Shock. Pain. Blackness.
When she wakes it is an indefinite time later. She is in the same round room, but her hands are bound behind her, her ankles are in irons with a short chain between them. There is no one in the room with her. She still feels some satisfaction. She has forced them to put off their questions. But she regrets the leg irons, they are going to make escape difficult. Have to find Rane, she thinks. Her picklocks would take care of the irons. If she is alive, if she has her boots.
Ildas is titupping about, sniffing at things. He lifts a leg and urinates liquid fire into the incense bowl, flashing its contents to sterile ash. He knocks over the charcoal brazier, plays in the coals, drawing their heat into himself. Almost immediately the air around Tuli begins to clear. She realizes after a bit how dulled her reactions have been, how sluggish her body has been feeling. The drugs and fumes from the charcoal have been poisoning her, softening her up for the Agli. She snarls with fury, wrenches at the rope, but it is too strong, the knots too well tied. Ildas comes over to her, curls himself onto her shoulders; she can feel his heat flowing through her, burning those poisons out of her. She laughs and croons, to him, telling him what a beautiful creature he is, what a wonder. He preens, nuzzles at her face with his pointed nose, his laughter sings in her. Then he stiffens, his head comes up and the laughter turns to a hostile growling.
The Agli is returning.
Because she is warned, he finds her hunched over in a miserable lump, apparently drugged to the back teeth, dull and apathetic. The acolytes straighten her up, force her onto the hard bench, then go about cleaning up the mess she and Ildas have made of the room. When she dares sneak a look at the Agli, she almost betrays herself by a snigger of delight at the sight of his face, three raw furrows down one side of it, two more on the other side. Hope they poison you, she thinks, then understands she must banish that sort of thing from her mind, or the triumph and spite in her will seep through and spoil the picture she wants to present, There is a tie-girl in the Mountain Haven that she despises, even more than that creepy sneery Delpha. Susu Kernovna Deh. Who as far as Tuli can see has no redeeming virtues, who is sullen and stupid, who would rather pout than eat, who is lazy, giggly, spiteful and fawning. You hit her and she licks your feet and doesn’t even try to bite your toes. Why she isn’t one of the more avid Followers Tuli cannot understand, she seems made to be a follower. Susu is the image she wants to project, figuring she is such a nothing the Agli will get disgusted and toss Tuli-Susu out. She begins fitting herself into the role, looking out the corner of her eyes at the Agli, keeping her shoulders slumped, holding her knees together with a proper primness that seems to her only to emphasize her nakedness. She hates that, but thinks it is how Susu would act.
The acolytes settle themselves at the Agli’s feet. He sits in a high-backed elaborately carved chair. It is raised higher than an ordinary chair, his feet rest on a small round stool. The acolytes kneel like black bookends on either side of the stool, what light there is-from the flickering wall-lamps and the high window slits-shining off their shaved and oiled pates.
The Agli speaks. He has a deep musical voice that he keeps soft and caressing. Not yet time for torment, it was the hour of seduction. “Who are you, child?”
She licks her lips, opens her eyes wide, looks at him, looks quickly away, hangs her head. “Susu Kernovna Deh.”
The Agli taps fingers impatiently on the chair arm, raises a brow. She wants to laugh, but forces herself to pout instead. Briefly she wonders why the drugged smoke which is again billowing up from the brazier does not affect the agli and the acolytes, then dismisses that as unimportant. After all, an Agli is a norid and can most likely do such small bits of magic as keeping the air clear about himself and whomever he wants to protect. After a minute, he speaks again. “You are not tie, child. Who are you?”
“Susu. I’m Susu Kernovna Deh.”
“Mmm. Who is your father?”
“Balbo Deh. He says.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Hansit Kern took me into his house and had me taught.” She makes herself smile a prim, soapy little smile. “Many say it is he and not Balbo who fathered me, that I’ve got a look of his oldest girl.” She lets a touch of boasting enter her voice.
The Agli settles into the chair. “What is your tar?”
“Kerntar. It’s out on the edge of the plain, near the pehiiri uplands.” She shrugs. “I don’t know exactly. It’s a long way from here.” More discontent, in her voice. “Eldest daughter threw me out, Soдreh wither her miserable…” She sneaks another sly look at the Agli, lets him catch her at it, looks away in confusion and fear. She is tempted to elaborate on her tale, but has just sense enough not to. Ildas on her lap is warm and supporting, and more important, he is keeping her head and body clear of the drugs from the smoke-especially her head, giving her strength and energy to maintain her efforts at deception. She can’t afford to become too complacent, though, there is always Rane who knows nothing about this story or about the names, nothing about the original Susu. Rane, if she says anything at all, if she is still alive, will tell an entirely different story. Tuli chews on her lip, her unease not wholly pretended.
“Who is the woman?”
“Woman?”
“Who is the woman?”
“Oh her. Just some wandering player. Well, you couldn’t expect me to travel about alone. She was going to take me to a cousin in Oras. Stupid Delanni paid her to. I didn’t want to leave the tar, don’t blame me for it. But when he got sick, Kern I mean, Delanni took over running things and I was the first thing she run off.”
“Who is the woman?”
“Look, I told you, aren’t you listening? Player or something. You want her name? Ask her. I forget, I mean, who cares what’s the name of someone like that.”
“What were you doing at Appentar?”
“Me? I wasn’t doing nothing. Eating, getting out of the cold. What do you think I was doing? Watching those two snippy twits sucking up to her.” She puts a world of venom in the last word.
On and on it goes-simple questions repeated over and over, questions that fold back on themselves, trying to trap her. She clings to Susu with a faint spark of hope growing in her when the questions change nearly imperceptibly until they are centering on Rane. On and on, until she is mumbling and drifting in a haze in spite of Ildas’s efforts, a haze that is far too real for her comfort. She no longer knows exactly what she is saying, can only hide herself in the persona of Susu, answering as best she can in Susu’s voice and Susu’s life.
The questions are thrown more quickly at her, they blur in her mind until none of them make sense. After a while she just stops answering them and drifts into herself, no longer trusting mind and body, drawing in until she is closed up in a tight knot, no ends left out for them to pull. Again Ildas helps her, running round and round her, spinning threads from himself, weaving her into a cocoon of warmth and darkness that no one but her could break through. She lets herself fall away, protected, into her cocoon and fades back into darkness.
She comes out of the haze and confusion back in the cold and stinking cell, stretched out on the plank bed, Ildas a warm spot on her ribs. She sits up. Her hands are untied. It seems odd to notice that so belatedly, but that nonetheless is the order of things. She looks at her legs, grimaces at the crusts of blood on her thighs. What a luxury a hot bath could be. When we get out of this, she thinks, when we get to Oras, I’m going to live in a bathtub. The irons are off her legs. She smiles, flushed with a sudden optimism. It looks like Susu has won the day for her, like the Agli isn’t taking her seriously any more, Maiden be blessed. She rubs at her ankles where the irons had been, then at her wrists. “Ildas,” she says, drawing the word out as she thinks. “Ildas, go see if you can find Rane. Let me know if she’s here. Please?”