The Far Side Of Forever Part 36

At his gesture I was bent and thrust through the open- ing, hard enough to land me on all fours on the gray cloth the tiny room was carpeted with. I twisted around in time to see the metal grating, but not soon enough to keep it from being closed across the narrow, oval opening. I was locked in, and then 1 was left alone.

1 looked around at the narrow, low-ceilinged alcove from where I now sat, seeing plain stone walls without opening or lamp, then simply lay down on the floor on my left side. I would have been grateful for having been left my clothes, but I knew well enough that that particular circ.u.mstance was subject to change at any moment. I was horribly upset and horribly confused, but it had finally come through to me that Kadnm had been right about my strength compared to a man's. I'd tried over and over again to get free but I hadn't been strong enough to do it, and I simply didn't understand why that was so. If I wasn't strong enough, and even a stranger tike Kadrim knew I wouldn't be, why hadn't / known it? Why had I continued to believe it was only a matter of tiredness? 1 was so confused I could barely think-and I was something else as well.

I drew my knees up closer to my chest and closed my eyes, determined not to show anyone how I felt, but finding it impossible not to admit it to myself. I was more afraid than I'd been since I was very, very small, and alt I wanted to do was hide in a comer and tremble. Those horrible people had captured me and now I would never get away, nor would I be able to help the people of my

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world or even my quest companions. I had no help to give on that world, not to myself or to anyone else, and now we six were really trapped there forever. My part of it would be worse than theirs, but 1 couldn't say I hadn't earned it, that 1 hadn't stepped forward and demanded it in ringing tones. I had asked for it, and now 1 was going to get it.

When I was very small, I'd come to believe that nothing in the dark could hurt me if 1 lay very still and didn't make a sound of any sort- It wasn't really dark in that tiny alcove, but I tried it anyway.

"D'leljohr!" I spat at the thin man, wishing with every ounce of strength 1 had that the spell would- work. but of course it didn't, instead of shredding the man just stood there rubbing his arm where I'd bitten him, glaring at me where / stood, held between his two male a.s.sistants. I was so furious 1 was trembling, but none of them were as calm and cool as they'd been a little while earlier either.

"I have never seen a female so impossible!" the thin man hissed, his skin flushed from the struggle- "Again your hair is disarranged, but we no longer have the time to see to it. We must go now, and the consequences will be yours. Bring her!" *'

He stalked off toward a different gray hanging than the one I'd been brought through originally, and his two a.s.sis- tants lost no time forcing me after him. The naked women in the room stared at us silently as we pa.s.sed them, but this time they seemed more relieved than frightened.

As far as I'd been able to determine, about a day and a half had pa.s.sed since I'd first been brought there. No part of the area seemed to contain a window, but I was fairly sure it was the evening of the day after I'd been captured.

I'd slept undisturbed in the alcove for a long time, and when I'd awakened the women in the outer room had been asleep. A couple of hours later the small servant women had entered bringing food, and that signaled the start of the day. After eating the combing and exercising and chatting began again, the only things those women seemed to do.

I spent the day refusing whatever was brought me in the way of sustenance, and by the time the third meal was

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finished the small serving women were rather upset. It was then that two of the naked women opened the metal grat- ing of the alcove and gestured me out, and they became just as upset as the serving women when I did come out but refused to let them near me. One had reached to my clothes as though she intended taking them while the other stood by with a comb, but I wasn't about to join their club.

I pushed them gently away from me and shook my head, men wandered around the undecorated area trying to find something interesting to look at.

About twenty minutes later the thin man showed up, grew furious when the two women hurried over and whis- pered something to him, then summoned his male a.s.sis- tants. With a room that large it took the two of them a while to catch me, and every time I kicked one the watch- ing women gasped and moaned; but even though the men didn't have all of it their way, they had enough. Despite the way I fought I lost my clothes and boots, and then I was held relatively still while my hair was combed. Even through the furious embarra.s.sment 1 felt, I was able to wonder about their G.o.d-king's tastes, that a woman would have her hair combed before being brought to him, but would not be bathed. If I'd had any doubts about those people that little item would have settled them, but I didn't have doubts. All 1 knew was that I had to force them to kill me as quickly as possible, preferably even before I saw their G.o.d-king.

That, of course, was not the way it turned out. When enough of the knots were out of my hair, two of the servant women were gestured over to "dress" me. Two wide. ankle-length panels of brown attached to a very narrow band of soft material were fastened around my hips, which left the outer sides of both of my thighs and legs bare. When the naked women gasped I thought at first it was sight of that offensive, humiliating "outfit" that caused it, but then it suddenly came to me that it was the color they were reacting to. All brown, without the least touch of gray, was probably an insult, one, most likely, to match the insult of my having tried to run away. To me the color would have been fine if only there had been more of

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it, but that hip-halter thing turned out not to be the worst of it.

For the top of me, all I was given was a wide brown necklace of wooden beads, a necklace barely long enough or wide enough to cover anything at all. When the thin man came forward with a smirk and put his hand up to adjust the thing, my teeth reached his arm before his hand reached the beads.

"Bring her faster!" the thin man hissed over his shoul- der to the men hurrying me along, more upset than outrage now in his voice. "If we arrive late, we'll lose more than we already have!"

The men tightened their already-tight grips and increased our pace along the narrow, featureless corridor, showing less agitation than the man ahead of them, but apparently feeling no less. The stone of the corridor floor was cold and hard under my bare feet, but they wouldn't have cared even if it was painful; they were all wearing boots, and I wasn't the one they were worrying about. The beads around my neck clacked with the pace the men forced on me, and I hated the sound more than anything else I could think of.

The corridor turned to the left and we did too, and about fifty feet ahead there was another heavy, barred door that looked to be shut tight. The thin man reached it first and said something through the small window, and by the time we got there it was already swinging open. Outside was a stone room with four guards and another man who wasn't a guard, and that man gestured the thin man to him where he stood peering out the side of yet another gray hanging.

"You're just in time," the man said to the thin man in a very soft voice, looking tremblingly relieved. "He'll be through in a minute, and then he wants her brought to him.

Before he ends the audience he's going to show her off, and then he'll take her to his apartments. Why is she dressed in that color?"

"The command came directly from him," the thin man answered, still not over his upset. "The court will be very impressed when they see him doing this to a gift from another G.o.d-king, don't you think?"

"He did something like this to a captive about a hun-

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dred and fifty years ago." the other man said, looking thoughtful. "The records of my predecessors make men- tion of it, but it's hardly likely any members of the present court know about it. Yes, they will be impressed, not that he really needs to impress them. He just seems to enjoy it."

The thin man nodded agreement as the other turned back to the hanging to peek through it again, but I couldn't help frowning at what they were taking so casually. A hundred and fifty years ago? The man had been their G.o.d-king for mat long or longer? From their comments it was clear their own people didn't live that long, so why had their G.o.d- king? Or, what was an even better question, what was their G.o.d-king?

"That's it," the man said from the hanging, gesturing to the ones who held me. "Take her out there now."

He and the thin man parted the hanging and held it out of the way, and despite my struggles I was forced through it. I felt very cold and sick to my stomach, and barely noticed the very large, gray-trimmed room I was suddenly in. There must have been more man a hundred people in that room, all of them men, all of them dressed mostly in gray, all of them on their knees, and all of them staring at me- To the left of the hanging and about thirty yards away was a raised platform, and on the very top step was a throne of silver. Below the throne was a wide step almost like a stage, and on that step stood a single figure, dressed all in silver. I was able to see dark hair above an indistinct face that was looking straight at me, and then 1 was being forced to my knees and my head was pressed to the stone of the floor.

Outrage has always come to me rather easily, and being knelt in front of someone did it for me that time. When they finally pulled me to my feet again I was more angry than afraid, and strangely enough that seemed to frighten me two men holding me. They dragged me along at what was nearly a run, hauled me up the wide steps of the platform, then thrust me forward toward the waiting figure in silver. As soon as their hands were off me they dropped to their knees, and quickly put their heads to the stone.

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I looked back at the man standing alone on the step of the platform, tossed my head to get the hair back over my shoulders, then folded my arms the way his were folded.

He was staring at me with a faint smile on his face, and from that close I could see that his eyes were as silver as his clothing and throne. He was tail and broad-shouldered and lean, good-iooking if your tastes run that way, and certainly didn'l appear to be a hundred and fifty years oid. A horrified murmur had arisen from the men kneeling all over the room, probably due to the lack of respect I was showing their G.o.d-king, and all at once I had very high hopes of being killed very quickly.

Which were dashed almost immediately when the man unfolded his arms and began walking toward me, true amus.e.m.e.nt reflected in his eyes. 1 wouldn't have given him the satisfaction of backing away from him for any- thing imaginable, but the closer he got the more the chill returned, and suddenly I realized that my arms were no longer folded but now held up in front of me in an effort to cover myself.

"My, my, what very wide violet eyes you have," he murmured as he stopped in front of me, looking down at me with his own strange silver ones. Even held low his voice was deep, and his accent was different from any of the others I'd heard on thai world. "They're very pretty eyes, and they seem to be afraid of me."

I tried to make myself tell him that I wasn't afraid of him, but before the words could come out his right hand flashed to my hair, and then all 1 could do was gasp with me pain of his very tight grip.

"Which means they're very wise eyes," he said in that same murmur, pulling me closer to him by the fist in my hair. "Considering what I can and just might have done to you, you should be afraid of me. First, of course, I'll have some personal pleasure from you, but after the centuries I've lived, that usually isn't enough. I'm going to show you off for a white as my personal triumph, but how long that while continues depends entirely on you. There are no light-haired women in this part of the world, which makes it worth my while to keep you for a bit, but not if you

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don't learn very quickly how a female behaves toward her G.o.d-king. Now, you will leam that quickly, won't you?"

There was no longer any amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes, only a chilling kind of madness, and I remembered what the small people had said to us that night, and how deep-down frightened they'd been. But I also remembered who and what / was, and somehow the way he was hurting me made saying what! had to easier.

"No matter low long you've lived, you'll never live long enough to see that," I whispered, wishing I could have spoken a little more forcefully. Despite what I'd said I was afraid of him, and the fear didn't seem to want to stop spreading.

"Then there will be other, more interesting things to see," he said, the gleam strengthening in those eyes, and then he turned and pulled me hard toward the center of the platform step, moving me by the hair as he strode along.

My own stride was more of a running stumble, and it was all I could do not to cry out in pain the way he was trying to make me do. When we got to the center of the step he threw me to the stone at his feet, and then his voice rang out in that very high, very wide room.

"My loyal worshipers, you now see before you the tribute sent to me by a brother G.o.d," he orated, the self-satisfaction in his voice very thick. "As you know.

my brother G.o.ds fear me, but I do not fear them. I will do as I wish with this gift sent to appease me, and they will do nothing in return. In time this female will be sacrificed to my G.o.dhood, proving once again that none may stand against me, not even what is sent by other G.o.ds. I am your G.o.d and your king, and my word and desires are supreme!"

"Thannar, G.o.d and king, blessed be his name," chanted every voice in that room, the kneeling men looking up at the figure above them, the figure that stood with its arms raised in triumph. I sat on the stone at his feet, one hand to my head, wondering if I'd have me chance to kill myself-or him-before we reached the time of that "sacrifice," and then something happened that shocked everyone in the room.

"Thannar, G.o.d and fool, to spit on the indulgent gener-