Thus it was easier for them to be apart most of the time. Nonetheless, Torio went eagerly to the sheltered bench in the courtyard where Melissa waited.
She was a slender young woman with a heart-shaped face and dark hair whose natural curl asserted itself in soft wisps about her face. Spring sunshine had already brought out the freckles across her nose, and she appeared healthy and contented and happy to see him.
They Read each other without words for a moment. Then Torio took Melissa into his arms. Both stopped Reading, to assure their privacy. That left Torio blind, but his other senses were thoroughly saturated with the feel, taste, and scent of Melissa.
They kissed until both were satisfied that they were really together, then sat down side by side, Torio’s arm around Melissa, her head on his shoulder.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she told him. “I heard what happened yesterday.”
“Let’s not talk about that,” said Torio. “How are you? How are your healing techniques progressing?”
“Steadily. Torio, I don’t understand why you can’t learn Adept powers. If those attackers had succeeded in killing Wulfston yesterday, you’d have been helpless.” She shuddered.
“I haven’t forgotten how to use a sword,” he reminded her.
“Against people who can stop your heart at a distance?”
“I know. But if you had felt those people burning to death as I did… perhaps you wouldn’t be so eager to increase your Adept powers.”
She nodded against his shoulder. “The Lords Adept have traditionally used their powers for destruction-even someone as thoughtful as Wulfston does it instinctively when his life is threatened. But when those powers are turned to healing… Torio, do you remember Zanos?”
“You, too? Decius was just chattering about him. What’s going on?”
“Zanos and his wife Astra came with Lilith, and we had a long talk last night. You know, Lilith has set apart some of her lands for Zanos and Astra to rule-they each have both Reading and Adept powers.
But Zanos isn’t ready to settle down here in the Savage Empire until he goes back to his homeland, which he hasn’t seen in over twenty years.”
“The home of the Master Sorcerers?” Torio asked.
“Yes!” Melissa said eagerly. “Madura. It’s a group of large islands, far in the northern sea. Zanos wants to see if his village is still there, and if any of his kinfolk are still living.”
“So why shouldn’t he go and see if he wants to? Melissa, we’re not trying to hold people who don’t want to stay here, are we?”
“No-of course Zanos and Astra are free to go. But it will be a long journey. They’re looking for people who might want to join their expedition. There could be dangers, so they want as many Adepts and Readers as possible.”
“And you want to go,” Torio said flatly, firmly quelling the urge to Read her.
He felt Melissa lift her head, and knew she was looking at him. “Yes,” she said. “I want to go. Torio, they have healing techniques far beyond anything we know. Here, a baby born blind can be healed, but nothing can be done for someone your age. In Madura-”
“-they can fly, too,” he interrupted her.
“Torio, this is serious! Yes, it’s hard to filter out the truth from the garbled stories-but we are just floundering here, using trial and error to learn how Readers and Adepts can best join their powers. In Madura they already know! So why should it be surprising that they can do things we can’t?”
“At least you’re a little more logical than Decius,” he told her. “But Melissa, you still have so much to learn here. Let the adventurous ones go-and if they find the Madurans friendly and willing to trade knowledge and goods, if they have these healing powers you’re so eager for, then of course you will go and study in one of their hospitals. But to undertake a long, dangerous journey on the basis of a few exaggerated tales-”
“You sound just like Lenardo!” she said in exas-peration. “Torio, you’re young-don’t you want some adventure in your life? I do. I love you, but I don’t want to stay here just because you’re afraid to stir out of one safe little haven-”
“Just yesterday I was nearly killed in this ‘safe little haven’! Melissa, I have had enough adventure in the past two years to last a lifetime. If you want to go with Zanos-”
Suddenly Melissa was no longer leaning against him. He could feel her, still on the bench beside him, sitting bolt upright as she demanded, ” What did you say?”
At a loss to explain her reaction, he repeated, “I’ve had enough adventure-”
‘ “No-after that.”
“I started to say, if you want to go with Zanos, I won’t try to stop you except to ask you to think it through with me.”
He could feel her eyes boring into him, and let himself Read her. She was staring at him in alarm, Reading him in return. “Torio-I’m sorry. What I said to you was out of line-but you don’t even know what you said to me!”
“Well, what did I say?”
He could feel her fear and concern as she told him, “You broke off in the middle of a sentence. Then you took your arm away from around me, focused your eyes on me the way you do when you’re Reading-except that I knew you were not seeing me-and then you said, ‘Your destiny, Melissa, is to be found in the frozen isle of Madura. Zanos’ fate lies not there, but in a land he has never seen, beyond the southern sea.’ “
“That’s silly,” he said. “I don’t talk that way, and I’d certainly know if I said any such thing. I’m trying to talk you out of going to Madura, so why would I-?”
But he could Read that she had heard him say the very words she claimed-he Read it through her eyes, saw himself, heard his voice speak it.
“By the gods!” he whispered.
“I… I think so,” whispered Melissa in return.
“Well,” said Torio, “if what I said is true, if your destiny truly does lie in Madura-then so does mine!”
Chapter Two
" Prophecy!” said Master Clement when Torio and Melissa let him and Lenardo Read their memories of what had happened in the courtyard. “Son, this is a rare gift, and a dangerous one.”
“Not so rare,” Torio protested. “You have it, Master Lenardo,” he appealed.
“No,” said Lenardo, who had finally given up on getting Torio to address him by his savage title, “what I have are precognitive flashes. They are incomplete, and often incoherent, but they are scenes, not words, and I do not blank them out.”
“They are also always your own experiences,” Master Clement reminded him, then turned to Torio.
“You, son, have just predicted the future of two other people. What you said, although it doesn’t tell us much, is a complete thought and certainly comprehensible. A prophet always knows other people’s futures, never his own.”
Torio shivered. “I don’t want to know. This isn’t like Reading. I don’t like it!”
“Why, Torio?” asked Melissa. “Because you told me it’s right for me to go to Madura, even though you don’t want me to?”
“No-because I didn’t know what I’d said!”
“Master Clement,” said Lenardo, “that is not usual, is it? I’ve never known a Reader with this gift before.”
“Nor I,” replied the old man. “It has been generations since the last-but no, I do not recall that the prophet cannot hear his own prophecy. Torio, I think you simply refused to hear yourself tell Melissa she will go far away from here.”
“What happens if I don’t go?” asked Melissa.
“You will go,” said Lenardo. “My precognitive flashes are of fated events. They always happen, although almost never in the context I expect.”
Master Clement added, “Under the circumstances, there is no reason to think Torio is pulling a prank, nor is this gift something he sought, so it is not wishful thinking. Torio, can you tell me my fate?”