Thrall

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “I was, I admit.”

  “It’s not my dream anymore.” Maybe it never had been, but Maeve couldn’t believe that, couldn’t make all her time with Aesa into nothing. But now the entire world seemed to open up before her, and even if she didn’t have a wyrd, she knew now what she wanted to do. “After I’ve settled things with Aesa, I’d like to travel with you, if you’ll have me.”

  Laret’s smile rivaled the moon. “I’d like nothing more.”

  “I’d thought I’d ask. Bears are dangerous.”

  Laret threw back her head and laughed, making Dain look back at them curiously.

  Chapter Twenty

  The ache returned first, a steady throb in her skull that made Aesa wish for sleep again. But memory rushed back, like a knife in her mind, and she tried to raise her head, sharpening the ache until she heaved.

  At least her stomach was empty.

  The ground shifted, softer than usual. If she moved to the side, her head sank into a hole. Gentle fingers cupped her cheeks as someone repeated words she’d heard before but couldn’t decipher.

  “Stop.” She was moving, borne by cradling arms. “Stop.”

  They lowered her to the moss-covered ground, and she tried to sit up, but the world began to pull away again. Someone brought a lamp close. Gray and white-robed fini surrounded her, muttering soothing nonsense. “What happened?”

  They looked to one another and spoke again. She caught a few words. “Head,” and “back.” That’s right. She’d fallen. The fini must have helped her, taking her for one of their own.

  But fini didn’t flee from danger. They had to be led, and it wouldn’t matter whether she was one of their own. They must have already been helping her, and someone had either told them to flee, or…

  A voice shouted from beyond the group. Aesa put her head down as a guard strode into the circle of light. He gestured at Aesa and said something. The fini replied almost on top of one another. When the guard said a few more angry words, the fini grabbed Aesa under the arms and helped her to her feet, making her stumble along with them. She kept her head cocked forward, looking out from under her lashes. The guard had a sword drawn, and he waved it at the fini, at Aesa. He was probably saying she had to make her own way or be left behind.

  When the guard turned his back, Aesa took a slow look around, trying to ignore her pain. No other guards followed. No one called out from the flanks. Her bow and quiver were gone, but as she patted under the robe, she discovered her knife. She hid it in her sleeve and stumbled, making all the fini stagger. When the guard came back to yell at them, Aesa waited until he reached for her before she stabbed upward, taking him under the chin.

  He fell without a word, staring at nothing. The fini tried to help him as they had her, but she waved them away, took his sword, and slid it through her belt. The fini stared as if she was a wonder they didn’t know what to make of, but they didn’t lose their smiles.

  “Ell?” Aesa asked. “Fini Ell?” She put a hand to her forehead as if searching.

  “Fini, se, fini,” some of them said, touching their chests.

  “No, I know you’re fini. I want Ell!” Aesa pressed her head to try to quiet the throbbing. “Ell? Who knows Ell?”

  “Bia,” one said, gesturing to herself and then naming the rest who bobbed when their names were called.

  Aesa fought not to strike out, wanting them to stop smiling at the person who’d killed their guard. “All I want is Ell.”

  “Ell?” one finally said.

  Aesa did that bobbing motion of theirs that seemed to mean yes. “Yes, Ell!” She gestured at the forest around them. “Where?”

  They spoke among themselves for a moment. “Ell,” the same one said again. She mumbled a few other words Aesa didn’t catch and waved to the east.

  “That way?” Aesa said, pointing. “Ell is that way?” She started in that direction, and the fini followed on her heels. After a few minutes of walking, with more vague waving in a different direction, Aesa began to suspect they were trying to tell her that Ell simply went away, and that they had no idea where she was now.

  Aesa leaned against a tree and tried to think. Her head wouldn’t leave her be, and dark shapes started to dance in front of her vision. If she could just get a little more rest, she’d be clearer. She sank to the ground and folded her arms across her knees, letting her chin sink to her chest. Right, a little sleep, and then she’d be able to think, consider her next move, both for herself and for Ell.

  *

  When Aesa awoke, memory returned even sooner than before. They were carrying her again. Why couldn’t they leave her be? The scent of water filled her nostrils, and she heard a gentle splash. At least they’d brought her to a stream or a pond.

  Aesa’s eyes drifted open, but she saw only the hazy faces of the fini who carried her. Something cold sloshed over her trailing arm, and Aesa latched on to a hazy memory: the fini filing into their magical pool, coming out with serene faces and empty minds. She bucked, and they held her tighter. She kicked, making them drop her at last, her knees scraping along the pool’s rocky steps.

  Bliss rolled over her, soft and quiet and warm. Submit, it said. Water coated her like thick syrup. All she had to do was let it close over her head, and her every care would be done with, every worry dissolved. Lie back, a soothing voice whispered in her mind, and be at peace. Surrender.

  Aesa shrieked and lurched for the shore. She flailed from the water onto dry land again, chest heaving. The fini stared with naked concern. Some waded farther into the pool, rushing into it, away from the warm circle of the lamp.

  Several fini reached for her, and Aesa waved them out of the pool. When the others emerged, hair dripping, they wore identical, blank expressions of serenity, and she couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like if she’d stayed in. Many times since she’d met Ell, she’d wished she didn’t care, wished she could turn off her hatred for this pool and just be a good warrior under Gilka’s command. She’d run off and gotten lost just for the chance to see Ell again.

  No, by the rotten gods, it was more than that. She wanted to know Ell’s mind, her real mind, to know what these people could be if left on their own.

  The fini urged her into the pool again, but she refused to move. This one seemed smaller than the other; there were no guards, no towering tor. Two boulders flanked these steps, and in the dim light, she made out the ghosts of carvings along their surfaces: symbols surrounding two large creatures who stood above a host of smaller ones. Fae, maybe, like Laret had said. When she pointed out the carvings to the fini, they babbled, saying fini to some and calling those dressed in armor shaptis and the taller figures aos sí.

  When Aesa asked about Ell, they gave that same waving answer. So, she could wander the countryside searching for Ell, or she could find her way back to Gilka. Aesa cursed the dead gods and rubbed her aching head. She should never have left Gilka’s side. They would have stumbled upon Ell sooner or later.

  If Ell still lived. Aesa took up the lamp and turned back the way they’d come, following a dirt path. Lucky for her, the fini hadn’t made any effort to hide their tracks. They trailed her, stopping when she stopped. If she led them to a cliff and ordered them to jump, they’d do it with a smile. She growled at them to keep their distance, but they didn’t understand.

  “Leave me alone!” she snapped when one came too close. They peered into her face as if trying to find the source of her discomfort and ease it. She pushed one away. “I said leave me alone!”

  More of them reached for her, trying all the techniques Ell once had. She pushed one and then another, and as they began to help each other, she pushed all of them until they stayed on the ground. Their faces bloomed with the hope that they were finally doing what she wanted, that they would sit and rot if it would make her happy.

  “Stop looking at me like that! Think for yourselves!”

  But they wouldn’t, couldn’t, and she loathed them then as much as she’d pitied
them before. She grabbed her own head so she wouldn’t hit some sense into them.

  A dim shout froze her like a dash of cold water. A light moved through the forest, and she crouched. When she heard voices, she crept toward the glow, over a small rise, and peered out from under a bush.

  Three guards stood in the bright glow of two torches, one out of breath as if he’d come running to join the other two. The newcomer said something about fini, a question. One of the others laughed, while the third gestured at the forest and gave a disbelieving response, as if wondering why anyone would be asking about fini in the woods.

  They all had tears in their armor, blood on their faces, and the newcomer had a scorch mark on his cheek and black soot stains across his clothes. He asked about fini again, angrily this time.

  The one who’d laughed replied hotly before walking away. The other pointed a finger in the newcomer’s face and then stalked after his fellow. The newcomer seemed torn, looking after those who’d left and glancing back the way he’d come. He was concerned for the fini, and the others either didn’t know what had happened to them or didn’t care.

  He might even be looking for the group of fini who’d helped her, his lost sheep. Maybe he was a shepherd. Maybe he knew Ell.

  Aesa crawled back the way she’d come. Without the light of the other guards, the newcomer would no doubt notice her lamp. She hid behind a tree and called, “Shapti!”

  She heard him scrambling past a moment later, headed for the circle of fini where they sat around the lamp. He spoke to them urgently, but before they could answer, Aesa laid her blade to his neck, on the delicate line of skin between helmet and armor.

  He froze and said something. His hands lifted slowly, showing empty palms, and he looked over his shoulder. The cat-like, alien eyes went wide, astounded. She wondered if he was trying to reconcile her robe with her face. He had to know it wasn’t one of his fini pointing a blade at him.

  Or maybe that was his greatest fear.

  She lunged and drew his sword from his belt, giving her two, and then shoved him down among the fini. “Let’s hope you know Ell, or I won’t need you anymore.”

  He only watched her, fini hands groping over him.

  “Fini Ell,” she said.

  The fini made that waving motion again, but the shapti stiffened. Just as she thought he couldn’t look anymore surprised, his brows climbed nearly to his hair. He uttered a long string of words that included Ell, and she hoped he meant the name and not part of some other word.

  “Fini Ell,” she said again.

  He went silent before he half turned, pointing away, and she could almost read his calculating gleam. Whether he intended to lead her to Ell or not, he planned to attack at some point. The shapti were almost as bad at hiding their feelings as the fini. She gestured for him to lead the way.

  *

  Ell stared at the sky, hardly moving. After a restless night, she’d given up sleep and decided to watch for dawn. The sky had already faded from black to gray, hiding the stars one by one.

  “They’ve forgotten us.”

  Lying beside her, Chezzo wagged, and Ell put her arms around his neck. She loved him, not as she’d loved the shaptis who’d commanded her every action, but a pure love that asked for nothing. He watched over her, comforted her, and just existed, all because he seemed to want to. If he had thoughts at all, he didn’t show them. She might have compared his current life and her former one, but she thought his far superior.

  And he might be content to live in the cave forever, to sit and watch the forest. Or in his secret heart, was he waiting for Niall to return? If other shaptis came and dragged her back, would he defend her or follow their commands?

  And which would she rather he do? Was obedience simply the price of not being alone?

  Aesa’s people proved that wrong. They cooperated with each other. They made their own decisions yet also made them together somehow. Not alone, yet not completely obedient. Shaptis could act the same way, with the exception of the elders, who told everyone what to do.

  Did Aesa’s people have elders? Perhaps they’d come here because someone else had commanded it. If Ell found herself in Aesa’s land, would she discover that their people were not different after all but merely obedient in a different way?

  An intriguing thought, both for the chance to see how other people behaved and to be able to walk beside Aesa, a gentle warrior who could quickly turn fierce. She’d seemed to care about Ell before Ell had done anything for her, when she wouldn’t let Ell do anything for her. Her stubbornness kept Ell away from the pool when she had no idea what it did or meant.

  With another sigh, Ell put her arms behind her head. She’d thought a lot about Aesa, too, wanting to hug her or strangle her, sometimes both in the same thought.

  Chezzo shot to his feet and stared into the forest. Ell stilled, letting him listen. Slowly, she put her hands flat on the ground, ready to leap up and run if he needed her out of the way. He glanced at her, asking permission.

  “Go.”

  He bounded away, knocking a bush flat in his haste, the rustling sounds like a clap in the still forest.

  “Chezzo, kill!”

  Niall’s voice. Ell leapt to her feet and followed in Chezzo’s wake. Through a row of trees, she spotted Niall in the grip of a gray-robed fini who used him as a shield. Chezzo circled them, barking, looking for a way past.

  “Chezzo, cease!” Ell cried.

  Chezzo backed toward her, his deep growl vibrating through the air. Niall started to speak, but the fini threw him to the ground, and the air left Ell in a rush. Aesa stood there, breathing hard, dressed in a fini robe. Her gaze darted toward Ell’s face, and the relief that broke over her features made Ell want to crush her in an embrace.

  “Ell, what are you doing?” Niall asked.

  “I know her.”

  “You what?”

  She held her hand up to still him and heard his sharp intake of breath.

  “Ell,” Aesa said. Dark circles stood out under her eyes, and dried blood dotted her neck. Behind her, a cluster of fini stood among the trees.

  “Go that way,” she said to them, gesturing toward the cave. “Wait by the hole in the ground.” They hurried off.

  “Ell,” Niall said again.

  But she couldn’t stop staring at Aesa. “Niall, please take Chezzo and go wait with the fini.”

  “No! Tell me what’s happening!”

  She glared at him. “You wish the fini freed, shapti? Then you must learn patience.”

  He breathed hard as if on the edge of being able to control himself, and she bet he questioned his philosophy in those few moments. He stood slowly, ducking out of Aesa’s reach. “But what if—”

  “She’s not going to hurt me.”

  He shifted from foot to foot. “She’s the one who kept you out of the pool, isn’t she?”

  “Go now. I’ll call if I need you.”

  When he moved away with Chezzo, Aesa took off the gray robe, revealing another sword tucked in her belt. She put the first with the second and then smiled wide and held out her arms as if they were old friends found again.

  That easily? Ell’s lips pulled up much like Chezzo’s, and she shoved Aesa hard, not thinking, just doing. Aesa staggered, confused, and for once Ell didn’t want to soothe her at all.

  “I was happy.” She wanted to shout, but her throat closed around the words, and they came out as a whispery growl. “I had everything I wanted, everything I needed, and I was happy, and you ruined me!”

  Ell shoved her again, pushing her against a tree. She tried a few slaps, but Aesa batted her attacks aside.

  “You set my mind free, and then you left me, and I didn’t know what to do!” Tears poured down her cheeks, and she willed them to stop, but they wouldn’t be silenced. Aesa and the forest became blurs, but Ell kept swinging, never connecting.

  “You left me alone, and I don’t like it. I hate it. I hate you! I hate sad and lonely. I hate…” She san
k to her knees and curled her arms around herself, wishing Chezzo was there so she could cry into his neck. He never minded her touch.

  When Aesa touched her back, Ell wanted to move away, but she couldn’t make her limbs do what she wanted.

  “Ell,” Aesa said. Ell heard sorrow in her voice, too, but it didn’t seem to suck her into a mire as it did Ell. The heat of her body settled at Ell’s side, and her hand slid around to Ell’s shoulder. The other curled around her neck and brought her close, cradling her. Aesa murmured something and rocked her body, taking Ell with her.

  Ell had done a similar soothing dance for others so many times. She’d soothed crying shaptis and angry ones, lustful shaptis and those that were afraid. “Your technique is horrible,” Ell said. “You rock too quickly.”

  Aesa just kept up her motions, and Ell closed her eyes, letting herself lean in, letting someone soothe her for once. “It’s nice,” she said at last. It was something Chezzo couldn’t do, for all his affection. But was it worth loneliness and sadness just to be comforted by someone else?

  Aesa moved to her hair, caressing her scalp. Yes, that was very nice, but she had so much to say. She pulled away and captured Aesa’s tired face. “I don’t hate you. You shouldn’t have left me. That was careless.”

  Aesa just stared at her blankly. Ell sighed and nearly wept again. None of the words she’d learned would help her now, but she had to have her say, to explain her feelings, so she did so in her own words. Aesa sat and listened, letting Ell do as she would, letting the sun finally rise. “Why did you do this?” Ell asked at last. “Why me?”

  Aesa curled her fingers around Ell’s, twining them together. “Ell,” she said at last and smiled like a child with only one word. Aesa may have left her, but she’d come back, and without her people, it seemed. And she’d led a whole crowd of fini. She probably wanted all of them to be free, but was it coincidence or something else that made her pick Ell out of the crowd? Did Aesa sense something in her?