Intrigues (37 page)

Those enslaved flesh forms nearest my position stood at attention as though awaiting orders, which was the most that could be done at the moment. The rest would have to be done by others lacking my weariness, but one further act was necessary.

Those flesh forms called nobles stood shouting at the formerly enslaved flesh forms nearest to them, demanding that their commands be obeyed. I touched the ones who shouted, insuring that they would continue to shout but do nothing else, and then the entity was gone and it was me alone again.

"Whew!" Jovvi said, sitting just a little straighter in her place. "If the entity hadn't drawn strength for us from our link groups before dissolving, I'd be flat on the ground right now."

"You and me both," Lorand agreed as he stretched wide. "At least the entity understood that we can't curl up and sleep right now. We still have too much to do."

"Like gettin' all those people released completely," Vallant said as he began to get to his feet after taking a deep breath. "Holter and his group will have to do that, along with calmin' down the people they release. We don't want them tearin' the nobles apart before we get a chance to question them."

"We'll also have to acquire food for them as well as clothing," Rion put in as he joined Vallant in standing. "Did you see how poorly they were dressed? Some are in worse case than the other segments we freed."

"And if we don't move quickly we'll lost some of them," Naran warned, letting Rion help her to her feet. "I could feel that some of those poor people are hurt so badly that their life threads are almost severed."

That statement touched me even more deeply than it did the others. It wasn't so long ago that my own life thread had nearly snapped that I didn't feel a shudder run through me as I stood. Vallant had given me a hand up, and as soon as we were all erect we went to the horses. Our link groups were already mounted, so we all hurried toward the waiting column.

When we reached the place where the nobles had been shouting orders at the segments, we found those nobles surrounded by the bullies called prods as they continued to try giving their former slaves orders. Actually it was just one man doing most of the shouting, the rest simply echoing whatever he said. We dismounted and left our horses with our link groups, and walked closer to the defensive group.

"All right, that's enough noise for now," Jovvi told the men inside the circle of prods, and then she seemed to address the thin air. "Yes, we
would
like you and the others to see to the captives. But you'll have to calm them as you free them, and they'll also need to be examined. Naran tells us that some of them need immediate medical attention. Also please take these prods away and sit them down somewhere or use them to do something necessary. We want to question the nobles now, and would prefer that the prods don't get in the way… Thank you."

Jovvi had been talking to Pagin Holter's group's entity, of course, but the nobles stared at her as if she were insane. It amused me to remember that the only orders I'd given the nobles had been to stay put and continue shouting, which meant they were only loosely under control. That let them show all the outraged indignation they seemed to feel, and the apparent leader bristled up at once.

"Who in the name of Chaos
are
you peasants, and how dare you interfere with me?" he demanded as he looked around at us, and then his complexion went even darker as the prods began to move away from him and the others. "You men get back here at once, do you hear, at once! You take your orders from
me
, not some worthless rabble!"

"No one will be takin' orders from you again, so you'd better get used to it," Vallant told the man dryly with a very hard edge to the words. "Just stand where you are, and we'll be gettin' around to you as soon as more important matters are attended to."

The noble growled deep in his throat as Vallant turned away from him to watch what the other Blending entities were doing with the former segments, and then I felt the man reach for the power. When he'd opened himself it became clear that he had Fire magic, so I took a small step toward him.

"If you feel you have to do that, it's
me
you'll be facing," I told him mildly as he fought to keep his eyes from widening. "I can tell you that you're not even as strong as the late and unlamented Seated Middle in Fire magic, so you'd better rethink your position. As I'm sure you can tell, I
am
a High rather than just being called one."

"You're a peasant is what you are, and I am not," he blustered, obviously trying to get the upper hand by using something other than talent. "You may curtsey to me and acknowledge my authority over you, and then you will come and stand before me in defense."

"I would dearly love to tell you what
you
may do, but I was raised not to say things like that," I drawled, all but laughing in his face. "Instead I'll tell you that there's a big difference between
saying
you have authority and actually being able to prove it. We've already proven our authority, so stop making a fool of yourself and just keep quiet."

One of the younger men behind the one who had spoken had been getting more and more outraged, and when he heard me virtually call the older man a fool he lost all control of himself. He screamed out his fury, and then he launched himself in attack against me.

Our short time of Blending had really depleted the strength I'd regained, and only a small part of that strength had been replaced from what my entity-self had drawn from our link groups. But our link groups still had a lot of strength left, and somehow I found myself tapping into the strength of mine as I took one step back and defended myself automatically.

The younger man closed the distance between us very fast, and then he reached both hands for my throat. He seemed to know that it's difficult to use a talent while you're being choked to death, your mind becoming too scattered to focus properly. But I hadn't had to stop and focus my talent in quite a while, and the man's tactics depended on his actually being able to strangle me.

Which he wasn't quite able to do. Instead of closing his hands around my throat, the man screamed and pulled those hands back to cradle them against his chest. The fires his hands had touched instead of my throat had been really very hot, and then he staggered and flailed backwards into the small group he'd come from as though someone had hit him.

"And stay there, all of you," Rion ordered as he stepped up beside me, a growl in his own voice. "We'll have someone see to those hands eventually, but you'll have to wait until those with real value - and those who have been hurt through no fault of their own - have been tended. Until then just stand there and keep quiet."

The man I'd burned kept silent and just looked ill, but one of the others whimpered and edged himself behind the man who'd done all the talking. That one, the obvious head of this former army, stood tight-lipped with fury with his hands turned to fists at his sides. But he also kept silent, so I joined Rion in turning away from them.

"I've put a wall around them now, and I apologize for not having done it sooner," Rion murmured to me, clear upset in his pretty eyes. "If I weren't so tired… Are you certain you're all right, Tamrissa?"

"I'm fine, Rion, so don't let it bother you," I soothed, reaching across myself to pat his arm. "I didn't have the least trouble defending myself, and you'll never guess why. I drew strength from my link groups."

"But - I didn't realize that they were still linked," Rion protested, stopping to look down at me. "There would have been no
reason
for them to continue to be linked."

"Yes, I know," I agreed, giving him the sickly smile that was all I could produce right now. "But the strength was there, because I tapped into it. Would you like to venture a guess as to how and why it was there?"

"You must be joking," Rion came back with a sound of ridicule. "Even if I were well rested and in top form I would hesitate to venture an opinion. At the moment… No, I think I'll wait to hear what the others have to say. If they're
able
to find what to say."

"I'm going to talk to the members of my link groups," I decided aloud, finally understanding that that might be a good idea. "If you see me sitting on the ground hiding my head, you'll know they announced they had no idea what I was talking about."

"Could this be part of whatever new thing we seem to be working on?" Rion asked, confusion struggling with wonder in his expression. "Our continuing weariness seems to indicate that we're learning to do
something
new, and this might very well be it."

"Along with having more awareness and control when we Blend," I said, seeing at once that he might be right. "The two together would be - Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Your comment has suddenly made me wonder whether
I'm
far too tired or you are," he answered, his expression still peculiar. "When we Blended the entity used my perceptions again, but I remember nothing of more awareness and control. I take it that you do remember such a thing."

"I think I do," I responded, suddenly uncertain. "But you said that the entity used
your
perceptions. How could it have used yours and mine both at the same time?"

"I believe I've already said I have no opinions I'd care to venture," Rion returned with a groan as he briefly closed his eyes. "Obviously the Highest Aspect doesn't care for that stance, but unfortunately there's no other I'm able to take. I think we'd best mention this to our sisters and brothers as quickly as possible."

"Before I forget about it again," I agreed with a nod. "I meant to say something about it as soon as Jovvi dissolved the Blending, but it went right out of my head. Is your wall strong enough to protect those nobles as well as keep them from wandering off?"

"Protect them from the wrath of these poor people as soon as they're fully back to themselves, you mean," Rion said with a gesture of one hand. "Yes, the wall is strong enough for both purposes, so let's by all means search out the others."

The decision was easily made, but not as easily seen to. It looked like most of the former army segments had been freed from the control they'd been living under, but not many of them looked ready to dance with pleasure or to turn on their former tormentors. Most of them sat slumped over or lay on the road where they'd formerly been standing, and it was easier to see now what poor condition they'd been kept in. The link groups of our various Blendings had left their horses to move among the newly freed, probably to see which of them needed medical attention the soonest.

"I see the members of my link groups over there," I told Rion, and then pointed in the proper direction. "If you'll try to locate our Blendingmates, I'll try to find out whether or not I was dreaming."

"Or simply imagining things," Rion agreed with a nod and an odd expression. "Now I have to decide whether I want these things to be real or imaginary. Possibly if I lie down for a nap, all these dilemmas will be gone when I awake."

And with that he walked off, but not to leave me wondering what he was talking about. I knew exactly what he meant, and felt more than a little tempted to take my own nap. If I'd had a guarantee that a nap would work I'd probably have tried it, but the sudden excitement my link group members showed when they saw me guaranteed something else entirely.

"Tamrissa, what happened?" Deegro Lapas, one of the members of the groups asked as soon as I got close enough. "We've never experienced anything like that before."

"That's basically what I came to ask
you
," I told Deegro and the others, letting them see my confusion. "From my end I suddenly had tandem link groups to draw strength from, even though the members of those groups shouldn't have been linked. What was it like for the rest of you?"

"We suddenly found ourselves linked for no apparent reason," Deegro answered, still speaking for the groups, a disturbance clear in his eyes. "Then we felt you drawing on our strength, and a moment later the need for linking seemed to be gone. You have no idea what made it happen?"

"At the moment, no," I conceded with a sigh. "I even thought I might have been imagining things, but obviously I wasn't. I'm going to be talking this over with my Blendingmates, and if we come up with any explanations I'll be sure to let you know what they are."

"You sound as if you don't expect to find those explanations," Deegro observed, eyeing me with what looked like real sympathy. "Aren't you bound to figure something out sooner or later?"

"Tripping over a reason for something as you move through life isn't really figuring things out," I told him with another sigh. "For all we know this was a perfectly logical, natural happening, something that's really no big deal. But that's the whole problem: we don't
know
what's supposed to be logical and natural, and what
should
be considered a big deal. I'd love to do something really horrible to the fools who first decided to keep knowledge about Blending a privately held secret."

"If those fools were still alive, we'd all insist on joining you in that venture," Deegro said, causing most of the others to nod their agreement. "Please don't forget to let us know what the bunch of you come up with."

I promised not to forget and then left them to their tending of former captives. Rion stood a short distance off beckoning to me, which must have meant he'd found the others. As I walked toward him, I realized that I was almost afraid to discuss the occurrences with everyone else. What if it turned out that no one could do what I'd done, and that I was really, really different? I didn't want to be all alone again, especially not in
this
way. But if I were, what could I possibly do about it…?

Chapter 21

Jovvi found herself quickly distracted from the nobles leading the army as soon as the captives were completely freed. The roiling sea of emotions was so strong that she had to shield herself from it, otherwise she could well have ended up badly battered. But she did project all the comfort and soothing she could in as wide an area as possible, trying to steady the poor victims until they could be helped physically by others.