The Spell-Bound Scholar Read Free Page A

plans. She thrashed about, trying to banish them all from her mind, trying to forget Magnus's return from the Green Witch's healing, Cordelia standing triumphant with Alain's hands in hers, Geoffrey kneeling to propose to Quicksilver there before all the court at the end of her trial, and the memories of the thwarting of her plans whipped up such a fury in her that she began to shake. She took slow, deep breaths, remembering the ritual for calming that her martial arts teacher had shown her, and gradually managed to let her anger fade, her harmony return to bury the feelings of hurt and outrage that were always there in the depths of her heart, waiting to spring out and betray her whenever she most needed to think clearly. After a few minutes, drowsiness came with a suddenness that surprised her. She was grateful for it and let it sweep over her, bearing her away into a deep and calming sleep, and if dreams of her triumphs surfaced, then submerged as she slept, all the better to restore her confidence in her struggle against this emotionless boy who watched over her slumber.
    The dreams, of course, were not entirely the product of an

    angry and frustrated mind, nor were the memories of her defeats at the hands of the Gallowglass family. Warned by anomalies in her behavior during their trip to Loguire, Gregory suspected that he had an enemy in his keeping, not an innocent victim who had talents the crown badly needed. The suspicion was strong enough to warrant a breach of the esper's ethics he had been taught, so he inserted key images into Moraga's seething mind that made her remember her various crimes against the family and her defeats. Then he projected a soothing, calming drowsiness, and when she had drifted into sleep, he slipped other key ideas into her mind and paid close attention to the memories they evoked. He witnessed each of the three assassinations she had carried out, even as she had been assigned to do—first winning the man's trust, or at least relaxation of his vigilance, by the sexual magnetism she projected, then slipping a knife between his ribs as he slept, or poison in his food as he ate. He was surprised to discover that she thought herself plain and unattractive but had an amazing amount of confidence in her telepathic ability to convince her victims that she was intensely desirable. He even witnessed her latest and unassigned murder—that of the former Chief Agent, making sure that he left a letter appointing her Chief Agent in his stead.
    So, then. He dealt not only with the witch who had mangled his brother's emotions and striven to murder Cordelia, Alain, and Geoffrey, but also with the Chief Agent of the anarchists of Gramarye—not only his family's personal nemesis, but a public enemy, too.
    What would she do? He could not say, but he knew the thrust of it would be to kill him or twist his emotions toward a solitary life that would not result in reproduction. He smiled, amused—that last would require no effort at all, would require only that she leave him alone, for he had seen the emotional cripple that Magnus had become, had watched Geoffrey waste an immense amount of time dallying with wenches, and had resolved himself to avoid women as anything but friends and to sublimate his sex drive into research. Moraga had already given him an impulse that should result in a conceptual breakthrough, for though he had been careful not to show it,

    her flirtations had been most stimulating. He needed the night's meditation badly; he had a great deal of sublimating to do.
    He began it by constructing an automatic defense system. He had learned enough about computers from the horse's mouth—the horse being Fess, his father's computer-brained robot charger—so that he knew how to weave a response program into his own mind, conditioning himself to respond to telepathic aggression by reflecting any hostile energy back to its source. Then he relaxed, sure that, though he would not himself take any