Of course, when the girl got done looking indignant, she had looked rather pleased…

He tried to remember how he had felt at that moment, and caught it—exposed, vulnerable. Being so open was intolerable; he couldn’t allow other people to know so much about him, that they might be able to use to hurt him. He couldn’t let them have the advantage of knowing what he was going to do, before he did it.

He could feel himself pulling back, withdrawing, pulling inward, politely but firmly closing himself off, locking out the rest of the world. He would smile, he would still interact with them—but they could not, would not, know his inner self…

He came out of the reverie with an inward shudder. With an attitude like that, it was amazing his marriage had lasted the first nine years. On second thought, knowing Gwen, it was understandable; he hoped he’d made it up to her, since then.

By turning into a howling demon whenever a few things went wrong all at the same time?

Be fair, he told himself, frowning. If she’d rather have him emotionally open, she had to accept everything that implied. Could he help it if, underneath the mask, he wasn’t really a very nice guy?

Now he was being unfair to himself. Wasn’t he? Surely there had to be a way to be open, without going berserk every so often.

There had to be, and he’d get busy searching for it—as soon as the current crisis was out of the way.

He stilled, suddenly remembering that his technique might not have worked. He might not have managed to regain his telepathic invisibility; he might still be exposed to passing telepaths.

So he sat very still, letting his mind open up, eyes still closed in mock slumber. He let his thoughts slumber, too, let them idle into dreams, while his mind opened up to all and any impressions.

He didn’t hear a thought.

He would’ve believed there wasn’t a thinking being for a hundred miles—and it wasn’t just human thoughts that were missing, either. When he concentrated on mind reading this way, he always heard a continuing background murmur of animal minds—simple, vivid emotions: hunger, rage, desire. Even earthworms radiated sharp, intense little spikes of satisfaction as they chewed their way cheerfully through the dirt.

But not now. Either the worms had plowed into sandy soil, or his mind was closed off from both directions. He couldn’t hear anything—not the background murmur, not the defiance of a skylark, nothing. He felt as though a vital part of him had been chopped off, that he was less than he had been. After three years as a telepath, this was a sudden, devastating impoverishment.

But it was necessary. Without it, he’d very quickly be detected and, shortly thereafter, be dead.

He felt a little better, after that realization. No, he decided, mental deafness was definitely preferable to permanent sleep. Besides, the ‘deafness’ was only temporary.

He hoped.

He shrugged off the thought, and cranked his eyelids open just enough to see through the lashes. The road was clear, as far as he could see. Of course, someone might be coming up behind him, so he kept up the act: He sat up slowly, blinking around him as though he couldn’t remember where he was. Then he lifted his head, as though remembering, smiled, yawned, and stretched. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and blinked at the scenery around him while he waited for his body to come awake. Finally, Owen reached down to untie the reins, sat up, and clucked to his horse, giving his back a light (very light) slap. The horse lifted his head, looked back to see his master awake, then turned front again and leaned into the horsecollar. The wagon creaked, groaned, and clattered back onto the High Road again.

As the wooden wheels rolled away on the paving stones, Rod worked at fighting down a rising fear—that, when this struggle with renegade espers was over, he might not be able to come out of his shell again, might be permanently maimed mentally, and never again able to be fully with his family. “It’s done, Fess. I’ve closed my mind off. The rest of the world is telepathically invisible to me.”

“And you to it?” Fess sounded surprised. “Wasn’t that a bit drastic, Rod?”

“Yes—but in a land of hostile telepaths, I think it was necessary.”

The robot was silent for a few hoofbeats, then nodded slowly. “It is a wise course, Rod. Indeed, I would have counselled it, if you had asked me.”

Rod caught the implied reproach. “I couldn’t, though—not while an enemy telepath might have been able to read my mind.” He was silent for a few seconds, then added, “It’s scarey, Fess.”

“I can understand that it would be, Rod, after three years as a telepath. But I should think Alfar would be even more frightening.”

“What, him?” Rod shrugged. “Not really. I mean, if worst comes to worst and I don’t come back, Tuan will start marching.”

“A rather gruesome interpretation. What do you fear, Rod?”

“Being stuck here, inside myself.” Rod shuddered. “And not being able to unlock my mind again.”

 

9

The sun was low, ahead and to the left, bathing the road, and the dusty leaves that bordered it, in an orange glow that made the whole world seem somewhat better than it really was—and Rod began to relax as he gazed at it. It was a magical road, somehow, twisting away through gilded leaves to some unguessable, wonderful faery world ahead.

Around the turn, a man cried out in alarm, and a chorus of bellowing shouts answered him. Quarterstaves cracked wood on wood, and clanked on iron.

Rod stared, snapping out of his reverie. Then he barked “Charge!” and Fess sprang into a gallop. The cart rattled and bumped behind him, melons and cabbages bouncing out into the roadway. Rod swerved into the turn with one wheel off the ground—and saw a gray-haired man whirling a quarterstaff high, low, from side to side, blocking the furious blows of three thick-bodied, shag-haired thugs with five-day beards. Two of them had iron caps—which was just as well, since they weren’t very good with their staves. Even as Rod watched, the gray-head managed to crack his staff down on one of their skulls. The man howled and flinched back, pressing a hand to his head; then, reassured that he wasn’t injured, he roared and leaped back into the fight, flailing a huge, windmilling arc of a blow that would have pulverized anything in its way. But the older man’s staff snapped out at an angle, blocking the blow—and the thug’s stick shot down the smooth wood, straight toward the victim’s knuckles. The traveller’s staff pushed farther, though, coming around in a half circle, and the thug’s stick plowed into the ground. By that time, the other end of the older man’s staff was swinging up to block a short, vicious blow from the thug on the other side.

Anger flared in Rod, the smoldering resentment of injustice. “Anybody that good has earned help!” Rod snapped. “We can’t let him be killed just because he’s outnumbered! Never!”

Fess’s hooves whipped into a blur that no real horse could have managed. Rod swung his whip back, fighting against his own anger to withhold the blow until the right moment.

A handful of soldiers broke through the screen of brush at the roadside, riding into view from a woodland track.

Rod hauled on Fess’s reins—not that the horse needed it; but it helped Rod to force down his anger, contain the frustration at not striking out. “Hold it, Fess! Company’s coming. Maybe we’d better leave this goodman to natural processes.”

The sergeant saw the fracas, swung his arm in an overhand circle that ended pointing toward the thugs, and shouted as he kicked his mount into a gallop. His troopers bellowed an answer, and their horses leaped into a charge.