Jean Lorrah - Empress Unborn

“No, we don’t get much here, either,” Julia said, adding wistfully, “I’d like to have enough to play in, just once.”

“Where is the snow?” asked Pyrrhus.

“Huh?” responded Wicket.

“How many miles? What direction?” But Pyrrhus’ snarl of impatience didn’t have its usual bite.

“Urn…”

Master Clement pulled a map from the scroll rack and unrolled it. How often they had done this during Adept battles, Readers showing Adepts where to center their powers.

“Here!” said Wicket, drawing a circle with his finger in an area several miles south of the city, near the main road to Tiberium:

“Julia, you’d like some snow to play in?” Pyrrhus asked her.

“Yes!” she said with a delighted grin that he echoed back at her.

Suddenly their panorama of the lands south of the city was cut off as Pyrrhus braced Adept powers.

Wicket blinked, startled until he realized what had happened.

“Read with me,” Master Clement invited, and again they saw the woods and farmlands-and felt the wind shift, blowing the storm northward.

“Wicket, keep Pyrrhus informed-” Master Clement began.

But Pyrrhus raised a hand, saying, “No, just tell me if I lose it.”

He did lose it once, but after that he began to open to Reading every few minutes, letting Wicket rather than Master Clement be the one to keep him on target.

Well before the snow reached Zendi, the Watchers reported its unnatural movement. “It’s all right,”

Mas-ter Clement assured them. “Spread the word- we are controlling this storm. It’s an experiment, not an attack.”

The light from the windows dimmed as black snow clouds concentrated over the city. The first flakes began to fall, then a steady stream of pure white beauty, for the wind died now, leaving the clouds to empty their burden on Zendi.

“Let’s go outside!” Julia said.

Wicket jumped up, eager as a child himself, and Pyrrhus smiled indulgently at him and got up as well.

Taking her cloak off the peg by the door, Julia noticed how Pyrrhus moved, stretching his body, testing his balance. He looked much healthier and stronger than the man Aradia had healed of burns last autumn.

Before, he had been all bone and tendon. Now he carried a layer of muscle, laid on by the Adept regimen he was following. Adepts never put on fat; Pyrrhus had simply filled out to his natural physique.

“I’m not tired,” he said to Master Clement, half surprise, half satisfaction in his words. “I’m learning not to expend more energy than necessary.”

“7 coulda taught you that ,” Wicket said in mock scorn, and Julia realized that she had never seen the minor Adept exhaust himself, nor noticed his Reading impaired by the use of Adept strength.

” You ,” Pyrrhus told him, “practice laziness, not efficiency.”

By this time they were all wrapped up in woolen cloaks, ready to venture into the snow.

The Academy faced on one of the little parks dotting Zendi. It was rapidly filling with fluffy whiteness.

Julia could not resist running out into it, glad she was wearing woolen stockings under her boots as she felt the cold attempt to penetrate.

The snow was ankle-deep already and falling fast. Wicket scooped up a handful, tossed it into the air, caught it, then in one motion turned and flung it at Pyrrhus, hitting him dead center in the chest. “That’s for calling me lazy!”

For one moment Pyrrhus stood, startled. Then a wicked grin flashed to his face, and he gathered his own handful of packed snow to hurl at his friend-only to have it bounce off an invisible shield a handspan from Wicket’s cloak.

“Oh, is that the game we’re playing?” Pyrrhus asked dangerously. Although his eyes never left Wicket, suddenly the branches of the tree over the minor Adept’s head shook rapidly, and Wicket was doused with snow.

“Wasting your powers, Pyrrhus,” Wicket taunted. Scooping up a double handful of snow, he ran toward his friend as if he were about to tackle him. As Pyrrhus ducked the charge, though, his feet slid out from under him.

Wicket tripped on nothing, and twisted in midair to avoid landing atop Pyrrhus. “Slippery, innit?” he asked conversationally as he sat up, shaking the snow from his cloak onto his friend.

Master Clement stood in the Academy doorway, watching in amusement. “Julia, wasn’t there something about bringing this snow here for you to play in?”

She giggled-a mistake. Pyrrhus and Wicket turned to her, climbing to their feet. “That’s right,” said Wicket. “You were the one wanted snow.”

“So,” added Pyrrhus, “come and play!’

“Unfair!” she gasped through her laughter as they stalked her. “I’m not an Adept!”

“Don’t need to be,” said Wicket, grabbing her hand and pulling her with him up through the terraced garden, now empty and dead after the long winter. At the top, he turned to the smooth side of the little hill, spread his cloak on the ground, sat on it-and slid down the bank.

That looked like fun-and it was , Julia quickly discovered. So did the Readers from the Academy, released from their work by Master Clement’s command, for in Zendi’s normally temperate climate it might be many years before they would again see a snowfall so perfect for their games.

The park filled with laughing children and adolescents, and Wicket was not the only nominal adult to indulge the sensation of flying down the hill. The young Magisters had their turns, to the children’s squeals of delight.

Only when they were all thoroughly wet from the snow soaking through their woolen garments did the party break up-although the snow still fell. Preparing to leave, Pyrrhus asked Master Clement,

“Shouldn’t we send this storm away now? The Lady Lilith is on the road. I am sure she did not anticipate snow this late in the season.”

“The weather watchers will take care of it,” the old Reader replied. “People are enjoying it too much to stop it. At this time of year, even without control it would be gone by tomorrow night. Lilith won’t be here for two more days.”

Dressed in borrowed dry clothes, Julia walked home, Reading pleasant tiredness on every side. The snow had been an excuse for everyone to drop work and go outside. She passed snow sculptures, and splattered designs on walls that showed that Pyrrhus and Wicket’s had not been the only mock battle of the day. A holiday spirit hung over the city as the scent of hot spiced cider permeated the air.

Julia ate her supper eagerly that night, telling Aradia what they had done. Her stepmother smiled indulgently, but seemed distracted. Perhaps it was that she was in no condition to go out and have fun in the snow; all it had meant to Aradia was being stuck indoors.

After supper, Julia went to her room. Her schedule for today had called for her to read more of Portia’s records before supper. After the freedom of the afternoon, she didn’t really feel like working. She especially didn’t want to touch the scrolls and Read Portia’s frustrations. She had forgotten her own for a few hours; why relive someone else’s?

So she took a leisurely bath, and read a book from Aradia’s library, a retelling of the legend of the Ghost King. But as she sat on the lounge in her room, cold air seeped in through the window, even though it was shuttered outside and curtained inside. The candles seemed dim, too. Julia shivered, wondering if she had caught cold from the afternoon’s activities.

No, she wasn’t feverish, her glands were not swollen, her throat didn’t hurt. She could Read that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her health. So why did she feel half frightened? What of? Maybe she was just tired.