'I cannot take your protection, Quintus,' Lenardo protested.
'Nay, lad-I am old. If I die in battle, that will please me better than living to weaken with age. You are young and going into danger.'
'Why do you want to protect a traitor?' snapped the other soldier.
'I dinna believe he be a traitor,' replied the old man, putting the chain around Lenardo's neck.
Lenardo looked at the amulet for a moment-a wolfs head carved from alabaster, the eyes a natural vein of violet just deep enough beneath the surface to show where the eyes were carved out. The stone was warm from the old soldier's body. Lenardo realized that his hands were very cold.
As the crowd gathered to watch, Lenardo's arm was strapped into the brace that would hold it for branding. Remembered shame rang through him: when Galen was branded, Lenardo had not been able to stand it. When the iron touched the boy's skin, the pain was so unendurable that he had had to stop Reading, enduring only what he could not block out. Trapped in his own body, Galen had had no escape from agony.
But I have.
Lenardo watched in hypnotic fascination as the brand was prepared. As it approached, Torio and Master Clement supported his body. He relaxed against them, leaving his body, floating above, Reading the scene until the iron was taken away and Master Clement began to cover the wound with an ointment to ease the pain.
Sliding back into his body, feeling Torio's arms supporting him, Lenardo moaned as incredible pain shot up into his shoulder and down into his hand from the burn. It was as if the red-hot iron were burning into him right now!
Both the other Readers gasped with Lenardo's pain. The ointment did nothing to stop it. He was nauseated by the smell of burning flesh-his own flesh. A moan escaped him as he stared at the brand, the dragon's head, not a quarter the size of the back of his hand, but burned deep into his forearm forever.
The ointment glistening on the red wound did not disguise the burn's depth. He had not looked at Galen's brand, never realized that it bit deep into the muscle under the skin. He would wear the mark of the traitor for the rest of his life.
Finally the pain let up enough that he could perceive there was a world around him, people staring, Torio and Master Clement waiting to escort him to the gate. Quintus unstrapped his arm, saying, 'I ne'er did a sadder day's work. The gods protect ye, Master.'
Silently, Lenardo walked to the gate between his teacher and his student. Master Clement said softly, 'My hopes go with you, Lenardo. I know you will do all you can to stop Galen. Shall I Read for you?'
'Nay, Master, that would be too dangerous-and within a day or two, long before I could hope to discover anything, I shall be out of range. But think of me.'
'You know we do!' Torio groped blindly, found Lenardo's shoulders, hugged him. Alone of all Readers, Torio had no aversion to touching because he had 'seen' with his hands the first seven years of his life. The contact was not offensive. Lenardo held the boy warmly for a moment as Torio whispered fiercely, 'Come back to us! The empire needs you, Master Lenardo. The academy needs you.'
'Take my place, Torio. I will return if I can-but you must prepare yourself as if there were no hope at all. Promise me.'
'Yes, Master,' whispered Torio, but as he pulled away he added, 'but you will come back-you mustl'
Chapter Two
The White Wolf
Lenardo walked a familiar road out of Adigia, for in his boyhood the border had been far distant, and this land had been part of the Aventine Empire. Now it was a no-man's-land between the walls of the empire and the lands the savages had taken. They built no walls to hold their borders; rather they pressed and pressed against the walls of the empire, driving ever farther toward the sea. Lenardo's family had fled southward along this very road, before the retreating army, when the savages had taken the city of Zendi.
For some distance the road was wide and smooth, and Lenardo Read no one nearby. His arm ached and throbbed, making him wonder what he would do if it became necessary to use his sword.
Surely, though, he could avoid that possibility until his arm healed. What was known of the savages indicated that while they fought fiercely in battle, they were reasonably peaceful with one another. They were all mind-blind; the only way they would discover he was a Reader would be if he stupidly answered an unspoken question or revealed something he could not have known otherwise. They killed Readers out of superstitious dread. Otherwise it was a catch-as-catch-can world in which an Aventine exile had as much chance as anyone of carving out a place for himself. When that exile was a Reader, though, isolated among non-Readers, life would mean little.
Exiles were frequently seen among the savage troops. Lenardo had himself twice fought sword-to-sword with men who bore the brand but were otherwise indistinguishable from the mass of savages.
A scruffy lot the savages were, hair and beards long and tangled, armor primitive, barbaric trousers flapping about their legs. But they could fight! And they could die nobly, on the battlefield or under interrogation when captured. Lenardo had sometimes been called in to Read prisoners, but the common soldiers knew nothing of value to the empire.
The officers, of course, could not be captured-or if one was, he could not be kept. It seemed all officers had some degree of Adept powers. Before such people chains snapped, locks opened, and guards fainted dead away.
Through Reading and interrogating prisoners, Lenardo had learned a little of their language-or languages. Even in his small experience he had encountered variants far more disparate than the dialects of the empire. He hoped his knowledge would be adequate, but it should surprise no one if an exile with a still-fresh brand spoke the savage language haltingly.
The well-kept Aventine road narrowed, weeds and tree seedlings encroaching from either side, leaving barely room for a wagon to pass. Occasionally, where the roadbed had shifted, Lenardo had to skirt around holes full of stagnant water.
He had been exiled with only the clothes on his back and whatever he could carry. Master Clement had given him a small pouch of gold coins-good currency anywhere. Otherwise, besides his sword, he carried only a small pack of necessities.
By afternoon he began to see people here and there- peasants, barefoot and ragged, working in the fields. The crops looked good; he wondered why the people tending them should be unkempt and undernourished.
The road passed by a cluster of mud and wattle huts- surely no fit dwellings for human beings! The stench of garbage and excrement reached him, yet he saw stick-thin children playing before the huts, heard a baby crying. Reading, he found she was hungry, the pains of starvation cramping her swollen belly.
What manner of people were these? The savage soldiers sent against the empire were strong, sturdy, well equipped, well fed. Was that it-was all effort poured into the army, to the detriment of everyone else?
As he moved on into more populated areas, Lenardo Read the occasional thought to confirm his conclusion. There was sorrow in the land-everyone had lost husband, brother, son, or friend in the avalanche outside Adigia. In the simple peasants the loss was one of many sorrows, the latest tragedy in a string of miseries.
He approached Zendi, the border town of his childhood, near sundown. Lenardo remembered it as a large and beautiful city, bustling with life, a trade city of exotic sights, sounds, and smells. He had been happy there, playing with other children in the wide, clean streets. That was many years before he had seen the capital city of Tiberium, and to a small boy Zendi's forum, surrounded by temples, government buildings, and the huge, elaborate bath house, had seemed a magical place.
Although he knew the savages would not have left Zendi in the state he remembered-indeed, parts of the city were going up in flames when he and his parents fled-Lenardo hoped that it would retain some degree of civilization. He wanted to find a room for the night, where he might lock the door and leave his body-and his pain- behind for a few hours. His arm could heal while he Read through the city for clues to Galen's whereabouts. He didn't reaOy expect to discover anything so soon, but he knew of no way to search except to move from one heavily populated area to another, Reading. The breach of the Law of Privacy was necessary now, just as it was in medical cases; Lenardo would not linger over thoughts that did not concern him.
