FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Shanti didn’t know what the term doctor meant, but judging by the woman’s sparkling eyes, and the context, it meant healer. And was exciting in some way.

  Marc’s bronzed face turned scarlet as he stared at the floor.

  “Well, I’ll just let him ask his questions, then,” Molly continued, giving Marc an encouraging pat on the arm. “No doubt the Captain will want a full report. Just don’t tire her out, mind—but then you know that!” The door clicked shut once more, cutting off Molly’s merry laughter.

  An uncomfortable hush rolled through the room. Marc stood, motionless, looking to solve mysteries in the floorboards. How a guy could remain so still, while under scrutiny, was a testimony to steady hands. A good thing in a healer. Not great as the initiator of conversation.

  As if he heard the thought, he slowly brought his hands up to his stomach level, and began picking his nail. It seemed like, to him, movement was noise. Interesting.

  After another stagnant pause, the youth cleared his throat. His gaze drifted up until he glanced at her from under his eyelashes. Here came the burst of action—his mind was ablaze with it.

  “Are you feeling better?” he managed.

  Shanti barely suppressed her laugh. She wasn’t sure he had it in him. “I am, yes. Thank you for your concern.”

  The boy nodded, his dark eyes darting around the room. “You nearly starved.”

  “Yes, I am aware. What part did you play in my recovery?”

  He shrugged, dropping his head again. “I just tried to get you to drink water is all. And some broth…”

  “Were you the one who found me?”

  “Um—I’m not supposed to…I mean, I just came to check… your eyes, uh… I just…” His words fizzled out as he scrubbed at his nail nervously.

  She’d never met anyone so shy in all her life. It was fascinating. His sharp intellect dulled by the fear of expectation. The fear of being noticed. His mind was blazing one second, calculating and deducing, and the next he was pulling all his feelers in, tucking them away like a turtle.

  She’d love to work with him. To coax that sharp intellect out and see what he could do with it. But she didn’t have the time. That wasn’t her job anymore.

  Pushing past the pain, Shanti envisioned wrapping him in a warm blanket of security and seclusion. Her power played and tinkered with his mind, turning her illusion into his reality. He wouldn’t see a blanket, but he’d feel the comfort of being wrapped in one. The mind was a strong persuader.

  As his face relaxed, she said, “I just hoped to know the situation surrounding my…rescue, and what will now become of me.” She brushed his mind with comfort, like his mother’s arms wrapping him in her bosom. “You do not have to fear, I will not betray your trust.”

  The boy glanced up, dark eyes in a plain face. “Gracas found you by a tree. Commander Sanders and I cleaned you off.” He swished his hips to the side, boy code for extreme embarrassment of a sexual nature. His face blushed a deep crimson to match the movement.

  Inexperienced and insecure. No guilt. No remorse.

  Shanti let a shallow breath roll passed her lips. He’d probably just seen her body, and nothing worse. It bespoke this culture’s modesty, which was a good thing. For her, anyway. She didn’t care about nudity—she was glad he did. It was a small step in the direction of safety.

  “Thank you.”

  His nail must’ve had a high polish with all the attention he was giving it.

  Shanti increased the amount of comfort, imagining him in front of a crackling fire, completely alone in a familiar room. “Then what happened?”

  That extra dose was all it took. In a torrent of words, she got the full story: His desire to cure her in an attempt to rid him of the pain of losing his mother to disease. The fear of Commander Sanders’ attention. How he didn’t fit in with the other Cadets, but focusing on her made him at least feel needed. Liking some girl called Canella but too shy to talk to her.

  Shanti held up a hand to stop the verbal flood when he started talking about his first kiss.

  His face dropped immediately, allowing her a few minutes to pick through the tumult of strange words—slang, most likely. If only she wasn’t so tired, or using precious resources to mentally manipulate these people. She wasn’t up for any of this.

  “When you first came in the room,” Shanti said softly, trying to get back on track, “you seemed afraid of me. Why?”

  He gave another blush. “Well, I thought you hurt Xavier somehow… He screamed, then dropped you. Your eyes were open. And…and glowing…”

  Frost crept up Shanti’s spine as those words sank in. Her muscles tensed. Did he know what it meant? Who she was?

  As she attempted to summon strength she didn’t have, her hold on his mind wavering, he laughed to himself. “But that sounds silly, of course. I mean, eyes don’t glow, right?” He scrubbed at his nail and lowered his eyes, shrugging. “Commander Sanders blames it on my love of stories.”

  Sweat beaded her brow. “Did anyone else see my eyes glow?”

  “Oh no. No one believed me. And now, after having met you, I can see I don’t know nothing—“

  Shanti shook her head and cut him off. “Don’t know what?”

  “I mean, I can see that I was wrong,” he clarified. “That Commander Sanders was right. I just wanted to be sure, though. I thought I’d check, you know?”

  The small muscles in her back started to relax. The ice in her shoulders thawed. Air worked into her lungs. She backed off her mental touch.

  “But you do have weird eyes,” Marc blurted.

  “Yes. Compared to you, I do have weird eyes.”

  “Are you albino?”

  Shanti shook her head again, not understanding the term.

  “Do you have skin and eye…you know, problems?” Marc tried. “No color in them? Is it a genetic thing, I mean?”

  Shanti nodded slowly. It would lead to uncomfortable questions if she told him that a huge release of power at five years old permanently burned her retinas. Incriminating questions. With the Graygual marching east, conquering, pillaging, and destroying along their way, all they needed was a whisper, a rumor, and the Being Supreme’s dogs would be on her trail. They’d already gotten closer than she wanted to admit, and that was when she’d been in perfect health. At this stage in the game, she was ripe for the plucking, vulnerable and defenseless in some strange land.

  No, the less this kid knew, the better. It had been a long, lonely road so far, but she was almost there. She could confide in someone when the journey was done.

  “Oh, so that’s it.” Marc gave a relieved smile, completely missing her inner contemplation. “Genetic problems. Well, that makes sense. Anyway, I should probably go. I have to get back to training. I’m failing, but they keep trying.” His chest heaved in a sigh. “I’ll probably end up cleaning toilets or something. Goes to show intelligence test scores aren’t always accurate.”

  “Do you know what happened to my things?”

  Marc’s head tilted. “That nasty dress you were wearing?”

  “My baggage. My knives and weapons. My personal affects. My ring…”

  Mark scrunched up his face and shook his head. “We only found you. I don’t remember a ring… You had that sheet, and some holey leather shoes—not well made, either. The leather was ruff—“

  Startled, Shanti sat up. “You did not find my bag?”

  The bed dressings fell to her waist. Marc’s eyes fastened on bare skin immediately, having a stare-off with her nipples. His face turned a furious shade of cherry. He gulped and stammered, unable to look away.

  “Look at me,” Shanti commanded as she clutched his mind, feeding him a blast of urgency. Marc’s eyes slowly found hers, the blood in his penis fighting logic. Fighting any sensation she could supplant.

  Wanting his undivided attention, and realizing the impossibility of that within this setting, Shanti intertwined lust with her urgency cocktail. It was a terrible time for that “ca
n’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” philosophy, given his age, but she didn’t have much choice.

  It did the trick. Marc’s eyes were burning, slightly embarrassed, but staring at Shanti with fervor. She hiked up the sheet and said, “I need that bag, Marc. I need you to take me to it, okay? Please?”

  “Yes.” It was more a sigh than a word. “I will. I will take you to it. Right now?”

  Dangle sex in front of a guy and he was like the walking dead. Typical. But effective.

  In this situation, also gross.

  Shanti’s mind raced. She was naked, she was starved, and her head was swimming from sitting upright. She wasn’t going anywhere. But she needed that bag. Badly. It was everything. Being without it meant failure.

  Why were there so many ways to fail?

  “Two days. Come back here at dawn. Don’t tell anyone and don’t let anyone figure it out. Do well in your classes, focus on what you’re doing, and don’t let them see your distraction. When you come, in two days, at dawn, bring enough provisions for a week and a map. Will you remember?”

  Marc nodded again, glued to her hypnotic, slightly glowing eyes.

  “Okay. Now get out,” Shanti said with a tight voice. She replaced lust with shame, as if a parent had given him a punishment after catching him masturbating. With any luck the next time he looked at her he would be mortified. Not the nicest of things to do, but definitely necessary.

  She lay back down and pulled fistfuls of the sheet to her chin. Her people had never worried about nudity. The baths were public, in deep wells of a natural hot spring. One would have to go without bathing to avoid being seen naked. And when washing was as much a relaxing treat as necessary for hygiene, her people got callous to nudity quickly. She’d often walked through the village air drying, carrying on a conversation with someone completely clothed.

  She wasn’t at home anymore, though. Home was destroyed. It was time she finally caught on.

  Chapter VI

  THE NEXT TWO DAYS WHISKED by in a blur of Molly’s idle chit-chat while Shanti dodged her questions. Molly would do things like talk about her niece’s new baby, then ask if Shanti had a niece. Or a baby. Or a husband waiting for her somewhere. She would tell Shanti of places she had traveled, which weren’t many, and then ask if Shanti had traveled. How far. With whom. Every long-winded story had a question periodically popped in. Shanti, half asleep most of the time, had to keep herself from answering by sheer will, hypnotized as she was by the verbal linguistics of an accomplished gossip.

  Then there was the dry, lackluster healer. He had her dressed in a long slip-type thing, which he called a nightgown. Apparently people in that town, or village, or city—Shanti had no idea how big the place was—liked to wear long drapes beneath their covers. They wanted a loose, flowing garment to trap their legs and get tangled as they slept. This made sense to them, somehow.

  Once she was covered, the older healer listened to her heart, felt her bones through her limbs, and said things like, “You have quite a lot of muscle tone. How does a woman come by so much?”

  Shanti used the same dry tone as she answered: “I’m not sure if you are aware, doctor, but the muscle in a woman’s body, like a man’s, can be developed.”

  “Your eyes are a strange shade of blue. More violet, actually. Is that normal amongst your people?”

  “I don’t imagine anyone would have the audacity to remark that I am normal, doctor. Slightly unhinged, certainly.”

  “Your skin is too light.”

  “Racism does not become you.”

  “Why is your hair so pale?”

  “Genetics, doctor. Same as why yours is so dark. Just what do they teach in medical school here? Or does school for that discipline not exist? Are you a witchdoctor, sir?”

  Finally the doctor got so irritated he informed her that if she didn’t supply answers to his questions, he wouldn’t be able to help her. To which she sighed gratefully, stepped out of the sack of fabric, and slipped back into bed. She was starved, not hurt. With food and rest, she would be fine.

  He was not thrilled with her assessment.

  The rest of the time was spent eating as much as possible, as often as possible. Molly brought food whenever Shanti asked and watched over her while she ate, for which she was thankful.

  Marc came each day, more nervous than anything, but also desperate to tell her how well he was doing in class. He was focusing, just like she said. He already knew everything they were teaching, but now he was proving it, trying not to care what they thought. Trying to make sure he focused, just like she said, right? That he should focus?

  He groveled for her praise and blushed when he got it. He never mentioned the little…episode from the first meeting, and he was careful to always direct his eyes at his feet or her head. The small dose of shame was apparently working, and to make sure it stayed effective, Shanti stayed well away from his mind. And thoroughly covered.

  Two hours before dawn the day they planned to leave saw Shanti on her feet in the small room. The air was changing, taking on the sweet, fresh smell of early morning. She was up, moving about the room, testing her legs, getting her heart rate up. Her muscles were hard and brittle, but they were mending. A few more days at an easy walking pace, with food and water, and she’d be fine. She had to be.

  An hour before dawn Shanti paced as the birds started their morning chatter. They weren’t the only ones. There were signs of life within the house; Molly moved around much too early.

  Dread tickled Shanti’s stomach. She hadn’t wanted to alert anyone she was leaving. She wanted to be a wisp of vapor, there and gone and out of people’s minds the second they turned around.

  Half an hour to go. Hopefully Marc would show up early. Hopefully—

  Shanti’s pacing was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. She froze in the murky brown of pre-dawn. Shadows stretched across the floor and hovered over the door. The knock sounded again, hesitant. The door opened slowly on well-greased hinges. Molly poked her head into the room. Shadows veiled her eyes, but her plain oval face pointed at Shanti, motionless for a moment of analysis.

  “You’re up,” Molly accused.

  “Yes. I am leaving today.”

  “The Captain is always right.” She said it as though she thought he was magic. The door swung wide, admitting the dressed woman. “Well, you aren’t a hostage, make no mistake, but the Captain wants to talk to you before you go.”

  “I am afraid that won’t be possible. I am leaving within the hour.”

  Molly smoothed her apron, something she did when uncomfortable. In an apologetic voice, she said, “Young Master Nickles won’t be escorting you. You have no provisions and no idea where you’re headed. Also, your bag of…articles has been recovered. The Captain wishes to speak with you about it this morning.”

  Hope deflated. Shanti physically felt better, her body having always healed quickly, but she’d been on the brink of starvation. Another day would’ve been death. She was no miracle case; her muscles were stringy and depleted, her Gift not even at a quarter of its potency, and any real movement had her breathing heavy. If it came to a fight, she’d be taken down.

  So what then were her options?

  Shanti paced toward the window and looked out at the darkened street. Early morning dew sparkled, the street looking sleek and wet. Her only other choice was to flee. If she could exist in the wild long enough to rejuvenate, she could sneak back in and steal her bag.

  She turned back to the bed, her gaze scanning the light sheets and woven blanket, then flitting to the nightgown neatly folded on the bed stand. Then she shook her head. How would she get out of the city, hardly able to walk, let alone run, with a nightgown and a blanket? Not to mention she had no food, and no weapons to procure any food.

  Resigned, she turned back to the window. “What sort of person is this Captain?”

  Sensing compliance, Molly sprung to life, her sizable breasts swinging wildly. “Oh, he’s just great, he is! Strong in mind
and body and absolutely loved by everyone. Especially the women.” She threw Shanti a glinted eye, an undercurrent of meaning Shanti didn’t catch, before bustling out of the room, returning a moment later with a folded heap of fabric. “He inherited the post, of course, because that’s how we do things here. The firstborn son takes the mantle. But the late Captain, God rest his soul, passed away before his time. Here, dear, put this on.”

  Molly handed Shanti a soft white slip with tiny straps, intended to cover her torso. Molly unfolded short pants a moment later and passed those over as she continued, “He didn’t have any brothers or sisters, of course, so he had to learn the post by himself at a young age. Oh, he’s got the council to help him with big decisions, but the weight rests on his shoulders. And there isn’t anyone better to take the burden!”

  Molly picked up a shimmer of green fabric by the top corners and gently lifted. It unfurled into the biggest, thickest, fluffiest dress Shanti had ever seen.

  Shanti wondered why a dress had been brought out when she had already stepped into a top and pants, but she had more important things to ponder. “He has the city and fighting camp both at his disposal? He has the power to control both?”

  “Oh yes. But he’s borne it marvelously, like I said. Fair and just, that’s our Captain. If you do wrong, watch out, but he weighs all the elements and makes his decision. It’s always the right one, mark my words. He always knows.”

  “That’s a lot of power for one man. Power generally spawns corruption.”

  Molly waved that thought away and scoffed. “Maybe with bigger cities, but not our Captain. He is as solid as an oak, he is.”

  Molly carefully laid down the heap of green dress and picked up a rectangular swatch of fabric with thick ribs sewn into it. From one edge dangled laces, along the other edge were holes.

  “What is that for?” Shanti asked with skepticism.

  Molly held the fabric between two hands and pushed it at Shanti’s midsection, securing it around her torso, then working around and attempting to tie her in.