Healer's Song

When Lisanne first entered Malivar's chambers, she scanned his face, searching for an emotion she could work with. Excitement wouldn't help her. Neither would Lust. There it was. Nervousness.

"My Lord," she said softly, and the man nearly started shaking beneath his layers of satin and jewels.

He was nervous because of what had happened the last time he had seen her, and thinking about it made him to afraid. A transition from nervous to afraid was an easy one to make.

"You summoned me," She fed his Fear with her tone, just enough to make him pliable, but not enough to debilitate him.

"Yes--" Malivar was shaking now, and his chins were jiggling. It was disgusting or funny, she wasn't sure which. "Please forgive me..."

"It's alright. I forgive you." So easy to combine Love with Fear - the two nearly seemed to be one. At hearing her Kind tone still just slightly laced with Fear all the man could think of was his overwhelming desire to please her.

"What can I do?"

"Follow me."

She hummed softly under her breath - in tones of Fear, Love, and Curiosity - as the man followed her down the hall and into a large room. It was the throne room of the palace. It was a large room, able to house all of the palace guards and attendants, all of the court. It was not empty. She had counted on it. Since that room was central to the rest of the palace, all the people who were hanging about the palace, curious for word of what would happen to their ruler tonight, were either in or near the throne room. She wanted lots of witnesses.

She let the Curiosity fade from her song, but intensified the Fear and Love until Malivar fell to his knees before her. Then she stopped singing abruptly.

"I am leaving now, and I'm not wearing this outside. Give me your cloak." Malivar complied quickly. The cloak was made of hammered gold and lined in ermine. It was not only costly, it was the symbol of his leadership. Giving it to her was the surest way of debasing himself before his entire court. Another part of her plan.

With the heavy cloak wrapped around her shoulders, she started to sing, louder this time so everyone in the room would be affected. She began with the similar emotions Fear and Love. As she sang it occurred to her to wonder why the two were so similar and to wonder if maybe the love she'd heard humans speak of so happily was somehow something different, something more pure than the tainted emotion she was now drawing out of the palace court. Her tone faltered, thinking of this Love, wishing it were possible to one day know what it meant. More importantly, what it

felt like.

Malivar's eyes changed under her now flawed song, a look of greed and desperation replaced the hopeless devotion he'd worn earlier, and he lunged at the woman wearing his beautiful cloak. Lisanne didn't see the dagger until too late. She jumped aside quickly, but the knife found her shoulder, slashing right through the heavy cloak.

She corrected the tones and the knife clattered to the floor, as Malivar looked at his hands with horror. She didn't bother to dampen the Fear, or the Love, and for good measure, she added a touch of Insignificance.

There it was. The reason Malivar collected so much wealth, the reason he bought the title, the reason he spent so much time and money to collect the best and most exotic women as his slaves. He was the slave, a slave to his own feeling of insignificance.

She intensified the Insignificance, watching the contorted face of the toad who was now on the floor at her feet. She saw the line as it approached. She ignored it, increasing the Insignificance until the lump at her feet let out a terrible scream.

She left the palace still singing in tones of Fear, Love, and Insignificance, and no one made any move to detain her. It was an awesome sight, the woman covered in jewels and finery, continuing to sing loud and clear in that unreal voice even as the blood soaked its way down her left arm.

Back at the palace, Malivar had risen to his knees, rocking back and forth. On his pudgy face was a meaningless grin, and his eyes were wild. He would never be sane again.

The scream could be heard clearly from where the four females stood, and Daina shuddered. She was pretty sure that sound had come from Malivar, and whatever it meant, she was very glad not to be in his shoes right now. When the song died out several minutes later, the group paused in their trip around the wall toward the front gates. Now that they could no longer hear her it would be much more difficult to find her.

They had reached the main road by now, but they stepped aside, creeping into the shadows, as guards poured out of the palace. Malivar may have been driven insane, but he wasn't incapable of speaking or issuing orders, and what was left of his mind was now filled with a desire to find - and kill - the woman who had made him thus.

The man watched them from behind the wall of guards that separated them. He wouldn't have chosen to wind up on a different side of the road, but like them, had to scramble for the nearest place of shelter. And he couldn't cross the road now for fear of the guards who were now posted at the gate detaining him. He watched as the four disappeared into their side of the forest. There was nothing for it but to go to the city and wait for them to emerge.

He thought of the letter and almost felt guilty, then told himself that there was no way to protect Kali from inside a dungeon and started to make his way through the forest. He had been walking for a time when he thought he heard someone. He stopped to listen. A single person, by the sound of it, but they certainly weren't taking pains to be quiet. After listening for another moment, he altered his course a bit so that their paths would intersect. The other person was moving slower than him, however, and he arrived at his projected point of intersection in time to lean against a tree and wait while the trampling sounds drew nearer.

Lisanne was too out of it by this point to pay attention to the racket she was creating. She was so strung out on nerves from the time she'd left the palace that she couldn't even feel any pain. She didn't know that her energy was draining out the gash in her arm, instead she thought that maybe she'd taxed herself too hard with all that complicated singing. She was getting more and more drowsy as she trudged through the forest, but she kept going with the thought that her friends were on the other side, she just had to make it out of the forest and they would help her.

She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the outline of a man leaning against one of the trees in her path.

"Hello?" It was more a feeler than anything. Since she couldn't see his face, she needed to hear his voice to find his emotions and prey upon them. Although if he had an inkling of fear in him, that one word should have some effect, with how afraid she was at the moment.

"Hello yourself."

Confidence. She couldn't use that. Curiosity. Also completely useless to her. She realized she was swaying on her feet and she would have to find something to lean on as long as it took to get rid of this obstacle.

"Are you alright?"

There! Concern! That one she could use. She didn't bother to damper her tone. She needed to waste no energy on getting past him as quickly as possible. "I'm fine," she said. There should be sufficient Concern in that tone to cripple him for a moment. So why was he still standing there?

"No you're not fine. You look like you're about to pass out. That song must have really tired you."

It didn't even occur to her to wonder how he'd known she was the one that sung. She didn't even hear past the first sentence. He had disagreed with her. It was impossible. But he'd done it. She felt a darkness that was more than just the night closing in, and she started to fall.

He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling. Her left shoulder was slick with blood. He lowered her to the ground carefully, tearing a piece of his shirt to tie around her arm and hopefully staunch the blood flow. She had lost so much already, he really wasn't sure if it would help. Apparently the song wasn't what had tired her out.

The green eyes opened, and she stared at him in confusion for a moment. "You... disagreed with me."

"And I was right. That arm needs to be cleaned, but I think I've managed to stop the bleeding. Can you stand?

"Yes."

He helped her to her feet and they both started off through the forest. As he entered a moonlit clearing she slowed, deep in thought. When he turned to face her, all the blood drained from her face. He was the man from her dreams.