[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

handle anyone they send against us but I'd rather not."
Torio let Wulfston lead him, feeling again the frustration he had left behind
for many years before crossing the border into the savage lands: the
frustration of being truly blind. The feeling came on him now only when they
had to hide from other Readers, something unheard of in the life he had known
before. Privacy, yes there were times when Readers wanted to shield their
thoughts or conversations but then they used techniques which did not leave
them helpless and dependent, led by someone else through a world suddenly
unfamiliar and dangerous.
Torio had been born blind; darkness and dependency had been his heritage
until his Reading abilities woke when he was six years old and he had been
taken to the Academy at Adigia. It was there that his life had become
inextricably entwined with that of Lenardo Master Reader, renegade, and now
savage lord.
Lenardo had been teacher, mentor, and father to him ever since the day his
Reading had forever dispelled Torio's darkness. The boy had never known light,
associating it only with the warmth of the sun on his skin, and even after he
had been discovered and begun training as a Reader he had still not understood
what "seeing" was. It was normal enough for a small child just beginning to
Read to "hear" only those thoughts broadcast strongly by trained Readers, and
to sense only the vague forms of the world about him; still, within a week of
his first experience of Reading, Torio walked confidently in the world without
Page 22
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
bumping into things. What he could not understand as the months passed was
that his teachers insisted that what he was doing was not "seeing."
Master Clement, head of the Academy at Adigia, had told him not to worry
about it visualization would come later. Lenardo, though, had understood the
boy's confusion. Never having seen, Torio had no motivation to visualize. He
was so perfectly delighted with the independence that Reading gave him that he
could not imagine anything more. So one morning just at dawn, Lenardo had
taken the sleepy child up to the top of the Academy tower. There, he had
turned the boy to the east, so he could feel the first rays of the sun on his
face, and Read the sunrise for him. Shape and color burst into Torio's mind
for the first time a whirl of uninterpretable data, but beautiful. More
beautiful than anything he had ever experienced before! With Lenardo's mind
guiding him, he understood: this was light. This was seeing. This everchanging
panorama was what everyone who could see experienced constantly. //How can
they do anything but stop and watch it?// Torio had asked.
//Too few ever stop and watch,// Lenardo replied. //You don't understand yet
how much you have just mademe appreciate what I can see, Torio.//
Torio had been barely seven years old then, and Lenardo about the age Torio
was now, newly established as a teacher at the Academy. From that day Torio
learned more quickly from Lenardo than from any of the other teachers and over
the years, as the boy grew up, the student-teacher relationship turned into a
deep and abiding friendship.
Thus it was that Lenardo had chosen to trust Torio with the knowledge of his
secret mission into the savage lands last year branded as a traitor and
exiled, to all public appearances so that he could seek out Galen, the
renegade Reader, and prevent him from aiding the savage Adepts intent on
destroying the Aventine Empire.
And thus it was, when Lenardo had to all appearances turned traitor in his
turn, Torio had fallen under suspicion. He had not really understood last
summer what he was fleeingto when he joined Lenardo in that crazed flight
across the border he had been fleeingfrom the decree of Portia, the Master of
Masters among Readers, who had declared Torio unfit without testing him, and
decided to marry him off to weaken his powers and prevent his becoming a
threat to the empire.
Overnight literally he had gone from candidate for testing for the top ranks
of Readers, loyal citizen of the Aventine Empire, to savage lord with lands
held for him against the day when he had learned enough about the wielding of
power to be able to rule them. Barely two seasons had passed since that
precipitous change in his life, and he had not yet adjusted to it. He was not
sure he could.
Everything he had ever known was turned topsyturvy. The savage Adepts were
power-mad monsters with no motive for living except to destroy anyone and
anything that came in their way but Aradia and Wulfston and all the other
Adepts Torio had met were trying to build a peaceful amalgam of lands, an
alliance too strong to be readily attacked, so that their people could live in
health and safety. And, although the hope had been postponed by the events of
the winter, they still wanted eventually to try to make peace with the
Aventine Empire.
Marriage severely weakened the powers of either a Reader or an Adept, Torio
had always been taught. But Lenardo was married now to Aradia and both their
powers had increased dramatically.
Page 23
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
And, most significant, both Readers and Adepts had always believed that their
powers were separate mutually exclusive. No Reader had ever learned Adept
powers, and no Adept had ever learned to Read& until now. But only last
summer, Aradia, Adept and adult, had somehow through her association with
Lenardo developed the ability to Read. Even more astonishing, Torio had been
witness when, to save Aradia's life, Lenardo had somehow found within himself
the Adept power to spark a fire with his mind thus setting off the explosion
that destroyed the Lords Adept who were attacking the city of Zendi.
He had witnessed it& and still Torio found it almost impossible to believe.
Lenardo's Adept powers were minor nothing compared to what Aradia or Wulfston
could do yet every time Lenardo would casually light a candle without touching
it, or move a small object without getting up to fetch it, Torio felt as if
his old friend and teacher had become a stranger.
For that reason, Torio had agreed to work with Wulfston, whose lands were to
the west of Lenardo's. In Wulfston, Adept powers were not disturbing it was
only when a Reader exhibited such powers that a chill crawled up Torio's
spine. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]