“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 could 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.”