Jean Lorrah - Empress Unborn

At Master Clement’s suggestion, Wicket shuddered. “Sounds horrible!” He picked up a stylus from Aradia’s desk, and twirled it between his nimble fingers.

“It is,” said Master Clement. “The technique is normally used only on sick minds, to uncover suppressed memories necessary to the healing process. It is painful for both the patient and the healers. I do not want to do it, Wicket, but it may become necessary to ask for a volunteer from among those we know to have been used.”

“Volunteer to have his mind peeled like an onion?” Wicket asked.

Master Clement winced. “An unfortunately apt comparison. If we must do it, the best healers from Gaeta will work with me, to minimize the patient’s trauma.”

“I don’t want to know when you do it” Wicket muttered. He balanced the stylus on end on the desk and let go, holding it upright with Adept power.

“You mean you don’t want Pyrrhus to know,” Master Clement said gently.

“It’s what they did to him, isn’t it?” Wicket concentrated on the stylus-a neat demonstration of sustained use of tiny increments of power, showing the tremendous progress he had made in the past few weeks.

He should not waste such effort, of course, but Aradia understood that he needed that concentration in order to bear the subject under discussion.

“I assume so,” Master Clement answered his question. “A similar process to isolate the area-” The old man cut off his speculation at the other’s look of sheer revulsion. “Wicket, you understand that I did not harm your friend. What he blames me for is not being aware that it was happening, and therefore not preventing it. I accept that blame. I had the ability to Read what Portia was doing… if it had ever occurred to me that it was so evil that it overrode her right to Privacy.”

Wicket shook his head. “All me life, in Tiberium, the Readers were supposed to be good, and the savages, the Adepts, were supposed to be the monsters.” He gave a sad snort of laughter. “Come to find out, Readers can be just as cruel-more so, usin’ people’s minds like dice’t’ play their games.”

The stylus broke with a loud snap, and the pieces fell to the surface of the desk in a perfect circle.

Wicket left them there, and looked over at Master Clement as if challenging him to deny the charge.

“Some people can be cruel,” Master Clement replied. “We can only try to heal the damage they do, as best we can.”

The door opened, not Pyrrhus but one of Aradia’s servants with a small casket. “A message from Lord Wulfston’s lands, my lady.” She accepted it, and set it aside as the man left. The casket was decorated with the black wolfs head, her brother’s symbol, and she knew it contained letters and accounts sent to her monthly while Wulfston was away. Odd-she had received reports only a few days ago. Perhaps there was news.

“Aradia,” said Master Clement, “I will not Read its contents, but there is a letter to you from Lord Wulfston in that chest.”

She gasped, and pulled the casket in front of her with trembling hands, wishing she had a Magister Reader’s ability to Read the pages. But she would never be that good a Reader, and besides, she wanted his letter in her hands.

The lock required an Adept to open it. The central mechanism was completely enclosed, the tumblers not intended to be reached with a key. She had to Read or know how it was made to open it, but of course she had known the complexities of her brother’s lock code since the day it had been developed for him.

With shaking fingers, she pressed the outer studs in order, and began concentrating on the tumblers. But in her eagerness she slipped like a child, the mechanism gave a loud click, and the studs sprang out again, leaving the casket firmly locked. She was tempted just to split it open and be done with it.

At Aradia’s grimace of annoyance, Wicket said, “Please allow me, my lady,” reaching for the casket.

“There’s few locks I can’t jiggle open,” he added, pressing the outer studs and tilting the casket slightly sideways.

“I don’t think you-” Aradia began, and then heard the first tumbler click. How could he-?

Decius was Reading the inner mechanism, about to tell Wicket the order of the tumblers.

“No-don’t!” Aradia warned him.

“Don’t what?” asked Wicket, not looking up.

Decius’ mouth opened in amazement, but he contained his surprise, as did Master Clement, who after a moment smiled at Aradia over Wicket’s head.

“Don’t break it,” Aradia improvised.

Wicket laughed. “You can’t break one of these things. The worst that can happen is you don’t get it open.” He became blank to the three Reading him, the rest of the tumblers clicked in sequence, and Wicket lifted the lid and set the casket on the desk in front of Aradia. She waited until the shield of Adept use relaxed, and she could perceive Wicket’s presence again.

“Thank you,” she told him.

“You’re-” He was looking at her. He realized she had not spoken, and his shields went up reflexively.

Then, “Oh, no.” He shook his head. “Oh, no-not sse. That’s not fair. It isn’t fairl You can’t do that to me-I won’t let you!’

“What are you doing to him?” snarled Pyrrhus from the doorway.

“Nothing!” Wicket gasped, turning to face his friend. “It’s nothing, Pyrrhus.”

“Nothing done to him,” Aradia agreed.

Pyrrhus looked over the tableau, Aradia behind the desk with the open casket in front of her, Wicket standing before her, the two Readers sitting off to the side. He tilted his head with a puzzled expression.

“Then- what have you done, Wicket?” An enigmatic smile. “Finally learned to Read?”

Wicket’s mental shields were no defense against Pyrrhus; the ex-Reader knew he had hit home by the way the color drained from Wicket’s face. “No! I–I won’t ! I mean-” Realizing that he was not helping the situation, he stuttered to a halt, shoulders slumping in defeat. He looked away, refusing to meet Pyrrhus’ eyes.

“Wicket,” said Pyrrhus, “you’ve known that this was inevitable from the day we learned that the two powers go together. Now stop acting like an idiot.”

The other man looked up, incredulous. “You… you don’t mind?”

“I mind that I can’t . But why in the world should I mind that you can ? Who knows? As a Reader you may even prove useful!”

Aradia hardly heard them, didn’t hear whatever they said next, as Master Clement and Decius drew them into a discussion to give her the privacy to read her letter.

The date was nearly three months ago. Wulfston had not yet found Lenardo. His ship had been damaged in an Adept conflict, and had had to be repaired, forcing him to follow Sukuru all the way tp Africa. He was sending this letter from a place called Freedom Island, off the coast, and would write again at the first opportunity.

“Julia,” she called mentally to the girl, and let her Read the letter through her eyes, sharing relief at news at last, disappointment at how scant it was. She tried to tell herself it was better than nothing, to keep Julia’s spirits up if not her own.

At first she thought the ball of pain just below her heart was her disappointed reaction. Then it spread, increasing in intensity, stabbing through her swollen belly, driving coherent thought from her mind as she gasped aloud.

The four men turned to look at her. Master Clement would have Read her, but she didn’t feel it because her own Adept powers manifested automatically at pain.

But it didn’t stop!

For the first time in her adult life, Aradia’s healing powers were not enough to stop her own pain!