Chapter 5

Characters introduced in this chapter:

Shannon O'Connell (Shan)

Sheena's twin, one of Mike's future wives, 5'-4" tall, 104 pounds, 34C-21-30, 15 years old, long flaming red hair, deep green eyes, some freckles, and terribly cute

Sheena O'Connell (She)

Shannon's twin, one of Pat's future wives, 5'-4" tall, 104 pounds, 34C-21-30, 15 years old, long flaming red hair, deep green eyes, some freckles, and terribly cute

Clare O'Toole

Cathleen's twin, one of Mike's future wives, 5'-3" tall, 98 pounds, 34C-20-29, 14+ years old, long blond hair, gray eyes, a few freckles, especially on her breasts, very cute

Cathleen O'Toole (Cat)

Clare's twin, one of Pat's future wives, 5'-3" tall, 98 pounds, 34-20-29, 14+ years old, long blond hair, gray eyes, a few freckles, especially on her breasts, very cute

Pat and I materialized in a hallway in the lowest level of the Manor House and quietly worked our way down it. I could feel the Talent of the person or persons who were down here, but couldn't understand why they would choose to stay down here with the stores and unused items of the house, as it was a cold, damp place. We soon came to the door behind which I could feel the presence of two individuals with very strong Talents.

"Does this seem wrong to you?" I asked Pat, as we stopped in front of the door.

"Certainly. Why would Sorcerers want to be hidden down here with the unused and forgotten, especially when that fool of limited Talent has a fine apartment on the upper floor?"he asked. We had sensed the Duke's Wizard since arriving.

"I don't know, but it certainly seems strange, and this door is locked on the outside," I observed.

"Surely they aren't prisoners!!" Pat said in shock.

"With the strength of the Talent that we can feel?" I asked him in disbelief. "Surely they can come and go at will. Mere doors or walls wouldn't stop them."

"If it was for privacy though, wouldn't the locks be on the inside?" Pat asked as we continued to pause outside the door.

"I would think so, unless there was some extraordinary reason," I replied. "There is only one way to find out." We both spoke the transport spell and traced the sign in the air for it.

We instantly materialized in a cell whose conditions were far worse than the hallway outside. It was lit only by a tiny opening near the ceiling, but the walls had a sickly greenish glow to them. The cell was filthy and the smells of vomit and excrement were rampant. Filthy straw covered the floor. The occupants were huddled on a small platform in one corner under what appeared to be a pitifully small and thin blanket.

As Pat and I took in these terrible conditions in shock, one of the occupants of the platform became aware of our presence, and roused the other occupant. They both quickly slipped from the platform to kneel on the floor in the filthy straw with bowed heads.

"We are sorry, Master. Please forgive us. We did not hear the door open. Please do not beat us. Have mercy!!" the girl pleaded in a croaking voice. Yes, they were girls - young girls - and in as filthy a condition as the disgusting cell they were being kept in.

"We are not here to hurt you," Pat assured them in the same dialect of Celtic that she had used. Both girls looked up then at the sound of his voice in shock. Their surprise was as nothing, however compared to ours for as they raised their heads we saw from the scars there that they had been purposely blinded!

"How can they be here like this with their level of Talent?" Pat asked in serious confusion.

"I don't know!" I answered, distressed also. "But we need to do something and now," I told him.

"Yes, of course," Pat agreed instantly. I called on the eternal Flame for light and heat. These stone walls would not be heated with only a few changes of warmer air. I did change the air for warmer air - several times to get rid of the stink. Pat and I removed our cloaks after this and moved toward the two girls.

"Do not be afraid," we both told them dropping back into Celtic, as we placed the cloaks around their shoulders and wrapped them in their voluminous folds. We had slipped back into English when talking to each other out of habit.

"Thank you, Master," each girls whispered, and then they lowered their heads again.

The light provided by the Eternal Flame had made the girls and their condition much more visible before we covered them with the cloaks. Their long, flaming red hair was tangled, matted, and filthy, but would clean up as bright as our sisters' hair. Their breasts were large for girls their size, even given their malnourished and thin condition. Their faces were quite pretty except for the hideous way they had been blinded.

"Why are you girls here like this?" Pat asked them gently, as the heat supplied by the Eternal Flame warmed the cell.

"We are sex slaves, Master," the one answered with a shuddering breath.

"But why have you remained here and allowed them to do this to you? Don't you know any Magic? Haven't you been taught? You certainly have the Talent for it," Pat demanded in disbelief.

"No, Master!" the second girl answered in a quavering voice. "We were forbidden to learn any Magic in our village, and the Wizard there cast a spell on us to keep us from learning any."

"What!!?" Pat and I both exclaimed in shock, not being able to conceive of such a thing.

"That's ridiculous!" Pat continued, before the Eternal Flame interrupted us.

"Consider this, both of you. You come from a family where everyone practices Magic, and they didn't hinder you from learning Magic even as young children. These poor girls come from a society where Magic, and those who possess it are the privileged and wealthy. They are looked up to, and guard their positions jealously.

"The minor Wizard in their village would NOT encourage the learning of Magic as it would diminish his position if others could perform Magic, especially those like these girls, who posses much more of the Talent than he does," the Eternal Flame finished.

"That makes sense," I told Pat. "It's just like in our Reality, where the Bureaucrats and Politicians don't want anyone else to have any power to threaten their position."

"Yes, I know that Grandfather warned us that something was wrong, but suppressing a Talent like these girls have, and blinding them like that? It's so wrong, and so very short sighted. No pun intended," Pat finished with one of his grins. We had been speaking Gaelic for all of this, as that was what the Eternal Flame had started speaking in, and not the local Celtic dialect. Apparently the girls understood Gaelic.

"Are you Irish, Masters?" the girls asked in excitement.

"Yes, we are," I told them, but didn't mention being from another Reality. "Tell us how you came to be here?" I requested.

"We are from the village of Rath Lurie in County Cork. We were twelve when the raiders came to our village. The men tried to defend the village, but the raiders had a powerful Wizard with them, and he froze everyone in place while the raiders selected those that they wanted. It was mostly the younger, pretty girls that they took, but we were taken also," the first girl told us.

"They seemed especially interested in us," the second girl added. "We were sold to the Master here as kitchen slaves. We worked in the kitchen for a time cleaning pots, taking out the garbage, and tending the animals in the stables and the coops along with cleaning them up.

"When we were fourteen, the Master here noticed us. We were dragged down here, and ... and... !!" she stopped and couldn't go on, as she sobbed her heart out in misery. The other girl was also weeping.

Pat and I moved over to comfort them. We were both shocked on touching them to discover just how strong their Talents were. Feeling their Talents from a distance had not prepared us for this reality. It was like knowing that the water was cold, but being shocked when you actually put a hand in it. Pat and I looked at each other in amazement. Both girls had also reacted to the contact.

"Are ... are all three of you Wizards, Masters?" the second girl asked when she could speak again.

"Yes, we are, but there are only two of us," I answered.

"We heard three voices," the first said.

"One of the voices is of someone that really isn't here," I told them.

"He must be a very great Wizard then, Master," the first girl answered.

"Yes, he is," Pat told her with one of his grins.

"Tell us what happened after you were blinded," I asked them.

"Also why did they blind you?" Pat asked in bewilderment.

"They blinded us so we wouldn't know who had used us, and so that we couldn't ever learn any Magic," the second girl answered, as Pat held her and tried to make her feel better.

I was busy with the first girl. She was still weeping uncontrollably, and I drew her to me, and held her while trying to calm her down.

"Easy," I whispered to her. "We will take care of you. Things will be better from now on."

"How can you do that, Master? They will never allow us to leave here. We have been told that if we tried to escape that we would be put to death in a most horrible way," she moaned as her breathing came in shuddering gasps.

"They will not be able to stop us," I assured her.

"What happened after they blinded you?" I asked again.

"We were thrown in this cell alone for several days while we recovered some. Then they started using us. They are never gentle or caring. They treat us like animals. We are taken to another room to be used. When we are returned here, the guards use us also, and they are even worse," she finished in sobs again.

"I know that those questions were difficult for you to answer, but we needed to know. What are your names?" I asked her next. Patrick was much too busy consoling the second girl to ask any questions.

"I am Shannon O'Connell, and my twin sister is Sheena," the girl I was holding told us.

"NO!!" both Pat and I exclaimed loudly in shock.

"How can that be?" Pat demanded, still dazed by the revelation.

"What is wrong?" Shannon asked in fright, as she pulled away from me.

"Nothing is wrong," I assured her calmly, as I looked across at Pat with a questioning expression on my face.

"Our last name is also O'Connell," Pat told both girls after a few seconds. "I'm Patrick, and my cousin is Michael," he finished.

"Long ago our ancestors came from County Kerry, but none of us has lived in Ireland for a very long time," I told them. Both girls seemed very surprised at this, but nowhere near as surprised as Pat and I had been.

"How long have you been held here?" I managed to ask to keep things moving.

"We don't know!" Sheena answered, and shook in despair, as Pat held her. "We have no way to measure the time," she finished in sobs, and Pat looked at me with a very unhappy and upset expression.

"We need to get you out of here, but first we'll use a cleaning spell to get you cleaned up. It isn't quite as good as a hot bath, but will remove the dirt and grime from your bodies," I told them.

"We are sorry, Master O'Connell, but neither you, nor we will be able to leave here. There is a powerful Wizard here, and he will know by now that someone has entered the cell. He will block your leaving," Shannon told me in a hopeless voice and whimpered.

"We will break out if necessary," I assured her turning angry. We hadn't met the resident Wizard here, but he was nowhere near as powerful as either Pat or me, and certainly not as powerful as the two of us together. Pat moved away from Sheena to place his hand on the wall of the cell. Almost instantly he began to laugh.

"And just what is so funny, Cousin!?" I demanded, crossly.

"Touch the wall," he told me, finally controlling his laughter, but still had a big grin on his face. I released Shannon, walked the few steps to the wall, and placed my hand on it. What I felt there caused me to smile also.

"They have to be kidding!!" I said. "Did you check for a second or deeper ward or spell?"

"Yes, while you were grinning," Pat answered. "There aren't any others."

"But, my God, Pat! We figured out how to break that spell when we were what - three and a-half years old?" I asked, uncertain of just when it had been.