Flight to Savage Empire se-4 Read online

  Flight to Savage Empire

  ( Savage Empire - 4 )

  Jean Lorrah

  Jean Lorrah

  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 sac
k 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. Somethi
ng 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.