The Warrior Challenged

9

I knelt on hands and knees and scraped at the stone floor with the smoothing stone, hurting with every movement, the sweat heavy on my naked body. It was hot that day, even inside the cool stone walls, especially with the work I’d been given to do. One of my masters was to have done that job, but he’d been allowed to give it to the group’s slave instead. There had been quite a few of those jobs, but I couldn’t remember exactly how many. I didn’t even know how many days and nights I’d been a slave, but one thing I did know: how many beatings I’d had. Seven, counted for me every time the mistress came to give me another, just the way she had done that morning. That other mistress had been with her again, the one everyone bowed to and called Chama, and every time I’d screamed and cried she’d laughed.

I sat back on my heels for a moment beside the open terrace-doors, dragging the back of my hand through the sweat on my forehead, tired and hurting and trembling at the memory of those beatings. The mistress so much enjoyed giving them to me, and each one hurt more than the last. The mistress always came at different times, never when I was expecting her, and seemed to find so much pleasure in punishing me. It was almost as though she were angry at me about something, something I really had nothing to do with, something that was increasing her anger with every day that passed.

A small breeze came in through the opened doors, bringing with it the smell of dusty sunshine and corrals and stables. I could hear voices outside, voices that were busy at something, voices that belonged to people happier than myself. A few lonely tears trailed their way down my cheeks at how miserable I was, but another thing I knew was something that had come to me close to the beginning of my time there. I might have been miserable, but someone else, someone who seemed to be very important to me, wasn’t. He had turned around and walked away from me, and now didn’t have to worry about monsters who gave away his babies. I didn’t really understand even half of what that meant, but even in the mist and mush always surrounding me I knew it was a good thing. Even the beatings weren’t as bad as talking about babies would have been, and that was a good thing.

If only I wasn’t so miserable and confused.

The corridor I worked in was silent and empty, but someone I couldn’t quite remember had promised to come back to make sure I smoothed every rough spot out of the floor, and punish me again if I didn’t. I didn’t want to be punished again so I reached for the smoothing stone to continue with the job, but the voices outside were growing louder and louder, much louder than was usual around that place where I was. I really had no interest in looking outside but I did anyway, and at first didn’t understand what I was seeing. There were a lot of women out there, shouting back and forth in the very bright sunshine, and some of them seemed to be struggling with a seetar. The big black animal was being held by four leather ropes in the hands of four large women, but even so the women seemed to be at a disadvantage.

I squinted out at the glaring, sun-drowned scene, trying to understand what they were doing with the seetar, wondering who was supposed to ride it. It didn’t have a saddle or bridle, only those ropes around its giant neck, but surely someone was supposed to ride it. Despite the fact that the women were struggling with it, it looked like a nice seetar, one that would be kind and considerate—and concerned. I frowned at that thought, at the strange idea that an animal would be kind and concerned, and narrowed my eyes as far as possible so that I might really see the beast. It was the black color all seetarr were, even bigger than they usually grew, and it was—

I closed my eyes for a minute and shook my head, horribly confused but desperate to understand. That seetar belonged to-someone very important to me, and he never would have gone off without it. I couldn’t quite grasp what that meant, but I knew the seetar was also important to me, that it was the best friend I’d ever had. That’s it, that’s it, my best friend, I thought, putting one hand to my head as I looked out again. The women all around him were shouting angrily at the way he refused to obey them, the way he stubbornly refused to do just as they said. I didn’t know what they wanted him to do, but they weren’t simply angry about it. Even as I watched, two of the women who had left for a minute came trotting back carrying spears.

They’re going to kill him, something inside me said, chilling me all the way through in spite of the heavy heat of the day. He’s the best friend you ever had, and they’re going to kill him. You can’t let them do that, you’ve got to stop them.

Stop them. But how? And why would they want to kill him?

Never mind why, and you know how. Don’t try to think about it, just do it.

Do it. I stared out at the scene, hurting and confused and tired, both hands to my head, and couldn’t think about it. I didn’t understand and remembered almost nothing, but I had to do it or my best friend would die. I couldn’t let that happen, and I did know how to stop it.

It hurt to send my mind out, as though there were chains all around it fighting to keep it back, but chains weren’t solid and neither were my thoughts. I came to the women with the spears first and took their confidence, then I took their sense of balance. The uncertainty was so strong that one fell to the ground and tried to clasp it, while the other simply fainted. The four holding the ropes were next, and deep disgust turned those ropes into something frightful and sickening, so awful and nauseating that to continue holding them would have led inescapably to madness. They dropped the lines with shouts and screams, shuddering convulsing their thoughts, but I was already with the mind of my friend, reassuring him and telling him he had to run. I made him know that we needed him to help us, but the only way he could do that was to get out of the city and stay free. In the first few seconds he tried to refuse to go, but my assurances erased his misgivings and then he was off, trotting through and away from the crowd of women, a few of whom made an attempt to grab the trailing ropes. As his speed picked up the rope ends were snatched away from them, and then he was galloping through an opening in the wall, scattering guards in all directions. He was determined to do as I’d told him to and not let anyone catch him, and my hands fell away from my head with the exhaustion I felt, the struggle I’d had to make him understand. Emotional blends with highlights and connotations had been necessary, a symphony of sense I hadn’t really been up to orchestrating, and I felt as though I had almost nothing left.

My head hurt terribly, more than it had after the battle with the intruder, the unvarying buzz in my mind making it worse. I had to stop that buzz or I would be physically ill, but it was everywhere and coming from all directions. The pain in my knees and legs was almost smothered by that buzz and I was being bent forward by it, my arms wrapped around my middle against the ache. There was something I could do about it but the memory of it was just beyond reach, hidden in the confusion that still held me. I wanted that memory and needed it terribly, but I just couldn’t think in the middle of that buzz. I had to block it out somehow, had to push it away from me, had to—

Suddenly the buzz was gone, and at first I didn’t understand. It felt as though something had stepped between me and the noise, something that it couldn’t penetrate, something that shielded me—

Shield. My shield had formed around my mind, that small, thick shield nothing could penetrate. But why hadn’t it formed sooner, before the buzz had given me so much pain? Because it didn’t form automatically, only when I consciously wanted it? But why hadn’t I wanted it? Because I couldn’t remember there was such a thing as a shield? Why couldn’t I remember, and why did I feel so confused?

“What ails you, slave?” a harsh voice suddenly demanded from behind me, a female voice that drove into my confusion like a knife. “Have you finished the task which was given you, or do you seek to shirk it? Assume a properly respectful position while I make my inspection.”

Without even looking up at the guard woman I immediately put my forehead and palms to the floor, a fear inside me that she would find something wrong. I didn’t know what might be wrong or why I was worrying about it, and didn’t understand why I felt so lethargic. It was more than just feeling tired and hot and hurting, and it didn’t make any sense. Where was I, and what was going on?

“Sloppily done and almost totally inadequate,” the woman muttered above me, coming back from her walk up the corridor. “To add to a slave’s natural laziness is the lack of brawn in one such as you. The floor will need to be redone, again and again if necessary, till I find it satisfactory. For now you will come with me.”

I straightened quickly and then rose to my feet, awash in trembling upset and dizzy with confused lack of understanding as to why I felt that way. The woman took off down the corridor, not even waiting to see if I really was following, but her confidence was justified. I was right then hurrying in her wake, part of me terrified at the thought of not being where I was supposed to be, the rest of me not arguing the point. I’d felt that way for some time, I realized, a dimly remembered but very unpleasant time, and I couldn’t think of a reason for it. It came to me then that my head was still hurting from what I’d recently done, so it wasn’t any wonder that I couldn’t think. I’d have to wait until the headache went away.

The guard woman led me from one corridor to the next, striding along in complete unconcern, even when other women we passed grinned or snickered at the naked slave hurrying along behind her. My cheeks warmed with embarrassment when it really came through to me that I was naked, but there didn’t seem to be anything to do about it. My mind put asking for something to wear on a par with not being where I was supposed to be, a feeling I couldn’t argue with. I hated being naked and being laughed at, but until I could think again there was nothing I could do.

The end of a final corridor widened out into a semi-familiar square slave area, and the men in it went to their knees at the appearance of the guard woman leading me. I would have hung back if I possibly could have, but she turned and took my arm, then thrust me out ahead of her.

“Your slave has been displeasing in the task she was given,” the woman announced, her amusement and satisfaction evident only in her eyes. “Which of you will punish her before she serves your meal?”

The eyes of the kneeling men came to me where I stood, most of them upset, a few of them oddly annoyed. I found that I was trembling at that mass stare, but this time didn’t have to wonder why. One of them was going to punish me, and I didn’t want to be punished by a Rimilian male.

“Mistress, I will punish her,” one of them said, a handsome man I seemed to remember better than most of the others. “We thank you for having brought this need to our attention, and will quickly see to it.”

“Quickly and thoroughly,” the woman said, folding her arms as she looked at me. “You may begin now, for I have other matters awaiting my attention.”

“Yes, mistress,” the man acknowledged, sounding defeated, almost as though he had been hoping she would leave. He got to his feet and walked to the side of the area, picked something up, then brought it back toward me. As he came closer I saw it was a strip of heavy leather that he held, and I immediately looked up into his eyes. He was one of those who had been faintly annoyed, and I could feel my trembling increase.

“Kneel here to your master, slave,” he commanded sternly, pointing to the floor in front of him where he’d stopped, about five feet away from me. I should have hurried over but I simply couldn’t, finding all but small, hesitant steps beyond me. All of the men were watching me, and the woman as well, and as I knelt on the spot I’d been ordered to I knew that I’d never in my life felt so completely stripped bare.

“Put your brow to the stone, girl,“ ‘ the man I knelt to ordered, the strip of leather now held in both of his hands, his blue eyes even more stern-looking than they had been. “I shall not punish you as the high mistress does, yet shall you be well seen to.”

I put my head and palms to the stone, feeling the ache in my back as I did so. That was where the high mistress punished me, I knew, across the back and occasionally across the breasts, but that wasn’t how I would be punished this time. My hair had tumbled onto the stone, some of it falling over my hands, and then I heard a faint scuff, as though the feet I knelt before moved away from in front of me. An instant later there were knees on my hair and big hands wrapped around my wrists, and then two other hands took my ankles. I was being held rigidly in place, and didn’t understand why until the first stroke fell.

“Oh!” I cried, thoughtlessly trying to straighten up, or move away, or protect myself with my hands, none of which worked. I cried out again as I was struck a second time and then a third, and not long after that my eyes were full of tears of pain and humiliation. The guard woman had begun chuckling in amusement almost at the very start, really enjoying the way that leather was being applied to my bottom. If I hadn’t been held I wouldn’t have stayed in that position, being horribly humiliated in front of another woman, but I was being held and couldn’t pull loose. Two men were holding me while another strapped my bottom, and the woman’s laughter was filled with the knowledge that I could do nothing to stop it.

“Are you punished, slave?” the handsome man’s voice came then, the sternness still in it. “Will you in future be a good, obedient slave?”

“Yes, master, I am punished,” I sobbed, willing to say anything if it would make him stop, feeling my tears roll down into my hair. “I will be a good, obedient slave.”

“She fails to beg you to cease,” the woman watching put in, sounding as though she were giving lessons. “She must have a bit more.”

“Oh!” I cried as it began again, wishing I could scream instead, my wrist and ankles almost numb from the strength of the hold on them, my head throbbing where it was forced to the stone. “Please no, master, please, no more! I will be a good, obedient slave, as good and obedient as you wish! I have been punished, master, please do not punish your slave the more!”

“A bit more will do her endless good,” the woman said in a no-arguments voice as the strokes began to stop again. “You must not allow your slave to go without proper punishment, boy, else will she be quick to seek advantage over you. Does she greet you eagerly on your pallet, or must you force her to your use?”

“She-shows no eagerness for my use, mistress,” the man with the strip of leather admitted reluctantly, a bewilderment behind the words. “I have not allowed her to escape her duty, yet did I expect her reception to be somewhat more joyful. ”

“Once you have done with her punishment, she will be a good deal more receptive,” the woman assured him, her voice full of confidence. “A well-punished slave is ever a slave eager to please.”

“Yes, mistress, that is surely so,” the man said thoughtfully, and then I was being strapped again, just as hard as before. I cried and screamed and begged him to stop, but it took a while before he did so. When I was finally allowed to straighten on my knees I couldn’t stop sobbing, and the woman looked down at me in deep satisfaction.

“When next she requires such punishment, there will be others who will wish to witness it,” she said to the man beside her, just short of chuckling again at the way I immediately dropped my eyes in mortification. “Come the time, you will inform me beforehand, do you understand? And be sure she is given her special wine before you all depart to serve the Chama.”

“Yes, mistress,” my master the slave answered, complete acquiescence in his tone. The next minute the sound of receding footsteps came, and once they were out of hearing distance my master crouched next to me and put a hand under my chin.

“How foolish you were for disobeying, wenda,” he scolded me gently, his large blue eyes on my face. “Have you not yet learned that to disobey is to be punished?”

“Yes, master,” I said with a sniff, finding it impossible to stop crying. “I have now learned that lesson.”

“Clearly we, your masters, did you no service by failing to punish you before this,” he said, and then he looked at me very sternly again. “Do you wish us to inform the mistress that we mean to punish you in the same way upon the next occasion?”

“Please, no, master!” I begged, horrified at the thought, putting my hands out toward him. “I could not bear being done so again, I would die of the shame!”

“So I believed, from the words spoken so often in your sleep,” he said with a nod, the sternness gone again. “To avoid such a thing, will you greet the use of your masters with greater eagerness and joy? Will you accept, rather than being made to take?”

I hesitated very briefly at the question, his gaze impossible to avoid, then found the hesitation a waste of time. I had been given a choice, but I really had no choice at all.

“I will greet you eagerly, master,” I agreed, lowering only my eyes when his hand refused to release my chin. “Your slave will serve you as best she may.”

“Oh, excellent!” my master said with a laugh of joy, a pleased stirring coming from those others who had chosen to join him in my use. There were very few of them, I knew, but I hadn’t yet discovered why. “And as our meal is not yet ready to be served, you may begin at once. There is a good deal of time before we will be called to serve the Chama and her guests at their own meal.”

“Now, master?” I asked in dismay, knowing when his hand left my chin that I was about to be lifted in his arms, which happened just about immediately. “Please, master, not so soon after your punishment, please not!”

“What better time than when you are most eager?” he asked, straightening from his crouch and heading directly toward his pallet, his arms holding me almost without effort. “I would not have you regret your choice, therefore must I assist you.”

“Master, please,” I began in protest, even more upset to realize that he thought he was doing me a favor, but he had already reached his pallet and was putting me down on it. From the half crouch he slid flat to lie beside me, his arms still firmly around me, a warm, friendly smile on his face.

“Each time I look upon you, I find you lovelier and lovelier,” he said, the fingers of one hand reaching to my cheek to wipe away the tears there, his big, blue eyes unmoving from my face. “You are small, and soft, and lovely and desirable, and I shall keep you forever and ever.”

“Master, please,” I whispered, for some reason feeling a stab of pain at his words. He was so open and vulnerable, and so clearly meant everything he was saying.

“Have no fear, they will not take you from me,” he soothed, folding me in his arms and holding me tight against him. “They would not have given you to me merely to take you away again.” He hesitated for a moment, still holding me close, then said, “Is it true you will please me even more because I have punished you?”

I could feel his big body trembling faintly, much less than it had the last time I could remember, but the excitement was the same, the anticipation unchanged. The child-man who held me was beginning to feel his authority over me, and also most likely the realization that he had not hit me as hard as he might have.

“It is true I will please you to keep from being punished again,” I said after a moment, my hands and cheek against his chest, my body to his body. “Such a thing is not the same as what you suggest.”

“In what manner does it differ?” he asked, sounding legitimately puzzled. “In either case, will you not strive to please me because of the punishment?”

“I-cannot say in what manner it differs.” I was groping, feeling slightly less confused than I had, but still not completely clear. “No other thing do I know save that it does.”

“I care not whether the two may differ, or whether they are just the same,” he murmured, his hands beginning to move over me. “You now must please me, and greet me with a great deal of eagerness. Are you not most eager for my use?”

“Yes, master, I am eager for your use,” I whispered, trying not to shudder as I spoke. It was a terrible lie I told, and it hurt me simply to speak it.

The child-man who held me heard just the words, nothing of the lie behind. His lips came to mine and I tried to respond to his kiss, but his breathing had grown a lot heavier, causing him to simply mash my efforts to nothing. He was kissing me, not trying to share a kiss, and he pressed me flat to the pallet even while he was doing it.

“Hush, lovely wenda, poor wenda,” he crooned when I gasped at the feel of the rough cloth against the welts on my back, his weight keeping me from rising up again. “The high mistress has given you hurt, I know, yet shall I quickly soothe it. You wish me to soothe it, do you not? Tell me that you wish it.”

“I would have you soothe me, master,” I whispered raggedly, beginning to cry again. It was more than just the painful welts on my back that tore me apart inside, and I could almost remember what else it was. “Please hold me and soothe me, master, please comfort me.”

“Yes, lovely one, yes,” he panted, thrusting my thighs apart with his knee, but he hadn’t heard what I’d asked for. The next minute he was inside me, jarring away with strength and abandon, his hands on my shoulders, using me as a substitute for his hand. His head was back and his eyes were closed, he panted heavily and the look on his face was sheer bliss and contentment. After a while he leaned down to slobber me with kisses again, but his hips never stopped moving. The tears ran down my cheeks even as I held him around, simply enduring what he was doing, realizing it would be impossible to do anything else. He didn’t know how much he was hurting me, and I couldn’t go back on my word by telling him.

Happily, it wasn’t long before it was over, but then there were the others. The handsome child-man sat at my side, holding my hand until they were done, never knowing how much worse he was making it simply by being there. He encouraged me and the others contentedly, then insisted that I be given a moment before being made to serve them all their meal. The very plain vegetable stew had been made by one of the others, and I had to put it into bowls and then bring a bowl to each of them. When they finished eating I collected the bowls and scoops, washed them in a tub of water in one corner, then was allowed to finish what was left in the pot before washing that, too. I could remember eating every last scrap and licking the pot in the days that had passed, but that day the constant, gnawing hunger I’d been feeling was absent. For that reason I’d left almost nothing in the pot, and for that reason the almost-nothing went into the wash water instead of me. The pain in my body had increased, but the throb in my head seemed to be clearing more by the minute.

When the pot was done and put away I simply stood there and leaned my left arm against the stone of the wall, unable to remember what I was supposed to do next, my thoughts a mad whirl I couldn’t even begin to follow. My stomach felt upset, and nausea was trying to get a grip on me, but the confusion in my head was worse than anything else. It was as though ten or a dozen people were trying to shout at me about different things all at the same time through a thick pane of glass, and all the while the pane of glass was getting thinner. The thinner it got the more easily I could hear them, but I didn’t know which of them to listen to first.

“Wenda, it is nearly time for us to take our leave,” a voice said from beside me, drawing me away from those other voices. “There is a thing you must do first.”

I looked up to see my master standing there, smiling at me gently and encouragingly as he usually did.

“Where is it that we must go?” I asked, frowning with the effort to remember. “And what is there that I must do first?”

“No, wenda, it is we others, your masters, who must soon depart,” he explained gently, his hand to my hair, as though he had had to say the same thing before. “The thing you must do is drink your wine, just as you do each day at this time.”

“My wine,” I echoed as he took my hand and began leading me toward the corner where the tiny supply of foodstuff was kept, the supply that had to last everyone there for three days. I didn’t remember ever having had wine before, at least not there.

“You seem ever unable to recall the wine,” he observed, gesturing me to my knees beside the boxes. “Also do you seem most confused at this time, yet am I told that that is as it should be. Once the drink is within you, the confusion will loose its hold.”

He took a clay pitcher and a clay bowl from on top of the boxes, filled the bowl from the pitcher, then handed me what he had poured. I took the bowl in both hands and looked down into its dark, muddy gold contents, remembering a sparkling golden wine I’d had-somewhere, at some other time.

“Drink it now,” the man who stood above me urged, the words gentle rather than commanding. “It will take the confusion from you, and will aid you in finding sleep. You must sleep, you know, for the new day begins early as ever, and will be filled as ever with much to do.”

I looked up at him from where I knelt, the bowl held in my hands, grateful to him for having given me something that would take the confusion away. I needed something to do that, needed it badly, and now I had it.

“The time is now, slaves,” a female voice announced from the entrance to the area, a place I couldn’t see from where I was. “Follow me at once.”

“Drink the wine,” my master repeated in a hurried whisper, reaching down quickly to touch my cheek with a big, gentle hand. “When we are awakened with the new light, I will rouse you with the pleasure of use.”

And then he was gone, following after the others as they all hastened after the woman who had called them. After and after and after, slaves after the master, the master a slave and the slave a master. I shook my head to dislodge the cadenced nonsense, not wanting to get caught up in it, and spilled a drop or two of the wine I was holding. The bowl it lay in was a dull pink with the suggestion of red beneath, for all the world like skinless flesh covering blood. Inside the skinless flesh was the wine I was supposed to drink, the wine I wanted to drink, but also the wine that would surely make me violently ill if I tried to swallow it. I could feel the sweat breaking out on my body and could see my hands trembling, and all I wanted to do was lie down and die. I knelt in place for another minute, struggling to control myself enough to take even a single sip, but it was just no good. I needed someone to help me take that sip, someone to help hold the bowl and coax me into it, but no one was there. The meal had been served too late, and the slaves had been called too soon, and no one had noticed that I hadn’t had my wine.

I found myself on my feet without knowing how I’d gotten there, but that was more a blessing than a problem. My body hurt just about everywhere and I was getting very dizzy, so I didn’t have the time to struggle to stand up. The stone floor was smooth enough, but it still hurt the bottoms of my feet as I made my way to the tub of dirty water. Bending over let the wine pour out into the water, and the muddiness of it matched very well with the murkiness. Or the other way around. A single rinse and the bowl was good enough to be put to one side; I put it aside, then went to find my master’s pallet. I was allowed to sleep on the very, edge of it, and that’s what I needed to do. I hurt even more when I lowered myself to my left side, and then it was all gone behind sleep.

My eyes were open and my heart was thudding, and for a minute I didn’t know where I was. I lay on my left side on something stiff and hard and uncomfortable, and the dimness around me held the soft sounds of many people deeply asleep. My first thought was, Where the hell am I? but if it had been said aloud rather than thought, the last words would never have gotten out. I knew where I was and also what had happened, and was finally able to appreciate the sheer luck that had broken me free.

I continued to lie unmoving on my side, but that was only physically. Inside my head my thoughts were racing, fighting with each other for priority. How long it had been I still didn’t know, but Tammad, Cinnan, and I had been taken by the Chama of Vediaster, and I, at least, had been made a slave. I had a feeling the same thing had been done to the men, but not entirely in the same way.

My first urge was to go and find Tammad, which set me to sitting up slowly, quietly and carefully. My-master-was asleep on the rest of the pallet, and the last thing I wanted to do was wake him. It was very quiet in that slave area, the only light coming in from the corridor that led to it, the air heavy and close and too full of the scent of too many bodies. I was able to sit and maintain the sitting position, but I had to bite my lip against the pain I felt. I hurt just about all over, my energy levels felt almost entirely drained, and my insides ached with the hollowness of getting not enough to eat for too long a time. On top of that I didn’t dare open my shield, not when I didn’t have the strength to fight back, so how was I supposed to find someone? I’d been taken before by not realizing I was under attack; this time all they’d have to do was breathe on me, and over I would go.

I put my face into my hands and rubbed at my forehead, knowing what I had to do but hating it. The only intelligent thing was to get myself out of that palace, steal food and find a place to sleep for half of forever, then come back when I felt less like the results of a seetarr stampede. But that meant I would have to leave Tammad behind, still in the clutches of that-that-woman, and I knew if it were his choice he would never abandon me the same way.

I also now knew why I’d felt so strong a need for learning how to use a sword, a need that was no longer with me. The time the knowledge would have helped was already behind me, and the man who was mine now Jay in the possession of another. Not for the first time I wished I had Tammad’s giant strength and matchless determination, and then I wished I had it there beside me, in him with his arms opened wide. I needed him very badly right then, probably even more than he needed me, but I didn’t have him and all he had as a hope of freedom was a useless, stubborn, ignorant wenda. One woman against how many hundreds, and I didn’t even dare open my shield? If I managed to find him it would be more miracle than rescue, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. I’d worry about consequences when they were about to drop on my head—and only after I’d had a decent amount of sleep.

Just sitting there made no sense, so I forced myself to my feet and tiptoed across the area to the corridor. Behind me I could hear someone muttering in his sleep and, when chuckling followed the meaningless words, I thought I knew who it was. The slaves of that area never laughed, rarely smiled, and some had begun to express enjoyment only recently, with their new undertaking. Only one of the very few experimenters would actually chuckle, and I shuddered even as I refused to think about him. I had other things to think about first, and if we all got out of the trap that had been waiting for us, there would be plenty of time later.

The first few corridors I crept along were deserted, but the further I went the more I knew I was not cut out for the life of an adventurer. If someone had suddenly come out of one of the doorways to appear in front of me, I undoubtedly would have died of heart failure then and there. It was terrible not being able to send my mind out ahead of me and all around, but that heavy, buzzing broadcast that had knocked me over the first time was still there, so thick and strong that the air nearly vibrated with it. I wasn’t feeling it but I was itching from it, understanding perfectly well why it continued on into deep night: at night peoples’ defenses were at their lowest, and that was the best time to reach through to them. If I ever managed to get out of there, I intended wondering just what it was they were reaching out with and for.

I got through another two corridors of rock walls that scraped my back and tried to make me yell out loud, of high torches that illuminated me clearly no matter how small I fought to make myself, of rock floor that was whisper quiet even though I expected it to begin creaking at any moment, and then I found something I hadn’t known I was looking for. A nicely carved table outside one of the closed, heavy wooden doors in the wall held something other than a vase of flowers or a well-done statuette. It looked like a pile of cloth until I got closer, and then it looked like a rain cape, only not made for the rain. It was bright red with gold trim around all the edges, and right in the middle of all that red was a neat, square-cornered tear. It looked as though it had caught on something that had ripped it, and had probably been left out by its owner so that a slave might repair it in the morning. I stared at it for a good five seconds before grabbing it up and pulling it on over my head, and that solved one of the problems I’d hoped to have. If I made it out into the city I couldn’t very well wander around naked, and now I didn’t have to. The thing didn’t reach up high enough to cover the bronze metal band around my throat, but one problem at a time.

Making a left turn at the next corridor intersection instead of a right put me no more than twenty-five feet from my second solution. I needed to get out of that palace, and just ahead were two terrace doors in the wall, standing open with the darkness of night behind them. As I hurried toward them I heard a faint clatter coming from the opposite direction, but I wasn’t silly enough to stop and turn around and look. If they were about to recapture me I didn’t want to know it and, if they weren’t I wasn’t about to hang around and give them the chance. With heart pounding and breath rasping and legs wobbling I got myself through those doors, then let the darkness swallow me up.

It took longer than I like to think about before I was able to stop trembling, before the quiet of the dark let me think again instead of simply running. I sat on the grass in the middle of that dark, well away from the torches that lit the outside of the palace, feeling the cool night air dry the sweat of panic from my face. The cape I had taken was keeping me warm, but it was also urging me to lie down comfortably for a few minutes, and I couldn’t afford to do that. I was so tired I would probably fall immediately asleep, and that would be the end of my escape. I had to get through the wall and into the city before I slept, through the city and out of it before I could relax. Stopping to think about it told me which gate I had to use, the only gate that would send me a way I had any hope of recognizing, the main gate we had come in by. I levered myself to my feet and tottered a moment, then staggered off to find the only gate that would do me.

Each of the gates I passed was brightly lit by torches, and because of that I began to believe I’d never find the one I needed. Hidden in the dark I looked at each of those gates, realized they were too small to be the one I needed, then forced myself to go on. It came to me after a while that I might be moving in the wrong direction, that the gate I was looking for might have been only a short distance from where I began but the other way; I thought about that quite a lot, but didn’t stop moving as I had begun, to the right facing the wall. If I started doubting myself and went back the other way, I could spend the rest of the night going back and forth in front of one section of wall.

When I finally reached the right gate I knew it immediately, but I took a couple of minutes to rest and think about how I would get through it. It was gaping as wide open as it had been when we’d first gotten there, but it also had nearly as many armed women standing around guarding it. After a minute or so I was able to count eight, and then was just able to keep myself from slumping down to the grass in defeat. Eight w’wendaa when I wouldn’t even have been able to face one under the best of circumstances, which that certainly was not. I was beaten, totally defeated, and the best thing I could do was go back to the palace and give myself up.

But that would mean really deserting my beloved, leaving him in a capture that might very well be worse than death. My head came up as I realized that I didn’t even know what that woman was doing to him, but it couldn’t have been anything pleasant. And he was resisting, I knew he was resisting, otherwise she wouldn’t have beaten me as often and as viciously as she had. I couldn’t make his efforts wasted, I had to get out of there and regain my strength, and then come back for him! The thought of me rescuing a man his size was ludicrous, but I had no strength left at all for ridicule. What I did have left I needed-to get myself out that gate.

I moved as near to the opening as I could without stepping into the torchlight, then stood straight and still and clenched my fists. Every one of those women was larger than the dark-haired slave in the shadows, but it wasn’t in a physical way that I meant to attack them. I still couldn’t open my shield and because of that received nothing, but I’d tried once and had found that I could reach around my shield to touch others. I felt incipient hysterics at the thought of having done it all at once, but I couldn’t let that stop me. Maybe I didn’t know how much strength I had working that way, and maybe I didn’t even know if I could split a projection effectively; what I did know was that I had to try, even if I failed.

Sending the projection out around my shield and not going along to guide it brought the sweat to my body and face again, the sweat of fear and the sweat of straining. I strained to split that projection eight ways and send each part in the right direction, and every minute of the time was afraid I was doing something wrong or simply not right enough. I stood sweating and trembling in the cool dark, watching all of the women standing exactly as they had been, and finally decided that I had to try it. If it didn’t work I would be a captive and a slave again, but that’s just what I’d be if I didn’t get moving. I wouldn’t be able to hold that projection much longer, and once the effort stopped it would be a long while before I would find it possible to start again.

Moving more like a wooden toy than a living being, I headed straight for the opening, keeping to a moderate pace. Running would have been stupid even if it had been physically possible, and creeping along would have driven me crazy. I walked through the torchlight and nighttime insect noises up to the opening, my feet making no noise on the thick grass, then held my breath as I passed between two of the women guards. If any of them had spoken or reached out to touch me I would have collapsed, but none of them was capable of doing that just then. Their introspection was so deep that they stood like statues cast in flesh, eyes down or inward, total disinterest turning them deaf and blind to their surroundings. They didn’t know or care that I was passing through the gate, and that was exactly the way it was supposed to be.

Under the right circumstances, a mere fifty feet can stretch for miles; when I’d first ridden across it, it hadn’t seemed so bad, but walking back was a nightmare. The sweat of strain poured over me as though it were raining, but I couldn’t afford to release the projection until I was out of sight. Ten feet and my soles were bruised from the small stones and twigs on the ground, but ignore that and just keep going. Twenty feet and the red cape had grown heavier and more confining, but ignore that and just keep going. Thirty feet and you’re more than halfway to the nearest dark alley, but just keep going. Forty feet and the nighttime dark has lost its breeze, but-keep going. Forty-five and it’s only just ahead, a matter of steps. Even if you’re staggering you can make it, just two more strides, just—

I collapsed against the side of the closed-tight stall no more than a single step inside the narrow alleyway, my forehead and palms against the rough wood and my eyes shut in the darkness. If I’d had to hold that projection even an instant longer I would have died, and that isn’t a figurative analysis. All I wanted to do was fall down to the ground, and the only thing holding me up was the stall, that and the knowledge that if I let myself pass out, all my previous effort would have been wasted. I was safe where I was only until the sun came up, and after that I needed some place else. Since I had no intentions of being conscious when the sun came up, I had to find that someplace else before any of the previous happened. Whatever the hell the previous referred to.

It took three tries before I could push away from the stall side, and that included getting my eyes open again. Deeper into the alley was that way, away from the reflection of torches, at right angles to the stall wall. Stall wall. I was giggling before I knew it, finding that phrase hilarious, inching my way through the darkness with one hand stretched out to a wall and one clapped over my mouth. I knew I shouldn’t be making any noise, but I couldn’t seem to stop laughing—

Until I ran right into a large, hard body. I knew it was a body because I could feel one arm, and it wasn’t simply large-it was giant. Everything funny in the entire universe died when two big hands came to my arms, and if I’d had the strength I would have screamed. I was suddenly convinced it was my master who held me, a giant male Rimilian just like all the rest, one who would carry me back to slavery and an eternity of pain-filled confusion. I mewled in terror and struck out with useless fists, and then I was being shaken hard so that very soft words would get through to me.

“Calm yourself, wenda, and do not struggle,” I heard, no more than a breath behind each sound. “We would not wish the guard wendaa to find you, Terril, now that you have accomplished so excellent an escape.”

Wendaa not w’wendaa, and he called me by name. I had just enough time to realize it was Dallan, before everything disappeared from around me.