“Something is making you not want to use it, so you’ve got to do it anyway,” I whispered to myself, trying to sound and feel determined. I really didn’t want to do it so that meant I had to, to keep from being forced into anything. Even that thought confused me, more than I felt I could stand, but maybe the inner healing would work. Without floundering around the question any longer, a question I would soon drown in, I got a two-hand grip of the fur under me, bent my head, then turned my attention inward.
The first time I’d tried deep self-healing I hadn’t been aware of the passage of time, and my second effort was just like the first. I came out of it wondering if I’d accomplished anything, turned over under the cover fur to sit up, then rubbed at my eyes with my hands. I’d been surrounded by people I couldn’t trust, people who only wanted to make me a victim and use me for their own purposes—but the strong suspicion as well as the conviction was already fading. It looked like the first half of the irrational conviction had been a mental disorder, probably set’ in place by conditioning, most likely to keep me from trusting anyone at the complex. If those who were aware of what was going on didn’t trust anyone there, they wouldn’t plot with them against those who ran the complex. Then something had happened to make the distrust begin coloring everything else I was feeling, putting a veneer of the complex on Rimilia and binding them inseparably together. I could see that now, also remembering I’d wanted to die in both places, and the reinforced feeling had convinced me not to heal myself any farther. If I’d just left it all alone my problems would soon have been solved, and I’d simply have slipped from dreams to death without once having to touch reality. It would have been the easy way, the pleasant way, but I’d always been too thickheaded to take one of those paths . . .
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Irin’s voice came suddenly and I dropped my hands to see her standing in the now open doorway. “Are you feeling better after your nap?”
“I’m feeling better after something a little more effective than a nap,” I said, watching her walk closer to the bed I sat in. “Irin, about the way I’ve been behaving . . .”
“Now, don’t you let that worry you even for a minute,” she interrupted, giving me a smile as she put a hand to my cheek. “Every time so far you’ve been better after getting your rest, so I’m going to see to it that you get all the rest you need. You’ll stay in that bed until you’re completely better, which will happen in no time at all. Are you ready to eat again?”
“No, I’m not ready to eat again,” I answered, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “What I’m ready to do is explain why . . . ”
Terry, you don’t want your father to hear you refusing again, do you?” she asked, suddenly being very conspiratorily serious. “It hurt me to see him spank you like that and I know it hurt him as well, but he’ll do it again if he has to. He wants to know you’re eating well, and he won’t like what you just said. Do you want me to tell him?”
“Good lord, no,” I muttered, wondering how she had the nerve to say it had hurt them. “Irin, listen to me, there’s something I have to expl—”
“Then he won’t be told,” she plowed on, beaming at me over the secret we were going to keep together. “As long as you’re a good girl and do as you’re supposed to, you won’t have to be punished. I’ll be right back with your food.”
I watched her walk out and close the door again, then let myself fall back flat onto the bed furs. It was upsetting to realize Irin had been treating me like a very small child, just the way Rissim had decided I needed to be treated, and I hadn’t been able to get through her wall of make-believe any more than I’d been able to get through her shield. As soon as I explained why I’d been acting so strangely they’d let me out of there, but first I had to get more than three words in edgewise-without sending her running for Rissim. That spanking had hurt even through my trousers, and I didn’t want to have to try explaining things during a second dose of it. I’d have to get through to Irin while I was eating, and then I could take some time off to do a little thinking.
Irin and the food came back, but getting through to her wasn’t on the menu. She chattered away happily while she sat at the side of the bed-furs feeding me, and it was Rissim himself who stood beside the doorway watching. Every time I tried to say something he got that look in his eyes, and then Irin was shoveling in more food. I wasn’t reluctant to eat any longer, not after the healing had finally let me know how much I needed it, but my capacity was way down and I was getting more and more desperate to explain something they didn’t want to hear.
It was not what might be considered a fun time, and when Irin finally let me off the hook, Rissim took his turn.
“There are those who would speak with you now, wenda,” he said, giving me that well-known Rimilian-male-light-eyed-stare. “As I will not have one of mine giving insult to guests beneath my roof, you will speak yourself only when spoken to, and then will reply politely and to the point. At all other times you will remain silent, else shall you be given a reason for raising your voice. Is my meaning clear to you?”
I nodded glumly as I leaned against the cushions Irin had put behind my back, understanding I had to acknowledge temporary defeat. Rissim didn’t want me insulting whoever his visitors were, so I either kept quiet or got put over his knee again. I’d have to wait until they left before taking the chance of insisting on speaking my piece, but that would be a time when Rissim would be more likely to listen. First I’d wait, and then I’d take the chance.
Irin took the food away, and then came back leading a group of men and women who were mixed part Rimilian and part Centran, just like the group of strategists I’d spent the morning listening to. They were introduced as a group rather than individually-to keep from tiring me with unnecessary introductions, I was told—and the group they were was the one concerned with mental abilities. They’d come to find out just how far I’d gotten, and even beyond that, how I’d managed to get that far.
I told them what I could about the progression of my abilities, mentioned all the new things I’d started finding after almost being burned out, and then I was told something I hadn’t expected to hear. I’d finished answering questions about my fight with the intruder in the resting place of the Sword of Gerleth, having related everything about it just to be sure I didn’t leave out something important, and for a moment there was a very heavy silence. I could feel the group’s roiling emotions despite the excellent control every one of them had, and then one of the women sighed.
“I’m-afraid the-experience you had was-in a roundabout way—the fault of this community,” she said, forcing the words out past a very great reluctance, her eyes having difficulty staying on my face. “That-intruder who did so much to hurt you and the others. It pains me to admit it, but he was one of ours.”
“Yours?” I echoed, shocked to hear her say something like that. “But he wasn’t an empath! How could he be one of yours?”
“He was a strange-birth, a result of the mixing of Rimilian and Centran blood that happily occurs only very, very rarely,” she answered, still dragging the words out. “He was born without a trace of the least amount of mental ability, and to make matters worse was larger even than native-born Rimilians despite his dark hair. He was-very delicately balanced even as a child, and the older he got the worse the instability became. When he changed from a boy to a man, he tried to get the girls interested in him, but they were all empaths and wanted nothing to do with an untalented no matter how physically attractive he was. He tried for a long while before he gave up, and then he retreated into a fantasy world.”