The Horse In The Mirror

by Lisa Maxwell

  Chapter 18

  Hours passed. Is had slipped into her comfortable state of non-thought, non-emotion, when she heard the horse coming. She looked up from the coals, startled that it was close enough to dawn to see shapes away from the fire. The rider's silhouette was very familiar.

  John and his mare, Celeste. Is stood up and moved around the fire toward them. John looked at her, at the dark hump the dead horse made, and at the dead man propped up by the fire - equally and without reaction or recognition.

  "John," she called. "It's me."

  John glanced at her and away again. His mare was looking intently down the ravine. No doubt she could hear Lark down there. John seemed to take his cue from that. He turned her away from Is and headed into the ravine. They were going to pass right by.

  Is stepped in front of the mare and Celeste halted, extending her head for Is to scratch. Only then did John believe she was real. He leapt from his horse’s back and grabbed Is in a bear hug. She laughed and hugged him hard, trying not to let him crack her ribs.

  "It's so good to see you." She thought he would say something in return. The last time she had seen him he could talk perfectly. But he could barely see her then, and she couldn't have touched him at all. Now he was obviously glad to see her, but he didn't speak.

  "What's wrong?" she asked. "Can't you talk?"

  He shook his head, puzzled that she would think he could.

  "The last time I saw you, you could talk."

  He shook his head, more mystified. He clearly didn't remember it. It hadn't happened to him yet. Or else it had only been a reflection of him, sent to her by whatever had sent the illusion that had killed the berserker. Why? To lead her here? She saw John's gaze go to the dead horse and the dead man.

  "They're real," she told him.

  The mare whinnied and a moment later they heard the hoof beats of a trotting horse as Lark approached. Is's heart jumped. Lark had not disappeared during the night. She had to restrain herself from running to hug him. She and John stood back and watched the horses greeting each other. It seemed to Is they were giving each other a thorough investigation. It reminded her of the way dogs sniff their owners to learn where they’ve been and what they’ve been doing. She wondered what the horses were learning. Did running into illusions, as they both obviously had, leave some sort of odor?

  Is went over to the coals and dug some breakfast mix out of her food pack. Seeing what she was doing, John picked up the water can and headed for the canteen on the mare's saddle. As he passed the dead man, he stopped and looked at him a long time.

  The man's eyes had come open. They stared lifelessly into the lightening gray sky. His mouth hung slack and a string of spittle had run from one corner and dried on his face. He looked unloved and uncared for. He had been used and discarded. Is felt slightly ashamed of herself. She should have taken better care of him. John's face registered a deep sorrow. Is imagined he would look that way if he were looking at a child who had died without having had a chance to live. Tears flooded her vision. She had never expected to feel such compassion for a berserker.

  While breakfast heated, Is told John about everything she had seen and felt. She told him that what she had learned of his people's art seemed to help control the illusions. He nodded often, as though agreeing with the conclusions she had drawn. Sometimes he gave her hand a squeeze of encouragement and, she thought, praise. Until she told him about the dark bodies.

  "I think they took what life the berserker had left," she said. "Maybe I should have tried to chase them away. I guess they killed him." She stopped because John caught her hand and shook his head. He desperately wanted to explain something. He began to tremble, dropped his eyes away and took his hands back. Is could see what he was doing, drawing into himself, building walls, regaining control. She had seen this enough to know he had to do it. Otherwise, he would break into his high hysterical laughter. She never wanted to hear that again. But illogically she couldn't let him go either. She reached out and touched his arm.

  "I love you." She was surprised at her own words, but John was even more so. His eyes sprang to hers. The emotions of joy, hope, fear, and doubt that ran through them left Is whirling. Then he put his arms around her and drew her against him.

  His trembling subsided. She held him for a long gentle time.

  She wasn't hungry but she ate because John ate, and because it postponed whatever they had to do next. She felt light and joyful in a way she had only had small glimpses of before. Saying three simple words had released her in some way. How much more would being able to talk release John?

  Is could have stayed at that fire with him forever - even with the bizarre company of a dead man and a dead horse – but by late morning John was ready to go. He helped her retrieve her saddle and bedroll from under the berserker. A few late flies had found him. They buzzed out of his mouth as John rolled him on his side to allow Is to get her things. More flies droned up from the dead horse as they rode by. There was nothing worth doing for either of them. Carrion eaters were the next step in the chain.

  They rode along in silence, Is letting John lead wherever they were going, until he brought Celeste to a halt in an open meadow. He sat staring intently at something Is couldn't see, and neither horse was responding to it.

  "I can't see it," she told John.

  He turned and gave her a wan smile. If it was meant to reassure her it didn't work. He dismounted and signaled her to stay where she was as he walked forward.

  He stopped and bowed the way his people bowed to one another before they practiced their martial arts together, the way he had bowed to Amil. Is waited for something to happen. She was afraid that John saw some sort of adversary. She was terrified that he would fight and die the way the berserker had. Instead John knelt down on the ground. Then he just sat for a long time as though in meditation.

  Is got off Lark and let him graze with the mare. She sat down nearby, keeping her eyes on John in case he needed her help.

  She woke, not quite sure where she was or why. Then she remembered and sat up quickly. She couldn't believe she had fallen asleep. She wondered if some trick had been played on her mind. There was no sign of John or the horses, or the meadow. In front of her stood a large reflective building. In all other directions all she could see was thick fog.

  Is scrambled to her feet and started to walk toward the building. Almost immediately she was inside it. She didn't think she had taken enough steps to get there and she hadn't opened any doors.

  There didn't seem to be anything in the building, yet it wasn't an empty shell. The space was filled with a glistening, foggy stuff, maybe the way the fog outside would look if it were somehow compacted and backlit. Whatever it was felt denser than fog. It wasn't so much like walking through a substance, like water, as it was like moving through an electrical current. But it wasn't that either.

  Is gave up trying to figure it out when she saw John. He didn't see her. It was as though he was in another room. Only there were no walls to section this thing off into rooms.

  He was kneeling the way he had been when she last saw him, and he was talking. Is couldn't quite make out what he was saying. She could hear his pitch get higher, then lower, and his volume get louder, then softer. She had the eerie feeling that someone was tuning him as they might tune a musical instrument.

  Even though she seriously doubted she could do it, she began to walk toward him. He was only a few steps away. He remained at that distance as she walked.

  A berserker and his horse appeared in front of her rearing. She flinched back, but they were not attacking her. They were fighting something invisible. She had never seen a video image or a hologram so she recognized what she was seeing as a memory. It was not her memory, so she concluded it was the building's memory. That changed her thinking about the building. It had seemed to be a structure. Now she wondered if it were a living t
hing, this Mirror-non-mirror. A mirror reflects things, she thought, perhaps it held the reflection of everything it had ever seen.

  She continued to walk, passing more berserkers and more horses. They were all fighting something. They were as three-dimensional as life. She could hear their heavy breathing and smell their sweat. They were more than reflections. How could there be that much room in here? Then she thought, how much room is in a memory anyway?

  Some of the berserkers were from the distant past. She recognized their costumes and tack from pictures that had hung on the walls of the indoor arena. The weapons they carried had always been the same. But the berserkers and their horses had gotten bigger, more powerful and better trained as time progressed.

  This made Is realize how much research and development had gone into improving the berserkers and their horses. She wondered why nothing had been done to improve their weapons and answered herself, because they were never fighting against anything.

  Distracted by her thoughts, she blundered into one of the images. The same tingling sensation she had felt before shot through her. All the hair on her body stood on end, but the slashing sword did not cut her. In fact berserker and horse dissolved into a much more complex and confusing image. Part of it was similar to the words and letters and numbers that had been so off-limits to her, part of it was intense feeling. A strange curiosity swept over her. As though from someone else’s perspective she experienced the desire to learn what made humans and horses work. At her command were ways to experience these animals most thoroughly.

  Is brought the Mirror's abilities to bear on exploring the thing that interested her most: The augmented psychic connection between horse and rider. If she could understand how that connection was forged perhaps she could break Lark free from it. Momentarily she was engulfed in a white flash of loud light. The sound rattled inside her skull. It didn't occur to her to question how a light could be loud. It didn't hurt, exactly, and she wasn't afraid until later because at that moment there wasn't room to be afraid.

  For a long while - or perhaps nanoseconds - her mind worked completely differently from any way she'd ever used it before. Thinking seemed a totally alien process.

  Then the light/noise became too much for her small brain to hold. She felt it go crashing down her spinal cord and out into every nerve in her body. That did hurt as each nerve lit up with the screaming light.

  If her skull had been a cage, her skin was absolutely no barrier to the light/noise. It flowed out every nerve ending, right through the pores of her skin and was gone. She was left behind, physically and mentally shaken, gasping from relieved pain, and clutching frantically at the fading wisps of white-hot understanding.

  The best her ordinary mind could grasp as that there was something like a "fast" station which had been shrunk down to fit inside the berserker's head, and was somehow powered by the death process itself. The horse's energy, and its death agony, added to the strength of the transmission. But it was the rider's mind that went back and was received by someone the Mirror thought of as the Watcher.

  There was more, much more, but Is couldn't take any more. If she didn't stop and organize what she already had something would surely snap and she'd forget everything.

  She tried to walk away. Her body reeled drunkenly as though under the physical impact of the blows her mind had taken. She staggered and fell to her knees . . . and somehow right through the floor of what had appeared to be a solid building set solidly on the solid ground. When she looked around, the "building" was sitting on the meadow apparently the same distance from her as it had been when she had started to walk toward it before.

  A moan drew her attention in the opposite direction.

  John!

  He was lying only feet away from her, huddled into himself, moaning as though he was experiencing deep pain.

  She scuttled to him on all fours.

  "John! John!" He didn't seem to be aware of her. He looked right through her and began to talk as he had been talking in the "building." Only now it was a quick dull monotone, all in one pitch, all at one volume. Is grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, trying to stop him, trying to make him see her.

  His eyes seemed to look a little more at her instead of beyond her. She couldn't be sure. He kept talking. He might as well be speaking a foreign language. She could understand the words but not their meanings. She had wanted so badly to hear him talk, and now all she wanted was for him to stop.

  She began screaming at him, shaking him by the shoulders . . . and caught herself. The monologue had stopped. He looked at her.

  Her nerves had had all they could take. Now she was the one going to pieces. He pulled her against him and held her, hard.

  When she had herself under control she sat back from him. He looked at her with sane gentle eyes. She would have preferred to just leave it like that. She didn't need to hear him speak ever again if it was going to be that awful monotone but she felt compelled to know.

  "Can you talk? Normally?

  "I ... think." His voice was hoarse. He had to clear his throat. But the grin that spread across his face was gorgeous. Is was ready to celebrate with him.

  "Is," he said and caught her hands. "I've got so much to tell you. You must understand. You have to make Ondre understand." His eyes bored into hers, pleading, demanding.

  But all Is understood was that if she was the one who had to make Ondre understand, then John wasn't going back to his people. He was going to go inside the Mirror again.

  Her fear was as hot as the light that had crashed through her nerves, as sharp as a knife ripping her open, bowels to heart. The Mirror would kill him. She was certain of it, and she knew with the certainty of her pain that she could not stop him.

  He began talking rapidly, urgently.

  “I’m so sorry to have to put you through this, but you’re the only person I can do it with. We have to go back into the Mirror. You and I can connect the way a berserker and his horse are connected. It has to be you because we’ve already done it partly, that’s how you took me to Amil’s cabin, you and Lark.” He got the rush of his words stopped. Gently he touched her face.

  “Isadora,” he said each syllable of her name slowly, delighting in saying them as she was delighting in hearing them.

  “I better start at the beginning,” he said. Then he smiled. “Thank you for helping me when it must have seemed like the worst thing to do, and thank you so much for hanging in there when I must have seemed totally insane. I’m sorry for all the times I frightened you.”

  Is had already forgiven anything that needed forgiving. She had nothing to say.

  “I want to tell you what I’ve learned about the Mirror. It’s an experiment the Alliance set up. It's a computer ... a thinking machine.

  "But it's more than just a com…a machine. It doesn't just do, or think, the things it has been programmed, trained, to think; it can teach itself new things, and new ways to think." He watched to see if she would understand. The government school would never have taught her about computers.

  "I felt how it thinks," she said, and she told him about her experience inside the Mirror. He watched her, deep excitement in his eyes, energy like electricity springing from him.

  "If the Alliance made it, then why do they keep sending the berserkers against it?" she asked.

  "Because they created it especially to kill berserkers, and they created the berserkers especially to be killed by it. That is the berserker's whole purpose, to be killed by the Mirror. But it doesn't just kill them, Is. It downloads ... it keeps them . . . in holo images. . . you saw, complete images. Sound, sight, smell, everything. And it can project them.

  "Interactive holo images of complete downloaded personalities," he said to himself.

  The words could have been a language Is had never heard before, but her experiences had given her their meaning.

  "It keeps them alive after it's kil
led them."

  "Yes! Exactly! What else could command so much of the Alliance's attention, so many resources, such secrecy for so long? They are trying to create life after death. They want to live forever."

  Is felt the truth of it. The highest of the high government officials wanted to live after death, and of course they would keep that for only a select few. They would rule forever. No good would come of it.

  "I have to go back in there," John said. "We have to know how far they've succeeded."

  Is rebelled. "It will kill you," she practically screamed at him. "What good will it do you to know? You'll be dead."

  He met her eyes. He didn't refute what she'd said. He believed it might kill him.

  "It will not matter," he said about his own death. "You can tell Ondre what I've learned."

  Fear came up from places Is hadn't known were inside her.

  "I don't understand half of what you're saying," she protested. "I won't be able to explain it right."

  "There is a way," John said, and then he changed it to, "I think there is a way. If you come into the Mirror with me, I think I can forge a link between us . . ." Is didn't let him finish.

  "I was in there with you," she cried. "You were totally unaware of me and I couldn't reach you."

  "I was fixing the linkages in my mind. I was busy. And I was not totally unaware of you."

  "You were fixing yourself? The Mirror wasn't doing that to you?"

  "No. I don't think it realized we were there. It is sort of 'blind' to . . . to physical manifestations - us, you and me and our horses - unless we respond to its probes, its holo manifestations. It couldn't 'see' either of us because we responded in ways outside its experience, its programming. It's sort of like the way you can't see the pictures in written words because you have not been trained, programmed, to read."

  "But you said it trains itself."

  "Yes," John answered slowly. "It may train itself to see me. Or it may not. But meanwhile it is also a machine. I used some of the machine-like aspects of it to repair what had been done to my mind, and it ignored me like a building ignores a rat wandering around in the basement."

  Is had had the same impression. She was ignored as she walked through the Mirror's memory/thoughts.

  "Could you make it 'fix' Lark?" She saw John's eyes change.

  "I don't know. That's really a different sort of fixing. Lark has a chip, a physical thing, in his brain. I can't remove it. I might be able to tell it never to turn on . . ." His voice faded into nothing. His eyes came back from staring at something Is couldn't see.

  "Is, I think it's more likely I'd kill Lark than help him." He met her eyes until she lowered hers. He began to talk again, believing that he owed her more explanation.

  "In my mind, they used a ... light, to damage very select areas. I couldn't repair that physical damage, but I could bypass it. It was a matter of reestablishing pathways that used to be there, only putting them in different places. Like making new roads around obstructions." His eyes questioned if she understood. "I was fairly confident because it is my own mind. But the horse's mind is so different. I'd be lost in there. And what if he panicked inside the Mirror? The Mirror would notice that. It would do to him what it's done to the other horses." John shook his head. "Is, I'm sorry. I don't think I can do it." He met her eyes. "I'm afraid to try. I'm afraid of ruining the chance we do have. A chance to explain to my people what’s going on, a chance to, maybe, stop it.”

  Is understood, one horse’s life stacked against something enormously important to the Hluit people, something so enormous that John was ready to die to see it through.

  "I know how much he means to you. I'm sorry."

  "I understand," Is said but there was deadness in her voice that hid her emotions. One horse, who had been bred and trained and destined to die from the beginning, weighed against the need to find out what the Alliance was really up to and warn Ondre, Ellie, Petre, and all the Hluit.

  "When your people know what is happening, what good will it do them? Can they stop it?" They were a few hundred nomads against the Alliance and all its troops and technology.

  John looked away. "I don’t know that yet, Is. I do know that sometime, in some way we are going to have to get leverage over the Alliance. They will not let us live in peace forever. There could be something in all this stuff with the Mirror that will give us that advantage.”

  But you'll be dead, she thought, her eyes clouding with tears.

  "Will you help me?" he pressed her. "It has to be me, Is. I know enough of the language they programmed this computer with that I can probe it. I need to know, Is. My people need to know."

  She could understand the need for knowledge. She had always wanted to learn more than was allowed her. But she was afraid; and she did not want to lose John.

  "I don't know how to help you."

  "If you come inside the Mirror with me, I think I can forge a link between us. That's another 'tool' function the Mirror has. That's how it makes the holo images interactive. If I open that link from my side, I think you will be able to respond. I think you'll be able to hear my thoughts, then you'll come back outside the Mirror and you'll 'hear' the things I learn. As I go deeper into its programming, it will become more dangerous. Sooner or later I think it will notice me. At that point I may be able to have a dialogue with it, or I may not. But you'll be outside. You'll be safe, and you can take everything I've learned back to Ondre."

  "Will it ... download . . . you, like the berserkers?"

  "Possibly."

  "Then you won't really be dead?"

  "I don't know. Those images are not really 'alive' either."

  "You could be trapped like that. You want that?"

  John shook his head. "I don't know enough. I would say if I'm trapped like that, I am dead."

  Is could tell he hadn't said everything. She waited for him to continue, and finally he said, "Remember the dark bodies?"

  "Yes?" Something flipped over inside Is. "What are they?"

  "I think they are what's left of the berserkers after the Mirror disassembles them. The Mirror doesn't download everything into the holo images. There's something leftover, the spiritual part of the man, I guess."

  “Are the dark bodies alive then?”

  “Not exactly, but maybe more so than the holo images.”

  "So the Mirror hasn't succeeded. It hasn't created life after death for the Alliance."

  John hesitated before he replied. "I would say it has not completely succeeded. Yet. I need to know more, Is. How do the dark bodies get created? They're like ghosts. Real ghosts. All people who die don't have ghosts. At least not ones we can see and hear. What's really going on here? How much is the Mirror's doing? And how much does the Alliance know? They didn’t seem to know anything about the dark bodies. In all the time I was a spy I never heard, read or saw anything about them. Could the Mirror be hiding the dark bodies from the Alliance? If so, why?"

  Is remembered the night the dark bodies had come and surrounded John, caressing him. "They communicated with you?"

  "Yes. Not well. And there was danger. They have little of what you might call life energy. They exist in sort of a dream state, physically as well as mentally. To get enough energy together to communicate they must draw on the life forces of a living person."

  "They could kill that way?"

  "Possibly.”

  "Like the dog?" Is wanted to know. "He looked dead the whole time you were with the dark bodies. But he wasn't really . . ." She trailed off in confusion.

  John gave a little laugh. "That dog is very interesting. You know, I never did see him."

  That shocked Is. She had never questioned the dog's reality. He had seemed just like any other dog to her. She remembered trying to chase him back to Amil's cabin. He had dodged around Lark until Lark had understood the game and pinned his ears and gone after the dog as a h
orse will go after a cow.

  "Lark saw it," she said to defend herself.

  "I don't doubt you," John said. Then he was quiet for a long time until Is asked him what he was thinking.

  "Crazy stuff," he said and wanted to stop. But when he saw that Is really wanted to know, he continued. "Ondre told you that Amil and his cabin don't exist in our lifetimes. But when you and I went there, we could both see them, but when the dog followed us only you could see it. And Lark," he added, shaking his head.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. But maybe since you and Lark are the ones who can cross time boundaries, and you were able to bring me and Celeste to Amil’s, maybe you somehow brought the dog across time when we left Amil’s and returned to our own time.”

  Is shook her head. “I didn’t do anything, just sat on Lark. Maybe it was something Amil did. We should go back and try to find answers there, not go inside the Mirror again,” Is suggested.

  “Maybe," John said pensively, "and maybe I'm totally wrong."

  Is jumped on his hesitation. "You should wait. We should go back to see Amil before you go into the Mirror."

  John was silent a long time thinking it over while Is held her mental breath. Then he shook his head.

  "Amil might have some answers. We might even be able to find him again. But I can't take the time now. I have to do this now. I have the right knowledge. I understand this computer better than anyone. I suffered to get here and now is the right time. I can’t explain why, but I know it. Do you understand?"

  Reluctantly Is nodded. This was too important for lies. "Yes." Her voice was thick. She understood about right timing. It was part of the chain, like death, it came when it would.

  "Isadora," he said soft-voiced, "I never wanted to get you involved in this. I wish I could do this alone. But I can't. I would have chosen someone else, even Ondre over you. He would do it in a heartbeat, but as much as I love him I don’t have the same connection with him. You and I have something special, some entwinement that seems to be partly of the horses and even the land. Do you feel it?”

  She nodded slowly. She had never been in love before. She didn’t know if this was different from what other people felt. She thought of Petre who offered her love and made her feel good. But there had never been any contest in her mind between him and John. She was attached to John, connected, entwined. Nothing else drew her.

  “You don’t know how much I wish I didn’t have to ask this of you,” he said gently. “You've been hurt enough. But," he hesitated wanting desperately to explain so she would understand, "it might be precisely because of that pain that you have to be the one. I've seen you do things no one else can do. The ruin was a cabin when you were there, the Blueskins have a legend about you, you heard the dark bodies, you withstood the Mirror's attacks, and escaped its herd fogs." He spread his hands wide to show the enormity of the things she had done. "You've been inside the Mirror. I know of exactly one other person who ever got that close to the Mirror and lived to tell about it." He gave her a crooked little smile. "Me." Then serious, he said, "And we're connected, aren't we, you and I, somehow? This link might work between us when it might not work with someone else."

  Is could only nod. The lump in her throat was too big.

  "I love you," he said simply. "I wish this could have been different." Then he drew her against him and held her a very long while.

  Is understood that more than life itself John wanted to know about the Mirror. Is could understand not caring about living. Many times in her life she had wished to be dead. If the Mirror killed her - she was willing to risk that. But she didn't have much to lose. John did. He had his people and their love, and Ondre's love. If she had had such things she was not sure she would be able to give them up. She did not even want to give John up, and they had not had anything but a very strange and mixed-up friendship. It was one thing to desire knowledge. It was another for John to be willing to lose everything he had in the pursuit of that knowledge. Is did not think she had that kind of courage, but she would help John because he did have it.

  There was no need for more talk. John stood up and took her hand and they walked into the Mirror.

  It looked the same. There was the same silvery-gray fog that wasn't fog that tingled her skin. But Is thought they had entered a different "room" this time. There were no berserker memories to see here, and it felt different. The tingling wasn't just on her skin, it was somehow inside her mind. She felt as if she wanted to scratch but didn't know where she itched. It was intensely unpleasant. She began to feel very irritated. She wanted to pull away from John. She wanted to leave this stupid place. It was hard to remember why she was supposed to stay. She tried to focus her attention on John. It was important that she help John, but she was in a strange mindset where emotions were just an irritation.

  In an instant all that changed. She was swept by one emotion after another - rage, terror, love, sorrow - complete with their physical manifestations in her body. Fortunately each one only lasted a moment. She did not have time to act on any of them.

  Then she became calm, suspended somehow with no emotion and no thought. Radiant. Silent. Cessation of all.

  That lasted an amount of time that was neither long nor short.

  Suddenly an “other” presence swept her with an embrace so loving, so radiant, so filled with joy it was indescribable. Is lost herself in that union.

  . . . This is of me, he tried to instruct her, and she could hear/feel how there was something other-than-self. That is of the Mirror, and she could see/taste how that was so. This is how to access memory, he told her, and she was flooded with sight, sound, smell, sensation in a confusing blur. This is how to sort your memories from mine, he instructed her, but she didn’t try. She was inside his mind and his heart not just his memories. She could find out how he really felt about her. Was he, deep down, just like the men in the Alliance? Was Ondre? Was Petre?

  She felt how he only meant to let her in so far but she plunged ahead. He resisted her until he understood that this was about trust. Could she trust him the way she had not trusted anyone since she was a small child? He did something in his mind and the shield went down, she was engulfed in love – his love for her, for Ondre, Petre and all of his people, but it was not just his love for them it was also their love for him. She was awed into silence, embraced in a place of reverence she had not imagined could exist. She rested there in a total and complete rest where no fear or worry could reach her.

  In time, she felt healed and a high-spirited reckless joy swept her. She was having fun being John. This was how it felt to be a boy having boy problems. This was how it felt to be loved by a family, to have real friends, teachers who loved you, to have love and support everywhere.

  Is knew how it was to be a boy becoming a man, a man with a woman, and a man without one. She knew his worst disasters, his secret fears, his hopes, and the things that shamed him.

  A long time passed before she reined herself in. By then she'd run through all of John's most intimate, most tender and most embarrassing moments. Through it all he hadn't made a move to stop her.

  Now she was ashamed of herself. She had had no right to take all that. She wouldn't want him running through her memories that way. She wanted to withdraw.

  He showed her how to do that too.

  From the distance of the encapsulated other-excluding self Is formed around herself, she extended a tentative touch. Yes, he was still there. She formed an apology. He accepted it, she thought. It was hard to tell. Everything was getting very distant. It was beginning to be a little frightening. She had started the process of building a wall around herself but it kept on building.

  Then she felt him push against her wall. He was seeking a way into her sanctuary. He would break in and take from her what she didn’t want him to know. She was no longer afraid of the walls building a
round her, she wanted them to increase. She felt him try again to reach her but she would not let him. Sudden sharp pain shot through her. Blinding light. Searing heat. No oxygen. This is how to let me reach you, he said in her mind and was gone.

  She clung to her shattered walls, shaken, frightened, violated. Nothing else happened, but she was afraid of the power John had shown he had over her. She had always hated the power men had over women. Because he was stronger, because he could rape, she had to fear him. After an immeasurable period of time, after she was done being angry with him - with all men - she got angry with herself. It was her fear that gave men power over her. If she took away that fear, she took away that power.

  How could she not fear the kind of violation she had just been through?

  How could she not fear rape?

  She worked on these things a long time. Mental understanding was a start, but only a start. She could not erase the fear with it. Action was needed.

  She used the information John had thrust into her to open her shield. Yes, he was still there. She could bridge across to him.

  He was full of apology. I was going to lose you. You wouldn't have known how to get back out of there. I'm sorry. I should have taught you the bridge before the wall. I really didn't know how much I'd hurt you. I felt I had to do it. I'm sorry . . . sorry . . . sorry . . .

  She withdrew and he didn't try to follow. Okay, that had been very brave of her, she thought, cynical of herself. She could reach out and withdraw. Very brave. So why was she still afraid? Because that wasn't good enough. Is knew what she had to do.

  She reached out tentatively and touched him. His quick joy and profuse apology reached her. She gave him a bit of a mental push, akin to saying, "Shut up," startling him into silence.

  When she had his attention she began disassembling the wall until she had the link opened wide.

  You don't have to do this, he pleaded, the link is good enough. She could feel him trying to hold back. He wasn't able to. He came flowing into her, into all her most intimate moments, her fears, her embarrassments, her hopes, her woman-ness.

  The memories washed through them - sight, sound, smell, and pain. Her mother's blood was as vivid as Riding Master Masley's touch. She laid it all bare and she was defenseless and very, very sorry. John would see how twisted and frightened and truly ugly she was. She could never be someone as beautiful, confident, loving, or loved as any one of his people. He would abhor her.

  He was saying something over and over again. There were no words, yet his message was clear. He cared for her. He forgave her the things she hadn't forgiven herself. He deeply appreciated her allowing him to do this. He understood her fear, and the courage it had taken to let him see her this way. He cherished her beauty.

  Beauty? she asked.

  Yes, her uniqueness. Her intricateness. Her difference. She accepted that because that was the way she welcomed and loved him.

  His joy sparked hers. They were together in their intimacy a long time.

  We must go on now, he finally said.

  Yes. It wasn't possible for either one of them to be sad. They rearranged the linkage until it was more distant and more formal, more like speech. But what they had shared was inside both of them.

  How do I go? she asked him, and suddenly she was falling. She landed on the meadow. There was no fog, no Mirror. Both horses grazed nearby.

  John!

  Wait. Please. Though she couldn’t see him, he was inside her mind.