Jean Lorrah - Savage Empire 04 - Flight To the Savage Empire

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Flight To the Savage Empire by Jean Lorrah
and Winston A. Howlett
Foreword
The entire Savage Empire series is dedicated to the person who got me into professional sf writing and
then encouraged me to start my own series:
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
This book, of course, is also dedicated to Winston Howlett, who came up with the idea and the main
characters, and did much of the preliminary drafting of the manuscript.
I would also like to thank the many readers who have sent comments about the first three books in the
series; I hope you enjoy this fourth book in the Savage Empire universe.
If there are readers who would like to comment on this book, our publishers will forward letters to us. If
you prefer, you may write to us at Box 625, Murray, KY 42071. If your letter requires an answer,
please enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope.
All comments are welcome. I came to professional writing through fan writing and publishing, where there
is close and constant communication between writers and readers. Thus I shall always be grateful for the
existence of sf fandom, which has provided me with many exciting experiences, and through which I have
vi FOREWORD
met so many wonderful people—including the coauthor of this book!
Jean Lorrah Murray, Kentucky
For my family, who sometimes encouraged, and the rest of the time knew that this was inevitable.
Winston Howlett Calumet Park, Illinois
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 Ma-gister 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, Cla-vius—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 Magis-ter 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 re-
vealed 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, Ma-gister… 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 stab-bing 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!
摘要：

/*/*]]*/ScannedbyHighroller.Proofedby.MadeprettierbyuseofEBookDesignGroupStylesheet.FlightTotheSavageEmpirebyJeanLorrahandWinstonA.HowlettForewordTheentireSavageEmpireseriesisdedicatedtothepersonwhogotmeintoprofessionalsfwritingandthenencouragedmetostartmyownseries:JacquelineLichtenbergThisbook,ofco...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：122 页 大小：306.39KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-18

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