by John Ringo
“The only ones that might have are Edmund and maybe a guy named Gunny,” Daneh said. “And I don’t care to talk to either of them about it, thank you very much.”
“You’re being very stubborn about this, Sister dear,” Sheida said.
“I’m a Ghorbani,” Daneh said with a faint smile.
Sheida started to say something then looked startled. “I have to go. Talk to someone, damnit!”
“Good bye, Sheida,” Daneh said.
“Bye.”
Daneh took a deep breath after Sheida left and thought about the roster of people in Raven’s Mill. “Damn, she’s right” she muttered then walked to a cupboard and took out a bottle of brandy. She looked at the cups and then shook her head and took a deep pull from the bottle. “I can’t believe that I’m going to do this.”
She looked at the door and then pulled a cloak down against the evening chill and went walking out the door. She had and idea who to talk to. Now to find her.
* * *
McGibbon had just drawn a bead on the lead doe of the herd when he froze at a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t figure out what the patch was until it moved again and then he identified it; it was that damned cat of Rachel’s.
He’d been stalking the herd of deer for the last half hour. Stalking was a highly skilled art but he’d been practicing for nearly fifty years and it was second nature to him at this point. The first part was finding the quarry, which was a matter of moving through the woods as if he was a deer himself. That required moving a few steps then pausing and actually making a bit of noise. If you tried to move absolutely silently it was impossible. So you had to move as if you were a foraging animal. A few steps. A movement of a foot. Watch, listen, smell, then move on.
The most important thing was to sight the deer before they spotted you. If you did that, you could close in on them with relative ease. Foraging white tails couldn’t spot movement when their heads were down. And they flipped their tails before they raised their head. So you kept an awareness of their movement, an alpha state in which whenever they started to flick you froze instantly and, at least at his level, almost unconsciously. They would raise their heads, look around and then go back to eating. Which let you get closer.
He had gotten to within a stone’s throw of the deer and had just drawn his bow when he spotted the cat.
On the other hand, it was doing much the same thing. He watched it as it froze in its stalk just as the deer lifted their heads again. There were about fifteen deer in the herd, foraging on fallen acorns at the edge of a natural meadow. He was on the west edge of the meadow and the cat had apparently entered on the southeast edge. Now it was doing a careful and quiet stalk, and despite the fact that the town needed the food he let the bowstring slip silently forward to watch.
As soon as the deers’ heads went back down the cat moved forward again, its belly to the ground half-hidden in the tall grass at the meadow’s center. It moved cautiously, lifting each paw and placing it so that Robert suspected it was making less noise than he would.
Slowly it worked its way to the edge of the tall grass and appeared to focus on one deer on the edge of the herd. The button buck was probably from the last year’s births and just about ready to be driven out of the herd. As a sign of its relative status it had been driven to the edge of the herd where the acorns were the fewest and it was assiduously searching for anything edible it could find. This meant it had its head down far more than the rest of the herd and far more than was wise. And if the cat wasn’t overreaching, the buck might not live to learn the lesson.
Robert watched the stalk until the cat paused at the edge of the grass, then drew his bow again. It was the only compound bow in the village and while it was a very strong draw the nature of the compound bow dropped the “hold weight,” the amount of pull necessary to keep drawn to its full length, to barely half it’s maximum hundred and fifty pounds. But even seventy-five pounds can be a lot to hold for very long and he hoped the cat would make its move soon.
It did, as the buck moved just a tad further out, searching for the elusive wind-blown acorns. When the deer got to within a bare five meters of the cat, the white and orange tom burst out of the grass in a dead sprint and leapt onto the deer’s back.
Robert hadn’t bothered to watch the charge. At the first flicker of movement he had loosed the arrow straight into the “sweet spot” behind the doe’s shoulder. However, despite having a broad-head arrow through her heart the doe bounded away with the rest of the herd, intent on leaving the commotion of the attack of the cat behind her.
Robert now watched in bemusement as the cat first shifted its grip to the deer’s throat, dragging it around and down by sheer weight. Then, as soon as the buck was on the ground, the cat made a lightning change to a clamp on its muzzle. Deprived of oxygen, the deer thrashed and twisted but to no avail; the house lion had the big buck down and down it was going to stay. With a final kick and thrash, the deer lay still.
“Bravo,” McGibbon said, clapping lightly in applause. “Very nice. But you made my doe run off. Now I’m going to have to track her down.”
Azure looked up in startlement as if he hadn’t noticed the human until then and let out a mew. He stalked over through the grass, his tail high and butted into Robert’s hand, getting blood from his muzzle all over the archer’s glove.
“You’re some cat,” the hunter chuckled, rubbing him behind the ears. “I’m more of a dog person, but I could take a shine to you.”
* * *
When Daneh pushed open the door to the pub she was hit by a blast of sound. A redheaded female minstrel was leading a Celtic band in a rollicking jig. Daneh glanced around the crowd and didn’t see who she was looking for so she started to back out when Estrelle appeared at the edge and nodded at her.
“Mistress Talbot, it has been a long time,” the homunculus said. She had her usual skimpy tavern-wench outfit on and a tray held up in either hand but she nodded in greeting.
“Hello, Estrelle,” Daneh said and asked if she’d seen her quarry.
“Right down by the foot of the stage,” Estrelle said. “She comes in here every night to dance.”
Daneh wormed her way uneasily around the edge of the crowd and stopped about half way. The heat and the noise and the smell was starting to get to her but having come this far she was damned sure going to keep on going. Finally she got up near the stage and saw her.
Bast had shed her bow and sword and now was a spinning dervish in front of the stage. There were several people in a line on either side trying to keep up with the jig but even if it had started slow the tempo had sped up to the point that no normal dancer could possibly keep up. Bast, however, was no normal dancer. She was perfectly on beat and adding additional moves including spins, kicks and even the odd backflip, each of them perfectly in time to the music.
The jig had reached the end of the cycle and the redheaded fiddler tried to pick up the tempo again but the band began falling apart; it was simply too fast for most of them to play. Bast, however, stayed right with them until the minstrel finally gave up with a screech of her bow and nodded in defeat to the elf.
People, mostly men, were crowded around the elf but she seemed to be able to fend them off with some sort of karma personal protection field; even the drunkest was giving her her space. She nodded to the band, walked over to pick up her weapons and wormed her way through the crowd to where Daneh was standing.
“Methinks you didn’t come down here for a drink,” Bast said, looking at her calmly.
“No, I didn’t,” Daneh replied with a gulp.
“And this is no place to talk,” Bast said. “I suggest Edmund’s house.”
“Okay,” Daneh said, following her out. As with the dancers around the stage, when she moved through the crowd it seemed to part as if by magic and Daneh kept close on her heels all the way to the door.
“What I wanted to talk about…” Daneh said when they got outside and she c
ould talk without shouting.
“How much liquid courage did you take on board to go find me?” Bast asked.
“I… had a drink of brandy.”
“Just one?” the elf said, amusement in her voice. “Not nearly enough. Wait until we get to the house. But do not fret on the way. Yes, I know what you need to talk about. And, yes, I know some of what you need to know. And, no, it will not be easy. On either of us. But it will be well. I tell you this as Bast. And Bast is never wrong.”
Strangely comforted by that, Daneh followed her back to the house. In silence the elf rummaged in the drink cupboard and pulled out a bottle of wine, then made a fire and settled the two chairs in front of the fire. She pulled out goblets and filled them both to brimming.
“Drink,” she said, pointing at the goblet.
Daneh picked it up and took a sip.
“No, drink,” Bast said, taking her own and tipping it up to drain it.
Daneh swallowed and then lifted the goblet to down it. The wine was not brandy but it was fortified, “winter wine” with a higher than normal alcohol content. The total of the goblet was probably more alcohol than in the shot of brandy she had had before going to the pub. She suddenly remembered that she had skipped dinner.
Bast filled both the cups again, then nodded.
“You were raped by Dionys McCanoc,” Bast said. “And others. How many?”
“There were… seven others,” Daneh said shuddering. “I don’t think…”
“You will talk about it,” Bast said. “You must. You can talk about it. You relive it every night. Don’t just talk to yourself, talk to me. Bast knows. Bast knows the evil that comes in the night, in dreams and without, oh, yes, Bast knows.”
“You…?”
“It takes much to rape an elf,” Bast said obliquely. “I know the evil in humans and elf. I am old, Daneh. I have seen the evils of the AI wars. I know. Eight of them, then. They held you?”
Daneh took a deep breath and started talking. Haltingly at first but as Bast drew her out with careful questions it all spilled out and as it did she relived it, every awful moment, as if it was happening all over again. By the time she was crying she realized that she’d drunk most of the bottle of wine and wondered how that had happened.
“So, and…” Bast said when she was finished. “There is more to it, though. What did Herzer have to do with it?”
Daneh hesitated and looked at the elf, her head cocked on the side. “You and Herzer are…”
“Friends,” Bast said with a smile. “He, too, bears scars. I have not invested the time in him that I have in you, but I have invested enough. I want to know what his scars are, from you.”
“He was with Dionys when they caught me,” Daneh said. “There were too many of them and Dionys was armed with a sword. There was no way he could keep me from being raped. So… he ran. He tried to knock them off me on the way, at least I think he did. But he didn’t succeed. And then he came back… after.”
“Thus and so…” Bast sighed. “What fun we are all having. Have you tried to get back on the horse?”
“No,” Daneh said in a small voice.
“Not long enough, methinks,” Bast replied with a nod. “Tell me about the dreams.”
“I… that’s… hard.”
“Harder than the rape itself, methinks,” Bast said with an unhappy grin. “Let me tell you a few things, then. You relive the rape, yes?”
“Yes,” Daneh said, tightly.
“And sometimes the reason you wake up in terror is that you orgasm.”
“Bast!”
“True?” the elf said hardly. “True.”
Daneh lowered her face into her hands and nodded. “Yes.”
“Normal,” Bast said, definitely. “You think that you are evil or sick or twisted beyond repair, yes? But this is normal. For humans anyway.”
“That’s sick,” Daneh said, crying.
“Hey, one of the reasons we elves know you humans are the result of evolution is how screwed up you are mentally; a well designed species isn’t so flighty.”
“So elves don’t have these problems with rape?” Daneh asked, interested in spite of herself.
“Very hard to rape an elf,” Bast repeated. “Harder to survive. Few things that can break an elf out of Dream, few things that can make them hate. Elves are too happy to hate. But when we hate, we hate well. Elf that is raped dreams, oh, yes. But they dream of new and more awful things to do to their rapist. Dream their death over and over again. Elves hate very well. One of the things we’re designed to do is hate. But, mostly, we’re too happy. Be glad. Elves not so happy, humans no longer be here. You need to get back on the horse, but not yet. And know something, when you do, it won’t be good. No matter how loving Edmund is, you’re going to be back there again. Worse, you might enjoy it. There is such a thing as bad sex and that’s it.”
“Yes,” Daneh said.
“But it will get better,” Bast said with a shrug. “Each time it will be a little easier. Other problem. How do you feel about men, now?”
“I’m… not sure,” Daneh said. “Some of them… I’m okay with. Others… make me want to scream.”
“Don’t get to hating them all,” Bast said. “It is an easy trap, to run away from them and wish they were all dead. Even elves don’t hate that way. Each man is different. The ones that make you want to scream… you’re probably feeling something from them. Trust that instinct. But don’t hate them all. That, too, is damage you have to work on. Last Big question: Were you a submissive before you were raped?”
Daneh opened her mouth to voice her favorite protest then clapped it shut; it was a valid question. “Not… openly.”
“Did you play the games?”
“No,” she admitted. “I never could… I couldn’t bring it up.”
“Not even with Edmund?” Bast said, surprised. “He’s not fetished that way, but he plays the game very well.”
“Not even with Edmund,” Daneh admitted.
“Humph. Bet he knew. Fantasies?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“Rape?”
Daneh paused then sighed. “Yes.”
“Okay, Doctor Bast recommend not play that game for a while.”
Daneh couldn’t help it, she started giggling which turned into a full-bore laugh which somehow segued back into tears until she was sobbing so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. She realized she was in Bast’s lap and being held by strong arms.
“Cry little human, cry,” Bast whispered. “Cry until you’re cried out. Tears are the only thing that shows that humans might have had a Creator. Too weak, too fragile, scared of the whole world. But if there was a Creator She gave them tears to face it and go on.”
Daneh finally caught her breath and looked at the elf holding her. “Thank you,” she said and then, for some reason, kissed her full on the lips.
“You’re welcome,” Bast said after the kiss was over. “But not tonight, I’ve got a headache.”
Daneh broke out in giggles again and shook her head. “Me, too. All that wine I think.”
“Yes, and I think it’s time for you to go to bed,” Bast said, lifting the larger woman effortlessly off her lap. “Alone.”
“Alone,” Daneh agreed and was surprised and worried that she wasn’t sure she wanted to be alone. She’d never had a sexual thought about another woman before. “Bast, I don’t want you to think that…” she paused.
“Is okay, I’d put it down to another effect of the rape,” Bast said, supporting her to bed. She got her undressed and tucked in and then kissed her on the forehead. “Lots of things messed up in you from it. But you’ll get better. Trust Bast. Sleep. Deep sleep no dreams.”
“No dreams,” Daneh said muzzily, wondering why she was so tired.
“Sleep little human,” Bast said, placing her hand on her forehead. “Sleep well.”
As Daneh faded into sleep the last thing she remembered was Bast curling up on the floor as if she
intended to stay for a while. And if her sleep was troubled by dreams, they fled at the sight of a sword-wielding being in white.
* * *
Sheida nodded tiredly at the avatar of Ishtar and then sighed at her face.
“What is it now?” she asked, unwrapping her jewel-covered lizard from her neck and cradling it in her arms.
“I have determined the source of the power that Paul’s faction is drawing upon,” Ishtar said without preamble. “It is a power draw from core storage.”
“But…” Sheida paused. “But the only ones who can do a core draw are the elves. That is how the Lady is closing Elfheim.”
“That is not the only source for core draws,” Ishtar said bitterly. “They are using power from the terraforming projects.”
“Oh,” Sheida said after a moment’s thought. “How… truly good.”
“What I have been unable to determine is why they can draw upon it,” Ishtar went on. “They have to have a quorum of the board of directors of one or more of the projects agreeing to release the power. And… I can’t imagine that happening.”
“I can,” Sheida said after long thought. “But, oh, but that is a deep laid plan…” she muttered.
“What plan?” Ishtar asked, her brows furrowing.
“Edmund, he told me to look to the Demon at the center of this,” Sheida said with a grimace. “And I think he must be right. I was… asked to look into some things before this… war erupted. There had been some disturbing things going on with the Wolf 359 terraforming project. One of the people who had risen to prominence was… well known to me. Not a good person and not the sort of person to…”
“Care about something that wasn’t going to do him any good?” Ishtar asked.
“Something like that. But it didn’t come together. Now it does. And we are truly in trouble.”
“But the rest of the board members?” Ishtar asked. “They have to be present to vote!”