If there were any chance of my living that long, I added to myself as I began to step around him, beginning to be aware of that deep weariness inside me again. Enough is enough is too much, and I seemed to have passed even the too much stage quite a while back. I had actually already dismissed Rissim from my thoughts when a big hand closed carefully around my arm, and I was no longer walking out of the room.
“You must learn, treda mine, that there is a great difference between those who direct you for their sake, and those who direct you for your own,” I was told, the deep voice just as calm and patient as it had been. “Those who command you, from love do so till you, yourself, are able to do the thing, till confusion and uncertainty have gone from you. When such completeness has returned to you, you will again be prepared to seek your fate. For now, you will merely obey.”
“The hell I will,” I answered, banishing my curtain as I looked up at him. “When I said I’d never be a victim again, I meant i-”
My words cut off in midsentence as my mind reached his—or, to be more precise, stopped as close to his as it could get. I hadn’t noticed sooner but Rissim was shielded, and not with the sort of shiny round shield it was so easy to get through. His mind was tightly enclosed in the small, thick shield I also had, the kind I had to work around in order to get through. In desperation I crashed my mind against that shield, willing to work blind if I could just get around it, but there wasn’t enough room to go around. From the inside there was plenty of room, but from the outside
“You can’t do this to me!” I shouted, trying to pull my arm loose from his grip, dropping the empty cup I held to free the hand for beating at him, but it all did as much good as it ever does with Rimilians. He paid no attention whatsoever to my struggling, acting as though I were standing still.
“For what reason can I not?” he asked, his continuing mildness and gentleness infuriating. “Are you not flesh of my flesh, and is it not the duty of a father to see to his offspring? In truth this duty should have been another’s, yet am I told that you have declared yourself unbanded, and he who laid claim to you is no longer about. In view of these things we shall now return home.”
He turned and began to make his way out of the house, and with his hand still around my arm there was no question about whether or not I went with him. Ashton and the others made no attempt to interfere, and neither did anyone on the street. I was gently and carefully dragged all the way back to his house, up the hall, and into my room. The open windows were no longer open, at least not down where I could reach them; above the regular windows, near the ceiling, were two-foot squares that let some light and air in through screening. I would have bet quite a lot that I’d find the lower windows locked in some way when I checked them, and Rissim’s finally releasing my arm seemed to confirm that.
“Your mother will soon appear with a meal for you, wenda,” he said as he closed the door, then turned to look down at me. “She and I care for you very deeply, and have no wish to see you fade away before our eyes from lack of nourishment. You have said you wish to be a part of the attack force; should this continue to be so, you will obey us in an effort to grow strong again.”
“If I wasn’t already strong enough, you wouldn’t be so closely shielded,” I said, folding my arms as I looked up at him. “How long do you think you can keep me here like this?”
“As long as necessary,” he returned with a shrug, folding his own arms. “Would you care to speak of what disturbs you, and afterward be given my views of the matter? Too often are we able to see no other than a single side of a difficulty, when sight of two sides is required for a solution.”
“I have all the views of my troubles that I need,” I came back, really hating all that patience and understanding. “I’ll get out of here, you know, just the way I’ve gotten out of every other prison trying to hold me. No matter what you do to me, you won’t stop me from succeeding.”
“Should you wish to be released from here, you need only obey me a short while,” he said, a gleam of-pride?-in his eyes. “Your imprisonment here is not imprisonment but punishment, a child’s punishment for the behavior of a child. To endanger one’s health and wellbeing is foolishness, treda mine, and to see those who attempt to aid you as enemies and captors more foolish still. When your behavior shows you to be no longer a child, you will have no need to seek escape. You will walk from here to freedom as does any adult.”
“You’re lying just to confuse me!” I shouted, my head whirling almost as badly as it had the night before. I’d fought so hard against enemies pretending to be friends, and now he was calling me a fool for keeping on with it! Everyone was always after me for something, Aesnil in Grelana, Farian in -Vediaster, those people at the complex. I couldn’t let my guard down and believe someone was doing something for me, I just couldn’t! I began to turn away from him with my fists in my hair, but the return of his hand to my arm stopped me.
“You may not give insult to those about you without adding to your punishment,” he said, looking more hurt than angry. “As you continue to show the actions of a child so will you be treated, and perhaps such a doing will be best. One must be a child before one is able to grow to adulthood.”
I had begun feeling again as though I were walking through a dream, and what happened after that just made the feeling worse. Rissim sat down and put me over his knee, then spanked me as though I were a child. There was no doubt about whether or not it hurt, but it didn’t hurt like torture, only like punishment. By the time it was over Irin was there, shielded just the way he was, but with commiseration and compassion still flowing thick enough to fill a river. She spent a short time comforting me and a longer time getting me to eat some of the food she’d brought, and then she got me out of my clothes and into bed. She and Rissim were still there in the room, but I fell asleep just as though I had nothing to worry about.
When I woke again it was dark outside with a single candle burning in the room, and I was so confused I didn’t know why I wasn’t dizzy. At first it had been pleasant fantasizing those people as my parents, but now things were getting complicated. I knew they wanted something from me, but I hadn’t yet been able to find out what it was. The longer it took the less sure I became, and I didn’t like not being sure. I lay belly down with my cheek to the furs under me, thinking about all that not-knowing, and suddenly it came to me to wonder if there really was something wrong with me. Confusion seemed to be the only emotion I was able to feel any more, that and suspicion. I hadn’t been feeling really right since I escaped from the complex, and having no true desire for food was only a small part of it. Most of the time it seemed that everyone else was at fault, but if I held very still and thought about it—
I cursed under my breath as I leaned up on my elbows, feeling the truth of the thought I’d begun. There was something wrong, no doubt about it, but getting rid of it wasn’t going to be easy. If I didn’t even want to think about it—and the way my mind was avoiding the issue showed exactly that-how was I supposed to figure out what was wrong and fix it? I certainly couldn’t trust anyone to help me find it—
“Hell and damnation!” I growled, knowing it was working on me again but helpless to stop it. Layers of glass between you and the world, Irin had said, layers that just got thicker and thicker. You on the inside, she said, and you’ll never get out. Me on the inside with whatever was wrong, and how the hell was anything supposed to reach—
I had started shifting around in annoyance, but a twinge of pain in my back brought me up short. My back still wasn’t in very good shape, because it wasn’t healing more than slowly. I’d used pain control a couple of times, but not once since I’d gotten back to Rimilia had I tried to use the deep-healing aspect of pain control. I’d used it before so it didn’t make any sense—and then I could feel the urge to try it beginning to fade—