Chapter 3

"Do not attempt to flee. Even if you succeed in doing so we can find you easily whenever we wish," Zira told the girl, who struggled for a moment more and then relaxed in defeat.

"Your destiny lies with us and soon you, your sister, and your teacher must leave this planet with us. It is not possible for you to remain here any longer," Mev said to the girl.

"But my mother is so sick, we can't leave here now," the girl protested.

"We have knowledge of your mother. When we see her perhaps something can be done for her," Mev said.

"But the healers say it's incurable, a cancer growing inside her. They say mother only has a few months to live, they can do nothing to save her!"

"Perhaps so, but we have healing powers exceeding those of your healers. Perhaps something can be done for your mother," Mev replied.

"If you can help mother I'll do anything you want me to," the girl said.

"Please take us to your mother so we can asses her condition," Mev said.

"All right. My name is Lisan, what is yours?" the girl asked.

"I am Mev Van Zehe and this is Zira, Sharon Blake, and Kathleen Chen," Mev answered, introducing himself and his companions.

Lisan looked at each of the other women in turn as Mev named them, and she suddenly noticed for the first time that unlike herself and Mev, who were standing upon a large tree branch, the three High Lord women were just floating in the air. Yet despite this Zira had still been able to grab Lisan's belt and prevent her from leaving, as if she was anchored in concrete instead of seeming to float in the air.

"Can you come and look at my mother now?" Lisan asked.

"Certainly, please show us the way," Mev replied.

Zira released her grip on Lisan's belt and the girl immediately leaped off the branch toward another tree closer to the edge of the park. Mev and his companions followed, again matching their movements to Lisan's. When Lisan reached the tree closest to the edge of the park she leapt from its branches to the roof of a building across the street from the park and from there to the roof of a different building, and then down into the courtyard inside a large house. Mev and the other three High Lords followed.

Lisan lived in a house which was in some ways similar to the larger houses of Ancient Rome on Earth. The interior was a large courtyard open to the sky with smaller, roofed over rooms lining the walls. Just as in the Roman houses this was an inward looking house and there were no exterior windows at all on the ground floor. The family owned the entire block as well as the adjacent one in the rear and the house was accompanied by an array of outbuildings providing storage and garage space. A variety of trees and shrubs were planted around the property and much of the space not covered by buildings was given over to lawn.

Inside the courtyard of the house there was a pool taking up part of the space, a patio and walkways to the different parts of the house. The house had belonged to Lisan's family for several generations; her family was wealthy and prominent in local affairs, though not as much as they used to be. Lisan shared the house with her widowed mother, sister, teacher, and there were several live-in servants as well. Even so much of the house was now empty, bedrooms given over to storage or just kept empty for visitors. It was Lisan, her sister, and their teacher who were the ones Mev and his companions had been sent to seek by Zesh.

Lisan hesitated a moment to lead these strange people further into the house than they already were but she couldn't think of any way to prevent it. For Lisan's mother there seemed to be little the strangers could do to make her condition any worse but her sister and teacher were a different matter. Yet Lisan could think of nothing she could do to prevent these strangers from doing whatever they wanted in her home. Her germinating spellcraft senses gave her an ill defined but powerful feeling the strangers easily outclassed even her teacher. So Lisan resigned herself to allowing Mev and the others to meet her mother, sister, teacher, and the others in the house.

Mev noticed Lisan's hesitation and he could easily sense the reason for it and he paused for a moment to see what the girl decided to do. There was a chance the girl might allow fear to overcome her, impelling her to resist further, and Mev was prepared to force the issue if need be. Yet it was better if the girl would proceed voluntarily and the High Lords all waited to see what she would decide to do. In the few seconds of silence while Lisan struggled with her fear Mev and the others extended their senses throughout her house and quickly located her mother, sister, teacher, and everyone else who lived and worked in the large home.

"Lisan, please take us to your mother. We must see her in order to help her," Mev said to the girl after they all stood silently in the courtyard for a few seconds. This was not strictly true, Mev and his companions could work healing spellcraft upon Lisan's mother even from where they stood, but it was better they should be conducted in to see her.

"All right, it seems there is little choice but to take you to see her. Please follow me," the girl replied, making her decision.

Lisan turned and led Mev and his companions toward a doorway which allowed entry from the courtyard into the roofed area of the house. They entered a hallway lit by incandescent electric lights which had been re-invented on that planet a few decades before. The group walked past several closed doors before passing through an opened one into a large bedroom. Inside upon a large bed was Lisan's mother, Shina, who was now so ill that she was unable to get out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time.

Mev and his companions already knew that Shina was suffering from a very advanced case of cancer, one well beyond the capability of the planet's current level of medical technology. The High Lords had been scanning the sick woman for most of the time they had been traveling toward the house and were now well familiar with her illness and her condition. Shina's cancer was so far along that even the medical technology of the Republic would have a difficult time saving her now.

In addition to the ravages of her advanced illness Shina's body had also been mutilated by the frantic but unsuccessful attempts of her healer's primitive surgical attempts to remove her cancer. Shina's left breast and parts of several other organs had been removed as part of her treatment, to no avail. In her current condition Shina could easily perish at any moment and if the High Lords were to aid her they must do so immediately.

The High Lords spent a short time silently debating their best course of action, of which there were basically two within their power. They could simply remove all the cancerous growth which was now rapidly consuming Shina's body, but this would at the same time leave her body otherwise as it was now, dependent upon its own healing capacity to restore itself as best it could. Or they could change her to share their own nature as a High Lord of Venda. Doing this would completely restore her body and health in every way, but then Shina too would have to be taken away from her home.

Mev and his companions telepathically debated their options and quickly decided conversion would be the best option for the sick woman before them. Not just for Shina herself but it was also more likely her daughters would leave with them willingly if Shina herself left as well. Shina would become an ally to the current High Lord group in persuading her daughters to do what must be done. And, this time the conversion process would not be so taxing upon Mev as before since his own power had grown and he could also draw upon the life energy of his companions.

"Can you do anything for our mother?" Lisan asked with a pleading note in her voice.

"Yes, it is possible to restore your mother to health. It will require some effort on our part however, and we must not be disturbed in any way during the process," Mev answered.

"If you can really help our mother you can have whatever you need to do it," Lisan replied.

"You will need to ensure we are completely undisturbed until the process is complete. Are you sure you wish us to proceed?" Mev asked Lisan.

"We tried everything but it's no good. If you really can help Mother then you can do anything you want, have anything you want," the girl replied.

"In that case please wait outside and do not, under any circumstances, allow us to be disturbed. We can help your mother but it will require some small time in quiet privacy to effect the cure for her condition," Mev said.

"Please help my mother! I'll do anything if you can really do it," Lisan said. Lisan, after giving one anxious glance at her mother on the bed, turned and walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

The High Lords turned to the woman on the bed who had been sleeping the whole time they had been there. The advanced state of Shina's cancer was becoming increasingly painful so the woman spent much of her time sleeping under the influence of pain relief drugs. So the commotion in her room did not disturb the sick woman at all, she remained sleeping, oblivious to the strangers who had barged into her home and her room.

Mev moved closer to the bed and his companions gathered around him. Even without using his High Lord senses it was obvious the woman sleeping there was in a bad way. Her face was this and drawn and her skin had an unhealthy cast to it. There wasn't any reason to delay what needed to be done to save Shina.

The High Lords first established a powerful protective shield around themselves and the woman on the bed, which would prevent anyone or anything from interrupting them until their work was complete. Zira and Mev took the active part in what needed to be done with the other two in the group providing support and energy through the link that bound them together. Unlike in the past Mev had much more life energy to draw upon than he had ever had before when doing a healing or conversion, and Medron was within sufficient distance that his power could be drawn upon as well.

First the High Lords poured their power into destroying every part of the cancer which filled Shina's body and restoring all her body cells to genetic normality. Then they moved on to repairing all of the body damage which had been done by both the disease and also the medical efforts to cure it. Finally they pushed the change for Shina to become a High Lord just as they were. All in all the whole process took nearly an hour, and the process left Shina in a deep, but perfectly normal sleep. The drugs which had previously dulled her senses were now gone from her body as well.

Zira went to the door to the room and opened it, finding Lisan sitting in a chair in the hall way outside. "You may enter now," the High Lord woman told the girl. Lisan sprang out of her chair and rushed into the room and to her mother's bed.

"She is only sleeping, her previous malady is now gone," Zira told the girl.

Lisan looked down at the sleeping form of her mother and immediately noticed the change in the sleeping woman's face, which now had a normal color and plumpness. Lisan whipped back the blanket covering her sleeping mother, who wore nothing. The girl stared in disbelief at the change which had come to her mother's body.

"Your mother has been restored to what she once was as you can see," Zira said to Lisan as the other High Lords looked on silently. "All damage has been completely repaired."

Lisan stared in wonder at her mother's nude form on the bed. Shina's missing breast once again was in its place on her chest and every scar from her multiple surgeries had completely disappeared. Incredibly the body on the bed appeared to be that of a completely healthy woman barely older than Lisan herself.

Lisan had known the High Lords were from off world, her developing senses told her that much and the inhabitants of her planets had redeveloped to the point where they were open to such an idea. Lisan had hoped the High Lords had some off world medicine they could use, but what she actually saw was far more than she had dreamed was possible. Suddenly Lisan was overcome by emotion and fell to her knees at the side of her mother's bed, sobbing.

At the same time there was a commotion outside in the hall, the sound of running feet coming rapidly toward the room. Mev moved closer to the door to intercept the runners if needed. A couple seconds later a woman burst into the room, it was Mika, Lisan's teacher, and Mika took in the sight of the exposed woman on the bed and the sobbing girl next to it with a single glance. Mika whipped the sword at her side from its sheath and struck with her full speed and strength at the nearest stranger in the room which was Mev.

"Do not!" Mev commanded in a loud voice while at the same time catching Mika's sword with his bare hand. Mika's eyes opened wide in astonishment as her sword not only did not cut Mev's hand at all but instead was stopped as if it has struck a granite boulder. Mika's sword rang loudly as Mev closed his uninjured hand over the blade and grasped it firmly. Of course Mev's High Lord speed and reflexes allowed him to catch Mika's sword easily and his shields prevented the blade from doing any damage to his hand.

Mika struggled to free or even just move her sword for a few seconds then gave up and released the weapon. Mika leaped back and drew instead a heavy automatic slug throwing pistol from her belt and raised it to aim at Mev.

"Stop!" Mev commanded and reached out with the Power of Command, freezing Mika in her tracks. The woman found herself unable to move a muscle as Mev's power locked her in place. Being in the midst of the transition between human and High Lord as she was, Mika was far more vulnerable to the Power of Command than she had been before. Thus Mev did not have to exert much effort to bring the woman under control.