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These people lived with change they were actively attempting to change the
world for the better, and changing themselves to do so. Unstifled by the rules
of the Academy, even their Reading powers blossomed beyond the norm. It was
shameful how Melissa's powers lagged behind Torio's. Julia was years beyond
what would have been expected in the empire, and as for Lenardo how had he
Read the field of quicksand from a distance at which none of the Master
Readers could locate him?
Curiously, without malicious intent, Melissa Read for Lenardo. He and Aradia
were in one of the rooms upstairs, Lenardo seated in an armchair, relaxed,
Aradia just fastening something over her hair.
But it was Lenardo who had provoked Melissa's curiosity& and she could not
Read anything other than where he was. "Aradia," he said suddenly, "please go
down to the great hall and find Melissa. Explain the funeral preparations to
her."
Melissa burned with embarrassment at invading their privacy, but Lenardo's
attention was elsewhere. Aradia came downstairs, Reading, but unable to
distinguish Melissa until she was halfway down the stairs. No, she was not a
very good Reader, but shewas one, and an Adept, too.
"Lady Melissa."
Aradia had changed clothes. She was now all in gray, her hair covered with an
unadorned headdress, a veil beneath her chin so that her face looked out from
a circle of gray cloth. "If you will come up to the wardrobe room, I will help
you find appropriate garments for the funeral."
"Yes, my lady," Melissa replied, and followed Aradia upstairs, past the
sleeping rooms, and into a large room where numerous garments hung on pegs.
There were chests and shelves, too, but most were empty.
"My brother has been here only a year," said Aradia. "There is not much of a
collection yet. We brought gray garments, for we expected a funeral& but not
such a small one. Torio's idea was brilliant there might have been no deaths
at ail if Wulfston had been able to reach the battlefield in time."
"That's really what you want, isn't it?" Melissa asked.
"Oh, yes! But power struggles are a way of life here. Human nature is still
nature you cannot work against it. But if we can show our enemies our strength
without killing them, then their friends and families have no reason for
vengeance. It will take a long time. We must always be prepared to fight. But
Readers and Adepts together find fresh ideas. Create a storm to blow the enemy
fleet away. Bog them down in quicksand. And hope that if we do such things
often enough, they will stop attacking us."
"I fear you underestimate the Aventine Empire," said Melissa. "They think you
seek to destroy them and they intend to fight you to the last man."
Aradia sighed. "Then their Readers will start searching for us the moment we
set off the fault again and Read that our intention is toprevent destruction.
Here." She lifted a brown dress off a peg and held it up against Melissa.
"This should fit you. And here's a surcoat in gray. Earth colors and ash," she
explained. "No bright colors, Lady Melissa."
Melissa took the garments, saying, "Why does everyone call me 'Lady Melissa'?
No one calls Rolf a lord."
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"Torio says you are qualified to be a Magister Reader," Aradia replied. "Our
titles are based on one's powers, just as yours are. Rolf is not a
fully-empowered Adept; he has only one talent. If he learns to Read well
enough, Lenardo and Torio can test him perhaps he will earn the right to a
title and lands someday."
"Lands?"
Aradia laughed. "Do not be greedy, Melissa. All the lands we currently hold
are spoken for, and we have no plans for conquest." She looked Melissa over
from head to toe. "But you are young and both Torio and my brother are of an
age to be attracted. They have become best of friends, and work together
excellently. If you were to find a true match with either of them, we would
all be greatly pleased. But don't play games. If you attempt to gain power by
using your female charms to turn them against one another, you will have me to
deal with& and I am also a woman."
Melissa was dumbfounded. No such idea had entered her head but then Aradia
did not know of her love for Jason. She could not love another man. "I am a
Reader," she said. "I have been taught never to think of marriage."
"But you are very adaptable, as we have all seen. Go get dressed, Melissa but
remember what I have told you."
Melissa thought about the conversation while she dressed, but once the
funeral began she forgot it, suddenly enveloped in the grief she had put
aside. In this strange land which she did not associate with him, Jason had
seemed not to be dead, but back in Gaeta, where she would touch his mind once
more if she ever went home.
But now, Reading his body with the others on the funeral pyre, she was
forcibly reminded that he was gone.If he had only known what they are doing
here! If I had only known the healing techniques I saw a minor Adept use
yesterday . She would learn those techniques, she vowed let that be an
appropriate monument to Jason. As she Read the funeral preparations, she
realized he would have no other.
The funeral pyre was built on a hill about a mile from Wulfston's castle. The
cortege wound its way to the top, each person laying a symbolic stick of wood
on the pyre. The flat rock surface of the hilltop could have accommodated a
much larger pyre and many more mourners& and had, Melissa was sure. She
followed Torio's lead, and Rolf followed her placing his walking stick as his
contribution.
Wulfston and Aradia spoke; the friends and relatives of those who had died
each said something and then it " was Melissa's turn. For the first time she
realized how little she knew about Jason! She could speak of him only as her
teacher, with warmth and affection& but where was the personal feeling she had
thought they shared?
Numb with surprise and a grief far more for what might have been than for
what had been, Melissa watched as Wulfston, Lenardo, and Aradia sprinkled
earth and water on the pyre, stood back and the flames leaped skyward with a
white heat.
When the flames subsided, only a scattering of ash stirred on the bare rock
face. As if on signal, a cheer went up from the people gathered there, and
they turned and began walking down the trail, laughing and talking, some even
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