But it was not that easy. Although Zanos was willing to integrate his personality, his depression was such that he could not leave his body. Astra understood-every young Reader faced such apprehensions, and Zanos was not a Reader at all. He feared that he would be completely disoriented, unable to return and regain control of his body.
“Do not fear,” she told him. “Read with me- with me, Zanos. Feel my love for you.”
“Let me hold you,” he responded.
“Yes,” she told him. “Yes-we will be able to hold one another once your body is free of the drug. But I cannot reach you now. You must reach out to me-”
She tried to guide his consciousness out and up, but he simply let her go. She returned, seeking his mind once more. “Zanos, I want you to imagine that you are not inside your head, but that you-the you that observes-are somewhere else.”
Ill don’t understand,” he replied.
The experience-not leaving the body, but observing from some perspective other than right behind one’s eyes-was so common to a Reader that she could not imagine someone who had never done it.
While Astra was searching for another way of explaining, Zanos said, “Do you mean preserving myself inside, as I do for a fight?” and suddenly his point of view was no longer from inside his head, but from somewhere inside his chest.
“That’s it!” Astra told him. “Yes-that’s right-now just follow me upward-”
She Read his surprise as his consciousness came out of his body. “Now free yourself,” she told him.
“Do not feel your body anymore. Tired or rested, hungry or full, drugged or undrugged, it has no hold on your mind.”
For her, it had always felt like floating up and out of herself; for him, it was as if some heavy burden fell away when his mind became separate from his body. Utter freedom rang through his consciousness in joyous peals of laughter, and she joined in. “You have no fear of freedom, Zanos!”
“This is wonderful!” he replied. “Astra-where are you? I… I feel you, but I cannot see you.”
“There is nothing to see. You can see our bodies here in the cavern with us-”
“Why can’t we forget them?” he asked. “Why can’t we just stay like this?”
“Because if we do not return to our bodies they will die-and we will be left as disembodied ghosts, unable to find our way to where the dead belong. No living Reader has ever found the plane of the dead- and returned to tell the way. We have lives to live inside our bodies, Zanos. I have brought you away from yours only so that you may make a difficult decision-to ria your body of the drug Vortius has forced on you.”
“Yes,” he replied at once. “How did I fail to see it, Astra? All I nave to do is use the healing fever- I’ve done it a hundred times to heal battle wounds. I can burn the effects of the drug out of my blood in a few hours!”
“Good. You understand what to do,” she told him. “But can you make yourself want to do it once you are back inside your body? The drug will control you again.”
“How?” he demanded in disbelief. “How can it? I am in control-”
“Now,” she reminded him. “Remember how you felt before you left your body-even when your body was unconscious, it affected you.”
She could feel him wanting to deny that, but she knew from experience what a difference there was between one’s good intentions while free of one’s body, and one’s ability to fulfill them against the body’s demands. “Plan every move, Zanos. Show me exactly what-you are going to do.”
Again he found the skill from his gladiator’s training: visualizing an opponent’s every possible move and his own countermoves, feeling every muscle, every tendon doing its job until the difficult motions became second nature.
Now he tried to feel the way to start the healing fever-and found that he could not. “Astra, I cannot feel anything] Without my body, how can I?”
“But you do not feel those moves you plan with your body, Zanos. You feel them with your mind. Go on-show me how to counter an opponent coming at you with a spear.”
They were in the blazing light of the arena, the sun hot on their/his skin, waves of heat built from exertion rivaling the heat rising from the sand.
Opposite Zanos, a tall, slender but muscled man stood with spear at the ready. He drove straight at Zanos, who sidestepped and whipped his net under the man’s feet with one deft move. A quick tug, and the man went down rolling, but by the time he swung his weapon around-
Zanos stood over him, not even breathing hard, trident poised to gut him.
"Spear is not a good choice of weapon for individual combat in the arena,“Zanos told Astra.
“That doesn’t matter,” she replied. “What matters is that you felt your moves. Now, the same way, feel what it is like to start the healing fire through your body.”
That was more difficult; Zanos was not accustomed to visualizing his body at rest. “Wait-I know,” he said, and Astra was suddenly in pain.
It was a familiar pain to Zanos, the scrapes, strains, bruises ignored during the excitement of a bout, which made themselves known as he cooled off afterward. Ill wouldn’t bother with healing fire for just that,” he told Astra, sensing her dismay. “It’s nothing-just the way every gladiator feels after he’s won.”
"I'll hate to think how they feel after they’ve lost!” she commented.
“Dead, most often,” he replied flatly. “The normal aches and pains ease with some herb tea and a hot bath. But I recall a time my arm was broken- one of the bones in my forearm, but I managed to hide it, for I couldn’t let Lakus know I could heal a broken bone overnight.”
Astra felt with him the throbbing ache of the arm as he made his way back to his small slave’s cell, collapsed onto his pallet, and called up the fire even as with his other hand he forced the bone ends together, adding Adept strength, but having to endure feeling what he did because he could not Read it.
As the heat of Adept healing surged through his arm, Zanos’ pain faded. Probing the arm, he hoped he had set it properly-but he could not be certain until tomorrow. Carefully wedging the swollen arm between two cushions, he lay back and let the healing fire spread through his body as he fell into dreamless sleep.
“Yes!” Astra told him. “That is exactly what you must do! No matter how your body reacts, Zanos, you must set that same healing fire burning through it, until the drug is purged away. Is there… something that must be done to end the fire?”
“No. When all the foreign substance is cleansed from my blood, I will wake up… very hungry, but otherwise in perfect health.”
“Then… we must wait no longer. As you return to your body, be prepared for it to rebel.”
" I'll should be able to control for hours yet. The craving for the drug comes with the dawn.”
“Zanos… “look” at our cave.”
The first pale predawn gray was filtering down into the cavern, where the fire had burned to glowing embers.
“How long have we-?” Zanos broke off in astonishment.
“Several hours,” she told him. “Time has no meaning outside the body. It always feels strange to return.
I will Read with you, help you to remain oriented. Perhaps you can keep from waking up-”
“But I am awake.”
“Your mind is awake. Your body sleeps. I wonder… Zanos, why don’t you try to start the healing fire in your body before you reenter it?”
She Read with him as he concentrated on his own body below them, envisioned the warmth, fever, heat-
Nothing happened.
“It doesn’t work,” he said. I can’t “feel”-imagining it isn’t enough. There is something physical, Astra.”
She Read him observe the growing light. “Stay with me-give me strength to resist the drug craving.”