"Well, that's a new one." She shook her head, looking at the still unconscious prisoner.
"What did you find?" Soterius bent lower, on alert.
The red-haired healer chewed her lip as she mulled over what her healing senses had told her. "Mikhail's right-this man isn't dead. There's no decay. And he's not undead. A vayash moru feels… different. There's actually nothing different about his body from you or me. But his mind-"
"What?"
Esme stared at the ashtenerath fighter. "I tried to treat a man once who was bitten by a dog with the foaming disease. He was like a wild animal, willing to strike at anything that came near, kill anyone in reach. Almost got myself killed, and did no one any good," she added ruefully. "That's what he reminds me of."
"Is it a disease?" Soterius asked.
"No. That's not what I meant. I could sense the changes in the brain of the man with the foaming disease. It had been changed by the sickness-damaged so badly that I couldn't put it right. That's what's happened here, but it's not a disease that did it. It was blood magic-I can feel the traces of it."
"So Arontala did this?"
Esme nodded. "When I was healing him, I could tell that there were fairly new injuries that hadn't healed right. He's been tortured, probably to the point of breaking. Traces of drugs, too-the kind that never really leave the body completely. There are some strong potions-some of the mystics use them-that can give a man visions or horrible nightmares that seem real, down to every sense and smell. But there are also the changes in his brain. Changes somebody meant to put there."
"I've tried to heal enough patients with head injuries to know that if you get hit hard enough in the right places, different things happen. Get hit just so and you remember what you did ten years ago, but you can't remember what you ate for breakfast. Take a lump somewhere else, and the sweetest old lady will become a screaming shrew." Esme looked at the prisoner for a moment, tight-lipped in anger.
"Someone's deliberately damaged him, trying to create just what you see-something that looks like a man but acts like a crazed beast. At least he won't suffer for long."
"What do you mean?"
Esme looked up at Soterius, and he could see in her blue eyes that she was upset. "The changes are too great to last for long. He's burning himself out. I can feel him dying-and it's not the injuries from the battle. Those, I healed. But all the same, he'll be dead by morning." She laid a hand on the madman's forehead once more, and her lips moved quietly. After a moment, the man's form relaxed, just a little, though he still tensed and twitched from time to time.
