Captives of the Savage Empire

Chapter One

Where do I belong? What should I be doing with my life? Certainly not healing!

Magister Jason was wrong to encourage me. He should have let me quit the first time I lost a patient-then I would not be about to kill my best friend's son!

Looking down at the fretful child, Melissa wished she were anything else but a Reader in the hospital at Gaeta. Alethia trusted her to cure Primus, but how could she? The boy's appendix was inflamed; all their herbs, compresses, and cold packs had failed—and now she would have to try surgery as a last resort. What if Primus died?

She Read within the boy's body, wanting to moan with his pain and fever, studying the swollen, throbbing organ. If this went on, it would burst, spilling poisons throughout the child's system. Then there was no hope at all of saving him. She had to cut out that infected bit of intestine!

For the first time, she was sorry she and Alethia had been reunited. This was why a Reader still in training, like Melissa, was discouraged from keeping up associations with childhood friends who had dropped by the wayside.

Alethia, too, was a Reader, but she now wore the Sign of the Dark Moon, the badge of a Reader who had failed to achieve one of the two top ranks, and for whom a marriage had been arranged. Alethia and Melissa had been fast friends at the Academy. Melissa would never forget the day Alethia, aged seventeen, had been told that her powers had shown no increase in more than a year, and it had been determined that she would go no further.

Alethia had spent the evening sobbing on Melissa's shoulder. Her life was over—both girls were quite convinced of it. She would be married off to a similarly failed male Reader, to breed children who might have the talents they lacked. The loss of her virginity would diminish what powers she had; her badge—a black circle on a field of white—would be the only sign that she was a Reader… a failed Reader.

Melissa had absorbed Alethia's agonized fear that day, and applied herself thereafter with the greatest diligence. Never, she vowed, would she be taken like Alethia, to spend her life producing the children of a stranger and using whatever Reading power she retained to show non-readers where to dig wells or locate their lost sheep.

At eighteen Melissa passed her preliminary examinations and was sent to Gaeta for training in healing. She had arrived in fear, knowing that more than half the Readers who completed the medical training still eventually failed and were married off. It would be better to live as a healer than as a message service and finder of strayed children—but Melissa's heart throbbed to the vibrations of the great hospital. There was pain and suffering here—pain she shared with the patients when she Read them—but Reading the easing of that pain because of' something she had done was the most satisfying use she had ever made of her talent.

Her primary teacher was Magister Jason. They never met face to face, of course—no male and female Reader could unless one or both wore the Sign of the Dark Moon. Celibacy was the rule and the necessity for the upper ranks and those still in training; temptation was to be a voided.

But the touch of Jason's mind was an inspiration to Melissa. Disciplined yet vibrant, he Read with her as she examined patients and learned to interpret the data she gleaned. Medicines, bonesetting, manipulations of joint and muscle—these she learned from the other healers. Jason taught her to look deep within the human body and, when no other means would suffice, to cut into it and make repairs. She quickly progressed from sitting entranced while her mind looked through Jason's eyes, her hands feeling what his were doing, to the day when she herself held the knife, and Jason's mind guided her.

She never wanted to give up the experience of his mental touch. There was only one way to manage that: She must become such an expert healer that she would be invited to stay at Gaeta for the rest of her days, as Jason did. She dreamed of their spending hours each day in deep rapport, healing the sick and injured together. Her skills improved rapidly under his tutelage. She was happy.

And she remained happy… until the first time she had a patient neither medicines nor surgery could cure. They had had no choice—none of their medicines, no applications of herbal packs, nothing would reduce the ulcerating tumor blocking the girl's intestine. All the surgeons hated abdominal surgery, for more than half the time they could not prevent an infection that killed the patient within a few days of gruesome agony.

Melissa had administered the herbalist's latest concoction to the girl. For the next few hours her patient's body temperature would rise dramatically—possibly enough to kill the organisms introduced by surgery. But such high temperatures often caused convulsions that killed the patient more efficiently than the infection.

That was the first time Melissa faced the possible death of a patient. She was still in training; the teachers examined her patient hourly, but none of them offered any advice beyond what she had already tried. She had done everything right—and still her patient would probably die. It was the first time she questioned her desire to spend her life as a healer… and that day brought the reunion that would soon make her question it again.

The girl had drunk the new medicine in total trust, then, in exhaustion and hope, fallen asleep. Melissa left her sleeping, not knowing where she was going, but having to get out of that sickroom for at least a few minutes.

"Melissa, there's a visitor for you in the family room," one of the aides told her.

Melissa cringed. Probably the girl's father again. She gritted her teeth and prepared to face him.

But it was not a man waiting for her. It was a young woman—a very pregnant and obviously happy young woman who wore on her cloak the Sign of the Dark Moon.

"Alethia!" Melissa cried, running to embrace her friend. "Oh, how good to see you again! What are you doing here? There's nothing wrong—?" Automatically she Read Alethia, finding to her relief nothing but a perfectly normal pregnancy, advanced approximately seven months.

"No, there's nothing wrong!" Alethia laughed. "I'm happier than ever in my life, Melissa. My husband and I were just transferred here to Gaeta. I thought you might be taking your medical training by now."

Alethia's pregnancy was her second, it turned out; she had a son almost two years old, who was being cared for by a neighbor while she went visiting. "I can't work now, anyway," she explained. "After about the fourth month, my range is severely limited—but it comes back, Melissa. By the time Primus was six months old, I was Reading as well as I ever could—at least so far as I can tell. Well enough to be wonderfully happy with my husband."

"You are happy? The man the Masters chose for you—?"

"Oh, Melissa, I am so fortunate! You must meet him. When do you have a day off? Come spend the day with me, and meet Rodrigo when he comes home in the evening. He's a navigator for the fishing fleet—finds the schools of fish for them, too. He's good at it—they usually come in with a full catch by the middle of the afternoon."

And how insensitive he must be, Melissa thought, to be able to shut himself off from the deaths of all those captured creatures. Readers occasionally ate fish—but they rarely caught them themselves.

"I'm glad you're so happy, Alethia," Melissa said cautiously. "I have an occasional afternoon off—never a full day. My next afternoon is the day after tomorrow—but I have a very sick patient, and if I cannot leave her—"

"I understand," said Alethia. "Melissa, I cannot Read to the hospital now, to contact you. I'll show you on the city map where our house is. I can still receive perfectly well from a stronger Reader—thank the gods for that, as it allows…" She lowered her voice, and drew Melissa to where they could not be overheard from the hallway. "I want to tell you what it's like for two Readers to be married. If it should happen to you, you mustn't have the blind terror I had—and that Rodrigo had, too. You'll probably be a Magister—even a Master one day. But… they're failing so many Readers… you should know it's not terrible at all to be married. You can Read me; you know I'm really happy, not lying to you. We'll talk when you visit me, Melissa."

Melissa expected to cancel that first afternoon with Alethia, for her patient grew progressively worse, until all they could do was dull her pain with opiates. She died just before noon, her father and Melissa on either side of the bed, Jason Reading with Melissa. When the child slipped from unconsciousness to death, it was Melissa's task to tell the father. She wished that he would rage, strike her, do anything but thank her for her efforts in a voice gruff with tears, and leave her to her own inadequacies.

But Jason was there, his mind calming hers, telling her, //It happens to all of us, Melissa. There was nothing more you could have done.//

//There has to be more!// she told him. //Why did you give me this patient if you thought I couldn't save her?//

//Because no healer could have… and you needed to learn that we cannot work miracles. Melissa, you were born to be a healer—but you must accept your limitations if you are ever to be one of the best.//

//How can I accept the deaths of children! We must find some way to stop infections so when we save someone's life with surgery we won't be killing him with the organisms we admit with the knife.//

//Good—let the experience lead you to seek answers, and you will make a fine healer one day. Meanwhile, you are now off duty. Find something to keep you from brooding.//

//I am going to visit a friend.//

But even Alethia could not cheer Melissa. Her house was a lovely cottage surrounded with a flower and herb garden; her little boy was a tow-haired charmer—but all Melissa could think of was the girl who had died.

She picked at the lunch Alethia served, and tried to be polite… until finally, seeing the dismay in her friend's eyes, she confessed, "This morning one of my patients died. It's the first time, Alethia, but I know it won't be the last. I'm no good as company today."

"Oh, Melissa, how terrible! I understand—but you shouldn't go back to the hospital. Why don't you go down to the beach for a while? I'll bring Primus down to play in the sand after you've had some time to your-, self."

It. was a hot summer day, but the breeze along the shore made it pleasant to stroll. For a while Melissa lost herself in the sound of the water, the screech of the gulls. Approaching no one, she watched pelicans dive for fish, and children build castles. Her unadorned white tunic marked her as a Reader in training; no one approached her.

The solitude didn't help much; her mind went back over every step of the treatment she had given her pa dent. First she had tried medicines. The herbalist had advised her at every step—but should she have accepted his concoctions routinely? She had had training in herbs… but he had spent his life studying them. Had she decided on surgery too soon? Too late? Jason had agreed with her decision—because it was the best decision, or because it really made no difference?

She felt sticky. Her bare arms were beaded with sweat, and freckles had sprung out on them in the heat of the sun. Her skin was turning pink; she would have a nasty sunburn if she didn't get off the glaring sand.

She wasn't ready to go back to Alethia's, but she saw deep shade under the pier. The rocks would be awash at high tide, but it was out at the moment, leaving a pocket of cool shade there. The sand was damp in the cavelike space, but the rocks were dry. She climbed up, using physical activity to tire herself out, as if she could thus tire her mind out from its ceaseless circling.

Her climb brought her up close to the pier, the boards just a short distance over her head. She leaned back in an unexpectedly comfortable niche in the rock, and watched the striped patterns shift as clouds passed overhead, birds swooped by, and occasionally a person walked above her, unaware. At the end of the pier some people were fishing.

Then someone stopped, almost over her head. She could not see through the cracks in the boards, and she didn't want to Read. Perhaps the person would go away.

But no, the person sat down on the edge of the pier, legs dangling over the side. Male legs, and just the edge of his short summer tunic, white, bordered in black. A Reader! From the hospital, no doubt; someone in the two top ranks. No cloak in today's heat to tell her whether he was Magister or Master… and she hesitated to Read him, to tell him she was there. They were not exactly face to face—but she was not sure what the rules would say even about face to feet!

Go away! she willed without Reading, but the man lifted one foot at a time out of her sight, and returned them to her view bare of his sandals, wriggling his toes in the sea breeze. She was trapped; she could not get down from her perch without coming into his view.

"I know you're there, Melissa," he said. "Why are you not Reading?"

Magister Jason!

She had never heard his voice before—only the «voice» he projected when Reading. Often a Reader's physical voice and his Reading «voice» were far different from one another; not so in Jason's case. His calm baritone exactly matched the reassuring tone she had known so often in her mind in the past few months.

"I didn't really think about it," she replied, "but I suppose I knew that if I were Reading you would Read how depressed I was, and make me come back to the hospital. I wanted to be alone."

"Melissa, you have every right to be upset. I did Read for you. When I could not find you, I contacted Alethia, and she told me where you had gone. You seem better."

She knew he wanted her to open to Reading, but she did not want him in her mind just then. "I am better," she told him. "I think I can go back to Alethia's house and be a sociable guest. You are not canceling my afternoon off?"

"No, of course not. Alethia is worried about you, though, and rightly so. She can give you what I cannot, Melissa: a shoulder to cry on. There are times when even Readers need another person's touch, you know. If you are to be a successful healer, you must learn that some things must be treated in other ways than with medicines and surgery." He took a deep breath of the fresh sea air. "I had forgotten myself how cleansing to the spirit the sea can be. Thank you for reminding me." He pulled his feet up, preparing to leave, but remained sitting for a moment so she could hear him over the surf and the bird cries. "Go back to Alethia, and let her help you." He got up, picked up his sandals, and walked barefoot back along the pier.

Melissa stayed where she was, giving Jason time to be well out of sight. He hadn't scolded her for not Reading as she walked along the beach—Gaeta had so many Readers that they had to Read constantly when moving about the town, lest male and female encounter one another by accident. She should not have forgotten that simple precaution.

How strange that Magister Jason should venture to talk to her this way. There were special rooms at the hospital where Readers as yet unable to reach the plane of privacy could talk; no Reader ever Read into those rooms, the only way to eavesdrop on a conversation. A mental discussion, though, was «overheard» by every Reader within range who happened to be Reading.

She looked up at the boards of the pier over her head—they were as effective as the screen placed between male and female Readers using a privacy room. She had never done so. She talked with nonReaders all the time—but talking with Magister Jason, so formally, without the mental intimacy she was accustomed to… It's your own fault, she told herself. He was willing to Read, but you weren't. And he had been concerned enough about her to leave his duties to search for her.

She put the thought out of her head, and walked back up the beach, Reading dutifully. Near the path that led up to her street, Alethia was sitting on the sand, watching Primus digging with a shell. "Did Magister Jason find you?" she asked as Melissa approached.

"Yes, he found me."

"You must be very important to him if he left his patients to search for you," said Alethia. "You didn't—?"

"We didn't see each other."

"But he risked it," Alethia said in a peculiar tone, and tried to Read Melissa. But her poor powers could not penetrate the barrier Melissa felt around her reactions to the meeting at the pier—a barrier hiding something Melissa herself was not sure she understood.

The little boy could not stay out in the sun for long; soon his mother gathered up the protesting child, and both women went up to the cottage. Melissa helped cut up vegetables for dinner, while she and Alethia laughed over memories of hiding from the cook at the Academy when it was their turn to wash dishes, and how they had cajoled extra sweets out of her. Melissa's sorrow dissipated. She never did get around to crying on Alethia's shoulder.

Rodrigo arrived home smelling of salt air and fish, kissed his wife and son openly, and went apologetically off to the public bath so as to be presentable for dinner. Melissa was hard-put to account for Alethia's infatuation; her husband was quite ordinary in appearance, hardly taller than she was, slightly overweight, hair faded from salt and sun, eyes disappearing into leathery wrinkles that marked the man of the sea.

But when he returned, clean and dressed in a fresh tunic, she Read the rapport between husband and wife—and the deep, abiding love beneath it. Physical appearance was nothing to them; their minds met and twined in an endless dance. Their powers might be small, but they were beautiful—and for the first time in her life, Melissa felt left out of a gathering of Readers.

She returned to the hospital that evening, her mind at ease. Spending hours in the presence of people living life fully, caring for their child and awaiting the next with joyful anticipation, Melissa had lost her gloom. She would work toward positive solutions—and that meant first doing so well in her medical training that she would be chosen to stay here at the hospital. She would complete her training, and then devote her life to finding a way to prevent the infection that had killed her patient.

Before she could even begin, however, she was faced with another hopeless patient—and this time it was Alethia's little tow-headed son. Now, as Melissa left the sickroom to find Alethia, she was still Reading Primus. She had insisted Alethia lie down in her own room, promising to call her if anything happened… but she could not merely Read for the mother now. She would have to hold her friend as she told her the truth. They had to attempt surgery.

Alethia, though, was sound asleep on Melissa's bed. The strain of her child's illness along with her advancing pregnancy had finally exhausted her. Perhaps it would be best if-she didn't know when they took her son into surgery. She certainly needed the rest. Melissa tiptoed away, and returned to Primus' side, trying to judge the moment when she could have no more hope that the medicines would take hold, but before there was danger of the appendix rupturing.

Jason was wrong. I wasn't born to be a healer. He should have known when I couldn't learn advanced Reading.

After her earlier patient had died, Melissa had driven herself to perfect her surgical skills, becoming fanatical about boiling everything in the sickroom, not just the surgical tools, attempting techniques to keep incisions as small as possible and to shorten the time the patient was exposed. But medical skills were not all she was here to learn.

She was expected to continue her lessons in Reading—and those did not go well at all. She had barely managed to learn to leave her body behind while her «self» went out of body. She hated the feeling, fearful that she would lose herself, never to return to the physical. And she was completely incapable of leaving the simple plane in which another Reader might perceive her for one of the planes of privacy. She must learn to do that before she could become a Magister Reader, and be safe from being married off as Alethia had been.

She saw Alethia often, and knew that there was absolutely no pretense to her friend's happiness. She began to understand more clearly the joy of Readers united both mentally and physically, and sometimes—especially when she had failed again at one of her Reading tests—she thought she might not mind being married off… if it were to the right man.

Facing surgery on Alethia's son, she almost wished that she had been failed by now, and thus could avoid this responsibility. Hers were the best techniques anyone had for abdominal surgery; she could not ask another surgeon to perform the operation or she would be denying the child his best chance to survive, small as that chance was.

It was time, Melissa decided. She sent an aide she trusted to scrub the child with the precious soap smuggled in from the savage lands while the authorities looked the other way.

She supervised the preparation of the surgery herself, the swabbing of the table with alcohol, the boiling of the instruments. She and her assistants scrubbed themselves with soap and rinsed their hands in alcohol—but it was not enough. Their hands were where the infection clung, in their pores, to sweat out as they worked. And they could not boil their hands.

Primus was brought in, drugged with opiates. He was unconscious, his pain gone for the first time in days. Melissa breathed a prayer to the gods to assist her. She worked rapidly but thoroughly, Reading to be sure she cut out every bit of infection, and sewed up the wound with greatest care. Then she just stood there, wishing, willing, that the wound remain clean. She concentrated so hard that her Reading blanked out for a moment, and she became dizzy. But that would accomplish nothing. There was nothing to do but wait.

Alethia woke to the news that the surgery had been done. She sat by her son all night, while Melissa slept only fitfully. In the morning Primus was awake and crying at pains in his abdomen, but they were only gas, and Melissa did not want to drug him again. The herbalist gave him tea, and they placed fresh compresses over the incision. It was still too early to know what organisms might be breeding in the child's intestine—but Melissa could not Read anything that seemed dangerous. She slowly let hope creep up on her. As the hours passed, her hopes grew. The second morning Primus asked for breakfast—and hope became certainty.

Melissa asked Magister Jason to Read Primus before she would believe it—but the boy was healing. There was no infection. She turned to Alethia, who had been Reading with them, and the two women embraced, tears running down their faces. "Oh, Melissa," Alethia sobbed, "how can I ever thank you? No one else could have saved my little boy." And for a moment Melissa felt as if Magister Jason's arms were around her, too.

The next morning she was called for the first time into one of the privacy rooms. The screen was set up—Magister Jason wanted to talk with her.

"Melissa, yesterday I was so proud of you that I went to Master Florian to recommend that we keep you here at the hospital. I have never seen a healer progress so rapidly! You have more than a year to study; by the time you finish, there will not be a more skillful surgeon in the empire."

"Thank you, Magister," she said, blushing under his praise… but something in his voice warned her that he had not called this conference to congratulate her.

He sighed, part sorrow, part exasperation. "Do you know what Master Florian told me?"

"Probably that my Reading skills are not progressing as they should." She wished she could see him, and resisted the temptation to Read through the screen.

"You have made almost no progress since you came here. Soon you must go on to the healing of minds rather than bodies—and you cannot do that if you have not advanced much further. We should not be using this clumsy apparatus—by this time you should achieve the plane of privacy with ease. I am removing you from hospital duty three mornings each week. You will spend that time improving your Reading."

"But Magister—!"

"Be prepared in your room immediately after breakfast tomorrow. I have been remiss—I assumed that you were doing as well in all your studies as you are in surgery. I do not want to lose you, Melissa."

And with that she was dismissed.

That afternoon she told Alethia of her problems. "It's obvious you love your work," her friend said. "How important is it to you that you learn the healing of minds, when you are so successful at the healing of bodies?"

"I cannot imagine anything more satisfying than saving Primus' life… but then, I have never yet been involved in trying to save a patient's sanity."

"I think you had best resign yourself, Melissa," said Alethia. "The word is that since a Master Reader turned renegade, all tests have been tightened immeasurably."

"A Master Reader—? Alethia, what are you talking about?"

"Master Lenardo, from the Adigia Academy."

"He was exiled last spring. Yes, I know about that."

"But he came back! Sneaked into the empire, right past all the Readers along the border—claimed to be a savage lord! They say he's learned their sorcery."

"That's nonsense. They'll execute him, and that will be the end of it."

"They can't execute him, because he escaped. They say he took two young Readers with him, right across the border at Adigia—made the gates open by magic!"

"If this is so, why haven't I heard anything about it?"

"It's all the gossip along the Path of the Dark Moon. I would think that all Readers would have heard about it."

The next morning, Melissa prepared for her lesson with Magister Jason. After a light breakfast, she returned to her room, smoothed the bedclothes carefully, and lay down, taking care that her light summer dress had no wrinkles to irritate her helpless body. When Jason's mind touched hers, she left her body behind with an effort. He was already out of his, feeling light, free, joyous. That was how it was supposed to feel; for her it had gone from terrifying only as far as uncomfortable.

Jason Read her feelings. //You are still afraid that something will happen to your body while you're out of it. Look back, Melissa. Read your own body as if it were a patient's. You are breathing regularly, your heart is beating strongly. Your body could stay for a day or two like that with no harm done—in fact, it can be left that way for survival if you should ever be trapped without enough food, water, or air.//

//I know that.//

//No, you don't. You can parrot it back when you are being examined, but you don't know it, Melissa, and that is why you fear to leave your flesh behind.//

//You're right,// she said—and did as he told her, deliberately Reading into her own body as if it were that of a stranger. She was in perfect health, merely in a coma. If that were one of her patients, she would be satisfied to leave her alone without fear that she would suddenly die.

Feeling more secure, Melissa tried to follow Jason's next instructions, but to no avail. She Read him as he tried to show her what could not be described in words:. how to make the transition to another plane of existence. In deep rapport, she felt him take his bearings and then—disappear! The shock was as great as if he had died—she had to fight her instinct to return to her own body and go in search of his!

Moments later, he was back. //You did not follow.//

//I couldn't. I don't know where you went.//

//Try it again. Read with me.

She tried… but did not succeed. She simply could not Read «where» his consciousness disappeared to. They spent a frustrating hour in futile attempts, and then Jason told her, //That's all for today. I have patients to see. Master Florian will work with you tomorrow.//

//Magister—//

He did not retreat to his body. //Yes?//

For a moment she did not know why she had tried to keep his presence with her. Then she remembered: //Is it true that there is a renegade Reader who has gone over to the savages and learned their magical powers?//

//Where did you hear such a thing?//

//Alethia told me. Is it true?//

//How could it be? Two Readers have been exiled. The savages kill Readers—they are terrified of us. This is some half-truth blown all out of proportion along the Path of the Dark Moon. The failed Readers have little accuracy, Melissa. They often get even important messages wrong—always check such information carefully. I will find out the truth of this matter.//

It was nearly ten days before Jason worked with Melissa again. She had made no gains; it was as frustrating as the last time. Before they returned to their bodies, however, she asked him, //Did you find out about the renegade Reader?//

There was mental silence for a moment. Then, //The tale is partly true. Master Florian is reluctant to discuss it. There is no truth to the story that Master Lenardo has learned savage sorcery—but he has broken his Oath, and taken a wife among the savages. There is some garbled story about his having a daughter, which is simply not possible, as he has even now not been out of the empire nine months. He seems to have made a pact with the savage Adepts, to Read for them against the empire. He came back to Tiberium recently, and stole away one of his former students—but not by magic. They fought their way to the border, and the boy was killed at the gates. Lenardo escaped, but he has broken his Oath in every possible way. His powers cannot but be diminished severely. The Council of Masters is watching the situation closely, fearing he may lead an attack against us.//

This was bad news indeed. The savages had been driving back the walls of the empire for many years now, led by Adepts with powers of sorcery unknown in the empire. They could throw thunderbolts, make buildings topple, kill people—all with the power of their minds. But they could not Read—they had to see what they were attacking. With a Reader to be their eyes at a distance—

Jason followed her train of thought easily. //Yes—it could mean the end of our civilization. Please do not discuss this with other trainees, Melissa. We must wait and see what the Council of Masters decides.// He added, //We should not discuss it, even here. It is unlikely that anyone else is out of body just now, and might intrude on us—but it is always possible. You must learn to achieve a plane of privacy. There is no other way for us to discuss anything that we do not want another Reader to know about.//

When Melissa returned to her body, she discovered to her horror that it had moved! Her head was turned to one side, and her left arm was tight against her body, the right flung out, elbow bent. What had happened?!

She was unharmed, although the panic of fitting her «self» back inside a body that was not as she had left it gave her a ringing headache. She found the hospital in the throes of recovery after a small earthquake. It had been only a minor shock, but it had frightened many of the patients. There was broken crockery and glassware to clean up, but otherwise no damage.

Melissa went through the wards, reassuring patients, and was soon back to her daily routine. Just before noon, she received a message she had been expecting for days: Alethia was in labor. Her pregnancy had been perfectly normal; any midwife would do, but Alethia wanted Melissa, and her teachers had given permission. Despite the morning's excitement, her duties for the day were covered, and she went off to her friend's house.

It was an easy birth. Rodrigo was home in time to witness his daughter's entrance into the world, and Melissa watched the family with great pleasure. The neighbor who cared for Primus brought him home, and he looked curiously at his little sister, then demanded supper. By the time Melissa left, Alethia was sleeping with the baby by her side, safe in a world in which earthquakes were minor matters. I could be happy in a marriage like that, Melissa thought.

The earthquakes continued, minor but annoying—perhaps ten days would pass, perhaps almost a month, and again the ground would shake beneath them. Aventine history recorded nothing like this; there had been major earthquakes, even volcanic eruptions from time to time, spaced generations apart, but never such a series of minor shocks. Eventually, though, people became used to them, and hardly noticed when they happened.

Autumn passed and winter brought cold rain. Melissa spent her time off in Alethia's cottage, thoroughly enjoying that happy family. Primus was back to full health. The baby grew and prospered. Life was good.

Melissa's life at the hospital, though, was not so good. She still had not achieved the plane of privacy—which meant that she could not learn the difficult task of maneuvering on the varied planes of existence. Without that ability, she could not begin the second part of her medical training: ministering to sick minds.

Some part of her was content with what she had achieved. She was an excellent healer of sick bodies; surely that would be enough to keep her here at the hospital… with Jason.

//That is your problem,//he told her. //You have not made a commitment. One day you want to be a healer, the next you want to be a wife and mother like Alethia. One day you are satisfied with surgery, and the next you want to be a Master Reader—until you try the exercises again.//

But she could not tell him that he was a major part of her problem. If she could only detect any certain sign, beyond the interest he took in her as a student, that he really wanted and needed her—

Then one day, as she was walking toward Alethia's house, a boy came up to her. "You Melissa?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Here." He shoved a note into her hand, and ran off. She read it: "Meet me at the quay." There was no signature. Yet she had no doubt who had sent it.

//Alethia.//

//Melissa! I've been expecting you!//

//I'm sorry—I've been called away. I'll come back if I can. Hug the children for me.//

Today she huddled up in her woolen cloak against the sea wind, sharply different from the breeze last summer. Jason was already there, in her spot on the rocks under the pier. So she went up into the street and out onto the pier, kneeling above him, drawing her cloak about her. Now she was not Reading, and neither was he. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"I'm not certain," he replied. "A number of things. A date has been set for my testing, although I did not request it."

"Testing?"

"For the rank of Master."

Glad they were not Reading, she considered why she was startled. She had always thought of Jason as permanently fixed, a healer at the hospital. Few Readers became Masters, and testing for that rank was usually done when they were between thirty and thirty-five years old, at the peak of their powers. It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea how old Jason was.

For just one moment she allowed herself to Read—to «see» him. She had never done it before; she had never allowed herself to think of his physical being. He was sheltered on the rocks as she had been last summer, his cloak pulled about him—not an official black Magister Reader's cloak, but a plain heavy brown wool cloak such as everyone wore in the cold weather. As Melissa was bundled up the same way, the boy who had brought her the note probably had no idea they were Readers.

She could not judge Jason's height, nor much of his build without probing. But she observed his face—a dignified face, younger than his graying hair suggested. The hair was thick and crisp, cut short in the prevailing style. His eyes were brown, like her own, and troubled. His mouth was meant to smile—its grim set now belied both the prevailing upturned lines and the tone she «heard» most of the time when she Read him.

"Don't you want to be a Master Reader?" she asked, realizing that he was, indeed, of the right age for testing.

"It would never have occurred to me to request testing, nor has Master Florian suggested it to me. I am a good Reader, Melissa, well worthy of the rank of Magister. However, my powers are not exceptional. The word is that only the most exceptional Readers are being accepted into the Council of Masters now—so why have they called for me?"

"Your healing skills—often they are allowed to compensate for other Reading powers."

"At Magister rank, yes, but not Master. I… wonder if this testing is somehow related to the other matter—the reason I wanted to speak with you privately today."

She realized that, indeed, nothing he had said so far warranted this strange, uncomfortable meeting. Why could he not have called her into a privacy room? "What is the other matter?"

"The renegade Readers."

"Readers? More than one?"

"It seems that Lenardo may be in contact with Readers inside the empire—may have corrupted them. A plot is feared—an attack, with Readers aiding the enemy."

"But… Magister, they can't think you would—?" She wanted to call back the words, and only made it worse by adding, "We're so far from the border; how could—?" Then, "Forgive me. They cannot be thinking any such thing."

"They can, and no doubt they are," Jason replied. "I brought it on myself, with my curiosity. "What need has a healer to know about renegades and politics? The Council of Masters, in this time of peril to the empire, has a right and a duty to discover whether my curiosity is just that… or whether I am spying for the savages."

"Oh, no! I know you're not!"

He laughed. "So do I—and so will the Council of Masters when they test me under Oath of Truth." But his next words were sober indeed. "Melissa, I have no fear for myself. I am concerned about you."

"Me?"

"Even if I wished to, I could not conceal from the Masters that you provoked my curiosity. You are no spy, either—but that is not what they will tell you the testing is about. If I am tested for the rank of Master, I will probably fail, but that will make no change in my status here. If they test you, though, for the rank of Magister, you will fail. I will try to persuade them that you belong here, at Gaeta, but your chances so long as you cannot pass the tests for Magister rank are very slim." His voice became tightly controlled as he added, "I don't know if they will even send you to one of the smaller hospitals to work… but I do know that they will arrange a marriage for you, and you will lose your powers, not develop them further."

Midwinter was near; Jason was to travel to Tiberium for his testing, but severe weather postponed his journey. Snow filled the passes in the hills, and had no time to melt before another storm laid further layers on it. Weeks passed, and he worked even harder with Melissa, determined to ready her to pass her testing. She became more and more at ease outside her body—especially when Jason was with her. Still, neither he nor any of the other healers could teach her to move to other planes.

Alethia reported further rumors among the failed Readers—reports from those who had recently joined their ranks that the testing had become harsh, unfair—that almost no one was passing into the top two ranks, and that it seemed to have little to do with their Reading skills, more with the answers they gave under Oath of Truth.

"But don't you think their stories are prejudiced?" Melissa asked Alethia. "Doesn't every failed Reader feel he has been treated unfairly?"

"I didn't," said Alethia. "I knew full well that my skills had not improved for months. I have been on the Path of the Dark Moon for three years, Melissa, and never before have I heard such a series of complaints. Nor have there been so many failures—or so many testing—before. Something strange is going on in Tiberium."

And a few days later, after another fruitless lesson but before they returned to their bodies, Jason told her cryptically, //The pier. After supper.//

She was there first, shivering despite her warm cloak, so she climbed onto the rocks, sheltering from the bitter wind. Jason came and sat above her. "I leave tomorrow, Melissa. I do not know whether I will return."

"Not return?! But you said even if you failed—"

"They may decide an error was made in elevating me to the rank of Magister. Master Florian warned me today. The Council of Masters does not usually test any but Master candidates; the Academy faculties are considered to have all the knowledge and power to decide who is worthy of Magister rank. Now there is a rift in the Council between the Masters of Academies and those Masters who do not teach—but the latter outnumber the former. Once this matter of renegade Readers is settled, we may see much retesting, with stricter standards."

"Magister Jason, surely you could not fail a retesting."

"I do not think I could, after years of experience. Yet… Master Florian told me that they retested and failed one of his former students, a man of unquestioned powers, the head of the hospital in Termoli. He had been a healer for twenty years and more. They declared him unfit, and ordered him married off. He took poison rather than accept such dishonor to his work. Master Florian is heartsick. And… he did not deliberately tell me, but I caught his thought: I am not so skilled as the healer they failed."

"Magister… you would not—?"

"Kill myself? Who can say what a person would do?

At one time I would have said yes—if the Masters decided that I was unworthy of the work I have been doing for ten years, I would have seen no choice but suicide. But through you I have learned these past few months what your friend Alethia knows about joy and love within an honorable marriage. I do not know, Melissa. May the gods not force such a choice upon me… for I truly do not know what I would do."

He gave a sad little laugh. "A teacher always learns from his students, but you have made me think about things no other student ever has. I will do my best to protect you, but I cannot promise anything. I wish I could promise always to be there to protect you—"

He stopped, as if afraid he had said too much, and got up. "Magister Jason!" Melissa called after him, but he turned and walked back along the pier, not even pausing to say goodbye.

And in the morning he was gone. Melissa prayed for his safe return… although she knew they were selfish prayers. All day she did her duties by rote, hardly Reading lest one of the other healers perceive the turmoil in her mind. "I wish I could promise always to be there to protect you," Jason had said. He had spoken of learning from her about "joy and love within an honorable marriage."

It was like the day she had suddenly discovered that she could Read beneath the surface of things, to see what was inside. An ordinary tree had become a treasure trove, insects crawling beneath its bark, squirrels nesting inside a hollow portion of the trunk, sap flowing—a whole community of life she had never known was there, although she had passed the tree every day.

So, suddenly, she discovered the interior of her relationship with Jason… and knew that she loved him. She had learned from Alethia what a beautiful experience the marriage of two Readers could be. If the Masters failed Jason… and then they failed her… was there any chance that they would be married to one another? Surely Jason could arrange it—oh, surely he could have the woman he loved. He must love her—he had risked much to speak with her, even those few times. He had warned her about the testing—why had she not declared her love? He didn't know she loved him! He must know. He must.

Her thoughts circled endlessly, constantly shoved to the back of her mind in the face of her duties and lessons, only to come forward each time she had a moment's peace. Finally she lay in her lonely bed, thinking it all out one more time before she would allow herself to sleep.

Reading outward, Melissa's restless mind met Phoebe's. The motherly woman who cared for the female trainees was making one last check of her charges before going to sleep herself. //Still awake, Melissa? Is anything wrong?//

//No, Magister Phoebe,// she lied. She didn't know if Phoebe accepted that, or merely respected her right not to discuss a personal problem.

//Then go to sleep, dear. You don't want to be tired for your lessons tomorrow.//

//Yes, Magister.//

She closed her mind to Reading again, and in her internal privacy, remembered. There was so little to remember—long talks, but how many statements that she could interpret as intimations of love?

Her bed began to shake. Another of those annoying tremors—nothing to worry about.

The shaking got worse—the floor heaved, and Melissa was tossed into the air, landing back on her bed in a tangle of bedclothes, her left wrist suffering a harsh blow against the wooden frame. As the bed bucked again, she grasped the frame and was thrown sideways, the bed toppling over on her. There was a terrible roaring, pierced by screams. She started to Read, but found the stark terror of the hospital patients too much to bear. But neither could she bear not to know what was happening. She Read again, and was bombarded with pain—suffocation—the roof had collapsed in the east wing, crushing the patients on the top floor and bringing them and their rooms down onto the orthopedic ward below.

Melissa Read but could not move—no one could. The shocks kept coming, one after another, throwing her hither and yon. There was no way she could scramble to her feet. A heavy wooden wardrobe crashed to the floor, missing her by a hand's span, but heaving a splintered section like a spear into her leg. She screamed in pain, and tried to pull it out as her bedroom turned into a battleground, pieces of wood and shattered crockery flying all around her. The best she could do was try to wrap herself in the bedclothes.

The door of her room burst open with a sharp CRACK! and banged against the wall, slammed shut again, bounced open, and was wrenched off its hinges as the building heaved in a new direction. Smoke sailed in from the hallway—it was winter; there had been fires throughout the building to keep the patients warm—the hospital was on fire!

Melissa began to cough and choke, her own body's heaving so distracting that she missed the point at which the ground stopped billowing beneath her, and everything settled into pain and fire and smoky haze. Finally she realized that the earthquake was over—but she was trapped! Her room had no window. Smoke was pouring through the door. Pulling the blanket over her nose and mouth, she dropped to the floor, where the air would be best, but there seemed to be no good air. She tried to crawl, her leg stinging where the splintered wood had pierced it. It was not a severe wound… but that did not matter. She could not escape the smoke. Her eyes burned. Her lungs burned. The whole world was burning—and then it disappeared into blackness.