“My mother said the same.” She smiled faintly, nothing familiar, merely enough for courtesy.
“Thank you for your hospitality and for raising a child with the quickness and courage to do what your daughter did. Berto, perhaps you’d like to tell me what you remember before I speak to Serazina alone.”
Did he imagine the sudden tension on the young man’s face or the way he seemed to move closer to the girl?
“It isn’t much,” Berto said, his words measured as if he’d rehearsed them, “but we’ve been trained to discard no thought as unimportant without examination.”
“Well said.”
“And Serazina had to act so quickly, and it was such a shock for her when the gun went off, that she forgot things. I remember seeing that man, too. He was stealthy, and in some ways he seemed to move like a machine.”
“A machine?” That would confirm the reports that the man’s mind had been destroyed.
“Yes, robotic, stiff; his eyes seemed unfocused. I thought he might be on drugs.”
“In this decadent age, I’m afraid that’s always a possibility.” An excellent mind, indeed, with keen powers of observation. “Did you notice anything else?”
Berto squeezed his eyes shut. “I may be imagining this, but I thought I saw a glint of something—wasn’t it a windy day? Might his jacket have blown open to briefly expose the gun? Maybe Serazina saw that, too.”
“You’re Serazina’s classmate? Ready to go out into the world or on to more education?”
“I’m an artist,” Berto said.
While Phileas disagreed with hardliners who wanted to ban the visual arts entirely, he agreed with their premise that far too many paintings incited emotions. He found it hard to believe that so sensible and intelligent a mind found expression in daubs of paint.
“You might be much more than that, young man. We’ll have to see about you. Thank you, Berto. You’ve been very helpful. A pleasure to meet you.”
Berto stood up. “Thank you, Guardian. It’s been an honor.”
Phileas noticed his eyes lingering on Serazina. He took the girl’s hand briefly before he left, and Phileas sensed the emotion that flowed between them. To his horror, his heart gave a pathetic little thump.
* * *
Berto left, taking with him any shred of calmness remaining to Serazina. The Guardian turned to her mother. “I would like to question your daughter alone. Where would be the best place?”
“Only the bedrooms, but that would be inappropriate.” Fiola’s tone left no room for argument, and Serazina, thinking of all the young women who were forced to have sex with the Guardian for the sake of creating the Heir, silently thanked her.
Fiola stood. “I’ll leave the house.”
“I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” the Guardian said.
“We could go outside and sit by the pond,” Serazina said.
“Outside?”
Clearly, the idea made the Guardian uncomfortable. So much the better. Serazina sprang to her feet. “You can post your guards in the vicinity,” she said, “and it’ll be much cooler.”
Acting as if his feet were mired in mud, the Guardian followed her.
A measure of tranquility returned to Serazina once she stepped out of the house. “See how beautiful the pond is in the moonlight?” she said. “Listen, you can hear the frogs.”
“Frogs,” he said without enthusiasm.
A voice that seemed alien whispered, Beneath the darkness, behind the illusion is only love. Serazina didn’t know where that idea had come from. It was beautiful, but it helped her little against the presence of the Speaker.
She wondered if she could undo the damage she’d done by bringing Berto to the Guardian’s attention. “Berto really is an artist. He always has been, and he wouldn’t be happy doing anything else.”
The Guardian’s black eyes turned cold. “At all times, but especially at a time like this, every citizen’s greatest happiness is to serve our country in any way deemed necessary. More than perhaps anyone, you should realize this. Evil stalks the land, and you have seen its face.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and he seemed to relent.
“Young woman, I believe you’re still suffering the aftereffects of shock. Having heard Berto’s report, I realize you acted more bravely than I knew, to leap at someone as clearly disturbed as the assassin. And Berto’s explanation of the oddity of the assassin’s behavior partially explains how you might have sensed his threat. However, in a time of emergency I can’t settle for partial explanations. In the interests of efficiency I ask you not to pretend that you lack the intelligence for anything but the fields. You saved my life under what can only be called mysterious circumstances. It’s my job to examine all mysteries. I request permission to read your mind.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said faintly.
“Come, there’s nothing so terrible about it. All people, but especially the young, think that deep and awful secrets lurk in their minds. It is the duty of a Guardian to view all thoughts without prejudice.”
“If I didn’t agree, would you do it anyway?”
“Your cooperation would render the process more efficient, but yes, I would—to be precise, I will, in the name of national security. If there’s any chance that your mind has retained some detail that can help us capture the terrorists, I’m obliged to search for it.”
Serazina sensed no discrepancy between his words and the controlled features of his face, but the Guardian was surely trained to conceal any deception. Beneath the darkness, behind the shadow—if she could love him she wouldn’t be afraid, but how? Darkness and shadow were so much a part of the Guardian that he saw nothing else. Walls of Mind so powerfully protected him that his heart wept with unheard cries. How could she touch it?
* * *
While the Guardian had been sitting in the living room, Tara sat outside, with Orion, beneath a window. She’d found much in this human’s mind to admire. It was neat and tidy, dusted of excessive pride. His practice of the peculiar human rituals was graceful. In some ways, he would have made a very good cat.
His mind had focus and purpose. He, too, seemed to have a quest: assuring the well being and progress of all the people. At the moment he was frustrated that he couldn’t pounce on the source of their unhappiness.
Tara watched with some compassion as he paced about inside his mind, unable to recognize the limitations of its boundaries, unable to see that the answers lay outside it, in a heart whose wisdom cried to be heard. He was desperate for an answer. On his own he wouldn’t scale the walls he’d built, but perhaps, with her help, he could.
When he and Serazina went outside, she followed them to the pond, reaching them in time to hear him say, “I can’t dismiss the possibility that there’s something special about you, some quality that our country needs.”
Tara decided to introduce some other possibilities he couldn’t ignore.
* * *
Phileas looked down and saw the cat, an animal all reasonable people disliked. More than any other beast—except possibly snakes and the dragon—they embodied the slinking treachery of the natural world.
“Does your mother allow filthy felines on her premises?”
“The cat’s not on the premises; she’s outside,” the girl said, “And she washes herself all the time. Look.”
He was forced to acknowledge that the white portions of the kitten’s fur were immaculate and that the darker parts had a satiny sheen. Reason forces me to admit that this is not a filthy animal. It is thus likely that other cats are clean. Yet all my life I have believed that cats are dirty. What else have I accepted that may not be true?
These thoughts alarmed him. As he studied the creature, he was equally disturbed by the way it stared at him with an expression bordering on intelligence and a fixed gaze that suggested it was reading his mind.
He turned his head away. To imagine the possibility of human-animal communication was a blasphemy for
which he deserved to be thrown into the swamp. He must read the girl’s mind and hurry back to the city, where things like this didn’t happen.
Then the aggravating creature closed its eyes and began to purr loudly. “This animal must be removed,” he said.
“Her purring calms me,” the girl said. “It quiets my thoughts.” She lifted her head, and he noted the thrust of an Etrenzian chin. “Go ahead and read my mind,” she said in a perfectly reasonable voice that held more than a trace of her mother’s tone.
It was worth tolerating a kitten to have this battle so easily won. “Excellent. I’d like you to be very relaxed now, very, very relaxed. Imagine that you are in a favorite place. It’s very peaceful and quiet there. You are perfectly at ease and very relaxed. And as you become more peaceful and relaxed, your mind relaxes, too. You are very peaceful and relaxed …”
* * *
The induction was far more elementary than those Orion had used with Tara in her earliest training. Furthermore, the kitten knew who was creating the desired state of relaxation in Serazina and causing the Speaker’s eyelids to droop and his claw-sharp mouth to relax.
Tara purred even more deeply, slowly opening the minds and hearts of both Serazina and Phileas, weaving the energy that flowed between them into a bridge. As they slowly walked to meet each other, she knew a moment of fear. Like all humans, they were so helpless, so vulnerable, and so unreliable. How could she dare to lead them to the unexplored worlds of their hearts?
In answer, a deeper hum rose within her purr. Tara closed her eyes, guided by the Sharp-Taloned Paw.
* * *
No doubt it was the dank and unhealthful country air that wrapped Phileas’ mind in thick cotton batting, a layer so thick that he couldn’t tear through it to reach the girl’s mind. He didn’t even seem to be in his own mind, but in a forest, its deep green threaded with filaments of gold.
The girl said it was lovely, but his mind’s muffled voice said it wasn’t lovely at all. It was nature and therefore treacherous; it sheltered rodents, reptiles, and other low creatures. These logical thoughts suddenly turned slippery and elusive before they flew away like a flock of jabbering birds, leaving him in a fragrant glade, his feet cradled in soft earth, with all reason usurped by a serpentine emotion that wrapped around every cell of his being. He didn’t know what it was, but he mistrusted it.
The air became malodorous with rot and decay. He had been here before. He turned to run away but a voice hissed, Don’t you want to save the country?
It was the sound of reptilian sibilance sliding down a long neck. The dragon was upon him, but not the one who had stalked the nightmares of his childhood. This was the illogical dragon he’d seen in Janzi’s mind. Round, almost comical in appearance, with green eyes dripping tears, it reminded Phileas of a stuffed animal he had had as a child, a battered, balding creature of indeterminate species that had kept him company in his narrow bed.
One day it had vanished. The nursemaid who cared for him while his father was working had told him it was lost, but he knew that she’d thrown it away. He had wept for it, and now he nearly wept again.
* * *
Serazina couldn’t imagine why she had been so worried about the Guardian reading her thoughts and feelings. He wasn’t even close to doing that, and yet she found him transparent. Just as she could see the loneliness beneath all the hard lines and sharp angles of his face, the coldness of his mind parted to reveal that the greatest person in Oasis felt as friendless and frightened as a small child in the night. He was discovering that about himself, and he was so horrified that he couldn’t love the dragon, who smiled very sweetly at both of them, saying, If you learn to love me instead of fearing me, your land will be saved. This is your quest.
It was too bad that the Guardian recoiled with horror at the sight of the dragon.
* * *
Phileas’s mind finally pulled him out of the swamp, eluding the ropes of moss that lunged at him, stepping free of the sucking earth. He came back to a world that hummed and spun as if its walls had collapsed. Why did the blasted little kitten seem to be smiling?
“Are you unwell, Guardian?” the girl asked. “I was dizzy.”
“How did you do that?” he demanded.
“I didn’t do anything.”
He pulled his thoughts together and lined them up in a straight line, like fence posts on the road from cause to effect. “Have you done it before? Have you gone into other people’s minds?”
“I don’t go into people’s minds.”
It was the truth and also a lie. Suddenly Phileas understood. “But their thoughts come to you without effort on your part?”
She squirmed. “Only once in a while. Hardly ever. No more than happens to anyone else.”
“It rarely happens to anyone else, and if it happens to you as infrequently as you say, you must prevent it through some strength of mind.”
“My mind isn’t strong. Look at my school records.”
“I have, and they perplex me. Nowhere do they indicate an ability to sense as you did, regarding the assassin.”
The girl bit her lip. “Kill,” she said.
Phileas leaned closer. “You heard that thought?”
“He might have said it.”
“Then why didn’t Berto hear him?”
The wretched girl started to squirm. “I don’t know. Berto thought he saw the assassin’s gun. Maybe I did, too. I told the Acting Chief Healer that I couldn’t remember that clearly.”
He made one last attempt. “Serazina, would you tell me what you experienced in your, ah, relaxed state?”
She squirmed some more. “You know. You were there.”
“That doesn’t mean we had the same experience.”
“I saw the dragon,” she said, measuring out each word.
“You didn’t seem frightened.”
“No, he was friendly.” She jumped to her feet. “But I don’t think that. I know the dragon is our enemy. I swear that’s the truth!”
“Calm yourself. I believe you.” He saw that she’d descended to female adolescent hysteria. He would get no more information from her tonight.
“It’s late, and I have much to think about. By the way, I see no need for you to be examined by a school official regarding your occupational future. I will consider what it should be.”
“Just as I expected,” she said in a low, defeated voice.
“What?”
She looked frightened. “Nothing. I have a headache. I can’t think at all any more.”
Phileas endured the tiresome formalities of saying goodnight to the parents and got in the car. “I wish no conversation,” he said to his driver, who nodded and drove him toward the welcoming glow of city lights.
Chapter 14
Phileas sat at his desk, a bottle of Etrenzian cactus brandy beside him. He’d given orders for no one to disturb him. It was time to sort out the unpardonable clutter in his mind.
Trying to avoid self-blame, he analyzed his failure and concluded that he hadn’t adequately allowed for the difficulties of the girl’s youth and gender. Until they were settled down in life, young women made the most difficult subjects. Hormonal uproar, confusion about life, and chaotic longings turned them skittish. The strongest protected themselves from any assault that in the faintest way reeked of male. Add to that the authority of the Guardian, and who could wonder that he’d failed to read her? He should have given the job to Romala.
Phileas was willing to admit that some of that frenzy may have infected his own mind and made it vulnerable to her insane visions. It was unforgivable for a Guardian not to shield himself against the emotions of another, of course. He would have to do some instant mental repair by dissecting those fantasies logically and dispassionately.
Clearly, the frightened girl had thought of him as a monster, and the most familiar monster to any citizen was the dragon. However, since the girl had somehow sensed his harmlessness and utter lack of monstrous thoughts, she had tu
rned the dragon into a friendly creature.
Under ordinary circumstances that would be not only a dangerous but also a traitorous misuse of mind. Everyone knew that the dragon was the nation’s mortal enemy, just as they knew . . . that cats were filthy, stupid animals.
As if to confirm this conclusion, a yowl pierced the silence of the alley outside his window. It was answered with a savage shriek. Cats mated in alleys, dirty, skinny beasts who ate garbage. That was the rule. The girl’s kitten, probably a pampered animal, was an exception.
A bracing hit of cactus brandy encouraged him to be more rigorous in his thinking. It didn’t matter what he decided about cats. He needed to take a deeper look at the overall events of the evening. Too many strange things were happening in Oasis. If he couldn’t weave them into a pattern, who could?
He folded his hands together and reminded himself of the supreme guiding statement of all Guardians: I am open to any path, no matter how dangerous, no matter how seemingly heretical, that will lead me to the truth.
His father had said, “At a time of crisis, a Guardian must never overlook anything that occurs, no matter how outrageous, not even if it seems to challenge the very foundation of our society. As Nathan uprooted himself from the world he knew, so we must all uproot ourselves from the security of our beliefs.”
Calmus, you didn’t mean this, Phileas silently argued with his mentor and father. Not friendly dragons and intelligent cats, not untrained girls who disarm the power of the land’s greatest living mind.
Calmus answered across time, Remember the lesson of Nathan.
Phileas leapt from his chair, went to the safe behind a row of books on the Oasis Constitution and pulled out the secret volume that contained the last words of Nathan Turley, a document known only to Zena, her son, who became Guardian, and the Guardians who followed.
Before Nathan died of injuries following a fall from a horse, he’d told Zena and her son his fall had been caused by his shock at the sight of an apparition that rose before him: a woman who seemed not human. She’d given him a vision of the world that he had never seen, one of wholeness and beauty. Though both Zena and her son had dismissed his babbling as the result of his fatal brain damage, they’d decided logic demanded that all successive Guardians have knowledge of it.
Phileas opened the book. “May my mind be as sharp as a cactus thorn,” he said aloud, remembering the first time he’d read Nathan’s words.
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