To Be Grand Maestro (Book 5) Page 4

  “I can’t feel the Maestro’s presence,” Balic Cassosoon Kon was the first to give voice to what everyone who had been restored from Condemnation knew; the one who brought them back from a living death might well be dead. Bali had almond-shaped eyes and dark silky hair like most of the people born in the kingdom of Zune. Those eyes were as wide open as they could be.

  Jennel pointed to the Sentinel whose entire right arm appeared to have been cooked like a roasted beef. “You have a patient. Heal him first and worry about our Maestro afterward. That goes for all of you,” she spoke firmly, especially since each healer was staring at her instead of doing their jobs. Bali, being a former Aloe Practitioner, should have known better than to stop in the middle of a healing.

  Beside her stood Beta Curran, a fellow former Aakademned whose long brown hair was pulled back ponytail-style, and who had light blue eyes that sometimes appeared to be gray, depending on the lighting. She was discovered as a Potential at thirteen years of age by Accomplisheds of the Serpent Guild and later Condemned by Balen Tamm after being labeled, “Uncooperative.” She spent forty years in that condition and was finally restored about the same time as Jennel. The fifty-three year-old possessed a sturdy frame, was in perfect physical condition, and appeared to be about ten years younger than her actual age, both a side effect of being restored from Condemnation. Beta commanded two lightning bolts of life force energy. The Talented was on her way to mastering that potential and not far from being elevated to Accomplished. She volunteered to help, and expressed the desire to continue on as a healer after graduating, which was why she was now working with Jennel, and no doubt experiencing the same fear.

  Jennel went to work on her own patient, a Four-bolt Accomplished of the Zephyr Guild, Rondara Kapes. Her black silky hair was matted and caked with blood and her eyeballs punctured as if by shards of glass. The scarlet on black silks of the Senior Cyclone were riddle with holes and covered with blood from collar to knee. Jennel could do nothing for the Maestro at the moment, but healing this person was well within her skill set.

  “Beta, watch what I do,” Jennel called the would-be healer’s attention to the matter at hand. She parted the scarlet on black silk blouse covering the Accomplished’s lower abdominal region using the spell, Beak Strike, taught to her by First Accomplished Leah Barryn, second in command of the Atlantan Guild. Jennel had come to prefer this over a scalpel made of solidified air used by her former associates in the Aloe Guild. The tiny razor sharp fuchsia-colored beak vanished as she released the potential and placed her right hand on the patient’s forehead and the left on the abdomen with her palm covering the navel. “I am about to cast the spell, How Do You Feel, allowing the Symphonic to play in my mind, thus summoning the potential. I will then focus the life force energy into Rondara thusly,” she said while the spell immediately revealed every injury, internal and external. Beyond the obvious injuries, the citizen of Aakadon had three cracked ribs and a broken ankle, no doubt from a fall. The solidified shards of air peppered her body, lacerating organs, piercing nose, lips, eyes and ears, but at no point penetrated bone, and then vanished, leaving behind punctured flesh all over the front portion of Rondara’s face, legs and torso.

  Beta squatted down on her knees. “It is my understanding the spell, How Do You Feel, only requires us to place a hand on the patient’s forehead, yet you also cut open her blouse and are touching her tummy, why is that?”

  “The damage to her flesh, cracked ribs and broken ankle were things that could be determined without the casting of spells, and yet we use, How Do You Feel, in order to speed up the assessment of the patient’s needs. Even so, that does not mean we cannot use our visual senses to analyze the situation and save a few steps,” Jennel explained without taking her hands off the patient. “Our patient has many punctures and though some of her wounds were superficially closed by whoever transported her, she is still losing blood due to lacerations in her organs, so I will be employing our most advanced internal healing spell. That is why my hands are where I have placed them.”

  “I will keep that in mind,” Beta promised.

  Jennel glanced at her team, each member glowing with the particular hue of his or her potential, caring for their patients, and some of the Accomplisheds were individually in the process of healing horrific injuries in people that in Aakadon would require an entire operating team, each member performing a particular single line Melody, rather than the exclusive Symphonics composed by the Maestro. No one could heal death but Jennel and her people could heal a person so long as a spark of life remained in the patient, provided the spells were cast fast enough.

  “Beta, take heed. The Atlantan Guild alternative to cutting a person open is to become one with the patient and it is also the fastest way to heal a body riddled with this many wounds.” Jennel braced herself and said, “I am casting, Hearts Beat As One,” and soon her heart and that of the patient were in sync with each other, they inhaled and exhaled in unison and she could feel the injuries as if they were her own. The aches in the ankle and ribs were nothing compared to the hundreds of nerves screaming their protests at being punctured, particularly the eyes. Jennel focused through the pain and said, “I am placing a Da Capo tied to my own life force to sustain the spell.”

  She took a deep breath, cast upon the patient, Easing the Pain, a spell of the Aloe Guild, numbing the irritated nervous system, and spoke with an even tone, “I will now cast What Is This, thus allowing me to see what the object I am touching is made of. If I concentrated long enough the spell would show me the little planets with tiny moons that seem to make up everything in existence. If I did so and chose to pull back on my perception, from that point, the spell would form elements interpreted as pictures of chemicals and substances easily recognizable to my mind.”

  Beta nodded her understanding and so Jennel continued. “I am only concentrating to the point where the vat containing Rondara’s life force energy, which lay at the center of her being, is now coming into view. You must understand neither image is physical in nature, this is how the spell relates the metaphysical reality.”

  Rondara’s vat was larger than Jennel’s and contained a pale green liquid, the color of the Senior Cyclone’s life force energy. The reservoir was three-quarters of the way full, giving the patient plenty of vitality for the time being, but was decreasing due to the loss of blood. Life is in the blood. “Our patient does not need strengthening so I am going to cast the spell, Heal Wounds,” she informed and then summoned the potential.

  Jennel focused her fuchsia-colored energy into her patient and could feel the bone of the ankle and the cracked ribs mending along with organs closing and flesh filling in the numerous remaining punctures. Rondara’s almond-shaped eyes were once again whole and not a single wound remained on her body. It was as if she had never been injured. Jennel released the potential feeding the spells, satisfied with the work she had done.

  A familiar presence returned to her awareness. Daniel is still alive! The knowledge caused her lips to form a brief smile. Jennel was surrounded by dead silence. The entire roomful of people stopped what they were doing, some nodded affirmatively while others smiled with relief. She opened her mouth, about to order them back to work, when they all did so without needing to be told. She nodded approval and focused on her helper.

  “Beta, use the spell, Refresh, to cleanse our patient, use, Immaculate, to mend and clean her silks, and then prepare her for conveyance to the staging chamber within Mount Shantear,” Jennel instructed and then walked right by three Talenteds and Bernard. “I am going to check on the other wardrooms,” she informed her deputy and stepped out into the hall.

  “Sir Daniel is alive,” announced Jaim Cutler, seventeen, thin, and full of eagerness to fulfill his duty as keeper of the Maestro’s door. Being clean shaven with his dark hair cut short, and dressed in his topaz-colored uniform with the broad silver stripe on his shoulders and pant legs, and the emblem of house Benhannon embroidered on his jacket, there
was no mistaking his being one of the Chosen’s Sentinels. The office door did not need keeping at this time so he had come below to be of service.

  “I am aware of that, young man,” Jennel replied and continued down the hall in the direction of wardroom two.

  Jaim Cutler kept pace with her when he should have taken the speed of her gait and abrupt response as a hint to bring the news to people who did not share his awareness of the Maestro. She was about to tell him so when he held up the communication amulet given to him by Daniel Benhannon.

  “This device is dead. It was one of the few things he made that were not tied to a crescendo,” Jaim told her, speaking of things non-Aakacarns generally knew little of.

  “How do you know this?” Jennel asked, careful to speak in an even tone.

  She had been an Accomplished of Aakadon for so long it was sometimes difficult to smother the prejudice developed towards those who were not born with ever replenishing and increasing life force energy, to see them as equals rather than inferiors. As a member of the Atlantan Guild, she had to put those feelings aside and treat what she used to think of as commoners the way she would a fellow Aakacarn. All of the Chosen’s Sentinels were commoners who had been restored from Condemnation, even as she had been, and all were likewise in perfect physical condition. None of them were Aakacarns but they all seemed to have extraordinary stamina, leading her to believe the Maestro may have infused some of his life force energy into their recipe strands. When she thought of it that way, relating to anyone who had been Condemned and then restored was not so hard after all.

  “I was often in his office when he created things like this,” Jaim explained while touching the handle of his dagger, a weapon with a blade that shined like a mirror, and had a black handle and grip. Touching the ruby in the gold setting in the handle would launch a blue lance of light from the point and skewer whatever it was aimed at. He also pointed at the black copper-capped club the Maestro called a nightstick, aim the thicker black end at someone and touch the sapphire set into the copper and the spell, Sleep Time, would render the person unconscious for a day. “My weapons still work, I tried these moments ago but this amulet doesn’t.” The Sentinel held out the amulet again as if for emphasis. “He only made a few hundred of these communication gems and gave them to most of us who were the first to volunteer our services.”

  She knew exactly what the young man was getting at. “The Da Capos on the spells powering all of the devices created by the Maestro are tied to one of his crescendos but the Da Capos on the communication amulets were tied to his life force.”

  Jaim nodded his head. “Yes, it is as if he died, and yet I can feel him alive, only different.”

  She could see the confusion in his brown eyes. “I too sense something has changed, yet he is alive, and I assure you we will help him in whatever way we can,” Jennel took his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I need to be sure all of the wards are functioning properly. If you learn more about the Maestro’s condition I would appreciate it if you keep me informed.”

  A harmonic wave washed through the world, coming from north-northeast, the direction of Mount Kelgotha. Jaim smiled. “The dark one seems to be still trapped.”

  “Hold on to that thought,” Jennel said and then made her way between a group of Talenteds and several members of the Benhannon Guard, each of the soldiers wearing blue helmets with the symbol of house Benhannon at the front, and the topaz blue uniforms with dark blue stripes. The color of their stripes was not the only difference between them and the Sentinels, none of the guards had ever been Condemneds. The fact did not make the members of the Guard less trustworthy or any less dedicated, it is just that they did not share the same bond with the Maestro and therefore had no idea how close they just came to losing him.

  Talented Bonny Tell bolted through the hall, sand-colored hair flying loose from her fallen hood, weaving through the crowd with a wounded Sentinel in tow on a solidified cushion of air. Most of the man’s uniform had been ripped away and what was left had been positioned in such a manner as to preserve modesty. Enough of the tatters had fallen aside in the mad rush for Jennel to see some of the injuries. She raised her hand, bringing the round-faced young woman to a halt. A quick sweep of the hand was all it took to expose the wounds. His private parts, other than being coated in blood, were undamaged. His right leg and arm were missing and he was pale, due the loss of blood. The right side of his pelvic bone was exposed and the skin on the right side of his abdomen was ripped to the point of exposing the musculature. His wounds should have been closed up long before now.

  “This is unacceptable,” Jennel declared, and summoned the potential for, Heal Wounds. The fuchsia glow of her life force energy surrounded her body and she touched the patient’s shoulder, caressing the shredded flesh until new skin formed, and then rubbed her hand down his side, healing the epidermis. She then rubbed his hip and the area where his leg would have been, leaving unblemished skin when she finished. She could do no more for him.

  Jaim dashed over and took the bloody remains of the uniform and covered the young man while Bonny fidgeted where she stood. “I didn’t try to close the wounds, except the arteries, because I thought if I did you would not be able to give him a new arm and leg,” she began her feeble excuse. “So I covered him as decently as I could and rushed him here.”

  Jennel refrained from rolling her eyes. “So you thought letting him bleed to death from these other wounds a better alternative to living with a few appendages missing? Or, perhaps, the unconscious man would die happier knowing that at least his modesty had been preserved?”

  Bonny’s peaches and cream complexion reddened and her eyes suddenly found something on the floor to focus on. “I wasn’t there long and he was the first wounded person I saw upon arriving. I just acted without giving the rest much thought,” she replied and then looked up with a defiant spark in her eyes. “I think he would be dead if I waited for one of the Accomplished to convey him and especially if you hadn’t been here in the hall.”

  That much was probably true, but this had been a very close call between life and death. “For future reference, the Maestro is the only one who knows the spells necessary to grow new body parts. He gave Accomplished Cresh a new right hand several months after it had been lost and flesh had grown over the stump. It is therefore safe to say our Maestro can restore this Sentinel’s limbs and those of any other individuals with similar losses.”

  “Wait,” Jaim interrupted. “You said if you had waited for one of the Accomplished, where did you find this Man? It could not have been at the general assembly area. None of the Accomplisheds would have sent him here in this condition.”

  The young Sentinel raised a good point. Jennel had been thinking as a healer and so had paid no attention to the less important matter. Now that she had a moment, she also wondered how the Talented had gotten involved in the first place. “How did you manage to convey to a place you have never been before?”

  “We weren’t told not to,” Bonny began her explanation and then went on after flinching under Jennel’s hazel-eyed stare. “I wanted to see what was happening and so I touched one of the Accomplisheds just as she cast the spell, Conveyance. We arrived and I eventually noticed the wounded Sentinel, I acted, and since I know this holding quite well, it wasn’t difficult to picture it in my mind and cast, Conveyance. It only took one lightning bolt of power to get back and I used my standard issue baton with four bolts of amplification.” She touched the topaz silver-capped crescendo attached to her belt as if Jennel might have missed seeing the power enhancer that was identical to her own.

  “Is Sir Daniel alright?” Jaim asked, no doubt eager to hear from someone who had been on Shantear.

  “I wasn’t there very long but I did hear one of the Accomplisheds mentioning something about Third Strike Commander Treena speaking to the Maestro,” Bonny replied and smiled at him. She had been an Aakademned for six years, starting out a nine year-old child Aakacarn discovered by the
Serpents in Battencay, had never been to Aakadon, and so inherited none of the prejudices fostered in the city. She apparently had no problem seeing Jaim as an equal, and possibly being two years younger than he also helped. “I paid particular attention because the Maestro’s presence vanished for a little while and so I was interested to hear anything relating to him. One of the Accomplisheds talked about him collapsing after placing a shield on Tarin Conn. The First Lady did what she could for her husband but it is said he is terribly weak.”

  Out of wardroom two exited a male Talented and behind him, floating on a cushion of air, was Jerrian Tobermin, the Vice-Maestro of the Eagle Guild, a Five-bolt Accomplished, fully healed of whatever wounds had been taken in battle. The Lead Investigator’s eyes were closed and each snore caused his brown mustache to twitch. One person out of the seven guild teams from Aakadon escaped injury, Talmon Reese. Jennel had personally healed a good many of them. She and her associates had done the best they could to save lives, but could do nothing for people who died on the battlefield.

  She focused on the Talented. “Felix, prepare this patient for transportation to the staging area at Shantear.”

  “It will be as you say, Accomplished,” the tall middle-aged man replied. He also had been transformed into an Aakademned at an early age and spent decades in that condition. Light from the sphere floating above shined off the top of his head. The male-pattern baldness had to be hereditary or the Maestro’s spell-casting would have given the man a full head of hair. Felix hurried away with his charge.