“Perhaps it is as the Murdock McKenzie has said,” the first voice put in, sounding the least bit forlorn. “Her love for me was great, I know, as great as mine for her, and for that reason did the enemy find it necessary to bury the memory of me more deeply than the rest. Certainly in time I shall be recalled by her, yet in too long a time many things may occur. Best would be that I remain beside her, to aid in her recollection.”
“Best?” I interrupted, finally turning to look at the big Rimilian without letting go of Irin. “Who is that supposed to be best for? I’ve already told you that I don’t know you and don’t want to know you, so why don’t you go back to where you come from? No one has a claim on me, not anyone, and if necessary I’m willing to argue the point. I’ve had enough of being hurt by men; from now on if there’s any hurting to be done, I’m the one who’ll do it.”
Dallan and the one called Tammad just stood there staring down at me, Dallan’s mind whirling with the mix of many emotions, his friend struggling with confusion and anger and loss. It was very clear Dallan had understood every word I’d said even though I’d spoken in Centran, and that told me where he and the others had been during the time Ashton and I had been getting to the valley. Dallan and Hestin had been given the Centran language, and Garth had probably been getting Rimilian, which meant the valley and its furnishings weren’t as primitive as they looked from the outside.
“The healer Hestin tells us Terril continues to be in pain,” Dallan said after an awkward moment, putting one hand to his friend’s shoulder. “I cannot believe Terril would truly harm Tammad even should she recall less than naught of him, yet might it be best were she allowed a time to rest herself. Those who feel pain often strike out with the same, and it would be foolish to provoke an incident. Perhaps we may speak again later.”
“A wise suggestion,” Rissim agreed, his frown filled with quite a lot of sympathy for the other big blond barbarian who simply stood in silence and stared at me. Even a null would have felt the longing in the man’s mind, but I wasn’t reacting in the same way. Some people deserved to lose things and never get them back, and something told me the man called Tammad was one of those.
Irin and I waited near Murdocks front door while Rissim got my clothes pouches, and then my new-found family took me home. Their house wasn’t far from Murdock’s but must have been four times the size, all of it spreading wide and easy from the central hallway, left, right, and straight ahead. There were a number of women in the house but no men, and although I expected to be introduced, lrin refused to stop for the amenities. What Dallan had said about my being in pain had upset her, and she lost no time in getting me to a room toward the back of the house. It was a pleasant room with yellow and silver curtains on the windows, yellow and silver cushions on the dark brown floor fur, and yellow and silver silks on the dark pile of bed furs. Just looking at it made me feel comfortable and at home, and when lrin closed the door behind us she immediately pointed to the bed furs.
“That’s where I want you as fast as possible, young lady, and then we’ll take a closer look at you,” she said, her frown in no way aimed at me. “The next time I talk to Murdock, he’s going to wish he had no ears! Would it have killed him to tell us right away that you were in pain? Did the imbecile have to wait until we heard it as a comment from a stranger? At the very least, we could have been sitting down while we talked! Do you need help getting out of your clothes?”
“I’m mostly just tired,” I answered with a smile for her outrage, walking over to the bed furs to sit down on them. “You have to ignore Dallan and his fussing, or at least not take it very seriously. He’s seen me in a really bad way a few times, so now he looks at me and immediately assumes the worst. After I’ve rested for a while I’ll be just fine.”
“You certainly will, because I’ll be here to see to it,” she said in a no-arguments tone of voice, her hands on her hips while she studied me. “If Iii known you were here on this world, having trouble, I would have- Well, let’s just say there would have been a lot less trouble. Will you open your mind to me again?”
I shrugged and banished my curtain, then lay back on the bed furs when Irin came closer and gestured me into doing it. She sat down beside me and put a hand on my forehead, smiling with a warmth that burned steadily inside her. As close as we were I could see the small lines on her face that said she wasn’t a girl any longer, that she wasn’t really as close to me in age as a more distant estimate might suggest. I very much wanted to get to know her, and then one day I might even be able to believe . . .
Her strong, bright mind reached toward mine, and then I was aware of losing aches and twinges I hadn’t even known I was feeling. It was the first time someone else had used pain control on me, and wasn’t anything like the way it had felt when I’d used it on myself. Very briefly I wondered why I hadn’t used it on myself again, and then the question faded away behind the soothing influx of someone else’s strength, letting me close my eyes and relax.
“Don’t fall asleep yet,” lrin said after a minute, taking her hand away as her mind separated from mine. “If I know your father, he’s right now in the middle of having a meal put together for you, so you might as well wait and get it eaten before settling down to rest. He would have been happy to see you no matter what you looked like, but he’ll be even happier once you aren’t quite so thin. ”
“A typical Rimilian-male outlook,” I said as I muffled a yawn, feeling very comfortable. “They’re so big themselves, they want to make sure the women around them have enough size and strength to accommodate them without falling apart. Please tell him thanks anyway, but he doesn’t have to bother. I ate in Vediaster, so I won’t be hungry for a while.”
“Terry, I feel something-odd-in your mind,” she said, the hesitance in her voice drawing my eyes to the faint worry on her face. “When you spoke just now, there was a-strange sort of satisfaction inside you, almost like a gloating. You know enough about Rimilia to know this is Rissim’s house where he has the final say on most matters, but you don’t have any intentions of going along with that say. Without bearing him any ill will you’re just going to refuse to obey him, and I’m willing to bet it’s that that’s bringing you the satisfaction. The fact that you can refuse and make it stick. I don’t understand why you feel that way—or am I misinterpreting what I’m getting?”
“You’re not misinterpreting,” I answered, right then consciously aware of the satisfaction she’d mentioned. “Irin, I spent quite a lot of time on this world, and there was hardly a minute of it when I wasn’t feeling like a victim. All the men I encountered forced me to do things their way, all the men, but now I no longer have to. I don’t have to dress a particular way, I don’t have to please them to keep from getting punished, I don’t have to eat what I’m given to keep from being force-fed, none of it! If any of them tries to force himself on me I’ll take his mind apart and put it back together again inside out, damn me if I don’t! I won’t ever be a victim again, no matter who tries to make it happen!”
I was startled when I suddenly found myself being held tight by two slender arms, the voice belonging to those arms making comforting, meaningless noises. I hadn’t realized I’d sat up on the bed furs, I hadn’t realized sights of other places and times had risen in front of my eyes, and I hadn’t realized I was trembling. I was feeling more confused than I had in a very long while, but one thing I wasn’t confused about: what I’d told Irin had been the truth. When you let other people be in control of you you regretted it, one way or the other, but always. When you reach a limit on the amount of pain you can accept you either break or start to fight back, and I wasn’t about to break.