Empress Unborn se-7

by Jean Lorrah

  A foodseller’s stall collapsed, dousing his customers with boiling oil. Agonizing pain burned into Julia’s own flesh-a Reader caught in the deluge of oil-but even as she screamed the pain cut off, and she was left gasping in reaction.

  As quickly as it had come, the wind died-but the panic in the market continued.

  Julia jumped to her feet, wiping away tears caused by dust and shared pain. “Come on!” she shouted.

  “People need our help!”

  Galerio cried, “Follow Julia!” and they dashed toward the madhouse in the North Road.

  To get there, they had to wade through wine, spilled from the barrels outside the wine merchants’ shops.

  But Julia Read that the damage there was only to merchandise, not people, and hurried on.

  Cries of pain greeted them.

  The market street was a shambles of food, wine, goods, and blood.

  They almost fell over a man with a broken leg. Julia Read his pain, and directed, “Blanche, put him to sleep. Galerio, you and Antonius set the bone, and start him healing till a healer gets here.”

  There were a few other Readers in the market street. Everywhere there was someone in a white dress or tunic, people turned for help. Others approached the Readers, saying, “I can heal,” or “I can move things,” and together they sought to save those in danger of dying, and ease the pain of those whose injuries were not so severe.

  Hands clutched at Julia. “Reader, please! My little boy!” The woman pointed to a mound of broken crates. “It all fell on him! I couldn’t reach him!”

  Mosca and Piccolo started at once to toss the crates aside, but Julia Read-

  “I’m so sorry,” she said as gently as she could. “The child is dead. Dilys, please help this woman,” she added, for Dilys had the talent to affect people’s feelings. “The rest of you come with me. We must help the living.”

  A little farther on they came to a group of people heaving a smashed wagon off a woman’s chest.

  “Lady Julia!” cried a merchant who recognized her. “Is she alive?”

  Yes, there was a fluttering heartbeat, but broken ribs had penetrated the woman’s right lung and severed arteries. She could not live much longer.

  “I need a healer here!” Julia projected to all the Readers, showing them the extent of the woman’s injuries.

  “I’m bringing one,” came a mental voice she recognized as Master Juna, her music teacher. But the woman was blocked by people and debris-it would take several minutes for her and the man following her to reach them.

  In the meantime, the injured woman’s heartbeat grew weaker as her lung filled with her own blood.

  “Can anyone heal this woman?” Julia shouted aloud. No one responded. “Mosca!” she suddenly remembered.

  “Pull those ribs out to their normal position, and then pinch off the arteries. She’ll die if she bleeds any more!”

  The boy stared at her. “How can I-?”

  “Use your talent! If you can pinch a nerve to make a cramp, you can pinch off a blood vessel.”

  He swallowed hard, then nodded. “Show me where.”

  Julia directed, and Mosca concentrated-but he was a very minor Adept, and soon was shaking and sweating with the exertion. He couldn’t hold on. Where was that healer?

  “We’re coming,” Master Juna assured her. “You’re doing fine.”

  But Mosca wasn’t. He gave everything he had-and keeled over in a dead faint.

  The woman’s bright blood spurted once more.

  “Oh-why can’t I learn Adept skills?” Julia demanded of no one in particular.

  Then Galerio was kneeling by her side. “Show me.”

  At once he stopped the leakage he could see, then under her direction pinched off the other artery deep inside. Somehow, the woman’s heart still beat, although her chest heaved in her struggles for air.

  Finally the crowd parted for Master Juna and the Adept healer. Galerio rocked back on his heels and let go on a wave of relief.

  “Good work,” said Master Juna. “Son, you must come to the Academy and learn to work with Readers.

  We always need healers.”

  Unlike Mosca, who was sound asleep on the cobblestones, Galerio was not even breathing hard.

  Julia said, “I’m so proud of you! Come on-let’s see if anyone else needs us.”

  “Sure,” he replied, getting to his feet, “but don’t think I’m gonna spend my life obeying Readers just ‘cause I helped out in an emergency!”

  Decius was just leaving Aradia when he suddenly stopped, his eyes taking on the look of a Reader concentrating on something at a distance. “My lady-” he began, but Aradia was already Reading with him, his stronger powers revealing the sudden destruction occurring in the market street.

  Without another word, they both ran from the villa and strode rapidly toward the main north-south road.

  By the time they reached it, other Readers were converging, a parade of men and women in white, the gowns and tunics of the Masters and Magisters edged in black. Among them were Adepts who could Read, Adepts who happened to be working with Readers when the storm occurred, and some Dark Moon Readers, pools of color in the white tide.

  Aradia was slower on her feet these days, and Decius was hampered by his wooden leg, so they were in the back of the pack by the time they reached the area of destruction.

  The storm was over, but the market was devastated. Every hand was needed to dig out the injured, and every Adept was quickly put to work, those on the scene quickly teaming with Readers to save as many lives as possible.

  Aradia and Decius started into the melee, only to be accosted by Master Clement. “Lady Aradia!” the old man exclaimed. “We need you to direct things here. People will listen to your orders.”

  That was true, although she knew his underlying motivation was to keep her from exhausting herself—

  and thereby threatening her baby-with the use of Adept powers.

  So she sent out the word: healers to the forum, all injured to be sent there as soon as life-preserving measures had been taken. There was now a hospital in Zendi, but it did not have room for so many. Only those requiring much further healing would eventually be taken there. Once it was organized, the healing talent in Zendi would easily suffice to help everyone who had been injured in the freak whirlwind.

  Decius helped broadcast the directions to the Readers, most of whom had not been in Zendi during the battles when this plan had first been developed. Soon the evacuation of the ruined area was proceeding apace.

  Aradia resisted employing her own powers, until a man pushed his way through the crowd to fall on his knees at her feet. “Lady,” he begged. “Oh, Lady-please. My friend-”

  He spoke the savage language with a strong Aventine accent, and his appearance was Aventine: clean-shaven, hair cut short. But the former Aventine Empire was now part of the Savage Empire, so he and his friend were her people now.

  Aradia asked, “Where is your friend?” intending to see how badly he was injured and get help.for him—

  but when the small Aventine man led her to his friend she gasped in horror.

  The man lay writhing on the cobblestones, his face twisted in agony. He was burned hideously, having been caught when a food vendor’s vat of boiling oil overturned.

  One side of his neck and face were swollen, blistered, and puckered, and where his chest and shoulder were soaked with oil she knew even without Reading that he was just as badly burned beneath his clothing. How could he have been overlooked?

  But as she tried to Read him, Aradia realized how: he was as blank to Reading as an Adept exercising his powers.

  But he was no Adept; his burns were reddening and raising further blisters even as she watched. No healing was going on here.

  A woman knelt beside him, pale with shock, trying to wipe the oil from his face with her kerchief. A child clung to her skirts.

  The woman looked up as the crowd cleared a path for Aradia. “Oh, my lady! Please h
elp him! He saved my baby!”

  “That’s right!” the man’s friend exclaimed excitedly. “When the vat overturned, Pyrrhus grabbed the kid out of the way, threw him to me-but the oil hit him). Help him, Lady-please!”

  Aradia laid her hand against the uninjured side of Pyrrhus’ face and willed his pain to stop.

  At once the ghastly twisting of the man’s face abated, and Aradia smiled at his relief. But then his eyes opened, and he stared up at her in utter shocked astonishment.

  The eyes were brown, shadowed under heavy brows. They studied her, and then he asked in a tense, hoarse voice, “Who are you?”

  “I am Aradia, Lady Adept,” she replied. “Do not fear-you will be completely healed. I will put you to sleep now.”

  “No!”

  “It is necessary,” she said gently, understanding that these Aventines did not yet fully trust the people they had always called savages, especially Adepts. But Pyrrhus would when he woke to find his pain gone, his body unscarred.

  He fought her, but his injury had taken his physical strength; his body was weak with shock. His strength of will was astonishing, though-she had to force him into unconsciousness as if he were an enemy Adept resisting her attempts to put him out of commission.

  But Aradia had conserved her strength. She eased Pyrrhus into healing sleep, setting his own body to repairing the damage the boiling oil had done.

  Then she turned to the woman, asking, “Are you hurt? Or your child?”

  “No, my lady-thanks to these men.” The woman was not Aventine; she spoke the savage language with a peasant’s accent.

  So their Adventine visitors had risked their lives to save the child of someone they still regarded as a potential enemy. A moment’s unconsidered reflex, but one of many small incidents that would eventually build a bridge between conquered and conquerors, and help them to forget their relationship had begun under those conditions.

  “I will see that they are rewarded,” Aradia assured the woman.

  The injured man’s friend was kneeling beside him, his hands clenched into fists, as if he wanted to help, but didn’t know how. “What is your name?” Aradia asked him.

  “Wicket,” he replied. “Look!” he gasped excitedly. “The blisters are going down already!”

  “Yes,” Aradia told him. “Pyrrhus will be perfectly well in a day or two. I will have him taken to the hospital as soon as I finish here.”

  And Aradia vowed that no matter what Master Clement said, she would visit Pyrrhus there and aid his healing until he recovered.

  Decius joined her again, ostenisibly Reading what she was doing in order to learn to heal, but she knew that he was carefully monitoring her condition, ready to stop her if she showed signs of exhaustion.

  But the one healing effort was well within her limits. By the time she was satisfied, the last of the injured were in the forum, and reports of deaths and property damage were ready for her attention.

  Five people had died, killed instantly in the storm, no one able to help them in the midst of the whirlwind.

  All those alive after the storm had been saved, and she heard Julia and her band of reprobate friends being praised on every side. They had come in from the north end of the market-the part least accessible to the Readers and Adepts who had run to help-and were credited with saving at least a dozen lives.

  Now what am I doing with that scamp? Aradia wondered. She walks out like a spoiled brat, and comes back a heroine.

  Julia had Read that the reports were in, and was wending her way across the forum to take her place beside Aradia. Only when she saw the child’s condition, hair a rat’s nest, face smeared with grime, clothes torn, did she realize that Julia had actually been caught in the storm.

  Aradia could not scold her before their retainers, so she said nothing to Julia as she received the reports.

  The well-built new structures in that area of town had stood firm; if the wind had not struck the market, few people would have been harmed.

  But as the last man turned to leave, Master Clement came up to them. “Don’t Read,” he told the two women. “The news will reach the other Readers soon enough, but you should know it first, Aradia.”

  “What has happened?” Aradia asked, bracing Adept powers.

  “I have just received news from Tiberium, from Adigia, from numerous villages throughout our lands.

  There was not only this one freak whirlwind today. There were almost twenty, each one occurring where it would create the greatest damage and loss of life. It cannot be coincidence, my lady. Although no Reader anywhere in our lands Read anyone behind it, such a series of storms can only be the product of Adept attack.”

  Chapter Three

  The next day, Julia stood proudly before the people of Zendi as Aradia gave out awards to those who had helped to save lives after yesterday’s storm. The older Readers were embarrassed by the ceremony-they were not accustomed to being rewarded individually for their services.

  Master Clement had set up an Academy here. Almost all of the Academy-trained Readers lived there, continuing the life-style they had always known. The only difference now was that men and women worked there together, something that still made some older Readers uneasy.

  Money in an Academy was communal property; if the Readers earned some, it went into the community coffer; if a Reader had to travel, he was given funds for the journey out of that coffer. Master Clement had instructed that the gold Aradia handed out today was to be kept by the individual Readers, not placed in the Academy treasury. Many of the Readers receiving it had no idea what to do with the money.

  Not so the minor Adepts and other citizens! They burgeoned with pride and plans. Many were merchants who had lost property in the storm; they, of course, would rebuild. Others thought of presents for their families, dowries, necessities or luxuries.

  Galerio’s cohorts would probably drink and gamble their reward away, Julia knew. Galerio himself, though, wanted a horse, and she wholeheartedly approved. They’d be able to ride out into the country-alone, without his pack of followers. She carefully shielded her thoughts from Master Clement, who would surely feel compelled to relay them to Aradia. Rules of privacy didn’t apply to children when adults thought they violated them “for the good of the child.” How she wished her teacher would stop thinking of her as a child!

  Toward the end of the ceremony, Aradia called forth a man who looked less like a hero than anyone Julia had ever seen before. It wasn’t exactly his appearance, although he was perhaps the most “medium”

  person Julia had ever seen: medium size, medium build, medium age, medium-brown hair slightly receding. It was his demeanor, as if he wasn’t sure why he was there, his glance darting about as if he expected someone to chase him away.

  But Aradia announced, “Wicket, and his friend Pyrrhus who is still in the hospital, are Aventines, but they risked their lives-and Pyrrhus was badly injured-saving the child of one of Zendi’s citizens. It is especially important to remind ourselves that the Aventines are no longer our enemies, but citizens of our empire. Pyrrhus and Wicket proved yesterday that they are brothers to us all. Wicket.” She handed the man two gold coins. “One measure for you, and one for Pyrrhus, in token of the gratitude of your fellow countrymen.”

  Wicket stared at the gold, which Julia guessed was more money than he had ever had at one time in his life. She tried to Read his surface feelings-not exactly a forbidden invasion of the privacy of a nonReader if she did not search his thoughts, although she knew she would get a stern lecture from Master Clement if he caught her at it.

  But Wicket’s feelings were hidden behind a strange barrier-a wall of nonsense: snatches of songs, jokes, stories swarmed on the surface of his mind, masking not only what he was thinking, but what he felt as well.

  Smothering the urge to giggle, Julia stood in silent amusement as Aradia bestowed the Empire’s honor on a common criminal.

  Some sort of confidence man, she assumed, pickpocket maybe, or chea
t at gambling. NonReader, he had been trained by somebody who knew the Readers’ Code to set up a mental screen lest he be caught at his unlawful activities before he could even perform them. Julia had Read such criminals in Tiberium, where they had operated boldly during the brief time of chaos after the city’s fall.

  Later, she had helped her father recognize such people and discourage them from plying their trade in Zendi. Wicket must be new here; there were Readers in the town now who would recognize that barrier.

  All he had to do was trigger any citizen’s suspicions, and he’d be caught.

  Meanwhile, though, Julia found it amusing that no one else yet knew what Wicket was-and since he had not broken the law, she was not about to tell. Such people who lived by their wits had been her friends in childhood, often willing to amuse a little girl with jokes and stories when no one else had time for her. Of course in the Savage Lands, with no Readers to pry into their heads, they had not needed such mental barriers then.

  Flustered at being the object of attention from those in authority, Wicket was saying, “Uh-thank you, Lady Aradia.”

  Julia wondered if Aradia noticed that he did not say ” my lady.” She knew many Aventine Readers who, while they acknowledged the titles which indicated the status of the Lords Adept, refused to accept their right to rule them. A single instance, of course, told her little about Wicket’s attitude. It was obvious that he had never met a Lady Adept before.

  Neither Aradia nor Master Clement ever referred to Julia as “Lady,” although the people did. It was an issue Julia remained silent on; if she asked for the term of respect from her guardians, they would tell her she was too young. Master Clement, she was certain, would say she should not have the title until she had passed the tests for Magister Reader-and that event was five years away So she said nothing, but also never corrected her people.

  Galerio never used the title, though. When the ceremony broke up, he joined her, saying, “How about putting your talent to some use for me, Julia?”

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked eagerly, pleased at the chance to have Galerio owe her a favor.