The Warrior Rearmed

12

When the new day dawned bright and fresh, I was finally able to see it. Tammad dressed himself, then wrapped me up in a fur and carried me to the room he’d been given, a large blue and white room with arched windows and adjoining bathing room. I’d tried insisting on walking so that his poor abused body wouldn’t be hurt any further, and he’d cheerfully agreed-on the provision that I did it without the fur. He laughed as I glared at him while he carried me along, then I gave up on the glare to put my arms about his neck. I loved hearing him laugh—and knowing that he was happy—and was too happy myself to stay angry long over nonsense.

When we got to Tammad’s room we made use of the bathing facilities, then I smeared his wounds with the salve that did such a wonderful job of healing. He was cut just about all over by the leather of that whip, and from the depth of most of the cuts he probably wouldn’t have been walking at all if not for the salve. He made not a single sound as the salve went on, but the sheen of perspiration on his forehead when I was done told the story well enough. We shared a meal—which I insisted on feeding him—and then we shared a nap.

When I awoke Tammad was gone somewhere, but a green gown lay on the furs in his place, one like the silver gown Dallan had given me. I put it on with a great deal of pleasure, sure that it hadn’t been the white-dressed woman who had brought it. She seemed to know how I felt without asking, and wouldn’t have brought me clothing while my head still hurt. I was tired of having that constant headache, and couldn’t help wondering how long it would take to go away. I didn’t care for the thought of going through life with a permanent throb behind my eyes, but also had no intentions of simply lying still until it decided to abandon me. Now that I had clothing, I could divert my attention from it by wandering around the palace.

I was just about ready to concede defeat in my battle with the tie at my right wrist when the door to the room opened, ending the fight in a different way. Len came in with a broad stride that he managed to stop just short of running me down, causing me to jump back with a squeak of surprise before it was clear he did intend stopping. I looked at him with the confusion I felt, wondering why he was frowning, but just staring didn’t get me anywhere.

“If you intend making a habit of entering rooms like that, don’t be surprised when people stop inviting you over,” I said instead. “One more step and this gown would have become carpeting.”

“You really didn’t know I was there, did you?” he asked, staring down at me and sounding as though he were in the middle of a different conversation. “You also didn’t know I intended stopping just short of you. What’s making your head hurt like that?”

“Pain,” I answered suddenly understanding what was happening. “Did you really think I was faking, Len? Do you believe it’s that easy to just close your eyes and pretend to be blind? No, obviously you don’t believe it, or you wouldn’t have expected me to be peeking. Well, sorry to disappoint you, brother, but there’s nothing left to peek with. The only thing I do have left is this headache.”

“Terry, I’m sorry,” he said, and there was tragedy in his eyes as he put out his hand to me. “I guess I was hoping you were faking instead of being convinced of it. Maybe there’s something I can do.”

“You can, but not for me,” I smiled, taking his hand. “Dallan and Tammad are still hurting a lot more than I am, and could use a couple of sessions of pain control. I wish I could do it myself, but I—can’t. ”

“I’ll give it a try, but I’ve never been very good at pain control,” he said as he squeezed my hand. “But first I want a closer look at you and that headache of yours. I’d like to see for myself whether or not I can do anything.”

I briefly considered trying to talk him out of it, then changed my mind with a shrug. Len would not be happy until he’d poked and pried and satisfied himself that nothing could be done, and arguing would just be a waste of time. I led him over to the room’s nest of cushions, we both sat, and he looked down at me with a distracted expression. I knew he was thumbing through my emotions and feelings looking for the faintest hint of a response, but I couldn’t feel a thing. His touch was usually light but very masculine, but I couldn’t detect his presence even with my eyes closed and every nerve in my body straining. It seemed I’d been hoping at least as hard as he had, but sometimes hope is more reflexive than voluntary. I pushed the feeling aside with impatience, and made myself think about something else until Len was through.

“I think I understand now,” Len said at last, taking a deep breath as his eyes came back in focus.

“What do you understand?” I asked, faintly curious. “How the burnout broke the circuit?”

“No,” he answered, still looking sober. “There’s a—gap of sorts where I used to be able to detect your ability, but that’s not what I meant. I think I understand why you aren’t permanently hysterical and half insane.”

“I’ve made myself one hell of a reputation around here, haven’t I?” I sighed at the thought and shook my head. “People notice only when I don’t throw fits.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he repeated, gesturing impatiently. “If I ever suffer burnout, you can be damned well sure I won’t get over it. Not many of us would, but I think I know why you did. ”

“Well, I was a Prime,” I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. “That has to count for something.”

“It doesn’t count for anything except that you’ve lost more than most other empaths would have,” he disagreed with a headshake. “Have you ever heard the ancient myth about the goddess who fell in love with a mortal? No? Well, the story tells that there was once a goddess who met a mortal man and fell in love with him. He loved her too, but he had a lot of trouble coping with a goddess, in understanding her needs and actions, and with suiting his own actions to hers. The goddess saw the trouble he was having, and knew that if something wasn’t done, their love would die. She couldn’t make him a god, so instead had herself turned into a mortal woman, one he had no trouble coping with. She paid a high price for his love, but afterward they did manage to live happily ever after.”

“Len, are you saying I did this on purpose?” I asked, feeling a tightening all over my body. “Because if you are . . . . ”

“No, no, I know you didn’t do it on purpose,” he interrupted, leaning forward to emphasize the intensity of his words. “I’m trying to say I think you’re glad it happened. It was your empathetic abilities that stood between you and Tammad, and now that they’re gone you’re ready to live happily ever after. I can’t really argue with a viewpoint that has let you keep your sanity, but Terry—Don’t you think you’re selling Tammad short? You’re the one who thinks he can’t cope with an empath, just as you were the only one who didn’t believe he really loved you. I think he could cope—if you ever gave him the chance.”

“Don’t you think this conversation is a waste of time under the current circumstances?” I asked, finding it impossible to lose the stiffness I’d developed. “It doesn’t matter whether Tammad could or couldn’t cope. There’s nothing left for him to cope with.”

“Terry, that’s part of the point I’m trying to make,” he answered gently, taking my hand even though I didn’t want him to. “I know almost nothing about burnout, and I doubt if you know much more. What if your abilities just need encouragement to come back? What if your denial is the only thing keeping them away? They might not be as strong as they once were, but . . . ”

“No!” I shouted, pulling my hand out of his grip. “They’re gone for good and I don’t want them back! Do you hear? I don’t want them back!”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but I didn’t want to hear it. I scrambled to my feet and ran to the door, threw it open, then looked wildly about. Tammad stood in the corridor only ten feet to the right, talking to some men, and he turned in surprise when I ran to him. His arms opened to make a safe place for me as they always did, and I clung to him in an effort to stop the shaking and shuddering that had for some reason descended on me. The throbbing in my head had become a pounding, but I didn’t care as long as I could stand with my cheek to his chest, held in those powerful arms.

“Hama, what occurs here?” the barbarian asked, his voice gently puzzled. “Lenham, why has she run to me in this way?”

“She didn’t care for certain parts of my conversation,” Len answered as he came up, obviously having followed right after me. “There doesn’t seem to be much I can do for her, except to recommend that she rest as much as possible while she still has that headache. The more active she is, the worse it gets.”

“If I could just walk around, spend some time outside, I’m sure it would go away,” I said, looking up into Tammad’s concerned face. “Being cooped up like that is making it worse, and I thought we could . . . . ”

“She needs to rest,” Len insisted, his tone pure calm and sweet reason. “If she doesn’t, it can only get worse.”

“Then she will rest,” the barbarian said, inarguable decision clear in the way he picked me up. “You may walk about when the pain has gone from you, memabra.”

“No, please—” I began, but it was already too late to keep him from carrying me back toward his rooms. I thought I might be able to get him to listen to me once we were alone, but hadn’t counted on the sudden waves of sleepiness washing over me. The sleepiness—sent by a grinning Len—wasn’t strong enough to put me out, but it did make me yawn uncontrollably, adding to the impression that rest really was what I needed. Despite my protests Tammad put me to bed, then set with me until a meat soup was brought by the woman who was dressed in white. I didn’t know whose idea that was, but the soup contained that subtle sweetness that said it was medicated. Len stood looking on while Tammad fed it to me, and the last thing I saw before my eyes closed was Len’s expressionless face surrounding deeply satisfied eyes.

When I awoke the room was empty, and the gown that Tammad had taken from me was gone. I spent a few minutes cursing out Len, but all that did was send ripples through the headache that was still with me. It was pretty clear Len thought he was helping me by interfering, but that didn’t change the fact that I didn’t want his help. He had no right appointing himself the one to Set Things Straight, and had no right telling my I was wrong not to want my abilities back. If I was happier as I was, who was he to tell me I should try putting things back as they had been? All my abilities had ever done was make trouble for me, and I was tired of trouble. If Len was right and they needed my encouragement to come back, then they were gone forever.

I tried getting comfortable in the bed furs, but it was only afternoon, I was all slept out, and I was bored. When the door to the room opened I thought it was Tammad coming back, but I was terribly wrong. Len and Garth came in instead, big, friendly smiles on their faces, and insisted on visiting with me for a while. I discovered that the sight of Garth’s dark hair upset me, but that didn’t make them leave. As a matter of fact, nothing I said made them leave. I knew when Len soothed my upset at the sudden memory of the intruder, but I wasn’t grateful and didn’t care to be manipulated that way. Len just grinned and began telling Garth how alive he felt when tie was awakened, and Garth helped out by asking interested questions. I put my hands over my ears and buried myself under the cover fur, but was saved from suffocation by the arrival of Tammad. He didn’t press me when I said I couldn’t tell him what was wrong, but he didn’t need the details to know that Len and Garth were responsible for the way I felt. He overrode their attempts at explanation and just sent them away, then spent a satisfyingly long time making love to me and holding me. I quickly forgot all about Len and Garth, and didn’t think about them again.

Until the next day. Telling an untalented person to stay away from someone who doesn’t want them around usually solves the problem, but the same can’t be done with an empath. Len didn’t have to be in the same room with me to reach me, and reach me he did.

The new day was as pretty as the one before had been, but I started out feeling depressed that the headache wasn’t gone and went downhill from there. My depression deepened until I cried like a baby, feeling heartbroken and all alone. Then, for some reason, the depression lightened, and kept lightening until I felt bubbly and deliriously happy. I left the bed furs and danced around the room, laughing like an idiot and giggling over nothing. Tammad came in just then, and I pulled him to the bed furs, made him sit, then danced for him. He was absolutely delighted with the dance, his eyes consuming me with every movement, but when he stood up to take his swordbelt off, I suddenly realized how shy and frightened I felt. He was so big and unstoppable that I felt like a child in his presence, and I ran from him with a squeak of alarm, making him chase me all over the room. It didn’t take long before he caught me, and I was carried over his shoulder back to the bed furs, where he completed the game by raping me. I didn’t realize he thought it was a game until later, when it was all over and I had come to understand why I’d been acting so strangely. Len must have exhausted himself, but he’d forced me into showing Tammad I could dance, and then had gotten me raped. I couldn’t tell Tammad about what Len was doing without discussing Len’s theories, and I didn’t want to do that. I also couldn’t protect myself from Len, which was surely his purpose in doing what he did. If I got desperate enough to protect myself I’d have to try getting my shield back, which would surely bring the rest back if it were at all possible. Len was trying to make me want my abilities back, but his plan wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t want them back no matter what he did to me.

I spent the rest of the day gritting my teeth and jumping at mental shadows, but the worst thing that happened was that Tammad made me dance for him again before he would let me eat the final meal of the day. I’d spent a lot of time and energy keeping him from knowing I could dance, and while it gave me pleasure to give him pleasure, his reactions to my dancing also made me uneasy, just as I’d known they would. Tammad wasn’t a civilized man who would smile politely and applaud with moderate enthusiasm when the dance was over, coming up to me to pat my shoulder and congratulate me. He lay stretched out on one elbow in the carpet fur among the cushions, his eyes following every gesture of my hands, every slide of my hips, every turn of my feet. After a few minutes I couldn’t take being stared at like that any longer and turned to dance with my back to him, but that was a mistake. I suddenly found him right behind me, his hands sliding down my upstretched arms to my sides and then to my breasts and belly, his haddin no longer encumbering him, his appreciation already reaching for me. I gasped as he lifted me off my feet and took me down to the carpeting with him, but he didn’t hurt me the way I feared he might. He kept a tenuous but adequate control of himself while he loved me, but that meant duration rather than intensity. I was given a good deal of pleasure in return for the dancing, but by the time I was able to get to the food, it was cold. Tammad made up for that by warming me again, and it was quite some time before we got to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, the headache was gone.

I stood by one of the tall, ribbed windows and looked out, aware of the warm, sweet breeze but paying no attention to it. I was more aware of something else, and that something else was making me sick inside. When the throb of the headache had faded, it was as though a curtain had been lifted, showing me something that had been there all along but obscured by the throb. The shield I was used to using covered my entire mind, but what I could feel then was a smaller shield, surrounding one small part of my mind. It was most likely the gap Len had encountered, and somehow I knew that I could now thrust it aside without effort, and my abilities would be back as though they’d never been gone. They hadn’t been gone, only recuperating from the battering they’d taken, the key to the shield hidden from me so that I couldn’t expose them until they were ready to withstand use again. Instead of being legitimately blind, I had become a sighted person with eyes held closed, a pretend cripple who didn’t want to be whole instead of a handicapped person going on despite that handicap. I expected to feel cheap and small and I did, but I was also afraid. “Once a pawn, always afraid” should have been an old saying, and it wasn’t just my relationship with Tammad that I was afraid for. My abilities were the sort that would interest anyone with an urge to influence and control his fellow man, which would put me up for grabs again. I may have felt bored from all the lying around I’d done, but being the center of that sort of interest wasn’t my idea of something to do to chase away boredom.

I ran a hand through my hair then rested my arm on the window edge, a moment later adding my face to my arm. I felt absolutely no urge to remove the small, thick shield and peek out, but that didn’t mean I could just go ahead and pretend that my abilities weren’t there. Too often their use was reflexive rather than voluntary, like blinking because of a finger poked toward an eye. Time and again over the past few days I’d caught myself trying to read someone, and if the headache had disappeared sooner I would have succeeded. Using my abilities was too much a part of me, and I’d never get away with pretending never. And what would happen when Tammad found out? He’d told me he was happy I was no longer an empath; the last thing I wanted was for him to think I was beyond him again. Despite Len’s opinions to the contrary, Tammad had admitted that he couldn’t cope with an empath. What would he do if he found out he had one to cope with all over again’? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to find out; speaking as a professional coward, I was much better off not knowing.

I’d been hearing the sound of metal banging on metal for a number of minutes, but the noise hadn’t been able to break through the agitation in my thoughts. As soon as I decided I needed something to distract me I heard it again, and this time looked out the window to see what it was. The room I stood in was on the second floor of the palace, with a wide unrailed walk on the floor below, and an exercise area perhaps ten feet below and beyond the walk. A number of l’lendaa had been loosening their swordarms in this area, but just then there were only two going at it, with the rest watching. I didn’t understand why the two were of such interest until I realized they were Len and Garth, and that they were getting instruction from those who were watching. Garth had more familiarity with a sword than Len did, but Garth had the problem of unlearning some of what he already knew, while Len had no such obstacle standing in his way. As I watched them I also became convinced that Len was using his abilities to predict when, and to a certain extent how, Garth would strike at him, evening up the level of ability between them even more. Len slashed and ducked and Garth ducked and slashed, and it took another minute of watching before I realized that they were using practice swords, blunted weapons that they couldn’t hurt each other with. Even from that distance I could see the sweat slicking their bodies, showing they’d been at it for a while. They must have been tired, but they gave no sign that they intended stopping any time in the near future.

I’d been looking at Len and Garth just to have something to look at, but suddenly it came to me that I wasn’t looking at them with anything that could be described as friendly feeling. I tried to brush the animosity aside, but it was growing too thick to be brushed. Those two down there were having a grand old time, but they probably had plans for coming after me again later, as they had the day before. Under the guise of helping me they’d put me through hell, not once considering the possibility that I really was burned out for good. If I had been, Len’s prodding would have been the equivalent of pulling wings off insects, an attack against the helpless that could never be resisted or countered. The more I thought about it the angrier I got, and then I remembered what they’d done to me back in Aesnil’s palace. They’d turned me into a whimpering, cringing slave begging to be used, and afterward I’d sworn to get even. For all I knew Len was right about my having lost some of my ability, but right then all I wanted was revenge.

It happened so abruptly and strangely that even I was startled. I stood at the window seething as I watched the two men, seeing them run through a complex-looking series of attacks and counters that must have been pretty good. The men watching them raised their voices in congratulatory approval as the two finally lowered their weapons, and I could almost see the chests swelling on the two Amalgamation men. They gripped left hands as they spoke to each other with grins and laughter, then released each other’s hand to slap each other’s shoulders. They were so damned pleased with themselves that it made me furious, and I remember wishing with fists clenched tight that they would do something to make themselves look unutterably foolish in front of all those men whose good opinion they were so eager for.

And that seemed to be all it took.

I don’t know whether I noticed first that the small, thick shield was gone, or that Garth and Len were acting strangely. Instead of standing tall and strong and looking like warriors, they were suddenly standing slouch-hipped and limp-wristed, emphasizing what they were saying with broad, feminine gestures and laughing in shrill giggles. They didn’t seem to notice the change until the l’lendaa around them began to guffaw and point, and then they looked around themselves with confused lack of understanding. I could feel their emotions clearly from where I stood, as clearly as the amusement and ridicule coming from the l’lendaa around them. Len had thought my abilities would come back lessened, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. I felt strong and healthy and raring to go, and that was all I needed. Tammad was as good as lost to me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I slipped down to the carpeting and buried my face against my knees, drowning in an ocean of distrustingly vigorous health and mental ability.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes before the riot burst into the room, storming and screaming from the fury in Len’s and Garth’s minds. I didn’t look up until they were almost on top of me, but not because I was trying to think of a way out of the mess. I wasn’t thinking of anything at all, or if I was it was that I didn’t give a damn what those two did to me. The happiness had lasted such a short time, but it was all I would ever have.

“That was a damned lousy thing to do, Terry!” Len shouted as he stomped closer, his face flushed and his eyes blazing. “Do you know what you made us look like out there? How could you have—”

His words broke off as his mind wrenched to a halt, angry still but suddenly aware of what he was saying. He’d been too wild to think about it sooner, and he was genuinely surprised—and then immediately pleased.

“Terry, you did it!” he shouted, this time happily. “Your abilities are back and you used them! You’re not hiding your head in the sand any more!”

“She’s also not jumping up and down with joy,” Garth pointed out, his hand on Len’s arm. His anger was also a lot less than it had been, and he looked down at me with the disturbed sobriety in his mind. “She’s crying instead of crowing, and that isn’t the Terry I used to know.”

“She’s crying inside a lot harder,” Len said, sending me the comfort of his mind as he came closer to crouch next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. “Terry, I can feel that you’ve given up and you mustn’t do that. It’ll all work out, just wait and see. ”

“He doesn’t want an empath, Len,” I whispered, feeling the tears roll down my cheeks. “He said he doesn’t, and you know he never lies. Why did it have to come back?”

I buried my face against my knees again as Len’s arm tightened around me, his mind frantically trying to keep the stricken feeling from reaching me. Len knew as well as I that Tammad didn’t lie, and there was nothing he could say to alter the truth: my life with Tammad was over before it had really started. Garth came closer to reach down and stroke my hair with an empathetic echo of pain in his mind, as helpless as Len to do anything to stop it.

“What do you do near my woman?” a cold voice growled angrily. I felt Len flinch as I raised my head again to see Tammad in the doorway, and then the big barbarian was coming toward us, his left palm touching his sword hilt with a sliding caress that brought a flash of fear to both Garth and Len. They’d learned enough about Rimilian swordplay to really appreciate what level Tammad stood at, which was considerably higher than any they were likely to attain in the reasonably near future.

“Tammad, we have good news,” Garth began, trying for hearty good cheer in his tone instead of nervousness, but he gave up the attempt when it was immediately clear that he was being ignored. Tammad was staring at Len, and the lack of expression on his face was chilling.

“You were told, were you not, that you were not to approach Terril again?” he said to Len, the growl in his voice echoing the anger in his mind. “Now you have not only approached her and put your hands upon her without permission, you have also brought her tears. No man may bring tears to my woman and feel himself safe from my wrath, no man! Stand before me, Lenham, and speak quickly upon what occurs here.”

I was trembling as Len took his arm back and slowly straightened out his crouch, his mind clanging with shock and fear. I felt the fear too, a reaction to the deadliness flowing coldly from Tammad’s mind, a deadliness I’d felt many times before. I knew I had to explain the misunderstanding before he hurt Len, but the trembling fear that gripped me was almost physical in its hold, freezing my throat and paralyzing my will. Len straightened all the way, his eyes widening, and then he pointed a disbelieving finger at Tammad.

“You’re projecting!” Len said hoarsely, the shock still bright in his mind as he stared up into Tammad’s face. “I’ve never had it coming straight at me before, or I would have seen it sooner. No wonder you were able to stand against Terry’s projections—when you’re angry you’re almost as strong as she is!”

“What nonsense do you speak?” the barbarian demanded, frowning at Len in annoyance at the way he was being stared at. For my part I was frozen in shock, staring up in a daze of dumbfoundedness. When the annoyance touched Tammad his anger lessened—and so did the terrible fear I’d felt! What Len said was true—Tammad was projecting!

“And you said you didn’t want anything to do with empaths?” Len laughed, a wild sound to it. “I’ll bet you even receive a little without knowing you’re doing it. Hell, man, you have to, or you’d never be so good with people! You work with what squeezes through that cloud of calm you use as a shield, groping around blindly, but stronger than any untrained empath has the right to be! And now that I think about it, I’ll bet you’re not the only one. L’lendaa have too much control over themselves for it to be an accident. I’ll bet most of you are latents!”

“So that’s why I always found myself drowning in panic when you were mad at me,” I blurted, rising to my feet to stare at Tammad as wide-eyed as Len had been. “You were projecting at me so strongly that I was completely blowed over. If I’d known enough to shield—but I didn’t know enough, not then and not when the men of this world projected desire at me. Unshielded, I couldn’t have resisted any of you in a million years. You forced me with your minds as well as your bodies—every one of you!”

“Wenda, I have no knowledge of what you speak,” Tammad said, his mind filling with confusion and disturbance over the outrage I was showing. “Why do you look at me so—as though I am no longer the man who banded you’?”

“Oh, you’re the same one, all right,” I said, putting my fists on my hips as I looked up at him. “The one who was so nobly proud of never having taken unfair advantage of anyone, and the one who said he couldn’t cope with an empath—and the one who punished me for using my abilities. Well, what about you’? Who punishes you for projecting every time you lose your temper? Which happens a lot more often than you care to admit! Well? Who gets to do the honors?”

I was too furious to really notice that he was actually backing up away from me as I advanced on him, but if I’d stopped to think about it I wouldn’t have been all that surprised. I was projecting the same sort of anger at him that he usually sent toward me, and my projections were still stronger than his. I’d copied that sense of deadliness and thrown that in as well, giving him a taste of what had time and again sent me cringing back from him. He didn’t cringe the way I had but he did back up, shaking his head to throw off the effects of my projection. He was damned sensitive, all right, to know so accurately when someone was projecting at him, but he didn’t get anywhere until that heavy calm swirled back into his mind, blocking off most of my efforts. He used that calm as both a shield and a control on his own emotions, and once he had it in place he stopped backing up.

“That’s a good question Terry just asked,” Len put in, coming up to stand next to me. “The least she ever got for unauthorized projecting was a good whacking on the backside, which is a lot less than what you gave me for doing the same thing to her. Now that we’ve found you doing it, what do you get for it?”

“You may attempt to do to me what I did to you,” Tammad told Len in a mutter, his hand to his head as he fought to throw off the lingering effects of my projection. “You need not even wait till this throbbing abandons me, should the matter touch you strongly enough. I feel no regret for what punishments I gave, for your power was exercised willfully while mine was not. Should this insanity be true.”

His last sentence sent a quiver through his mind, a rippling in the calm that showed how upset he really was. He didn’t want anything to do with empathy, especially from the inside out, and all the anger drained out of me as though it had been blotted up in a giant towel. I used pain control to soothe away the throbbing headache my projection had given him, then turned and hurried back to the windows.

“My thanks, Lenham,” I heard him say with a sigh as I sank down among the cushions. “To give aid rather than seek revenge shows you to be a man of strength.”

“Don’t thank me,” Len denied with a snort of amusement. “I don’t have that sort of strength, character-wise or pain-controlwise. Don’t you recognize the touch of a Prime?”

“Terril?” Tammad said, and I could almost see his incredulity even though I was facing toward the windows. “Her power has returned?”

“That’s the good news I was trying to tell you about,” Garth said, a bemused quality to his mind. “I didn’t know then just how much news there was.”

“That’s what brought us up here,” Len said, his tone wry. “We—ah—discovered that Terry had her ability back and came to congratulate her. You found her crying because she had the foolish idea that you wouldn’t be happy to have her the way she used to be. Now wasn’t it silly of her to believe you wouldn’t want her.”

There was no answer from Tammad to that, and I closed my eyes and put my face in my hands. That rigid calm was keeping me from seeing how he really felt the way it usually did, but I didn’t have to read him to know the truth. He had told me the truth, and he didn’t lie.

“Terril, hama, you must not weep,” his voice came then, startlingly right behind me. His hand stroked my hair as he sat down next to me, and then he was pulling me to him. “There is nothing that would cause me to not desire you, this you cannot doubt. My love will not fail you.”

“You said you can’t cope with an empath,” I sobbed, throwing my arms around him as I buried my face in his chest. “You can’t tell me you were lying to make me feel better, because I know you weren’t. I don’t want to be beyond you—I’d rather be crippled!”

“No, hama-sadendra, I was not lying.” He sighed as he tightened his arms around me, and I could feel the sadness flowing through his calm. “I did indeed have difficulty coping with a woman with the power, yet this difficulty did not, in fine, cause me to turn from her. No less a thing than death could do so. Fool that I am, I should not have refrained from saying this sooner, yet I had not thought your power would return. As for being beyond me-wenda, should Lenham be correct, that will never again be so. Perhaps now I may be beyond you.”

“You think you’re better than a trained Prime?” I exclaimed, shocked into leaning back away from him. And then I saw his grin and heard the chuckle in his mind, and understood what he’d done. “You said that deliberately to get a rise out of me,” I accused with a black look, then couldn’t help laughing. “You’re a mean, nasty beast of a barbarian, but I love you anyway. Even if you are too good for me.”

“I may perhaps be too good for you after you have aided me in the use of this—power,” he said with a grimace, wiping the last of the tears off my cheek. “Sooner would I have no more than a woman with the power, for the difficulties are bound to be many and large.”

“We’ll take care of them together,” I reassured him, hugging him around again. I’d train him to use what he had, and somehow get back to Central to retrieve our child, and do my damnedest to help him conquer the whole damned universe, if that’s what he wanted. I’d heard that Cinnan had rescued Aesnil from her slavery, and the two of them had worked things out even better than Tammad and I had. We’d probably leave Gerleth with them and go back to Grelana for the rest of Tammad’s l’lendaa, and then we’d head back home. After that we had the Amalgamation to tackle, and I was actually looking forward to it.

“We’ll take care of everything together,” I repeated, still hugging him. “Especially getting you trained. I wouldn’t want you in danger of being punished any longer than necessary.”

“Speaking of punishment,” Len drawled, “did I mention, Tammad, how Garth and I knew Terry had regained her abilities? You see, we were in the exercise court just below this window, and all of a sudden . . . .”

“Len, don’t!” I squeaked suddenly filled with pure panic, but it was much too late. The unreasonably large arms around me were no longer gently soft, and a cloud of anger was rolling straight through the billowing calm. I looked up to see two hard blue eyes staring down at me, and frantically shook my head. “It was an accident!” I pleaded, trying to make Tammad believe me. “I didn’t do it on purpose just to get even for what they did to me! I didn’t! You can’t punish me for an accident!”

Damned barbarian. He did.