Savage Empire

It was Torio, calling him to where the injured were being tended. The blind boy knelt beside a still form-Decius.

Lenardo Read the younger boy, found him alive, but "He joined the fight! He didn't go with the children, Magister, because I praised him this morning. He thought he was ready to do battle. If he dies, it's my fault."

"He's not dying, Torio. Only…"

Decius was ashen with loss of blood. The wound was in his leg, above the knee-a vicious slash through flesh and bone. Nerve and muscle were severed. Lenardo Read the wound, which had almost stopped bleeding since someone had tied a strip of cloth around the leg just above it. Someone who had Read what Lenardo did: no empire surgeon could repair that leg. It would have to come off. Decius would be left a cripple.

Torio, Reading with Lenardo, began to sob. "I hoped I was wrong! Oh, why did I encourage him to think himself a swordsman?"

"Torio, you didn't. You merely told him he would make a swordsman one day-and he would have, with you to teach him. Now you must teach him other skills. Teach him to Read as well as you do."

"That won't compensate for the loss of a leg!" Torio said furiously. "Because I can Read, I don't need eyes-but no skill at Reading will make Decius any less a cripple. Our enemies' skills could help him-ours cannot!"

The boy echoed Lenardo's own traitorous thoughts. Yet.

"Torio, was not today's battle enough to show you how the savages use their powers? They destroy with them- they don't do good. Their misuse of power brought the attack in which Decius was injured."

"I know," Torio said miserably.. "But why, Magister? Oh!" He suddenly remembered. " Master Lenardo, why must such power be only for evil?"

"It is the nature of power to corrupt," Lenardo replied, the tenet drilled into him since his own power to Read had been discovered when he was eight years old. "Our society is designed so that no one person may hold enough power to corrupt him."

It was a set speech. Torio accepted it, kneeling beside Decius. "Yes," he whispered fiercely, "I know. Still… why have we never sought to acquire the skills of our enemy and regulate them as we do our own? We have the society that could do it, Master."

Lenardo sighed. The old argument of youth, rising afresh in each generation. "Torio, when you ask that, you are ready for Master Clement's private tutoring. I will inform him."

"Why won't you teach me, Master Lenardo? You have always been my teacher. There is no reason for us to sit still and let the savages destroy us. Are we savages ourselves, afraid of anything we don't understand?"

Just then, Decius stirred and moaned. Both Lenardo and Torio bent over him, their discussion forgotten as they sought to make the injured boy more comfortable. But the worry preyed on Lenardo's mind. My teaching did not lead Galen in the right path. Because of my weakness, the entire Aventine Empire may fall.

As soon as the wounded were attended to, preparations for burial of the dead begun, the homeless given shelter, Masters Clement and Lenardo returned to the chamber beneath the keep to report the result of the battle to Portia. Leaving their bodies behind, they entered a plane of privacy. Only another Reader on the same plane could perceive their thoughts, unless they deliberately directed them to someone.

Portia relayed the message to recall the troops marching toward Adigia, and then listened with sad intensity as Lenardo told her about Galen.

//You are certain it was Galen, and that he was Reading for the enemy? The boy was a fool, but I never thought him so vile a traitor.//

Her words stung Lenardo. //I did not think so either. You know I opposed his exile. Portia, something must be done to stop Galen, or the empire is doomed. Every year, the savages force our borders back further. Now, with a Reader to guide them-//

//Lenardo-Clement-how many others know that a Reader was directing the attack?//

//Why… no one,// said Clement.

//Good. Do not tell anyone.//

//But Portia,// protested Lenardo, //something must be done!//

//Indeed, we must put a stop to Galen's aiding the savages-but in doing so, we must not make our own people mistrust us.//

//What do you mean?// asked Master Clement.

//My friends, you have been too long out there along the border, where simple people respect and accept you. Here at the center of government many fear the Readers. We must show that we police our own-or they will fear that any or all of us might turn our talents to abetting the enemy.//

//But this is the first time-// Master Clement began.

//Aye,// she replied, //it has finally happened, the secret fear of non-Readers. Did you think only Readers capable of predicting such an event? Others are as intelligent as we-and many far more crafty. For centuries we Readers have disciplined ourselves. The only restriction the government places on us is that we may not hold, office. Do you want to see other restrictions, the academies broken up, non-Readers interfering with the education of Readers?//