Tammad’s struggles stopped almost immediately at the sound of the door opening, and he watched the two women approach from his left with narrowed eyes. The two newcomers were talking together and laughing as they came in, and the laughter didn’t stop when they halted in front of the captive l’lenda.
“It is nearly time to resume your duties, slave,” one of the two said to him, letting her eyes move intrusively over his body. “Should Roodar not have returned by then, it is we who shall see to the matter. You will, of course, give us absolutely no difficulty.”
Tammad stood in the chains holding him and stared down silently at the woman, his jaw set grimly, his hands again turned to fists beyond the manacles. He wasn’t verbally disagreeing with the woman, but his light eyes had developed a stubborn look which the woman didn’t miss.
“I will hear from your own lips that you mean to give no difficulty,” she pursued in a harder voice, stepping onto the frame base to move closer to the man she looked up at with such cold authority. “Must you be reminded once again of the pretty little slave brought here by you, and what her lot has been for your past refusals? She weeps so well when the lash is put to her, that Roodar may soon begin to hope for difficulty from you. We, however, prefer an obedient slave to the sight of a dark-haired weerees writhing upon the stone in pain, therefore do I demand words from you. How will you have it, slave?”
Tammad’s lips parted slightly to show teeth clenched against a snarl of rage, but I could see that his eyes were wild with a sick, twisting worry that kept the snarl from being voiced. So that was the way they held him while he was lucid, I thought with shock and outrage, not just with chains but also with threats against me! They must have told him about it every time Roodar had whipped me, making him believe that the pain I was given was because of him! Not until Leelan’s hand came to my shoulder to steady me did I realize I was trembling, and the rage inside was something I had to hold down by main force.
“I-will give no difficulty, dendaya,” Tammad said then, his voice forced out unwillingly between his teeth, a faint tinge of fear edging it. “You will have no reason to give the girl greater pain, pain which should have been given instead to me. I-was also told that I might perhaps be allowed to see her ....”
“Were you indeed?” the woman interrupted too pleasantly, enjoying the way his stumbling words immediately cut off. “An obedient slave may perhaps be rewarded by his mistress, yet must he first be proven truly obedient. Are you an obedient slave, slave?”
“I-am an obedient slave, dendaya,” her victim answered, looking down at her helplessly. The shame and humiliation he felt were terrible pain, but it was something he had chosen to accept in order to get what he had to have.
“How pleasant to have an obedient slave before one,” the woman said with a purr while the second one laughed, her hands clasped behind her back as she looked upward. “I find you quite attractive, slave. Ask that your dendaya touch you, beg that she honor you.”
There was something of a hesitation, but the victim held chained in place had very little choice. If he wanted what had been promised him, he had to obey.
“I beg you to honor me with a touch, dendaya,” he choked out, his eyes no longer able to meet those of the woman, his voice faint with self-disgust and loathing. He knew what would happen when he said the words, and when the woman put her hand on him, intimately, possessively, his eyes closed entirely with the bottomless humiliation.
“Ah, yes, you find that the touch of your dendaya causes you to tremble, does it not, slave?” The woman laughed, the movement of her hand leaving him in no doubt as to what she held to. “You had best hope that when Roodar returns, she finds interest in the thought of your use. Once the potion is again down your throat, you will cringe and whimper and snivel until you are seen to.”
“I believe it is time that the potion be fetched, sister,” the other woman said, interrupting her own laughter for the purpose. “Roodar will not return for a time, now, yet must he be prepared against that return.”
“And once prepared, I may perhaps use him myself,” the first woman murmured, both hands high to caress the chest and shoulders that couldn’t avoid her touch. “Fetch the potion, sister, the while I allow the nearness of this slave to stir me. ”
The second woman chuckled in amusement and obligingly headed for the door, and I suddenly discovered that Leelan’s hand wasn’t simply on my shoulder any longer. One of her hands held my right arm in a grip that should have been painful while her other hand patted and smoothed my hair, very soft sounds urging me to silence and calm coming from her throat. Somehow Deegor had appeared at my left to do almost the same thing, both of them surely able to see the way my fingers held claw-like to the opening we’d been looking through. I could feel their anxiety and upset surrounding me without having it affect me in the least, but then Deegor’s lips came to my ear, and I could just make out the breath-soft words.
“The Hand of Power, Terril!” she whispered, somehow managing to put urgency into words that were almost soundless. “The output of the Hand has begun again, and they may be seen to in no more than a matter of moments! Hold fast, girl, for it is nearly time!”
I don’t know how often the words had been repeated before I understood them but, once I did, things became worse instead of better. The curtain over my mind had been on the verge of collapse from inner pressure when Deegor distracted me, something both she and Leelan seemed to understand and were trying to keep from happening. I still wanted to explode out at anything in reach, first and foremost against the woman who now stood behind Tammad, trailing her fingers over him, but Deegor was right. The Hand had indeed started broadcasting again, and all I had to do was wait about five minutes to be certain that everyone was prepared and in their place before I stopped it. After that it didn’t matter what I did to the woman, but to touch her before then could ruin everything.
Five more minutes and Tammad would be free—but they were going to make him take that slave drug again.
I ignored the hands on my arms and continued to look through the opening, this time using my hold on the wall to keep me erect. Five minutes and he would be free—but if they gave him that potion it would be another whole day before the effects of the drug left him. Someone who had never been subject to that drug would also never understand how terrible it would be for him, but I’d had experience with that-potion—and I knew. Another whole day of living hell, confused and beaten down and almost afraid to breathe, another day of something worse than death that he would accept without struggle for my sake! I held to the wall and tried to will the time into moving faster, tried to make it all elapse before the second woman came back—but time rarely lets itself be coerced.
When the figure moving slowly with a filled bowl in her hand appeared in the doorway, she should have, by rights, heard the shriek of denial in my mind. She was already back but it was still too soon, and he would swallow it all without a single murmur, thinking he was helping me! I found my back pressed into the unopened back wall of the passage, my fists to my head, so close to losing all control that I thought I would die. If I had to let him swallow that drug I would be useless afterward against the Hand, I knew I would! I had to keep him from accepting it without letting anyone know we were there, had to make him know that I was already free and safe beyond anything they cared to try—
Out of desperation came the answer to my need, and I pulled away from the two Rimilians trying silently to calm me, and went back to look through the opening. The second woman was halfway to the frame, the first now simply standing and awaiting her, and there was no time to lose. I had to tell Tammad I was free, in a way that he couldn’t doubt, in a way that no one else could detect.