At last, after what seemed like hours of helpless sliding, the slope began to level out, and she came gently to rest at
the bottom of the immensely long chute. She lay for a long while, drawing ragged, sobbing breaths, while the pain of all her myriad bruises and scrapes soaked into her consciousness. She had received the equivalent of a severe beating as she hurtled down the chute, and it felt as though she could never move again.
She opened her eyes to look about her. There was nothing to be seen. She was in blackness so utter that red sparks swam before her eyes as they strained to make out even the slightest image. The air lay heavily on her chest, stale and lifeless. The thin, dry whisper of a tiny fall of sand from somewhere was the only sound, save for the labored pounded of her own heart and rasping breaths. Above her, the weight of millions of tons of rock and earth bore down upon her with a palpable pressure, crushing her spirit as the rocks themselves threatened to crush her body. She could not scream, as some might have done. The dark was a living thing that pressed hungrily at her from all sides, drinking in her terror. She could only whimper and cower on the sandy floor, babbling to drown out the fearsome silence.
Len was not surprised when great livid bruises began to appear on his employer’s body. Grimly, he laid aside Ade-linda’s sword and dabbed away the blood that welled from the scrapes. But when she huddled herself into a ball and began to whimper as one in the utter extremity of hopeless terror, the hatred that had festered for so long in his heart melted away at last, to be replaced by pity and a great fear for her sanity. Moved by an unreasoning desire to comfort her, he sat down beside her on the narrow bed-shelf and gathered her into his arms, holding and rocking her^as he would have a frightened child. “Adelinda, Adelinda,” he whispered into her ear. “You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you here. You’re going to be all right. Please, Adelinda, try to wake up. I’m here with you, and I’ll keep you safe until you can wake up. Try to come to me, Adelinda,” He kept repeating the same phrases, over and over, holding her trembling body tightly, projecting comfort and safety to the utmost of his ability.
Adelinda cowered on the floor of the cavern for a long while, her nerve utterly gone. Her half-healed arm burned like fire; every bruise and scrape ached clear to the bone; thirst tormented her. But none of those would have broken her will. The darkness and the depths did that.
An-Shai, watching her with a light that shone in the over-mind only for his eyes, tasted triumph as a rich wine, knowing that he had only to speak and she would take his offered protection gratefully, eager to accept him as master if only lie would take her from this place. He paused to savor the picture of her, humbly grateful to him, worshipping him as lie showered her with kindness, coming at last to be glad he had broken her spirit and her proud heart.
Through the extremity of her terror, Adelinda knew he was there. She knew, too, that as soon as he had enjoyed her fear long enough he would speak, and the depths of her self-loathing were abysmal, for she knew that when he did, (his time she would yield. She would have called out to him, had she not been stunned with fear, her tongue swollen in her mouth until it threatened to choke her.
But then, just as An-Shai was preparing to speak with infinite sorrow and pity, a third presence entered into that hellish place. A powerful personality with a keen intelligence, freed at last of the fetters of self-pity and hatred that had crippled its development for so long, Len’s spirit was a bolt of lightning illuminating the pit. He poured his strength and courage into Adelinda’s flagging soul lavishly, and she rose from the floor of the cave with a glad cry. Irresistibly, he summoned her out of her trap and back to him, and, newly invigorated, she fled to him, obeying his call freely as she would never have done An-Shai’s.
An-Shai was livid with rage and disappointment. He had had her in his hand; she had been on the very verge of capitulation and some insolent outlander had intervened. He would pay, whoever he was. The bishop wrenched himself out of the overmind, letting his savage little universe dissolve back to its constituent nothingness, plains, buildings, man-rats, and all. He started up from his bed-shelf, his face contorted, considerably startling Tsu-Linn, who was standing by to offer assistance if needed.
Adelinda returned to the real world to find herself cradled tenderly in Len’s arms, as he rocked her soothingly, murmuring comforting words in her ear. Convulsively, she clung to him, racked by a storm of weeping. The remnants of terror, bitter humiliation, and incredible relief rendered her speechless for minutes.
When at last she was able to catch her breath, she said, quietly but with great intensity, “Len, I don’t know why you hate me, but whatever I did to you I’ll make it up, if it takes every penny I have and every drop of my blood. You saved me from—well, from something more horrible than you can even imagine, and I owe you a debt that nothing could ever repay.”
Holding her gently, he answered, “Hush, hush. You’re upset. I don’t hate you. When you feel better, let’s get out of here.”
“Oh, yes, let’s. An-Shai must be insane, and he’s a more powerful sorcerer than we ever imagined. Let’s get the horses and make a run for the ocean.”
“Without his help, how will we get ships?”
Adelinda was silenced. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “Maybe we can run for the northeast, where the continents are supposed to come together so closely that you can see across on a clear day. We’ll talk it over with the others.”
Adelinda’s trembling had almost quelled itself when the door burst open and An-Shai charged into the room, followed by Tsu-Linn, Li-Mun, and a contingent of the palace servants. The bishop took in the scene before him. Adelinda was half lying in the embrace of one of her young employees, the dark-haired one, holding on to him as if he were her lifeline, as indeed he had been. An-Shai drew himself up, his face glacially cold, bolts of invisible power playing about him as lightning plays about some high and rocky peak.
“So!” he said, controlling his rage. “You’ve dared to bring your lover into my very palace. Are they all your bed-slaves?” A bitter burning feeling welled up in the bishop’s breast and added itself to his anger at being balked in his plans; he failed to recognize the sensation as jealousy.
Len released Adelinda and scooped up the short sword he had laid aside. Adelinda came to her feet, fighting to subdue the trembling that An-Shai’s entrance had caused to break out anew. If An-Shai had taught her nothing else, he had laught her fear. Shoulder to shoulder, the two outlanders laced the crowd defiantly. “Len is not my lover. He’s much more than that; he’s my friend. If it weren’t for him, you’d have succeeded in destroying me. You’re a treacherous, vicious madman, and our contract is ended. We’re leaving CJodsland.”
“Do you think so?” snarled An-Shai, nearly beside himself beneath his icy demeanor. “You aren’t leaving. You and this peasant are going to stay here and pay for your crimes.” lie raised his hands suddenly, clutching as he gathered his invisible power into them. He flung it at the defiant pair. It was like being struck by lightning. The sword was dashed out of Len’s grasp and flung across the room to clatter against the wall. Len convulsed as he was flung the other way, to skid across the floor and land crumpled in a comer. Adelinda dropped as if shot, unconscious before she hit the floor. The air sizzled and stank of ozone. The palace servants cowered in awe, and even Tsu-Linn’s jaw dropped. He had had no idea his proteg6 could command such powers in the real world.
All his forces spent by the efforts of the past few hours, An-Shai sagged and would have fallen himself if Li-Mun hadn’t caught him and supported his body. “Lock them up,” the bishop gasped weakly. “Tell them what the penalties are for what they’ve done. I want them to suffer.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” said Li-Mun, soothingly. “I will. Er —what are the penalties?”
“Use your imagination!” snapped An-Shai, pettishly as an old man. “And tell the woman she’ll have to watch the peasant suffer them first.”
Li-Mun gulped. He had nev
er imagined that his bishop was capable of such malice. “Yes, Your Grace. Where shall we lock them up?”
“Do I have to do all the thinking? There must be a storeroom with a lock on it, or you can have some bars installed on the outside of one of the guest rooms, or something. Just make sure it’s uncomfortable.” Sagging weakly against Li-Mun, An-Shai looked down at his unconscious prisoners. “She’s going to be very, very sorry she didn’t accept my protection.”
Chapter 10
“For God’s sake, mao, forget it,” expostulated Tsu-Linn. An-Shai’s cold rage had survived the night. He stood at the window of his library, his inner turmoil expressing itself in the vibrating tension of his tall, slender frame as he stared out over the northern Vale. “If this try at mastering the woman failed, you have all the chances in the world to try again. If the peasant is her lover, you have an excellent leverage against her. She must care what happens to him, but you don’t, if you take my meaning.”
“I understand you. You think that if he’s threatened, she’ll do anything to save him. I don’t think so. I’m not sure I can do anything to him in the overmind, anyway. You didn’t feel the power he poured into her, nor the strength with which he called her out of the overmind.”
“Far be it from me to suggest crude methods, but I’d like to point out that you don’t have to deal with him in the overmind. She’s seen what night stalkers can do. If he were staked out near a nest of them, what would she do to have him freed?”
An-Shai turned and looked at the initiate, revulsion plain for an instant on his face. “What if I didn’t get back to him in time? He’d really be killed. No, it isn’t worth it. Besides, if he were eaten by night stalkers she’d hate me forever.” “She’s not fond of you now.”
An-Shai shook his head. “If I could master her, I could win her over with kindness. If I actually harm her or her friend, the psychic power her hatred would generate would probably burn out both our minds. She’s very strong, if only she knew it. If she knew as much as I do about the overmind, I wouldn’t have any chance of mastering her.”
“I’d bet that she’s learning rapidly. She isn’t stupid, either.”
“Li-Mun says that the peasant resents her. There must be some way we can use that.”
“He was quick enough to help her last night.”
“Not really. It was hours of subjective time before he intervened. If he cared about her he’d have been into it at the first episode.”
“Then you don’t think he’s her lover?”
“No, I suppose not, not unless she’s forcing him and that’s what he resents. But I doubt that she’d do that. She’s as honest and straightforward as a punch in the mouth; she says what she means and she means what she says. Think of the trouble she could have saved herself by pretending to give in last night.” An-Shai paused reflectively. “Can he help her if they’re separated and he can't see her?”
“Not if he doesn’t know she needs help. Unfortunately, you’ll find that being in contact in the overmind as they have been establishes a bond between people. You’d feel it yourself if she was threatened by someone else in the overmind. You might even be drawn in to help her. Whether these outlanders will be sensitive to such a bond, who can say?” “Well, then, what can I do?”
Tsu-Linn shrugged. “Kill them both and come with me to the Hall for your initiation. They aren’t worth all this agony.”
“No! If I did that, she’d have me beat. She’ll be worth it all, once I’ve broken her in. You said yourself that she would make a good wife for an initiate.”
“Then bring her to the Hall of the Initiates. There are facilities there that you don’t have, techniques that in time will break any will. We’ve been underestimating these outlanders all along; that’s been our trouble. I suggest that you use their names when you think of them, just as you would another initiate. If you go on thinking of them as ‘the woman’ and ‘the peasant,’ you can’t help thinking of them as stereotypes.”
Adelinda returned to consciousness to find herself lying in a bare room on an uncovered stone sleeping bench. Morning light streamed through the window. Len lay across the room from her, sprawled as if he had been dumped carelessly clown. Aside from their two bodies and the clothing they wore, the room was completely empty. She swung her legs down and staggered stiffly to her feet. A quick check showed that Len was unconscious, breathing with some difficulty because of his awkward position. She straightened him out and began to examine the room. One door opened to show the same sanitary facilities that she had had in her room. She used these with considerable relief. The other door was shut and barred, and with no leverage she couldn’t hope to force it. An examination of the window showed that it was closed with a hastily installed grillwork. There was a sheer drop of twenty feet or so to the floor of the Vale, ccrtainly far enough to break bones if they tried to jump.
Adelinda returned to the place she had been left and sat down. Running a sticky tongue over paper-dry lips, she set herself to think her way out of imprisonment. Neither doors nor window offered any avenue of escape. She was considering all the various stratagems she had ever heard or read about when Len groaned and began to stir. He levered himself to a sitting position and stared blankly about, his handsome young face marred with a livid bruise across the left cheekbone.
“Are you all right?” Adelinda asked inadqueately.
“I guess so. I feel like I took a nap in the path of a stampede. Is there anything to drink?”
“No, but there’s a facility through that door, if you need it.”
Without answering, Len struggled to his feet and limped through the door. When he returned, he made the same round that Adelinda had done and made the same discoveries. Then he, too, returned to the sleeping bench and sank down upon it.
They had sat thus for a while when the bars were removed from the door—three of them, from the amount of racket they made. The door was opened, and Li-Mun entered. His quick glance showed him both the prisoners, seated on opposite sides of the room—not hopeful for the bishop’s schemes, he thought. “Would you move over beside Adelinda, please, Len? I want to talk to both of you.” Sullenly —the old cast of countenance had settled back onto his face—Len complied. “You two have displeased the bishop very much. He’s asked me to explain the nature of your crimes and the penalties.”
Adelinda’s expression was one of courteous disinterest; Len scowled into space as though Li-Mun were invisible and inaudible. “The rales governing marriage here in Godsland are very strict, and the penalty for taking a lover outside of wedlock is death,” the secretary said as impressively as he could manage.
“Then it is very fortunate that Len and I aren’t lovers,” said Adelinda, calmly.
“You must agree that it looks very suspicious for him to have been found in your room, the two of you clasped in a close embrace.”
“Oh, quit it, Li-Mun. You know that isn’t why An-Shai is angry with us. He’s mad at me because I wouldn’t play his little power games with him, and he’s mad at Len because he helped me out. What is he going to do about it?”
“I believe he intends to invoke the full weight of the custom. He means to have you both put to death. And I’m afraid that he intends for you to watch while Len is subjected to indescribable tortures and then executed yourself after he expires.”
Suddenly Adelinda laughed. “Did you say ‘indescribable tortures’? An-Shai must have told you to say that.”
Li-Mun, who had made up the phrase himself and was rather proud of it, blushed. He had thought that mysterious terrors would be more effective than specific threats, at which his imagination failed him. “I should prefer not to tell you what will be done to him. It doesn’t make pleasant hearing,” he added darkly.
“Go back to the bishop and tell him that if he’ll let us go we and all the outlanders will be out of the Vale by noon and out of Godsland by tomorrow nightfall, if he will arrange for the ships.”
“I don’t think he’ll a
gree to that. There’s only one way u> save yourself and Len.”
“As if I didn’t know. Go ahead.”
“If you will go to him and plead for mercy, he might be willing to take you under his protection and spare Len.” There was a stubborn set to Adelinda’s jaw that made it unnecessary for her to reject the proposition.
Abruptly Li-Mun abandoned his prepared script. He came and sat down beside Adelinda and took her hand. “Adelinda, he doesn’t really want to hurt you or Len, no matter what he says, just like he didn’t really hurt you last night.” He turned her arm; the scar that only a few hours ago had been a bloody gash was fading away, and the braises were already gone. “I don’t know why, but it has really become important to him that you look to him for protection. What would it hurt? I can promise you that he’d be a kind master. All it would take to satisfy him would be a chance to be magnanimous to you. Can’t you give him that chance?” He leaned forward, willing her to believe him. “How could it hurt your pride to let another human being have his pride, too?” Adelinda' sighed and glanced at Len, who was listening with a strange intensity. “It isn’t a matter of pride, Li-Mun. Or not any more, anyway. I tried to offer him what deference I could. But he wants too much. He wants to make me a slave. Can you honestly say that he would let us go home if I did—well, surrender to him?”
Li-Mun’s gaze fell. “No, I can’t. If you really accepted his protection, you wouldn’t want to leave him, and he’d know in a minute if you were faking. Would it be so bad to be cared for and protected by a strong man you could trust?” “I can’t do it. I hope he doesn’t hurt Len or any of the rest of my friends, but I can’t submit my will to him the way he wants me to. I don’t trust him. No normal person wants another person to give up all of themselves to him.”
Claudia J Edwards - [Forest King 02] Page 14