Her expression had changed to one of stern command, the sort I was used to seeing only in the men of that world. What she’d said had confused me, almost as much as the way she flitted from emotion to emotion. I was very reluctant to do as she ordered, but capitulation turned out to be easier than refusal.
“Ah,” she breathed when I let my shield dissolve after making myself feel a need for the curtain. She was able to sense part of my mind that way, and I was able to sense the droning buzz of the Hand of Power. Knowing what it was let me analyze the buzz, and I found it to be a leakage from a concerted projection aimed elsewhere than at the city it originated from. The leakage showed it to be a roiling combination of dissatisfaction and impatience and anger with overtones of depression, and I wasn’t surprised it had made me sick when I’d first been exposed to it. That sort of combination was enough to make anyone sick, especially if they didn’t know it was coming at them.
“And that is the extent of it?” Leelan asked after a moment, trying not to let her disappointment show through. I could feel her mind gently reaching out toward mine, probing at the curtain she apparently couldn’t perceive. She seemed to be using only a small part of herself, and although I didn’t know why, she was still much too open and exposed.
“No, that is not the extent of it,” I answered, bracing myself to be totally unprotected. “Pull your mind back, and lessen your perceptions a bit,”
Leelan was confused but did as she was told, and only then did I allow the curtain to leave me. If I hadn’t been feeling so wildly out of sorts the caution wouldn’t have been necessary, but even so the big woman winced as her eyes widened. Ever since I’d awakened the first time my mind had been raging against the inside of my shield, and I hated to think what it must look like to her.
“Mother of us all!” she gasped, her sun-bronzed face paling, one hand going to her head. “Never have I felt such strength, such range, such-Terril, you are a—a—”
“Monster or Prime, take your choice,” I muttered as I snapped my shield closed again, cutting off the clanging of her shock. Since the words were in Centran she didn’t understand them, but I don’t think she would have heard me even if I’d spoken Rimilian.
“The others will have to be shown,” she said in her own mutter, putting a second hand to her head as well. “Should I attempt to seek their belief without, they will immediately send for Hestin out of fear for my balance. No more than three of them will be able to experience her, yet together they and I will surely find it possible to convince the others. I will send for them tomorrow, at first light, and then we shall at last be able to—”
Her words cut off as her eyes finally saw me, and her grin was part embarrassment. It also came to her then that her hands were still at her head, and she pulled them down with a laugh of pure enjoyment.
“Terril, my honored guest, once again I must ask your forgiveness,” she said, trying to get rid of the grin even though it didn’t want to leave. “To speak of the joy you have given me would take one far better versed in our tongue than I. For now let me say only this: when you return to the palace of the Chama, there will be many others to stand with you. We have long awaited one who was a match for Farian, and now, thanks be to the mother of us all, we have one so far her superior that there is no comparison. Where you lead, there we will follow.”
“You mean to follow me?” I asked in shock, feeling as though someone had switched worlds on me while I wasn’t looking. “Do you mistake me for a warrior?”
“A l’lenda?” she repeated, laughing at the word I’d used. “No, Terril, not a l’lenda, yet surely a w’wenda, in each and every sense of the word. W’wenda is no more derived from the presence of sword skill than is l’lenda; one who is w’wenda or l’lenda will develop sword skill, yet does the calling come long before that. A warrior must first be born, and then may he or she be trained.”
“I must surely have damaged your mind with mine,” I told her flatly, putting the piece of bread back on the tray. “There are those about who are fit to be followed, yet I am not one of them. Were you not able to see that when I swept the curtain aside?”
“Perhaps I saw more than you know,” she said, the grin now gone, calm assurance strong in her eyes as she leaned slightly forward. “What I saw was one with a very great anger in her, and one with a worry equally as great. Had Farian the strength which you possess, she would surely have already begun to claim the world. Is the world yours, or do you perhaps mean to claim it soon?”
“For what reason would I wish this world?” I asked, the sourness I felt clear in my voice. “Were it to become mine, I would have the possession of uncounted numbers of stubborn, thick-headed l’lendaa who are impossible to reason with. Do you think me bereft, that I would seek a difficulty such as that?”
“Truly are you wiser than I had at first thought, Terril,” she said with a laugh, the grin back again. “Few would have the ability to see the matter so clearly, and then would be faced with unexpected and unsought-for largesse. You have power and conscience and wisdom; what more might be asked for in a leader?”
“The desire to lead,” I pronounced, taking another swallow of my juice. “Had I not known this discussion was idle, it might well have upset me. As I shall return to the palace the darkness after this one, however, I need not be concerned over leadership. Armed forces cannot be raised so quickly.” Then I eyed what was in my goblet. “And before that I must somewhere find a wine worth drinking.”
“I have heard it said by those with a weather eye, that the new day will bring us rain to last throughout the darkness,” she commented, looking so undisturbed that her eyes twinkled. “Also, you have not been given wine for you are not yet permitted it; fast you must return to health. Eat your meal, girl, and then return to your furs; you must sleep well this darkness, for the new day will bring many occurrences.”
“I had thought the new day was to bring rain?” I said, feeling more and more annoyed at all the fun she was having. “And I find that I have had enough of that meal, so the tray may be returned at any time you wish. I will, of course, seek my furs as soon as weariness descends upon me.”
“Oh, of course,” she agreed with a solemnity her eyes failed to share, nodding but not moving from where she sat. “Though it grieves me to disagree with a guest beneath my roof, these things cannot be as you wish them. Soon you will indeed be left to the peace of solitude, yet for the moment—” She broke off at the sound of a knock, then grinned as she immediately rose to her feet. “As ever, precisely on time.”
As she headed for the door I wondered what she was talking about, then found out all too quickly. Opening the door showed two men, one of them Dallan, one a stranger, and they didn’t wait to be invited in. They simply stepped through the doorway, the stranger entering first with a faint, highly perplexed frown on his face, and it suddenly came to me that I was sitting there absolutely naked! Hastily putting the goblet back on the tray, cursing Leelan under my breath for not warning me, I began to scramble to my feet to get to covers. Although there wasn’t much scramble to it I did manage to stand, and then the stranger’s hand was on my arm, obviously in an attempt to support me.
“What is the meaning of this, Leelan?” he asked my hostess, holding my arm to keep me from getting back to the bed. “For what reason has she been made to leave her furs?”
“She has not been made to leave them, Hestin,” Leelan answered with continuing calm, looking up with a smile at the man who held me. “Terril has left her furs of her own accord, having felt considerably better, and now refuses the provender I have brought. Beyond two swallows of bread and three of juice, she wishes no more of it.”