to death if they dared Read. Except the children… the gods preserve the children!
Drawing a few deep breaths, reorienting himself, Lenardo left the chamber and began Reading his way out through the winding passageway. The familiar presence of Master Clement rang in his mind, directing the children and older Readers out of the building, issuing instructions for escape through the fields behind the back wall in the confusion that would follow the fall of the keep. //Lenardo will lead you. I have appointed him Master, to build a new academy.//
The keep shook again with one of those mental blows- and yet again! What were they-? They want me! They want to bring the keep down before I can escape! They?… or he?
Another blow threw Lenardo to his knees. Struggling up, he Read deep, deep down into the rock, to the flaw they were battering. This time he searched further, amazed that there was no change since he had Read it before- only minutes ago, but before the latest series of devastating blows.
Sensing a few minutes of safety yet, he paused to Read further. The fault was most obvious just beneath the keep, but he could trace it back into the mountain… through the mountain to where it changed from a barely perceptible weakness to a precariously balanced fault that ended only where the sheer cliff face was exposed- where the far side of the mountain had fallen centuries before.
Now there-a single blow like the ones aimed at the keep could bring the entire cliff down in an avalanche upon… upon the massed troops of the enemy! They were all there in that valley, ready to surge through the pass as soon as the town was taken, to push the border of the empire back farther and farther, until one day they would drive all the way to the sea!
Lenardo pulled his mind from that train of thought. Did the Reader who was guiding the Adepts know that the fault ran through the mountain? Lenardo had lived here twenty years and discovered the fault only today. Another blow shook the keep. Lenardo Read its reverberations along the line of the fault. The greater weakness might be on the other side of the mountain, but the blows were carefully aimed at this side, their strength dissipating through the living rock. At its weakest point, the fault was receiving only faint echoes of pounding force.
At the next blow, the rock deep beneath the keep gave for the first time. At the tiny slip of edge against edge, the stone beneath Lenardo's feet seemed to turn to water, lifting him like a gentle wave, settling again into firm earth. Outside there were screams, and a rickety storage shed tumbled over.
Again Lenardo Read deeply, and he saw that the shift had left a precarious balance; moreover, the crack had extended beneath the mountain^ making it possible that this side could tumble down upon them unless…
He cursed his lack of engineering and mathematical knowledge-not proper studies for a Reader, he had been told. Instinctively he knew that there was a stress beneath the mountain such that more powerful blows could go either way. With the fault now connecting both sides, there was a possibility that another shift could bring down not only the keep but the mountain slope above it; or the shift could slant in the opposite direction, dropping the cliff face on then- enemy.
And what good -would it do me to understand it? he thought bitterly. / am no Adept, to direct the stress against the enemy. But would it not be poetic justice if their enemy destroyed its own troops with its own weapon?
It was useless for Lenardo to move at that moment. If the keep came down, so would the whole side of the mountain; there would be no benefit in being outside. So he remained still, concentrating, Reading the forces within the earth as he waited for the next blow, praying that it would reverberate through the mountain to the other side.
It came. The ground shifted sickeningly, but Lenardo's concentration was deep within, hypnotically fascinated by the stress patterns forming, reverberating in shock waves… waves causing the ground to lurch… concentrating and running along the crack so that the earth shifted far within… slow forces, earth moving like incredibly slow swirls of water… shifting, flowing outward in both directions from the center… but the weakest point was the cliff side! For an instant he stopped Reading, protecting himself.
The rumble reverberated through the mountain. There were screams here-but on the other side Lenardo could not prevent himself from Reading disbelief turning to terror as the sheltering cliff became a rockslide, tumbling down on the massed troops, burying them in the midst of their panic.
And as it happened, as the cliff fell, he Read again that familiar touch, now glaring in panic, Reading fury from three Adepts ranged about him-reaching for him- And they were gone, snuffed like candle flames before the first rocks landed, leaving only the non-Adept army to be buried, screaming, beneath the rockslide.
The battle continued, for the savage troops in Adigia did not know that what had felt like an earthquake had been the destruction of their main army. But the small army of Adigia and the students of the Academy, together with the townspeople, drove them back easily once the Adept attacks stopped.
When it was over, Lenardo helped Master Clement out into the sunlight, where the other teachers were already accounting for the students and tending to the injured.
'I never thought to set foot in this courtyard again,' said Master Clement. 'The gods were with us today, turning the evil of our enemy back upon them.'
'The savages were forestalled,' Lenardo agreed, 'but they will raise another army and return, Master. With a Reader working with them, they have us at their mercy.'
'A Reader with them? Or one they have forced to Read for them, who deliberately caused their destruction this day?'
'Master, I Read him today. I know who it is… and I touched upon his hostility to us. I am convinced that what happened today was the result of divided attention, a single Reader attempting to direct an entire battle. He will not make that mistake again.'
The old man halted, turning clear brown eyes upon Lenardo. 'You say you know him. Then it is…?'
'Galen,' Lenardo acknowledged. 'To my eternal shame, my student not only defies the empire but now has joined the ranks of our enemies. Our only hope is that they, who cannot Read, will think he betrayed them today.'
'Lenardo…' Master Clement put a hand on his arm- a most unusual gesture between Readers. 'Galen was your student, true. But you cannot blame yourself.'
'My teaching was not strong or clear enough!'
'Lenardo, Galen had the fire and optimism of youth. He truly believed we could bargain with the savages, trade Reading for peace. I could not dissuade him, any more than you could. It is sad that he had to learn his lesson this way-but you have been a teacher long enough to know that the only way some people will learn that an idea will not work is to try it and fail. And at that point the teacher must let the student go.'
'You did not touch his mind, Master. There was hatred in it.'
'Hatred of the savages,' agreed Master Clement. Lenardo wanted to believe him; after all, he had touched Galen's mind only briefly. So he did not protest as the old man continued, 'The boy must have suffered bitter disillusionment. What you felt was certainly his despair at being forced to work for the enemy.'
But I taught him, thought Lenardo. / gave him power and failed to instill in him the principles of its use.
'Magister Lenardo! Oh, please-come and help!'
It was Torio, calling him to where the injured were being tended. The blind boy knelt beside a still form- Decius.
Lenardo Read the younger boy, found him alive, but'He joined the fight! He didn't go with the children, Magister, because I praised him this morning. He thought he was ready to do battle. If he dies, it's my fault.'
'He's not dying, Torio. Only…'
Decius was ashen with loss of blood. The wound was hi his leg, above the knee-a vicious slash through flesh and bone. Nerve and muscle were severed. Lenardo Read the wound, which had almost stopped bleeding since someone had tied a strip of cloth around the leg just above it. Someone who had Read what Lenardo did: no empire surgeon could repair that leg. It would have to come off. Decius would be left a cripple.
Torio, Reading with Lenardo, began to sob. 'I hoped I was wrong! Oh, why did I encourage him to think himself a swordsman?'
'Torio, you didn't. You merely told him he would make a swordsman one day-and he would have, with you to teach him. Now you must teach him other skills. Teach him to Read as well as you do.'
'That won't compensate for the loss of a leg!' Torio said furiously. 'Because I can Read, I don't need eyes-but no skill at Reading will make Decius any less a cripple. Our enemies' skills could help him-ours cannot!'
The boy echoed Lenardo's own traitorous thoughts. Yet.
