“Allow me to be the first to congratulate you, wenda,” he said, a chuckle in his voice. “It has been long and long since a battle was fought under the aegis of the Sword, and you are the victor of the first battle since then. I saluted a Warrior of the Sword.”
“What happened?” I asked, putting one hand to my aching head, still somewhat confused, and then I realized I’d spoken in Centran. “I cannot remember what occurred to make my head ache so,” I amended, erasing his frown. “I feel as though much pain is no more than a short way behind me.”
“Do not concern yourself with pain which is past,” he answered gently, losing the teasing tone his voice had carried. He rose to his feet and came to stand over me, and his eyes were filled with compassion. “You now lie in an inner room of my house, where you will be somewhat protected from the present storm which rages without. Does it give you discomfort?”
I paused to think about that, realized my shield was closed so tight that nothing came through, then quickly decided against trying to open it. I didn’t feel up to coping with anything beyond just lying there in the furs on my back, and there seemed to be no reason to do anything else. I shook my head in answer to Rellis’ question, then looked up at him.
“Was there—another storm?” I asked, able to reach just the wispy beginnings of the memory. “I seem to recall another storm—in another place.”
“The resting place of the Sword,” he nodded, sipping at his drishnak. “There was the storm, and Dallan and Tammad—and the intruder. Are you able to recall the intruder?”
“He hurt them!” I gasped, suddenly breaking through to the swirl of insane confusion of that time, beginning to sit up in shock. “I have to help them!”
“Rest easy, wenda, rest easy,” he soothed, crouching down and immediately putting a hand to my shoulder to gently push me back down. “I cannot know the words you speak, for you speak in your own tongue. Do you wish to be left to rest a while longer?”
“No,” I said with a headshake, switching back to Rimilian, the throb in my head growing worse. “What became of the one you call intruder? Was he able to cause more harm after I—” I choked on the words, but couldn’t get them out. After all my boasting and great feelings of superiority, I’d still failed.
“Wenda, no man is able to cause harm when he is no longer living,” Rellis said, softly and gently as though he spoke to an hysterical child. “Surely you know that before the storm took you you were able to slay him?”
“Slay him?” I said, feeling like an echo as I looked up into Rellis’ face. “I know nothing of what occurred after the storm took me. Before then, he remained alive. What of Tammad and Dallan?”
“My son and the denday of the Circle of Might now rest from their ordeal,” he answered, putting aside his goblet of drishnak to pick up a bowl from the small table standing nearby. “This broth continues to retain some warmth, therefore shall I assist you in drinking in the while I speak of what occurred.”
He raised my shoulders from the bed of furs, held the bowl to my lips, and smiled down at me while I swallowed at the broth. I really did need it, and the warmth of it relaxed a tension in me that I hadn’t been aware of having. Rellis paused only long enough to make sure I was getting what I needed of the broth, then he began speaking again.
“By tradition,” he said, “those who seek the resting place of the Sword of Gerleth do so alone, or in the company of one or two others. Their experiences are the concern of none save themselves, therefore are they accorded the privacy which is their due. Had Dallan and Tammad undertaken the journey in no company other than their own, such privacy would have been theirs as well; as an unusual wenda accompanied them, complete privacy for them was not meant to be.
“When half the day was done, I led a number of my warriors slowly down into the mountain after your group taking care that we did not go so swiftly that we would overtake you. I had the thought that you might take yourself from their company, you see, using your powers to remain hidden from pursuit, later emerging and attempting to retrace your steps to my house. It was clear that your journey to the resting place of the Sword was necessary, and I wished to see you complete it.”
“That mist brings dreams,” I said, finding no word in the Rimilian language for hallucinogens. “It forces one to consider one’s life from a new focus.”
“Exactly,” Rellis nodded, taking back the emptied bowl and letting me lie flat again. “It was necessary that you all experience your doings along with the true reasons for having done them in the manner you had, and this was allowed you. It was not known that an intruder had entered the place of the Sword through the lower caverns in the mountain, nor that he was mad. A man is able to dream no more than once in the mists, and the intruder had surely already dreamed before your arrival. In such a way was he able to enter the mists the while Dallan and Tammad dreamed, render them helpless, then bind you as well.”
“As he had already dreamed, why did he act so?” I wondered aloud, suppressing a shiver at the memory of the monster. “Surely he was shown the true meaning of his actions?”
“Of my own knowledge, this I cannot say.” Rellis shrugged, settling himself cross-legged on the carpeting next to my bed furs. “It is possible, however, that his madness had blinded him to the truth, so much so that he saw naught save approval of that which he did. An honest, sincere man will at times experience doubt concerning the actions circumstances force upon him; one touched by madness will never experience such doubt.
“Be that as it may, we arrived in the corridor leading to the chamber of the Sword, only to hear screams coming from the chamber. A woman’s scream followed by that of a man, his by far the more tormented. We hurried to see what occurred, and beheld the sight you were so much a part of. Dallan hung nearly lifeless by the wrists, Tammad struggled uselessly to free himself, the wenda Terril lay bound senseless upon a boulder, and a strange, outlandish man lay twisted yet unmoving upon the rock of the chamber floor. We knew not what had caused such strangeness, yet were we unable to rush forward in a body to halt it. The mists of dreaming stood between us, and although I, myself, had visited the resting place of the Sword in my youth, no more than two of my warriors had done the same. We three left the others to await us and hurried forward, first freeing Tammad and then turning our attention to Dallan. It was necessary that Dallan be carried back through the mists, which was done by the two l’lendaa who accompanied me. When I turned to offer assistance of the same sort to the denday Tammad, I found that he was no longer where we had left him.
“Looking about showed me that he had forced himself to his feet despite the pain he surely felt from the touch of the whip, had taken himself over to the body of the intruder, and then, after a brief pause, had made his way to your side. His blood clearly marked the trail of his movements, and I followed to look down upon the body of the intruder, seeing no wounds and no sign of blood save that left by Tammad. The face, however, was so twisted by terror that it disturbed me, yet the questions I would have asked were interrupted.