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volcano. "Portia."
Aradia felt something then from Master Clement that she had known only once
before in the wise, courageous, and benevolent man who had been her husband's
mentor: guilt. "I sent you into her power,"
he said, "when I sent you to Tiberium."
Pyrrhus said in a voice of total insincerity, "It doesn't matter. It happened
nearly five years ago. I've adapted."
"Portia is dead," said Master Clement.
Pyrrhus raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I know," he replied in a voice of savage
satisfaction. I was in the
H
rapport. I helped you kill her."
Master Clement strode to the bed. "Then your powers are not severely
diminished. Pyrrhus we know how to heal the Readers Portia and her cohorts
forced onto the Path of the Dark Moon. As soon as you're well, you will come
to the Academy, and "
"No!" That barked word seemed to drain the last of Pyrrhus' energies. He lay
back against the pillow, pale and sweating again, and closed his eyes. Then,
in a voice devoid of emotion, he said, "What Portia did to me was not her
usual method of taking an uncooperative Reader out of her way. Oh, she had
originally planned to marry me off, drug me with white lotus, drain my will so
she and the other corrupt
Masters could implant the belief that my powers were reduced. "
The man's mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. "I found out what they were
doing," he said. "You were right, Clement. I
was one of the best Readers you ever trained. So I Read too much, found out
what
Portia was doing and stupidly refused to join her inner circle. I still had
the ideals you taught me. Much good they did me!"
"Pyrrhus," Master Clement pleaded, but the man continued inexorably.
"Then she stupidly tried to set me on the Path of the Dark Moon. But I told
you, it was a short journey."
"You ran away," said Master Clement.
"The morning of my supposed wedding day. Never did meet my intended bride." He
gave a snort of humorless laughter, and opened his eyes. "Have you ever tried
to hide when Readers are searching for you, Clement?"
"As a matter of fact," said the old man, "I have. You have to Read, to
discover whether they are tracking you, but every time you do you risk giving
yourself away to them."
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"Yes. Well, I escaped and learned a skill that has since served me very well."
"Your ability to block sending out thoughts," said Aradia, "even pain. The
reason none of the Readers noticed how badly you were hurt yesterday."
"Yes," said Pyrrhus. "I established an identity as an ordinary Aventine
citizen, and began to contact some of my old friends from the Academy who had
become Dark Moon Readers. Of course, most of them deserved to be, but even
they resented the Masters' crippling some of the best Readers if they were
dangerous to Portia's schemes.
"We made plans, tried to determine if any among the Master Readers were
uncorrupted. We contacted a few Magisters we could trust, but we needed a
Master Reader to persuade other Masters. We settled on Master Julius, head of
the hospital at Termoli. I went to him, with three Magister Readers, healers
from his staff. He& listened."
"And then," said Master Clement, "he went to the Council of Masters. Yes,
Pyrrhus I learned the full story later, after the fall of Tiberium. Your name
was not mentioned, though."
"No there was no need to record what happened to me," Pyrrhus said bitterly.
"I was just another failed Reader on their books. But they had to account for
the healers: Magisters Samantha, Tyrus, and
Cylene, and Master Julius." He winced. "The man was a fool. He had immersed
himself in healing, never been involved in politics. The very innocence that
made us confide in him caused him to betray us."
Master Clement said, "Master Julius thought you were mistaken. He was
concerned, though, that the tactics of the Council of Masters were causing
misunderstandings among both Dark Moon Readers and
Readers in training. He honestly thought he was helping your cause by
reporting to the Council of
Masters everything you had told him."
Pyrrhus gave another of his perfectly insincere smiles. "I learned an
important lesson from that experience:
never trust an honest man."
Aradia saw Wicket lean forward at that, and take Pyrrhus' uninjured left hand
in both of his. Pyrrhus took no notice, but neither did he withdraw the hand.
"You were an honest man," Master Clement pointed out, "and Master Julius
should have trusted you. As it was, Portia turned the Council against him,
insisted he was incompetent, and had him retested. I don't know how he was
made to fail the testing I wasn't there."
"They drugged him," said Pyrrhus. "I
was there. In spirit, anyway. One of the last things I ever Read. Did you know
that when they told him he'd failed, and they were going to marry him off, he
took poison?"
"Yes& I heard," said Master Clement. "But you, Pyrrhus. Why have you shut
yourself off to Reading?
How can you live that way?"
"I live that way because I have to," Pyrrhus replied.
"What do you mean? It's safe to make yourself known as a Reader now it has
been ever since the fall of Tiberium. '
Pyrrhus looked directly up at Master Clement, and suddenly his smile was
genuine, if brief. "You really are that innocent, aren't you?
"But then," he added, his face returning to its expressionless mode, "that
means you are just like Master
Julius. Clement I
can't
Read." The voice was flat again, devoid of feeling. "Portia caught me spying
on the testing of Master Julius. You see, I was stupid enough to care what
happened to him, and when I
Read them cheating him out of his life's work by testing him under drugs, I
slipped. My anger showed. I
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learned another lesson too late: forget the rest of the world, and look out
for yourself.
"The next day Portia and her cohorts went to work on me. I'll wager you didn't
even know the
techniques exist, Clement my innocent. But they do. They used drugs, and then
they used their minds against mine the combined power of thirteen corrupt
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