by Jean Lorrah
“I have no quarrel with that,” said Galen, “but more should be spared. You know a Reader of my ability could be a great help here at the academy, tutoring, healing “That is true,” Lenardo agreed. “However, those Readers who are not quite the best are the very ones who must produce the next generation, if the best Readers cannot. And, Galen,” he added, “you have now seen to it that you will never know if you would have made it into the top ranks. Is that what you intended?”
Instead of opening to cleansing grief, as Lenardo hoped he would, Galen just said, “I don’t know what I intended-except to make people see the truth. You have all those standard answers, which let you ignore the questions.”
“I don’t understand you, Galen.”
Galen’s eyes fixed on Lenardo’s. “I know, Magister Lenardo,” he said sadly. “I know.”
Now, two years later, Lenardo still felt the same frustrated guilt. He found it strangely easy to say Galen’s words publicly, even though he did not believe them. At his own brief trial, he insisted that the last savage attack on Adigia, using the force of an earthquake, had convinced him that the empire had no hope of surviving against such power. He then presented Galen’s argument-that the empire should seek peace with the savages by offering Readers’ abilities-as if it were his own.
For a moment, as he awaited sentencing, Lenardo wondered how much the non-Reader tribunal knew. Had they got wind of the fact that the last Reader they had exiled was now working for the enemy? Would the sentence be not exile but death? In horror, he discovered that some small part of him hoped it would be.
No. I must correct my mistake. How often had he made his students do their work over, insisting, “Mistakes are meant to be learned from.” So now he must try again to persuade Galen. He stood firm as the sentence of exile was pronounced.
***
To be sure the empire’s exiles could not return under assumed identity, each one was branded on the right arm with the head of a dragon, symbol of the mindless power of the savages. As Lenardo, dressed in sturdy traveling garments, was led to the gates of Adigia, he couldn’t help shuddering at the sight of the brazier, the iron already heating in the glowing coals.
He remembered when Galen was branded. Out of some strange mixture of expiation for himself and reassurance for the boy, he had meant to Read the pain with him. No Reader could shut out that kind of pain entirely-every Reader in Adigia suffered when someone in town felt agony, except the very young boys who could not yet Read beyond the confines of the academy. But Lenardo had intended to make no effort to close Galen out.
Deliberately he turned his mind from the thought as he approached the north gate of Adigia on his own day of exile. Torio and Master Clement walked on either side of him, dressed all in black-symbol of his death to them. In the gathered crowd were many familiar faces, a few students, townspeople, soldiers. He saw Linus with his wife and son. If-when-he found Galen, he would give him the good news that in two years the man whose life they had saved had recovered, enough to work, to play, to enjoy life. He still spoke haltingly and walked with a slight limp, but he was alive and grateful to be so.
Lenardo Read great confusion from the crowd-a Master Reader exiled? Many of them wondered why the government would not heed the words of so wise a man. If they only understood that Reading does not automatically confer wisdom! he thought bitterly.
Others were scornful, though. A number of times he half-heard, half-Read someone say, “The savages will show him. They know what to do with an exiled Reader!”
The soldiers waiting to perform the Acts of Exile were men he had known for years, non-Readers he had fought beside many a time before his skills had reached the level at which he could retire to the keep to direct the troops. Now one of the men gazed at him with contempt, but the Other, a grizzled old warrior with a scar down his cheek, had tears in his eyes. “Ye were ever a good man, Master,” he said gruffly. “I dinna understand. Ye guided us against the enemy not two weeks ago, and now they say ye be a traitor.”
“The emperor thinks my beliefs dangerous,” Lenardo replied neutrally.
“Aye, and it not be dangerous to leave Adigia wi’out ye? Ah, Master, may the gods bless and protect ye. Here.” He pulled at a chain about his neck, drawing an amulet from under his tunic. “I took this off one o’ them savages in my first battle. Tis said to be a powerful protection, Master, from one o’ their gods. And indeed, with all the battles I’ve been through, here I am, alive and healthy.”
“I cannot take your protection, Quintus,” Lenardo protested.
“Nay, lad-I am old. If I die in battle, that will please me better than living to weaken with age. You are young and going into danger.”
“Why do you want to protect a traitor?” snapped the other soldier.
“I dinna believe he be a traitor,” replied the old man, putting the chain around Lenardo’s neck.
Lenardo looked at the amulet for a momenta wolfs head carved from alabaster, the eyes a natural vein of violet just deep enough beneath the surface to show where the eyes were carved out. The stone was warm from the old soldier’s body. Lenardo realized that his hands were very cold.
As the crowd gathered to watch, Lenardo’s arm was strapped into the brace that would hold it for branding. Remembered shame rang through him: when Galen was branded, Lenardo had not been able to stand it. When the iron touched the boy’s skin, the pain was so unendurable that he had had to stop Reading, enduring only what he could not block out. Trapped in his own body, Galen had had no escape from agony.
But I have.
Lenardo watched in hypnotic fascination as the brand was prepared. As it approached, Torio and Master Clement supported his body. He relaxed against them, leaving his body, floating above, Reading the scene until the iron was taken away and Master Clement began to cover the wound with an ointment to ease the pain.
Sliding back into his body, feeling Torio’s arms supporting him, Lenardo moaned as incredible pain shot up into his shoulder and down into his hand from the burn. It was as if the red-hot iron were burning into him right now!
Both the other Readers gasped with Lenardo’s pain. The ointment did nothing to stop it. He was nauseated by the smell of burning flesh-his own flesh. A moan escaped him as he stared at the brand, the dragon’s head, not a quarter the size of the back of his hand, but burned deep into his forearm forever.
The ointment glistening on the red wound did not disguise the burn’s depth. He had not looked at Galen’s brand, never realized that it bit deep into the muscle under the skin. He would wear the mark of the traitor for the rest of his life.
Finally the pain let up enough that he could perceive there was a world around him, people staring, Torio and Master Clement waiting to escort him to the gate. Quintus unstrapped his arm, saying, “I ne’er did a sadder day’s work. The gods protect ye, Master.”
Silently, Lenardo walked to the gate between his teacher and his student. Master Clement said softly, “My hopes go with you, Lenardo. I know you will do all you can to stop Galen. Shall I Read for you?”
“Nay, Master, that would be too dangerous-and within a day or two, long before I could hope to discover anything, I shall be out of range. But think of me.”
“You know we do!” Torio groped blindly, found Lenardo’s shoulders, hugged him. Alone of all Readers, Torio had no aversion to touching because he had “seen” with his hands the first seven years of his life. The contact was not offensive. Lenardo held the boy warmly for a moment as Torio whispered fiercely, “Come back to us! The empire needs you, Master Lenardo. The academy needs you.”
“Take my place, Torio. I will return if I can-but you must prepare yourself as if there were no hope at all. Promise me.”
“Yes, Master,” whispered Torio, but as he pulled away he added, “but you will come back-you must!”
Chapter Two
The White Wolf
Lenardo walked a familiar road out of Adigia, for in his boyhood the border had been fa
r distant, and this land had been part of the Aventine Empire. Now it was a no-man’s-land between the walls of the empire and the lands the savages had taken. They built no walls to hold their borders; rather they pressed and pressed against the walls of the empire, driving ever farther toward the sea. Lenardo’s family had fled southward along this very road, before the retreating army, when the savages had taken the city of Zendi.
For some distance the road was wide and smooth, and Lenardo Read no one nearby. His arm ached and throbbed, making him wonder what he would do if it became necessary to use his sword.
Surely, though, he could avoid that possibility until his arm healed. What was known of the savages indicated that while they fought fiercely in battle, they were reasonably peaceful with one another. They were all mind-blind; the only way they would discover he was a Reader would be if he stupidly answered an unspoken question or revealed something he could not have known otherwise. They killed Readers out of superstitious dread. Otherwise it was a catch-as-catch-can world in which an Aventine exile had as much chance as anyone of carving out a place for himself. When that exile was a Reader, though, isolated among non-Readers, life would mean little.
Exiles were frequently seen among the savage troops. Lenardo had himself twice fought sword-to-sword with men who bore the brand but were otherwise indistinguishable from the mass of savages.
A scruffy lot the savages were, hair and beards long and tangled, armor primitive, barbaric trousers flapping about their legs. But they could fight! And they could die nobly, on the battlefield or under interrogation when captured. Lenardo had sometimes been called in to Read prisoners, but the common soldiers knew nothing of value to the empire.
The officers, of course, could not be captured-or if one was, he could not be kept. It seemed all officers had some degree of Adept powers. Before such people chains snapped, locks opened, and guards fainted dead away.
Through Reading and interrogating prisoners, Lenardo had learned a little of their language-or languages. Even in his small experience he had encountered variants far more disparate than the dialects of the empire. He hoped his knowledge would be adequate, but it should surprise no one if an exile with a still-fresh brand spoke the savage language haltingly.
The well-kept Aventine road narrowed, weeds and tree seedlings encroaching from either side, leaving barely room for a wagon to pass. Occasionally, where the roadbed had shifted, Lenardo had to skirt around holes full of stagnant water.
He had been exiled with only the clothes on his back and whatever he could carry. Master Clement had given him a small pouch of gold coins-good currency anywhere. Otherwise, besides his sword, he carried only a small pack of necessities.
By afternoon he began to see people here and there-peasants, barefoot and ragged, working in the fields. The crops looked good; he wondered why the people tending them should be unkempt and undernourished.
The road passed by a cluster of mud and wattle huts-surely no fit dwellings for human beings! The stench of garbage and excrement reached him, yet he saw stick-thin children playing before the huts, heard a baby crying. Reading, he found she was hungry, the pains of starvation cramping her swollen belly.
What manner of people were these? The savage soldiers sent against the empire were strong, sturdy, well equipped, well fed. Was that it-was all effort poured into the army, to the detriment of everyone else?
As he moved on into more populated areas, Lenardo Read the occasional thought to confirm his conclusion. There was sorrow in the land-everyone had lost husband, brother, son, or friend in the avalanche outside Adigia. In the simple peasants the loss was one of many sorrows, the latest tragedy in a string of miseries.
He approached Zendi, the border town of his childhood, near sundown. Lenardo remembered it as a large and beautiful city, bustling with life, a trade city of exotic sights, sounds, and smells. He had been happy there, playing with other children in the wide, clean streets. That was many years before he had seen the capital city of Tiberium, and to a small boy Wendi’s forum, surrounded by temples, government buildings, and the huge, elaborate bath house, had seemed a magical place.
Although he knew the savages would not have left Zendi in the state he remembered-indeed, parts of the city were going up in flames when he and his parents fled-Lenardo hoped that it would retain some degree of civilization. He wanted to find a room for the night, where he might lock the door and leave his body-and his pain-behind for a few hours. His arm could heal while he Read through the city for clues to Galen’s whereabouts. He didn’t really expect to discover anything so soon, but he knew of no way to search except to move from one heavily populated area to another, Reading. The breach of the Law of Privacy was necessary now, just as it was in medical cases; Lenardo would not linger over thoughts that did not concern him.
Zendi, he found, had changed greatly since his childhood. The first thing to hit him, a good distance from Southgate, was the smell. It stank like the cluster of peasant huts, intensified. As he approached, he almost gagged -but slowly the miasma seemed to deaden the inside of his nose.
The source of the stench was the open sewer running down the middle of each crowded street. Lenardo hugged the walls, appalled by the filth and squalor. What had happened to the efficient underground sewers of every Aventine city?
The answer was easy to guess. Haphazard structures rising several rickety stories replaced the well-built wooden houses burned when the savages took the city. There were at least five times as many people crowded within Zendi’s walls as the town had been built for. Such an influx had undoubtedly overloaded the system-and when it broke down, no one knew how to fix it.
And what of their vaunted magical powers? Lenardo wondered. Have they put all their Adepts to making war, leaving them no time to help the common people? There were soldiers everywhere in the city, the only people who looked healthy, well fed, well clothed.
Beggars came up to Lenardo, tugging at his cloak, grimy hands outstretched. “Coin, Meister?” they asked plaintively, but Lenardo brushed them aside, shielding his injured arm against his body. Each time he was jostled, new -shocks of pain surged through it, keeping him from concentrating on Reading the city. He dared not answer any comments thrown at him, lest he reply to a thought rather than a word. Let them think he knew nothing of their language at all.
He decided that he could not stop in the town. He would walk straight through, Reading as he went, and take the north road out into the fresh country air again before seeking rest. Darkness held no terrors for a Reader, but in the open he dared not leave his body. He noticed a diminishing of his Reading powers already; the weaker his body grew, the less he would be able to Read and the greater the chance of missing some clue to Galen’s fate. He had hoped tonight to let his body do the healing it could accomplish only at perfect rest.
But exiles who were not Readers survived branding. His arm would heal, even if more slowly than he had hoped. He felt eyes on him, not the curious” glances from every side, but a steady stare. An officer was looking him up and down, studying him carefully.
Lenardo knew what he saw: a tall, well-muscled man approaching thirty years of age, wearing a sword. No man would wear a sword unless he could use it. Thus Lenardo was not surprised when the officer approached him and spoke in slow but understandable Aventine.
“Fresh across the border, I see,” he said with a pointed glance at the blistered brand. “Welcome, stranger.”
Surprised, Reading that the young officer truly regarded him as a fortunate discovery, Lenardo replied, “Thank you.”
“We can use strong men like you in Braccho’s army,” said the officer. “It’s a good life, all you can eat, warm clothing, good pay, and battle rights. Braccho’s not one to take away what his soldiers find, women or treasure.”
“It��� sounds a tempting offer,” Lenardo lied. “However, as you noted, I have come from that ungrateful empire this very day. Before I commit myself again, I would like to see what this sid
e of the border has to offer. Your leader-Braccho?-would not want a pledge given in ignorance.”
The young officer grinned cheerfully. “No, but I’ll warrant in a day or two you’ll agree there’s no better life to be found. Come to the East Barracks and ask for Arkus. We’ll show you how to get back at your tormentors for-that” As he spoke, Lenardo’s cloak pulled away as if of its own accord, revealing the brand clearly. But as the cloak fell against it again, he winced at the contact and the officer said, “Aye, we know how to take the sting from such a wound-revenge is sweet balm.”
“I shall remember that, Arkus,” said Lenardo. “Perhaps you are right. If I decide to join your army, I shall certainly seek you out.”
“Soon, I warrant,” replied the officer, and he strode away.
When Arkus had spoken of revenge, Lenardo had picked up the man’s own desire for revenge-not a clear thought but a kind of simmering anger surrounded by vague images. He felt betrayed, not personally, but as a soldier and a citizen. A split-second memory gave Lenardo some information, but it was negative: it was not Galen’s betrayal being avenged when six huge shields were hung up-in the forum? No, they had been there, a permanent fixture. The top one was the largest, black on gold. Below it five smaller emblems in blue, white, gold, green, and brown. The image flashed so quickly through Arkus’ mind, and was gone again, that Lenardo got no clear sight of the shields.
There was, along with the image, a sense of frustrated anger and the smell of scorched leather. That was all, as Arkus had not remembered the entire scene but merely had a flash of recall associated with the idea of revenge.