The healing part of it isn’t. It’s the way a healer can kill. The way Amber taught you. Without that method just now, you would have killed at least three of the people you just took power from. Three out of ten. You would have been punching holes in Clayarks, wasting strength that wasn’t yours to waste. Imagine killing thirty per cent of the Patternists in even an average-size House.
Teray winced away from the idea. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell him? If he understood, he might not have had to die.
I wouldn’t have sacrificed one of Jansee’s sons if he hadn’t had to die. Do you really think anyone could have talked him out of wanting the Pattern?
You could have, perhaps.
Young one, me least of all. Think! The only thing that kept him from attacking me outright to take the Pattern was the belief that it would come to him without a struggle if he waited a little longer.
Could he have taken it?
Very possibly.
Teray sighed, feeling the strength flowing back into his body. He could have opened his eyes if he had wanted to and seen Amber next to him waiting.
I will never gather the strength of the Pattern in my mind again, sent Rayal. It would kill me. When the need arises next, young one, the Pattern will be yours. That will kill me, too, but at least I’ll die alone—not take thousands of people with me.
But you can’t just give it to me. Others will contest…
I will give it to you. You’d win it anyway if there was anyone better than you around, I wouldn’t have chosen you. And once you have it, with your health and strength, those who contest will be no more to you than that girl Rain. Remember that and treat them gently. Your only real opponent is dead.
But another healer … a better healer. …
You’ve got a better healer sitting next to you. And she’ll always be a better healer. You won’t ever surpass her in healing skill. And she won’t ever surpass you in strength. There are plenty of better healers, but no stronger healers. And no weaker healer could survive what you just survived. You have the right combination of abilities.
Teray sighed, opened his eyes, and sat up. He looked at Amber and she nodded slightly.
“I’m receiving too,” she said. “He wants me to know.”
Teray addressed Rayal. You couldn’t have kept Coransee from killing me, could you?
No. Not unless I fought him. He had already made up his mind about you—and from his point of view, he was right. You were definitely a danger to him even though at first you didn’t want to be. I didn’t dare fight him. There was too much chance of his winning. So it was all up to you.
And you couldn’t very well tell me without taking the chance of also telling him. Teray shook his head. You’ve been bluffing everyone for a long time, Lord.
Only for the past couple of years. Only since I’ve become so weak and sick that taking strength from any but the most compatible of my people would have killed me.
Still a long time to bluff people who might have read any slip in your thoughts.
A long wearying time, the old man agreed. Hurry and get here. You have no idea how tired I am.
A Biography of Octavia E. Butler
Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) was a bestselling and award-winning author, considered one of the best science fiction writers of her generation. She received both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and in 1995 became the first author of science fiction to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. She was also awarded the prestigious PEN Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.
Butler’s father died when she was very young; her mother raised her in Pasadena, California. Shy, tall, and dyslexic, Butler immersed herself in reading whatever books she could find. She began writing at twelve, when a B movie called Devil Girl from Mars inspired her to try writing a better science-fiction story.
She took writing classes throughout college, attending the Clarion Writers Workshop and, in 1969, the Open Door Workshop of the Screenwriters’ Guild of America, a program designed to mentor Latino and African American writers. There she met renowned science fiction author Harlan Ellison, who adopted Butler as his protégé.
In 1974 she began writing Patternmaster (1976), set in a future world where a network of all-powerful telepaths dominate humanity. Praised both for its imaginative vision and for Butler’s powerful prose, the novel spawned four prequels, beginning with Mind of My Mind (1977) and finishing with Clay’s Ark (1984).
Although the Patternist series established Butler among the science fiction elite, Kindred (1979) brought her mainstream success. In that novel, a young black woman travels back in time to the antebellum South, where she is called on to protect the life of a white, slaveholding ancestor. Kindred’s protagonist stood out in a genre that, at the time, was widely dominated by white men.
In 1985, Butler won Nebula and Hugo awards for the novella Bloodchild, which was reprinted in 1995 as Bloodchild and Other Stories. Dawn (1987) began the Xenogenesis trilogy, about a race of aliens who visit earth to save humanity from itself. Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989) continue the story, following the life of the first child born with a mixture of alien and human DNA.
Fledgling (2005), which combines vampire and science fiction narratives, was Butler’s final novel. “She wasn't writing romance or feel-good novels,” mystery author Walter Mosley said. “She was writing very difficult, brilliant work.” Her books have been translated into several languages, and continue to appear widely in school and college literature curricula.
Butler died at home in Washington in 2006.
Butler, age three, sits with her mother for a photo in Los Angeles in 1951.
Butler at age thirteen. She began writing the year before when a science fiction film—the cult favorite Devil Girl from Mars—inspired her to create something of her own.
Butler’s 1965 senior class photo from John Muir High School in Pasadena, California.
Butler reading a book in 1975, the year before she published Patternmaster.
Butler on a book tour for Parable of the Sower in New York City in 1993.
Butler addresses the audience at Marygrove College, Detroit, during the Contemporary American Author Lecture Series in 1994.
Butler won both Nebula and Hugo awards for her contributions to the science fiction genre. (Photo courtesy of Anna Fedor.)
Butler with authors Tananarive Due, Jewelle Gomez (standing), Samuel R. Delany, and Steven Barnes (sitting) at Clark Atlanta University’s conference for African American science fiction writers—the first of its kind—in 1997.
When Butler passed away in 2006, the New York Times eulogized her as a world-renowned author whose science fiction explored “far-reaching issues of race, sex, power and, ultimately, what it means to be human.”
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1976 by Octavia E. Butler
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
978-1-4532-6365-5
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.OPENROADMED
IA.COM
follow us: @openroadmedia and Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
SIGN UP NOW at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
Patternmaster Page 17