By this time they had packed their meager belongings. "Go ahead and Read, both of you," said Lenardo. "No one will be looking for us till dawn."
They crept easily through the sleeping inn, and Julia slipped into the pantry for food while Torio and Lenardo went to the stables. The horse he and Julia had ridden was still tired, and so he chose another that was fresh and eager and two more like it. The stableboy had gone home when the inn closed, and the porter at the innyard gate was deep in drunken slumber, not stirring even when the horses' hooves clattered on the cobbles.
A sword hung on the wall near where the porter slept. The blade was rusty; it had obviously not been used for years. But after pondering a moment, Torio tiptoed past the porter and took it down. //Better than nothing, though not much better.// //Take mine,// said Lenardo, //and give me that one. Go on. You're the better swordsman, just as I'm the better Reader.// //Yes, Master.//
Just then Lenardo felt something: Portia Reading them. //We're found out. Off we go.//
Lenardo ran to the open gates as Julia dashed out of the inn. Torio lifted the girl onto her horse and mounted his own as the porter woke with a snort, saw them, and shouted, "Ho! Stop, thief!"
The man tried to leap on Lenardo, but he was clumsy and still half drunk. Lenardo shoved him back, running to his own horse as Torio and Julia galloped out. The horse was fresh and nervous and didn't know Lenardo. It danced away as he tried to mount, and the porter was on him again. He turned and slugged the man, the kind of punch he hadn't thrown since boyhood fights. With a man's strength behind it, it sent the porter reeling long enough for Lenardo to swing into the saddle and escape.
Behind him, the porter shouted, "Thieves! Thieves! Horse thieves!" and began to pound on a bucket hanging on the wall. People woke and ran from their rooms, but Lenardo and his entourage were already out the gate.
Wakened by the clamor, people looked out of nearby windows, but none ventured into the street as the three Readers rode for the north gate of Tiberium. The city had outgrown its ancient walls centuries ago. Deep and safe within the empire, it did not close its gates at night, nor were they guarded.
The broad street, however, narrowed at the old gate, and Lenardo Read a troop of guardsmen from a garrison outside the old walls marching to intercept them there. They were guided by a Reader, a young man of Torio's age named Meleus.
Torio could Read for himself over that distance, while Julia was Reading with Lenardo. Twenty trained guardsmen against two men and a child.
Torio grasped his sword, ready to go down fighting as the guards marched through the gate and moved unrelentingly toward them. Julia pulled from her pack a sharp butcher's knife; the savage child had armed herself on her trip through the kitchen.
But it was no use. They could not fight twenty guardsmen, nor could they hide from the Reader.
Lenardo recalled the way he had fooled Galen, but Julia and Torio didn't know about that. "Julia, Torio," he said sharply. Pointing straight ahead, he said, "Follow me, and pay no attention to what you Read."
"I can't-" Torio began.
"Read your surroundings, not me," Lenardo explained hastily, sensing Meleus trying to Read their discussion. They would soon be within his range to do so. "Not me," he repeated, and then projected intensely. //Guards ahead. Split up and spread out. We've got to lose them.//
To his relief, the two young Readers, although thoroughly confused, continued to follow him along the broad street. Lenardo projected kicking his horse's flanks and darting into a side street with Julia at his side, while Torio galloped off in the opposite direction.
"They've Read us," he Read Meleus reporting to the guards. "Lenardo has turned into Mill Street, Torio into Cobbler's Lane."
Lenardo caught Julia's delight at this new game, and Torio's horror. To deliberately confound a fellow Reader- But then Torio remembered what he was leaving behind and grimly withheld his protest.
Unfortunately, Lenardo was not familiar with the tangled side streets of Tiberium and quickly discovered that he had sent his phantom Torio into a cul-de-sac. Meleus knew that and was sending some of the guards down the main street to the entrance to Cobbler's Lane while he led the rest in a path that would intercept the images of Julia and Lenardo.
That left the gate ahead unguarded, but six armed men were headed straight toward them, while Lenardo had to keep up the images of himself and Julia in the twisted lanes to draw Meleus and other guards away from where they really where.
Torio recognized Lenardo's dilemma, pointed Julia into another side street, and followed himself as soon as he was sure that Lenardo saw what they must do: hide out of sight until the guards passed them and turned into Cobbler's Lane.
The guards went by at a run, expecting Torio either to charge out of the lane again, having discovered his error, or lie in wait for them, having Read their approach. These were nonReaders. Lenardo could project nothing to fool them, and so he abandoned the false image of Torio while he concentrated on keeping Meleus and the rest of the guards chasing the phantom Lenardo and Julia through the winding streets.
"Come on," Torio shouted, and urged his horse out into the street. Lenardo and Julia followed, galloping for the unguarded gate.
They clattered through, their cloaks billowing with the wind of freedom as they streaked along the main road out of town. Lenardo, meanwhile, led Meleus and his men into a blind alley, where Meleus "saw"-and the guards did not-the images of Lenardo and Julia. Then they disappeared before the young Reader's astonished eyes, and he cried, "Sorcery! The traitor has learned the savage sorcery!"
Julia, Reading with Lenardo, laughed out loud in delight. //That's the way to use your powers, Father.//
And Meleus had them pinpointed again. "They've escaped. They're outside the walls!" //Relay! Relay! Escaped traitors on the Northern Way.//
Jjistantly, another Reader on the outskirts of town asked, //Who? What did they do?//
Meleus explained, and the message was sent on to a Reader in a small village beyond, and so on up the road. Within the hour, it would reach Adigia, but Lenardo and his entourage could not hope to be there until well after noon, even riding hard with fresh horses every few miles.
"We're trapped," said Torio.
"We weren't trapped in Tiberium, and we won't be now," Lenardo replied. "Torio, interfere with mat message."
"What?"
Julia understood at once. "Send a false message."
"Lie through Reading? My Oath-"
"Your Oath binds you to protect your fellow Readers," Lenardo reminded him. "Is Portia your fellow now? Are her corrupt circle your fellows? Or Master Clement, Julia,
I?"
"I don't know!" Torio answered wretchedly. "We're not supposed to turn against each other."
"I know, you don't know whether to trust me now. But surely you trust Master Clement. He wants you safely out of the empire, Torio."
"Yes." But the boy was still uncertain, "They'll kill us if they catch us," Lenardo reminded him. "Stay alive to see what life is like outside the pale, and then make your decision." "All right. I'll distract the relays." A short distance ahead of them, a sleepy Reader brought suddenly awake was seeking to gain the attention of the next link in the relay system, a woman coping with her teething child. The child's pain was making her own teeth ache as she held and rocked him. Her husband slept as only someone who had worked hard all day after keeping vigil himself the night before could have, despite the child's screams.
//Delia,// projected the Reader trying to get his message through. //Delia, put the child down or wake your husband. You must relay a message!// But nothing could penetrate Delia's concern and frustration with her baby.