Jean Lorrah - Savage Empire

"Stopping his heart will stop the motion. Here-model just that portion left around the artery, as it is between pulses."

"This is madness!"

"It is the only way," she said. "If I leave it, the tumor will regrow right there, choking off the blood and killing him. Do it, Lenardo."

Helpless to oppose her will, he hastily reworked the model-so little of the ink-stained wax left now. Had they performed this operation at Nerius' first symptoms, how easy it would have been! Just this healing technique alone would convince the senate that the empire and the savages could cooperate-and if Aradia could learn to trust one Reader, she could trust others.

There was no time to ponder such things now. Aradia was doing the same deep-breathing exercise a Reader used before a difficult Reading. So much they had in common. He handed her the reworked model. She looked from him to Wulfston, who was still deep in concentration. "Wulfston. Wulfston!"

"Yes, my lady?" He didn't look at her. "I must stop Nerius' heart. When the last of the tumor is removed, you must stop supporting me and support Father. If I fail, you must restart Ms heart. You can do that-you've done it before."

"Yes, my lady."

Lenardo wasn't sure if Wulfston understood or was answering by rote. Aradia seemed satisfied, though.

He Read in fascinated horror as Aradia first speeded her father's pulse and breathing for a few moments, then quickly dropped them to normal, slowed, and then stopped them. Nerius was dead, although Lenardo could possibly revive him with the techniques he and Galen had used to revive Linus when he was struck by lightning.

But now he had to concentrate on the present, Reading Aradia as cell by cell she destroyed the last of the tumorous growth. Again he guided with words, fearing they were taking too much time, fearing to go too fast, until, "Stop!" he said. "That's it, Aradia. We've got it all."

Her eyes lifted from the model to his-and then fluttered closed as she fainted.

Lenardo caught her and laid her on the bed, panic shooting through his nerves. "Aradia! Nerius' heart!" Instantly, he turned to the old man, trying to pump his heart as he had learned at the academy-but he wasn't breathing either.

"Wulfston! Wulfston-start Nerius' heart!" Lenardo straddled the still form, dealing swift blows to the old Adept's breastbone, feeling the effect dissipated through the softness of the mattress. "Wulfston-start his heart-or help me get him to the floor!" He was futilely willing the heart to start beating again when Wulfston finally came through. The old man's heart fluttered, thumped wildly, and then settled into steady rhythm. Almost at once his chest moved under Lenardo's hands in a deep breath.

Lenardo backed off, Reading his patient, then Aradia- and then Wulfston, who staggered to his side, looking down at them.

"They're not both-?"

"They're alive. Aradia fainted, that's all. Thank the gods you were able to start Nerius' heart again. Here-" he pushed the black man to a seat on the edge of the bed, "put your head down before you faint, too."

Reading Wulfston and Aradia, Lenardo was astonished at their state of debilitation. Once, when he had been at Gaeta for the medical training required of every Reader, a galley slave had been brought in; the man's master had expected him to die and so had dumped him off the ship and bought another. Months of starvation, beatings, and work beyond his strength had brought him to the same state Aradia was in now-and Wulfston was not much better. Lenardo fought down panic as he Read the Adepts •-all they had been able to do for the Galley slave was ease his death with opiates.

"Wulfston," said Lenardo, determinedly keeping his voice level, "why are you so weak?"

"Working against nature. Couldn't fight it with Nerius' own strength-actually had to destroy." He struggled up, looking gravely at Aradia.

She stirred. "Father?" weakly-then, in panic, "Father!" as she tried to sit up. "His heart!"

"It's all right," said Lenardo. "Wulfston started his heart again. Nerius will live, Aradia." But will you?

"I must…" Aradia whispered, "change his state… from unconsciousness to healing sleep."

"Not until you've rested yourself," said Lenardo. "If you try to get up now, you'll faint again."

"But-"

"No 'but's.' Nerius is already starting his own natural recovery. If you want to speed the process later, after you've rested, fine. Use the healing sleep on yourself." She smiled weakly at him. "Thank you, Lenardo." She slept.

Wulfston asked, "How can you not be tired?" His voice was flat with fatigue.

"I was only Reading-you two were doing the work." There was a deep, comfortable chair with a footstool before it, where Nerius' nurse undoubtedly napped away many hours. Lenardo installed Wulfston there and watched him, too, fall into deep sleep.

What a time for Drakonius to attack, he thought. Both Adepts completely helpless.

But fortunately Drakonius didn't know that. That night, Lenardo lay down and left his body. It was a dangerous move to attempt to reach Drakonius' stronghold from here, with no Reader to contact there, for this time he would avoid Galen, who could not Read him on this plane unless Lenardo willed it.

Lenardo had a strong foreboding about Drakonius. No clear flashes of precognition had come to him, but he had long since learned to heed this feeling of danger.

So, if the Adepts were out of commission, the Reader ought to be doing something. Traveling without connection to his body, he moved faster and more easily than a few days before. The dark of night was no obstacle to a Reader in full possession of his faculties-how absurd that mere ram had obscured his vision before!

He was even farther away now, and thus in greater danger of dissipating his consciousness if he could not find a focus. By the time he reached Drakonius' stronghold once more, he needed someone as the object of his attention. Anyone would do-he merely let his consciousness be drawn to the first person he encountered, a guard watching the river from atop the cave-riddled cliff. He was an old warrior, alert and prepared. Even while his eyes scanned the river continuously, though, his thoughts were on his off-duty time tomorrow and a certain farmer's wife whose husband did not question where the extra shares of food and occasional jug of ale came from as long as be shared them when he came weary from the fields.

Lenardo left the man to his fantasies, having learned that Drakonius' men were making no battle preparations. He then sought within the stronghold, an encampment with a very temporary flavor. In the long passageways, Drakonius' personal troops slept in bedrolls, a few guards at their posts. Despite the relaxed atmosphere, the guards were guarding, not conversing or napping. Clearly, Drakonius expected his men to maintain discipline.

He found Galen, also asleep, not merely not Reading but with an alert shield guarding his dreams. So… the boy was defended against him, for who else could Read him here? Not waking him, he thought for the first time to Read the boy's health, finding him not ill but underweight and on the thin edge of nervous collapse. His nails were chewed ragged, and there was a rash across the backs of his hands that Lenardo had seen before, each time Galen had had to stand for examination. I thought he had learned to control his nervousness.

The entrance to the cave in which Galen slept was blocked with a slab of rock. It was not too heavy for one man to push aside, but the "door" had been "locked" by driving an iron ring into the rock on either side and simply running a stout rope over the slab of rock between them. So Galen was not trusted. Lenardo felt a new appreciation of the fact that he could now walk out of his room-out of the castle if he wished-any time he wanted to.