by Jean Lorrah
Captives of the Savage Empire
( Savage Empire - 3 )
Jean Lorrah
Prologue
THE LEGEND OF THE FIRST READER
Before there was an Aventine Empire the world was broken up into little kingdoms. In one of those kingdoms lived a young man who had the power to Read-to know what was in other people's minds—but he was the very first to have such power, and he did not know what to do with it, so he remained a poor honest laborer.
In this kingdom the king had no sons, but he had one very beautiful daughter; all men who saw her wanted to marry her. Since she did not know how to choose among her many suitors, she declared a contest: Whoever could give her her heart's desire would have her hand.
So men brought her gold and jewels, fine horses, musicians and dancers to entertain her, perfumes and spices—and always she declared that their gifts were not her heart's desire.
The young Reader, though, was able to Read what was going on in the princess' mind as her suitors displayed their treasures and were rejected. The king grew angrier and angrier as the girl refused one after another of the fine, strong, wealthy men. The Reader knew that the king wanted his daughter to marry a king… but the daughter did not like the powerful men who tried to claim her hand.
Watching the princess each time there was a public ceremony for another suitor, and Reading her true desire, the Reader fell deeply in love with her. At length, despite the fact that he was a common laborer with no property to give her, he decided to risk pressing his suit. When he stepped forward, the people laughed to see a poor man with no troop of servants carrying treasures, marching forward empty-handed to the foot of the throne.
The king, however, was curious enough to allow the Reader to offer his gift. The young man drew himself up, and addressed the princess. "All your life," he said, "you have had gold and jewels, slaves, furs and perfumes, horses and falcons, treasures from all the lands of the world. All these your father can provide for you—yet you say you do not have your heart's desire. Thus it cannot be any worldly treasure that you long for. What you desire is the love of a good man—a man who is not bent on accumulating treasure or making war on his enemies—a man who will place you above all things as the greatest treasure of his heart. This I can give you, as no man else."
Never before had the princess met a man who understood her deepest desires. "Yes!" she cried. "That is my heart's desire! I shall love you above all men!"
But the king, who had thought the young man comical until his daughter's response, was maddened with anger. "You lie!" he roared. "No daughter of mine would be so foolish as to forego power and wealth for such frivolity! You are a liar, young man, and will die for daring to say such a thing about a member of the king's family! And you," he added, turning to his daughter, "will deny what he has said, or I will have you killed, too!"
"But I can prove it!" cried the young Reader. "I can tell you what is in your heart—I can hear any man's thoughts! You are thinking that you want a strong and powerful man to marry your daughter and be king after you—someone who will give her strong sons who will capture many lands and accumulate great treasures. But if you could Read what was in her heart, you would know as I do that these things mean nothing to her."
Now the king knew that the Reader spoke the truth about what he was thinking, but he also thought it nothing but common sense, such as any man ought to think. He had the young man hauled off to the dungeon, threatening to cut his tongue out if he continued to tell lies about the princess. That night, however, another suitor for the princess' hand arrived—a great and powerful warlord from a neighboring land.
Languishing in his dungeon, the Reader Read the plans of the warlord. He had brought with him an army, claiming it was his gift to the princess, for surely it must be strength of arms that was her heart's desire. But he was also prepared for rejection—in which case his army, thus smuggled into the heart of the kingdom, would turn on the people. They would kill the king, and the warlord would take the princess by force and make himself king of all the land.
Knowing this, the Reader begged and pleaded with his guards to arrange an audience for him with the king. As it happened, the king had planned to test the young man's claims, for he could see great value in someone who could tell him his enemies' secrets… if such an impossible claim proved true. So the next morning he had the Reader brought before him, and the Reader told him the plan of the warlord. The king had his own army, disguised as common people, surrounding the warlord's army when he made his offer to-the princess. She rejected him, of course—and he turned and shouted to his men, "To arms!"
Just as quickly, the king's men threw off their disguises, and in a battle at the king's feet they slaughtered their enemies. The Reader was elated—he had proved his value, and was sure the king would change his mind and allow him to marry the princess.
But the king saw only danger in a man who knew what was in people's minds—he immediately envisioned his son-in-law plotting to kill him and take the throne, and no reassurances would make him trust the Reader, nor would the pleadings of the princess mitigate his decision.
He knew, of course, that the Reader was a double-edged sword: If he did not like the way the king treated him, he might run away to work against him with one of his enemies. Therefore he had the young man hamstrung, so he could not run away, and he tortured him to force him to Read for him.
In less than a year the king had conquered all the neighboring lands. He always knew the size of the enemies' armies, where they were located, all the battle plans. He also captured the fine, strong, warrior son of one of his enemies—a man who saw opportunity in ingratiating himself with a king he could not conquer. Soon plans were underway to marry the princess to the warrior—for she had learned well the lesson her father had taught her. The Reader might have been willing to give her her heart's desire, but he had not the strength to win her and then protect her. So she gave up her desire for someone to love her in exchange for someone who would be very much like her father, shower her with presents, and protect her against her enemies.
On the eve of the wedding, while the bridegroom and his prospective son-in-law were drinking themselves into a stupor with the wedding guests, the Reader was of course left alone in his room in the castle—what need to chain him in the dungeon once he was lamed? The treatment he had received for revealing his gift had worked on his mind in the past year—and he had learned to walk again, if with a hideous limp. When the revelers were thoroughly drunk, he set fire to the castle, went to the room where the princess lay guarded only by women, whom he killed, and carried the girl off into the night.
In the morning, the king and his would-be son-in-law were found dead, along with most of their guests. The princess was found in the woods nearby—she claimed to have been raped by the Reader, and nine months later she bore a son.
The princess ruled the land as her father had before her, for she had his army and she knew his methods. Her son turned out to be a Reader like his father… and it is said that all the Readers of what would become the Aventine Empire are descended from him. His father, however, disappeared without a trace. Here and there were heard tales of a strange lame man who could tell people's most secret thoughts, but no warlord ever held him again, and no one knows what finally became of him. Perhaps, bitter and disillusioned at the fate of his offer of true love, he is wandering still.
Chapter One
Where do I belong? What should I be doing with my life? Certainly not healing!
Magister Jason was wrong to encourage me. He should have let me quit the first time I lost a patient-then I would not be about to kill my best friend's son!
L
ooking down at the fretful child, Melissa wished she were anything else but a Reader in the hospital at Gaeta. Alethia trusted her to cure Primus, but how could she? The boy's appendix was inflamed; all their herbs, compresses, and cold packs had failed—and now she would have to try surgery as a last resort. What if Primus died?
She Read within the boy's body, wanting to moan with his pain and fever, studying the swollen, throbbing organ. If this went on, it would burst, spilling poisons throughout the child's system. Then there was no hope at all of saving him. She had to cut out that infected bit of intestine!
For the first time, she was sorry she and Alethia had been reunited. This was why a Reader still in training, like Melissa, was discouraged from keeping up associations with childhood friends who had dropped by the wayside.
Alethia, too, was a Reader, but she now wore the Sign of the Dark Moon, the badge of a Reader who had failed to achieve one of the two top ranks, and for whom a marriage had been arranged. Alethia and Melissa had been fast friends at the Academy. Melissa would never forget the day Alethia, aged seventeen, had been told that her powers had shown no increase in more than a year, and it had been determined that she would go no further.
Alethia had spent the evening sobbing on Melissa's shoulder. Her life was over—both girls were quite convinced of it. She would be married off to a similarly failed male Reader, to breed children who might have the talents they lacked. The loss of her virginity would diminish what powers she had; her badge—a black circle on a field of white—would be the only sign that she was a Reader… a failed Reader.
Melissa had absorbed Alethia's agonized fear that day, and applied herself thereafter with the greatest diligence. Never, she vowed, would she be taken like Alethia, to spend her life producing the children of a stranger and using whatever Reading power she retained to show non-readers where to dig wells or locate their lost sheep.
At eighteen Melissa passed her preliminary examinations and was sent to Gaeta for training in healing. She had arrived in fear, knowing that more than half the Readers who completed the medical training still eventually failed and were married off. It would be better to live as a healer than as a message service and finder of strayed children—but Melissa's heart throbbed to the vibrations of the great hospital. There was pain and suffering here—pain she shared with the patients when she Read them—but Reading the easing of that pain because of' something she had done was the most satisfying use she had ever made of her talent.
Her primary teacher was Magister Jason. They never met face to face, of course—no male and female Reader could unless one or both wore the Sign of the Dark Moon. Celibacy was the rule and the necessity for the upper ranks and those still in training; temptation was to be a voided.
But the touch of Jason's mind was an inspiration to Melissa. Disciplined yet vibrant, he Read with her as she examined patients and learned to interpret the data she gleaned. Medicines, bonesetting, manipulations of joint and muscle—these she learned from the other healers. Jason taught her to look deep within the human body and, when no other means would suffice, to cut into it and make repairs. She quickly progressed from sitting entranced while her mind looked through Jason's eyes, her hands feeling what his were doing, to the day when she herself held the knife, and Jason's mind guided her.
She never wanted to give up the experience of his mental touch. There was only one way to manage that: She must become such an expert healer that she would be invited to stay at Gaeta for the rest of her days, as Jason did. She dreamed of their spending hours each day in deep rapport, healing the sick and injured together. Her skills improved rapidly under his tutelage. She was happy.
And she remained happy… until the first time she had a patient neither medicines nor surgery could cure. They had had no choice—none of their medicines, no applications of herbal packs, nothing would reduce the ulcerating tumor blocking the girl's intestine. All the surgeons hated abdominal surgery, for more than half the time they could not prevent an infection that killed the patient within a few days of gruesome agony.
Melissa had administered the herbalist's latest concoction to the girl. For the next few hours her patient's body temperature would rise dramatically—possibly enough to kill the organisms introduced by surgery. But such high temperatures often caused convulsions that killed the patient more efficiently than the infection.
That was the first time Melissa faced the possible death of a patient. She was still in training; the teachers examined her patient hourly, but none of them offered any advice beyond what she had already tried. She had done everything right—and still her patient would probably die. It was the first time she questioned her desire to spend her life as a healer… and that day brought the reunion that would soon make her question it again.
The girl had drunk the new medicine in total trust, then, in exhaustion and hope, fallen asleep. Melissa left her sleeping, not knowing where she was going, but having to get out of that sickroom for at least a few minutes.
"Melissa, there's a visitor for you in the family room," one of the aides told her.
Melissa cringed. Probably the girl's father again. She gritted her teeth and prepared to face him.
But it was not a man waiting for her. It was a young woman—a very pregnant and obviously happy young woman who wore on her cloak the Sign of the Dark Moon.
"Alethia!" Melissa cried, running to embrace her friend. "Oh, how good to see you again! What are you doing here? There's nothing wrong—?" Automatically she Read Alethia, finding to her relief nothing but a perfectly normal pregnancy, advanced approximately seven months.
"No, there's nothing wrong!" Alethia laughed. "I'm happier than ever in my life, Melissa. My husband and I were just transferred here to Gaeta. I thought you might be taking your medical training by now."
Alethia's pregnancy was her second, it turned out; she had a son almost two years old, who was being cared for by a neighbor while she went visiting. "I can't work now, anyway," she explained. "After about the fourth month, my range is severely limited—but it comes back, Melissa. By the time Primus was six months old, I was Reading as well as I ever could—at least so far as I can tell. Well enough to be wonderfully happy with my husband."
"You are happy? The man the Masters chose for you—?"
"Oh, Melissa, I am so fortunate! You must meet him. When do you have a day off? Come spend the day with me, and meet Rodrigo when he comes home in the evening. He's a navigator for the fishing fleet—finds the schools of fish for them, too. He's good at it—they usually come in with a full catch by the middle of the afternoon."
And how insensitive he must be, Melissa thought, to be able to shut himself off from the deaths of all those captured creatures. Readers occasionally ate fish—but they rarely caught them themselves.
"I'm glad you're so happy, Alethia," Melissa said cautiously. "I have an occasional afternoon off—never a full day. My next afternoon is the day after tomorrow—but I have a very sick patient, and if I cannot leave her—"
"I understand," said Alethia. "Melissa, I cannot Read to the hospital now, to contact you. I'll show you on the city map where our house is. I can still receive perfectly well from a stronger Reader—thank the gods for that, as it allows…" She lowered her voice, and drew Melissa to where they could not be overheard from the hallway. "I want to tell you what it's like for two Readers to be married. If it should happen to you, you mustn't have the blind terror I had—and that Rodrigo had, too. You'll probably be a Magister—even a Master one day. But… they're failing so many Readers… you should know it's not terrible at all to be married. You can Read me; you know I'm really happy, not lying to you. We'll talk when you visit me, Melissa."
Melissa expected to cancel that first afternoon with Alethia, for her patient grew progressively worse, until all they could do was dull her pain with opiates. She died just before noon, her father and Melissa on either side of the bed, Jason Reading with Melissa. When the child slipped from unconsciousness to death,
it was Melissa's task to tell the father. She wished that he would rage, strike her, do anything but thank her for her efforts in a voice gruff with tears, and leave her to her own inadequacies.
But Jason was there, his mind calming hers, telling her, //It happens to all of us, Melissa. There was nothing more you could have done.//
//There has to be more!// she told him. //Why did you give me this patient if you thought I couldn't save her?//
//Because no healer could have… and you needed to learn that we cannot work miracles. Melissa, you were born to be a healer—but you must accept your limitations if you are ever to be one of the best.//
//How can I accept the deaths of children! We must find some way to stop infections so when we save someone's life with surgery we won't be killing him with the organisms we admit with the knife.//
//Good—let the experience lead you to seek answers, and you will make a fine healer one day. Meanwhile, you are now off duty. Find something to keep you from brooding.//
//I am going to visit a friend.//
But even Alethia could not cheer Melissa. Her house was a lovely cottage surrounded with a flower and herb garden; her little boy was a tow-haired charmer—but all Melissa could think of was the girl who had died.
She picked at the lunch Alethia served, and tried to be polite… until finally, seeing the dismay in her friend's eyes, she confessed, "This morning one of my patients died. It's the first time, Alethia, but I know it won't be the last. I'm no good as company today."
"Oh, Melissa, how terrible! I understand—but you shouldn't go back to the hospital. Why don't you go down to the beach for a while? I'll bring Primus down to play in the sand after you've had some time to your-, self."
It. was a hot summer day, but the breeze along the shore made it pleasant to stroll. For a while Melissa lost herself in the sound of the water, the screech of the gulls. Approaching no one, she watched pelicans dive for fish, and children build castles. Her unadorned white tunic marked her as a Reader in training; no one approached her.