“ ‘He no longer lives,’ Tammad informed me, bending over your form. ‘The woman, however, retains some spark of life, therefore do I ask your assistance. I cannot undo the knots of the leather upon her.’
“ ‘My assistance is yours without asking,’ I replied, moving quickly to stand beside him while drawing my dagger. ‘What has occurred here, and who is that stranger? Rarely does one see a man with hair so dark. From whence does he come?’
“ ‘I know not,’ the denday answered, watching as I carefully cut away the leather which bound you. ‘The man was mad, and thought this wenda one of his people despite her denial of it. He would have slain us all had she not been able to take his life, and surely did I believe that her life was gone as well. The thunderstorm was able to better her at last, yet she, in some manner, saw to him with the end of her strength. I thought to find myself enraged that I was unable to take his life with my own hands, but instead find no more than joyous thanks that she was spared. We must take her at once to a place deeper within the mountain, where the storm will be unable to touch her further.’
“‘You cannot carry her,’ I said, seeing that he was scarcely able to support himself. ‘I will take her, and you must allow yourself to be assisted by my l’lendaa. In such a manner will we find ourselves able to bring her to safety and peace with adequate speed. Do you agree?’
“His agreement was filled with reluctance, yet was it given for your sake, wenda. We left the chamber of the Sword and returned you all here, and the journey was not pleasant. You cried out often as though in the grip of a fever, and each time you did so, Dallan and Tammad attempted to go to your side. It was necessary at the last to bring you ahead more quickly, so that your companions would no longer be disturbed. They sleep now due to a healing potion within them, and I was freed to await your awakening. Is there aught you require to increase your comfort. O Warrior of the Sword?”
Rellis was smiling again, but there didn’t seem to be ridicule in his amusement, only gentle teasing. I shook my head to show there was nothing I wanted, and his hand reached out to smooth my hair.
“Then I will leave you to rest and restore yourself,” he said, rising again to his feet. “After you have slept a meal will be brought you, one more substantial than the medicated broth you have so far had. Should there be anything you require, you need only send word of it to me. ”
He smiled again as he reclaimed his goblet of drishnak, then he turned and left the tiny room. Although my head was still hurting I felt considerably better, knowing that I hadn’t completely failed after all. I’d never really know what had killed the monster, but I suspected that it had been my doing only in that I hadn’t broken the connection between us before the shadow curtain had collapsed. The terrible blast had driven from my mind straight to his, unfiltered in any way that would have cushioned the shock for him. I may have been more sensitive to that sort of thing than a non-empath, but I also had more defensive reflexes; my defenses were able to cushion the blast, while there were none in his mind to do the same. I had survived the blast that had killed him, but I wasn’t feeling well enough to know how good a thing that was. The medicated broth was making me sleepy again, so I gave into it without a fuss.
I wasn’t awake long the next time before a woman came in carrying a tray. She smiled when she saw I was awake, then began helping me to eat what she had brought. She was dressed in white imad and caldin, what seemed to be a servant uniform in that place, and was considerably more pleasant than the women who had bathed me. She propped me up with cushions so that I would be more comfortable, and once I had finished eating left the cushions as they were simply at my request. There was no medication in the food I ate, so after she had left with the tray, I was able to spend some time thinking.
My head still throbbed faintly to my pulse, but aside from that and the tail-end of weariness, I seemed to be all right. Under normal circumstances I would have expected to be deluged with trembling memories of what the monster had done to me, but aside from a lingering urge to hide myself in shame, my mind seemed more concerned with the dream I had experienced. Pain and humiliation were old companions for me on that world; brutal nose-rubbing in embarrassing truth wasn’t.
I looked down at my hands lying on the cover fur on me, seeing the bruises my wrists retained from the leather I’d fought against, feeling very small and very petty. In the dream I’d seen myself as blatantly overbearing, and while I knew the dream had exaggerated the situation to prove the point, it wasn’t all that far from the mark. I’d walked around convinced that I was better than everyone around me, while the truth was I was merely different. Sure I could do a lot of things other people couldn’t, but they could do things I couldn’t; the main difference between us was that I kept beating everyone over the head with my abilities, while no one did the same to me unless I forced them to it. There wasn’t a woman on the planet—not to mention most of the men—who couldn’t, for example, cook better than I, but they hadn’t spent their time parading themselves in front of me, telling me how superior they were. I’d waved my one unearned ability around like a flag, crowing while I strutted, insisting on special privileges because I was so special. It was a stupid, childish attitude to adopt, but I hadn’t been able to see it until I saw it from the outside. Whatever drug that mist contained, it certainly had the ability to drive straight to the heart of a matter.
I stirred uncomfortably in the furs then turned onto my right side, upset by another point the dream had made. When my rescuer had died fighting to save me from the fruits off my own arrogance, I’d experienced the most complete sense of remorse that it’s possible to feel. When we argue with someone who is extremely close to us, we usually assume that the person will be available later on to forgive, or condemn, or talk to, or in some other manner interact with. If that person becomes unavailable, especially through death, whatever was said or thought or felt becomes forever irretrievable and unchangeable. It’s no longer possible either to ask forgiveness or grant it, either to profess love or hear it professed. The moment and person are gone, never to return; whatever regret you feel is no more than wasted effort. There had been a lot of wasted effort during my time on Rimilia, but it was no longer clear whose effort had been wasted.
I sighed as I remembered all those conversations I’d had with people, they trying to tell me how wrong I was, I maintaining an air of injured dignity no matter what they said. Was it possible that I was wrong, that I’d spent more time complaining than trying to understand the reasons for what was being done around and to me? I could remember feeling in the dream that I hadn’t even tried to see and understand his way of looking at things; even if the same could be said about him, it didn’t make me any less guilty. And I didn’t have to spend any time wondering who he was; there was only one he whose doings and opinions held any true meaning for me.
I lost myself to deep thought for a time, letting my mind consider and argue as it wanted to, finally coming back to my surroundings with a sigh. The room was fine for uninterrupted thinking, but the better I felt, the more bored I was becoming. When Rellis had been here he’d said it was storming again, but maybe the storm had moved on since then. I was curious as to what was going on beyond that closed door, and stretching my mind was easier than hunting for clothes and going to see. All I had to do was thin the shield and peek out—but for some reason the shield didn’t want to thin. I sat up in the bed furs with a frown and tried again, this time making the action more deliberate than casual, but it still didn’t work. The shield whose presence I was always aware of seemed to have been replaced by a blank wall, one which was without cracks and totally immovable. My mind clawed at it and scurried around and clawed some more—but there was no way out, no tiny opening through which I could slip. I sank bank against the cushions in vast confusion, not understanding why my shield had turned so impervious—then felt the ice-fingers of shock. Any shield, no matter how how thick and impervious, would still be subject to removal by me, would still be subject to my will. If I couldn’t dissolve it, even with effort, then it wasn’t a shield, it was a literal blank wall. I hadn’t been killed by the thunderstorm exploding in my mind, I had only been crippled—and was now no different from anyone else. No powers, no special abilities, not even a talent for cooking. Distantly I thought I should be reacting in some way—hysterics, insane delight, thoughts of suicide, waves of relief—but all I felt was numb. I lay propped up on the pile of cushions in the bed furs, aware of my bare body being held by the furs, aware of the crackle of candle flames in the small, windowless room, aware of the deep silence all around, both inside and out, breathing evenly but not thinking at all.