by Jean Lorrah
“Others who have as much to lose as you do: the stable owners. If they’ve been paying corrupt Readers not to disqualify their fighters, then each owner must be as angry as you are. If all of you refuse to pay, the extortionists would have to back down or there would be no wrestling matches this season. That would deprive some very important, powerful people-including the Emperor-of their entertainment.”
Zanos sat there for a long moment, considering her words. Astra realized that his reluctance to jump at the idea came from the concept of having to unite with his rivals. In his world, each man fought alone for survival.
But finally he nodded. “It might work, Astra. Thank you. I hope I can convince Lakus, Gareth, and the others to cooperate.”
“You can do it,” she said with a smile-and was again seized with a sneezing fit.
“You’re sick!” Zanos said. “Let me have Lanna prepare a room for you-”
“No!” she insisted. “I must go back to the Academy. It’s nothing but a cold, Zanos-just an annoyance that will be gone in a few days. If my clothes are dry-”
He did not argue, but walked her back to the Academy. It was a long and miserable walk for Astra, trying to respond to the stories Zanos told, to hide from him just how bad she was feeling. Fever was making her dizzy by the time she stumbled into the infirmary-but the healer on duty was busy with three little girls and left Astra to brew her own tea with lemon and honey to take back to her room.
When she woke the next morning she felt even worse, but told herself that if she just moved around—
She skipped breakfast, drank more tea, and went to teach her first lesson in a fog of pain. What voice she had was an octave lower than usual, and the strain of scolding a student who hadn’t done her practice sent her into a coughing fit that tinged her handkerchief with blood. The child fled, and moments later Master Claudia came into the music room. “Astra! How could you let yourself get into this condition?”
“Really,” Astra tried to protest, the words clogging her swollen throat, “it’s nothing. Just a cold-”
“Cold!” Claudia exclaimed. “Cant you Read for yourself how swollen your tonsils are? Child, you have a septic throat-you must be delirious with fever not to realize how serious it is-and if we don’t get you isolated, half the Academy could be down with it. Astra-are you trying to kill us all?”
Chapter Three
Red.
The whole world was fiery red. Astra stumbled through heat and pain, seeking the coolness of winter.
She fell to her hands and knees in a narrow lane-Zanos appeared and helped her to her feet. They clung to each other as the ground shook even more violently than it had the day they met. An eerie laugh, louder than the earthquakes rumble, caused her to look toward the mouth of the alley-to see the sorcerer Lenardo laughing at their terror.
He raised his hands. Sunfire lit him from behind, throwing his face into shadow as he flung lightning at Astra and Zanos.
The gladiator put out his hand and warded off the attack, turning the blazing missiles to harmless rainbows, lighting the face of the sorcerer in lurid tones.
It was no longer Lenardo, but Vortius! In the midst of the dream, the transformation seemed to hold great significance, but as the colors faded, so did Astra’s conviction.
She was lying in a hospital bed, so weak that she could hardly Read at all. Concerned faces of healers floated in and out of her range of vision, blurred and wavering. She struggled for breath, her throat raw, her chest aching as she fought for air.
Finally, Master Portia stood at the foot of her bed,
dressed all in white, carrying a baby wrapped in cloth of gold, but pale and deathly still.
“I’m sorry,” Portia said coldly.
“My baby!” Astra cried. “Please! Please let me have my child!”
“The baby is dead,” Portia told her.
Tears came to Astra’s eyes. “No! It can’t be!”
“If you refuse to believe me, ‘ Portia said, “Read for yourself. “
With great effort, Astra focused her powers—
The baby wailed.
The sound grew, encompassing the world, a universe of golden light, realm of the Sun God. He reached down to touch Astra’s chest, letting cool fire flow into her. Gentle, cooling darkness lovingly embraced her, carrying her away from pain to a place of welcome rest…
Astra woke in a strange bed, still very weak, but nonetheless feeling good. The pain was gone from her chest and throat, and her mind felt clear. She was in a small, dimly lit infirmary room. To her right, an apprentice healer was asleep in a chair. Astra Read outward, and found that she could Read a considerable distance, although nowhere near her usual range.
The young healer awoke with a start, and barely managed to suppress a gasp of surprise. “You’re awake!” she cried, jumping to her feet. “Oh, thank the gods! You were so close to death, first with fever and pneumonia, and then the coma-”
“How long have I been here?” Astra demanded. It couldn’t have been more than a day or two.
“Three weeks!” the young healer said.
Even after Master Claudia confirmed it, Astra found it difficult to believe she had lost that much time from her life. Her septic throat had spread infection to her lungs and brought her to death’s door, the healers told her-and then, two days ago, she had gone into a coma, and they had feared brain fever.
But the infection had cleared, the fever had gone, and-
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” one of the healers told her. “We find no trace of infection, but you should rest here for a few days to build back your strength.”
In her weakened state, Astra was in no mood to argue. Her first priority was food, and she astonished the healers by gulping down the gruel they brought and demanding something more satisfying. She had never been so hungry in her life!
Then she lay back and remembered her strange fever dreams. They were no longer clear in her mind, but a few images still haunted her. She fell asleep before she could try to make sense of them.
The following day, her strength returning, Astra was allowed to have visitors. The first one was Tressa.
“Enjoying your vacation, Astra?” she asked glibly as she entered, then dropped her false smile as soon as the door was closed. “Don’t Read!” she whispered sharply. “They’re supposed to grant privacy to recovering patients, so it should be safe to talk for a short time.’
“Talk about what?” Astra demanded, her apprehension aroused as always by Tressa’s conspiratorial attitude. “What has happened now?”
“I didn’t think they’d tell you, but you must know: another Master died two days ago-Master Julius, the head of the hospital in Termoli. Portia had him retested-and failed!”
Astra stared at her. “But he was a healer for longer than I’ve been in this world!”
“I know,” Tressa nodded sagely, “but that didn’t save him from Portia’s wrath. He was supposed to be married off to blunt his powers-but he chose to take poison instead.”
Astra looked away, fighting to keep her Reading from manifesting and giving away her upset to other nearby Readers.
Tressa touched her arm. ” Now will you listen to me?” she all but pleaded. “We need each other-”
“To do what?” Astra snapped. “Start civil war among the Readers? Use extortion against the Masters?
Where will it end, Tressa? In the destruction of the whole Reader system?”
Tressa drew back-even without Reading, Astra could see astonishment and anger fighting in her face.
And Astra understood why: Tressa was right that something had to be done-yet how could a pair of Magister Readers kept strictly under Portia’s thumb do anything but destroy themselves if they attempted to expose the Master of Masters?
Before she could point that out, Tressa stood, and left without another word.
Astra fought down tears of frustration-and dread. What was the right thing to do? Master Julius had obviously seen
no way to fight Portia-or else he had tried and failed. But Tressa was right that Portia couldn’t live forever; perhaps the young Readers could just pretend to notice nothing, and wait it out until eventually Portia was gone. And if her successor was equally corrupt? Well, they could deal with that when and if it happened.
Astra didn’t believe it could happen. The Academy system was set up so that Readers could not be corrupted by power. All their needs were cared for, but they were not allowed to own property or hold office. Portia was an anomaly. Perhaps she had bribed or threatened some Readers, like Darien and Primus-or perhaps she had just allowed people like Vortius to do so?
What was Portia’s connection with Vortius?
The next day brought solitude and boredom to the rapidly recovering patient, and she decided to test her powers. Carefully positioning her body on the bed, she left it, reveling in the feeling of freedom. She drifted through the infirmary to the maternity rooms.
Many women of Tiberium came to the Readers for care during pregnancy; usually one of the midwives went to a woman’s home when she gave birth, but if it was judged that the birth would be difficult, the woman was admitted a few days before her child was due.
Thus there was only one patient in the maternity section. Astra was about to “move” on past without prying, according to the rules granting privacy to patients, when the young woman’s grief reached out to her errant powers, capturing her attention against her will.
The woman had lost her child. She lay tensely on the bed, her mind futilely circling in grief. Astra was forcefully reminded of her fever dream—
So that’s where it came from!
She dragged her attention away from the sorrowing woman, mortified. Readers were trained as children not to Read while they slept. Astra’s training had taken much longer than that of the other girls; her powers had refused to rest at night despite months on end of being jolted harshly awake by a monitoring Reader each time her mind reached outward in her sleep.
To avoid Reading the patient, Astra concentrated on the room, recognizing it from her dream. But the rest… Portia visiting a nonReader? Conducting the funeral for the innocent herself, dressed all in white?
And the dead baby wrapped in cloth of gold? Surely not for this grieving woman’s benefit.
Portia wasn’t a healer-Astra had never known her to touch an ill or injured person, even in an emergency. Of course she would have had medical training years ago, but the Master of Masters was never involved with such things now.
Astra’s dream, then, could not have been mere Reading of this poor woman’s loss. Her grief had triggered something-a memory, something connected
with the infirmary… a time when Portia had come here to inform a new mother—
My mother! Astra realized in utter astonishment. With the total conviction of her wild powers Reading the history of that room in the maternity ward, she knew she had Read her own mother’s memories!
Astra had learned her mother’s story in gossip and random thought. Since young Readers were always separated from their families when their powers were discovered, she had been no different from the other girls at first-except that she had lived here at the Academy since she could remember, while others were brought here at six, seven, or eight.
But the adult Readers knew the scandal, and inevitably it leaked to the young girls in training-and under the harsh disciplines of Readers’ training they grasped at something to gossip about. No adult had ever told Astra her parents’ story; the pretense, even today, was that she should never know it. As if that would help her ward off the suspicions always flung her way!
Eventually she had pieced together the whole story.
Twenty-five years ago, the city of Zendi had been inside the empire’s northern border. The savages, after a long and bloody battle, had succeeded in pushing the border all the way south to Adigia. Thousands of refugees overflowed the small town of Adigia, many of them wounded in the fighting. Among the injured were some male Readers from the Zendi Academy who had escaped being killed by the enemy. Healers from the central cities, especially Tiberium, had rushed to Adigia to deal with the many sick and wounded.
The rule regarding male and female Readers not meeting had been suspended for healers in the emergency. Thus it was possible for Master Anthony, a swordsman and musician, to become the patient of Master Cassandra of the Tiberium Academy.
Not long after his recovery, and before her recall to Tiberium, something… happened between the two Masters. Love? Perhaps. Certainly there was no way for Cassandra to hide the fact that she had violated her Reader’s Oath of celibacy.
Apparently she had been kept a virtual prisoner in the Academy until her child was born. Not long afterward, she somehow managed to escape from the Academy, from the empire entirely, never to be heard of again.
Leaving me, the symbol of her shame, as a ward of the state. How she must have hated me, not to have taken me with her.
Two healers entered the infirmary room. One of them, Master Claudia, said to the distraught young woman, “We know how you are grieving, Celia, but you must understand that the baby’s stillbirth was in no way your fault.” The other Master handed the woman a cup of wine, which Astra could Read contained a sedative.
As the patient drank, Claudia spoke soft, hypnotic words. The woman slowly relaxed, her mind entering a trancelike state. The two healers’ minds gently touched hers, deepening the trance, then delicately worked to lessen her grief in ways that Astra only partially understood.
They were using techniques of advanced medical training. Astra had received basic training in such techniques at Gaeta, but these were methods she would have learned only if she had become a healer rather than a music teacher. In her time as a student at the Gaeta hospital-TERROR! PAIN!
Dozens of Readers’ agony screamed at Astra, buffeting her like a small craft in an ocean storm. She could not shut her mind against the flood of fear and PAIN!
“Help!” she screamed mentally, helpless in her out-of-body state to close her mind to the inundation.
Master Claudia looked up, her concentration broken. “Help me!” Astra pleaded.
“Stay here!” Claudia commanded her assistant as she hurried out of the room. Astra fought to reorient herself. She had to get back to her body, shut herself away from this pain, but hundreds of emotions kept tearing at her-
“Astra!”
Master Claudia’s mental voice was like a hand firmly grasping her by the wrist, pulling her back to the physical world… and indeed, the healer was holding her wrist as she reentered her body, feeling as though she’d fallen from a great height.
Master Claudia stood, breathing a sigh of relief. “Thank the gods! Astra, what were you doing out of body when you’re still so weak-?”
“Gaeta!” Astra gasped, now able to make sense of what she had experienced. “Something terrible’s happened at Gaeta!”
“The seacoast town?” Zanos frowned. He didn’t understand what Astra was so upset about. “What about it?”
Astra swallowed hard. “Late last night, an earthquake devastated the hospital there. Many patients and healers were injured-and some were killed, including five Readers.”
“Friends of yours?” He had come here expecting to find her feeling better, not in the midst of a personal tragedy.
“Acquaintances, some of them. But it was enough that they were Readers. I felt it happen,” she added, and suddenly he understood. In her world, no one dwelt in isolation-and he felt a strange pang for the threats he had made to Darien and Primus.
But Astra was continuing, “Zanos, it’s more than just the deaths of Readers-in a natural disaster, such things happen. But this wasn’t natural-they were murdered.”
“What?” He could see that she believed it-and with a Reader’s powers, perhaps she had good cause.
“That earthquake was no act of the gods,” Astra explained. “Master Portia used her powers to search the territory immediately afterward. She witnessed
two spies from the savage lands, sneaking back over the border-a powerful Adept and a renegade Reader.”
This was indeed frightening news-and no rumor of it had penetrated The Maze. “She’s sure the two savages had something to do with the earthquake?” Zanos asked.
“Why, they bragged about it! When Portia confronted him, mind to mind, the Reader declared there was nothing the savages couldn’t do, combining Reading and Adept powers. Portia alerted the border guards, but the spies escaped.”
Although Zanos found nothing magical about evading the border guards, the rest of the story- “Just one Adept guided by a Reader-setting oft” an earthquake? Surely they can’t have such strength!”
“Master Portia found no other savages, and I’m told she did a lot of searching. The Emperor called for a special closed meeting of the senate, where she made a full report. They’re probably still debating what to do, though there’s little doubt that when the citizens hear about Gaeta there’ll be a public outcry for war.
The savages can’t be allowed to get any bolder, any more powerful.”
As soon as the senate session is over, the news will be all over The Maze, Zanos thought. “How much more powerful can they become?” he wondered aloud-and Astra gave him an unexpected answer.
“I’m afraid to imagine. They’ve already learned how to bring the dead back to life.”
At his shocked stare, Astra nodded emphatically. “It’s true. The renegade Reader was a boy named Torio, who was killed last year trying to defect to the savages. A border guard put an arrow through his heart, but the other renegade Reader-Lenardo the
Traitor-carried the body back to his friends, where they resurrected Torio and made him one of them.
Now he’s helping the savages!”
“And your Council of Masters thinks this attack was a preparation for a full-scale invasion of the empire?”
“Obviously-Zanos, they’ve been pushing back the borders for years, but now they’re directly attacking Readers. First the Adigia Academy, now Gaeta-I can’t believe even the savages would deliberately attack a hospital, except that it contained as large a concentration of Readers as any Academy. They’re trying to wipe out our system of Masters and Magisters, for they’ve proved that the failed Readers on the Path of the Dark Moon are no match for their savage arts.”