Jean Lorrah - Sorcerers of the Frozen Isles

That drew blank stares from all but one man, who squinted at the red-haired giant and replied in the same language but with an Aventine accent, “I remember-I seen him in the arena oncet. That’s Zanos the Gladiator.”

“And where did you see him?”

“Adigia-afore Drakonius took the last bit o’ land right where we was farmin’. That journey’t’see the games was the last time me an’ my wife had a happy time’t’gether.”

“You see?” Astra said to the girl. “Zanos was inside the Aventine Empire for the past twenty years, just as he told you.”

“So what?” asked the girl.

“So I had nothing to do with what is happening in Madura now,” Zanos replied. “Please, lass, if you were there recently, tell me what is happening in my homeland.”

Zanos and Astra, Torio and Melissa took the girl-who had little to pack in the way of possessions-aside to talk while the rest of the bandits were loading their horses and wagons.

“What is your name?” Zanos asked.

The girl looked resentfully at Astra, and said aloud what her mind had already told the Readers: “Dirdra.”

“Why did you leave Madura?”

“I told you. To escape Maldek.”

When she spoke the name, Torio Read a combination of fear, revulsion, anger, and despair.

“What did this Maldek do to you, Dirdra, to make you hate him so?” Astra spoke gently, adding,

“No-not to you, was it? To someone you love.”

Forced to think about something she had thrust to the back of her mind, Dirdra lost some of her toughness. Tears burned behind her eyes, and one escaped to slide down her cheek. “My brother,” she said in a tight voice. “Maldek destroyed him.”

“Killed him?” Zanos asked before the better Readers could stop him.

“No,” Dirdra replied. “I wish he had. And I couldn’t-couldn’t stop him from-”

A painful sob heaved the girl’s chest. Then, “He’s still alive!” she choked out. “Why didn’t I have the strength to kill him rather than let him live that way?”

Torio Read odd flashes of a shadowed, bent figure as Dirdra fought her own memories, refusing the agony of seeing dearly what her brother had become. But all the Readers-even Zanos, Reading with Astra-recognized that Maldek had crippled him in some terrible manner.

It was Melissa who asked, “Why?”

“Maldek wanted me,” the girl replied. “He… wanted me awake and willing, not mind-forced, not orbu.”

“Orbu?” asked Zanos, not knowing the word in what was supposed to be his native language.

Dirdra said something else that Torio could not understand because Zanos didn’t. With the strange words, though, came images-a beautiful young woman, a handsome young man, physically perfect but without the spark of intelligence in their eyes. They were dolls or puppets, yet they were living flesh and moved with human grace.

It was a chamber of a castle in which Dirdra- held still and silent by Adept power-was forced to stand and watch. The pair of exquisitely beautiful automatons approached the man who reclined on the couch: Maldek.

Torio was startled to see that he was~young- somehow he had expected an aged drooling lecher.

Rather, Maldek appeared to be in his thirties, and a fine specimen of manhood. His broad shoulders were exaggerated by a tabard built out beyond them-yet he would not have needed that extra width.

He was built almost as powerfully as Zanos.

His silver-encrusted black tabard was cut short, to reveal long, well-formed legs to which his black hose gave full display. He posed, one leg bent, as physically beautiful as the pair before him-but alive, charged with vitality.

His hair was thick, and darker than the Maduran norm, showing red glints in the torchlight, but his eyes were Maduran blue, fringed with thick black lashes. Lest the eyes seem effeminate, his jaw was square and firm. Otherwise his features were finely chiseled, and he was clean-shaven to display them.

Torio recognized that Dirdra felt a powerful physical attraction to Maldek, but what she knew of his character caused her to deny it. The scene she was remembering showed why.

Maldek beckoned the young man and woman forward. They were dressed only in loose smocks, and at his command dropped them, standing in naked glory.

The woman was golden blond, perfectly formed from ample but youthfully firm breasts through slender waist to hips just full enough to balance in lovely curves above long, slender legs.

The man had the more typically Maduran reddish hair, on the sandy side. He, too, had been chosen at the peak moment of youth verging on maturity, a strong body, well proportioned and toned with exercise.

At Maldek’s command, the man began to stroke and fondle the woman. Both of them became excited, sweat sheening their bodies-but their eyes remained dead.

Suddenly Maldek snapped his fingers. Although aroused and unsatisfied, the young man instantly let go of the woman. Dropping his arms to his sides, he turned and with stiff, reluctant steps left the room.

The woman took one step after him, holding out her arms with a wordless cry of disappointment. Then, although Maldek did not speak, she turned and walked seductively toward the couch.

Maldek rose. Each move an eager caress, the woman began to remove his clothes, kissing his skin as she exposed it.

Dirdra tried to close her eyes, to turn her head away, but Maldek’s power held her helpless. His beautiful but cold eyes fixed on her over the shoulder of the woman undressing him.

“You see what you can have, Dirdra? Come to me freely; let us enjoy our youth and health together.

Enjoy, Dirdra. Know the pleasure only a Master Sorcerer can give.”

At his words, a hot wave of arousal spread upward from Dirdra’s loins. She blushed in agonized embarrassment as she recognized her body’s yearning-

“No! Ohhh… no!”

Dirdra’s scream was in the present-at the time she was remembering, Maldek had held her powerless to speak, Reading her reactions with evil glee.

Now she stared at the four Readers. “You’re just like him-making me remember! Feasting on my thoughts!” She clapped her hands to the sides of her head, but being neither Reader nor Adept she could not close off her thoughts.

Dirdra’s green eyes darted fire as she shouted, “I don’t care anymore! I’ll kill myself before I submit! If you want me then, you’ll have nothing but an orbu!”

“Dirdra,” said Zanos, “no one here wants to hurt you. We seek information, that’s all.”

“It was my fault,” said Astra in halting Maduran, and Torio realized that she had stopped Reading. “My Reading powers are difficult to control-on the wave of your emotion, I could not help Reading your memory, and that broadcast it to everyone else. Dirdra-please forgive me.”

The green eyes studied her warily. “Why should I trust you?”

“You have no reason to,” Astra replied truthfully.

“But I’m Maduran, like you,” said Zanos.

“So is Maldek!” Dirdra spat.

“Bu I’d never heard of him before today. I was stolen away from my home when I was much younger than you.”

“Then you were fortunate,” Dirdra said flatly. “Those who rule now would kill you-they will have no rivals in the powers of sorcery!”

“Like Drakonius,” Torio put in. “But Dirdra, not all Adepts are like Maldek. How long have you been here in the Savage Empire?” His command of the savage language was excellent by now, but he would always speak it with an Aventine accent.

Dirdra answered in the same language with a Maduran accent, but it was not linguistic differences which confused her. “What is the Savage Empire?”

“These lands,” Torio replied. “The lands which once belonged to Drakonius, Nerius, and Lilith- and the Aventine Empire, which is no more. It is now joined into one unit-and how could you not know that?”