brain that… translates what a Reader Reads into coherent images.”
Wicket obviously understood only one word of that. “Burnt? But you can cure burns!”
“We cannot restore destroyed nerves,” Aradia said patiently. “I am sorry, Wicket.”
Master Clement, though, was still preoccupied. “Physical damage,” he mused. “Aradia, there is no way that Readers could-”
“Remember what Zanos and Astra discovered?” Aradia reminded him. “Portia was giving her protection to at least one secret Adept in Tiberium, in return for his… favors.”
Wicket got up from his chair and stalked toward them, all trace of the cheerful little nondescript gone.
“Portia!’ he exclaimed in fury. “Damn-I wish Pyrrhus hadn’t told me she’s dead. I want to kill her with my own hands!”
“You’re too late,” said Julia. “We already did.”
“Julia!” exclaimed Aradia.
“Well, with our minds, then. It’s the same thing.”
“But it’s as if she won’t stay dead,” said Master Clement. “Just as she wouldn’t stay-”
“You, of all people, know she is dead,” Aradia said firmly, and Julia remembered how the old Master Reader had lain for days, his mind trapped outside his body, lost on the planes of existence, for when Portia’s body died her spirit had refused to depart peacefully to the plane of the dead. Master Clement had tried to escort her there-and only a circle of Adepts and Readers had been able to call him back to his body before he, too, died.
But later they had found out, to Master Clement’s dismay, that Portia’s angry spirit had not stayed on the plane of the dead. Torio had gone there to bring back the woman he loved. He had met Portias spirit, still seeking revenge, on what he described as the plane of lost souls. He had made certain Portia could not follow, knowing she would trace him back to the physical plane if she could. So Portia’s spirit was left trapped in a hell of her own making.
Master Clement said, “She is dead, but not at peace. I should not have let you call me back. I should have escorted her through the portal. If she escaped from where Torio met her, she could-”
“No,” Aradia said. “Torio made certain she could not follow him back to the physical plane. Don’t you trust Torio, Master Clement?”
Master Clement stood. “Yes, I trust Torio. Portia may be what prevents his return. He left her trapped, and feels the same guilt I do.
“Oh, yes, Portia is dead, but her evil lives on. Indirectly, she drove Torio from us. Directly…” The old man shook his head. “The damage she did lives on. Pyrrhus-how could one Reader do such a thing to another? By the gods, it would have been kinder to kill him!”
When Aradia returned home that evening, she found it difficult to eat supper despite having used her Adept powers. Julia also picked at her food, and Aradia did not have to Read her to know the girl was as depressed as she was by what they had learned from Pyrrhus.
Feeling excessively tired, Aradia decided to be sensible and go to bed early. She didn’t even hear Devasin’s chatting, and dismissed the woman as soon as she was in her nightgown, her hair let down.
Then she sat for a while, brushing the tangles out of her hair, thinking of Lenardo. She remembered how she had first come to respect him when he helped her and Wulfston cure their father of a brain tumor.
Healing such a condition had been impossible for either Adepts or Readers alone, and they had always been alone in those days, trapped on either side of the border in societies where the appropriate power meant respect and position, but exhibiting the wrong power meant that a child would be summarily executed. But when Lenardo and Aradia overcame their arbitrary division, together they had brought Nerius back to full health.
Only to have him die in the battle with Drakonius.
He died as he would have preferred- fighting like a man, she reminded herself. He saved my life, and Lenardo, Wulfston, and I went on to defeat our enemies.
For a time, it had seemed that Adepts and Readers working together could accomplish anything. Only now was it coming home to them how little they could really do.
What kind of ideal society were they building, where nothing could be done for someone as devastatingly wounded, physically and mentally, as Pyrrhus?
Small and recent as Aradia’s Reading talent was, she shuddered at the idea of losing it, never to know again the touch of another mind… Lenardos mind.
I may never know his touch again, on my body or in my mind.
Aradia stared into her small round mirror and shook herself. “No more maudlin thoughts!” she said aloud, getting up and taking off her robe. “I’m just being… pregnant!”
Still, as she lay down and tried to fall asleep, she was acutely aware that the other side of the bed was empty. No warm chest to curl up against. No strong arms to make her feel absurdly protected even though both she and Lenardo knew that she was the one with the Adept powers to throw thunderbolts or-using proper leverage-move mountains.
She would never fall asleep if she lay there missing Lenardo.
But when she tried to put her husband out of her mind, the confrontation with Pyrrhus replayed itself, unbidden. No wonder the man was so brittle, bitter.
Aradia sat up in bed, her arms about her knees. If all she could do was think negative thoughts, perhaps she should go into her study and read. But she was very tired. She had not slept well recently.
Then she remembered something Nerius had taught her when she was a little girl and couldn’t sleep because she was upset over something she had no control over. “Make plans,” her father had told her.
“Make positive plans to correct something that is wrong. Remember, daughter, there are far more things in this world outside your control than in it-so worry about what you can do something about.”
It had always worked in childhood.
She had no control over Lenardo’s absence. She had no control over Pyrrhus’ burnt-out nerves.
But if she could not restore Pyrrhus’ Reading, perhaps she could do something for the ex-Reader and his loyal Wicket. “We’re in this together,” Wicket had said. What was “this”?
If they had a purpose, Aradia would try to help them achieve it.
If, as so many people did, they had come to Zendi seeking work, a better life, possibly she could hire them. She smiled. Tomorrow she would have to find out what, exactly, the two men could do.
On that positive note, she fell asleep.
And dreamed.
It began as a pleasant dream, one that was becoming familiar now. She saw her baby floating in the womb, as before not an infant but a fully formed young woman. Again the girl spoke serenely without opening her eyes, the same words: “After I am born, I will give you what I owe you.”
Aradia felt warm love for her child, and watched as the girl’s eyes began to open.
But as they did so, Aradia suddenly felt a sense of recognition. She knew this woman, but from long, long ago.
A childhood memory.
It was… her mother!
Fully open now, the eyes glowed with fury. The face was no longer the serene, doll-like face of Aradia’s daughter, but the mad face of her mother, screaming as she had screamed the last time Aradia ever saw her.
“You’re not my child! You’re evil! You stole my powers!”
The face twisted, and the woman suddenly held an upraised dagger, grasping Aradia by the throat with the other hand as she howled, “You stole my powers, witch! But you can’t control them yet-and I will have them back! Die, you sorceress! Die!”
Chapter Four
Julia did not sleep well that night. She had restless dreams, but could remember only one, and that only in snatches. She was in a strange country, lost in a tangled woodland where unfamiliar animals snorted and howled.