Savage Empire se-1

by Jean Lorrah

  In order to be exiled, Lenardo had to pretend to treason -and what more likely than the very treason Galen had committed? It had happened two years before, on a day of failure and triumph. Galen and Lenardo had taken the afternoon to pick mushrooms in the wood not far from Adigia. Lenardo was trying to teach Galen to Read directly whether the mushrooms were poisonous or not, rather than judging by their possibly deceptive appearance. At almost eighteen, the boy did not yet have the sensitivity. He should have had it; Lenardo found himself scolding him several times for not concentrating. He worried about Galen; would his student fail his final test as a Reader?

  Master Clement had already voiced that fear. Lenardo redoubled his efforts to teach the boy; that was why he had not let Torio come with them that day.

  Despite Lenardo’s individual attention, the lesson was not going well. “What does it matter?” Galen demanded in frustration. “I haven’t picked any poisonous ones. Non-Readers don’t poison themselves either.”

  “Galen, you are old enough and bright enough to know that mushrooms are not the point. You will need this same sensitivity when you go for your medical training. You must be able to Read what poisons may be in the body of a sick person, or you might give him the wrong medicine.”

  “I have more than two years,” Galen said defensively. “I’ll learn it!”

  “You should have learned it already.”

  “You think everybody should be like your precious Torio!” Galen snapped. “Don’t bother to tell me he could Read these stupid mushrooms, and he’s not sixteen yet.”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you that. Galen, you need not compete with Torio. There is no competition among Readers. But you want to stay at the academy, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. I plan to be a Master Reader.”

  Lenardo doubted the boy had that much talent. Nonetheless, it was a proper goal. “Then you must learn to concentrate. Here-try again. Just behind those trees-”

  “I can Read them!” Galen said impatiently, and Lenardo withheld the chiding comment he should have given for the boy’s rudeness. Recently Galen’s attitude had deteriorated severely, but all the teachers had found that scolding him and punishing him only seemed to make it worse. What had happened to the boy who had so loved to learn?

  “Stay where you are, and tell me if those mushrooms are edible,” Lenardo directed as if he hadn’t. noticed Galen’s tone.

  Galen frowned in concentration. He was a beautiful boy who had never gone through a period of adolescent awkwardness, perhaps because he had not shot up in height as most boys did. He was still more than a head shorter than Lenardo, slender, younger looking than his years. He had outgrown sickliness in childhood but still looked delicate, ethereal. His hair was reddish blond, his skin pale and faintly freckled, with no trace of beard yet. Perhaps his appearance had caused all the teachers to baby him..

  Soon he will be eighteen, and he will be put to the test like any other Reader. I must see that he does not fail.

  Deliberately not Reading, so he would not accidentally transmit information to Galen, Lenardo watched the boy’s concentration. “There’s a big patch of them,” Galen said finally, “all edible.”

  “Very well,” said Lenardo, concealing his disappointment, “let’s go have a closer look. It’s a good thing there are plenty to top off our basket-there’s a storm coming.”

  What Galen had missed was one small patch of death cup mushrooms to the side of the unusually large clump of common edible ones. Perhaps he had not concentrated on them at all, pulling his old trick of deducing what he could not Read. His high intelligence compensated for weak Reading skill in the classroom; it was in the field that Galen’s inadequacies showed.

  Still not Reading, Lenardo bent beside Galen, gathering the fresh mushrooms, leaving the older stalks. Tonight there would be a casserole of eggs and mushrooms on the refectory table.

  According to the lesson, Galen was supposed to be Reading each mushroom as he picked it. Lenardo carefully picked in a pattern that edged Galen toward the poisonous ones. The boy finished plucking all those he could reach, looked around, and moved toward the group of death cups. Lenardo’s heart sank. He shouldn’t have to go near them to Read they were poisonous!

  To Lenardo’s horror, Galen reached out and broke off two of the deadly mushrooms.

  “Galen!” he exclaimed before the boy could toss them into the basket. “If you’re not going to Read, look!”

  “But I-” The boy stared at the mushrooms in his hand, turned pale, and then an angry red. “That’s not fair! You pushed me this way!”

  “Yes, I did,” said Lenardo. “I thought you would discover the death cups for yourself, and then I could have praised you. Look-the moment you bothered to use your eyes you saw the fatal cup around the stem.”

  The boy threw the poisonous mushrooms aside and scrubbed his hand roughly against his robe, fighting down tears. Trying to guide him to make something positive of the experience, Lenardo asked, “What can you learn from this mistake?”

  “That I might have poisoned myself and everyone at the academy!” Galen said grimly.

  “No,” said Lenardo, “you already knew that a Reader’s mistake can cost his life or those of others. It is the corollary to that lesson that you refuse to learn, Galen-and that, more than any deficiency in your Reading skill, is what will cause you to fail your final test. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Know your limitations,” Galen quoted.

  “Not only know them, but admit them,” Lenardo added. “You have many years before you will come to the peak of your Reading skills. No Reader under thirty is yet in full command of his powers.”

  “I know that,” Galen said dully.

  “No,” Lenardo replied, “you have heard it time and again, but you refuse to know it. And that makes you dangerous. Galen, you knew you were not Reading the mushrooms properly. Any ten-year-old would have had the sense to look at them!”

  “I did look!” Galen protested. “I looked when you told me to Read them from behind the trees. They all looked edible!” His vehemence died. “I guess I didn’t check every single one,” he admitted. “Cook would have caught-” He hung his head. “No, don’t say it. That’s not the point. I won’t let it happen again.”

  That was the Galen Lenardo loved, able to admit his mistakes and go on.

  “Good. Now I want you to practice checking your Reading through your other senses. I do it. Even Master Clement does it. It’s only common sense.”

  “You scold me for doing it in class.”

  “Galen, don’t pretend stupidity. How can you know your limitations if you cheat when we are testing them?”

  “Yes, Magister,” the boy said resignedly. Lenardo longed to Read what was going on in his mind, but Galen had not invited such scrutiny, and so the Law of Privacy prevailed. But if the boy’s sunny enthusiasm continued to disintegrate into these mood swings, how was be to learn the final lessons that would allow him to reach the top ranks of Readers?

  Among the older boys, only Galen and Torio showed the deep sensitivity that would keep them in the brotherhood of the academy. The others would be trained to the fullest extent of their abilities, then assigned to places where even a Reader of limited capacity would be welcome. Most would serve with the army for two or three years, directing the troops in the constant battle against the savages. Then they would be married off to similarly limited female Readers, to lose much of whatever powers they had in breeding a new generation of Readers. Lenardo’s parents had been assigned in that fashion to the city of Zendi. He remembered little of them now, except their determination that their children would not fail their final tests and suffer a similar fate.

  As Lenardo and Galen came out of the woods into the fields around Adigia, thunder rumbled and the first fat raindrops fell. Lightning flashed, and they quickened their pace. The rain remained light, but the lightning and thunder increased, coming together as the storm approached. Harvester
s in the fields ran to hold their’ frightened horses lest the loaded wagons overturn.

  “Hoi Magister Lenardo! Can I give ye a lift?”

  “Thank you kindly,” Lenardo began as one of the hay wagons slowed beside them, the driver fighting the frightened team. Setting his heels, the man rose to his feet, hauling on the reins as Lenardo, panic striking through him with the flash of foreknowledge, cried, “No! Get down!”

  But it was too late. Lightning bolted the man to the wagon for one paralyzed instant as the crash of thunder shook the earth. Then the screaming horses dashed forward, and the driver tumbled to the ground, limp as a poleless scarecrow.

  Both Lenardo and Galen were on him at once, working in unison, Reading for broken bones or internal injuries before they spread Lenardos cloak and laid the man on it. It was the work of moments. //His heart’s stopped,// said Galen. //He’s not breathing!//

  //Pump his lungs,// Lenardo instructed, for Galen already ‘knew basic emergency procedures. The boy bent to his task while Lenardo Read for the right spot to place his hands, where the force he might apply would be transmitted to the man’s heart. Then he was working automatically, Reading, hardly thinking.

  Is he dead? There was not enough damage from the lightning to account for the lack of response in the limp body. As the rain began to pour down on them, the man’s body temperature started to drop. Were they trying to revive a corpse? There were fine nerves, infinitely small structures in the human body that Lenardo had not the sensitivity to Read-no Reader had. He could -Read no unconscious mind either-just a physical shell.

  //It’s no use,// he told Galen.

  //No!// the boy protested, continuing his ministrations. Lenardo remembered that this was the first time Galen was putting what he had learned to use in a real emergency. How hideous to have his first patient die!

  //Galen, he was dead before we touched him.// He sat back on his heels, rubbing his hands.

  “No!” Galen cried out loud. He was soaked through now, his hair plastered to his skull as the rain beat on them. Still he moved quickly to the other side of the man’s body and took up trying to pump his heart.

  “Galen, it’s no-Wait!” A flicker-a mind. “You’re right, Galen! Go on!” Lenardo took up the task of forcing air into the man’s lungs.

  Galen said, his voice shaken by his stiff-armed bouncing on the man’s chest, “If-I were-one of those-savage Adepts-I’d force -his heart-to work.”

  //Hush!// Lenardo warned him. //People are watching us.// For, indeed, a crowd had gathered to watch the revival effort.

  Suddenly he Read a heartbeat. A pause, then another, agonized spasms, and then an unsteady rhythm. At the same time, the man gasped, groaned, and began to breathe stertorously.

  The two Readers sat back, watching, as a murmur of wonder came from the gathered workers. Then a young man came to kneel beside them.

  “Father?”

  “He can’t hear you,” said Lenardo, “but he’s alive.”

  “Thank the gods you were here!” the man said.

  Lenardo projected warmly to Galen, //Thank the gods you wouldn’t give up!//

  As soon as the man’s condition seemed stable, they carried him to his house, where his wife scurried about, putting him to bed, then insisting that the two drenched Readers warm themselves before the fire. Lenardo intended to stay until the man regained consciousness, for he feared that after the length of time he had been��� dead��� there might be irreparable damage. For that reason, he tried to send Galen on to the academy, but just as the boy was about to leave, their patient suddenly woke with a hoarse cry.

  The man sat up, staring, uttering garbled noises. He lifted his arms, but his right hand flopped limply, out of control. He stared at it in horror and made more panicked sounds. His wife rushed to his’ side, trying to push him back on the pillow as she said, “It’s all right, Linus. You’re alive. You’re at home.”

  His eyes became even more stricken as he stared at her, and Lenardo Read that her words were being twisted by Linus’ wounded mind into the same incoherent nonsense that he was uttering. The couple’s son, who had stayed to help his mother, cried out, “No! The lightning addled his brain!”

  “He can be helped!” Lenardo quickly assured them. “At the academy, Readers can reach his mind.” The symptoms were similar to those of a stroke. Readers could touch the unspoken desires of such a victim and help lead him back to communication.

  Lenardo sat on the edge of the bed, looking into Linus’ face, not speaking lest he frighten the man further. Linus stared at him in confusion. Then he spoke-the words were nonsense, but beneath them Lenardo Read, //Magister Lenardo?//

  Lenardo smiled and nodded, taking the man’s left hand and squeezing it as additional assurance that he understood.

  //Help me?// This time Linus made no effort to speak aloud.

  Again Lenardo nodded, then reached out to close the man’s eyes, urging him to rest. Relieved that there was someone who understood, Linus relaxed and drifted toward sleep.

  “He recognizes people,” Lenardo assured the man’s wife and son. “I don’t think his intelligence is impaired. Let him sleep through the night here, and in the morning we’ll take him to the academy. One of the Readers will come back and spend the night, in case he needs anything.”

  “You can make him well?” Linus’ wife asked.

  “I’ve seen others with the same problem cured,” Lenardo replied. No sense telling her now that a few never improved and that almost every victim retained some impairment.

  “Thank you for saving his life,” she said fervently.

  “You can thank Galen,” Lenardo began.

  “I should have let him die!” the boy burst out. “You knew what would happen! Why didn’t you make me stop?”

  The boy had not yet been to Gaeta, where Readers studied in the great hospital. He had not seen the seeming miracles Readers could perform in curing afflictions of the mind, or the skill they had developed in curing the body when they could Read the cause of the illness.

  “Galen, yon did the right thing,” Lenardo said aloud, for Linus’ family to hear. “Linus will recover.” //Will you be quiet and stop frightening these people?// he added, but Galen was stubbornly closed to Reading. -

  “It was too long!” the boy insisted. “You knew! We couldn’t save him with our hands. Only an Adept could have revived him in time!”

  That again. “Galen, stop it! Do you want these good people to think you’re a fool? You’re not thinking.”

  “I’ve thought it out before, and no one will listen! Healing is the one thing we can trade with the savages-a place to start. Why won’t the emperor even try?”

  “Shut up, boy,” growled Linus’ son. “You don’t talk treason in my father’s house!”

  “Your father almost died! Now he’ll suffer for-the rest of his life-but if there’d been a savage Adept with us-”

  Lenardo grabbed Galen in anger and fear, shaking him soundly. “The savages kill. They don’t cure; they Ml! Stop this before you get yourself exiled so they can kill you!”

  But it was too late. Linus” son reported Galen’s words to the commander of the local army. Lenardo often thought it was the horror of his father’s condition that caused the younger man to take a kind of revenge on Galen. Had Linus either died or recovered with only minor problems, his son would probably have ignored Galen’s outburst. But visiting his father day after day, finding him still unable to understand or communicate, he had to take out his frustration somehow.

  Galen was no help to his own cause. He took his trial as a forum to propose that the empire sue for peace by offering the savages the services of Readers. Nothing Lenardo or Master Clement could say about the folly of youth did the least good. Galen was condemned to exile. His words upon being sentenced were a final defiance: “Then perhaps I shall have to bring about peace by myself!”

  Lenardo had feared then that the sentence would be changed to death. But no, Readers
had been exiled before, and none had ever succeeded in ingratiating themselves with the Adepts. The empire knew that, for a Reader, exile did mean death. He wondered if any non-Reader could understand. Even if a Reader did not give himself away, being cut off from the rapport with other Readers would make death seem preferable to such a life.

  Galen was to be sent into exile the next morning. Lenardo spent the night in a fruitless attempt to teach the boy the technique of leaving his body, so he could avoid the pain of branding. It was a lesson Galen would have begun on his eighteenth birthday, less than a month away-but it was a rare Reader who learned it on his first attempt. Lenardo knew there was little hope that Galen could achieve it in his state of emotional turmoil, but he had to try.

  What he learned was that Galen thought himself incapable of that final test-that he expected to fail and be removed from the academy. And that he thought it was not fair.

  Lenardo touched that night on fragments of Galen’s feelings kept hidden up to now. Although the teacher had no intent to invade his privacy, the student was so upset that his private thoughts kept surfacing��� or perhaps something within him wanted Lenardo to know them.

  Why were Readers kept out of government? Surely with their strictly enforced Code they were more trustworthy than the non-Readers who entered politics. Why were the tests for Readers so stringent? The academies never had enough staff because they insisted on that final ability to leave the body before one was safe from being married off, one’s sensitivity destroyed through sexuality. He’d even heard that reluctant couples were drugged “Galen, why didn’t you tell me these things were on your mind?” Lenardo asked in dismay. “You’ve been listening to ignorant, vicious gossip. Those stories are simply not true. I would know!”

  “How would you know? They didn’t marry you off-but then you always perform the tricks they ask, don’t you, Magister Lenardo? Just like a trained dog, never questioning, always getting patted on the head by the Masters.”, Lenardo let the insult pass. “Galen, you know the answers to your questions. The powers Readers have are not appropriate to governing. And as for why not all Readers can remain secluded in the academies, where would the next generation of Readers come from? Non-Readers sometimes have Reader children-but Readers always do. And since the act of procreation severely diminishes a Reader’s ability, does it not make sense that the very best Readers should be spared?”