Dark Sculptor: Dark Sculptor Novel 01 Read online

  I nodded, “So, High Mage Councilor?”

  He shrugged, “A fancy title for advisor to the king, and it gives me authority over the other mages in the kingdom. It’s a political title, not one related to the crafting of magic, nor is it an indication of skill.”

  I finished up my plate, and slowly stood. I took a moment to stretch and arch my back, and tried to work out the kink in my back.

  “The king? I’m not sure about magic, but I can take a look, give it a try?”

  He said, “Given you are unfamiliar with magic, I will take you to our healing ward first.”

  That sounded suspiciously like saying, let’s experiment with someone unimportant first, and it put my back up. But, it was just a hallucination, and if by some strange quirk of fate it wasn’t, I didn’t know nearly enough about this world to make a fuss. Yet.

  It just felt so real, but then hallucinations did feel real to the person having them. Still, I wasn’t just hallucinating a room, or a person, I was hallucinating a whole new world with magic, kingdoms, and different races. It just felt wrong to me, unlike me, why would my mind make that stuff up? It was far more likely given my life and goals, I’d hallucinate about making brilliant breakthroughs in genetic medicine.

  For the moment, I decided to just go with the flow, and look for inconsistencies. What else could I do, except hope I’d wake up in my bed, any moment now. My empty bed, cold and empty on the other side where my Cynthia used to lie.

  Any moment now…

  Chapter Three

  The architecture of the castle, and the surroundings, were both crude and luxurious at the same time. The walls and floor were crude stone blocks, and candles and lanterns seemed to be the light source. It was primitive, medieval.

  At the same time, the candelabras were exquisitely carved, and the center of the hallways had soft carpeting, some of them did anyway. The walls had beautiful pieces of art, both paintings and alcoves with statuary. In short, it looked like a medieval castle of a king, no modern conveniences, but extravagant in its artful decoration.

  Every once in a while, when we reached a cross hallway, there were guards decked out in leather armor, sword, helms, and shields. They all seemed cut from the same cloth, built like linebackers, and they all gave me the same intense measuring gaze, only to nod at Irwin as we passed. They made me a little nervous to be honest.

  We went down several hallways, and two different sets of stairs before we reached the infirmary, or as he called it, the healing ward. There were shelves with bandages, cotton, jars filled with herbs, dried flowers, pre-made tinctures, and teas.

  An older woman gave us one look, bowed, and left quickly without a word. My mage friend didn’t even seem to notice her. We walked through the room and into another room which had several beds. Only one had someone in it. A young woman that couldn’t have been older than sixteen, and my eyes picked up the second degree burns on her arms.

  The outside of her arms, both of them, and I failed to figure out a way those burns could have been accidentally self-inflicted. On the other hand, I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, it was possible someone else had just been careless around the girl. She was dressed in a simple dress, with a white apron that made me thing she worked in the kitchens.

  I smiled gently when she looked up at us with a rather frightened face.

  “Mage Irwin, what…”

  Irwin interrupted her, “This is healer James. He’s going to try to access his magic and heal you, he’s new to our world, and magic.”

  She looked over to me with a confused look on her face, then her eyes widened in fear, and she looked down at her feet.

  I frowned, what in the hell was going on here?

  “What’s your name?” I asked as I sat down beside the bed.

  “Maria my lord,” she said in a shaking voice.

  “Relax Maria, I’m just going to take a look, see what we can do to get you better.”

  She bit her lip, and nodded slightly.

  I frowned up at Irwin.

  He shrugged helplessly, “The servants aren’t used to speaking with nobility.”

  That was true, but also an evasion. Maria was terrified, of me, and the title of healer had confused her at first. I wasn’t sure what to do, except of course she was my patient now, and I’d do my best to heal her.

  With magic. Right.

  She flinched but didn’t pull away when I cradled her arm, and brought it up higher into the light. The lighting was terrible in the room. The burn was an angry red, with a lot of tiny blisters. It looked incredibly painful.

  My instincts said she needed some burn salve and wrappings, but I was here to heal her with magic. I also felt stupid, because nothing was happening.

  “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.”

  He said, “Search within yourself.”

  Isn’t that what Ben told Luke to do, to find the force?

  I smirked, and closed my eyes. The poor girl was trembling, and I needed to figure something out. In the end it was surprisingly easy, I focused on the idea of healing her burns, and I believed my empathy for her obvious pain was a big part of it. I became a doctor to alleviate suffering, and heal and provide comfort for the sick and injured. I felt something rise in my chest, and move through my arms and into hers.

  That’s when things got really weird.

  Irwin had told me healers felt what was wrong, and could kind of make their magic heal what was wrong by instinct. And maybe that was how it worked for most healers, who didn’t know the difference between a tibia and fibula. But I was a doctor, and I would guess I knew far more about the human body than anyone else on this world.

  I didn’t get a feeling, I got information, a lot of it, organized perfectly for my own understanding, as if my magic worked in conjunction with my own mind, knowledge, and definitions.

  A visual of the girl’s body came up in my mind’s eye, and I could see it all. I intuitively understood how to access different information. Her general health, nervous system, circulatory system, digestive system, and all the others were layers of information superimposed on her body in my mind’s eye. I could dive deeper into each one with a thought. I could interpret her DNA, from her appearance, to the smallest detail of the workings of her body, I could also see how degraded her system was, from her optimal health according to her genetics.

  It was a mindboggling amount of information, that not only included the body, but brain chemistry, personality, biorhythms, and other disciplines that weren’t exact sciences even in my old world. It was also very well organized, as if my magic had gone to medical school and knew how to present the information most usefully to me, by category, system, and organ. Pretty much, I knew everything she was, except her memories.

  More than that, I could see her magic, and how it tied in with her DNA. Her magic must have been one of those magic talents of lesser facility that Irwin spoke of. I could tell that hers would be for cleaning, down to the bacterial level. Quite a useful ability, for someone working in the kitchen in a world without refrigeration, or anti-bacterial agents.

  I was fascinated by it, and got a little lost in the excitement of discovery, until I heard her gasp of pain. I wasn’t here to play around, or to learn the mysteries of the body my world had yet to learn, I was here to heal her.

  Besides the burns on her arms, she was a little malnourished, which was another red flag in my hallucination that all wasn’t as it seemed. She was a servant in the king’s castle, that worked in the kitchens, and she wasn’t getting enough to eat?

  I directed my magic toward the burn, or tried to, but nothing happened. I could see the burn, and wanted to heal it, but despite the amazing information my magic gave me it wouldn’t heal the burn at all. I was getting a little frustrated as I tried different angles of thought, but nothing seemed to work and I backed off to think it through.

  Maybe my magic wouldn’t restore burnt skin and make it whole, much like the normal healing process, perhaps I need
ed to replace it with fresh skin, and slough off the burned layers. I tried to send my magic to do that, and once again not a damn thing happened.

  I took a deep breath, and tried to relax and just feel the magic. If what Irwin told me was true, perhaps even if my magic was giving me all this information because of my knowledge, it would lead me in the right direction on how to heal if I just let it.

  My attention was led to her genetics, her DNA, the blueprint of her body and all its systems. It confused me at first, until it settled on the sequences having to do with her skin. Her skin should be fair and free of blemish, her DNA was strong, and there was no corruption there at all at her young age.

  I fed it my magic, which surged into the sequence and sort of… reset things? I felt the skin on the bottom of her arm waver where I was holding her arm, and instinctively knew I wasn’t just healing the burn, my magic was rebuilding her entire skin organ from her scalp to her toes according to her DNA. It removed all traces of blemishes, or even foreign matter and microscopic organisms that didn’t belong.

  I heard the girl’s gasp of surprise and relief, and opened my eyes as the magic retreated back inside my chest. It was an amazing feeling, and the skin on her arms looked pink and new, as did the skin on her face and neck.

  If I’d tried to fix her malnourishment, would that have rebuilt her entire body? I think it would have, but it wasn’t that bad and she’d be fine if she just ate healthier.

  I frowned, I didn’t know what I was, but I wasn’t a healer. I may have been a doctor, but my magic was something else.

  My magic? Was I buying into this hallucination now?

  Point was, I didn’t heal her so much as I rebuilt a part of her.

  I met the girl’s eyes, she still looked scared, but also relieved and a little hopeful. Why hope, when her burn was already gone? What was my magic capable of, that she feared what I might yet still do?

  I wasn’t a healer, I was… something else.

  Irwin said, “Excellent, that was well done my friend. How do you feel?”

  Friend? I didn’t think so, he lied about a lot of things including my magic, but I was still afraid to act, or ask overly pointed questions. I had the feeling the girl knew what I could do and what it was called, but I think she’d faint if I asked, and I didn’t want Irwin to know I was suspicious. He obviously wanted me ignorant and happy, until he’d gotten what he wanted from me at least.

  “Good.”

  Incredibly humble, frightened, and awed by what I’d just done. I’d barely scratched the surface of what that magic was capable of.

  If I could reset her current DNA pattern, and apply that to her body, could I change it too?

  I let her arm go, a little alarmed at that idea, and smiled gently, “You’ll be fine Maria, you need to eat healthier though, your body is deficient in vitamins and minerals.”

  Irwin asked, “Ready?”

  I nodded, I guessed he wanted me to see to the king’s ailment. I just wondered what would happen after. I didn’t believe for a second the mage would send me home, and wondered if he even could.

  I’d wake up in my empty bed soon.

  Any moment now…

  Except, I didn’t believe that anymore, it was too real, too consistent, and nothing that my mind would have come up with in a million years.

  I got up, and followed Irwin back into the corridors. This time we went up four sets of stairs, and I lost count of the number of corridors we passed through. This castle was huge, and I paid more attention to my surroundings and where we were going.

  I also worked on my magic during the long walk, with my eyes open. I learned rather quickly I didn’t have to be touching the person, but the range I could use it in was extremely close at the same time, about fifteen feet. Every time we’d passed a guard stationed in the hallways, I tested certain ideas, but never committed my magic to making any true changes.

  The first time, it was a bit disorienting seeing his virtual body in my mind’s eye, while seeing what was really around me. I was also only in range for five or so seconds each time. The second time wasn’t much better, but I started flipping through my options, with my magic. I learned I could change something as I’d suspected, but didn’t actually feed the change my magic.

  I was horrified by that discovery, I could heal people yes, but I could also do the opposite, or change them. Make them ugly, beautiful, short tempered, or more loyal. Change their eye color, their height, force them into sleep, a coma, or even extinguish their life.

  Besides being horrified at what I was now capable of, and being disgusted by this new world and its magic, I also got the idea summoning me had been a desperate gamble to save his king’s life. I didn’t buy the healer crap he’d fed me, but I did believe all their… whatever I was, had been killed. A man without morals could do horrible things with this power, and from what Irwin had told me the king could do it too.

  Maybe… that’s how he became king.

  I’d taken an oath, when I started medical school, the Hippocratic oath, which I had no intention of breaking. This magic could be a great tool for healing, and also for understanding and learning. But it could do a lot of horrifying things too.

  But then, so could a scalpel in the hands of a trained physician, which is why we took the oath as doctors in the first place.

  I wrestled with my conscience, and decided using this ability to harm or twist a person wasn’t an option, ever. But I also decided putting someone into a deep sleep in self-defense was more than fine. I wasn’t sure what Irwin’s ultimate plan was for me once I healed his king, but I had a feeling several feet of steel through my body was more than a possibility. I doubted the king would tolerate competition, and wondered if it was the king’s actions with this magic, that made that young girl so frightened of me.

  I’d never been in true danger before in my life, and it was probably only the surreal feeling about this place, and the idea it might be a hallucination, that was keeping me from rolling up in a ball on the ground and praying for deliverance.

  But viscerally, this was starting to feel all too real.

  I knew I was assuming a lot, but knowing I wasn’t defenseless helped. Changing someone’s body state from awake to asleep wasn’t doing harm. Maybe if I managed to get out of this situation, I could find another mage that would send me home.

  Yeah, and maybe Cynthia would come back to me too, and world peace would break out…

  Chapter Four

  The king’s skin was jaundiced, yellowed, and so was his eyes. He looked to be in his mid-forties, and I knew it was liver failure before even extending my magic inside of him. Back home, the only thing that would save him would be a transplant, here I could just rebuild his liver. No doubt, so he could abuse it with drink for another twenty years.

  The king was a lean man, with blond hair and blue eyes, and outside of his liver he was a healthy man.

  I was nervous, not sure what would happen when I’d healed him. I’d taken note of the two guards standing by the doors, and Irwin of course was a mage and no doubt a master of the school of destruction.

  The door opened before I could even get started, and a young woman of twenty-five years or so walked in accompanied by two more guards.

  She dripped sensuality, had long curly light blonde hair, and warm brown eyes. Her body was ripe, and only brought one thing to mind. With a quick probe, I could tell she had the pleasure and pain magical talent, and despite myself I was intrigued. I reminded myself she was probably the queen, or a daughter, it was hard to tell, at least until Irwin spoke.

  “My queen, a pleasure as always. Healer James was about to see to our king, is there something I can help you with?”

  She shook her head, but didn’t look at him, her eyes were glued to the king, and me.

  “I just want to be here to greet my husband when he recovers. Don’t let my presence distract you.”

  Easier said than done, she was a work of art, and her voice was pure sinful and
satiny seduction.

  I frowned, and probed her again after having that thought, and found evidence of the king’s tampering, as well as her original DNA profile, like a backup. According to the old one, the queen had already been an incredibly beautiful woman to begin with, she’d also been far more independent of mind.

  If I’d needed any more proof of my fears about this place, she’s just provided them. The king had turned his own wife into an obedient sex slave, and she was probably chosen for her magical talent to enhance bedroom games more than anything else.

  Given the guards uniformity in size and grimness, and my sudden insight, I checked them as well, more closely than I did in the hallways on the way up here. They too were modified, extra strength and speed, faster reflexes, and conditioned for increased loyalty. They also all had deadly magical talents.

  How many others in the castle were under his thrall, and were modified to be more useful for their chosen tasks, with increased loyalty to quell any hints of discontent from his abuses? I wasn’t sure, but at least enough to terrify a sixteen-year-old girl that simply worked in the kitchens, and didn’t get enough food.

  I had second thoughts about healing the man, but I wasn’t god, and doctors didn’t get to pick their patients, or judge their patient’s morality and their right to live or die.

  That precept which I held dearly, had never been this challenged before. As a doctor, I’d worked to save the life of more than one person of morally dubious character, but no one that matched the depravity of this man.

  He was a king, and this society was different from mine, but was he so unlike the kings during the dark ages of my own world? Probably not, he just had magic.

  Irwin asked, “Is there a problem?”

  I guessed I’d been thinking for too long, and smiled shyly at the queen before turning to Irwin.

  “Sorry, I guess I got… distracted.”