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…?”