Savage Empire

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 against 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 beginning to dull his senses. "What of your bandits?" he asked weakly.

"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.

Lenardo woke to sunlight streaming in the window. He was curled up comfortably on his right side, waking naturally just after sunrise… but he was not in his room at the academy.

For a moment he was completely confused by the unfamiliar surroundings, and then his mind cleared. His arm!

Sitting bolt upright, heart pounding, he held his right arm out in front of him. It moved normally, naturally, felt as it had always felt. He Read completely healthy flesh and bone.

To the eye, the skin had a sickly pallor, but he saw and felt that his calluses were gone, his hand as smooth as a baby's. After all the swelling and blisters, the skin must have sloughed off. This was new skin, pale because untouched by the sun.

How long-?

He drew right and left hands together. The outdoor tan on his left arm had hardly paled at all. He could not have been unconscious for very long.

He sat for a moment, staring at his arm. The brand that had caused all the trouble now appeared an old mark, seared deeply and permanently into his flesh, but with no remaining soreness.

Bewildered, he rubbed his face and found he was badly in need of a shave-but again, it was several days' stubble, not a growth of many weeks. He decided the best thing to do was to get up and find someone to answer his questions.

He was still naked except for the wolf's-head pendant, but his body felt clean. His clothes-what the bandits had left to him-were nowhere to be found, so he draped a blanket over himself like a toga and started out the door.

It was locked.

Feeling like an utter fool, he stood there, Reading through it. There was no one in the hallway outside. They didn't think it necessary to guard him.

No sense shouting and pounding on the door. He went to the window and saw the courtyard of a castle. He was two levels above the ground, looking down at the blacksmith setting up for the day's work in the corner below him. He was a slender man, not the well-muscled type one usually associated with smiths. As Lenardo watched, he turned to his forge, waved his hand, and the fire blazed up! Lenardo realized there was no bellows.