“I will Read with you every moment,” she promised. “Now, imagine yourself lying just above your body, in the same position. Your body pulls you home… feel your breathing… your heartbeat-”
As Zanos sank back into his physical form, Astra Read the assault of the white lotus in his blood. A cold craving tugged at his mind, trying to force him to seek the substance to fill and warm that icy emptiness.
He denied it-but some part of him yearned for the easy pleasure the drug provided.
“Fight it, Zanos,” Astra pleaded. “Stay in the trance state, so you can Read me.
III can’t-”
His breathing quickened, as did his heartbeat-if he came out of trance, she would no longer be able to project to him.
“The fire!” she told him. “Start the healing fire now, Zanos-cleanse the drug away!”
He was suddenly blank to her Reading.
Of course! The moment he prepared to use Adept power, he became unReadable!
With a roar of anger, Zanos woke, clambering to his feet. “Vortius!” he cried, stumbling out of the cavern into the tunnels, pushing Astra’s body out of his way.
Astra had to let him go while she returned to her body. Because it had been moved, reorientation was difficult. The leaden weight of physical reality hung hard on her as she forced herself to her feet, ignoring bruises where one arm and leg had hit the rock surface.
“Zanos!” she called, letting her Reading range free.
He had gone down one passage in the dark, come to a turning, and was trying to decide which way to go. Groping with arms outstretched, he fell over a knee-high outcropping and sprawled full-length.
Enraged, Zanos bounded to his feet and turned, rumbling his way back to the light from the cavern. He ran to Astra, grasped her by the arms, and shook her. “You will show me the way out, woman!”
“No,” she managed. “No, Zanos! Control yourself!”
He let go the bruising grip on her left arm, lifting his right hand in a threat to backhand her. “Show me!” he growled.
Determined not to be his means of returning to enslavement, she replied, “You may hit me-you may kill me, Zanos, but I will not show you how to get back to Vortius.”
Something in her voice must have told him threats were useless. He let go of her right arm, too, and as she rubbed her tingling flesh he pleaded, “Astra- Read me. Feel what I need. If you love me, how can you do this to me?”
“How can you do this to yourself, Zanos? You have the means to escape that craving. Have you so soon forgotten what you decided during the night?”
“I can’t,” he said, sounding like a stubborn child.
“Of course you can,” she told him. “You have overcome greater pain in the arena. You are brave, Zanos-and you don’t have to suffer for long. Just until you set the healing fire burning through your blood.”
“But I… I-”
She had to Read what he could not bring himself to say: he did not want to give up the pleasure the white lotus provided, glowing relief from care, relaxation of responsibility. It was easy to Read why the drug was so addictive-it took away all concerns, giving the momentary illusion of perfect freedom.
“Zanos-what the white lotus is doing to you now-is that freedom?”
“… no.” But it was a reluctant admission.
“Then free yourself. Clea did it, without your powers to help her. Ignore your pain, Zanos-it’s less than you suffered from a broken arm. Lie down, and call up the healing fire to purge your blood-”
Her hypnotic tones lulled him, and like an automaton he knelt once more, lay down-and saw the sky above the cavern.
“No, Zanos!” Astra cried as once again he jumped to his feet, his blood yearning toward the source of fulfillment.
As she had feared, the climb was not difficult for a man in Zanos’ prime condition. She tried to follow, tearing her hands and bruising her knees and ankles on the rocks-but Zanos was tough and calloused, levering himself easily upward toward the light- toward the freedom which was slavery-toward Vortius!
Chapter Six
Hopelessly, Astra clung to the rock face high above the campfire, out of breath, her limbs aching with the exertion. She could not concentrate in her despair, and so her Reading was wide open, Zanos’ growing hunger for the white lotus turning her insides into a sucking vacuum, screaming to be filled.
“Zanos-wait!” she cried without knowing what she said. “Don’t leave me! Take me with you to Vortius-I will take the white lotus with you.”
He stopped, peering down at her, silhouetted against the growing light. Then he held one huge hand out to her. “Yes, Astra-yes, my love, come with me.”
Unthinking, she scrambled toward him, breath burning in her lungs, arms trembling. She reached for an outcropping, clung to it with her left arm as with her right hand she reached toward Zanos. Her toes lost their purchase, throwing all her weight onto her left arm-which had no strength left.
Zanos’ hand grabbed for hers, missed-
Despite all her volition, her left arm shook uncontrollably. Her elbow straightened and her hand began to slip-
Suddenly, her body was moving without her will, her thrashing right arm captured as if in Zanos’ net and wrapped around the outcropping of rock. She clung in terror, her face against the rock, blood pounding in her ears as she Read the cavern below. It sucked her downward just as the craving in Zanos sucked at him, at them-
“Climb down,” Zanos said. “I will help you, but I cannot lift your whole weight with Adept power.”
“I can’t,” she sobbed, knowing she held on by his will, not her own. She closed herself off to Reading with all her strength, enclosed in a physical world of touch and sound, her eyes squeezed tight as if to shut out the knowledge that she could not remain there, had to do something.
“You must move,” Zanos told her. “Astra, I won’t let you fall-but you have to climb down yourself!”
He climbed down toward her, but there was no ledge at that level wide enough to allow him to pull her to him. “Go on,” he insisted. “Reach down with your left foot… Astra- Read, for Hesta’s sake! Find the hand-and footholds. I promise-I won’t let you fall.”
But she was paralyzed, her head burning with fever, her hands and feet numb with cold. She couldn’t get her breath… until she allowed herself to Read Zanos beside her, ignoring the growing pain in his own body out of his concern for her.
He came back to me!
Leaning emotionally on his strength, she found the courage to Read for a lower foothold, to let go the false safety of the rocky outcropping and grope her way downward, holding her Reading very carefully to her immediate area, lest she be sucked down into that whirlpool again. Each time her physical strength failed, Zanos would blank out of her Reading. Astra felt panic when that happened, but then his Adept strength would hold her, strengthening her trembling limbs until-
Zanos let go! As he fell past her, Astra screamed- and fell-
Into his arms.
He had dropped only a short distance to the cavern floor. Astra, concentrating on her Reading, hadn’t realized they were almost down.
Zanos hugged her tightly, whispering, “You’re all right! Astra, I’ll never let you be hurt-please, don’t cry.
You’re safe now.”
But her tears came from her realization. ” You are all right, Zanos! Oh, my husband, you’ve come back to me!”
He set her on her feet, very carefully, as if she might break. Then he stared at her, blinking, the agonizing cramps ripping through his body at total odds with the joy he felt as he said, “Yes! Astra-you mean more to me than any drug!”
And then he doubled over with the pain.
Astra dropped to her knees beside him, Reading chills shaking him even as sweat beaded his skin.