"Jean Lorrah - Savage Empire 04 - Flight To the Savage Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lorrah Jean)

"Because there are always vultures waiting to control them," said Morella. "But Clea will be safe with me.
You've examined my girls often enough to know I will have no drugs here."

The woman on the bed groaned and opened her eyes. "Morella!" she gasped on a wave of pain. Astra
gritted her teeth against it.

Morella took Clea's hand. "I'm here, child. You're going to be all right."

The young woman's eyes slowly focused on Astra. "YouтАж you are the healer?"

"Yes."

"Morella saysтАж you can be trusted. PleaseтАФ please help me."

Astra took Clea's other hand, Reading her determination to be freeтАж and the reason for it. Although the
identities of the people were obscured in a drug-induced haze, the content of the scene that had sent Clea
fleeing from her life of luxury was clear.

It was not the first time she had been given instructions just when the white lotus had taken over her will.
Without hesitation, she had read documents belonging to various lovers, and reported their contents. She
had stolen keys, delayed men from appointments, and even deliberately destroyed a marriage. Everything
had seemed to be her own desireтАФ until the day when someone had handed her a vial of poison and
instructed her to seduce another man, then slip the poison into his wine.

Perhaps the man who instructed her had misjudged the timing of the weakness of will white lotus
produced, or perhaps Clea's tolerance had so increased that the dose was not enough to make her
accept such an order. Whatever the reason, she had resistedтАФhad run away, back to Tiberium, where
she could disappear into The Maze. There she had sold her jewels, and her body, for drugs to feed her
craving and erase the memory of that command to murderтАФthat command she had almost obeyed out of
mindless compulsion!

Finally, she had realized that she could not escape the memoryтАж and that unless she escaped the drug
her body craved more and more of, one day she might be willing to kill just as she had robbed and
exploited.

And so she had come to Morella, the one person in The Maze she could trust.

Now she turned to the older woman. "MorellaтАФ please. Lock me up. It's starting. I'll run away if I can
escape!"

"The door is locked, child," Morella assured her. "Phaeru has the key, and she will not open the door
unless / tell her to."

As the hours passed, Clea's resolve melted as she had foretold. She screamed and raved, reviling
Morella and Astra, threatening, even trying to climb out the tiny window that would not have admitted a
cat.

Astra suffered the cramps, the vomiting, the stab-bing pains along with her, sweating and shaking as time
and again she helped Morella restrain their wild patient and force herb tea into her to combat