Flight to Savage Empire se-4
Page 9
If he survived—
But he has to win! He just has to. I need his help… I heed him.
The gates to the arena were closed, the seats filled to capacity. The tumultuous roar of the crowd was the loudest Astra had ever heard. She closed herself to Reading as best she could, concentrating on what to do next. Composing herself, she approached the men guarding the gate. “Medical emergency,” she said briskly. “Open the gates, please.”
Once admitted, she moved quickly to the ramp to the underground area. Above her, the excitement of the crowd was a great tent of mental energy, sheltering her—
An icy touch stabbed at her mind.
Portia!
“You cannot elude me so easily, child,” the Master of Masters told her.
“I’m not a child!” Astra countered, pressing her back against the tunnel wall and shutting her eyes in concentration.
“Nevertheless, I know what’s best for you. Come home, Astra. There is no place for you outside the Academy.”
“No! Let me alone!”
The icy touch became a pain, attacking her concentration. Portia was trying to bend her to her will, control her mind by projecting images of pain and fear.
Astra rejected them-but they became more in—
tense. She had no choice; she let herself slip down to the tunnel floor and broke free of the pain by leaving her body.
The bloodlust of the arena crowd was now a familiar horror, but there was a power in this collection of emotions that cried out to her frustration and fear. If she could control it, turn it against Portia-
“Astra, listen to me,” Portia demanded. “You don’t understand what you Read in the marriage cup-”
III Read more than just white lotus, Portia. I Read you-today, and when I was delirious in the infirmary.” The crowd’s fury brought out her own indignation, and her wild talent suddenly told her, “You Read me as I lay close to death, and I reminded you of Cassandra, my mother. You remembered the day of my birth, while she was still weak, her powers blunted-how you deceived her into thinking I was dead!”
Portia gave no reply, for none was necessary-Astra could Read past her shields now, Read everything she was thinking, every conspiracy—
Every murder.
Astra’s self-loathing at the way she had turned away from knowing what Portia was doing turned to anger against the Master of Masters.
“Why, Portia? Why did you try to make me part of your schemes?”
“You know why,” the old woman replied. “Child of two strong Masters-you are something unheard of in the history of the Reader system. At the peak of your powers, you could have become the strongest Master Reader who ever lived!”
“And you planned to use me to continue control over the Readers,” Astra realized. “You tried to make me your protege, but your plan had one flaw. You couldn’t take Cassandra’s place as my mother because you didn’t love me. You don’t know how to love-truly love-anybody!”
It was all there in Portia’s mind, open to Astra’s powers. The Master of Masters had been born into the Emperor’s family, the only person of royal lineage ever to develop a Reader’s powers. Once those powers were discovered, how anxious that family had been to pack her off to the Academy, away from the power they intrigued for.
Portia could not show love to Astra because it had never been shown to her.
But Astra had no time for sympathy. Knowing the past did not change the present, and the present could very well end in Astra’s death-for she now knew too much.
“Astra, return to your body,” Portia commanded. “Come back to the Academy and let me show you everything that is happening. You know only a few facts. Once you know all, you will understand why we must-
“Not “we”!” Astra told her. “I’m not one of your corrupt Masters, or one of your hired killers-like Vortius! He killed Master Quantus at your order! That was what you were afraid I’d Read in your office that day-the day you assigned me the arena as punishment!”
The death match in the arena was approaching its climax. The crowd rose to its feet, screaming for the death stroke. Waves of emotion crashed over both Readers, dragging them into an undertow of frenzy.
But both Master and Magister fought them off, locked in a battle of wills.
Suddenly Portia’s mind sought to grapple directly with Astra’s, to make her forget all she had learned about the conspiracy—
But the hypnotic techniques that worked on nonReaders could be eluded by another Reader-if she was strong enough.
For the first time in her life, Astra fought back, turning her anger outward instead of letting frustration eat at her from inside.
The crowd’s roar increased, the waves becoming a flood. They pounded Astra on one side as Portias attack bombarded her from another-she couldn’t fight them both!
Instinctively, she embraced the fury of the crowd, concentrated it through her own talent, and hurled it at Portia.
The Master could not retain her shields against such strength.
Astra’s hope stirred-Portia would leave the arena, return to her body at the Academy, and Astra would be able to escape.
But Portia had not climbed to her position or held it for so long by giving up.
Somehow, she fought off the bloodlust and threw it back at Astra.
But the younger woman was quick to learn. She opened to the frenzy, took its echo from Portia, combined phantom with reality-and hurled both together at the Master of Masters on the spear of a gladiator’s death agony.
Portia’s mental scream was lost in the din of the arena crowd. Astra felt her fall away from the conflict, Read her return to her own body, defeated… and just barely alive.
The crowd was cheering the victor, but Astra found no joy in her triumph.
Blessed gods! I was only defending myself! 1 didn’t want to kill her!
But a part of her was not so sure. How much of that bloodlust had belonged to the crowd… and how much was hers?
Astra Read Master Marina rush into Portia’s private chamber to discover the old woman unconscious.
Terrified that her emotions might reveal her presence, Astra withdrew from the scene. The return to her hastily abandoned body was agony. Every joint screamed as she rolled over onto her hands and knees, then slowly forced herself to her feet. She felt dizzy, but her mind was clearing. There was still no one else in the tunnel, thank the gods, so her body had been in no real danger.
But now all of me is in danger, she thought bitterly. If Portia recovers—
She hadn’t won anything. The Council of Masters and the Emperor would have her either exiled as a traitor-or executed as a threat to the state.
Oh, Zanos!
Almost involuntarily her mind reached out to find him in the arena, sword and shield at the ready, squaring off against his opponent.
Mallen was everything she had feared-bigger and heavier than Zanos, with black beard and hair so long that he looked like a savage. Astra Read both of them… and gasped as both men braced themselves-and became unReadable!
Mallen outsized him by half a head and considerable weight, but that didn’t bother Zanos. His main concern was how to put on a show for the spectators.
Despite his secret advantage, he must beware the unexpected. Any freak mishap could endanger him—
like twisting his ankle or letting Mallen past his guard in overconfidence. That was how he had received the wound he had relied on all these years as an excuse to protect his powers. Serafon had healed then what no Aventine healer could have… but she had no powers to raise the dead.
The babble of the spectators hushed with anticipation as the two fighters warily circled each other. The net in Mallen’s left hand didn’t bother Zanos as much as the trident in his opponents right. He had a mild contempt for spear weapons in arena combat, but its three deadly points couldn’t be ignored. Mallen had the look of a man confident of victory. That would soon be gone-but what was it about him that seemed vaguely familiar?
He countered with several moves of his own, noting that Mallen didn’t backstep very smoothly. That meant a rush attack would—
Mallen leaped unexpectedly at Zanos, catching his sword blade between two trident points, swinging the net overhead in a wide arc.
It seemed to open like a giant hand, reaching out to grab Zanos’ head and shoulders.
He ducked under Mallen’s left arm and brought up his shield with a stiff-armed blow that connected with Mallen’s jaw, knocking him backwards as Zanos pulled his sword free.
“Very good, red-hair, ‘ Mallen said beneath the applause of the spectators. He smiled as his left fist wiped the blood off his lip and into his beard. “Very good indeed.”
Zanos’ eyes widened. Mallen had said those last three words in Maduran!
He studied Mallen’s face as they circled, dodging almost by reflex. Mallen smiled again-about to take Zanos’ head off with the trident.
Zanos let his powers deflect the weapon’s course, but the nearest point grazed his right temple.
He suppressed a cry more of surprise than pain, and spun away from the attack, following through with a sword swing at Mallen’s right side as the large man rushed past him. The blow bounced harmlessly off his opponent’s armor.
Zanos pulled himself together, putting his right thumb to the wound, Adeptly stopping the blood. He spoke Maduran to throw you off guard, he told himself, and it worked! A trick you don’t expect the rawest trainee to fall for. He couldn’t be from home-Couldn’t he? As they squared off again, Zanos recalled his homeland before he had been kidnapped at the age of eight. There were stories about black-haired tribes who lived above the mountain snow line, fierce warriors who had once waged war against his people, and lost. He had accepted the stories as bedtime tales spun by his father for him and his younger brother. But they could be true-Mallen charged again, swinging the net over his head like a whip. He’s very good with that thing, Zanos thought as he stepped forward, timing an attack to Mallen’s midsection.
Suddenly the net flew from Mallen’s hand. Once again it seemed to spread of its own accord. No one Zanos had ever seen could make it perform that way one-handed!
He couldn’t dodge the seine, so he concentrated, twisting the net into a smaller shape, batting it away with his shield.
But Mallen was on him with the trident, blocking out the sun. Shield met trident as Zanos aimed a thrust at Mallen’s left side, intending to wound him.
Sword tip bounced away from leather armor after striking solid air.
Zanos’ moment of puzzlement was just long enough for Mallen’s left fist to come down on his right shoulder, close to his neck. The blow nearly drove him to his knees-but from the advantage of his bent position, as Mallen prepared for a second blow, Zanos butted Mallen in the stomach with his head, knocking the wind out of him.
The crowd cheered for more, but each fighter was momentarily staggered, seeking to breathe and rest.
Zanos tested his tingling arm-his shoulder was bruised, but the collarbone had not broken.
Mallen’s youth gave his breath back quickly. He made a move toward his net.
/ can’t let him wear me down, Zanos realized. I’ll have to finish him off quickly, or he’ll simply outlast me. He jumped to cut Mallen off.
The black-haired giant laughed as he backstepped, shifting his trident to a two-handed grip. Using it like a quarterstaff, Mallen feinted twice, then swung the blunt end at Zanos’ ribs, under his guard. Zanos deflected the blow’s force, letting it barely touch him as he rolled away.
He’s playing with me. He thinks he can keep me running until I’m tired-but I have advantages he doesn’t know about.
He dodged another blow, came up with his sword-and distinctly felt the tug of something he could not see swing the blade away from Mallen’s unprotected thigh!
He’s countering with powers of his own!
“I thought so,” Mallen said softly. “From the moment I first heard about you, the great undefeated gladiator, I knew you had to be like me-a secret Adept. “
“Are you from Madura?” Zanos asked in his native tongue. By the gods-could this man be as eager to return home as Zanos was?
“Indeed, red-hair,” Mallen replied in the same language. He twirled the trident into an underhand grip, aiming the points at Zanos. “Unlike you, I came to this land as a man, and of my own free will, knowing I could prosper with my powers.”
“But why?” Zanos feinted a sword thrust, then retreated a step. “This is a land of evil!”
Mallen began circling him. “Our homeland is a place of greater evil! The meager powers you and I have are nothing to those of the rulers of Madura. To have stayed in the islands would have meant my death…
or something far worse,” he added, then spun and dived, shoulder-rolling past the net and coming up with it in his left hand, to the applause of the crowd.
Zanos cursed his carelessness, and felt something else. Fear. The fear he had not felt since his early days in the arena. For the first time since he had learned to control his powers, he was in a genuinely even match.
Or was it even? What if Mallen’s powers were stronger?
He didn’t want to kill Mallen-he wanted to ask him about Madura. What was happening there now?
Had anyone from his village survived the raid in which he had been taken-had it been rebuilt? Were there people who could teach him to use his Adept powers more efficiently? What were the terrible things being done by the present rulers?
All Zanos’ memories, even though they were from the perspective of a small boy, recalled a land benevolently ruled by powerful Adepts who called the rain but held off storms, to make their islands green and bountiful. Adepts who healed the sick and injured, and-at least so the children had whispered to one another-had learned the secret of life itself.
“Mallen-I must talk with you-”
“Talk!” The bigger man laughed, guarding himself with the trident as he shook out the seine. “You’re not going to talk to anybody, Zanos the Gladiator-you are going to die. You recognize where my powers come from. You cannot live to tell your friend the Emperor!”
An invisible fist clutched at Zanos’ heart. He staggered, using his own powers to ease the pressure and dissipate the pain-and saw in Mallen’s eyes that the man would do whatever was necessary to rid himself of the danger Zanos presented.
But neither of us can kill at a distance, or the spectators will get suspicious.
The crowd was screaming for action-any kind of action-furious that the two gladiators were still circling and feinting. They wanted blood. And they don’t care whose.
Sensing Mallen preparing to try for a deathblow, Zanos charge-attacked first, swinging his sword in wide arcs. Mallen set himself, riming Zanos’ approach as he poised his trident and flicked the net back and forth like a writhing snake.
Two steps from striking distance, Zanos drew his arm back for a prodigious swing that would take Mallen’s head from his shoulders.
As he felt Mallen’s powers start to deflect the blow, Zanos twisted his wrist and put Adept power behind his effort, guiding the blade past Mallen’s face and straight through the wooden shaft of the trident. His shoulder collided with Mallen’s chest, and the two men went down sprawling.
The crowd leaped to its feet, screaming as the fighters leaped up, a few paces apart.
Mallen now held just a wooden pole in his right hand, hefting it to find its new center of balance.
But Zanos was on his feet-ready to end this match now.
Mallen tossed the pole high over his head.
Expecting it was some Adept trick, Zanos followed its upward flight for a moment-just long enough for Mallen’s net to leap out and wrap itself around his sword.
As Zanos sl
ashed at the net with the sharp edge, his sword hilt was suddenly too hot to handle!
His grip loosened by reflex, and Mallen’s net yanked the blade out of his hand. It landed at his opponent’s feet, and when Mallen picked it up it was obviously no longer hot.
He knows what to do with the powers he has! Zanos thought, and tried to apply his own powers to the sword-but Mallen broke his concentration with a frenzied assault, discarding the net to use a two-handed grip on the sword, battering away at Zanos’ shield.
The screams of the spectators became deafening as they sensed the approaching climax-and the crowning of a new champion.
/ won’t give in! Zanos thought as he deflected blow after blow, slowly retreating beneath Mallen’s onslaught. He set himself and charged Mallen with the shield, but succeeded only in throwing him back a step.
The crowd cheered Zanos’ bravery, but it was clear they thought he had lost.
It was not in him to accept defeat!
Again he struck at Mallen with the shield-only to be driven back once more, until his foot struck something half-buried in the sand—
Deliberately, he fell to one knee, giving Mallen the advantage. The crowd shrieked anticipation.
Using a lateral swing, Mallen knocked the shield from Zanos’ grip, sending him sprawling. With a cry of triumph, Mallen towered over him, sword raised for the death stroke as Zanos scrambled to his knees—
Mallen’s victory cry became a scream of pain as Zanos’ clasped hands came up right where his armor separated when he raised his arms—
The sword fell as Mallen clutched futilely at the cut-off shaft of the trident head now sticking out of his chest.
Zanos backed off as Mallen sank to his knees, blood spurting from chest and mouth.
For one long moment, a look passed between the two men. Then one slowly fell on his side as the other rose to his feet.
Zanos stared at the corpse for a long time, only slowly becoming aware of the cheers from the stands all around him. He looked, unseeing, at the blood on his hands, and then at the nodding smile of the Emperor.
Feeling numb and very tired, the Maduran bowed for the last time to the leader of his captors as they cheered the undefeated champion… cheered his first true arena victory.