Shadowborn - Captivity Part 18

"That's it, push it back and keep it there," I heard a voice say, and there were hands on my arms from behind. The hands were closed tight, and the sword I still held rested with its point to the stone. "It's all over and you're the undisputed winner, so let's end this the right way."

I took a deep breath to force the usual shudder down with the rest, then moved away from his hands to resheathe my sword. Fearin had used his Power to keep the beast from winning over me, and I remembered my previous thoughts about his creativity and strength. It wasn't supposed to be possible for anything to best the Learning, and the Inadni probably would have been shocked gray.

A sudden babble of voices erupted as the others joined us, relief and delight and expansive satisfaction coloring the words. Our army was making haste to leave the amphitheater, not quite knocking each other down now that the beast was gone, but still hurrying as they glanced over their shoulders. It was a normal reaction from back-to-normal men, and the insanity was done with. For now.

"You see?" Ranander's voice broke through the rest. "I knew her winning would solve the problem. And I also knew she would win, even though I didn't know it. Kiri's the best there ever was."

"This calls for a celebration," Talasin announced with a laugh. "Formal style if Fearin can manage it, informal if he can't. We have a victory to raise our cups to, a victory and a victor."

"Victory," I echoed, turning to look at his delighted expression. The others were just as delighted, all but Fearin. "Those men never had a chance against me, but someone still forced them to try. Think about how you'll feel if you're the next to be forced to face me and then tell me what it is you feel we have to celebrate."

I watched their delight die away into a heavy silence, one that was filled with the sort of understanding they should have had to begin with. Obviously things still hadn't completely returned to normal, at least not among our inner group, but we weren't given the chance to dwell on it. One of Garam's special squad came over to speak softly to him, and his reaction was anything but soft.

"d.a.m.n it, we have trouble," Garam announced, speaking mostly to our distinguished leader."The men don't understand what happened, and now that they're out from under whatever spell was on them they're just on the edge of going wild. We'll have to work fast to calm them down."

"Then let's get started now," Fearin rapped out, looking around at the others. "Master Lokkel, you see first to the ones Kiri faced who are still alive. Once you've healed them bring them with you, using Ranander's help to find the rest of us. We'll be out moving among the men, talking to them and calming them down, and you can..."

His voice faded out as I climbed higher out of the amphitheater, filled with some of the delight the others had lost. They were so involved with their new problem they hadn't seen me go, which meant I might be able to have some peace and quiet for a while. Especially if Fearin had taken the time to create our tents before the big battle...

But he hadn't. Once I reached ground level I was able to look around, searching for something I hadn't thought to look for earlier. I'd been too caught up in what was ahead of me, all that planning and antic.i.p.ation that had been for nothing. I looked around again, for once wis.h.i.+ng I could create a tent, and then noticed something I'd missed. A short distance away and to one side of the balance of our not-quite-camp stood Ijarin's tent, his men relaxing around two cooking fires as they watched the goings-on in our area with open curiosity.

"As if they have no idea about what's been happening," I muttered to myself, suddenly realizing it was more than possible that they didn't know. I hadn't seen any of them in the amphitheater, and not even near it. Now, wasn't that strange...

Or maybe not so strange. Without stopping to do any more thinking I headed for the tent, leaving my horse where I'd tied him before the confrontation. Either someone would take care of all the horses, or we'd end up not needing them anymore. At that point I would have been happier with the second possibility, but couldn't quite see it happening. That would have been the easy way, which meant it couldn't be something I was involved in.

Ijarin's men watched me walk past them into his tent, but none of them spoke or tried to stop me. He'd said something about them knowing the sword had been made for me... As though that told them things no one else knew... Possibly about me, possibly about that supposed prophecy. As if I didn't have enough questions thundering around in my mind demanding answers. There were cus.h.i.+ons scattered on the carpet-covered gra.s.s to the left, so I sat down among them in the soft dimness of almost-night and let my mind wander where it willed.

When Ijarin came in he brought a candle with him, a long, thin taper in white whose flame he s.h.i.+elded with one hand. It was completely dark outside, and quite some time had pa.s.sed. He glanced at me in a way that said he'd been told I was here, spent a few ticks lighting three other candles in a small, metal-bound stand, then blew out the long candle and turned to look at me.

"Everything is back to normal and the men have quieted down," he said. "Fearin told them the enemy was trying to stop their army with spells of destruction, but his own Power turned the spell into nothing more than a brief episode of temporary imbalance. It might happen again with the same meager results, or the enemy could get smart and give up that line of attack. Since we're as safe as any army can be, we can afford to sit back with a smile and wait to see what happens."

"And they believed every word," I said, already knowing it to be true. "How many of those men did I kill?"

"Actually, none of them," the barbarian answered, then smiled faintly at my stare of disbelief.

"Even the one you sworded was still alive when Master Lokkel got to him, although the man wouldn't have been alive for much longer. That second man, the one you kicked, had a broken neck and would have been crippled, but he's also healed. The one with the broken arm wasn't as easy as the Healing Master expected him to be, but he was taken care of as well."

"I think I'm getting really mad," I muttered, trying to hold down a temper that wanted to flare out in all directions. "For what conceivable reason is he doing all this?"

"Who?" Ijarin asked, the faint smile replaced by a narrow-eyed look. "And I thought you'd be happy that you didn't do any permanent damage. Why don't you sound happy?""I'm too mad to be happy," I answered in the same mutter, then stared directly at him. "Have you realized yet that that nonsense was nothing more than some sort of elaborate joke? Don't worry, folks, it's all in fun and n.o.body gets hurt. You know, like they say during the performances put on by those traveling posture shows? Well, it was all in fun because n.o.body did get hurt."

"That wasn't my idea of fun," he denied with a headshake. "If Master Lokkel hadn't been there... And what about you? You could have been hurt or killed at any time, and if you'd died even Fearin couldn't have helped. While those men were under that spell there was no joke about it."

"But that's the whole point," I said, getting to my feet. "While those men were under that spell I was threatened, up to the point of needing to seriously defend myself. I was the dancing bear in the show, demonstrating how well I'd learned to whirl around to the music. But then the people in the audience saw that it was a real bear they were playing with and started to get out their hunting weapons, so the music stopped. No more dancing, no more worry, that's it, folks, the show is over."

"Kiri, I don't understand what you're trying to say," he protested gently, looking down at me with worry in his eyes. "Or possibly I'm trying not to understand. I'd hate to think you were about to do something foolish - like take offense over the doings of a G.o.d. Or do you think if you get angry enough, you'll be able to change things?"

"I know better than to think I can change things," I said in a growl. "The best I can hope to accomplish is to see the next time coming and simply not cooperate. But I want to know why.

Why is Diin-tha doing this to me?"

"The G.o.ds often have reasons for doing things that mean little or nothing to mortals," he answered with a shrug. "Or maybe it's no more than a whim that's got you caught up. Are you absolutely certain it is Diin-tha?"

"Who else could it be?" I returned, already having considered the point. "If it wasn't some G.o.d, your men would have been just as affected as the men in the army. Since you and they are dedicated to a G.o.ddess who makes you invisible to other G.o.ds, your men stayed untouched.

And are you trying to suggest that Diin-tha would allow another G.o.d to interfere with this very important task we're in the middle of performing? Somehow I don't think so."

"I'm forced to go along with that," he agreed heavily, his gaze turned inward. "Diin-tha is strong enough to keep other G.o.ds out of his affairs, which means he caused that insanity. All I can think to suggest is that it has to be part of his plans."

"But how can that nonsense possibly be part of his plans?" I demanded, filled to capacity with frustration. "What if I hadn't been good enough to keep myself safe and alive? What if the men had rioted out of control afterward and the army was turned into a useless rabble?"

"But it wasn't," another voice pointed out, and we both turned to see Fearin standing in the entrance. "The men didn't riot, you weren't hurt or killed, and there was no permanent damage done. Possibly our Guardian grew temporarily bored and decided to divert himself with a little entertainment."

"As I said earlier, that's not my idea of entertainment," Ijarin stated, the words flat. "Is there something else you need me for?"

"Actually, I came to tell the two of you that our meal is ready and waiting in my tent," Fearin replied, an odd ... neutrality to his voice. "After we eat we'll discuss whether or not we can keep this from happening again."

Ijarin nodded and began to move toward Fearin, but I didn't. I just stood there waiting for them to leave, but they didn't.

"Kiri, we've all had a long, hard, involved day," Fearin told me, apparently knowing my exact intentions. "Whatever patience I've had until now is entirely gone, so don't force me to do something I might later regret. Come to the meal and the discussion, and afterward we'll straighten out the misunderstanding between us.""There is no misunderstanding between us," I denied, my tone as flat as Ijarin's had been.

"Just in case I haven't made myself clear, I want nothing to do with your meal, your discussion, and most especially you. Take my advice and leave me alone. If you don't our Guardian will be very unhappy with me."

"Is that threat supposed to frighten me away?" he growled, drawing himself up as his blue eyes turned harder than steel. "Haven't you been left alone enough in your life? I am not guilty of whatever it is you think I've done, so I won't be frightened away and I won't leave you alone.

Tell me what you've been told and I'll prove I'm not guilty."

"You can't," I said, refusing to look away from his anger. "You've already proven it is true, and every time you say something else you simply make it worse. Why is it so hard for you to admit that the game is over? Because this time it didn't end on your terms? Well, that's too bad about you because this time it won't go any other way."

"This time," he echoed behind a frown. "You said 'this time,' and talked about a game. Is that what you were told? That I'm playing a game with you that I've played before with others?"

"Why don't you deny it," I invited, folding my arms. "Tell me I'm the first woman you've ever paid attention to and it was my outstanding beauty that first drew you to me. Go ahead, say it just like that."

"You're not the first woman I'd had in my bed, but you are the first one I've paid attention to,"

he stated with a growl, those blue eyes still very hard. "Beauty isn't difficult to find, especially not for someone of my standing; most of the time it comes looking for me. But beauty without anything behind it gets boring after a while, and then bored turns into repelled. If there's one thing you aren't it's boring, and that's what attracted me to you. Not to mention the fact that you need someone to look after you."

By then he was the one refusing to look away, and that despite the glare I was sending.

"I need someone to look after me?" I repeated in disbelieving outrage. "Me? Are you trying to convince me you did what you did because you're crazy? That must be why you dislike Ijarin so much. His own craziness is too much compet.i.tion."

"I'm not crazy or even mistaken," he maintained, a slight darkening of his skin and a very brief glance for Ijarin the only reaction to the rest of what I'd said. "Despite your skill and ability - or maybe because of it - you really do need someone to look after you. I intend to be that someone, so there's no sense in arguing. Come join me for the meal and then I'll prove how wrong you are to disbelieve me."

He put his hand out, intending to take my arm, but I couldn't stand the thought of being touched by him again. I stepped back quickly, my arms loose at my sides, and simply shook my head.

"I'm not wrong to disbelieve you," I said, trying to keep everything I felt from coming through in my voice. "The wrongness is in having believed you to begin with, in having forgotten how stupid it is to believe or believe in anyone. Don't come near me again, High Master, and even beyond that don't ever try to touch me. If you do you have my word you'll regret it."

"Kiri, wait!" Ijarin called as I circled the two of them and left the tent, all but running. I didn't know what the barbarian wanted, and I also didn't care. What I wanted was to get out of there and be alone, and I intended to have it.

It wasn't difficult to see that the tents had been created, even the one that was mine. Fearin was probably using a blanket spell to make all the tents at once, and hadn't bothered to change the spell even when he didn't think I'd be using the tent. Well, he'd been wrong about that, but not as wrong as I'd been.

There was a candle burning in my tent when I walked inside, so I paused to lace the flap closed before going to my pallet to lie down. After putting my sword in easy hand reach I stretched out, then forced myself into the thought-mold of deliberate calming. I had to hold out until that campaign was over, and then I would be free to leave. Until then...

Until then I had to keep reminding myself how stupid it was to believe people. Especially when you really wanted to.

Chapter 18

The next day our march resumed, and although I acted no differently toward the others I felt a good deal different. I'd done some thinking the night before, and my thoughts had taken a very odd turn.

It all started when a meal suddenly appeared in my tent, obviously through the efforts of Fearin. He'd been wise not to press me about joining him and the others, but I still wanted nothing from him. My interest in food had disappeared completely - or so I thought until a bottomless sense of emptiness grabbed me by the throat. My body suddenly felt convinced that it was starving to death, and it wasn't possible to keep away from that food.

I ended up attacking the meal and stuffing down more than I had since joining that group, and when the compulsion to eat finally disappeared I felt ready to explode in more ways than one.

Fearin had to have been the cause of that compulsion, there was no other explanation, and all the anger inside me wanted to do was hurt him as much as he'd hurt me. But I had to be able to move in order to do that, so I forced myself to pour a cup of water to drink while I fumed and waited for the meal to be digested.

My thoughts were filled with demands for revenge and visions of b.l.o.o.d.y dismemberment for a while, but then the anger faded to a point where a question worked its way through the rest: if Fearin was able to force me to eat, why hadn't he done so before now? He'd been as much of a pest about that as the others, but he'd never tried to force me.

"Maybe he only just thought of it," I'd muttered, trying to bring the anger back. Being angry is a lot easier than asking yourself odd questions, but that particular question didn't seem to want to be ignored. I knew perfectly well that Fearin shouldn't have been able to force a compulsion on me, and that held true even if he had helped me to fight off the beast. That time he'd simply added his strength to something I wanted to do, but this time...

This time it wasn't the same, so it shouldn't have happened. But it had happened, which meant there had to be a cause other than the one I'd immediately a.s.sumed was true. And that realization brought me another, just as disturbing as the first: someone else was not only responsible for the compulsion but also seemed to want me to blame Fearin.

I s.h.i.+fted in my saddle as I felt that understanding touch me again, but it still wasn't possible to deny what made it true. Fearin had undoubtedly sent the food, and the compulsion had touched me too quickly after that for it to be a coincidence. But it had also come to me that if Fearin had found a way to give me a compulsion, it wouldn't have been simply to eat. As undeniable as that compulsion had been I could have been made to go to Fearin's tent either before or after eating, plus any number of other things. Making me eat had hardly been the only thing on Fearin's mind...

So the compulsion hadn't been sent by him, but I was meant to think it had been and was supposed to blame him. Being wrapped in layers of fury would have kept me from asking how he'd managed to do it, and also would have kept me from wondering who might be responsible if Fearin wasn't. As though anyone with a mind would have to wonder for long...

I nearly found myself saying Diin-tha's name aloud, and in a tone no one in their right mind would use when speaking of a G.o.d. Of course it could be argued that I wasn't in my right mind, not after all the things the G.o.d had caused to happen around me, but justifying my actions or being discreet wasn't my top priority. Finding out the reason behind all that insanity was higher on the list, right below finding a way to make it stop.

"Good morning," Ijarin's voice came just as he rode up, distracting me from thoughts of insanity. More and more I felt like telling Diin-tha exactly what I thought of him, no matter what the G.o.d did to me because of it...

"That's your opinion," I answered Ijarin's greeting, making no effort to look directly at him."What do you want this time?"

"Aside from wanting to bask in the warmth of your graciousness?" he countered, amus.e.m.e.nt now clear in his tone. "Only to tell you that we're nearly to the entrance of the Valley of Twilight, so your presence will soon be required by the group. Only Talasin and Lokkel will stay behind with the army and my own men. The rest of us and a small escort will continue on into the valley, and that includes the coach with the girls."

"Now I understand what the plan is," I said sourly, still looking around. "We're going to threaten to turn the girls loose in the Valley if our army isn't allowed through without being bothered. In the face of a threat like that they'll probably give us anything we want."

"I was foolish enough to think their att.i.tudes might at least have started to change by now,"

Ijarin said, and a glance showed more annoyance in him than amus.e.m.e.nt. "Rational human beings usually understand when their circ.u.mstances change and at least try to change with them, but not those two. For some reason Fearin let them join us for dinner last night, and the experience just about ruined everyone's appet.i.te. I'll swear they're worse now than they were."

"What's surprising about that?" I asked, wondering what his own upbringing had been like that he didn't understand the point. "All their lives the girls have gotten whatever they wanted by demanding it. That taught them the proper way to behave, so why would they try to change?"

"Because when something stops working you do try to change," Ijarin said, lightening my mood by actually looking and sounding annoyed. "You don't throw a tantrum and keep on with the demands, not when no one around you is responding. Rational, reasonable human beings - ".

"Ah, there's that phrase again," I interrupted, glad to be able to lecture him for a change.

"Rational and reasonable, I mean. Haven't you noticed yet that those girls were never taught to be rational and reasonable? They were taught to demand things and then to throw tantrums if their demands weren't met. It may have occasionally taken some time, but I'll bet their demands were always met eventually."

"Are you trying to say that they're permanently ruined to be intelligent members of a society?" Ijarin demanded, his frown now much more evident. "I don't believe that, and can't see myself ever believing it. They're still just children, so they can be taught differently."

"They may be young but they're not children," I disagreed, adding a headshake. "They're mature individuals who have been raised in a particular way, and that way will always be the right one to them. All my people know that, but there's still one or two every now and then who forget it when their own children are involved. Trying to change things at the last tick never works out, and that's something I saw with my own eyes."

"Among the Kenoss?" Ijarin asked with brows raised. "Somehow I can't quite picture that."

"Even a Kenoss can sometimes take the wrong path," I admitted, finding it hard, even now, to speak against the people who were no longer mine. "In the Life Seeker Trials the season before my own, one of the entrants came from parents who hadn't been able to have more than that one child. His mother hadn't ever been able to let go of him, and had made him obey her decisions rather than letting him learn to make decisions of his own. No one understood that until the boy was wounded in one of the Trials, and then simply lay on the ground begging his mother to tell him what to do. She wasn't close enough to tell him anything, so he didn't survive very long."

"But ... how could she do that when she knew what he would have to face all alone?" Ijarin asked, obviously disturbed. "It isn't possible to live someone else's entire life for them."

"It turned out she'd decided she would be there forever, no matter what," I said with the chill I still felt when remembering the time. "She even tried to interfere in the Trials, but couldn't work her way through the safeguards in time. When she found her son dead she had screaming hysterics, and the hysterics continued on until she was executed for the murder she'd committed."

"Murder?" Ijarin echoed, startled again. "But that wasn't murder. It was foolishness and badjudgment, but she was punished for that by the loss of her son."

"The loss was his, not hers, since she stole the life from her child," I disagreed with a snort.

"And if she'd been left unpunished others might have tried the same. Not to mention the fact that she would have eventually blamed the rest of us for the death, not herself. She wasn't able to admit she'd been wrong even with her son's body at her feet, which means she'd never have been able to admit it."

"Why didn't you consider the boy equally guilty?" Ijarin put sourly, not at all pleased with what he'd learned. "After all, he's the one who let her get away with what she did without protesting."

"The boy proved himself guilty and paid for the crime," I pointed out, something I was surprised to have to do. "If he'd lived he would have been chained forever to someone else's will, first to his mother's and then to that of whoever took over after his mother died. He would have been incapable of living life on his own - or would have gone crazy under the restrictions and started to kill innocents to relieve the horror in his mind. Don't you know that?"

Ijarin sent me a glance before refusing to answer, which meant he did know what I'd been talking about. At one time, hundreds of seasons earlier, the Kenoss had been plagued with the same problems. Then the Life Seeker way had been adapted, and things had begun to change for the better. Until the Inadni had first come around, that is...

Ijarin's silence let me go back to my own thoughts, but not for long. After what seemed like only a short while I became aware of the fact that the army had stopped to pitch camp. Ijarin and I just kept going, of course, until we reached the place where the others were. Garam had his special squad surrounding the coach, and Fearin just glanced at Ijarin and me before looking around at everyone else as well.

"The Valley of Twilight is just ahead, so we're going to stop for a good meal before we continue on," he said. "While we're in the Valley we won't eat or drink anything, not even what we happen to bring with us. Once safe pa.s.sage is arranged we can march through in just under a day, and the same restrictions will hold. If anyone eats or drinks anything - or stops to dally in any way at all - I won't be able to save that person. Do you all understand?"

No one spoke up to say they didn't, so Fearin turned away to pay attention to producing a meal for us. I'd eaten only some of the breakfast which had appeared in my tent this morning, so by now I was hungry again. If we weren't supposed to eat or drink where we were going, I decided I might as well see to the matter now.

When the large table heavy with food appeared everyone went toward it and I joined them. We managed to get two or three paces closer to our objective, and then an unpleasant interruption stopped us in mid step.

"We haven't yet been told which of you will be getting our meal," a young but very imperious voice rang out. "Tell us now, and then those designated may continue on. The rest of you will wait until your betters have been served."

We all turned to look toward the coach and found that the twin girls had been helped out of it by one of Garam's special squad. The girls now stood beside the coach, looking at the rest of us as though we were less than dirt.

"But you don't have our permission to eat until we've finished," the second girl added, a vindictive smirk on her face. "That will teach you not to tell us lies again, especially not ones that are so easy to see through. Princes indeed."

Garam and Talasin looked annoyed over that, which explained the girls' new att.i.tude. They hadn't gotten the adoration they felt was due them from real princes, so the two men couldn't possibly be princes. I noticed that Ijarin was just as annoyed rather than being upset, but the reactions of others didn't concern me right now. My own reaction was to continue on toward the table, and an instant later I had the company of everyone else doing the same.

"Don't you dare disobey, don't you dare!" one of the girls screeched, immediately joined by the other screeching something else entirely. From the sound the two seemed just about readyto throw a real tantrum, but this time they were the ones who were interrupted.

"Silence!" Fearin thundered, and it was clear he'd used the Power to amplify his voice after moving closer to the girls. "Stop that mindless squawking this instant!"

Indignant shock apparently got Fearin the silence he wanted, but even a glance showed it wasn't likely to last very long. Which was probably why he didn't waste the opportunity.