Flight to Savage Empire

Chapter One

Shield smashed against shield. Metrius stumbled backwards, nearly falling.

Clavius pressed his advantage, sword battering away at Metrius’ defense. Finally he found an opening, his sword slithering along the edge of Metrius’ shield to gash his thigh.

As pain penetrated, Metrius sucked in a shocked breath and tried to strike back.

The crowd leaped to its feet, roaring encouragement.

The two evenly matched champions had been battling for close to an hour. Now, the long-awaited climax was at hand.

The ending could not come soon enough for Magister Astra. She was not in the stands, but huddled in the small medical treatment room beneath them, waiting for one gladiator or the other to be carried in with a grave or fatal wound. Here, for the eighth time today, she would either work frantically to save a life… or administer opiates to ease the last moments of a dying man.

In either case, she thought bitterly, the punishment and pain are mine.

For the hundredth time that day, the young woman wished she were anywhere else in the Aventine Empire-someplace without pain, suffering, or violence. But she could not escape her duty, any more than she could escape her Reader’s talents.

No matter how hard she tried, she could not fully shut out the emotions of the people in the arena. They reeked with bloodlust, enjoying the match- she struggled not to be swept up in their fervor.

But worse than that, her inner vision put her in the very center of the life-and-death battle.

She tried to focus her powers away from the carnage, searching for something to concentrate on as the last match of the season ground to a close. This match-the main bout for which everyone had waited eagerly-was likely to end in death, not just injury. If she could find something to hold her full attention for a minute or two, perhaps she wouldn’t feel the deathblow so sharply.

There. On the near sidelines, one man’s thoughts stood out from the others’. Calm, rational, he shouted instructions to one of the gladiators. “Careful, Clavius-don’t get careless! Keep your guard up!”

Of course-he was coaching Clavius, the soon-to-be victor.

Astra Read the man’s exterior, and found herself “looking” at a tall, well-muscled man built like a gladiator himself. His rough-hewn face was crowned by tousled red hair. A slave from the northern isles.

No, she corrected herself as she looked further, he’s too well dressed for a slave. He must be a freedman… probably Clavius’ owner as well as his coach.

Suddenly her attention was torn from the red-haired man by a strange mental outcry-puzzlement mixed with fear. Involuntarily her focus changed to the center of the arena. Metrius lay sprawled on his left side, still losing blood, barely able to raise his sword. But the cry hadn’t come from him.

It was Claviusl

He was trying to raise his sword to deliver the deathblow, but his muscles wouldn’t respond!

He started to shake, not in fear, but in convulsions. His mind again cried out for help-then screamed as Metrius, with his last strength, drove his sword up from the ground, piercing beneath the rib cage and into Clavius’ heart.

The Reader screamed in empathic pain as she withdrew her mind from the scene, clutching her chest.

She had felt her own heart stop for a moment, but now it beat all too rapidly.

Concentrating, she told herself the pain was not hers, and forced the sensation to subside as she brought her heart rate and breathing back to normal.

What happened out there? she asked herself. It’s as if the wrong man won!

The roar of the crowd confirmed her thought. They were cheering Metrius, but their praise echoed Astra’s astonishment. A few minds gleefully celebrated victory-but many people had lost heavily on the favorite.

Metrius managed to drag himself to his feet, and even those who had bet against him cheered wildly at his spirit. He limped a few paces, and then was lifted by his fellow gladiators. Their own medic pressed a clean cloth over his wound, and Astra Read that the worst of the bleeding had stopped. He could have his triumph before being brought to her for treatment.

Meanwhile, she Read two burly men carrying Clavius’ body out of the arena, through the portal known as Loser’s Gate. They would come down the tunnel to the medical station. Astra composed herself, the image of a competent Reader, ready to perform her last official tasks of the day.

But the stretcher-bearers didn’t place the body on the examining table. In fact, they kept right on moving toward the exit, as though Astra did not exist.

“Stop!” she said sharply, and Read annoyance from both men as they complied.

“Nothin’ you can do for this one, Healer,” one of them said.

“Nothing except my job,” Astra said firmly. “I must officially declare him dead, and you know it.”

All day long she had been having trouble with these two men-muttered remarks about her competency while she worked on the wounded fighters, and looks of contempt when two of the gladiators died of their wounds. It may be common knowledge that this duty is given as punishment to Readers who have displeased the Masters of their Academies, she told herself, but I’ve had enough of this riffraff treating me like a kickdog.

But she said nothing, for she had been half sick all day from the athletes’ pain. The stretcher-bearers couldn’t have missed her paleness, and the sweat that broke out on her face when she forced herself to Read a man’s agony to discover how to treat his wound.

But the very sensitivity which caused her misery at this task let her know no guilt-no one could have saved the two who died, not the most skilled healer at Gaeta.

This dead man did not disturb her-he no longer felt pain. The clean wound to the heart was indeed the cause of Clavius’ death, but that was not what provoked her curiosity. She closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing her powers for a thorough scan of the dead man’s organs.

She didn’t find what she expected-a clot or broken vessel in his brain-but rather she discerned a strange substance in the gladiator’s bloodstream. Barely a trace, so little another Reader might have missed it, but with Astra’s sensitivity-

“Vortius, get out of my sight!”

The outburst cut across Astra’s wide-open Reading like a thrown knife-but instead of shielding her mind, she widened her range to “hear” and “see” more.

At the sports arena, “Vortius” could only be Vortius the Gambler, a man who lived-richly-on the edges of both respectability and the law, profiting from the losses of others.

A man Astra loathed.

Yes, there he was-near one of the gladiators’ entrances to the arena. He wore the clothes of an aristocrat, but had the demeanor of a street criminal. The man shouting at him was the one Astra had Read coaching Clavius. With the bearing of a fighter, he seemed about to pounce on Vortius… if the gambler weren’t flanked by two large and ugly bodyguards.

“I can understand why you’re upset, ‘ Vortius was saying with the obviously false sympathy guaranteed to infuriate the person it was turned on. “Clavius was your best fighter. A tragic loss for you, Zanos.”

Zanos? Of course! Zanos the Gladiator, she realized. Even the Readers cloistered in their Academies knew of this magnificent champion. Two years ago he had retired undefeated, hailed as the greatest gladiator of the century. Now he had his own stable of gladiators and, judging by the wagering on the games, had been prospering.

Until today.

“… losing so much gold must be doubly tragic,” Vortius was saying as he hefted a heavy sack of coins.

“It could have been avoided if you had accepted my offer. “

“To become partners with you?” Zanos sneered. “Hah! I don’t know what you did to Clavius to make him lose that match and his life, but-”

“I did nothing to him, Zanos,” Vortius said, trying unsuccessfully to sound righteously indignant. “I didn’t have to. Clavius did it to himself. Against your training rules, he sneaked off to a bordello last night.”

Zanos’ eyes widened. “You’re lying!”

“Haifa dozen people saw him at Morella’s!” Vortius threw back at him. “You’re a fool, Zanos, if you think you can impose your impotence on your men. It’s a wonder Clavius could stand up today, let alone fight- with Morella’s hellcats, I doubt he got much sleep!”

“And when you found out about it, you decided to help me not by warning me, but by betting against Clavius?”

Vortius shrugged. “I’m a businessman, Zanos, first and always.” He shifted the sack of coins from one hand to the other. “If you and I had been partners yesterday, I could have seen that Clavius didn’t violate your rules. My men would’ve kept him in his quarters.”

Zanos let out a sound of disgust and walked away from Vortius, through Loser’s Gate and down the tunnel. Vortius shouted after him, “He wasn’t the only one of your men disobeying you, Zanos! You need my help to keep them in line, or you’ll lose a lot more!”

“Aren’t you finished picking over his bones yet, Reader?”

The stretcher-bearer’s surly question brought Astra back to herself. She glared at him as Zanos swept into the room like a windstorm, radiating anger. The other men backed wordlessly away from the examining table as he stalked to it, demanding, “Why is Clavius’ body still here?”

Astra stood her ground, but hesitated in her response. Even from the other side of the table, he towered over her like a giant. “Well, Reader?” he pressed.

“You are the owner of this gladiator?” she asked formally.

“Yes,” he said curtly, “and I want his body decently buried before nightfall. What is the delay?”

“This man died from a sword thrust, all right, ” she replied, “but he shouldn’t have lost that match. I Read traces of white lotus in his-”

“White lotus?” he echoed. “The dream drug? That’s impossible! I don’t let my fighters use drugs! Besides, white lotus isn’t a stimulant-it’s slow poison!”

“Indeed,” Astra nodded. Of all the deadly, habit-forming drugs to be found in the Aventine Empire, white lotus was the most insidious. She knew some of the idle rich played with this flavorless powder by putting it in wine and drinking their way to wild, “happy” dreams… and eventually forgot all else in life. The most severe cases ended up at the Gaeta hospital, where Master Readers used all their skills against the damage done to minds as well as bodies- for the substance also made the user highly susceptible to suggestion. Officially, the drug was illegal, but like many other illegal or unjust things, it flourished in the empire, especially in Tiberium.

“There is no way Clavius could have obtained white lotus!” Zanos insisted. “Morella’s women might give themselves to a gladiator for the pleasure of it, but no one provides a slave with such an expensive drug-nor a gladiator he plans to bet on with such a dangerous one. I don’t know what game you’re playing, Reader, but you’d better forget it-and tell the same to your Masters!” This one’s just as corrupt as the others.

Astra turned away from Zanos as he ordered the bearers to remove the body. His thought had struck her like a physical blow, but it was a kind of assault she’d grown used to. When the young Reader was upset or frightened, it was impossible for her not to Read the thoughts of others.

Something about this Zanos-besides his anger- frightened her very much. She couldn’t argue with him-he must be very stupid not to realize that a debilitating drug that was very difficult to detect was exactly what one might give a gladiator one meant to bet against. Yes-dullness combined with great strength was a very dangerous and frightening mixture.

Metrius’ trainer brought the victorious gladiator in just after Zanos left, and for a time Astra was occupied with cleaning and bandaging his wound. He would be fine-and after today’s victory, with the winter to recover, would probably be a great favorite in the games next spring.

Then Astra was alone in the room again. Alone, as she had been for most of her life. Alone with the powers too strong for her to control, despite her years of training at the empire’s finest Academy. The teachers had called her their finest pupil, but none of them could show her how to fully stop Reading, to completely shut out the world as even the least sensitive Reader could do.

She waited until the stadium and nearby streets were nearly empty before starting back to the Academy.

The mental “noise” of a crowd was more than she could stand in her emotional exhaustion.

As the late-afternoon sun turned the streets crimson, Astra pulled her robe tighter against the chill autumn wind. There was some consolation in the knowledge that even if she received another punishment assignment, for the next few months it could not be to suffer the carnage of the games. Todays blood-sport matches had been the last of the season. In a week or so, the stadium’s underground chambers would be open for wrestling matches-entertainment exclusively for the social elite and wealthy gamblers.

People like Vortius.

Her stomach tightened in anger. Vortius was responsible-albeit indirectly-for the ordeal she had endured today. Astra had passed him yesterday in the hallway as she was entering Portia’s office. She had not Read him, nor Portia-but the old Master’s face had betrayed annoyance, and Astra had asked sympathetically, “What was Vortius doing here? Trying to trick Readers into some nasty plot again?”

Reading other people’s thoughts for personal profit was against the Reader’s Code, but people like Vortius would do anything to get Readers into their power. There had been a huge scandal some six or seven years ago, when some Readers from the Path of the Dark Moon had been bribed or threatened to make them spy on other men’s business.

Astra had expected Portia either to comment on Vortius’ audacity in approaching the Master of Masters or to tell her to mind her own business. Instead, Portia had demanded, “What are you doing here?”

Before Astra could protest that Portia had sent for her, the old woman had flown into a rage, accusing her of spying. “Since you don’t know what to do with your powers, I’ll give you something to occupy them!” And Portia had assigned her to medical duty at the gladiatorial games.

It wasn’t fair! Portia ruled the girls and women of her Academy with an iron hand, but that hand squeezed Astra much tighter than it did the others. No matter what the young Magister did, or how well she did it, she could never gain Portia’s approval, or even a word of praise.

I’m held responsible for my mothers wrongdoing, punished for the shame she brought on the Academy, Astra thought sourly. / thought once I became a Magister I’d proved myself. But nothing has changed. The Masters and the other Magisters still treat me as if I’m the one who violated the Readers Oath.

As she approached the Academy’s iron gate, the place seemed more like a prison than her home, a place where she was-

– — just as corrupt as the others-

Zanos’ stinging thought came back to her, unbidden. The remark was not really surprising, for there was indeed corruption in the Reader system. Unguarded thoughts and unwanted bits of gossip had impinged on Astra all her life, but in recent years she had pieced together from them a picture of something sinister that began even within the Council of Masters, and spread throughout the empire.

That “something” involved Vortius, which explained why he was visiting Portia. Did the man dare attempt to apply his filthy pressures even on the Master of Masters? No wonder Portia had been upset.

Maybe that’s why I was punished- not really for

anything I’d done, but because of something Vortius said. Something she was afraid I d overheard.

Astra grabbed one of the bars of the gate and stood there for a moment, now feeling more than angry.

Whatever was going on, she wanted no part of it. But the longer she remained in ignorance, the more vulnerable she would be to-to whatever disaster might be coming.

The gods have made me the most powerful Magister Reader in the empire’s finest Academy, she told herself. There must be a reason for it- it’s not right that all 1 do is suppress my powers. Yes, they bring me pain- but they find things other Readers can’t… like white lotus in that gladiator’s blood. If I don’t fight the corruption, am I not just as guilty as those who are spreading it?

Not knowing exactly what she was looking for, Astra scanned the Academy’s main building, seeking Master Portia. If she was cautious enough, and Portia was otherwise occupied, the old woman might not notice she was being Read.

Portia wasn’t in her office. Neither was Master Marina, her assistant. Master Claudia was sitting at Portia’s desk, her attention focused on the yellowed pages of an ancient book. Astra carefully withdrew without calling attention to herself. ” Claudia is in charge, neither Portia nor Marina is on the Academy grounds. Again.

Unlike Portia, Claudia would not demand an explanation if Astra was late with her medical report. She could steal a little time to find out what was really going on.

But where to begin? She had no confidants, no informants-

Morella. Vortius claimed that Clavius had died in the arena because he went to Morella’s last night. Astra had not been Reading for the truth of the man’s statements, but it hadn’t rung true-could Vortius have known about the drug?

Morella owes me a favor, Astra thought as she hurried away from the Academy. Perhaps I can get her to repay it.

The southeast quarter of Tiberium was called The Maze by those who knew it well, a neighborhood of taverns, theaters, and brothels. Sumptuous apartments belonging to people made wealthy by these trades lined some of the narrow streets, which denizens of the quarter roamed in gaudy finery. Here lived people of new wealth-those who might display silken robes… and dirty fingernails.

Here also roamed many of the more unsavory people of the city. Despite the chill, Astra was glad she was wearing her black Magister’s cloak instead of her heavier gray one, for her position as a Reader would be respected even in this disreputable part of Tiberium. Without such indication, a woman who walked these streets alone risked insult, or worse.

Seven months before, she had walked through these same streets to Morella’s House of Pleasure for the first time. Licensed and taxed by the government, the bordello required a monthly health inspection of its employees by a Reader. Like the gladiatorial games, it was a task given to a Reader who had fallen into disfavor with Portia. That time, Astra had argued with Portia, and knew she deserved the punishment duty. Still, she disliked it.

Morella hadn’t made the job easy. A large, buxom woman of about fifty, she ran her establishment the way Portia ruled the Academy. But Astra had refused to be bullied into the superficial job other Readers must have done. She had thoroughly checked the fifteen prostitutes for communicable diseases or pregnancy-and then insisted on Reading Morella, even though she no longer “entertained. “

It didn’t take Astra long to find what the bordello owner was trying to hide: pain in her abdomen and opiates in her bloodstream. Further examination revealed not the cancerous tumor Morella had feared, but merely polyps which any surgeon could easily remove.

That good news brought tears of relief to Morella’s eyes and a great change in her attitude toward Astra.

After the operation and her release from the hospital, Astra had visited her often, both to check on Morella’s recovery and to cultivate the only friendship she had been able to gain since becoming a Magister Reader. Morella was, Astra had to admit, closer to a motherly counselor than Portia had ever been to her.

So close had Morella and Astra become that Morella had called for Astra some three months ago, to help treat one of her women whom Astra had never met before.

“Clea worked for me for almost a year,” Morella explained, “but she always complained that she didn’t make enough money. She loves jewelry-or she did. She has nothing left now.”

“What happened to her?” asked Astra, Reading the pale and silent woman on the bed. The bones of her face suggested that Clea had been beautiful, but now her skin was gray and taut, her face skeletal, her hands clawlike.

“Archobus lured her away,” explained Morella. “He’s an aristocrat who gambles with Vortius. He gave Clea all the silks and jewels she wanted-until he got tired of her. Then she became a hanger-on of Vortius’ crowd down at his villa in the southlands… and someone addicted her to white lotus.”

And that was how Astra came to recognize that particular taint in a person’s blood.

“Morella,” Astra said, “there’s no herb I can give her, nothing that will cleanse the drug from her body. At the hospital at Gaeta, all the Readers can do for someone addicted, whether to opiates or to one of these rarer drugs, is to lock the person up while his body purges itself.”

“I know that,” said Morella. “That is why Clea came to me. She wants me to restrain her-but she’s so weak, Astra! Can she survive?”

Although painfully thin, Clea was still in reasonably good health. Her heart was sound, and amazingly she had no disease. “Yes, I think she can survive,” said Astra, “but we should take her to the infirmary at the Academy, where better healers than I-”

“No!” said Morella. “She trusts me. She would see it as betrayal if I turned her over to strangers. I don’t suppose you know much about drug addiction, Magister… but I see it often here in The Maze. Clea has found the determination to cleanse the drug from her blood-but it will not last once the pain begins. And afterward…”

“Afterward, she is likely to go right back to the drug at the first disappointment in her life,” said Astra. “At Gaeta, too, people go through all that suffering, only to return to their drugs.”

“Because there are always vultures waiting to control them,” said Morella. “But Clea will be safe with me.

You’ve examined my girls often enough to know I will have no drugs here.”

The woman on the bed groaned and opened her eyes. “Morella!” she gasped on a wave of pain. Astra gritted her teeth against it.

Morella took Clea’s hand. “I’m here, child. You’re going to be all right.”

The young woman’s eyes slowly focused on Astra. “You… you are the healer?”

“Yes.”

“Morella says… you can be trusted. Please- please help me.”

Astra took Clea’s other hand, Reading her determination to be free… and the reason for it. Although the identities of the people were obscured in a drug-induced haze, the content of the scene that had sent Clea fleeing from her life of luxury was clear.

It was not the first time she had been given instructions just when the white lotus had taken over her will.

Without hesitation, she had read documents belonging to various lovers, and reported their contents. She had stolen keys, delayed men from appointments, and even deliberately destroyed a marriage. Everything had seemed to be her own desire- until the day when someone had handed her a vial of poison and instructed her to seduce another man, then slip the poison into his wine.

Perhaps the man who instructed her had misjudged the timing of the weakness of will white lotus produced, or perhaps Clea’s tolerance had so increased that the dose was not enough to make her accept such an order. Whatever the reason, she had resisted-had run away, back to Tiberium, where she could disappear into The Maze. There she had sold her jewels, and her body, for drugs to feed her craving and erase the memory of that command to murder-that command she had almost obeyed out of mindless compulsion!

Finally, she had realized that she could not escape the memory… and that unless she escaped the drug her body craved more and more of, one day she might be willing to kill just as she had robbed and exploited.

And so she had come to Morella, the one person in The Maze she could trust.

Now she turned to the older woman. “Morella- please. Lock me up. It’s starting. I’ll run away if I can escape!”

“The door is locked, child,” Morella assured her. “Phaeru has the key, and she will not open the door unless / tell her to.”

As the hours passed, Clea’s resolve melted as she had foretold. She screamed and raved, reviling Morella and Astra, threatening, even trying to climb out the tiny window that would not have admitted a cat.

Astra suffered the cramps, the vomiting, the stabbing pains along with her, sweating and shaking as time and again she helped Morella restrain their wild patient and force herb tea into her to combat dehydration.

It seemed to go on forever, until Clea passed out one last time, and then drifted into true sleep. So did an exhausted Astra, to be awakened some time later by Morella. “Come. Look.”

Clea was awake, weak but without pain-and her mind was clear and under her own control. Her eyes glowed in her ravaged face as she took Astra’s hand. “Thank you,” she whispered, tears of weakness coursing down her cheeks. “May all the gods bless you, Magister!”

To the pleasant surprise of both Morella and Astra, Clea remained free of her addiction. She regained her beauty, and was once again one of Morella’s favorites. She also regained her love of jewelry, especially rings-and when her customers found out what pleased her, she soon had a ring for every finger-and even some for her toes!

The incident with Clea had brought Astra and Morella closer yet, but even so, Morella wouldn’t be happy to see Astra at her door after sundown on this last day of the blood-sport season; a Reader in the place during business hours would send customers scurrying away! Aware that she was racing the setting sun, Astra increased her pace. She Read ahead before she turned the corner, not that she expected to encounter another Reader in this part of Tiberium-

To her surprise, the scarlet of a Master Reader’s cloak met her inner vision. He was male, and very old, accompanied by a boy who hobbled on a wooden leg. The boy was a Reader in training, wearing a plain white tunic under a brown wool cloak. Neither he nor the old man was Reading.

They did not have to; it was Astra’s duty to avoid meeting the Master Reader, male to female, as he outranked her. Even if she were a Master herself,

his age would make it the duty of every female Reader short of Portia herself to keep out of his way.

But what is he doing here? she wondered.

Astra realized that if she remained where she was, the two male Readers might see her when they reached the street corner. She ducked into a narrow passageway between buildings, annoyed at being thus delayed.

She knew who the Master and the boy were: Master Clement, formerly of the Adigia Academy on the northern border, and one of his students. Astra let her annoyance take the form of Reading them-after all, they were talking openly.

“But Torio was my friendl” the boy was protesting. “He wasn’t a traitor. I know it!”

“Although that is possible, Decius,” said the old man, “for your own safety you must not say so. No talk of Torio or Master Lenardo, no matter what the other boys say.”

“But-”

“You are old enough to know that sometimes it is best to keep silent-and that includes Reading.

Especially Reading. Nothing is accomplished by defending Lenardo or Torio. Suspicion already falls on their friends.”

They were talking about the traitor Lenardo, the renegade Reader who had turned against the Aventine Empire and now styled himself a lord among their enemies, the savages! Astra had heard that he had learned the savage sorcery, and could perform their vile tricks himself.

The old man and the boy reached the corner… and turned into the street Astra had been walking. This she had not expected. But the narrow passage she had taken refuge in paralleled the street she had meant to take. Time was flying, and the wind was less strong in here, so she turned and hurried along the alley, pressing herself against the wall to get past a cart.

Obviously, Master Clement feared that the boy Decius would be branded a traitor if he defended Torio.

Torio had been a traitor, Astra knew, but she also understood adolescent loyalties. When she was ten or twelve, she would have said or done anything to defend Helena, the only true friend she had ever had in the Academy. Helena was nearly four years her senior, and a weak Reader, but their differences hadn’t prevented them from becoming close.

When Helena had failed to pass her test for the rank of Magister, Astra had taken it upon herself to plead with Portia for Helena to be retested. But the Master of Masters had refused to listen, and Astra had been separated at age twelve from Helena, who had been as dear to her as any sister. Furthermore, Portia had punished Astra for trying to help Helena by forbidding her the Academy’s musical entertainments for two months.

Had she been a mere spectator, Astra could simply have Read the entertainments from her own room.

But she was a performer, skilled enough with her lute to be a professional musician were she not a Reader. So she had practiced alone, and brooded- and never again formed a close friendship, knowing that most of the other students either envied her strong powers or shunned her because of her mother.

Morella’s place was only two streets away now, and Astra speeded her steps. Up ahead, the passageway was blocked by empty scaffolding, but Astra Read that she could walk beneath it. She began to thread her way through-

The earth shook! Astra was flung to her knees, thrown against one of the support rods. Pain lanced through her right shoulder, her scream drowned by the rumblings all around her. This was not another of the frequent tremors of the past few weeks-it was a full-fledged earthquake!

Astra gripped two crisscrossing rods as the quake’s ferocity increased. The structure groaned, and she could feel the metal’s strain as well as Read it. The whole thing could collapse on her!

Somehow she pulled herself to her feet, but it was all she could do to stay on them. The ground rippled like ocean waves. As the scaffolding’s groans became a death rattle, the Reader closed her eyes and braced herself, ready to leave her body in the face of serious injury or-

Powerful hands grabbed hers, pulling her free of the rods. A thick arm squeezed her diaphragm as she was lifted off her feet and through the iron forest just as it was collapsing. She and her would-be rescuer fell to the cobblestones, his body sheltering hers. Astra heard wood and metal crash thunderously near their heads… but they weren’t touched.

The tremors were subsiding, as was the dust that had been flung up all around them. Astra breathed a prayer of thanks to all the gods as her savior slowly stood, tall and broad-shouldered. He reached down and easily pulled her to her feet, but still she looked far up into clear blue eyes set in a granite-carved face-a pleasant face despite its scars. A rough-hewn face crowned by tousled red hair.

Zanos the Gladiator.

“Are you all right?” he asked with a smile. Something in his deep voice sent a shiver down her spine.

“Except for a few bruises, yes… thank you,” she heard herself reply. “It’s a miracle we weren’t crushed-”

Recognition finally lit his eyes. “You’re the Reader I met in the stadium this afternoon, aren’t you?” he asked softly. “Magister…?”

“Astra.”

“I’m sorry for the way I acted today,” he said. “I was upset at the death of Clavius… and at what his death has cost me. Later I realized you had to have been telling me the truth about the white lotus.”

Astra said nothing, surprised at the unexpected apology.

“I’d like to talk with you,” he said. “Can I escort you to wherever you’re going?”

“My errand… wasn’t important,” she stammered. Thanks to the quake, Morella would be putting her place back together now, in no mood to answer questions. “It can wait until tomorrow. I must get back to my Academy-Readers will be on call to locate people buried in the earthquake damage and to treat the injured.”

She turned to head back up the passageway-and found the wreckage of the scaffolding blocking her way.

“Allow me, Magister!” Zanos said as he swept her up in his arms. Startled by his boldness, she was still groping for words of protest after the gladiator had easily carried her over the debris and set her on her feet.

“Do you always give such ‘help’ to people?” she asked disapprovingly.

“Only to my friends.” He smiled as he took her arm and began to lead the way. “I’ll come with you-there may be other places like this. I’ll help you back to your Academy, and you tell me how Clavius got that white lotus. He certainly didn’t have money to pay for it.”

As they walked, Astra collected her thoughts. “You didn’t give me the chance this afternoon to tell you exactly what I found. There was only a trace of white lotus in Clavius’ blood. If he used the drug regularly, he could not have had any in the past few days.”

Zanos nodded. “Everybody in the stadium was watching the match, but I was concentrating on Clavius.

He had a habit of dropping his guard when he got overconfident. But his actions just before he died could have been like those of someone craving white lotus…”

“Like an addict who had been deprived of it,” Astra mused, “and was just beginning to become irrational. Yes, that would make sense… provided Clavius was taking only small amounts.”

“I don’t think he was ‘taking’ it,” Zanos insisted. “I’ve been in the games for a long time, Magister.

Athletes are sometimes stupid enough to take drugs they think will help them win. Painkillers, to participate despite an injury. Stimulants. But white lotus is not something a gladiator would take willingly-it does nothing at all to improve performance, and taking it for happy dreams means the risk of having it wear off at a crucial moment, leaving the user helpless.”

“Then-?” Astra prompted.

“Somebody drugged my man-or addicted him to the drug and then used him against me. Maybe he was supposed to throw the match today and refused- and his supplier cut off his drugs.” He looked down at her, his eyes earnest. “I do not want to think Clavius was disloyal to me… and now there is no way to question him. “

“The amount in his bloodstream was very small,” said Astra. “He could not have been taking it for long.

You could be right that it was slipped to him without his even knowing it. It’s tasteless.”

Zanos nodded. “Oh, yes-there’s nothing unusual about someone buying a gladiator a cup of wine.

Clavius won four days ago; those who had won on him bought him so much wine at the celebration that he passed out. The drug could have been slipped to him then.”

“But by whom?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might.”

Astra caught flickering images of various faces from Zanos’ mind. All of them were unknown to her, except one-the face of Vortius.

“Do you think your other men are in danger, Zanos?”

“Good question,” he replied grimly. “Fortunately, I have ways of finding out. Perhaps I don’t know everything that goes on in The Maze, but I keep informed. I live near here, you know,” he said, suddenly changing the subject. Astra had expected him to ask her to Read his men. Strange. What was he afraid she would find?

“Let me show you my house,” Zanos continued smoothly. “Should you need it, you will know where you can always find help in this part of town.”

Astra did not miss the hopeful tone in his voice, and Read his intention as sincere-yet he had adroitly steered away from the obvious. She reassessed her earlier opinion of him as stupid, but what was he hiding?

Zanos’ home was a small villa, the most impressive dwelling in the area. “I didn’t know that a retired gladiator could live in such grand style, ” she commented.

Zanos gave a short, rueful laugh. “I may soon lose this ‘grand style’… the villa, my fighters- everything. I lost a lot of money today, and if certain people have their way I could lose a lot more.” An angry look crossed his face, and Astra suppressed a shiver-she couldn’t Read his thoughts at that moment.

Zanos’ pleasant smile suddenly returned. “Come on,” he said, taking her arm again. “It’s too cold to stand out here.”

“Don’t you want to see what damage the earthquake did to your house?” she asked.

“My servants will clean it up. That house is very well built-at most, the quake oroke a few dishes.”

But many buildings were not so well constructed. As they made their way along the street, they came to a spot where a ramshackle apartment building had collapsed. People were digging furiously in the rubble, women weeping as they tried to drag broken beams off the pile.

“Magister!” cried a man as he heaved part of a wall into the street and turned to find someone in Reader’s robes. “Oh, Magister-tell us-are they alive?”

Astra didn’t need the women to converge on her, crying, “Our babies! Our children!” for she could Read four children inside the house-alive but trapped.

“Yes,” she told the mothers, “they’re alive-but we’ve got to get them out. It’s no use trying to get at them this way. They’ve fallen through to the cellar, and the rubble could collapse on them. Come around to the back. Zanos, please-”

He added his formidable strength to that of the other man as they heaved debris out of the stairwell leading down into the cellar. Hearing them, the children began to stir, the youngest to scream and the others to cry in terror.

Their mothers called to them, “It’s all right! We’re coming,” but the children either couldn’t hear over their own cries or were too frightened to be comforted by nothing but voices.

It was dark where the children were, and when they tried to move they encountered hard, sharp objects.

One little boy of perhaps five tried to stand, and gashed his head on something piercing the trash above him. Blood flowed into his eyes, and he cried even louder.

The two women tried to squeeze past the men as soon as they had an opening into the cellar, but Astra cried, “Wait! Be careful! All that stuff could come down on them!”

“I’ll get them,” said Zanos, and somehow levered his huge body through the opening they had created. In a moment he handed out the screaming baby into its mother’s eager arms, then the bleeding, crying boy.

Astra examined the wound, assuring the mother that it was nothing serious, the child more frightened than hurt.

Zanos, meanwhile, was trying to maneuver two little girls into position as they hindered him and one another by trying to climb out on their own. “Mama!

Mama!” they shouted, scraping knees and elbows on the debris and shoving each other-

“Here now,” said Zanos, “let me lift you-”

But just as he captured one of them and handed her out to her mother, the rubble shifted, knocking him down on top of the other child.

Both mothers and the three freed children began to scream in earnest, their panic taking hold of Astra, who was making no attempt to avoid Reading. For a moment she stood shaking, her brow sweating, her heart racing-and then she forced herself to take hold as she Read Zanos pinned under the debris, but still sheltering the child. Somehow, he had managed to hold the roof of rubble up with his own strong shoulders, instead of allowing it to knock him down to crush the girl beneath him.

Astra and the man beside her began hauling everything they could reach off the pile. “Hang on, Zanos!”

she cried. “We’ll get you out!”

She could feel the strain on his back-even a gladiator’s strength could not hold that weight for long.

Finally they uncovered his head and arms, spread to hold the debris off the child. When Astra reached for his hand, he said, “No! Reach under me-pull the child out!”

When the man did so, the girl reached eagerly for his hands and was hauled to safety.

Zanos sank to his knees beneath the weight of wall, floor, and furniture. Astra Read total weariness in his overstrained muscles, as if at that moment he could not even climb to his feet unassisted.

By this time other people had gathered, and they quickly dug Zanos out, unhurt, although covered with dust. “Zanos!” somebody exclaimed, and then the people he had helped began to thank him, while Astra wondered if he was going to be able to stay on his feet.

The children were carried into a neighboring house,

and the couple who lived there, insisted, “Come in, come in-rest for a spell. Zanos the Gladiator. An honor!”

“Aye,” said the mother of the injured boy as she smoothed his hair, “you’ll tell your children about this, Borius. You was rescued by the greatest gladiator of all time!”

Zanos sank down on a pallet on the floor-the few chairs were hard wood. These were poor people, but they shared what they had. The woman showed the two now homeless mothers where to put their children to bed, then brought Zanos a mug of hot soup. Soon he was leaning against the wall, taking an interest in the bustle about them.

After assuring the women that all the children needed was to have their cuts and scratches washed, Astra turned to Read Zanos again, and found him recovering quickly. The ready grin was back as he listened to the owner of the house telling everybody who would listen, “Zanos the Gladiator! I seen him from the cheapest seats in the arena, and now he’s in my own house! Remia! Open that cask of ale-”

“No-please don’t,” said Zanos. “The soup was all I needed, really. Thank you. Save everything else to help you help your neighbors.”

Astra could Read his envious surprise at how these neighbors so readily shared their meager worldly goods. In his world it was dog eat dog-and a favor meant something expected in return.

The man ignored Zanos’ protests, and soon put mismatched cups of ale into his hand and Astra’s, saying,

“Remember the day you won your freedom, Zanos? You was the best ever-we all said it. I won ten coppers on you that day-though Gromius said nobody could beat three of the best gladiators in one afternoon!”

“The gods were with me, ” Zanos replied.

Astra remembered-the whole city had talked of nothing else for days. She hadn’t been there, of course, but she had heard that all three opponents were considered “unbeatable,” yet Zanos had dispatched them one after another. As a reward for a show such as Tiberium had never seen before, the Emperor himself had granted Zanos his freedom, and the whole city had celebrated as if it had happened to each and every one of them personally.

Such was the impact of this strange man. It seemed instinctive to like him-but still something about him disturbed her. When he caught her eyes on him, he scrambled to his feet. “We must get you back to your Academy, Magister.” And he would brook no argument against walking with her all the way, although she could Read that his body ached with the strain he had put it through to hold up that collapsing floor.

He left her at the Academy gates, and headed back the way he had come. As she watched him disappear around the corner, Astra shook her head in puzzlement. “It’s a miracle we weren’t crushed,”

she had said to him after the earthquake. And then he had saved those children-another miracle? Did the gods look with special favor on this man? Had the gods brought him into her life this day? Strange feelings stirred within her, and her memory replayed, uninvited, the feel of his strong arms lifting her-

No! she told herself firmly. / am a Magister Reader, virgin-sworn. No man has a place in my destiny.

Certainly not that strangely compelling ex-gladiator.

“A Reader?” the old woman asked, appalled. “Have you gone mad?”

Zanos shook his head, fighting the confusion of fatigue. “What did you expect me to do? I saved her life.

You always say life should be sacred, even to one who has killed so many in the arena. When the earthquake started, I just saw somebody in trouble. I didn’t think about the color of her cloak-”

“Or consider the danger!” Serafon countered. “She might have Read you-might have discovered your secret! Indeed, she may be Reading for you at this very moment, bringing the city guards to arrest you!”

“Serafon, she’s not like that!” Zanos protested, although he couldn’t explain why he believed that Astra wasn’t just like any other Reader, constantly spying. Before Serafon could ask, he squatted down to her seated level and said gently, “I protected us. Once I realized she was a Reader, I led her from the temple area so cleverly she never realized I wanted her away from here.”

“You think you could fool a Reader?”

“She had no reason to suspect anything,” he explained. “I apologized for shouting at her at the arena today, told her stories-I kept her mind so busy she had no time to think about Reading where I had come from.”

They were in an anteroom of the Temple of Fiesta, the goddess of the harvest, whose high priestess Serafon was. She was a woman in her late fifties, dressed in the beige-and-orange robes of her calling.

Her iron-gray hair was bound with bands of gold. Her bearing was regal, but her concern for Zanos was as clear as if he could Read her.

“This was the same Reader who discovered white lotus in Clavius’ blood,” she continued. “What if she suspects you know more about it than you admitted to her?” Her eyes drifted to the shrouded corpse on the nearby table. “You were his owner. You should have known every facet of his life and training. She could have been in that alleyway to spy on you-she might think you’re involved in the drug trade.”

Zanos let out a derisive snort. “The Readers don’t care about drugs in the empire! If they used their powers where it really mattered, there wouldn’t be any white lotus in Tiberium. They’re paid to look the other way, just like the city guards.”

“I’m sure some of them are,” Serafon conceded, “but certainly not all of them. This Astra is a Magister, not a Master. She’s young, maybe idealistic. Those Readers who are corrupt can’t take just anyone into their confidence-they don’t want to split the wealth too many ways, for one thing. And for another-”

“I know.” It was the same reason Zanos and Serafon dared not try to identify others like themselves. “If the wrong person found out, their secrets could be made public before they could silence him… or her.”

Serafon nodded. “Astra might be free of the corruption. If she found the drug in Clavius’ blood, she must be a very thorough Reader-all she was assigned to do was verify that he was dead. Any Reader sent to do that job is not a highly regarded one, and most would have done only what was necessary. She sounds like an idealist.

“The Readers’ Academies are much like this temple, Zanos-we have students and young priestesses who seek to ingratiate themselves with their elders. So, if Astra’s youth makes her idealistic, and if she would like to get into the good graces of her superiors-”

“She might very well turn me in,” Zanos reluctantly agreed, “if she suspected the truth. Serafon, I can’t explain it, but I somehow don’t think she would do that. If she suspects me of dealing in drugs, she won’t act without evidence-and since I don’t, she won’t find any. Besides, if she had done what you fear, surely the city guards would be here by now. We’re not in any immediate danger.”

“If they’re not waiting at your house,” Serafon warned. “Zanos-don’t risk everything on your hunch about this Reader. Stay away from her.”

“You and I risk everything every day we stay in this land, ” he reminded her as he stood to stretch his legs. “We should have left the moment I won my freedom. The longer I stay here, the more danger there is from people like Vortius. He seems determined to take everything I have. Astra may be able to help me get the information I need to fight him… so I won’t have to take more direct action.”

“Zanos.” Serafon’s quiet tones forced him to look her in the eye. “Is that what you’d really like to do? Kill Vortius?”

He restlessly paced the tiny room, trying to sort out his thoughts. “It would be direct and clean. Serafon, I’m not a schemer like Vortius. But no, I don’t want to kill him-or anyone else who has not agreed to the risk in honorable combat. Vortius chose to make us enemies, not me. For more than two years I’ve honored your wishes, because he is the son of your close friend. But friend or no, you don’t dare tell her the secret you and I share.”

Serafon replied grimly, “It has been more than a generation since I fled the southlands, but I remember the fear. More than that, I remember the temptation to kill-the desire to kill anyone who might prove a threat, should he or she learn about my gift-”

“Gift?” Zanos echoed. “It’s a curse!”

“That curse enabled you to win every gladiatorial contest you’ve fought, and to do much good in secret.

With such power comes equal responsibility, Zanos. Right now, you are feeling the weight of that responsibility.”

The gladiator stopped pacing, searching for words to continue the argument, but fatigue was rapidly overtaking him. Serafon’s wisdom had saved his life countless times, but sometimes his fighter’s instinct outweighed any wisdom.

“Zanos,” Serafon continued quietly, “you’re a fighter, but you’re not a murderer.”

“No?” he asked. “I’m not so sure. Sometimes I see the faces of my opponents in my dreams-accusing me of killing them with unfair strength. At other times I feel their blood on my hands, blood that will never wash off.” He stared down at his palms, then closed them into tight fists. “I hate this empire, Serafon. I hate them for enslaving me, and for what they made me do to stay alive. Most of all, I hate them for this mockery they call freedom-”

Serafon now stood before him, gently cupping her hands around his clenched fists, as though trying to draw the anger from his spirit. He could see his anguish reflected in her eyes.

“All I’ve ever wanted is to go home to Madura,” he whispered. “To go home-and take with me anyone who lives in chains or in fear, and wants to breathe free air.”

“Yes, Zanos, I know.” Her left hand gently touched his face. “It is a most noble dream, but one that can come true only if you move with careful steps. Rash action will only bring you grief.”

He nodded agreement-even though it was more that he was too tired to argue further than that he fully agreed. He needed at least one more season in the arena to pull together the money and connections required to make his dream a reality. One more year-would it really be murder to rid Tiberium of a man who threatened a plan that would help so many people?

As if she knew his doubts, Serafon said, “Zanos, please… leave Vortius to me. I have ways of influencing him that you do not know.”

The strength of his anger was gone. “I’ll do it your way, ” he agreed, “for the time being. But if Vortius forces a confrontation, I won’t wait for your advice. He’s not taking any more of my money-or my men,” he added, glancing at the brown sheet covering Clavius’ body.

Watching him, Serafon said quietly, “I understand,” and left the room. He knew she was going to summon the temple workers to take the body for burial in Slaves’ Field, amid a thousand other unmarked graves.

A thousand leagues from the homeland Clavius never even got to see. “I’m sorry, my friend,” Zanos whispered. “I failed you twice today-in the arena, and here in the temple. I can’t believe you accepted that drug deliberately. You wanted to gain your freedom in reality, not in dreams. At least you are free now, Clavius. The gods have answered your prayers in their own way-but it was not the way I intended.”

“You look as if you crawled back from the arena!”

The voice that cut across Astra’s thoughts could belong only to Magister Tressa, her closest rival for the Academy’s honors. Tressa of the night-black hair and fierce dark eyes. Tressa of the deadly tongue.

Tressa, who always knew everyone else’s business, but was never caught violating the Reader’s Code.

Tressa was always in trouble, always pulling punishment duty-yet never doing anything quite bad enough to get herself transferred to a lesser Academy. Especially since her wide-ranging talent as a Reader had her tagged, as was Astra, as a potential future Master.

Astra threw a muttered greeting over her shoulder and tried to get away from this irritant, but Tressa caught up with her and pretended not to realize that Astra did not want her company.

“You don’t seem to have any injuries,” Tressa said as she scanned her. “Why did it take you so long to get back? What were you doing?”

“Finding some children trapped under a collapsed house,” Astra replied truthfully.

But Tressa wasn’t satisfied. “Wasn’t that Zanos the Gladiator with you at the gate?”

Astra said nothing, merely enforced her mental shields and kept on walking toward Portias office.

“Such an interesting man,” Tressa went on. “I’ve spoken to him at the stadium. He’s so… beautiful, don’t you think? Like a wild animal, all that strength- is he the reason you’re so late?”

“I didn’t know you pulled so many punishment assignments at the arena,” Astra returned. “How many times have you angered Portia? A dozen times? A hun-”

Astra stopped in midsentence as a mental scream tore through her. Tressa must have “heard” it also, for her face reflected the anguish Astra felt.

Astra bolted for the door to Portia’s office, Tressa on her heels. They burst in to find Master Claudia sitting at the desk with her face buried in her hands.

“Master Claudia?” Astra approached carefully. “Are you all right?”

The middle-aged woman slowly lowered her hands and looked up at both Magisters with an expression of horror. Astra became aware of running footsteps in the corridor, as other Readers converged on the office, drawn by the scream.

Claudia said in a choked voice, “I just received word from Master Portia. Master Quantus, head of the Palonius Academy, died suddenly tonight.”

Grief-stricken reactions filled the room, a maelstrom of emotions that-for one terrible moment-

threatened to drown Astra. But it subsided quickly, for none of the other women here knew Master Quantus personally-it was merely that one of their own was gone, and as Readers, they shared the grief of his fellows who truly mourned.

But as the wave of overwhelming grief subsided, it was replaced for Astra by a sudden anguish-mixed with fury.

As she closed her eyes, a single word softly crossed her lips, so gently that it was lost in the mourning sounds of the other Readers: “Murder!”