Savage Empire se-1

by Jean Lorrah

  “I didn’t say anything either way, but if I hadn’t been delirious when Wulfston found me, you wouldn’t know. However, I can’t be sure Galen credits me with common sense, or that he knows what sense is any more. Now what do we do?”

  “Wait for Drakonius to act. Now lie. down for a while, and then we’ll eat before we ride home.”

  “Lie down? What for?” Then he laughed. “I told you-Reading doesn’t use up energy. I’m as rested as you are.”

  But his real mood for the rest of the day was somber. Why would Galen feel such a personal hatred for him? They had been such good friends���

  As they rode home, Lenardo said, “I fear Reading for Drakonius was not a good idea. Now Galen at least knows I’m still alive, and so does Drakonius. I may have brought your enemy down upon you.”

  “You found out that he was already looking for you. At least we can be prepared. He will find you eventually; his watchers are as good as mine.”

  “Those people-the watchers. They watch the weather, I know, and I suppose some go over and mingle among Drakonius’ people to bring you information. But it’s half a day’s ride even from here to your castle, and more in bad weather. How do you get news through so fast?”

  “Heliograph,” she replied. ” ‘Sun-writing’? Is that an Adept trick?” She chuckled. “You mean you’ve never played with a mirror, flashing light around a room?”

  “Of course,” he said, still puzzled. “Well, the watchers use the same thing, or a lantern at night, to flash messages from one hilltop to another. It takes only a few minutes to get a message from one end of the land to the other.”

  “Then that’s what I saw the day I escaped! And how Wulfston found me so quickly.”

  “Of course. We sent out your description, and Wulfston was on the road soon after dawn. For as weak as you were, you got quite far, actually. You crossed the border into Hron’s lands, but he is my ally, and so his people returned you.”

  “Your system is as effective as having Readers, it seems -and almost as fast. We must relay messages too, when they have to go beyond a single Reader’s range.”

  “But Readers can do it without the rest of the world knowing,” said Aradia.

  “If you sent out my description that day���”

  “Drakonius may already know where you are.”

  “Galen didn’t know.”

  “Drakonius may not trust Galen, and Galen cannot Read an Adept.” She rode silently for a few moments, then said, “Lenardo, how well do you know his capabilities as a Reader?

  “Very well. I was his teacher and often tested him.”

  “I know you want to think he deliberately caused the avalanche-but can you assume for a moment that he didn’t mean it? Suppose he was truly intent on destroying Adigia. Is he capable of misjudging, of making that kind of error?”

  “Yes,” said Lenardo. “I could have made it myself. I was Reading the fault and the stresses flowing through it. The vibrations spread in both directions through the mountain. I didn’t know myself which way it would go. I remember standing there helplessly, willing it to go the other way���”

  “And you feel responsible.”

  “I told you. I was his teacher.”

  “But the teacher must let the students grow up,” said Aradia. “We hope it is when we feel they are ready, but sometimes they make their own decisions. And sometimes they’re wrong. But we cannot stop them from making their own mistakes.” She smiled ruefully. “Nor can I stop you from making yours. Come on-if we hurry, we’ll be home by dark.”

  Lenardo spent the next two days resting and meditating. The third morning, feeling securely himself again, he ate a light breakfast, bathed, and joined Aradia at her father’s bedside.

  As she had promised, Aradia had strengthened Menus’ body. He was still a very sick man, but his heart beat strongly and he breathed evenly. If they could remove the tumor without doing further damage, there was a good chance he would live. But in what condition?

  Presumably, Aradia’s values reflected her father’s. “Life is the greatest value.” Lenardo had to assume that Nerius would want to live, even if the damage the tumor had already done left him blind, paralyzed, or otherwise crippled.

  Aradia provided Lenardo with wax to make a model of Nerius’ brain. Such modeling was part of a Reader’s training, precisely for showing to non-Readers the things they could not see. Never, though, had he done work so delicate, so impossibly precise. He worked for hours, superimposing what he Read upon the softened wax in his hands, molding, carving, despairing of achieving the accuracy he had to have.

  When he finished he was cramped with tension and fearful that he had missed something, somehow. He set the model down and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes.

  “Are you finished?” Aradia asked with mingled hope and fear.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, pushing his hair back off his forehead-he really would have to cut it, as it was becoming an annoyance. “I don’t think I can make a more accurate model, but I fear it’s-not good enough to guide you.”

  “Show me.”

  He had made the model in three parts, so he could take it apart to show the tumor, which he had stained with ink.

  “It’s close,” he said, “but there is a limit to the accuracy human hands can achieve. If only you could Read it as well as destroy it���”

  “Do you not know how frequently I have wished that these past few days? But I cannot Read. You must guide me. I’ll get Wulfston, and then we can begin.”

  They started successfully enough, the two Adepts concentrating their powers on the center of the tumor. The bulk of the growth slowly but surely began to evaporate.

  “Stop!” cried Lenardo, as Nerius’ healthy brain tissue began to relax from its compression to fill the vacuum.

  Violet eyes and brown stared at Lenardo from drawn faces. Both Adepts were breathing hard, their hearts pounding as if they’d run a long distance.

  “What happened?” Aradia asked warily. “You are succeeding, but the contour of the growth has changed.” Hastily, Lenardo remolded his wax model, saying, “This is not as accurate, but-”

  “We’ve removed that much? And not touched normal tissue?”

  “That’s right-but now the shape is changing even as I try to model it. You mustn’t destroy normal tissue.”

  “Lenardo��� can you Read the purpose of various parts of the brain?” asked Aradia. “What do you mean?”

  “A head injury may mean death, paralysis, blindness, palsy��� or no harm at all! I healed a man once who had a spear-point in his head. All I could do was draw it out, stop the bleeding, and prevent infection. In three days he came out of the healing sleep and walked away as if nothing had happened!”

  “It had entered the front of his head?” asked Lenardo. “Yes-fortunately well above his eyes. But how did you know that?”

  “We’ve never been able to Read precisely how the brain works, but over many years of study we have gathered some information, especially the peculiar fact that a very large area of the front does not have a function we can identify. However, your father’s tumor is near the back, between the area which controls sight and that which controls muscular coordination. Hence his blindness and convulsions. Now the compressed tissue is moving back into place, blood flowing normally again��� but I cannot Read what damage the nerve fibers have suffered. I have warned you that even if we save Nerius’ life, I cannot predict what mental or physical function he will recover.”

  “Perhaps we should not try to remove the rest of it,” said Wulfston. “If we caused bleeding���”

  “I know,” said Aradia, “but I cannot leave it half done. Lenardo, show us the contours of the growth now.”

  It had shrunk considerably as they talked, compressed by the brain tissue trying to expand to normal. It could not expand completely, of course, having atrophied. At last the movement seemed to stabilize. Lenardo worked on his model again, and
Aradia said, “These are the difficult parts -where the growth is entwined with normal tissue.”

  “Also, you’ve been simply cutting off the blood flow as you removed the growth,” said Lenardo. “You can’t do that indiscriminately-you could cut off a vessel nourishing healthy tissue.”

  Aradia chewed on her lower lip, studying the model again. “Wulfston-”

  “Aradia,” the young Adept said, “I haven’t that much control. I cannot trust myself to focus on such a small area!”

  “Then strengthen me,” she said. “I have to do it, Wulfston, or the tumor will grow back again. See that I do not falter.”

  “Yes, my lady.” It was the first time Lenardo had heard Wulfston address Aradia in that fashion.

  Aradia now took the wax model in her hands, looking from it to her father, studying carefully. If only I could Read what she was doing, Lenardo thought. But he could Read only the effects.

  Lenardo watched the cells disappear as Aradia worked her way into one of the tendrils entwined with the healthy tissue, murmuring, “More to the left��� higher��� no, you missed some��� back to the right-left! Slower! There��� that’s it.”

  He could Read the toll such slow, steady effort took from Aradia’s body, even with Wulfston supporting her-yet each time she speeded up, a few cells of her father’s healthy tissue would be destroyed. It seemed to take forever, but they were determined to leave no alien cell to regrow.

  Finally there remained one patch of tumor, twined around a pulsing artery. It was the most dangerous and difficult, because it moved with every pulse. By now, Aradia’s pale skin was translucent. Sweat beaded her face, and the pupils of her eyes were dilated. “Rest,” said Lenardo. “You’ve got to be-”

  “No.” She was breathing in shallow gasps. He saw her force herself to take a deep breath. Wulfston was still as a statue, lost to them. “If I stop now, I’ll collapse.”

  Lenardo explained, “It’s the last bit of tumor, and the most recent growth. With the constant motion, I don’t know how you can destroy the growth without breaching the artery wall-and that would kill Nerius at once. And you can’t just seal off a main artery to the brain.”

  She pressed the fingers of one hand to her forehead, frowning. “At once,” she murmured. Then, “No-it’s not immediate. Every Adept has saved lives when people’s hearts have stopped. A brief few minutes-but the heart can be restarted.”

  “Aradia! You’re not suggesting-?”

  “Stopping his heart will stop the motion. Here-model just that portion left around the artery, as it is between pulses.”

  “This is madness!”

  “It is the only way,” she said. “If I leave it, the tumor will regrow right there, choking off the blood and killing him. Do it, Lenardo.”

  Helpless to oppose her will, he hastily reworked the model-so little of the ink-stained wax left now. Had they performed this operation at Nerius’ first symptoms, how easy it would have been! Just this healing technique alone would convince the senate that the empire and the savages could cooperate-and if Aradia could learn to trust one Reader, she could trust others.

  There was no time to ponder such things now. Aradia was doing the same deep-breathing exercise a Reader used before a difficult Reading. So much they had in common. He handed her the reworked model. She looked from him to Wulfston, who was still deep in concentration. “Wulfston. Wulfston!”

  “Yes, my lady?” He didn’t look at her. “I must stop Nerius’ heart. When the last of the tumor is removed, you must stop supporting me and support Father. If I fail, you must restart Ms heart. You can do that-you’ve done it before.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Lenardo wasn’t sure if Wulfston understood or was answering by rote. Aradia seemed satisfied, though.

  He Read in fascinated horror as Aradia first speeded her father’s pulse and breathing for a few moments, then quickly dropped them to normal, slowed, and then stopped them. Nerius was dead, although Lenardo could possibly revive him with the techniques he and Galen had used to revive Linus when he was struck by lightning.

  But now he had to concentrate on the present, Reading Aradia as cell by cell she destroyed the last of the tumorous growth. Again he guided with words, fearing they were taking too much time, fearing to go too fast, until, “Stop!” he said. “That’s it, Aradia. We’ve got it all.”

  Her eyes lifted from the model to his-and then fluttered closed as she fainted.

  Lenardo caught her and laid her on the bed, panic shooting through his nerves. “Aradia! Nerius’ heart!” Instantly, he turned to the old man, trying to pump his heart as he had learned at the academy-but he wasn’t breathing either.

  “Wulfston! Wulfston-start Nerius’ heart!” Lenardo straddled the still form, dealing swift blows to the old Adept’s breastbone, feeling the effect dissipated through the softness of the mattress. “Wulfston-start his heart-or help me get him to the floor!” He was futilely willing the heart to start beating again when Wulfston finally came through. The old man’s heart fluttered, thumped wildly, and then settled into steady rhythm. Almost at once his chest moved under Lenardo’s hands in a deep breath.

  Lenardo backed off, Reading his patient, then Aradia-and then Wulfston, who staggered to his side, looking down at them.

  “They’re not both-?”

  “They’re alive. Aradia fainted, that’s all. Thank the gods you were able to start Nerius’ heart again. Here-” he pushed the black man to a seat on the edge of the bed, “put your head down before you faint, too.”

  Reading Wulfston and Aradia, Lenardo was astonished at their state of debilitation. Once, when he had been at Gaeta for the medical training required of every Reader, a galley slave had been brought in; the man’s master had expected him to die and so had dumped him off the ship and bought another. Months of starvation, beatings, and work beyond his strength had brought him to the same state Aradia was in now-and Wulfston was not much better. Lenardo fought down panic as he Read the Adepts ���-all they had been able to do for the Galley slave was ease his death with opiates.

  “Wulfston,” said Lenardo, determinedly keeping his voice level, “why are you so weak?”

  “Working against nature. Couldn’t fight it with Nerius’ own strength-actually had to destroy.” He struggled up, looking gravely at Aradia.

  She stirred. “Father?” weakly-then, in panic, “Father!” as she tried to sit up. “His heart!”

  “It’s all right,” said Lenardo. “Wulfston started his heart again. Nerius will live, Aradia.” But will you?

  “I must���” Aradia whispered, “change his state��� from unconsciousness to healing sleep.”

  “Not until you’ve rested yourself,” said Lenardo. “If you try to get up now, you’ll faint again.”

  “But-”

  “No ‘but’s.’ Nerius is already starting his own natural recovery. If you want to speed the process later, after you’ve rested, fine. Use the healing sleep on yourself.” She smiled weakly at him. “Thank you, Lenardo.” She slept.

  Wulfston asked, “How can you not be tired?” His voice was flat with fatigue.

  “I was only Reading-you two were doing the work.” There was a deep, comfortable chair with a footstool before it, where Nerius’ nurse undoubtedly napped away many hours. Lenardo installed Wulfston there and watched him, too, fall into deep sleep.

  What a time for Drakonius to attack, he thought. Both Adepts completely helpless.

  But fortunately Drakonius didn’t know that. That night, Lenardo lay down and left his body. It was a dangerous move to attempt to reach Drakonius’ stronghold from here, with no Reader to contact there, for this time he would avoid Galen, who could not Read him on this plane unless Lenardo willed it.

  Lenardo had a strong foreboding about Drakonius. No clear flashes of precognition had come to him, but he had long since learned to heed this feeling of danger.

  So, if the Adepts were out of commission, the Reader o
ught to be doing something. Traveling without connection to his body, he moved faster and more easily than a few days before. The dark of night was no obstacle to a Reader in full possession of his faculties-how absurd that mere ram had obscured his vision before!

  He was even farther away now, and thus in greater danger of dissipating his consciousness if he could not find a focus. By the time he reached Drakonius’ stronghold once more, he needed someone as the object of his attention. Anyone would do-he merely let his consciousness be drawn to the first person he encountered, a guard watching the river from atop the cave-riddled cliff. He was an old warrior, alert and prepared. Even while his eyes scanned the river continuously, though, his thoughts were on his off-duty time tomorrow and a certain farmer’s wife whose husband did not question where the extra shares of food and occasional jug of ale came from as long as be shared them when he came weary from the fields.

  Lenardo left the man to his fantasies, having learned that Drakonius’ men were making no battle preparations. He then sought within the stronghold, an encampment with a very temporary flavor. In the long passageways, Drakonius’ personal troops slept in bedrolls, a few guards at their posts. Despite the relaxed atmosphere, the guards were guarding, not conversing or napping. Clearly, Drakonius expected his men to maintain discipline.

  He found Galen, also asleep, not merely not Reading but with an alert shield guarding his dreams. So��� the boy was defended against him, for who else could Read him here? Not waking him, he thought for the first time to Read the boy’s health, finding him not ill but underweight and on the thin edge of nervous collapse. His nails were chewed ragged, and there was a rash across the backs of his hands that Lenardo had seen before, each time Galen had had to stand for examination. I thought he had learned to control his nervousness.

  The entrance to the cave in which Galen slept was blocked with a slab of rock. It was not too heavy for one man to push aside, but the “door” had been “locked” by driving an iron ring into the rock on either side and simply running a stout rope over the slab of rock between them. So Galen was not trusted. Lenardo felt a new appreciation of the fact that he could now walk out of his room-out of the castle if he wished-any time he wanted to.