Jean Lorrah - Sorcerers of the Frozen Isles

As he surfaced, gasping, Zanos laughed. “Good try, lad-now you know how not to do it!”

Torio managed a grin. Melissa didn’t try to dive, just jumped-but when the other four were at the side of the pool, looking up to see what had become of her, Dirdra astonished them all by leaping upward, bending gracefully into a dive as clean and lovely as that of a seabird, and cutting neatly into the water with hardly a splash.

The cascade pool was too cold for them to play in long, but Torio tried two more dives before he finally found the right angle and entered the water cleanly-nothing to Dirdra’s grace, but satisfactory to himself.

As they toweled off, Zanos asked Dirdra, “Where did you learn to dive like that? I don’t recall the women of our village even learning to swim.”

“Where I grew up,” she replied, “there were cliffs about a natural harbor-much like the cliffs here, except that they extended farther out into the water. When my brother and I were children, we would climb partway up the cliffs near where the ships anchored. The sailors would throw coins into the water to watch us dive for them.”

“That sounds like a dangerous sport for children,” observed Astra.

“We were poor,” Dirdra replied. “Our parents needed every coin Kwinn and I brought home. We were the oldest children-and now we’re the last of our family.”

So Kwinn was the brother Dirdra had left in Maldek’s power.

Silence fell, as everyone strove not to Read Dirdra’s feelings. They pulled on undergarments, and Melissa and Astra sat down in the shaft of sunshine and began to comb their hair.

Torio, doing the Reading exercise called “visualizing” to compensate for his lack of sight, helped Zanos carry the rest of their clothes-along with their weapons-over to where the women sat. He also Read beyond the cavern, as he had done periodically since they had arrived, to see that no other party of bathers was on the way to interrupt them. All he Read were seven burly men climbing the road that passed the bathhouse-some sort of workers, it appeared from the picks, shovels, and poles they carried.

Intending to check in a few minutes to see if baths were what the seven men were coming this way for, Torio returned his attention to the group at the cascade pool-just as Zanos, half dressed, picked up his huge sword and unsheathed it.

“Zanos-what-?”

As Torio opened wide to Reading, certain Zanos could not possibly have noticed something he hadn’t, Astra screamed.

Zanos swung the sword-striking at his wife!

But he was clumsy as Torio had never seen him. Astra ducked, and made a leap toward her own weapon.

But Torio was right there, his sword immediately at the ready as Zanos turned and grabbed Dirdra.

The astonished Maduran woman was helpless in the gladiator’s grip, and he held her in front of him as a shield. “Dirdra has returned to me,” he said in a voice cold with disdain. “Do not try to claim her again, for she is mine. You will return to your ship and bring her to Madura.” Then he turned Dirdra roughly to face him. “You have returned freely-so I will be kind. Kwinn is waiting for you, Dirdra. He lives… and longs for his sister.”

Astra was Reading full out now. Torio and Melissa joined minds with her, recognizing what terrified her so.

The man before them, holding them at bay with his sword and squeezing Dirdra’s arm so hard that at any moment it might break, had the appearance of the man who had journeyed with them all the way from Zendi.

But Astra knew-and the other Readers knew with her: it was not Zanos!

All knew at once that it was Maldek who spoke through Zanos. The gladiator’s open, friendly features took on the cold disdain they had seen in Dirdra’s memory-but even as with one mind the Readers searched for a way to get Dirdra away from Zanos and subdue him without hurting him, they Read Zanos himself fighting for control.

Roaring like a wounded bear, he threw Dirdra from him and raised his sword-but there was nothing to strike at. “No man controls me against my will!” the gladiator exclaimed. Astra’s mind at once joined her husband’s to reject the Master Sorcerer’s influence.

Maldek was, of course, out of body, but he could project to the Readers. Melissa knelt beside Dirdra, Reading that her arm was badly bruised, but not broken. Then she became unReadable for a moment, as she focused healing power.

Torio, meanwhile, was wondering how far Maldek was from his body. It was somewhere on the island of Madura, obviously, across the strait separating that land from Brettonia. But the strait was narrow, if treacherous-less than a day’s journey by ship. If Maldek was near the shore, he was traveling no farther out of body than Torio had often done.

"I have no need to impress you, boy,” Maldek answered his thought. “If you are skilled at the inner sight, you may be useful to me… or at least amusing. Just what good do you think that sword will do you against powers such as mine?”

" I won’t know until we meet,” Torio replied, and Melissa looked up at him, smiling encouragement.

And that brought Maldek’s attention to Melissa. “Ahh… a dark beauty, as lovely in her way as Dirdra.

And with powers. My little Maduran minnow has lured quite a catch to my shores! Tell Dirdra I am pleased with the outcome of her adventure… as I trust all of you will be when you come to me. For come you must, will you nill you, though the way be hard and dangerous. By the end of your journey each of you will find what you seek… even if you do not now know what that is.”

With that, Maldek’s presence was gone-but they were not alone. The seven men Torio had noticed earlier were running into the baths, past the bubbling warm pool and into the cavern with the waterfall.

Brandishing their tools as weapons, they demanded, “Leave our land!”

“You Madurans-nothing but trouble!”

“You’ll bring the wrath of the Master Sorcerers down on us again!”

“Back to your ship-we’ll not shield you here!”

Zanos, Astra, and Torio could easily have subdued the seven poorly armed workmen, but they could Read their memories of Maldek’s search for Dirdra months ago-setting fire burning through people’s nerves, killing their livestock, blinding and laming their children as he demanded news of a beautiful red-haired woman no one had seen… for with all Maldek’s powers, he had not known that Dirdra had passed this way in the guise of a boy, and disappeared into the land of the Dark Forest before he knew she was out of Madura.

Rather than fight these poor people who had already suffered so much at Maldek’s hands, the five hastily threw on their outer garments and let themselves be pushed out of the caverns. The last thing Melissa reached for was the garland of flowers Torio had made for her… but it was brown and withered as if it had been seared with frost.

Outside, the workers prodded them along the cliff path. “Go back to Madura!” said one of the men, shoving Melissa with his pikestaff. “Stay where you belong-don’t bring your troubles on other folk!”

Torio pushed the man’s staff aside. “She’s not Maduran. She’s a healer!”

Another man laughed bitterly. “We know Madurans now, if we didn’t before! We send ‘em all back-even the dark uns!”

And Torio Read that the man saw him as obviously Maduran, even though his hair was brown, not red.

His eyes were a clear blue-green, revealed when one of the savage healers had removed his cataracts in the mistaken belief that that would cure his blindness.

I suppose I could pass for Maduran , he realized.

Dirdra remained silent, pale and tight-lipped, as they were herded to the ship. The crew were also being driven aboard, protesting all the way.