Jean Lorrah - Flight to Savage Empire

Then he fixed his stare on Zanos. “By Imperial decree, I declare you, Zanos, a free citizen of the Aventine Empire!”

The crowd went wild again… but Zanos felt his knees grow weak. It was all he had ever worked for, since Serafon had persuaded him his childish escape schemes were unworkable. He had his dream at last-and so unexpectedly!

His stomach hurt and his head swam as the people cheered the Emperor’s generosity. Zanos knelt, bowing his head in a proper gesture of gratitude-but inside, he feared he might faint.

Zanos remained in that position as the Emperor and his retinue departed, and the crowd began to disperse. Then he climbed to his feet, wondering what had happened to the joy he was supposed to feel… and Lakus came over to him. “Congratulations, Zanos-and may the gods grant you good fortune.

Be sure to put those arms away before you leave.”

Leave? To go where?

His former master walked away, leaving Zanos in the rapidly emptying arena… a free man, but a man with nothing. Not even the armor he wore was his. He did not have a bed to sleep in tonight-nor a coin to buy supper.

This was the freedom he had longed for? To belong to no one? To have no one responsible for him?

Fear tore at his vitals as he faced the bitter truth: he was terrified of being free!

Astra could feel how sharply, even today, Zanos felt what he perceived as his cowardice that day in the arena. But it had not conquered him. “What did you do then, Zanos?”

“Oh-some young gamblers who had won heavily on me came to the arms room, and invited me to dinner. Before I went to them, I talked to Serafon- she arranged a room for me that night, and tried to make me see how happy I ought to be. The next day I went to my old master. By that time he was over his annoyance at the way the Emperor had taken his best man away prematurely, and was happy to hire me as a freedman. You know the rest.”

“Yes, I know the rest. Why do you castigate yourself years later for that one moment of shock? Zanos, everyone feels that way if his life suddenly, unexpectedly changes.”

“You don’t understand,” he protested. Ill felt fear of freedom-the same fear that holds me to Vortius now. Astra, a part of me yearns back to my days as a favored slave. After all, what did I have to do with my life except participate in the games, which I loved, keep my body in shape, and worry about nothing except the possibility that my Adept powers might be discovered? You have never been a slave, Astra.

With a kind master, it can be a very… comfortable life.”

“But not for you. Zanos, I know you-”

“I thought I knew myself! But once that drug was in my blood… I saw my true nature. You will see it, Astra, unless you let me out of here before the latest dose wears off. I-this part of me that feels shame-I become weaker every day. Astra, I am not worth the danger you are in.”

“We are in the middle of the savage lands, Zanos. Where shall I go without you?”

Ill don’t know. I only know that I cannot help you.”

“Yes, you can. You have already recognized that it is a part of you that Vortius has trapped. Your mind is still whole. Come-let me show you how to leave your body. Then you will see everything clearly.”

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-