Prologue

Dr. Rond watched the surging crowd outside the hospital gates. Waving, pushing, shoving, shouting people, all trying to get into the hospital. Most of them wanted just a glimpse of The Healer but a good number wanted to touch him – or better yet, be touched by him – in hopes of being cured of one malady or another. Often they were cured. Dr. Rond shook his head in wonder at the placebo power that surrounded this man.

The extra security forces necessitated by the presence of The Healer within the hospital had initially given him second thoughts about the wisdom of inviting him here. But after seeing the wonders he had achieved with the resident victims of the horrors, he congratulated himself on the decision.

He turned his back to the window and looked across the room. The Healer was at work on another horrors victim, a middle-aged male this time.

Quite a figure, this man called The Healer. A flamestone slung at his throat, yellow-gold skin on his left hand, and atop the clutter of his dark brown hair, a patch of snowy white.

He was sitting opposite the patient, hands resting on the man’s knees, head bowed as if dozing. Sweat broke out on his brow and his eyelids twitched. The tableau persisted for some minutes, then was shattered by a groan from the patient as he suddenly lurched to his feet and looked around.

“Wh... where am I?”

Attendants glided from the corners, and with gentle support and reassuring words led him away. Dr. Rond watched him go. More conventional modes of therapy could now be used to rehabilitate him completely. But The Healer had made the all-important initial [1] breakthrough: A man who had been totally unable to react to external stimuli for seven standard years was now asking where he was.

Dr. Rond shook his head again, this time in admiration, and returned his attention to The Healer, who was slumped in his chair.

What a burden to have such a gift, he thought. It seems to be taking its toll. On a number of occasions he had noticed The Healer’s habit of muttering to himself. Perhaps The Healer was himself psychologically deranged. Perhaps there lay the key to his unique talent. Between patients he seemed to withdraw completely, muttering now and again and gazing at a fixed point in space. At this moment, The Healer’s thoughts seemed to be hundreds of years and hundreds of millions of kilometers away. [2]