Since I’d come to Rimilia I’d spent more time on seetarr than I’d ever been interested in, but only rarely as the sole passenger and the one doing the steering. Seetarr are so calm and manageable in a walk or slow trot that they tend to lull whatever normal caution one possesses, making one believe that they will be the same at any pace. I discovered my mistake only when it was too late, only when the seetar I rode gleefully picked up more speed than I had anticipated it would, now bent on the game of catching up to its companion. I had time enough to grab on to its mane and saddle with one hand each when the first headlong jolting began, and thereafter didn’t even have the time to gasp.
As I’d noticed on other occasions, terror has the ability to freeze both body and mind without the least difficulty. Plunging down a mountain road at breakneck speed in mid-afternoon light appeared to be an excellent source of terror, and if I hadn’t been entirely convulsed into a death grip to keep from failing off, I probably would have screamed myself blue. The woods and mountainside flashed past in a blur that made my eyes water, the jouncing rattling my teeth and bones so thoroughly that I couldn’t even appreciate the cooled air flowing by. In a distant way I became aware of the fact that Aesnil’s mount had also speeded up, which convinced me she must be crazy. Anyone who traveled at that speed voluntarily on a seetar had to be crazy!
I don’t know how long it took before I realized that Aesnil wasn’t any more a voluntary passenger than I was. She might have started the speed escalation, but it hadn’t been her choice to continue it. Our seetarr were having fun playing a game after spending so long in dull routine, and I finally understood why the barbarian had never wanted me to ride one on my own. It was clearly in the nature of the beast to do things like that, especially to riders who hadn’t the strength and experience to stop them. I can’t say the realization made me any less terrified, but along with the thoughtless fear anger appeared, easing the grip on my mind just enough to let me do more than quiver and shake. With a calm deliberation I wasn’t feeling, I reached out first to Aesnil’s mount and ordered it to slow and stop, then did the same to mine. The seetarr felt the beginnings of rage in me and reluctantly obeyed, slowing carefully until they came to a full stop, one beside the other. The miserable beasts were scarcely even breathing hard, but Aesnil was gulping in deep, desperate swallows of air, and I was having trouble unclenching my hands from mane and saddle. I felt as battered and bruised as I had after the barbarian had beaten me, but as soon as I could I twisted out of the saddle and dropped to the ground. The pebbles of the road hurt the bottoms of my feet, and my legs felt as though they were made of rain cloud; nevertheless I staggered across to the grass of the forest, lowered myself, then leaned back against a tree with a groan.
“Once again I owe you my thanks,” Aesnil croaked, dismounting stiffly and with as much pain as I had. “Had you not stopped this thoughtless beast, it would undoubtedly have taken my life. I had not the strength to cling to it much longer,”
“How good of you to give me your thanks,” I croaked back, watching her totter to the grass and collapse on it. “Had you given me your consideration instead, your thanks would have been unnecessary. The beast you ride is not alone in thoughtlessness. ”
“How dare you speak to me in such a manner,” she huffed, trying for outrage but managing no more than a weak glare. She lay in the grass holding herself up on one elbow, her head still hanging despite the attempted glare. “Though I am no longer Chama I will be again, therefore do I demand respect from those about me who serve my will.”
“Respect may not be demanded,” I told her, letting some cold enter my voice. “To obtain it one must earn it, and be willing to give it to others as well. A true leader would know this, and know also the difference between a companion and a servant. Was this the reason you saw so carefully to my escape along with your own? So that I might serve you?”
“It is a great privilege to serve a Chama,” she answered, but the attempted belligerence was gone, replaced by traces of confusion and hesitancy which also showed in the slight widening of her pretty blue eyes. “To what other would I allow such a privilege, if not she who served me once and was given pain for the doing?”
” I want none of privileges such as that!” I answered harshly. “I am not a slave, to be given the privilege of serving! I shall serve you now no more than I did previously, which is not at all! No more than my own purposes were served them, and the pain I received no more than the fruits of my own foolishness! To aid one who cares for no more than the use he might put you to is a foolishness I will not allow myself with you! More than enough that I allowed it with another.”
I turned away from her then and blocked her off with my shield, not trusting myself not to strike at her out of anger. All her help and solicitous concern had in reality been self-directed, all for her own benefit and none for mine. I was nothing but a handy tool to her, something to be rescued from savage, uncaring hands, cleaned carefully, then tucked away in a traveling bag against future need. It wasn’t as though it hadn’t happened before or that I hadn’t suspected it; my anger stemmed from the fact that I was so damned sick of it!
“You aided his escape from the ralle, and still he beat you as he did?” Aesnil asked after a long moment, now close behind me. “He hopes, then, to force you to aid him by giving you pain. It had not seemed to me that he was so cruel and without feeling, yet he is undoubtedly no other thing. Were you to serve me instead, I would not give you pain, for I value your powers too highly. Surely you would prefer my service to his?”
Aesnil hovered on her knees behind my right shoulder, waiting with what she considered patience for my answer. I sat cross-legged next to the tree, looking down, suddenly filled with waves of almost overpowering confusion. He knew damned well he couldn’t force me to work for him by giving me pain, so why had he punished me like that? He never hesitated to punish me when I did something he didn’t approve of, and that made no sense! He should have been pampering me and giving me everything I wanted, just the way Aesnil was offering to do. And I still didn’t understand about his offering me to those other l’lendaa. Unless he was doing it only to threaten me into toeing the line, he couldn’t be serious about it.
“Have you heard my words, Terril?” Aesnil prodded gently. “Would you not prefer my service to his?”
I turned my head and opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I thought of her service, but never got to say the words. I saw her go pale and heard her gasp at exactly the same time that I felt the startled upset of the seetarr. It was only then that I became aware of the other mind traces, the ones that I would have been aware of much sooner if I hadn’t had my shield closed. I jerked my head back to the left and saw them then, nine low, dark shadows with eyes still gleaming from the deeper shade of the forest. They had crept close to where we sat, and now they were grinning and growling, baring fangs in anticipation of the feast before them.
“A pack of virenjj,” Aesnil whispered, her throat almost closed with terror. “We are done!”
No, I thought to myself, still feeling the rising anger she’d started in me, and then I shouted, “No!” and projected that anger toward the nine slinking shapes. I could feel their minds wince at the touch of the projection and then they snarled, viciously rejecting the denial I’d sent. They were hunters and we were prey, and it was the way of the world for the first to take the second.