Dragonlord of the Savage Empire se-2

by Jean Lorrah

  And when I am dead, what will happen to Julia? The child clung to him. She had no faith left in him, but she also had no one else. He had failed her, failed all his responsibilities, had never wanted any beyond those of a teacher in an Academy. He was not a questioner, and so he had failed Galen, who was.

  I don’t know what I am. Other people always define me.

  Reader. Fate had made him that.

  Teacher. Master Clement had encouraged his star pupil to remain in the Academy.

  Traitor. Galen’s treachery had prompted the plan; Galen’s words spoken by Lenardo had sealed his doom.

  Exile. Portia’s plan to be rid of him, the dragon’s-head brand on his arm defining him for all to see.

  Lord of the Land. Aradia had made him that.

  Father. Julia’s idea, not his, but he had accepted it.

  I accepted it all, and then I ran away from it all. Failed, even at being an exile, for here I am, home again.

  Where Portia had expected him to fail, he hadn’t-and one other thing he had not failed at. He was a Reader, the most powerful Reader ever known. Portia had attempted today to define him as a failed Reader by allowing him into her presence. But… I do not accept her definition!

  His powers were the one thing no one else could give or take away, and through them he must get Julia to a place of safety. They had sneaked into the Aventine Empire, and they would sneak out again. Portia would not expect it; she didn’t know what Julia had Read in the scroll, and she expected Lenardo to do exactly what he had always done before: whatever she told him. Besides, she thought that he had no place to go.

  But I have a land to rule!

  Wulfston was alone in Zendi now, still telling people that he was Lenardo’s regent. ‘/ make him live up to it, Lenardo thought in sudden glee. Wulfston’s definition, but I’ll make it come true. I’ll ride into town, thank him in a public ceremony, and politely throw him out.

  Thank the gods, Aradia had gone back to her own land. Lenardo would not have to face her again until he had truly established himself as the lord his people expected. That meant using his powers, not fearing them. If he decided to define himself once and for all as Lord of the Land, he must be prepared openly and honestly to exercise power.

  Let the corruption in the Aventine government work until it destroyed itself. Lenardo and his allies would be waiting just beyond the pale, ready to take advantage. There would be no need to attack; Lenardo’s powers would tell them the right moment to move in. Aradia, Wulfston, and Lilith would welcome him back on those terms.

  Aradia. She had been dishonest with him, but was her drugging him really that much worse than his plan to seduce her, not because he loved her but to blunt her powers? She had not intended to harm him. Her motive had been to conceive a child.

  Suddenly what he had overheard at Portia’s Academy today flashed into his mind. Celia, the healer’s patient, had feared that she was not pregnant because her flux had begun. Aradia-Aradia had assumed the same thing.

  Aradia may be carrying my child. Blessed gods, why was I so angry I did not think to Read her to be certain?

  He knew what to do now. He could easily Read Castle Nerius from here, contact Aradia, and Read her condition. She had been so positive she was pregnant, terribly disappointed that she was not.

  She is. I’m sure she is, and with a child to unite us, we will find a way to work together. She will help me now, once I get out of the empire.

  “Julia,” Lenardo told the weeping child, hugging her, “I know what to do now. We’re going back to Zendi!”

  She looked up at him. “Can we?”

  “We came all this way, didn’t we? We escaped Aradia and Wulfston. We survived an earthquake. What can a few Readers do to us? Now wash your face and go to sleep, because we’re going to sneak away in the middle of the night. I’ll wake you.”

  She clung to him, daring tentative hope. “Yes, Father.”

  Lenardo tucked her into bed, supervising the meditation exercise he had taught her to send her to sleep despite her excitement. Then he Read outward, beyond the city, beyond the pale, to Castle Nerius. There he had first met Aradia, helped to cure her father, and fought in the battle of Adepts. There Aradia had made him a lord.

  Bright moonlight flooded the landscape as Lenardo “traveled” in his mind. Strange-from here he ought to “see” the castle towers. Hopeful expectation turned to concern and then to fear. He found the hills, the road, the forest. In a nearby field, the flat rock where they built the funeral pyres lay empty, cold in the pale moonlight.

  As he approached the castle, his anxiety increased, and then he saw it, its walls and towers fallen, smoke rising from the remains of the houses that had clustered about its gate. There was no sign of life.

  She’s dead! By all the gods, I deserted her, and now she’s dead, and our child with her!

  Chapter Seven

  Lenardo’s panic subsided slightly as he remembered that he had Read Aradia in Zendi only a few hours before. She could not possibly have reached home yet, could not have been in the castle when it was blasted.

  He found her in the rocky hills on the border between their lands, alive but besieged, trying desperately to Read where the blows were coming from that struck all around her. People and horses lay dead, and as Lenardo watched, another thunderbolt roared down just beside Aradia’s horse. The horse screamed and reared. She fought it down and turned, constantly moving, zigzagging, for if she stopped, she became an easy target. There was no place to hide.

  Her Reading powers could not begin to cover the distance between her and her attackers, until Lenardo Read with her. When his mind touched hers, she gasped.

  //Lenardo! Where are you? Oh, Lenardo, I’m so sorry.//

  //So am I. Read with me!//

  He guided her northward, to where a circle of Adepts surrounded a Reader relaying instructions to them. //Get the Reader,// Lenardo instructed, but to project to Aradia, he projected to the renegade Reader as well. Aradia went blank to Reading to exercise her Adept power, and the thunderbolt she cast sizzled through the ground where he had been a moment before.

  “It’s Lenardo,” the Reader told his Adept cohorts. “Even with him to guide her, Aradia’s only one against four. Keep moving!”

  The Reader… was Galen.

  //But he’s dead,// said Aradia.

  //We never found his body,// Lenardo reminded her.//

  //And I’ve fought one of those Adepts before: Hron. He and Galen must have survived the battle last spring. Never mind. Ride for Zendi while I distract them.//

  //Is that where you are?//

  //No, but I’ll be there as soon as I can. Ride!//

  Lenardo could sense that Galen was equally confused, Reading what Lenardo projected but unable to find him physically to give the Adepts a target. They would return to trying to kill Aradia unless he could distract them somehow. An idea formed slowly, a deception through Reading. Was it possible?

  As Aradia and her train galloped off toward Zendi, Lenardo deliberately did not Read them but instead tried imagining them moving at a slightly different angle, imagined himself galloping with them. A sheet of flame scorched the ah-just in front of his imaginary horse. He resisted the urge to “ride” through it and instead imagined himself almost being thrown, fighting the animal back under control, and continuing toward where he wanted the Adepts to think Aradia was. He had to make them waste energy. Then they would have to spend hours in the Adepts’ deep recuperative sleep, allowing him time to reach Zendi.

  It’s a three-day journey.

  No, by the gods, I’ll ride night and day, stealing fresh horses as I need them!

  He could not think further. He was too busy making Galen think that he was with Aradia’s train, ducking thunderbolts and sheets of flame, telling Aradia’s false image truthfully, “We’re almost out of Galen’s range.”

  As he hoped, that brought a renewed volley of wasted shots. He envisioned a supply wagon going up in flames, the
driver leaping for safety while the screaming horses dashed in panic, spreading sparks through the night. All the while Lenardo could clearly sense Galen Reading him, urging the Adepts to kill him while trying to make sense of the shifting perceptions. Had Galen never learned to leave his body? If he had, he declined to use the ability now, as Lenardo galloped his phantom retinue out of range of Galen’s abilities.

  It was a lesser range than the boy had had last spring.

  He had Read farther both at the battle at Adigia and at the battle near Castle Nerius. Perhaps Galen was ill or not fully recovered from the injuries he had sustained in that last battle.

  When he felt contact with Galen fade, Lenardo let his imaginary train of riders fade as well and, in the same state of heightened awareness in which he had eavesdropped on the Master Readers without their sensing him, sought out Galen and the circle of Lords Adept. There were four Adepts with the Reader, one of them Hron, Aradia’s former ally who had betrayed her to join forces with Drakonius.

  The other three Lenardo did not know: a man and two women, tired and-annoyed that their plan to pick off Aradia and her allies one at a time was not working.

  “Lenardo was supposed to be in Zendi,” Hron was saying threateningly to Galen. “What was he doing with Aradia? We would have had her without his help. Now she’ll join with her brother and the Reader in Zendi.”

  “We must go north and take Lilith,” said one of the women.

  “Marava is right,” the other man said. “If we proceed to Zendi, we could be trapped between Lenardo’s forces there and Lilith’s to the north.”

  Lenardo recognized their plan. They had circled far to the east and come to Aradia’s land from that direction, thinking to take the strongest Adept first in a sneak attack, four against one.

  And the earthquake-not a direct attack this time, but Julia had been right. It was set off by the Adepts, to throw Aradia’s land into confusion to keep her watchers from noticing a party of four moving toward Castle Nerius.

  The Adepts were preparing a message in their own watcher’s Code. Would they flash visible signals through Aradia’s land even if no one there could interpret them? Their combined army was gathered north of Lilith’s border, waiting for the signal to attack. The Adepts would sleep, renewing their strength, but meanwhile their army was to breach Lilith’s borders in a surprise attack. By the time she could call her troops into action, the Adepts would be at full strength again-and in concert with their army they could move freely, give chase if by some chance she should escape. Although pinned between an army to the north and a circle of Adepts to the south, there was little hope for Lilith.

  If only there were more Readers in my land, Lenardo thought desperately. But there was no one to whom to relay the message except Aradia. She would have to warn Lilith any way she could.

  Lenardo Read, fascinated as Hron, Marava, and the others worded their message, unpacking and consuming as they did so one of those tremendous meals Adepts ate. It no longer surprised Lenardo; he had frequently seen the slender, delicate Aradia consume a meal worthy of three men who had worked in the fields all day.

  Meal and message complete, the four Adepts sat down on the ground, arms extended and hands clasped to form a literal circle.

  “Galen,” said Hron, “is our army in position as agreed?

  The lantern in place?”

  “You know I can’t Read that far,” Galen said sullenly.

  “If you had-”

  “Help us win this battle,” Hron said, “and I will heal you completely.”

  Lenardo had not been Reading Galen physically, but he would have noticed if the boy were in pain. Now he Read visually.

  He would never have recognized Galen by sight. He was hideously disfigured from the burns he had received in the battle of Adepts last spring. Hron, Lenardo noted, was unscarred, with only his short hair and beard attesting to the fact that they had been burned away four months ago.

  Both Hron and Galen must have been horribly burned. Lenardo had been convinced that no one had survived the fire in the canyon. Only Adept powers could have saved these two when they somehow escaped alive.

  It was easy enough to guess what Hron had done. Although he had applied his powers to his own complete recovery, all he had done for Galen was to keep him alive, letting his burns heal as they would. His skin was a mass of scar tissue, his face a mockery, with holes for eyes, nose, and mouth in an otherwise shapeless blob. His hands were stiffened into claws. He could move and walk without pain but also without the ease necessary to effect an escape, and his horrible appearance would mark him wherever he might go.

  Sick at heart, Lenardo was reminded of the legends of the founding of the Aventine Empire, when Readers were just developing their powers. The first Emperor was reputed to have gained the throne with the aid of a Reader whom he lamed so that the man could not run away.

  If Hron had the power to heal himself, he could have healed Galen, but he didn’t trust him. Perhaps he never would, but by dangling the promise of being fully healed before Galen, he would make the Reader perform as desired.

  Lenardo watched the Adepts concentrate, chanting in unison the rhythm of the code they were transmitting. To the north of Lilith’s land, soldiers kept watch by a lantern. When the flame began to dance rhythmically, they quickly called their commander.

  The message was repeated several times. Then the commander began to mobilize his troops while the four Adepts fell into deep recuperative sleep.

  Lenardo returned his attention to Aradia. //You drew them away,// she said. //How, Lenardo?//

  Ill used Reading to fool Galen. The Masters who taught me would disapprove, but it worked. Aradia, you must get word to Lilith. There is an army moving against her from the north, to trap her between them and the circle of Adepts.//

  //The watchers will send the message, and I’ll send riders as well. She and her son must join me in Zendi. And you, Lenardo-//

  //I will be there as quickly as I can. Hurry, now. You and Wulfston join the minor Adepts you’ve been training. You can equal the four Adepts attacking.//

  He had withdrawn his attention back to where he was, at the inn in Tiberium, before he remembered that he had intended to Read whether Aradia was pregnant. Julia was still sleeping peacefully. A few more minutesFirst he Read the immediate area of the inn, a superficial scan. Of course, no one was coming after them here.

  It was almost midnight. Downstairs, the landlord had barred the door for the night. Most of the guests were asleep. A couple of revelers walked laughing down the street outside toward a discreet house of prostitution a small distance away.

  And then Lenardo Read another figure moving swiftly through the night, as surefooted as most men walked at noon. Torio! He was Reading only his way, projecting nothing, but it was obvious he was headed straight for the inn.

  Lenardo didn’t want the boy pounding on the door and rousing the household. He slipped quietly out of his room and down the stairs. No one was stirring. Lenardo unbarred the door for Torio and then barred it again.

  //What are you doing here?//

  “Don’t Read,” Torio whispered. “I tried to come undetected. Take me up to your room.”

  He took Lenardo’s arm, willing to be led blindly through the inn rather than risk notice by Reading further. What could he possibly fear that much?,

  “You can’t come into my room,” Lenardo reminded him. “My daughter is there. A female Reader.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Torio said, his voice choked with tears. “They’ve failed me, so it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Failed?”

  “Shh! Master Lenardo, it has to do with you. Please, let’s go where we can’t be overheard.”

  Lenardo led Torio up the stairs and into his room, installing him in the single chair.

  “Now what is this about failing you?”

  “It’s true.” Torio’s milky eyes drifted, unfocused, when he was not Reading. Tears slid down his cheeks as
he continued. “After I made sure all the younger boys were asleep, I went to Master Clement’s room to find out what he had heard from you. While I was there, Portia contacted us. She said-” his voice broke again “she said my conduct in not reporting that you contacted me last week was a breach of the Code. She said I’m unfit to teach and that my skills are not up to the standards required to continue training.”

  “That’s a lie,” Lenardo said angrily. “Torio, your skills are far beyond what mine were at your age, and I was passed without question.”

  “Master Clement tried to reason with her, but she says it’s settled. I’ve been failed. Tomorrow-”

  “Yes, Torio? What about tomorrow?”

  “Master, they won’t let me have medical training or serve with the army or anything. Portia told me to report to her at noon tomorrow… to meet my wife.” He struck away his tears angrily, but there was a wealth of despair behind the gesture. “Master Lenardo, what am I going to do?”

  “You’re not going to report to Portia, that’s certain. And you’re not getting married, unless some day you want to.”

  “I’ll never-”

  “Don’t say never, Torio. I plan to get married as soon as I get home and reclaim my land.”

  “Home? Your land?”

  “That’s right. A land where no one but a Reader himself decides what he can or cannot do. Where Readers and Adepts share their powers for the good of all.”

  “That’s not possible,” the boy said.

  “Would you like it to be?”

  A pause. Then, “Oh, Master Lenardo, if only it could be.”

  “It can be, Torio, but only if we make it so. Come with me. We need Readers desperately. Poor Julia’s been carrying a full work load at her age.”

  At the mention of her name, Julia woke up, squirming and rubbing her eyes. Then she stared at Torio. “I know you. I’ve seen you in Father’s mind. You were there when he got the wolf-stone. Torio.”