Savage Empire se-1

by Jean Lorrah

  “In that sheltered environment, what could you have done to be exiled?”

  Lenardo again borrowed Galen’s words. “I was taught to think for myself. Then, when I did so-I was exiled!” He was surprised at how easy if was to put bitterness into his tone.

  Aradia studied his face. “You will find new ideas welcome here, Lenardo. However��� I do not think you have told me your whole story.”

  How did she understand so much when she could not Read him? Again he decided limited truth was the best policy. “No, I have not.”

  “I hope you will tell me one day,” she said. “Perhaps I can help you.”

  Although he expected to be far away from Aradia soon, Lenardo gave an answer to fit the role he was playing. “Perhaps. It is clear that you have power among the savages.”

  She grinned, this time without malice. “If you would ever Read past the end of your nose, you would find we are not savages. Then we may find a way to cooperate. I want you to trust me, Lenardo.”

  “Keeping me prisoner does not inspire trust.”

  “I know,” she replied, quite serious now. “Yet how am I to trust you? You are a traitor to your own people. Until I know a great deal more about you, I can only assume that if it seemed the expedient thing, you would betray mine.”

  For a moment, he was tempted to tell her the ostensible reason for his exile, but he hesitated. “Then what do you plan to do with me?”

  “For the time being, observe you, and allow you to observe. You have agreed to help me with healing, once you are well yourself. Perhaps we shall find other ways to work together.”

  Such as my directing your powers against the empire, thought Lenardo, glad he had not spoken but wondering if she knew anything about Galen. As an Adept, and clearly one with considerable power, Aradia should have supplied troops for the battle at Adigia-perhaps have been there using her mental powers to cause the earthquake. But now he realized that here in Aradia’s castle he had Read none of the grief he had encountered in and around Zendi. He suddenly recalled picking Aradia’s name from the mind of the young officer. Had one of those blasted shields in the forum once borne the image of the white wolf?

  Lenardo ate in silence, trying to sort out his thoughts. Wulfston rode in through the open castle gate, a huge white dog loping along beside his horse. As Wulfston got down from his saddle, the stable boy ran to take the horse. The black man started over to where Aradia and Lenardo were sitting, but the dog ran ahead, bounding joyfully to Aradia, paws on her lap to lick her face.

  She laughed and pushed the animal down, giving him a piece of meat and scratching his ears as she said, “Where’ve you been, boy? I haven’t seen you in months.”

  The creature wasn’t satisfied with having its ears scratched and began trying to climb into Aradia’s lap, waving its plume of a tail. She put her arms around the animal to hug it, and as it turned yellow eyes toward Lenardo, he realized it was not a dog at all but a wolf-the white wolf!

  “He’s real!” exclaimed Lenardo, and Aradia looked up at him curiously. “I thought it was a hallucination,” he explained. “When I was left to die by those bandits, this animal came and watched me. He acted as if he wanted me to follow him.”

  “Indeed?” Aradia said thoughtfully. “Another sign. I wonder why you have been sent to me, Lenardo?”

  “I met the white wolf in the woods,” Wulfston said as he joined them. “The watchers report he’s been seen twice this month.”

  “We missed you,” Aradia told the wolf, who was grinning like a dog praised by its master, looking unutterably silly with its tongue hanging out one side of its mouth. It made a whining sound and pressed its head against Aradia’s knees. She went back to scratching its ears as she said to Lenardo, “You need not fear the white wolf. He would never harm anyone.”

  “I wasn’t afraid. But how did you tame a wild creature like this?”

  “Oh, he’s not tame!” she said. “He loves Wulfston and me because we saved his life two years ago.” She chuckled. “I know he’s acting like a spoiled lapdog right now, but he’s a wild animal in the woods. He’ll bring down a deer if he can get one, but he never harms people. If we lose an occasional sheep to him, people feel that the white wolf is a good omen, well worth such a small cost.”

  “How can you be sure he won’t attack someone if you let him run wild to hunt?”

  “The command is well planted in his mind,” explained Wulfston. He leaned down to pet the beast, and the wolf licked his face like an overeager puppy. “Hey! I know you’re happy to see us again. We’re happy to see you too, boy.”

  The wolf ignored Lenardo, the stable boy, the blacksmith. After a few minutes at Aradia’s feet, he got up again and disappeared out the gate.

  Meanwhile, Wulfston reported to Aradia, “The watchers say there’s a good cloud bank to the west. We can have rain tonight if we want it. The farmers say we need it.”

  “Fine,” said Aradia. “Take care of it, Wulfston.”

  The watchers, Lenardo thought. A spy system? Would they know Galen’s whereabouts?

  That night, he was wakened by the sound of rain. Going to the window, he peered out into the black night. Two torches flared under passageway roofs, reflected in the puddles in the courtyard. Was Wulfston controlling the rain? Lenardo Read for him, scanning superficially through the castle, and found him in the great hall, with the blacksmith and three people Lenardo did not know. He could Read only externals; all had the blocks of Adepts.

  Reading visually, Lenardo saw that they had chalked a five-pointed star on the stone floor. Each sat cross-legged at one point of the star, relaxed, breathing slowly and steadily. Lenardo was reminded of the state of a Reader’s body when he left it behind. Was that how Adepts did it? Did they project themselves from their bodies to-?

  No-if they could do that, they could Read, and a Reader could Read them. There was a physical similarity, but clearly the real difference lay between what Readers and Adepts did with their minds.

  As Lenardo watched, Wulfston opened his eyes, stretched, yawned, and climbed to his feet, rubbing his legs. As the others did the same, he said, “Nature will take care of the rest. Come and eat now, and then we’ll all sleep well tonight.”

  His words were greeted by laughter, and the small group headed for the kitchen. Eating again! Lenardo was amazed at the amount of food he had seen Aradia and Wulfston consume-and now other Adepts as well. Could the energy to perform their feats come from their own bodies? As he had seen no fat Adepts, that seemed a likely theory. On the other hand, how could an Adept-or even several working together-produce enough energy to shake a mountain? He stored what he had seen as unassimilated fact, to be reexamined when he had more information.

  It was not yet midnight. Lenardo had been asleep for two hours, and now he did not feel tired at all. After his brief time up and around, he had slept the afternoon away-but it was a beginning. With more exercise each day, he’d soon have his strength back.

  And what good will it do me if I can’t get out of this room? It was a perfect night to escape. The rain would keep people indoors, the sound of it masking any noise he made. If he could steal a horse, the fact that he hadn’t yet regained his full strength would not matter.

  He stared at the frustrating door. How could a door be charmed so it would open to every person but one?

  The things Aradia and Wulfston had said suddenly fell into place. They worked with nature. “It is the nature of the body to be healthy,” and Lenardo’s body healed itself of infection. It was the nature of the rain to fall-the Adepts merely directed where and when it did so.

  It was the nature of the wolf to kill��� but the white wolf ran free, unmolested because it did not harm people. The direction of its antagonism was influenced, but no effort made to stop the drive itself. “The command is well planted in his mind.”

  Lenardo walked over to the door, tried it again. Still locked-but the kitchen maid could open it with one hand.

 
Its not the door they’ve bewitched! Lenardo realized. It’s me!

  The thought sickened him. That they should have such power over his mind-!

  Is that what they did to Galen?

  Staring at the door, he began to seek into his own mind, his own beliefs. He discovered a disturbing tendency to trust Aradia. He had been taking what she said at face value-Wulfston, too, perhaps the more so because the black man made it clear he did not trust Lenardo. Being unable to Read the Adepts was more of a disadvantage to him than to a non-Reader; Lenardo was too used to Reading people’s motivations to remember the clues non-Readers used. Probably he had never learned them.

  He also discovered that he had rehearsed his “treason” so often that it now had the ring of truth. He had almost blurted out to Aradia that afternoon that he thought Readers and Adepts could work together. But how could they, when the Adepts had the power to control the Readers? Aradia didn’t kill me because I was too weak to be dangerous. She used me as an experiment. If she didn’t know about Galen, she has found out on her own that an Adept can control a Reader. I must prove her wrong��� but then she’ll kill me. Unless I prove her wrong by escaping clean away.

  Sifting through his thoughts and beliefs in the calm of deep meditation-the most complex meditation he had ever done-Lenardo finally found the alien, implanted belief that the door would not open. He knew it, as surely as he knew the sun would rise.

  The dual perspective within his own mind was terrifying. That door would not open; it was solidly locked. There was no lock on the door; it would open to a touch. Both statements could not be true, but in Lenardo’s mind they were true, “knowledge” battling with what his Reading of the door plainly told him.

  He had once observed two personalities battling so within the mind of a madman. He must cast out the untruth-almost as painful as driving the violent manifestation from that poor man’s mind. Lenardo had not done it; he had merely been an observer in his year at Gaeta. Two senior physicians, Master Readers both, had forced the patient to confront and evict the malevolent entity. But Lenardo, and all the other students who observed that rare treatment, had had nightmares for months afterwards.

  Now he faced an intruder in his own mind, for he saw the belief not as his own but as Aradia’s. Like the woman, it was both seductive and dangerous. Summoning the same strength he had used to deny her physical charms, he drove the alien belief out of his mind and flung the door wide-leaping immediately to catch it before it banged against the wall to rouse the castle.

  He stood there, hanging onto the door, exulting.

  I’m free!

  He could be miles away by morning-back into those hills where the bandits had attacked him. The main road north was still his best chance to find some clue to Galen’s whereabouts.

  He dressed quickly, Reading through the door he had reclosed. From the kitchen, the five Adepts went their separate ways, Wulfston climbing the stairs and passing Lenardo’s room to his own. Soon he was asleep. Aradia also slept, in a more elegant suite of rooms down the hall. Inside the castle, he could Read no one awake.

  Lenardo crept down the winding stairs to the ground floor. He came out in the passage beyond the kitchen, Read storerooms lining it and a guard room where there were swords, shields, a jumble of equipment��� and, hanging from pegs, a number of woolen cloaks. He slipped inside and selected a plain gray one with a hood, closely woven to keep out the ram and full enough to cover his easily identified clothing. He also girded on a sword, the lightest he could find but still heavier than he was used to. He had practiced with a savage sword occasionally, but in his present condition he wondered if he could even lift one.

  Fastening the cloak over his gaudy outfit, he took bread and cheese from the kitchen, then walked through the connecting passage to the stables. The horses snorted restlessly in their stalls but calmed when Lenardo moved confidently, reading them, finding a strong bay gelding with enough spirit to carry him steadily through the night, but not enough to challenge a rider who was no more than an adequate horseman.

  His Reading allowed him to find saddle and bridle, and soon he had everything ready. Except money. He could sell the horse once he’d put some distance between himself and Aradia’s castle.

  There was one last problem: the guard at the gate. He Read the man carefully. He was awake, and the gate was barred. As he could easily Read the man’s thoughts, he knew he had no Adept powers. Nonetheless, Lenardo was in no state to overpower someone. How convenient now to be able to put someone to sleep-and how strange that Aradia should leave on guard someone who would succumb to that. Lenardo could Read no other guard.

  He could not disable the guard, and he certainly could not ride past him unnoticed. He might create a diversion to get the guard away from the gate, but how without rousing the household? Fingering the wolf’s-head pendant, he wondered what Quintus would do in this situation. Probably sneak up behind the guard and slit his throat. But Lenardo was no hardened warrior.

  Then think like a Reader, he told himself, disgusted to be stalling here instead of acting. Again he Read the guard, seeking any clue to getting past him.

  The man was being lulled by the soft rain, fighting off sleepiness by walking from one side of the gate to the other. Finally he gave up, sat down on a bench and nodded off to sleep. Lenardo caught his last defiant thought: //If anyone comes here in the pouring rain, they can just knock loud enough to wake me!//

  Only then did Lenardo realize that the man was not a guard but a porter. Aradia’s castle was not guarded at all! Just as his room had never been guarded���

  Of course. No guard could hold an Adept-and Lenardo had just learned that when an Adept held a non-Adept, she found it more efficient to chain his mind than his body. The castle gate was barred against animals or thieves, but what good would bars or armed men be against other Adepts?

  The drowsing porter was not comfortable enough to go into deep sleep. Even if Lenardo abandoned the horse, the noise of unbarring the gate would surely wake him. He still had no way out.

  Wait! Were there other gates? He had seen none off the court, no other main entrance, but as he Read through the great hall, back to the kitchen, pantries��� storerooms-there! A doorway wide enough to admit a wagon! It was heavy and well barred but unguarded; clearly Aradia was not concerned about keeping people in.

  Now Lenardo’s only problem was noise-the sound of horse’s hoofs as they went through the door at the end of the stable, not out into the court but along the passageway. The clacking sounds rang in Lenardo’s ears, but there were no sleeping rooms in this wing. In the storeroom, he closed the door to the passageway, unbarred the outer door, and shoved against it. Weeds had grown up at the base since it was last opened, and Lenardo was clammy with sweat before he got it open far enough to let the horse through. Then he was outside, in the pelting rain. The horse whinnied and stamped in protest. Lenardo quickly soothed the animal, leaning heavily against his side to catch his breath, cursing the loss of his stout walking boots as the mud soaked through the house-shoes Aradia had provided. Then he shoved the door shut again and mounted the horse. They made little sound in the mud.

  After his exertions, Lenardo was nauseated with weakness. He kept the horse to a walk, not only because galloping hoofbeats would carry in the wet night but because he feared falling off. He had hardly done anything, and he was so weak that he longed to go to sleep again!

  He dared not rest until he was well away. Reading no pursuit from the castle, he followed the road for a while, knowing the rain would wash away hoofprints. When it became difficult to Read the castle-a pitiful fragment of his normal range-he left the road, carefully riding the margin between two fields. Then a patch of woods and a narrow road leading northwest. Good-he would take this diagonal and meet the main road north of where he had left it above Zendi. He was recovered from the sick weakness by now. With the horse to carry him quickly away, he would certainly escape Aradia’s pursuit. She had no idea wh
ich direction he had gone, and no Readers with whom to search for him. The breath of freedom buoyed him up, and he urged his horse to a canter. A whole castle full of Adepts were no match for one sick Reader! He laughed aloud in triumph as he rode through the rainy night.

  By morning, Lenardo was exhausted. Dawn sent the last clouds scudding off to the east, but the fresh breeze chilled him in the clothes that were by now soaked through. He shivered and sneezed, for once longing for a bowl of the hot soup from Aradia’s kitchen. He took off the soggy cloak and wrung it out as best he could, laying it across the saddle in front of him. The rest of his clothes would have to dry on his body.

  He wondered if he should stay with the road now in daylight, or whether he ought to ride cross-country. The chances were that he could stay well ahead of any pursuit, and he would be less conspicuous on the road. The soaking had even dimmed the colors of his clothing.

  He Read back the way he had come, finding no one in range-but his capacity was even further diminished. I’ve got to get some sleep!

  Off to his left he noticed a flash of light, then another. The sun sparkling off some rain-wet surface? There was a strange rhythm to it, and he watched curiously until he had ridden to an angle at which he could no longer see it. It was several miles away-far beyond Reading in his present state.

  He soon climbed into hilly country, the patches of woodland melting into forest. If he could get to the rocky hills by nightfall, he could find a place to hide and sleep. But could he keep riding till nightfall? He was having difficulty Reading the road ahead while guiding his horse over the bad stretches. His concentration was faulty. He sneezed again. His head felt vaguely disconnected from his body.

  This road was not well traveled; he had made a fortunate choice. How far did Aradia’s influence extend? Would she alert other Adepts to a Reader at large in their lands?