Torio's first experience in the savage lands had been at the hands of one of their miraculous healers. Casting his lot in with Lenardo and his daughter Julia, he had fought his way with them out of the empire in a long, harrowing ride. They had reached the gates of Adigia unharmed-but just as they escaped across the border, Torio had been struck by an arrow. They had had to ride on, the arrow grating and tearing at the flesh of his shoulder while he clung desperately to Lenardo, trying not to fall off the galloping horse.
In the Aventine Empire, had Torio been tended immediately he would probably have lived. But he might have died from loss of blood; he might have died from infection; he would certainly have had a long, painful recovery and an ugly scar. If an Aventine healer had gotten to him only when the savage healer had, after he was faint from blood loss and the arrow had wrought great damage to the bones and muscles of his shoulder, he would have had a much lesser chance of surviving, and if he had, he would certainly have had restricted use of his arm.
Under the care of the savage healer, Torio's wound had healed within a few hours to the point at which he could use his arm without pain. Within a few days no one could have known the wound had been there; there was not even a scar.
Raised an Aventine citizen in constant fear of the encroaching savages, Torio had never realized that they used their powers for anything but destruction. Ever since he had discovered what good they could do, he had been as eager as Lenardo to find ways to bring their two powers together. What he was unsure of was the right way to do it.
Wulfston rode silently, not intruding on Torio's thoughts. They had crossed the border by breaching the wall earlier today-Wulfston had simply brought a portion of it down in a neat mound over which they had easily ridden their horses. There were other ways, Torio had learned-an Adept could walk in at a gate if he chose a time when few guards were about, by first planting the suggestion in their minds that they had orders to let him in, and then that the event had never happened. Nowadays, though, every gate was heavily guarded and that technique could not be used on more than one or two people at a time.
That Adepts, with no Reading power, could manipulate minds as well as bodies, was one of the more terrifying discoveries Torio had made on the other side of the border. It was a wonder that the empire had not been destroyed generations ago by people with such powers. Lenardo said that the only reason was that up to now the Lords Adept had spent so much energy fighting one another that they had been unable to concentrate their powers against the empire. But now…
Now there was peace in all the savage lands along the Aventine border. Lenardo, Aradia, Wulfston, and Lilith held what Aradia claimed was the largest territory ever united in mutual agreement. Twice their alliance had been attacked by other savage lords, and twice they had won-the second time with Torio in the midst of the fighting. The lands of the Lords Adept who had attacked and been destroyed had increased the territory they held; it now seemed, as their numbers had increased with the addition of Torio, Lenardo's daughter Julia, and Lilith's son Ivorn, that the alliance of Readers and Adepts was perceived as too powerful and dangerous to try to attack. Besides, as Aradia was fond of saying, their enemies probably thought that if they just waited long enough the members of the alliance would begin to fight with one another, and leave themselves vulnerable.
Torio was automatically Reading their way through the woods that grew wild all along the border-a sort of no-man's-land on either side of the wall where no one wanted to live. Restricting his concentration to an area directly ahead, he narrowed the possibility of another Reader's homing in on him and reporting their whereabouts to the Aventine guard.
Restricting his Reading that way, though, meant that he could not let himself be wide open to anything within his range, or to the relays of powerful Readers who might be sending messages related to their escape. It was probably true that the search for whoever triggered the earthquake was centered near Gaeta, two days' ride away-but someone was sure to report that there had been a quake in this area just before the major one, and then-
Sure enough, Torio felt the touch of another mind. Instantly, he stopped Reading. "Wulfston-they've found us."
"It's all right," said the Adept. "I know the way from here." He rode up beside Torio and took his horse's rein. "We're still an hour from the border-don't Read, and perhaps they won't be sure of where we are. I can handle anyone they send against us-but I'd rather not."
Torio let Wulfston lead him, feeling again the frustration he had left behind for many years before crossing the border into the savage lands: the frustration of being truly blind. The feeling came on him now only when they had to hide from other Readers, something unheard of in the life he had known before. Privacy, yes-there were times when Readers wanted to shield their thoughts or conversations-but then they used techniques which did not leave them helpless and dependent, led by someone else through a world suddenly unfamiliar and dangerous.
Torio had been born blind; darkness and dependency had been his heritage until his Reading abilities woke when he was six years old and he had been taken to the Academy at Adigia. It was there that his life had become inextricably entwined with that of Lenardo-Master Reader, renegade, and now savage lord.
Lenardo had been teacher, mentor, and father to him ever since the day his Reading had forever dispelled Torio's darkness. The boy had never known light, associating it only with the warmth of the sun on his skin, and even after he had been discovered and begun training as a Reader he had still not understood what «seeing» was. It was normal enough for a small child just beginning to Read to «hear» only those thoughts broadcast strongly by trained Readers, and to sense only the vague forms of the world about him; still, within a week of his first experience of Reading, Torio walked confidently in the world without bumping into things. What he could not understand as the months passed was that his teachers insisted that what he was doing was not "seeing."
Master Clement, head of the Academy at Adigia, had told him not to worry about it-visualization would come later. Lenardo, though, had understood the boy's confusion. Never having seen, Torio had no motivation to visualize. He was so perfectly delighted with the independence that Reading gave him that he could not imagine anything more. So one morning just at dawn, Lenardo had taken the sleepy child up to the top of the Academy tower. There, he had turned the boy to the east, so he could feel the first rays of the sun on his face, and Read the sunrise for him. Shape and color burst into Torio's mind for the first time-a whirl of uninterpretable data, but beautiful. More beautiful than anything he had ever experienced before! With Lenardo's mind guiding him, he understood: this was light. This was seeing. This everchanging panorama was what everyone who could see experienced constantly. //How can they do anything but stop and watch it?// Torio had asked.
//Too few ever stop and watch,// Lenardo replied. //You don't understand yet how much you have just made me appreciate what I can see, Torio.//
Torio had been barely seven years old then, and Lenardo about the age Torio was now, newly established as a teacher at the Academy. From that day Torio learned more quickly from Lenardo than from any of the other teachers-and over the years, as the boy grew up, the student-teacher relationship turned into a deep and abiding friendship.
Thus it was that Lenardo had chosen to trust Torio with the knowledge of his secret mission into the savage lands last year-branded as a traitor and exiled, to all public appearances-so that he could seek out Galen, the renegade Reader, and prevent him from aiding the savage Adepts intent on destroying the Aventine Empire.