Savage Empire

//No!// A burst of panic, followed by enforced but tenuous control. //Why should I leave? I'm never going back to an empire that locks Readers up in the academies and out of the senate, an empire that's afraid of us. Come join me. I'll prove I was right, Lenardo. I'll show you what our powers are for.// But the boy did not believe his own words.

//Galen-can't you see what they've done to you? You've broke one of the commands they implanted-you can easily cast out these thoughts. They're not your own.//

//They said you were exiled! I've been Reading all over the land for you. They told me you had come to see things our way, that you were in Zendi, and then you disappeared. Where are you?//

Lenardo tried another approach. //Galen, you were right; it is possible to make peace with the savages. Everyone will know you destroyed Drakonius' army-//

//You destroyed them!// Galen raged suddenly. //I felt you touch my mind, distracting me! Now they don't trust me, because of you! I should have killed you when I had the chance!//

Beneath the boy's ramblings, Lenardo caught thoughts, suspicions: the Code a hypocrisy… Lenardo trying to keep Galen from achieving rank as a Reader… betraying him in his testimony at the trial… jealous of Galen, refusing to admit he was becoming the better Reader…

It was all nonsense-but how had Drakonius found these strange thoughts, to knit of them a snare for Galen's mind? Or was it possible they were not of Drakonius' invention, but rather the result of Galen's exposure for two years to the Adept's manipulations, transferred to his own disappointments?

At that moment, Lenardo could have wished for an Adept's skill to force Galen to calm down. The boy seemed not to have grown up at all-if anything, his adolescent mood swings had gotten worse. //Galen, I want to help you-//

//You! You coward! You let me be exiled-branded! You said you'd stand by me, and you didn't. You hate me because I'm a better Reader than you are. Everyone who's the best at something is hated. Now you want to trick me into going back to be executed. It won't work, Lenardo. I know you now, and I hate you!// Lenardo's mind flinched, • but he could not avoid the intensity of the boy's hysteria. //I hate you! I'm going to find you and kill you, Lenardo, so you'll never betray me again!//

Chapter Six The Wolf Stirs

When Lenardo's consciousness returned to his body, he was almost glad of the pain in his back, knees, and ankles, competing with the pain of his confrontation with Galen. He had been sitting tailor-fashion, not the proper posture from which to leave the body.

After the onslaught of aches, his next impression was that someone was touching him. He opened his eyes to find Aradia kneeling before Mm, holding his wrist with a finger on his pulse, concern in her violet eyes. "Are you all right? You slumped-I thought you'd fainted, but I was afraid to move you."

"I'm glad you didn't," he replied. "I'll be all right in a moment." He stretched his cramped legs, rubbing them, then stood up to stretch his back.

"Was it too far? What happened to you?"

"It was too far for a closely focused Reading, but I found Drakonius' stronghold. There is no army there now. As for Adepts-I'm afraid I couldn't concentrate enough to separate them from the others. There weren't more than thirty people in the entire stronghold."

"Are you sure that's what you found? Not just a castle?"

Oh yes. Galen would not be anywhere but in Drakonius' stronghold.

"It's not a castle. Drakonius has expanded some caves in a cliff, and built fortifications along the river's edge. It seems to be a new place that he's still working on."

"Did Drakonius' Reader detect your presence?"

"Yes," he admitted.

"Has he followed you here? Is he Reading us now?"

"No-I saw to it that he couldn't follow me, and besides, he can't Read this far. I fear Drakonius has chained his mind."

"Wulfston thinks-"

"What I thought: that Galen broke the commands implanted in his mind and bided his time until he could bring that avalanche down on Drakonius' army."

"But you don't think that now?"

"I don't know what to think, Aradia. Galen is young- only twenty-and his training as a Reader was cut off when he was exiled at eighteen. I don't know how far he may have progressed, but certainly not as far as If he'd stayed at the academy. I could not have Read so far at his age. I don't know whether he can break a command planted in his mind by an Adept, because I have no example but my own. It was easy enough for me once I knew what you had done. In Galen's case…"

"What?"

"First, it's possible he has truly come to hate the empire. Second, if Drakonius implanted that hatred in Galen's mind, how do I get Galen to want to break the command? I wanted that door to open for me, but suppose you had implanted in my mind the suggestion that I simply wanted to stay there?" He frowned. "Could you do that?"

"I could have. I would not."

"Why not?"