Sharon Green - Terrillian 04, page 30
Have you ever, for one reason or another, gone without food for a period of time? After a while it isn’t so bad, but the first day is unbelievably hard.
Once the hunger pangs get going, all you can think about is food and eating.
Visions of the best meals you’ve ever had rise up to haunt you, and you can actually see them and smell them and taste them. Nothing you do distracts you from knowing how much you’re missing and how much you want it, and it doesn’t take long before you know you’re about to starve to death. That’s Hunger with a capital H, and that’s what I gave to Hestin.
The big man hesitated when he felt my projection, not really understanding why he was suddenly starving, and made a sincere attempt to quiet the need and brush it aside. If the feeling had been natural he would have made it, but he didn’t stand much of a chance against the power of a Prime. Pure physical hunger grabbed him by the throat and stomach and shook him, but he really was a very strong man. Instead of attacking my tray and swallowing it down whole, he simply ran out, heading for the kitchen. As soon as he was out of hearing range, Deegor, Relgon and Siitil burst out laughing together.
“Ah, poor Hestin,” Relgon commiserated as the other two continued to laugh, her own amusement very much evident. “Fortunately for us all, Terril, even anger and outrage fail to bring you true cruelty. Although perhaps the healer would not agree.”
“What was done to him?” Leelan asked, having felt the surge of power without being able to interpret it. “Was he harmed?”
“Not nearly as badly as a woman in his place would have been,” Deegor said, still chuckling. “He was made to feel a great, overwhelming desire to consume all things edible in this house, and will be quite a while at making the attempt. He should not have given Terril such insult.”
“The fault was not entirely his,” Siitil said, momentarily softened by the seldom-felt laughter and enjoyment she’d just experienced. “He is a man, and men turn inexplicably strange when in the presence of a wenda such as Terril.
His desire to have her obey him was of such a strength that even I nearly took insult.”
“The power of her is not only to be found in her mind,” Deegor put in, glancing around at her sister in amusement. “Also does the lack of a visible weapon affect men, as Relgon and I learned in our youth. There are few who are able to tell us apart, yet was she far more often sought after than I. In curiosity we strove to understand, and found that when she donned the weapon and I did not, it was I who stirred the interest. Men, it seems, have a great need to protect the helpless.”
“And what more helpless sight than a badly used wenda abed,” I said, finally understanding why I was having so much trouble. “Leelan, I will be greatly in your debt if you are able to provide me with a bath and some clothing. I have had enough of this lying about.”
“Terril, Hestin has said that you are not yet healed,” Leelan protested with a frown, her mind worried. “To leave your bed now would be foolish and dangerous.”
“And to remain in it would be even more foolish,” I countered, not about to be talked out of getting up. “Once before I was hurt in such a way, yet found myself quickly able to return to moving about. Hestin’s fears for my safety have affected his judgment, and therefore must his opinions be ignored. Will you assist me?”
She hesitated a very long time, her mind flashing this way and that while weighing everything involved, but there were too many reasons against her refusing. Three other minds and six pairs of eyes watched her juggle, and then she sighed and nodded slowly.
“Very well,” she grudged, not terribly happy about it but seeing no other way out. “You shall have your bath and clothing-provided you are able to finish the meal which was brought you. Lack of appetite indicates illness which may not be ignored.”
“With the prospect of bathing and dressing before me, I will happily finish the meal,” I agreed, meaning every word. Sitting around doing nothing isn’t designed to rouse the appetite, and that was another reason why I had to get up.
Once we came to an understanding, everything began moving quickly. Leelan took the other women to another part of the house, and she hadn’t been out the door five minutes when two women who were clearly servants carried in a big, wooden tub. Under normal circumstances I would have bathed in the kitchen, but with Hestin in there still stuffing his face, an alternate location was much more politic. I finished everything on my tray while the water was being brought in-everything but another serving of that thick, yellow, too-sweet custard-and then joined the water in the tub.
It felt so good to be on the way to being clean again that I had no trouble ignoring my aches, and had to be careful not to broadcast my pleasure. I sat cross-legged in the narrow, round tub, the water up to my breasts, my arms resting on the outside rim, my head back, my eyes closed. All the problems in the universe lose their importance and urgency in the presence of a warm bath, which is why meetings of state are held in formal board rooms around tables.
If they all stripped down and made themselves comfortable, there would probably never be war again.
Much as I would have liked to take forever I didn’t have the time, so after just a few minutes of soaking I washed my body and hair and then got out to dry. One of the serving women was there to help me, and she flinched inwardly when she saw my right side. More often than not the tail of Roodar’s whip had caught me there, and the bruise was wide and colorful. For my own part I ignored it as best I could, and went to get into my new clothes.
Seeing the two serving women wearing imadd and caldinn but no bands-led me to expect something familiar in the way of wearables, but what had been laid out on my bed was an outfit like the ones my visitors had been in, breeches and shirt in light blue, with a pair of sandals on the carpet fur. For some reason I didn’t much care for the clothing, enough so that I hesitated in front of it, but then I realized how much more practical it was, especially in the rain. I was going to need every bit of help I could get that night, and that was the only thing to be considered.
Getting dressed wasn’t particularly involved, and the knots came out of my hair with less brushing than I thought it would take, so it wasn’t long before I was being led through the house to where the other women were waiting.
Wearing breeches instead of a skirt-even breeches that were tight and rather a good fit-felt odd, but my attention was distracted from that by the house I was being conducted through. By everything I saw, Leelan had done rather well for herself, with a large, well-made and well-furnished house filled with more than just the two servants I’d seen. The walls, floors, and ceilings were wood and stone, dark, light, and gray, with enough touches of color from drapes and such to bring the color level up from somber to comfortable. It was clearly a woman’s house without being in the least frilly, but one part of it was faintly embarrassing. Leelan had male servants as well as female, and when I found myself checking them for bands, I blushed with embarrassment and riveted my eyes to the woman I was following. I hadn’t found any bands, but my unthinking stares had produced a number of grins and hums of interest.
The room the other women were waiting in was a large one, with curtained terrace windows all along the back wall and a big fireplace in the wall to the right. A fire was crackling in the hearth in competition with the steady patter and pour of the rain against the windows and also had the distinction of being the only light source in the dim, not-quite-chilly room. Leelan and her guests had made themselves comfortable on the dark red floor fur among blue and purple cushions, and just about all of them were holding goblets.
When I appeared, Leelan rose and dismissed the servant, found a goblet to hand to me, then led me into the midst of still-excited and expectant minds.
“You do seem much improved now,” she admitted as she looked down at me with half a frown, gesturing to me to find a seat on the floor. “Your walk and movements are not those of one who needs to be abed.”
“You must learn, Leelan, not to give heed to the maunderings of men,” I told her as I sat, glad she couldn’t feel how achy I still was. “They have the ability to pester the life out of those wendaa about them, and for that reason must wendaa ever ignore them.”
“You have more the sound of w’wenda to you than wenda,” Siitil said with a faint smile while everyone else chuckled, her mind still very slightly put off by the way I looked. Siitil was more comfortable with plainer women, and if she hadn’t had a damned strong reason for staying, she would have walked out a lot earlier. “We must now speak of when the attack upon the palace is to be.”
“My attack upon the palace will be this very darkness,” I answered, sipping from my goblet to find that it held nothing but juice, something the other goblets were not filled with. I looked at Leelan and discovered that she was already grinning at me, her mind as firm on the point as Tammad’s would have been. I was up and bathed and dressed, but wine was something I’d be doing without.
“This darkness?” Siitil echoed in disbelief, her immediate outrage distracting me from my annoyance. “We could not attack this darkness even were we to begin spreading the word this very moment! Those who mean to fight beside us would be prepared, yet what of supplies to be arranged for, and healers for the wounded, and outer patrols to be seen to? The palace will not fall till we have entered it, and we will not find it possible to enter for quite some time.”
“I mean to enter as I left it,” I told her, sipping again at my juice.
“Swiftly, quietly, and without notice I shall return, free those who are being held captive, and then withdraw again. The rain will do well in covering our escape.”
“The rain will do well in increasing your difficulties,” Leelan contradicted, leaning forward where she’d put herself on the carpet fur to my left, speaking above the exclamations of upset from the others. “A time of rain is ever a time of increased vigilance at the palace, for in rain one does well to expect attack. Also in rain are there a greater number of w’wendaa about, rather than out upon business of their own. Also, these captives will be held in the thrall of potions; how quickly and alertly will they traverse the corridors, avoiding all other living beings? How silently will they slip through the mud, making no sound for others to hear? How easily will you direct them all, and watch for unexpected attack, and defend against what attack does come? Your own escape was a combination of skill and fortune, Terril; to expect such fortune again would be the height of folly.”
She sat looking at me with her mind wide open, letting me see that she believed every word she said. The buzz of the leakage from the Hand of Power was starting to give me a headache again, but I made no effort to replace my shield.
“What fortune fails to come, I will do without,” I told her in a voice gone cold and unyielding, making sure I kept my mind from hers. “Should you and your followers attack the palace, there will soon be no captives to seek the release of. They hold one who means more than life to me, and I will not permit any to stand in the way of his freedom.”
“Terril, please, we do not mean to prevent you!” Relgon gasped, her voice low and ragged. “Please-the pain-!”
I looked away from Leelan in surprise, then gasped in shock to see what was happening. Siitil and Deegor were collapsed on the floor fur, crumpled and boneless and looking as if they were dead. Relgon was down on her back with clawed hands to her head, and four of the other six women were pulling at their collars or moaning and writhing, while the last two looked as flat and dead as Siitil and Deegor. I snapped my shield shut immediately, so shaken that my hands were trembling uncontrollably, and Leelan grabbed my shoulder while rising to one knee.
“What has happened’?” she demanded, fear and confusion shaking her voice like an earthquake. “Terril, what has happened to them?”
“The one you mindlessly thought of as a leader happened to them,” I told her numbly, feeling so sick I wanted to throw up. “You spoke of creatures as though you knew them, Leelan, yet you have never known a creature such as I.”
I put my goblet aside and pulled away from her hand, then got to my feet and hurried over to the fireplace. Behind me I could hear Leelan calling her servants in to help, and then their exclamations of shock as soon as they entered. It must have looked like a massacre to them, and that was exactly what it had been. I’d been angry at Leelan while I was arguing with her, so I’d been careful to keep my mind away to be sure not to accidentally hurt her.
What I’d forgotten was everyone else in the room, all the others I wasn’t keeping my mind from. The flaring fury I’d been feeling had lashed straight out at them, and I hadn’t even known I was doing it! I went to my knees in front of the fire with my arms wrapped around myself, too cold ever to be warmed again. I really was a creature, a monster dangerous to everyone around her, one somebody ought to kill so that normal people could be safe. I knelt trembling in front of the fire, hating every continuing breath I took, wishing my sadendrak had already been freed so that someone could come and put me out of my misery. I couldn’t live with the burden much longer, not and continue to stay sane, not with the way it hurt.
It took quite a while for Leelan’s servants to get everyone back to consciousness or calmed down, to get the spilled wine mopped up, to stop trying to find out what had happened. Someone had suggested calling Hestin in to check the fallen, but Leelan had vetoed the idea and it wasn’t raised again. After a while I was caught in the hypnotic quality of the fire, staring at it while imagining I wasn’t different from everyone else, imagining I was happy and loved and really wanted somewhere. When the fire jumped and crackled into nothing but silence I didn’t know it at first, not until a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I came back to the room with a start, wondering if they’d already come for me, confused because it was still too soon. Tammad hadn’t been freed yet, but after that … .
“No Terril, do not stiffen so,” Relgon’s voice came, as soothing as the arm she immediately put around my shoulders. “We have none of us been harmed beyond an aching in our heads, and the fault, in any event, was not yours.”
“Then surely the fault was Dallan’s,” I said, looking into the fire rather than at the woman who crouched to my left. “Perhaps it would be best if he were sent for, so that all might remonstrate with him.”
“The l’lenda is also innocent,” she said, playing the game with a little chuckle. “The one who is at fault is my sister, and we all of us shall certainly remonstrate with her.”
“Never before have we known a power such as yours, Terril,” Deegor said from somewhere close behind me, really sounding ashamed and guilty. “It was not my intention to lead you to believe that the refusal about your mind was insulting to us, so that you would fail to replace it. One does not carry a supremely keen sword without a shielding scabbard, else is one likely to cause all manner of accidental harm and bloodshed. Had you felt free to again call up your denial, we none of us would have been touched.”
“And my lack of the least amount of control means naught, is that your belief?” I asked, wondering why they were trying to comfort me after what I’d done. “For others to allow leakage from their minds is mere lack of discipline; the same from me is unforgivable.”
“For the reason that you are so much better than others?” Leelan demanded, suddenly appearing to my right to look down at me. “Others are permitted error while you are not?”
“For the reason that I am so much stronger than others,” I corrected, knowing I deserved at the very least to be yelled at, but still finding her attitude difficult. “At one time I had control of what dwelt within me, was able to direct it as I willed, yet now-I will leave at once, of course, so that this cannot occur again.”
I lowered my head and tried to figure out where I could go, where I would find shelter from the rain until it got dark. I just wanted another minute in front of the fire before I got at it, but then I noticed that the people around me didn’t seem to be paying attention to that part of what I’d said.
“What control might there be of strength such as hers?” Siitil asked, almost in annoyance. “Even those of us without the power were affected by the thing.”
“And yet, Leelan was completely untouched,” Deegor said musingly. “And we must recall what was done to Hestin.”
“We must certainly recall what was done to Hestin,” Relgon said from my left, where she still crouched with an arm around me. “The healer was completely unharmed from her touch, and we, who stood beyond him, were no more than aware of what had been done. It failed to come to me at the time, and yet-for what reason were we not given what he was?”
“Perhaps Terril might speak answers to these questions,” Leelan said, sounding less angry than she had been. “Have you heard what was said, girl?”
“I heard,” I replied, taking a deep breath. I’d answer their questions and then I would go. “You, Leelan, were unharmed by my carelessness for the reason that I was aware of my anger and took care to keep it from you. Foolishly I had forgotten the others, and failed to take the same care with them. As for Hestin-for what reason should any other have been affected? It was him I meant to touch, and him alone. To touch others as well would have been-“
“Undisciplined,” Relgon finished softly while I groped for a word, everyone else standing in a heavy silence. They were reacting to what I’d said in a way I didn’t understand, and then Siitil laughed a short, incredulous laugh.
“She is able to direct her strength,” the young woman said, sounding as though she were trying to believe something too good to be true. “She is able to touch or keep from touching one out of many! By the mother of us all, she has the power of control!”
“Of all but myself,” I said aloud, although it would have been easier keeping something like that private. “And now I will take my leave to … .”
“Leave?” Leelan barked, back to being angry. “You would repay my hospitality by leaving us now?”
