Blindfold. Kevin J. Anderson

snickered.

      “You know how the game is played,” Kalliana said to them. “I think of something, then you try to read it from me. The first person to get it right wins, then we’ll try another.”

      The children sat around, watching her obediently with their bright eyes. Observing them, Kalliana felt a healing force, the goodness of children raised within the protective arms of the Guild.

      “All right,” she said, “I’m picturing something.” She closed her eyes, summoning an image in her mind. “Try to read it from me.”

      The children concentrated, looking comical with their focused expressions, their furrowed foreheads. Ysan picked up the image immediately and nodded at Kalliana, but she continued to project, not letting herself get distracted. That might throw the children off.

      “It’s a white ball,” one little boy said.

      “No, it’s glowing,” a girl interrupted. “It’s a glowbulb!”

      “No, the sun ,” a third child said. “The sun—the sun up in the sky!”

      “Yes,” Kalliana said and smiled. “It’s the sun.”

      Next, she thought of one of the tall palm trees that grew out in the plaza.

      “It’s a stick!” one of the girls said.

      “No, a broom,” another girl challenged, “thin and dry.”

      The boy grew suddenly incensed and pointed at the little girl beside him. “She’s thinking bad things about me!”

      “I am not!” the girl answered. “You were doing it first. You thought I look like one of the rock lizards.”

      “I didn’t think that.”

      “Yes, you did.”

      “Well, I couldn’t help it. That’s what you look like.”

      Losing her temper, Kalliana stood from the maroon chair. “Enough! You shouldn’t be reading each other’s minds unless you have explicit permission to do so. That is not something a Truthsayer would ever do.

      “Thoughts are private, unless we have cause to go inside another person’s mind. I’ve given you permission to read me while we play this game, but you must never, ever read another person just for fun.”

      Kalliana sat down again, alarmed at her own temper. The children stared at her uncertainly, and she wondered if they had caught a backwash of her inner turmoil. “All right,” she said, getting down to business. “Let’s do the game again and try to focus once more on the picture in my mind.”

      Trying to calm herself, she realized that with the mental wounds still stinging, she had once again been considering her onerous obligations to the Guild, whether it was worth everything her life had granted her. After the unpleasant lives she had witnessed in the minds of criminals, she was afraid to lose it all, no matter how difficult her Truthsayer duties were.