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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!"
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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."
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