Savage Empire

Far, far up in the hills, he Read water. He couldn't stand; he could barely get to his knees to crawl. After a while, it ceased to matter. He slumped into unconsciousness.

Feverish sleep possessed him, thirst and. pain awakening him several times to see stars overhead. One time he was freezing but couldn't find cloak or blanket. Then he was burning, his lips splitting with thirst, the sun blazing down on him. The pain in his arm was gone.

Somehow he found the strength to turn his head, meaning to look at his arm, but caught instead by a vision. Hallucination, he told himself firmly, but still before his bleary eyes, swimming in and out of focus but stubbornly remaining, sat the white wolf.

It was not the abstract alabaster symbol, but a living animal, dusty about the feet, watching him curiously from a safe distance. Safe? Who was the one in danger here?

Perhaps the animal would tear him apart, and his troubles would be over.

The wolf rose and made a sort of whining noise, like a dog. It ran a few paces away, turned to look at Lenardo, came back to its original position, and whined again. Twice more it repeated the performance. Bemused, Lenardo wondered, You want me to follow you, boy? I'm not going anywhere. Probably not ever again. The effort of focusing his attention on the animal sent him back into unconsciousness, and when he next woke, the wolf was gone. If it was ever there.

He focused his eyes on his right arm, lying like a separate thing, swollen, red streaks running from the yellow, scabrous brand up toward his shoulder. He had seen such marks before. It meant his arm must come off if he were to live.

But I'm not going to live, he thought. Alone, far from help, he would die of thirst before the day was out. Carefully assessing his situation, he came to the same conclusion twice more and decided he was thinking clearly enough. It was truly hopeless. There was no need for him to suffer the lingering hours. He could not move to compose his body, but it didn't matter. He would not be returning to it.

In utter peace, he Read outward until he floated above the wreck of his physical form. Now there was no pain or fever; he was free. When his body died, he would be fully released-but while it still lived he must see Master Clement or Portia. They must know he had failed, must do something about Galen…

Before he began to concentrate on Adigia, however, other minds attracted his attention. Four men were coming from the hills. More bandits? He Read them and found there were five, one of them shielded against Reading. An Adept!

The savage Adepts could not Read, but neither could they be Read; a part of their training apparently included barriers against such intrusion, even though it could not come from their own people.

Focusing himself to see and hear, Lenardo saw five men in clean, serviceable clothing, moving purposefully down the hillside. One of them stopped, pointing to Lenardo's body. "Look! There he is!"

They all began to run toward the crumpled form. "Is he dead?" asked the oldest of the group, a stoop-shouldered man with a gray beard.

"Do you know him, Wolf-stone?" asked another as the apparent leader of the group knelt beside Lenardo's body.

"No," he said, and Lenardo Read that this was the one. barricaded against him. He was a young man, a Nubian-a Nubian Adept? But if not Adept, why shielded? And they called him Wolf-stone? He was lifting the alabaster wolfs head with the violet eyes, comparing it with one he wore about his own neck. Lenardo wondered vaguely if the white wolf had gone to get him. "He wears the wolf-stone," the black man said. "It is the sign-yet…" He examined Lenardo's wounded arm. "An exile fresh from the empire -how can he wear Aradia's sign? Never mind; we must take him to her if he can survive the journey."

"Is he alive?" asked the graybeard.

"Oh, yes. Don't you see him breathing? He will suffer less if we can avoid waking him. Helmuth, wet his lips, but be careful he does not breathe water in. The rest of you prepare the litter."

Reluctantly, Lenardo realized that he was not to be relieved of his mission. He must return to his body and live-for wherever these men took him, he might learn more of Galen. He would lose his right arm, his sword arm, but, he thought with bitter humor, the brand of dishonor would go with it. If he should ever return to the empire…

If there was to be an empire to return to, he must regain his body. He had not thought to have to do so. It was a slow, painful, nearly impossible process when the body was as debilitated as his was. Finally, he opened gummy eyes to see the gray-bearded face swimming above him, as gentle hands wetted his parched lips from a water-skin.

Thirst was his first concern. Helplessly, he tried to speak, had no voice, but the old man lifted his head so he could drink, saying, "Lie still, son. You're all right now."

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