek placed a hand on the forehead of a boy with a skull fracture from being hit by one of the giant hailstones. It had taken hours for what was left of his family to dig him out of the rubble of their home, and bring him here.
There was a huge blood clot in the boy’s brain-it would be at least an hour’s exhausting work for an Adept healer to dissolve the clot, move the bone back into place, and restore the damaged brain tissue.
If it could be restored at all.
But with the cold fire, all was done in moments. Torio let it flow through his hand to Maldek’s-and when he broke the contact, the flow continued. The Master Sorcerer had been right: once he was put back in touch with that source of power, he knew how to retain contact with it.
While the attendants removed the patient and brought in another, Maldek let the power flow through his own body, soothing the last of the “scarring” away.
By that time Torio was healing the other patient in the room-and the two men worked rapidly on, one burned and battered body after another, pausing only when the attendants brought them food and drink.
It seemed as if it would never end.
Zanos and Astra resumed work in another treatment room. In a third, the Maduran healers did so as well.
Cassandra administered medicines to the few patients whose injuries were so slight that herbs and simples were all they needed.
Melissa used Adept power to heal a number of people, and had to go sleep it off.
Torio was peripherally aware of all those events, but his main concentration remained on his patients.
Until at last the attendants took away the man he had just healed-and did not bring in anyone else.
It was a new morning; he had worked through a second straight night.
Pressing his hands to the small of his back, he stretched-and let the healing power ease his tension as he yawned.