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.