The Mountains Rise (29 page)

“To make my point you must be angry,” she answered coldly.
She opened
her hands
, and
long lines of spellwoven aythar snaked outward, wrapping themselves around his wrists
and ankles as if they were ropes. They certainly felt solid.

Another wrapped itself around his head, and despite himself
,
Daniel created a shield to keep it away from him. It sent tiny thorn-like protrusions
out and ate through his shield within a matter of seconds. Then it sank inward, affecting
his mind. He realized then that he had lost the ability to control aythar.

“Now you are trapped, physically and mentally,” she told him. “Are you angry?”

His anger had vanished, to be replaced by cold fear. Her change in attitude and the
bindings she had placed on him were uncomfortably similar to the things that Thillmarius
had once done. “Actually you’re starting to scare me,” he admitted. “Are you still
trying to prove a point? I never tied you up like this.”

“You are too aggressive for me to demonstrate in any other way, otherwise you might
react violently,” she explained. She produced a long red whip between her hands.

Beads of sweat were rolling down his forehead now. “Look, I’m sorry. Please put
that away
.”

“Are you angry?” she asked. “Do you want to have sex with me?”

“Frightened,” he offered, “but I definitely don’t want to have sex with you. Please
let me go.”

“That will suffice,” she said, satisfied. Letting the whip vanish she sent a line
of power out, touching his aura, near his head. Suddenly Daniel’s mood began to shift.

Daniel’s trousers began to feel tight as his blood-flow changed course. Although
he had been fearful only moments before, he began to experience a powerful sensation
of pure lust. Lyralliantha’s eyes traveled downward. Stepping closer
,
she unfastened his trousers and pulled them down, freeing him.

Shame fought with passion as Daniel stood before her, trapped, both within and without.

“If I have sex with you now, will you say that I persuaded you?” she asked him.

At that particular instant, he hardly cared. He gave her a deep throated growl, as
if that might communicate his wishes better, but she ignored it.
She shifted
the line of spellweavin
g that linked them together
,
and he felt his passion wane suddenly. His lust
faded
and his interest vanished. She removed the bindings that held his arms and legs
and left him standing, half naked and embarrassed in front of her.

He hurriedly fixed his trousers. After spending almost five years without clothes
,
he had become accustomed to them within just a few weeks of having them again. His
cheeks were red with shame as he looked at her.

“Now you understand,” she told him, “that is rape. That is what you tried to do.”

“Please forgive me,” he said as the realization swept over him. Kneeling before her
,
he thought of his days in Colne, when he had used his power recklessly. Then he
had felt
that
what he was doing was a sin, but he had not thought of it as rape. He had seen it
as a violation of himself without considering the impact on the women he had forced
to lay with him.

Lyralliantha stared at him curiously, “Human apologies are a strange custom. My people
do not require them. You do as you wish, but you are my property. You cannot rape
me.”

Daniel was shocked once more. While he was filled with guilt and remorse he could
not comprehend her attitude.
“Apologies are what we do, to make amends when we have hurt someone,” he tried to
explain.

“You have not hurt me. You simply act according to your nature. This does not bother
me, but you must be properly trained,” she stated.

Her explanation did nothing to assuage his guilty heart. It only made clear to him
that she did indeed see him as an animal.
She
’s
no madder at me than I was when I caught Blue humping someone’s leg.
The realization only made him feel worse.

Their conversation came to a halt after that. While Lyralliantha was ready to go
on, having made her point, Daniel needed time to think. His world view had been altered
in a fundamental way, and although he hadn’t seen himself in a very positive light
before, his self-assessment had fallen precipitously.

He spent the evening alone, thinking, and he did not play any music.

Daniel’s sleep was filled with dreams of the past.
They woke him frequently
,
leaving a
feeling in his head like broken glass
. He was
left
with
painful shards in his waking memory
that
,
when examined
in the light of day, only served to cut away his old self-delusions.

“You are a rapist.”

Awake he struggled to find some
rationale for
denying it, but her words cut cleanly to the bone, cleaving away his pitiful excuses
and laying bare the truth of the matter. The fact that most of them probably never
suspected that they had been forced
,
was irrelevant.

How much damage did I do to their families? How many of the unmarried ones did I
leave with child?

In a small community like Colne
,
social ties were everything. The shame of pregnancy without a husband might doom
some of them to poverty. The ones already married risked losing their husbands if
they ever suspected the origin of their newest children.

He had hidden the truth from himself, refusing to look at it.
It had lain there, in the back of his mind, naked and ugly, hidden behind his decision
to run away. He had come to the deep woods seeking his own death, not because he
felt remorseful over the warden’s death, or even Ronnie’s death. In that dark corner
of his soul
,
he had been ashamed of what he had done, and he had known already what Lyralliantha
had so bluntly said.

Part of the reason he had so readily accepted his violent and isolated existence in
Ellentrea, had been because subconsciously he had fe
lt it was something he deserved, not because of his magical ability, not because of
what Brenda had done to him, but because of what he had done to the women of Colne.

And Kate had simply forgiven him for it.

Anyone with the strength to forgive something like that would surely have the strength
to handle the truth of what Brenda did to me.
Daniel had been an utter fool.

He gave up on sleeping before the sun rose and spent the wee hours of the morning
exercising and practicing. Years of solitude in Ellentrea had taught him
that
the secret of remaining sane was to silence the thoughts of an idle mind. Focused
on his magic, Daniel experimented with creating visible illusions. He couldn’t replicate
the invisibility that the Prathion mages used, but he could create extremely realistic
illusions.

He had yet to find a practical way to use them in the arena. Other mages could see
through them far too easily, since they didn’t provide the same visibility in the
magical spectrum. Among the She’Har and the humans of Ellentrea, that meant everyone
could tell illusion from reality.

Lyralliantha returned in time for their lessons with Byovar
,
and Daniel avoided discussing their
previous conversation
. She seemed unfazed, just as she had the day before. Her revelation had only been
traumatic for Daniel.

When Byovar finished and left she wasted no time. “Have you thought about what I
told you yesterday?” she asked.

“Yes,” he responded, “and I don’t know if I will ever get over the shame of what I
have done.”

She frowned, “I was referring to the possibility of visiting your family. Shame is
a waste of energy. Besides, you did me no harm.”

“Before I left home—there were others,” Daniel told her.

“Do not dwell on the past, Tyrion. It is a small thing.”

He was ever more aware that what the She’Har considered small could be a large consideration
in human society.
Without love, family, or marriage, a crime such as mine is a small thing. The She’Har
have very little to lose.

He gained a flash of insight then,
the She’Har are poor. In every way that matters, they are paupers. Without love
and friendship, the nurturing of children or the joy of laughter, what do they have?

“Do you ever feel sad?” he asked suddenly, changing the subject.

She accepted the switch without complaint, “We have human bodies
,
and so we experience the same emotions that you do, but we do not assign the same
value to them.”

“So you
can
feel, but that doesn’t answer the question. Have you felt sadness?”

Lyralliantha nodded, “Yes
, in small amounts I have. I had never experienced the sort of sadness you projected
to me that day, when you played ‘Dana’s Lament’. Such overwhelming feelings are uncommon
for us.”

He kept probing, “Did you
feel empty once it was gone, w
hen you realized why I felt it?”

She blinked
,
and it was a long minute before she answered. “Something changed, but I am not sure
what. I went to the elders because I knew you needed to see your people. Keeping
you here with no chance of seeing them again was a greater cruelty than any of us
ever knew.”

“But now that you know, now that you’ve felt the love and longing, the joy and sorrow,
of having and losing my family—do you feel a corresponding lack, for yourself?”

“I am uncertain. I am grateful that I do not suffer the powerful negative emotions
that seem to plague your kind, but I find myself somewhat envious of the bonds that
you share with each other,” said Lyralliantha. “I am also learning that the way we
keep humans may be even crueler than the Illeniel Grove ever knew, and we already
believed it was too harsh.”

“Do you wish that you had a family?” he continued.

“I do not misuse my time by wanting for something I cannot have,” she stated.

Daniel refused to be put off. “If you can feel the same emotions as any normal human,
then it isn’t something you can’t have. You could form friendships. Good friends
are a type of family.”

“None of my people are interested in such things,” she said flatly.

And clearly you never considered the possibility of being friends with an animal,
he thought to himself.

They stared at each other in silence, mulling their respective thoughts. Her candor
and lack of fear
were
refreshing for Daniel. Unlike the people of Ellentrea, who found direct eye contact
to be a challenge, threat, or an attempt at domination, Lyralliantha was perfectly
willing to meet his eyes. Sometimes it made him feel as if he might fall into them,
swallowed by the icy blue that so perfectly reflected the calm soul that lay within
her.

“So, did you get permission to send me beyond the grove?” he said, breaking the stillness.

She stood and looked away, “That depends on you. They will allow it, but there
is a condition
.”

He shrugged, “I would accept almost anything.” That was simple truth. After five
years
,
he felt he would suffer almost anything for even a minute with his mother and father,
or a chance to talk to Kate again.

“Listen before you accept!” she snapped angrily. It was an uncharacteristic display
of emotion for the She’Har woman. “This condition will mean your death.”

Daniel didn’t even pause, “That’s fine, so long as I can see them first.”

“For having made so much of human bonds
,
you seem eager to cast them aside,” she remarked.

“Life without contact, without love, is meaningless. I would rather live for a brief
time and then die
,
than to go on forever with no hope,” he responded.

She watched his face thoughtfully, her aura flickering with subtle emotions, “Is there
no hope for you here?”

“No.”

Lyralliantha sighed, and something approaching frustration passed across her features.
“The elders have found new
inspiration
in the shuthsi that you won for us these past years. Despite their objections, they
have begun to hope that you would continue fighting. My decision to remove you and
make you a warden was a disappointment to them.”

“So much for their high moral ground,” observed Daniel sarcastically.

“They felt that since you came to us voluntarily and had already suffered in the arena,
that perhaps it was acceptable to continue. Now they
want to know
if you will return to the arena again. In exchange they will allow you a week to
visit your village.”

Daniel laughed, “That’s hardly death, Lyralliantha. Do you realize how many times
I h
ave fought in the arena already, h
ow many I have killed? One more fight is nothing to me.”

“Four
hundred and seventy-three,” she replied instantly.

“What?”

“That is how many you have killed in the arena,” she explained.

He was stunned, “I thought you never went to see the matches…”

“I didn’t,” she responded, “but I kept count. Their deaths have stained the Illeniel
Grove’s stance against unnecessary brutality, and at the same time earned us much
shuthsi. This match will not be like those, however. You will fight an opponent
you cannot win against.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed
,
and he felt his heart rate pick up. His years in the arena had made him an addict,
and only now he realized that he had begun to miss the thrill of coming so close to
death.
I’m not normal anymore
;
the thought of blood excites me.
“Who is it?” he asked.

“They will pit you against one of the Krytek,” she replied.

There was a word Daniel hadn’t heard before. He gave her a blank look to convey the
breadth of his knowledge.

“They are the guardians of the She’Har, the sterile fruits of the father-trees. They
live but a few months and can be grown in many shapes or sizes,” she said, elaborating
for his benefit.

“So they’re some sort of monster soldiers?”

“Your description is apt. If you accept
,
they will probably craft one especially for you.”

“Can they spellweave, like you?” he asked, intrigued by the notion.

She nodded, “Some can. Certainly any
whom
they put you
against would be able to do so;
otherwise the match would be no contest.”

“You haven’t forgotten Syllerond, have you?”

“In the days when the children fought as the baratti now do, that would have been
more meaningful, but Syllerond had never fought before, nor have any other of our
children
who
live today. The Krytek are different.”

Daniel frowned, “If they only live for a few months
,
how do they train them to fight?”

“They are born with the knowledge and skills required for battle. The father-tree
can imbue them with as much of his own knowledge and past experience at battle as
he thinks they need,” she told him.

“But none of you have fought since you defeated my kind,” countered Daniel.

“The elders
who
grow here now, fought in that war. Some of them came from the old world before taking
root here. The knowledge of the loshti goes back
to the world before the old world. The Krytek they place you against will know how
to fight, Tyrion. You will not survive.” Her words held cold certainty, as if there
were a knife already against his throat.

Dan
iel had already made his choice
. He knew he would accept the challenge, whether winning was impossible or not.
Still, he didn’t intend to give up without a fight. “Will I be allowed my clothes,
or a weapon?” he asked hopefully.

“Will it matter?”

“I’d rather not die naked if I have a choice,” he said with a grimace, but that wasn’t
his real reason.

“I doubt they will have any objection to whatever you wish to wear or use,” she admitted.
“
It will not affect the outcome.”

“Hmm,” Daniel grunted. “Why this? Do they want a way to punish me?”

“No, Tyrion,” she answered, shaking her head. “The other groves have offered the
Illeniel Grove a prize of shuthsi to agree to this, win or lose. The Illeniel Grove
will gain much, even if you lose.”

“And if I win?”

Her lips turned down slightly at the edges
,
and the muscles around her eyes tensed. There was concern in her face. “You will
not win.”

“But if I did?” pressed Daniel.

“We will receive twice as much, but it does not matter…”

He laughed, “Of course it matters.” Then he reconsidered, trying to understand Lyralliantha’s
reluctance. “Are you worried about me?”