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.