Kay Hooper - The Wizard Of Seattle

"My pleasure." He was sitting on a fallen log near the fire, poking a stick into the flames, and didn't look at her.

Serena hesitated, feeling oddly reluctant to walk away from him right then. "Um… I meant to ask you before. When you healed the girl, did you take away any of her memory?"

He frowned as he stared into the fire. "Strictly speaking, no. She'll remember what happened to her, but it will be as if it happened months ago; the sharpest edges will be blunted, less painful and traumatic." He turned his head and met Serena's gaze. "She needs to remember. We're all shaped by our experiences, positive and negative."

Nodding slightly, Serena said, "I suppose so. She'll be grateful to you."

"Will she?" Merlin looked back at the fire "I wonder. Men hurt her; I'm a man."

"But you healed her."

He shrugged. "Maybe that will count for something. But don't expect her to feel the way you do about it, Serena. I'm a stranger to her-and from the looks of this society, men and women seem to have problems relating to each other."

Serena thought he was undoubtedly right about that. If the male wizards kept powerless concubines whom they bought, sold, and traded like property, and the female wizards lived, for the most part, in a city protected by a wall, then there were definite problems here.

She crossed the few feet of clearing to the lean-to, which was quite roomy, and knelt beside their patient. Almost immediately, she knew that the girl was awake, though she appeared to be still deeply asleep. How long had she been awake? Had she heard anything they didn't want her to hear?

Serena hesitated, then said softly, "You must be hungry by now, aren't you? I know you're awake. Won't you at least look at me-and tell me your name?"

After a long moment the girl's eyes opened and focused on Serena's face. They were wide, blue, and shadowed, and her voice was innately gentle and very wary when she said, "I'm Roxanne. Who are you?"

"My name is Serena."

Roxanne turned her head just slightly and flicked a tense glance toward the fire and Merlin. "And… him?"

"His name is Merlin," Serena answered, keeping her voice soft. "He helped you."

"He's a wizard," Roxanne said.

"Yes."

"Then he wouldn't have helped me." Her voice held absolute conviction.

Serena frowned slightly. "He did help you, Roxanne. I watched him heal your injuries."

Slowly Roxanne pushed herself into a sitting position, her wary gaze leaving Merlin-who hadn't moved or reacted in any way to what was happening in the lean-to even though he had certainly heard their voices-and studying Serena no less warily. The blanket fell to her waist, and she looked down at her dean, untorn clothing. She lifted one hand to her hair, finding it dean and in a neat braid down her back like Serena's. Slender fingers probed her face, and a look of confusion tightened her features.

"I was dying," she whispered. "I know I was. They had used me and left me to die. No one could have saved me, not even a Master wizard."

Serena remembered then that Merlin had said the wizards of Atlantis were less advanced than their modern counterparts, and thought quickly for a plausible explanation. "We're visitors here. Where we come from, Merlin is renowned as a gifted healer. He's devoted much study to the art of healing."

Roxanne seemed to accept that, but her eyes were still distrustful and puzzled when she stared at Serena. "You're powerless. Are you his concubine?"

Finding a compromise between a label she refused to wear and the complicated truth, Serena said, "I'm… his companion. Look, why don't I get you something to eat, all right? You must be hungry."

"Thank you," Roxanne said quietly.

Serena eased away and returned to the fire, where the remainder of their stew was being kept warm on a flat rock dose to the flames.

"My companion?" Merlin murmured.

Ladling stew into a bowl, Serena shot him a glance and kept her own voice low. "Like you said, we're strangers here. Just because everybody we meet assumes I'm your property doesn't mean I have to accept it. Companion is a nice, neutral word, and I much prefer it to concubine."

"I'll keep that in mind. But there's something you should keep in mind, Serena. In their language the word companion may not be neutral at all."

Unnerved by that possibility, Serena carried the bowl of stew and a spoon back to Roxanne. Along with everything else, now she had to worry about how her words translated. Great. She frequently got into trouble with English; what kinds of linguistic pits yawned at her feet now?

She knelt and handed the food to Roxanne, returning the girl's guarded look with a touch of wariness herself "Do you live in the city?" she asked.

After tasting the stew tentatively, Roxanne obviously found her appetite and began eating, but she didn't take her eyes off Serena. "Yes… Sanctuary."

"Sanctuary? That's what it's called?" It seemed a fitting name for a walled city, Serena thought.

"Yes. Where are you from?"

Serena hesitated, but then opted for the truth. Why not, after all? No one here could possibly recognize the name-and besides, it probably translated as so much gibberish. "It's a city called Seattle."

"I've never heard of that. It's across the ocean?"

"Yes, far away. We-Merlin and I-wanted to see a bit more of the world."

Roxanne's delicate lips twisted. "And you came to Atlantia?"

"It seemed a good idea at the time," Serena murmured. "Your customs are no doubt different from ours, and it's always interesting to encounter a different culture."

After a wary glance toward Merlin, Roxanne said, " He may find Atlantia to his liking. Men, especially wizards, have the best of things here. But you may wish you had not left your Seattle."

"Why?"

"Because women are ultimately powerless here. Even wizards like me. What happened to me in the night happens to many women, thanks to the Mountain Lords ." Her voice dripped contempt and hatred when she named the male wizards, the emotions so strong that Serena leaned back.

"The male wizards? They… hurt you last night?"

Roxanne offered a painful smile. "If you mean were they the ones who rutted like animals between my legs, no. Village men-powerless men-did that. For all their arrogance, no male wizard would dare attempt to take his pleasure with a woman of power."

Baffled, Serena said, "Why not?"

"Because she would kill him, of course," Roxanne replied a bit impatiently. "We may be lesser in power compared to most of them, but any female wizard who is taken against her will is quite capable of destroying even the mightiest male. It's the one time we're able to defeat them."

Serena knew she looked as confused as she felt. "I don't understand this. Powerless men hurt you last night?"

"Yes."

"And you couldn't fight them? Couldn't stop them?"

"No, of course not. It was night."

"What does that have to do with it?"

Roxanne looked briefly confused herself, but then her frown cleared. "It must be different in Seattle, as it once was here. Now we are unable to use our powers at night. From sunset to sunrise the Curtain makes all in the valley powerless."

The lean-to was on the right and slightly behind Merlin, far enough away that the girl wouldn't feel unduly threatened by his presence, Merlin thought, but close enough so that he could hear every word spoken there.

What he heard was hardly reassuring, but he listened nonetheless.

It was nearly an hour later when Serena returned to the fire, her face a bit drawn. She was carrying Roxanne's empty bowl, and set it near the fire absently before she sat down on the stump she had earlier used for a seat.