She was lying in a hospital bed, so weak that she could hardly Read at all. Concerned faces of healers floated in and out of her range of vision, blurred and wavering. She struggled for breath, her throat raw, her chest aching as she fought for air.
Finally, Master Portia stood at the foot of her bed,
dressed all in white, carrying a baby wrapped in cloth of gold, but pale and deathly still.
“I’m sorry,” Portia said coldly.
“My baby!” Astra cried. “Please! Please let me have my child!”
“The baby is dead,” Portia told her.
Tears came to Astra’s eyes. “No! It can’t be!”
“If you refuse to believe me, ‘ Portia said, “Read for yourself. “
With great effort, Astra focused her powers-
The baby wailed.
The sound grew, encompassing the world, a universe of golden light, realm of the Sun God. He reached down to touch Astra’s chest, letting cool fire flow into her. Gentle, cooling darkness lovingly embraced her, carrying her away from pain to a place of welcome rest…
Astra woke in a strange bed, still very weak, but nonetheless feeling good. The pain was gone from her chest and throat, and her mind felt clear. She was in a small, dimly lit infirmary room. To her right, an apprentice healer was asleep in a chair. Astra Read outward, and found that she could Read a considerable distance, although nowhere near her usual range.
The young healer awoke with a start, and barely managed to suppress a gasp of surprise. “You’re awake!” she cried, jumping to her feet. “Oh, thank the gods! You were so close to death, first with fever and pneumonia, and then the coma-”
“How long have I been here?” Astra demanded. It couldn’t have been more than a day or two.
“Three weeks!” the young healer said.
Even after Master Claudia confirmed it, Astra found it difficult to believe she had lost that much time from her life. Her septic throat had spread infection to her lungs and brought her to death’s door, the healers told her-and then, two days ago, she had gone into a coma, and they had feared brain fever.
But the infection had cleared, the fever had gone, and-
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” one of the healers told her. “We find no trace of infection, but you should rest here for a few days to build back your strength.”
In her weakened state, Astra was in no mood to argue. Her first priority was food, and she astonished the healers by gulping down the gruel they brought and demanding something more satisfying. She had never been so hungry in her life!
Then she lay back and remembered her strange fever dreams. They were no longer clear in her mind, but a few images still haunted her. She fell asleep before she could try to make sense of them.
The following day, her strength returning, Astra was allowed to have visitors. The first one was Tressa.
“Enjoying your vacation, Astra?” she asked glibly as she entered, then dropped her false smile as soon as the door was closed. “Don’t Read!” she whispered sharply. “They’re supposed to grant privacy to recovering patients, so it should be safe to talk for a short time.’
“Talk about what?” Astra demanded, her apprehension aroused as always by Tressa’s conspiratorial attitude. “What has happened now?”
“I didn’t think they’d tell you, but you must know: another Master died two days ago-Master Julius, the head of the hospital in Termoli. Portia had him retested-and failed!”
Astra stared at her. “But he was a healer for longer than I’ve been in this world!”
“I know,” Tressa nodded sagely, “but that didn’t save him from Portia’s wrath. He was supposed to be married off to blunt his powers-but he chose to take poison instead.”
Astra looked away, fighting to keep her Reading from manifesting and giving away her upset to other nearby Readers.
Tressa touched her arm. ” Now will you listen to me?” she all but pleaded. “We need each other-”
“To do what?” Astra snapped. “Start civil war among the Readers? Use extortion against the Masters?
Where will it end, Tressa? In the destruction of the whole Reader system?”
Tressa drew back-even without Reading, Astra could see astonishment and anger fighting in her face.
And Astra understood why: Tressa was right that something had to be done-yet how could a pair of Magister Readers kept strictly under Portia’s thumb do anything but destroy themselves if they attempted to expose the Master of Masters?
Before she could point that out, Tressa stood, and left without another word.
Astra fought down tears of frustration-and dread. What was the right thing to do? Master Julius had obviously seen no way to fight Portia-or else he had tried and failed. But Tressa was right that Portia couldn’t live forever; perhaps the young Readers could just pretend to notice nothing, and wait it out until eventually Portia was gone. And if her successor was equally corrupt? Well, they could deal with that when and if it happened.
Astra didn’t believe it could happen. The Academy system was set up so that Readers could not be corrupted by power. All their needs were cared for, but they were not allowed to own property or hold office. Portia was an anomaly. Perhaps she had bribed or threatened some Readers, like Darien and Primus-or perhaps she had just allowed people like Vortius to do so?
What was Portia’s connection with Vortius?
The next day brought solitude and boredom to the rapidly recovering patient, and she decided to test her powers. Carefully positioning her body on the bed, she left it, reveling in the feeling of freedom. She drifted through the infirmary to the maternity rooms.
Many women of Tiberium came to the Readers for care during pregnancy; usually one of the midwives went to a woman’s home when she gave birth, but if it was judged that the birth would be difficult, the woman was admitted a few days before her child was due.
Thus there was only one patient in the maternity section. Astra was about to “move” on past without prying, according to the rules granting privacy to patients, when the young woman’s grief reached out to her errant powers, capturing her attention against her will.
The woman had lost her child. She lay tensely on the bed, her mind futilely circling in grief. Astra was forcefully reminded of her fever dream-
So that’s where it came from!
She dragged her attention away from the sorrowing woman, mortified. Readers were trained as children not to Read while they slept. Astra’s training had taken much longer than that of the other girls; her powers had refused to rest at night despite months on end of being jolted harshly awake by a monitoring Reader each time her mind reached outward in her sleep.
To avoid Reading the patient, Astra concentrated on the room, recognizing it from her dream. But the rest… Portia visiting a nonReader? Conducting the funeral for the innocent herself, dressed all in white?
And the dead baby wrapped in cloth of gold? Surely not for this grieving woman’s benefit.
Portia wasn’t a healer-Astra had never known her to touch an ill or injured person, even in an emergency. Of course she would have had medical training years ago, but the Master of Masters was never involved with such things now.
Astra’s dream, then, could not have been mere Reading of this poor woman’s loss. Her grief had triggered something-a memory, something connected
with the infirmary… a time when Portia had come here to inform a new mother-
My mother! Astra realized in utter astonishment. With the total conviction of her wild powers Reading the history of that room in the maternity ward, she knew she had Read her own mother’s memories!
Astra had learned her mother’s story in gossip and random thought. Since young Readers were always separated from their families when their powers were discovered, she had been no different from the other girls at first-except that she had lived here at the Academy since she could remember, while others were brought here at six, seven, or eight.