Savage Empire

The black man immediately turned back to him. "Don't give him too much at once, Helmuth."

Then he spoke to Lenardo. "Do you understand me?" He now spoke in Aventine.

With the water to release his throat, Lenardo managed, "Aye." It was too much effort to say that he understood the other language too.

"You're safe now. We'll take you to Aradia. I'm going to make you sleep, so the journey will not pain you."

Lenardo wanted to protest, but he was too weak. The black man began to chant something in a language Lenardo didn't know, and he fell into dreamless sleep.

The dreams came later, as he was carried smoothly along in the litter. Or was that a dream too? Four men walking could not carry a litter so that it did not lurch or bump.

The confusing smooth motion was interspersed with strange images-worry about his pregnant wife… her time was due… when he got home, he might have a son. He tried to cry out to hurry-yes-the babe was born. A fine, healthy boy. Maj is fine… happy…

A horse… lame… nothing seemed to help. Poultices. Must ask Aradia…

Lovely girl. Halja… laughing blue eyes, light brown hair. Could he manage the marriage fee before her father gave her to another?

And woven through all the dreams the image of a woman… a woman who blended somehow Into the wolf-stone, the two images shifting… shifting… white wolf… alabaster woman… violet eyes…

He woke in a room, at night, lying in a bed. The black man, sitting beside the bed, rose and gave him water. "Are you hi pain?" he asked, still in Aventine.

"No," Lenardo replied, a pang of sudden fear as he remembered, looking for his right arm. It was still there, lying atop the covers like a dead thing, bloated, the streaks of red no worse than before but still there"Are you rested enough to speak?" asked a low-pitched female voice. Out of the shadows at the foot of the bed moved a woman with palest blond hair, her eyes dark pools in the dim candlelight. She reached for the wolf-stone about Lenardo's neck. "How do you come to wear this? I know you not."

"When I was sent into exile, a friend gave it to me. He thought it might protect me."

Her delicate eyebrows rose. "It has, indeed. The hill bandits have enough respect for it that they dared not kill you. It saved you a second time in that you are a Reader, and anyone else might have had you killed."

At Lenardo's start of surprise, she smiled, her pale face momentarily beautiful. "In your delirium, you talked of everything on the minds of the men carrying you-Hel-muth's lame horse, Jorj's marriage plans, Gron's son… and Gron did not even know he had been, born yet." Pure shame rang through Lenardo. Delirium or no, his training should have kept him from invading the men's minds, let alone babbling out their secrets. But the woman continued reassuringly, "Fortunately, no one but Wulfston spoke your language, so you did not frighten the poor men out of their wits."

"Wolf-stone?"

"I am Wulfston," said the black man.

Confused, Lenardo touched the alabaster wolfs head. "You are called-Wolf-stone?"

"Yes, that is what my name means. When you are well, I will explain how I got the name."

"I am Aradia," said the woman. "May we know your name?"

"Lenardo."

"Well, Lenardo, our first order is to put you back in good health. Let me examine you." As she spoke, a many-branched candelabrum on the table beside the bed… moved. Lenardo saw it only out of the corner of his eye and glanced toward it. It was perfectly still now-no, he must have imaginedAs he watched, every candle burst spontaneously into flame. At his astonishment, the woman said, "That is an easy trick-the candles are made to burn. I simply work with their natural inclination."

"How can candles have a natural inclination?" asked Lenardo.

"All of nature has desires," said the woman. "Water desires to run downhill. Crops desire to grow. What you call magic is nothing but encouraging things to follow their natural desires."

"Then you savages attack the empire because of a natural desire to kill?"

"No," she replied gently, "because of the natural desire to grow. Now, if you will let me examine your wounds-"

Wulfston stripped away the blankets, revealing Lenardo naked on the bed. "There were no signs on his back, my lady. They seem to have beaten his face and stomach, and he bruised his knees trying to crawl to shelter."

"To water," said Lenardo, recalling that deathly thirst

Gentle pale fingers probed his cuts and bruises, pressed on a rib until he winced. "I wonder if-" She laughed, a light, lovely sound. "But you can tell me, can't you? Is this rib broken?"

He Read it. "Cracked, not all the way through."

"Can you Read other people that easily?"

"Physical things? Yes. No one can block that."

"What help you will be at healing!" she exclaimed.

He had never heard of savages healing or using then-powers for anything but destruction. Could Galen be right? But this was an opportunity to gain her trust, without doing anything that might harm the empire. "I will be glad to repay your kindness by helping you at healing." Perhaps he could gain enough freedom of movement thereby to search for Galen.

Aradia was doing something with her hands over the broken rib, frowning in concentration. He felt heat within the bone, Read-and found that it had knit! It was not completely healed, but the strength was there, the pain gone!

"None of the rest of these scrapes and bruises are serious," she said. "Now let me heal your arm."

She lifted the arm as Wulfston pulled the blankets back over Lenardo. He had braced for pain when she touched it, but he felt nothing. It was as if it were someone else's arm.

"There is nothing you can do," he said. "It's already dead."

"Oh, no-you don't feel the pain because Wulfston blocked the nerves at your shoulder, so you would not suffer on the journey here. Can you Read for me how deep the infection goes?"

"The entire arm-and the poisons are in the blood. Surely if you practice healing you know the meaning of those red streaks. If you want to save my fife, you will have to cut off my arm."

Both Aradia and Wulfston were shielded againt Reading of their thoughts, but Lenardo's empathy picked up their horror and disgust at his words. "You call us savages?" demanded Aradia. "You, who come from a land where they do that to a man?" She pointed to the brand.

"What of the tortures you inflict on your prisoners?" he countered.

"Tortures? We have no need of torture. I do not know what you have been told of us, Lenardo, but the only people you will find in my land bearing marks of torture come from other lands… and some bear the same mark you do!"

The shock of his experience was begi

"I suppose no one ever breaks the law in the Aventine Empire? How did you come to be here? But come now, you are tired. You must rest and heal."

Aradia's hands moved gently over the bloated flesh, and Lenardo felt something-not pain, but the warmth he had felt in his broken rib, intensified. "It is the desire of the body to be whole," she said. "It is the desire of the body to be well, to cast out all poisons, to heal, the flesh clean and free of taint." Her voice continued, but he could no longer understand her words.

The warmth in his arm became a fire-a cleansing, purifying flame. It was the strangest sensation he had ever known-a terrible, intense heat, without pain. His arm should have been charred into ashes; instead, he Read the blood pumping through it, carrying away the poisons rendered harmless by the«fire.

The blazing heat continued as Aradia lifted her hands away. She smiled at him. "When you wake up, tell me if you still want me to cut off your arm. Sleep now."

She pressed gentle, warm fingers over his eyes, and he sank helplessly into blackness.