“Indeed,” said he, almost as though he mocked me, his eyes continuing to hold mine. “You wondered upon the reason for the presence of the food, yet not upon the reason for the presence of your life sign. Perhaps you already know how it was returned?”
“Clearly has Mida relented in her anger toward me,” said I, understanding naught of the tone of the male. “As it was she who took the life sign, it was also she who returned it. What part of the fey is it outside these stone walls? How long was I made to sleep?”
“Darkness has but recently fallen without,” said he, keeping his eyes upon me. “You have slept the healing sleep since mid fey of the last fey, before that you lay in fever sleep since the darkness before last darkness. We discovered that the blades of the whips which touched you were coated with a resin which brings on delirium. If not properly counteracted, it eventually brings death as well. So it was your Mida who returned your life sign to you, was it? Just as she took it?”
“Of a certainty,” said I, even more confused at his continuing strangeness. “Why do you question me upon a point you know as well as I?”
“Perhaps one might say with even greater certainty that I am better acquainted with the point than you,” said he, reclining. “When the life sign was returned, you see, I was not in the midst of the sleep of delirium.”
“You beheld Mida?” I asked, startled to a large degree. “Never before has she appeared to a male, save that that male was already . . . ”
“It was not Mida,” said he, his tone so flat that my words immediately died. Indeed, the male seemed to grow more and more angry and annoyed with each passing hand of reckid. “The one who returned your life sign was Aysayn, who rode after us as quickly as he discovered who had stolen it. And before you ask, that one was also not your Mida.”
“I do not understand.” I stumbled, confusion growing so great that it nearly overwhelmed me. “Who other than Mida would have dared . . .”
“Ladayna dared,” said he, quickly taking the goblet of falar which I had nearly spilled through having forgotten that I held it. “The wench slipped into my chamber while we slept, having left Aysayn’s side in my guest chamber where he slept. Through accident did Aysayn discover it in her possession, and then did the wench dare to insist that she had taken it to keep you from riding off alone as you intended. She was attempting to assist Aysayn and myself, said she, and yet she did not come forward with the life sign once you had left without it. She professed fear of accusation of having taken your protection once you were gone, yet do I recall that she took the sign once before, having found a great attraction in it. Aysayn beat her till her speech was nearly incoherent with pain, yet did she continue to maintain that she had not stolen for her own benefit.”
I stretched my legs out upon the golden lenga fur and leaned down to one elbow, stunned at the tale Mehrayn had told. Ladayna! She it was who had twice condemned me to slavery, each time to protect the schemings she had contrived against Aysayn, he who was called Sigurr’s Shadow upon this world. When I regained my freedom it had been my intention to take her life, yet had I been felled by the wound I had received in the battle fought shortly before; upon awakening I found I had been given my task by Mida, therefore had such petty thoughts been put aside. Perhaps it would have been best to complete that which had been nearly begun; to leave a living enemy behind is to offer one’s back to that enemy’s blade.
“So much for the term ‘sister’ used by her,” I said at last, recalling the words the female had last addressed to me. “Surely was it her departure from your chamber which awakened me during that darkness, and surely would I have awakened the sooner had I not swallowed so great an amount of falar. Once again has it been proven that a warrior must be cautious when taking drink among males.”
“And this is the sole conclusion you have come to?” asked Mehrayn, drawing my eyes back to him.
Though the torch sat upon the wall above and somewhat behind him, the eyes of the male fairly glowed with whatever emotion flared through him. “A warrior must be cautious of the company she keeps? No word upon the foolishness of wenches who see themselves as of vast importance? No word of apology to those who have been badly used by those selfsame wenches?”
“I know of none who have been badly used,” said I, again confused. “Nor do I see my actions as foolish. As Mida commands so must it be, with none to deny her. No more have I done than attempt to obey.”
“You obey neither mortal nor god,” said he with a soft sound of disdain. “Your actions stem from no more than your own interpretation of events, an interpretation which is more often incorrect than true. You defy and deny those about you in the name of Mida, when the true source quoted should be Jalav the stubborn.”
“What male foolishness do you speak?” I demanded, immediately bristling with insult as I sat straight upon the lenga pelt. “Was it I who directed that Bellinard be taken by the Midanna, that I ride to raise the Sigurri, that I claim the leadership of the enemy Midanna? Had the decision been mine, my Midanna alone would have sufficed to meet the strangers. Have the Sigurri thought better of riding to battle that you now insult me?”
“You know well enough that the Sigurri shall ride as Sigurr demands,” said he, his tone calm yet implacable. “I shall not be distracted into argument upon a point other than that which we discuss. When your life sign was found to be gone from that place where it had been left, I asked that you delay your departure till a thorough search had been instituted. One of proper and mature reason would surely have agreed, yet Jalav the gando knew the true meaning behind the disappearance: Mida the goddess had fallen to anger, and Jalav’s punishment was that she be bereft of protection. Immediately did the she-gando take her leave, without even so much as a final word to those who had come to care for her.”
My lips parted to berate the male for the tone he dared to take with me, yet he quickly sat himself straight and continued before my words were able to come forth.
“Much did I heap curses upon my own head for having kept you so long from your task that terrible punishment was given you,” said he, sharp anger now evident in face and voice. “Clearly was it my insistence upon accompanying you and the—‘dallying’ I had lured you with that had brought disaster upon you, for so had you maintained and so did it truly seem. When Chaldrin returned with word of the new direction you had taken I rode out immediately, ill with the thought that further punishment was to be added to that which had already been given you. We crept within this cavern, seeking to surround the enemy whose numbers were greater than ours, yet before the encirclement was complete the whips were used on you. Again I reviled myself, believing the ills which befell you continued to be caused by me, thinking you had spoken truly when you insisted that my presence would bring naught save grief. We slew our enemies and bound your wounds, then stood about and watched as delirium slowly sapped the life from you. We were helpless, unable to aid against the resin, for we knew not what the counteragent might be—and then your life sign was brought by Aysayn. The life sign you would already have worn had you waited another fey or two.”
His green eyes held to me with an unsettling directness, a voiceless command that his words were to be taken as truth. Indeed was I greatly dismayed at his view of the happenings, yet was it clear that he saw only through the eyes of anger.
“You are a male, and therefore unfamiliar with the doings of Mida and unable to comprehend the true meaning of things,” said I, attempting to free my tone of insult and merely to teach. “At first did I, too, see Ladayna at fault, yet must it be remembered that Mida may use any to see her will done, even a city slave-woman or males. Ladayna’s doing was clearly at the behest of Mida, the return of my life sign by Aysayn as clearly the same. Had I found the final darkness I would no longer have been able to ride in her cause, therefore did the goddess see to my survival. Chaldrin was allowed to follow and bring others, for I rode in a direction other than that from which they have been barred. It was indeed Mida’s intention to see me punished, yet was it not her intention to see me ended. She continues to feel annoyance with her warrior, yet are there tasks which must be accomplished.”