Savage Empire

"I know. You are already feverish," Wulfston said, touching Lenardo's forehead. "I must increase your body heat, direct the blood flow to your lungs, and decrease the flow to your head, where excess heat might damage your mind. If you become sleepy, it is not because I willed it. Would you not rather sleep through the procedure? In my training, I had to experience it waking. It is not painful, but the first time it is very frightening."

"I've felt it before," Lenardo reminded him, "when Aradia healed my arm and my broken rib."

"Yes-a localized sensation is not so bad. However, she put you to sleep before she set your body to cleansing the poisons from your entire bloodstream. Tell me if the feeling becomes unbearable. There is no reason you should have to endure it"

"Why did you have to?" Lenardo asked curiously.

"How else would I know what I was doing to another? I ca

What Lenardo felt was strange but not particularly frightening, not as fearsome as the first tune he had Read his own body, watching the organs working, the blood pumping, certain that every strange thing he saw was a sign of some dread disease. Of course-to an Adept, this outlining of his veins with fire would be his first experience of his body's systems at work. Unable to Read, no wonder Wulfston had found it frightening.

Lenardo felt discomfort as his body temperature rose. His head ached slightly, and he wanted to pull his clothes off to let cool air touch his hot, dry skin. He tried to Read down to the microscopic level at which he could sense the organism the fever was attacking, but the effort was too great.

He let himself drift on the level of easy Reading, deliberately relaxing all his muscles. The headache subsided to a dull throb. Eventually Wulfston placed a hand on Lenardo's forehead, pleasantly cool on his feverish skin, and there was gentle concern in the young Adept's emotional presence as he said, "The worst is over now. I must maintain the heat for a time, but it will not increase. Do you find it disturbing?"

"No. I'm too hot, but I can stand it." "Could you Read what I was doing?" "I felt what happened, but not how you did it." "I'm rather glad of that. If a Reader could learn Adept powers as well, he'd be invincible."

"Is that why you shield so carefully against Reading?" "There is no shield. I'm not consciously doing anything to keep you from Reading me." He frowned. "This problem has always interested me. What is the difference between your mind and mine? We both have abilities most people do not, yet you ca

"I can Read you physically," said Lenardo. "I just ca

"That is interesting. I can affect your body, but- Tell me, Lenardo, how did you get out of your room at the castle?"

"Would you be satisfied if I said someone let me out?" "None of Aradia's people would. You were able to break her control of your mind. We can affect each other's bodies but not minds."

"I can't affect anyone's body or mind," said Lenardo. "The idea of meddling with another person's thoughts, beliefs, is abhorrent to me."

"Yet you spy on people's most secret acts, fantasies, desires-"

"Never! The Reader's Honor forbids such a thing!" "Oh, yes. I have heard of the Reader's Code of Honor… but does it bind an exile, Lenardo?"

"It binds a Reader, Wulfston. Wherever I go for the rest of my life, I shall never cease to be a Reader. I shall never cease to honor the Code."

The intensity of speech left him gasping for breath. Wulfston said, "I'm sorry. Please relax-I should not say things to anger you while I am trying to heal you," He shook his head. "I want to trust you, and I dare not Aradia thinks you can help us, but how can we know you will not turn on us?"

"You can't know," replied Lenardo, "unless I tell you so. Right now I tell you that if I thought I could overpower you, I would escape."

"Where to?" Wulfston demanded in frustration. "Not to-from! I owe you and Aradia something for saving my life, but that does not make me Aradia's property or give her the right to restrict me when I have done her no harm."

"Aradia's powers give her the right," Wulfston said in-a tone that suggested he was stating a natural law. "Might makes right?"

"Of course. How can the world be otherwise?" "Then why talk of trust? Either you can hold me and force me to work for you, or you ca

"That is the flaw hi Drakonius' thinking," said Wulfston. "He rules entirely by power and must spend much time and energy in enforcement. Aradia finds trust and cooperation better tools-you see what she has done for her people. In her lands, no one starves or goes in rags. No one fears an unjust death. Do you not think people will be loyal unto death to such a leader?"

"Aradia took a place like Drakonius' lands, and turned it into this pleasant countryside?"

"Her father began it," said Wulfston. "If he could only know how far she has succeeded, he would be immensely proud of her."

Lenardo saw unshed tears in the Adept's dark eyes. "Aradia's father is ill and blind, she told me. Still, can't he be told what she is doing?"

"He no longer understands. Nerius is gravely ill… dying. That's why Aradia did not come for you herself- she is the only one who can control one of her father's spells."

"Spells?"

"You remember that day when things began flying about in your room? That was Nerius. His Adept powers go wild, destroying things and at the same time draining his strength. If-Aradia were not there to stop him, he would kill himself by draining all his energy."

Reading Wulfston's grief, Lenardo tried a turn of subject. "You said Adepts don't use their own strength-?"

"Not when they can guide the power of nature or put another person's energy to work for himself." Apparently relieved, Wulfston began to deliver a familiar lecture to an interested audience. "Healing is the easiest of an Adept's tasks. Once he starts the process back to health, the patient's body takes over. Other things… the rain the night you escaped, for example. The natural movement of the weather here is from west to east. All we had to do was guide the clouds slightly and encourage them to drop their moisture over the area that needed it."

"What if there were a drought and no convenient clouds?"

"We study nature for that very reason. There was such a drought here, eight years ago. I worked with Nerius and Aradia-the first time I was admitted as a full Adept to their circle. It was very difficult to create the conditions for rain, working against nature. Aradia thinks it might be the way Nerius expended his strength then that caused his illness."

Back to Nerius. Clearly the health of Aradia's father weighed heavily on Wulfston's mind. "You have an irrigation system now," Lenardo prompted.

"Yes, built since the drought-or repaired, rather. An old Aventine aqueduct. In case of drought, there would be enough water to raise moderate crops. We wouldn't starve. But an aqueduct is such an easy target for one's enemies."

"I suppose it wouldn't take much power to shift a support," Lenardo mused, "to cut off the water supply. But tell me, Wulfston-what kind of power would it take to cause an earthquake?"

The young Adept pushed up Lenardo's right sleeve and traced the dragon's-head brand with one finger. "Impossible power," he said. "Even a large body of the strongest Adepts could not produce such energy, unless-"

"Unless?"

"You did come from'Drakonius' lands," said Wulfston, "yet the brand on your arm was so new that it festered. I have seen many infections-I know it was not an old wound. If you had escaped Drakonius-"

"Only in the sense that I wandered from his lands into Aradia's."

"Drakonius claimed to have a Reader to guide him. Aradia did not believe him… or did not want to. She does not want to leave her father so ill, and she has little interest in making war on the Aventine empire. She challenged Drakonius to produce his Reader, but Drakonius refused."