Dragonlord of the Savage Empire se-2

by Jean Lorrah

  All three other Readers could have Read that on their own, but only by leaving their bodies behind. Even Portia was impressed, Lenardo noted, that he did it sitting on Master Clement’s couch, never losing contact with his physical being.

  He then took them beyond the forest, across fields and through villages to Zendi. The city was bustling, as was Lenardo’s house, where Wulfston counseled with Helmuth while Aradia directed the people who had accompanied her from Castle Nerius in packing. To Lenardo’s relief, she was completely closed to Reading. He didn’t want to contact her, and he had brought enough shocks to the Masters today without revealing that there was an Adept who could Read.

  The preparations were for Aradia’s departure. The watchers had reported major quake damage in her lands, and so she was returning to aid her people. Wulfston’s lands had hardly been touched; he was staying in Zendi. Lenardo Read that although he was still puzzled, Helmuth accepted the fact that Wulfston was acting as regent for Lenardo.

  //“Regent?” “Lord Lenardo?”// Portia questioned indignantly.

  //It is a shame,// he replied. //The old man was my friend; the people trusted me. The Lords Adept will keep up the charade only as long as it suits their plans. Even if there were Readers there, Lords Adept cannot be Read.//

  //But why do they call you lord?// Torio wanted to know.

  //Wulfston and Aradia were my allies. I thought them my friends.// He let his painful disillusionment show, knowing that Portia might otherwise suspect that he had returned as a spy. //In the savage lands there is no ranking of powers, no testing except in combat. Anyone who has extraordinary powers is a lord out there.//

  To his surprise and relief, Portia did not question further. They withdrew to Tiberium: Lenardo, Clement, and Torio in Clement’s room, and Portia on the other side of the city, in the female Academy.

  Ill will call a session of the Council,// she told them. //Meanwhile, Lenardo, do not advertise your presence.//

  Ill don’t intend to. What about my daughter?//

  //Bring her to me now. I would examine this savage child personally, lest our communication provoke curiosity.//

  Lenardo knew where the female Academy was, but he had never been inside it. No male Reader dared enter its doors unless or until he had failed to achieve one of the two top ranks. He took Julia to the entrance and awaited instructions. His situation was unique in his experience, and so he did not know protocol.

  Lenardo had not supervised Julia’s packing, but the child had done a good job of choosing practical traveling clothes. He had, though, told her to bring everything precious to her, and she had brought the yellow dress she had worn the day of the festival. She wore it now, with the golden fillet across her brow that proclaimed her his daughter… and knowing that he was going to leave her at the Academy, never to see her again, he hadn’t the heart to make her take it off.

  //Bring the child in to me,// Portia instructed.

  Lenardo quelled the sickness that swept through him. Portia would allow him into her presence. That meant that despite all he had shown her, she not only did not recognize him as a Master Reader, she considered him failed and insignificant. I accepted it when I decided to seduce Aradia. But it still hurts.

  He guided Julia through the entrance hall, where she looked around, wide-eyed. Here there were not only mosaics decorating the floors and walls but statues in the niches, richly carved and gilded furnishings, and magnificent tapestries lit by the skylights.

  Lenardo had been in male Academies at various times, had spent a year in the huge hospital complex at Gaeta, but never had he seen such luxury lavished on Readers. Possessions were supposed to be foreign to them. In return for their services, Readers were provided with all necessities and comforts. But this?

  He led Julia through more treasured halls, where girls of various ages passed them without question, though with curious stares at Julia. They knew well enough why a father would bring his daughter here and wondered whether she would be admitted to the Academy.

  They passed classrooms where afternoon lessons were in progress, walked through a courtyard blooming with a profusion of flowers, and finally came to Portia’s study.

  Portia was sitting behind an ornate desk, dressed in cloth-of-gold with a gold tissue stole. For any public appearance, a female Master Reader would have worn a white linen dress edged in black and the same scarlet robe Lenardo had once worn. What she wore in private was her own business… but cloth-of-gold?

  She is our liaison with the government, Lenardo reminded himself. Senators, even the Emperor himself, may visit here at any time. Perhaps she deliberately meets them on their own terms.

  Portia raised her head as they entered, and Julia took a step back as if to hide but instantly refused to allow herself to be frightened. It’s just an old woman, he caught her thinking.

  Lenardo knew that Portia was old, but from her vigorous mind he had never envisioned her as the emblem of age itself. He had never, in the many times they had touched minds, Read her appearance.

  She was so old as to be shrunken. Even her skin was no longer wrinkled but pulled in on itself like parchment, desiccated. In startling contrast to her rich raiment, her face appeared a skull, her eyes the only points of life deep within dark sockets, her mouth a slash, her lips colorless, bloodless. Wisps of white hair showed beneath the golden stole. Her hands were folded before her on the desk, knobbed, bony, painfully thin and yet strong. Control of every Reader in the Aventine Empire lay in those hands.

  “Lenardo,” she said, looking him up and down, and for a moment he was uncomfortable, knowing that his beard, the longer hairstyle he had adopted to fit his role as a savage lord, appeared unkempt here.

  He had not felt out of place in this city wearing a plain white tunic in the street. He had dressed this way in Zendi all summer. But now he was forcefully reminded that he was not dressed as a Reader, that he no longer had the right to wear even a magister’s robes. From now on he would dress as an ordinary Aventine citizen, although a badge would identify him as a minor Reader-a failed Reader-to those who might seek his services.

  Then Portia said, not hiding her disgust, “You look like a savage.” Her voice rasped, as bloodless as the rest of her, a startling contrast to the strong, pleasantly feminine “voice” she projected to other Readers.

  Julia bristled. “My father’s a great lord. His powers make him great. He don’t have to dress up to impress nobody.”

  “Julia, hush!” Lenardo turned to Portia apologetically. “Please forgive the child, Master Portia. Her upbringing-”

  “What else is to be expected?” The old woman dismissed him and fixed her eyes on Julia. //Lenardo says you are a Reader.//

  //You don’t have to shout. I’m not a baby,// Julia responded indignantly and powerfully. They all felt the shock ricochet through several nearby Readers.

  //Very well.// Portia assumed normal conversational intensity. //Tell me what is in the cabinet beside the door.//

  Once more she looked at Lenardo as if warning him not to help the child, but Julia needed no help. She had far more experience at Reading inanimate objects than any child her age got in an Academy.

  //Top shelf. A wooden box, gold decorations. Inside it a bronze coin, three gold bracelets, amber beads. Then there’s a silver cup with pearls.//

  She continued spinning off items as Lenardo stood smugly enjoying Portia’s astonishment. It would have been quite satisfactory for a Reader of Julia’s age to identify shapes: box, cup, globe.

  Portia probed for Julia’s limits, easily finding them, of course-but the child was far advanced for her age. Lenardo was quite certain that Portia would give her a place here rather than send her to one of the lesser Academies.

  “Lenardo,” said Portia, “leave us. I would interview this child privately. Wait outside,” she added, and he wondered if that was meant to reassure Julia.

  “Be honest with Master Portia,” he told the girl, “and do whatever she tells you.�
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  He forced himself to smile, and he left the room convinced that he would never see Julia again except perhaps to say good-bye.

  As he walked aimlessly down the hallway, it occurred to Lenardo that he had not disclosed to either Portia or Clement his ability to eavesdrop on other Readers without being noticed. He could Read Portia and Julia now, but he would not. To control his consuming curiosity, he sought something else to concentrate on and wandered out into the courtyard. Sitting down on the edge of the fountain, he took off his left sandal and rubbed his injured ankle. It was aching slightly after the walking he had done today, but, he Read, there was no new damage. Strange how quickly it was healing. He hadn’t expected to walk easily for a week.

  His mind went back to Julia as he refastened his sandal. Determinedly, he turned his thoughts in another direction, anything to stop worrying and avoid the temptation to Read her. Firmly, he cut off Reading and moved to a bench in the shade of an arbor thickly overgrown with blossoming vines. Not Reading, he found his other senses reaching out, appreciating the golden sunlight on the mottled green of the plants, the scent of flowers, the cool shade, the refreshing sound of the fountain, and the delicate hum of women’s voices.

  One voice in particular almost sang with happiness. “I can’t believe I’m really going to have a baby at last.”

  “Yes, yes, my dear.” The calm tones of a healer. “Just follow the diet I’ve given you and come back in a month to let me Read you again.”

  The two women were walking down the hall behind where Lenardo sat, the healer escorting her nonReader patient through the maze of hallways. “We’ve been trying so hard to have a child, and when my flux began yesterday-”

  “Ah, but it stopped again,” replied the healer. “That happens sometimes. Everything is perfectly normal, Celia. Stop worrying and tell your husband the happy news.”

  They parted, with Celia going on her way and the healer walking back along the hallway, still not noticing Lenardo. He felt a wistful envy of Celia’s happiness. As nonReaders, she and her husband could love their child, raise it to adulthood. The chance that it would be a Reader and be taken from them was so small that it would probably never cross their minds to cloud their joy.

  A little girl in a pink dress came into the courtyard from the other side and quickly spotted him. “Are you Lenardo?”

  He jumped up. “Yes.”

  “Master Portia asks you to come to her study.”

  He Read them long before he got there: Portia behind her desk, a portrait of implacable anger; Julia standing by the door, chin jutted defiantly, arms folded across her chest, clutching something in one hand.

  When he entered, Portia said, “I could not contact you.”

  “I stopped Reading so that I would not intrude on you.”

  “At least you have not forgotten courtesy yourself, even if you have failed to instill it in your daughter.”

  He turned to the child. “Julia, what have you done?”

  “She insulted you, Father. She said you were corrupt, defiled-”

  He knelt down. “Julia, you know I have broken with the Code-”

  “Then the Code is wrong. It’s wicked! And she is wicked. She wants me to break loyalty to my liege lord.”

  Lenardo fought to remain calm. “Master Portia, you must understand that Julia is trying to cope with a whole new set of values. What she has known all her life-”

  “Lenardo,” Portia interrupted. “I would know how the child came to consider your her liege lord.”

  He rose to face her. “I have told you. The title is the only one the savages recognize, given to me because of my Reading powers. I made the error of thinking we could trust some of the Lords Adept, those not intent on destroying us. I was wrong. Instead of killing us, they would use us, which is worse than death. That is why I have returned and taken Julia out of their power.”

  Portia studied him, and he could feel her attempt to Read how truthful he was. “We shall see. It will take longer than I thought to gather the Council of Masters. We have many obligations, Lenardo. I want to be certain that all the most powerful Readers are present to examine you. Meanwhile, I do not want this child contaminating the girls here. Take her with you. No more harm can be done than has been already. We will decide what to do with her after your fate has been decided.”

  Leaving Julia with Lenardo meant that he could always be found through the child. He noted the ploy sardonically. If he did want to escape, he had no place to go. And when the Council of Masters examined him under Oath of Truth, they would find that he was no danger to them.

  Julia trudged beside Lenardo through the city streets, lost in her own thoughts. Finally she accused him. “You wanted to leave me in that place.”

  “Julia, I have told you ever since we met that I want you to be properly trained in an Academy. I had hoped it would be Portia’s, but it appears she will send you elsewhere.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Wherever I am assigned. It is hard, Julia, I know, but it is necessary for Readers to be trained in Academies. All the girls you saw or Read today have had to leave their families.”

  “So they’ll forget their loyalties,” Julia said through angry tears. “They don’t have to kill the parents the way Lords Adept do when they take a child as apprentice. Here the parents just walk away.”

  As your mother did, Lenardo remembered. Ignoring the crowds passing in the busy streets, he knelt and looked into the girl’s eyes. “Julia, I do not want to walk away from you. I love you very much, and I should have told you more. If you can trust me until we get back to the inn, I will explain everything.”

  But the explanations rang hollow in Lenardo’s own ears. “The Academy is the only place you can live safely, Julia. I want to keep you, but I cannot. In the savage lands, we are prey to the whims of the Adepts.”

  “Not if we learn Adept powers,” she pointed out.

  “That is not possible, Julia, and even if it were, what would it mean? More power struggles, more wars. Haven’t you seen enough battles in your short life?”

  “Power must be demonstrated,” she replied. “You were a great lord, Father. You used your powers foj the good of your people. You made allies to protect them from powerful enemies. You took an apprentice so that someone trained in your ways would rule after you.”

  “Oh, Julia,” he whispered, “can’t you see how wrong I was to do all those things?”

  “No, but I know why you think so. The Readers’ Code is all about not using power. Don’t Read to gain wealth. Don’t Read to destroy your enemies. Never help yourself, only the government-but a Reader can’t be in the government. Father, you say Adepts chain people’s minds, but it’s your mind that’s chained-by the Readers’ Code. They took you when you were a little boy and made you afraid to use your powers.”

  “Julia-”

  “You want me to be afraid, too, but I won’t be. You want to get rid of me-”

  “No!”

  “Because you’re scared of my powers. Portia’s scared of me and of you. You disobeyed her. She’s going to kill you for that, Father.”

  “Julia, you don’t understand. We are not savages here.”

  “Portia is. Only she’s not honest like Aradia or Wulfston.” Julia held out the object she had been clutching ever since they had left Portia’s office. “She gave me this scroll. The Readers’ Code. It’s new, but it was on Portia’s desk. She handled it. Do you want to know its story, Father?”

  “No.” But he was lying, and Julia knew it. “A senator came in a few days ago. He wanted to know about some merchant ships. He offered Portia money to Read another man for him. She wouldn’t do it.”

  “You see,” said Lenardo in relief. “She wouldn’t be bribed.”

  “She didn’t want money,” Julia continued. “She wanted him to vote against building a new Academy for boys.” “What?”

  Julia concentrated, her voice and vocabulary taking on echoes of what she Read. “Por
tia is afraid of… Master Clement. An old man, respected, honest. She thinks him foolish… dangerous. And the boys he has trained. That’s your Academy, isn’t it, Father?” “Yes.” He was too stunned to say more. “Portia wants the Senate to break up the Academy, retire Master Clement, and distribute the boys among other Academies. The teachers, too. One older boy she fears… Torio. She dares not try to win him over, and so she will make him fail his examinations. Father, what is the Sign of the Dark Moon?”

  “The badge of failed Readers: a black circle on white.” Julia frowned. “I don’t understand. When Portia thinks of Torio, she thinks of that and of a saying, ‘When the moon devours the sun, the earth will devour Tiberium.’ ” “I don’t understand either, child. Perhaps she is becoming confused with age.”

  “Father, she already controls more than half the Council of Masters.” The child’s voice took on a weird echo of Portia’s. “By influencing powerful nonReaders, these Masters control the Aventine Empire. It’s always been-the Master Readers must control the Senate or the people will destroy them out of fear.”

  Julia dropped the scroll on the bedside chest, coming out of her semitrance. The adult pose and language disappeared, and she was a little girl again, helpless and frightened. “You want to give me to that woman. She’ll kill me. She’ll kill you, Father.”

  “No, no, Julia.” He took her in his arms, trying to reassure her. “I’ll never let Portia have you.”

  It all fit together now: Years ago, when he was tested for the rank of magister, Lenardo had failed Portia’s personal test. He had been completely sincere in his adherence to the Reader’s Code, just as Master Clement had taught him. So he had been sent back to Adigia, perhaps to die in one of Drakonius’ raids but certainly to be kept ignorant of the true power of the Council of Masters. And Portia would never let him on that council.

  When he volunteered for exile to stop Galen, Portia had been agreeable, even eager, after Master Clement had elevated Lenardo to Master rank. She had not expected him to return. Julia was right. All Portia had to do was have someone “recognize” Lenardo, reveal his brand, and irate citizens would kill him. Master Clement need never know that it was other than tragic chance.