Because of her hideous disfigurement she did not look at all like the young woman that she was. Arduously she kept dragging herself along the pavement in slow, jerking movements, supporting her weight on two wooden canes that had been strapped onto her arms, looking like she might fall down with every painful step. She evoked pity in some onlookers, while others turned their heads so they would not have to see her anymore.
It was usually not that hot this early in the morning in Imloth Melui. Not this late in the year, anyway.
A steady stream of people had been flowing into the Hall of the Gentle Hand all morning since Maegon had opened the doors two hours earlier. Maegon was happy. He was standing on top of the stairs by the big doors nodding at the steady stream of visitors as they passed him by on their way to the atrium, a smug smile plastered upon his face. The Hall had never seen so many visitors in all of his time here, and many of the comers gave out generous donations. The coffers were filling up with coin. Things were looking up for the Hall of the Gentle Hand for the first time in a long while.
Yesterday Martun had finally attempted to forbid Romenstar from performing his healing spells in the atrium, but to his surprise Romenstar had proven unexpectedly stubborn about the matter. The old man did not outright refuse to obey Martun’s orders, but he did not accept them either. Romenstar had said that he was feeling somewhat upset and that he was not making as much progress with his diary as he had hoped. Martun had understood what the problem was and retracted his order; he would not intervene with Romenstar’s work in the atrium. Martun was getting more and more frustrated as days passed by. Saruman’s instructions had been very vague, but the old wizard had been very clear on one thing: that it was of utmost importance to get Romenstar to spill out all of his secrets. And now Romenstar had implied that he would give nothing unless he could do whatever pleased him. But the reality of the matter was that Romenstar’s works of wonder were arousing a lot of interest and attention to him and the Hall of the Gentle Hand, while Saruman had also wished for the matter to be handled quietly and discreetly. It was too late to prevent it now though – the rumors of the blue wizard and his healing powers had already spread out to every corner of Eastern Gondor and reached most of Central Gondor as well. And people kept pouring into Imloth Melui with ever increasing numbers. They were coming from farther and farther away with each passing day.
In the mornings Romenstar would perform his magic feats in the atrium to the visitors of the Hall of the Gentle Hand. In the afternoons he would sit in his room writing into his leather-covered diary, page after page in his dense handwriting, for hours on end until sheer exhaustion forced him to stop. And nobody was allowed read the book until it was finished.
This morning the crowd dispersed to make room for the young woman lurching on her walking canes. Slowly and painfully she climbed up the stairs, keeping her head down. Her brown hair was tied to a stern bun on the back of her head. Her skin was translucent and white as chalk. Her spine was horribly twisted and bent, like a gnarled tree trunk. It looked like her whole body consisted of three separate pieces: one piece consisted of her head, shoulders and arms, the other piece of her twisted spine and lower part of the torso, and the third piece of her almost useless legs. It was a small miracle that she could move them at all.
Maegon felt deep pity as he looked at her. He stepped aside and helped her into the Hall and the atrium.
”Are you the blue wizard I have heard stories about?” she asked Maegon. Her voice was low, coarse and ugly, straight from some backwater village of Central Gondor.
”Me? Oh no”, Maegon replied as he helped her sit on a bench in the atrium. ”Romenstar will be here in a short while.”
Suddenly the woman grasped Maegon’s arm with her powerful hand and looked him into his eyes. Maegon could see veins throbbing through her white forehead under the translucent skin. Her eyes were black and dim. She had trimmed and dyed her eyebrows black, as if modest makeup on her face would somehow lessen the deformity of her body.
”Are you sure he will see me?”
”Quite sure.” Maegon tried to yank his arm away from her grasp. ”Everyone is welcome to the Hall of…”
”The blue wizard is not of this world”, the woman said, still not letting him go. ”He has been sent here by the Valar to deliver us from evil. Hail the blue wizard!” Her voice was deep and lifeless and Maegon was now really struggling to get rid of her clutches and the feeling of panic her words were arousing in him.
Suddenly the woman released her grasp and crumpled on the bench, pressing her soft, disfigured body against the hard metal.
Maegon turned and hurried quickly to the back of the atrium. Far back he could see Martun hiding behind one of the big statues of kings past. Martun was always hovering there like a bad smell in the mornings when Romenstar practiced his magic in the atrium, and it annoyed Maegon immensely. The whole man annoyed him.
Romenstar appeared from the corridor, leaning heavily on his staff as he walked to the eastern side of the fountain where his audience was awaiting for him. Romenstar turned his back to the crowd and stared at the fountain. Raising his arms and staff up into the air he started chanting obscure words in an unknown language, slowly and clearly in his small, whispering voice. His voice got stronger as the incantation progressed. Maegon had noticed the same thing on previous sessions too.
After a while Romenstar ended the incantation, plunged his staff into the water and turned to face his audience. His face was pale and his head was trembling slightly. Beads of sweat rose onto his forehead. He wiped his white hair with his fingers once and then let his hand fall down and grasp this staff, holding it with both hands now.
One of the women standing in front of the crowd started crying and the people next to her turned to look. She took a napkin from her bag and wiped her eyes. Romenstar looked at the people gathered around him, and emotions of fear and deep pity threatened to overwhelm him.
None of them understood anything, but they wanted to understand. They all came to him asking for a moment of peace and an end to their suffering. And they all wanted to understand.
That’s when Romenstar heard the voice. It came blearily and relentlessly from behind a column, a little apart from the rest of the crowd. He turned to look.
The crippled woman had pushed herself up from the bench and was now supporting herself against a column. She kept talking, but her words were incomprehensible. Everyone turned to look at her.
”Master!” she suddenly shouted in a coarse voice. ”Master! For the sake of everything that is good and pure, help me, Master!”
The man closest to the woman mistakenly thought the crippled woman had hurt herself in some way and was already going to see if he could help her, but she did not even notice him. Her eyes were fixed on the blue-robed wizard in front of the fountain. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
Romenstar turned slowly to regard her.
”Master!” Her scream was full of pain and begging. She wept. Romenstar walked slowly towards her, leaning onto his staff. The woman was supporting herself to the column with one hand and stretched out the other hand to a gesture of pleading.
”Help me, Master! Heal me, oh wise man!”
The voice and the pleading woman’s trembling body made Romenstar freeze to where he was standing. Tears kept streaming down her pale face.
”Heal me! Help me!”
The woman wept and uttered incomprehensible words that seemed to come from somewhere deep within her.
Slowly, as if in a trance, Romenstar lifted his staff and touched the woman’s forehead with it.
The crippled woman fell down on her knees first and then to her side on the floor, violently, as if she had been kicked by a horse. Her canes clattered on the floor around her. There was a loud boom as she bumped against the bench.
Romenstar stood there frozen like a statue for a moment, then he bent down to help the woman. The woman cried out again, letting out a voice that resembled a word but meant nothing. The woman who had cried earlier in front of the crowd started weeping again. Excitement rippled through the crowd and the suffocatingly hot atrium was filled with frenzy.
The crippled woman trembled from Romenstar’s touch and pushed her canes away. She shouted: ”Wise man, oh wise man!”, grasped the edge of the bench and pulled herself up to stand on her thin, twig-like legs.
She stood up slowly, inch by inch.
And then she was standing. Standing straight up.
She stretched her body and it seemed like her detached shoulder blades and arms somehow merged with her spine – spine that now looked normal. Even her legs looked thicker and stronger now. She was weeping like a child and no other sounds came out of her now.
”Hail the blue wizard!” she shouted, stretched out her arms, stood on the atrium without any support and started turning around and around, dancing before the stunned crowd. ”Hail the blue wizard!”
Suddenly there was an exploding roar, like a bursting dam. Shouts and pleads mixed up with one entranced cry that filled the Hall of the Gentle Hand. The woman laughed and cried as she danced, raising her arms towards the ceiling.
”A miracle!” she shouted in a clear, resounding voice. And the crowd cheered.
”Hail! Hail! Hail!”
