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I'm not consciously doing anything to keep you from Reading me." He frowned.
"This problem has always interested me. What is the difference between your
mind and mine? We both have abilities most people do not, yet you cannot Read
me."
"I can Read you physically," said Lenardo. "I just cannot get into your
mind."
"That is interesting. I can affect your body, but Tell me, Lenardo, how did
you get out of your room at the castle?"
"Would you be satisfied if I said someone let me out?" "None of Aradia's
people would. You were able to break her control of your mind. We can affect
each other's bodies but not minds."
"I can't affect anyone's body or mind," said Lenardo. "The idea of meddling
with another person's thoughts, beliefs, is abhorrent to me."
"Yet you spy on people's most secret acts, fantasies, desires "
"Never! The Reader's Honor forbids such a thing!" "Oh, yes. I have heard of
the Reader's Code of Honor ... but does it bind an exile, Lenardo?"
"It binds a Reader, Wulfston. Wherever I go for the rest of my life, I shall
never cease to be a Reader. I shall never cease to honor the Code."
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The intensity of speech left him gasping for breath. Wulfston said, "I'm
sorry. Please relax I should not say things to anger you while I am trying to
heal you," He shook his head. "I want to trust you, and I dare not Aradia
thinks you can help us, but how can we know you will not turn on us?"
"You can't know," replied Lenardo, "unless I tell you so. Right now I tell
you that if I thought I could overpower you, I would escape."
"Where to?" Wulfston demanded in frustration. "Not to from! I owe you and
Aradia something for saving my life, but that does not make me Aradia's
property or give her the right to restrict me when I have done her no harm."
"Aradia's powers give her the right," Wulfston said in-a tone that suggested
he was stating a natural law. "Might makes right?"
"Of course. How can the world be otherwise?" "Then why talk of trust? Either
you can hold me and force me to work for you, or you cannot."
"That is the flaw hi Drakonius' thinking," said Wulfston. "He rules entirely
by power and must spend much time and energy in enforcement. Aradia finds
trust and cooperation better tools you see what she has done for her people.
In her lands, no one starves or goes in rags. No one fears an unjust death. Do
you not think people will be loyal unto death to such a leader?"
"Aradia took a place like Drakonius' lands, and turned it into this pleasant
countryside?"
"Her father began it," said Wulfston. "If he could only know how far she has
succeeded, he would be immensely proud of her."
Lenardo saw unshed tears in the Adept's dark eyes. "Aradia's father is ill
and blind, she told me. Still, can't he be told what she is doing?"
"He no longer understands. Nerius is gravely ill ... dying. That's why Aradia
did not come for you herself she is the only one who can control one of her
father's spells."
"Spells?"
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"You remember that day when things began flying about in your room? That was
Nerius. His Adept powers go wild, destroying things and at the same time
draining his strength. If-Aradia were not there to stop him, he would kill
himself by draining all his energy."
Reading Wulfston's grief, Lenardo tried a turn of subject. "You said Adepts
don't use their own strength ?"
"Not when they can guide the power of nature or put another person's energy
to work for himself." Apparently relieved, Wulfston began to deliver a
familiar lecture to an interested audience. "Healing is the easiest of an
Adept's tasks. Once he starts the process back to health, the patient's body
takes over. Other things . . . the rain the night you escaped, for example.
The natural movement of the weather here is from west to east. All we had to
do was guide the clouds slightly and encourage them to drop their moisture
over the area that needed it."
"What if there were a drought and no convenient clouds?"
"We study nature for that very reason. There was such a drought here, eight
years ago. I worked with Nerius and Aradia the first time I was admitted as a
full Adept to their circle. It was very difficult to create the conditions for
rain, working against nature. Aradia thinks it might be the way Nerius
expended his strength then that caused his illness."
Back to Nerius. Clearly the health of Aradia's father weighed heavily on
Wulfston's mind. "You have an irrigation system now," Lenardo prompted.
"Yes, built since the drought or repaired, rather. An old Aventine aqueduct.
In case of drought, there would be enough water to raise moderate crops. We
wouldn't starve. But an aqueduct is such an easy target for one's enemies."
"I suppose it wouldn't take much power to shift a support," Lenardo mused,
"to cut off the water supply. But tell me, Wulfston what kind of power would
it take to cause an earthquake?"
The young Adept pushed up Lenardo's right sleeve and traced the dragon's-head
brand with one finger. "Impossible power," he said. "Even a large body of the
strongest Adepts could not produce such energy, unless "
"Unless?"
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"You did come from'Drakonius' lands," said Wulfston, "yet the brand on your
arm was so new that it festered. I have seen many infections I know it was not
an old wound. If you had escaped Drakonius "
"Only in the sense that I wandered from his lands into Aradia's."
"Drakonius claimed to have a Reader to guide him. Aradia did not believe him
... or did not want to. She does not want to leave her father so ill, and she
has little interest in making war on the Aventine empire. She challenged
Drakonius to produce his Reader, but Drakonius refused."
Lenardo remembered that he truly did not know what Galen had done. "I do not
think any Reader, no matter how unjustly exiled, would guide savage Adepts
against the empire." He looked straight into Wulfston's eyes. "And no, I am
not the Reader Drakonius had, if he had one," 7 wish I knew a way to ask
directly where Drakonius would keep Galen.
"They succeeded in causing an earthquake," Wulfston mused, "but it brought an
avalanche that destroyed their own army."
"Wulfston, if they had captured a Reader and forced him to do their bidding
by chaining his mind as you did mine "
The black man nodded grimly. "A perfect revenge. You broke the command we
placed in your mind so could he. He could pretend to obey, then cause them to
destroy themselves. In which case he is surely dead by now." He looked at
Lenardo. "You are even more dangerous than I thought. What are we going to do
with you?" "Let me go."
"You belong to Aradia. Plead your case with her." After a time, Wulfston
released the fever. Lenardo broke into sweat and felt his temperature drop to
normal. The nagging aches in his head and shoulders disappeared, and he sat up
without vertigo. Soon he felt himself again.
It was evening by the time they could see Aradia's castle in the distance.
Wulfston urged his horse to a faster pace, eager to be home.
Suddenly, without warning, Lenardo's horse screamed, reared, and collapsed,
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