Captives of the Savage Empire se-3

by Jean Lorrah

  He did not question, but lay down on the bed and composed himself. A Reader of Torio's age would normally have used this technique only a few times in practice exercises; but with all the communications over long distances he had performed in the past few months, it had become almost commonplace to Torio. He and Lenardo were the only ones in their small community who could do it; Julia was far too young, and Aradia had not the skill.

  When he left his body and joined Lenardo, Torio found a third presence. //Master Clement!// He allowed his joy to suffuse the atmosphere; the old man had been teacher to both Lenardo and Torio, and Master of their Academy.

  Warmth flowed from Master Clement at the contact, but he told them, //I cannot stay long. Join me on the plane of privacy.//

  //There is something wrong,//Lenardo said when they had made the peculiar change of «position» that took them completely out of contact with the physical world. Not even the best Reader who ever lived could spy on them here without making the move with them and thus revealing his presence.

  //Aye,// Master Clement replied without prologue. //The Aventine Senate is preparing an army to attack you—but not along the border. They are commandeering every sailing vessel they can, to travel up the coast, land the armies, and drive you south into a trap laid at the border. Portia has told the Senate the savages set off the earthquake that destroyed the Gaeta hospital. Lenardo, you should have known that such a target—//

  //The hospital was not the target—there was no target. You know what we intended, Master Clement.//

  //I know what you intended, Lenardo, but perhaps one of your Adept allies—?//

  //No!//Torio interjected. //It was Lord Wulfston working with me that night, Master Clement. He would not do such a thing! And even if he wanted to… you know my abilities are not great enough to guide him to a target so many miles away, nor are any Adept's powers strong enough to move a pebble, let alone a rock face, at that distance.//

  //You would not lie to me, Torio? I know you did to Portia, and I dare not contradict you without revealing that I know much more of what is happening on the other side of the border than I am supposed to.//

  //I'm sorry,//Torio said penitently. //I didn't think.//

  //The impetuosity of youth. You must learn to curb it, son. What you said is not the reason the empire is preparing to attack you—but it is a cause of their great haste. Portia has convinced them that you are growing together in the powers of darkness. She also fears the ancient prophecy: When the moon devours the sun, then the earth will devour Tiberium. There will be an eclipse just before Summer Festival. Portia fears that if we do not stop you by then, you will destroy the empire.//

  Despite their bodiless state, Torio could feel tension from Lenardo. //We cannot allow the Aventine army to attack us. Master Clement, without Adepts they will be powerless against us. I will not have good men slaughtered—for that is what it would be. Can you not persuade Portia—?//

  //Do you think you could, Lenardo? Or the Senate? Even if it is a foredoomed effort, they must do something—and I have told you of their sneak attack to give you the opportunity to plan. I am trusting you—and you, too, Torio—to find a way to prevent a battle in which all too many lives would be lost. I must return now—I cannot allow myself very much time in which no one can contact me. The Council of Masters meets frequently these days—and our work is not at all pleasant.//

  The old man's presence was gone. Torio and Lenardo remained on the plane of privacy for a few moments more. //The attack will come against Wulfston's lands,// said Lenardo. //You will have to Read for him, Torio.//

  //I know—but what will he do? Sink the ships? Drown all those people? Readers will be navigating the ships. It wouldn't be a mistaken thought flung in a moment's anger—it would be deliberately using my powers against other Readers! Master Lenardo, how can I?//

  //Stop clinging to the past—here I am a lord, as are you. Master your powers instead of restraining them. You never question defending your life with your sword—why do you question defending it with your powers?//

  Powers. Unrestrained powers, used to gain control over other people. He couldn't go home again, Torio knew—but how could he adapt to living the way people did here?

  Chapter Three

  For three days after the earthquake Melissa was patient rather than healer. It hurt to breathe. Her throat was so raw she could not talk, and she could hardly Read beyond the confines of her room. The healers placed poultices on her throat and neck, and kept a pot boiling over a brazier, producing steam. Although she knew what they were, it was the third day before she could smell the vinegar in the poultices, the sage in the steam.

  She was wakened by Magister Phoebe with comfrey tea laced with honey—and for the first time it was not sheer agony and force of will to drink the fluid her body desperately needed. "Very good, Melissa," said Phoebe. "You're going to be just fine."

  "I know," Melissa managed, her voice between a whisper and a croak. //How badly was Gaeta hit?// she asked.

  Phoebe replied with the mental intensity used in training children, //The town had very little damage. The hospital received the worst of it.//

  //Were other Readers hurt?//

  //Yes, dear, but there are healers enough for everyone. You rest. I'll bring you some soup later.//

  Melissa was not in her own room, but in a much smaller one that probably belonged to one of the non-Reader workers at the hospital. She remembered the fire in the wing where her room had been, the smoke, trying to crawl out…

  She was not burned. Smoke had choked her—her throat and lungs were damaged but healing. She had no memory of how she had gotten out. Her leg had been hurt… yes, there was a wound, now stitched up and bandaged.

  She tested her Reading power, and found that this morning she could Read the corridor outside, and along that to the kitchen, apparently undamaged. She could reach no farther—but that was better than yesterday, which meant she was healing. When she was strong enough, a period of fast and meditation would bring her powers back to normal.

  That afternoon Alethia visited with her baby, and Melissa was happy to hear that they had suffered little damage from the quake. "But you should hear the rumors!" Alethia confided. "They say that the savages set off the quake, all the way from the border."

  "They couldn't have," Melissa said through the pain in her throat.

  Alethia insisted, "They finally did what they wanted to. That's what all those tremors were: They were trying to make a big earthquake by starting little ones."

  Melissa considered that, remembering how the minor tremor had been followed by the huge one—and how she had been flung in two different directions. If the savages had that kind of power, though…

  Alethia saw the expression on Melissa's face. "Don't try to talk," she said. "You mustn't strain your voice. I'll tell you all about it, Melissa." They were not Reading because the intensity they would have to use would have had the effect on nearby Readers of a shouting match in Melissa's room, but at that moment Melissa was glad of the excuse for another reason: Although they had not planned it for privacy, not Reading allowed Alethia to tell her all the news that came in on the Path of the Dark Moon without Melissa's being scolded for gossiping.

  For what amazing gossip Alethia had today! "There are two renegade Readers aiding the savages now—but one of them is a ghost!"

  Before Melissa could get out a denial of such nonsense, Alethia continued, "Remember Master Lenardo from the Adigia Academy, who went over to the savages last year?"

  Melissa nodded.

  "That's old news. The latest is about the boy he stole away last fall—a magister candidate of great promise. Nobody knows how he made the boy go with him, but he did—only at the border the guards caught them and killed the boy. But Lenardo carried off the body… and the savage sorcerers brought the boy back to life!"

  Melissa shook her head, and croaked, "No!" Jason was certainly right about how garbled the information was that came by t
he Path of the Dark Moon.

  "Yes," Alethia insisted. "After all, Melissa, a Reader can get lost trying to negotiate planes of existence, out of contact with the physical world. His body can be left to die. This is just the opposite—if the savages have the power to make a body live again, maybe Master Lenardo could have guided the boy's mind back to it. Although how they could make his heart work after an arrow was shot through it—"

  Melissa shuddered and shook her head. "Alethia, no," she forced out. "No one could do that." She swallowed, trying to ease the pain in her throat. "I'm a healer. I know better. And you have had enough training to know better, too. Either the boy is dead, or he was not hurt as badly as the guards thought, so he recovered."

  "I'm sorry," Alethia said contritely, as Melissa coughed from her exertions. "I mustn't make you excited. Let's discuss something else." And she began to tell Melissa about her children's latest exploits.

  Melissa, though, was only half listening. There must be some kernel of truth in such a frightening story—the earthquake part was almost certainly true, and if the savages could attack the empire that way once, they could do it again. What little peace and security they had known behind their walls could now be gone forever. She wished that she could discuss it with Jason, but she dared not ask whether he had contacted anyone. She was certain he would have, the moment news of the quake reached him, but she would have been unconscious or too sick to contact then… and no one knew" how much she cared about Jason and wanted news of him. He could be having long conversations with the Master of the Hospital every day, and she would never know it!

  Her frustration gave her incentive to heal quickly. The next day she could Read the whole wing of the hospital she was in—and discovered the makeshift accommodations, the harried healers trying to treat the worst injured of the patients—the ones who had been kept together here—and also to find time to go off to treat the sick and injured taken in by townspeople since half the hospital complex had been demolished. Over Master Phoebe's protests, she spent the morning helping the herbalist, and after some rest went back to work that afternoon. The next day she picked up her healer's routine as best she could, even though there were times she had to stop, lean against the wall, and gasp for air for her protesting lungs.

  Melissa was not the only healer who had been trapped by the earthquake. There had been eight rooms in her wing; five other healers had been in their beds when the quake came. Three of them had crawled out or been found in time, but two had died.

  A healer in the orthopedic wing had been crushed to death. Another, pinned under fallen debris, had bled to death before he could be reached. Half a dozen other healers were now patients—the hospital was desperately short handed.

  Days, and nights flowed together as Melissa pushed herself to be healer to those hurt more severely than she was. She did not develop pneumonia, thanks to the herbalist's constant attentions, or perhaps to the will of the gods. Healers from other hospitals arrived to take some of the burden, and one morning Melissa awoke with no pain in her chest or throat, and realized that she had had a long, full night's sleep and actually felt normal. When she stepped outside she found the sun shining, and saw tender green shoots of spring growth pushing up through the soil.

  Her Reading seemed to have returned to normal. Students at her level had been treated like any other healers during the emergency. Now that she had experienced the community of healers working together, she dreaded even more the possibility of being sent away.

  She checked her patients and found no one who needed her physical presence immediately; she had time to breathe fresh air in what was left of the hospital garden. It was still too cold to stay out long, but sunshine and the fresh sea breeze had been unattainable luxuries for too long.

  Melissa had been Reading automatically, to avoid encountering male Readers, but now she stood at the newly repaired wall overlooking the town and the sea, closing her eyes and Reading as far as she could in every direction. Behind her, inside the building, she touched a familiar presence. //Jason!//

  Some of her hurt that he had returned and not contacted her must have flowed through that unguarded moment, for he replied, //I arrived only last night, Melissa, after you were asleep. You seem well. I have heard nothing but praise for you.// He was stiff, formal, without even the friendly communication they shared when other Readers might pick up their conversations.

  //Yes, I am quite well,// she replied. Did he even know she had been injured? //And you? Were you tested?//

  //I was tested.// He allowed no feelings to show-she did not have to be a Master Reader to know he was holding something back. //I have a new assignment.//

  //A new—?//

  //Not now, Melissa. As soon as you can resume your lessons we will discuss it. Go in and eat breakfast now. You have a full day's work.// And he stopped Reading.

  Melissa survived the next two days in a ferment of curiosity—but every time she met Jason's mind he gave her a curt reply and shut her out. Finally, the third day, she was scheduled to resume her lessons with him.

  It was weeks since she had left her body—she wasn't sure she could do it. When it worked, she decided she must be nearly well, as a Reader's powers were directly related to his or her health. Savage Adepts, she had been told, weakened their bodies when they used their powers—the only reason the empire had any hope at all against them.

  Since she had been thinking about the savage attack, the first thing Melissa blurted out when she met Jason's mind that morning was, //I must tell you what Alethia's been telling me. All kinds of wild rumors are coming down the Path of the Dark Moon. What did you learn in Tiberium?//

  //We are not here to gossip,// Jason chided her. //Have you mastered the move to the plane of privacy?//

  //I haven't even tried since you left,// she told him. //First I was hurt, and then I was too busy. Didn't Master Florian tell you?//

  //You've had no lessons at all?//

  //No. There hasn't been time.//

  Despite their bodiless state, something like a sigh of exasperation came from Jason. Was he angry at her?

  He caught the thought she had meant to keep private, and replied, //No, I am not angry with you, Melissa. I am… concerned about your progress. However, your experience may have worked to ease your anxiety. You were badly hurt. You passed out—but you didn't die.//

  //What has that to do with moving to another plane of existence?//

  //When you Read that you could not get out of the building by yourself, why did you not leave your body and direct one of the other Readers to it? You stayed, passed out, and could have died. The smoke damage to your throat and lungs, the days of pain, were unnecessary. Because of your fear of leaving your body, you caused it harm. Never would you leave your surgeon's tools in the rain to rust—yet you left the most important implement of your skills, your physical self, for others to rescue. You became a liability, a patient instead of a healer. I commend you for working so hard as soon as you were able—but you would never have been hurt in the first place if you had used your skills to save yourself!//

  Melissa was stunned. The last thing she had expected was a scolding for being hurt! Guilt stabbed, for Jason was right; she should have been willing to let go of her physical being before it overclouded her mind and made her unable to function. //I… didn't think,// she said contritely.

  //Nor did the other teachers expect you to,// Jason told her. //Do you realize what their unwavering praise for you means? They didn't expect any better of you! I expect more, Melissa. Can you give it?//

  For Jason? //I can give it.//

  //Then make certain that your body is safe… and know that you are something separate from it. You know where your body is. We are going only to a plane of privacy for a lesson—you are safe with me, Melissa. Perhaps one day you will feel secure enough to make the twists and turns a Master Reader must know—but there will be none of that today. No way to get lost. A simple move—//

  Adrift on the hy
pnotic flow of Jason's reassurances, Melissa for the first time released her attention from the physical world to concentrate only on his essence—and together they… moved… to another plane.

  Suddenly the entire universe consisted of nothing but Jason and Melissa!

  As far as she could Read, Melissa perceived nothing—nothing as an actual entity, it seemed, rather than as the absence of something. It pulled at her, wanting her to spread to fill the void. Jason was there, allowing her to experience without interference—but she knew that if she did not resist the pull he would draw her back. With that reassurance, she was not afraid.

  When Melissa had more or less settled into equilibrium, she asked, //Does anything else happen?//

  //No—and that is the danger here, the desire to make something happen. Never seek this plane alone, Melissa; without another mind as an anchor, the desire to find the something you think must be beyond the emptiness can become too strong to resist.//

  //Something beyond the emptiness? I don't sense anything like that.//

  The essence of a tolerant smile warmed her. //That is my impression. You perceive it another way?//

  //Avoid, wanting me to fill it.//

  //Aye—equally dangerous. On one hand, you must become accustomed to the sensation, so you can ignore it and do the work you came here for, but on the other you must not get so used to it that you allow it to slip up on you and draw you away, unaware. Another reason never to come here alone.//

  //Why would anyone come here alone? A Reader alone can have privacy just by not Reading.//

  //There are… other uses for the plane of privacy. However, they are not a part of your lessons for Magister rank. Congratulations, Melissa. You have just passed the crucial test—you will do with the Masters exactly what you have just done with me. Your continued role as a healer will be assured.//

  She had not even been thinking of that! Perhaps that was why she had finally been able to do it? It didn't matter; she was here, alone with Jason. //What do I do now, Magister? Or… are you Master Jason now? No one has told me.//