Chapter 17

17.

         The sight of Rathas crouched in the chair in the center of the room was not what Valreck expected to see when he finally turned away from his window.
         “Now that you’re done immersing yourself in contemplation, you want to hear the good news or the bad news?” the other man asked, grinning. Valreck wondered how long he’d been there. He hopped off the chair and landed neatly on both feet. “Before something else happens.”
         Valreck regarded Rathas silently, his mouth drawn in a tight line. I didn’t hear him appear. He shouldn’t have been able to do that. He’s been refining his skills, perhaps more than any of us. “Just tell me as much of the story as you know,” Valreck said sharply, striding over to him. There would be time to worry about that later. Right now he had other concerns. “How is Junyul? What happened to her to make her react like she did?” Having seen some variations on the phenomenon some time ago, he could make some educated guesses on the possible causes, none of which comforted him greatly.
         “She looked okay to me,” Rathas replied casually, scuffing his boot along the floor and then lifting his leg to wipe some dust off of it. “A bit angry, but you know how reasonable she can be in the face of adversity. As for what happened . . .” he gave a bow and motioned for Valreck to walk forward. “It’s going to require a more visual presentation, I’m afraid. After you.”
         Valreck gave him a look, but went forward anyway. Sometimes Rathas’ flair for the dramatic could be tedious, but this was easier than trying to discover it by himself, or perversely, asking Junyul, who tended to be less than forthcoming about matters that put her in less than a positive light. Besides, Rathas, for all his jocularity and offhand mannerisms, often had incisive insights and Valreck felt it might pay for once to hear an opinion other than his own. More and more he felt as if he were walking on the edge of something disastrous and it unnerved him to think that he might be maneuvering himself and everyone else to their demise. Things would be escalating soon, he was certain. Valreck just wanted someone to agree that he was doing the right thing. So far, no one would. But no one had any other ideas, either.
         Just outside the door of his home he found a young woman standing there, one who looked vaguely familiar. She smiled distantly and blandly as Valreck peered at her, about to ask her what she wanted. His reputation was a bit exaggerated by the villagers and sometimes they came with odd requests. He didn’t think that was the case here, though. “Is that . . .”
         “Maleth sends her regards,” Rathas said from behind him. The woman only grinned wider, an expression that looked entirely out of place on her otherwise serious face. “Her suggestion, I figured it was better than me explaining it twice. She didn’t think you would mind.”
         Nor would she care if I did, Valreck thought morosely. Nodding a grim pleasantry to the woman, who seemed to have been waiting for them for quite some time, he let Rathas take the lead as they walked through the village. The crunch of footsteps immediately behind them was heard as the woman began to follow, not saying a word. Valreck found her presence making him somehow uncomfortable, which if not Maleth’s plan was probably a nice secondary benefit. Play your games, then, old woman. In the end, we will all need to work together if we want to continue living.
         “So, please, before we waste anymore time, what happened to Junyul? Was someone trying to listen in on our meeting?” The possibility was likely, but they all should have noticed then, and Junyul’s reaction didn’t entirely fit. Listening was a passive activity, while whoever it was seemed able to affect Junyul directly. That was not an easy thing to do, and it added more than a little to his nervousness.
         “Yes and no . . .” Rathas said, stalking a few steps ahead, tipping an imaginary hat to people he passed. He had chosen a set of fine traveling clothes for his visit, the leather still new and supple, barely making a noise as he walked. A small grey cape extended down only to his lower back, waving lazily with his movements. “Someone was definitely trying to poke around, that much is clear.”
         “Poke around . . . as in searching for us?” Valreck asked, increasing his strides to catch up with the other man. Taking a second to get his bearings, he noticed that Rathas was leading them toward the nearest edge of the village. Even now, houses was beginning to give way to farms and other more industrious locations. A blast of searing hot air from a nearby blacksmith had the effect of briefly reminding him of home. The monotonous clanging, however, only served to give him a headache.
         “Seems that way,” Rathas replied. The woman had moved to his other side, though she was walking while staring straight ahead. To onlookers it would seem that she was only accidentally walking with them, since she wasn’t paying any outward attention to them. However, as Valreck knew, one did not need eyes to hear. He wondered what else Maleth was trying to learn from this excursion. “She said that while we were all talking she started to get this . . . feeling . . . that someone was where they weren’t supposed to be. That place being her head.” His grin was mischievous. “I hear it’s not so pleasant a sensation but better her than me, I guess. Though I’m not sure if I feel more sorry for our mystery intruder . . . who knows what he got an eyeful of?”
         “Hm,” Valreck said, clasping his hands behind his back and bowing his head. A man walking past called out a hearty greeting, but Valreck saw no need to respond. “Does she know how they got in, or why she was picked?”
         “No idea. Just walked right in, apparently,” said Rathas, with some measure of admiration. “She had no warning it was coming, like waking up at night and realizing someone is wandering around your house. That’s how she put it at least.” He grinned again. “The edited version.”
         “Dammit, how could someone just do that?” Valreck seethed, frustration at the mystery threatening to give way to anger. Too many unknown quantities at once. He could not be general and prime detective at once, shifting resources and solving mysteries at the same time. At some point, it had to give. He had to give. And that scared him. “I told all of you to keep some form of barrier up, to protect against such invasions!” Several bystanders turned in surprise as he raised his voice, but many others just kept walking. After a second the bystanders left as well. “Just because we think we are the only ones here who can do what we do . . . that does not mean it will stay that way!”
         Rathas didn’t even blink at the outburst. Maleth’s woman just stood there, silently watching, passively reporting back all she witnessed. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me again, Valreck,” the little man said, his voice bordering on defensive. “But I think we’ve all gotten into the practice, including Junyul. Whoever got into her head walked through a barrier without tripping any sort of warning.”
         Valreck turned away slightly, partially to escape the staring eyes of the young woman. She could at least let the woman blink. “That’s . . . troubling to hear, Rathas. It would certainly be easier if we could blame the lapse on Junyul.”
         “Tell me about it,” Rathas replied, barking out a laugh. He glanced up the sky, squinting at the sun, before setting off again, forcing Valreck to follow along. “Believe me, if I could, I’m all for taking dear Junyul down a peg or three . . . but she’s innocent of the charge this time, I’m afraid. Not that she doesn’t trust us all dearly, but she’s not what one would call an open person . . . she’d put up a barrier just because she thought one of us would try something, let alone an outsider.” He reached into his pockets and took out a few small acorns, which he began to juggle in an offhand manner. “I don’t know if you want to look on the bright side or not, but the one good thing about this is that it narrows down the suspects considerably. That wasn’t very easy to do. Hell, back at the College I tried to pull it off and I wound up spending two weeks breaking into a striptease every time someone asked what time it was.” He switched to one hand, juggling the acorns in a figure eight pattern. “Though it didn’t turn out as bad as I’d feared. Apparently women appreciate a man who isn’t ashamed of his body.” He grinned innocently at Valreck, who merely shook his head and muttered something unpleasant under his breath.
         Looking down at the ground, brows furrowed, he said, “Then, the only logical suspect we have is the young woman Tolin is searching for. Do you believe she’s that skilled?”
         Rathas skipped forward a few steps, tossing some seeds behind him and spinning deftly to catch them. One flew from his hands and bounced off the center of the young woman’s forehead, without any apparent effect. Rathas spun back toward Valreck to hide a wide grin. “I don’t know what to believe, Tolin managed to wound her pretty good, according to him, but she also was able to get the drop on him . . .” Valreck thought he heard Rathas stifle a snicker, “and she’s evaded us so far. So she’s no novice . . . it’s possible she’s highly specialized.”
         Or, Valreck thought darkly, there is someone else here with the same purpose. It was not an alternative he wished to dwell on for too long, but until they had more concrete evidence, it would have to remain a possibility.
         “Perhaps the Time Patrol brought her to seek us out,” Valreck pondered outloud. “It would explain why they had such a small force. If she is able to pinpoint us without raising any notice, they would only need a handful of soldiers.” He tried not to think about how close they had come to being captured, if that were indeed true. You see how far hiding would have gotten us, Maleth? he thought bitterly, glaring briefly at the young woman. “After this is over we will have to devise a more intricate barrier. Their overconfidence must have made them brazen. This will be the only time we get that sort of warning.”
         “Point taken,” Rathas said, cupping his chin while putting his other hand behind his back. The acorns continued to whirl of their own accord, dancing in quick winding spirals. A small child stopped to point and giggle before his mother forcibly dragged him along. “When we capture her we’ll have to try and get more out of her.” His sudden grin was a wicked slash in his face. “If we do this well enough, we might convince them against using that technique in the future. Wouldn’t that be a grand accomplishment, to outmaneuver the mythical Time Patrol? They might even put a plaque of our names back at the dear College, when they find out.”
         “Being that the College was apparently working in concert with elements of the Time Patrol, I highly doubt it,” Valreck replied dryly. They were very near the edge of the village now, the wide thoroughfares gradually slimming into the dusty ribbon of the road. “That is not a connection they’ll be advertising at any point in the near future, I’m sure.”
         “Too bad,” Rathas said with a smirk. “It would make great blackmail material, if it hadn’t been such an open secret to begin with.”
         “I doubt anyone outside the College would believe us anyway,” Valreck said, still finding the idea somewhat amusing. While his memories of the College were more pleasant than most, he wouldn’t be adverse to adding to its current headaches. “But we should stick to one situation at a time, frankly.” Casting another glance at the silent young woman standing nearby, he said to Rathas, “So Junyul’s distress was from our mystery intruder, am I correct?”
         Rathas opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it and appeared to consider his words for a moment, before saying, “Well . . . sort of . . .” Heading off Valreck’s impatient glare, he added quickly, “Let me explain. Junyul was surprised by our visitor, yes, we all saw that . . .” he was twirling the acorns around his finger like he was the center of an invisible hub, “. . . and she did try to evict her intruder right away, we saw that as well. But that wasn’t the only thing happening to her at that point.”
         Valreck looked at Rathas in disbelief. “What do you mean? What else could have possibly happened to her?” This was getting ridiculous. How many occurrences could converge at once before it seemed like there was some divine plot to send them scurrying about like so much vermin? Agitated, he stamped his foot in the road, kicking up a spray of dirt. He was amused to see some of it land on the young woman, who didn’t even blink as dust particles strafed her eye. That will feel unpleasant later, I am sure. “Did she have yet another intruder?” Her mind cannot simply be that porous. It is impossible.
         “Well . . .” Rathas replied, his feet tapping out a complicated series of dance-like steps on the road, “as far as she can tell, what happened next surprised everyone.” Taking a deep breath and casting his eyes sideways to the young woman, he continued, “It looks like our prisoner got what some of my family used to refer to as `second wind’.”
         “So he woke up,” Valreck said, exasperated. I should not be surprised. Perhaps it would be better if the Time Patrol had simply taken us.
         Rathas only nodded, using one hand to open a pocket on his fine coat and letting the acorns one by one drop neatly into it. “And jumped her, as it turns out . . .” he waved his hand and pointed, causing the air itself to tear in two with a soft sucking sound. “. . . which we believe is what caused her to vanish like she did. After you, please.” Through the shimmering haze, which always reminded Valreck of a desert heat wave, it was possible to see the slightly blurred forms of buildings of another village. Bowing politely, he indicated the others to go forward, before immediately moving forward himself in a quick motion, apparently not content to wait for the others. Valreck followed right after, wincing at the brief second of disorientation and nothingness from the translocation. Behind him the young woman stepped through, acting like she was going through a door.
         Valreck looked around, getting his bearings. Being teleported by someone else was always a dicey affair, especially when you didn’t know the destination beforehand. However, it would be a simple enough matter to bring himself back home with little effort. And anyway, he did recognize the village here, its buildings smaller and more compact than where they had come from, but a bit more ostentatious, most homes being different colors and designs from each other and possessing small gardens and other luxury decorations along the side walls of the properties. Down the way he could see a small market, already bustling as the day climbed to its height, the babble of competing voices reaching him as a knotted mass, a tongue a thousand linguists could never hope to piece apart.
         “So Junyul had to fend off an attack from both our intruder and the prisoner at the same time?” Valreck asked, moving quickly to follow the other man. Rathas was striding toward a small two story building, tipping a hat that had not been there before to a party of woman that crossed his path.
         “Not really,” Rathas said over his shoulder. Valreck was getting a bit tired of playing these questioning games with Rathas, and was beginning to wish he had simply tied the man to his chair and ripped the answers from him one by one. “As I mentioned, the attack surprised both her and the intruder and we think caused the intruder to break off contact.” He stopped at the corner of the house and turned to face the rest of the group, leaning against the wall in a jovial fashion. “Junyul basically traded in a fairly abstract problem for a more immediate, one might say physical one.”
         “And the outcome?” Valreck asked as he reached the corner. “I hope the prisoner did not escape.” If he did and you have been wasting my time . . .
         Rathas only raised his eyebrows at Valreck and pivoted around the corner with his back against the wall. “Let’s just say it got a bit . . . messy,” he said, indicating a spot on the second floor with a nod of his head.
         Valreck looked up to see a jagged hole in the wall, roughly corresponding to the size of a person. The ground directly below the hole was scattered with wooden fragments of various sizes. With an inward wince, he also noted several depressions in the packed dirt of the ground, as well as a number of dark spots. Messy, indeed. It didn’t take an immense amount of deduction to determine what had occurred.
         “Junyul really isn’t one for surprises,” Rathas said by way of explanation. Valreck had the feeling that the other man sincerely wished to have been there when the incident occurred. It must have been quite the sight, he noted, with not a small degree of awe. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the young woman bend over and pick up one of the larger wooden fragments, tucking it into a pocket.
         “So it seems,” Valreck said mildly. “I assume the hole was caused by the outgoing passage of the prisoner? And that, following his descent and what appears to be his subsequent impact, he was recaptured?”
         “In so many words, yes,” Rathas replied, the edges of his mouth twitching. “After being flung through a wall and falling two stories, he wasn’t in much shape to go anywhere, really.” He scraped his boot to cover some of the darker spots. “I got here just after, actually, and it was a real mess . . . started to attract a lot of curious folk until they realized it was nothing more than a big garden and moved along. But otherwise, it was blood and wood everywhere, Junyul was screaming like a crazy woman, most of it in whatever language she used to speak, and our prisoner was lying here apparently trying to see if blunt trauma or blood loss would kill him first.” He slipped his hands into his pockets, flexing his knees and then jumping off to the level of the hole, landing lightly at the lip, sending another shower of debris falling on them like a dirty rain. Several landed on the young woman’s shoulders but she merely turned and walked past Valreck, disappearing around the corner. He watched her go but otherwise didn’t pay much attention.
         A few seconds later he had joined Rathas at the top. They were standing in a dark and empty room, with the only light source being whatever sunlight was peeking through the large gap now in the wall. There was one door directly across from them, slightly ajar. The room itself didn’t appear to have been touched by whatever fight had gone on in there, but then with its total lack of furniture there was very little to damage.
         “I came up here first,” Rathas said, his voice echoing weirdly due to the emptiness of the room. “Which was a good idea because she probably would have set a building on fire and dropped it on the prisoner just to make sure she got him. Once I got her calmed down I scooped the prisoner up and brought him back here.”
         Beyond the door Valreck heard distant footsteps. “Is Junyul still here?” He had no idea what he could learn from her that Rathas had not been able to provide, but it would be interesting to see if her story had changed any.
         Rathas thought for a second. “I think . . . no, no, she’s not. She took off for another house . . . she has a few of these places scattered around, you know, to rest and recuperate after her ordeal, I suppose.” He sniffed to indicate what he thought of that. “The prisoner is still here though, I locked him up in a room, though he wasn’t doing too much when I left him.”
         “That probably has changed since then,” Valreck said, moving toward the door as it opened. “Were you able to determine how fast they recover from the ones that Tolin fought?”
         “It seems to vary,” Rathas said, following him out into the hallway, frowning slightly. The young woman was standing there waiting for them, her expression as vacuous as it had always been. “Both on the person and the type of injury and even where the injury was inflicted. In our new friend’s case it’s probably more of an accelerated healing, since he was battered and beaten up, but nothing more than that, although it was pretty severe. At least it looked bad, at any rate.” Beyond the young woman was a small girl sitting on the floor playing with some dolls. She glanced up at the two men when they entered the hallway but looked away sharply, as if trying to pretend that they were not there.
         “Either way,” Rathas said, pointing at a door, “I dumped him in here. It hasn’t been too long so I don’t think he’s too sprightly, but I haven’t been able to devise any rules for this stuff yet.”
         “However, he is able to speak, correct?” Valreck asked, putting a hand on the doorknob. He reached out and brushed his mind across the room, but came up with nothing at all. That’s no guarantee, he thought. By all reports to detect a member of the Time Patrol took great skill and effort and even then their presence would only be marked by an absence, a void in other words. But even then, one would have to know what to look for. And that required spending more time among them than Valreck would have liked.
         “Sure, sure,” Rathas replied. “I don’t see why not. He didn’t break his jaw, as far as I could tell.” His eyes were nearly luminous in the half-dark of the hallway. Down the hall, the little girl was holding one of her dolls in the air and shaking it violently, her expression grimly serious. “He certainly yelled when I picked him up . . . at least until I reminded him that whatever damage he did to himself wouldn’t last for very long. That shut him up fast.” The man’s voice remained at a normal volume throughout his little bragging speech. Either he didn’t think the prisoner could hear his boast, or he didn’t care.
         “Very well, I think it’s time we formally introduced ourselves to our new arrival,” Valreck said, keeping his voice lowered to a near whisper. For a brief moment his eyes met the hooded gaze of the young woman and he almost thought he saw Maleth’s wrinkled smirk reflected in those otherwise blank orbs.
         Without any outward hesitation, Valreck opened the door to the prisoner’s room. There was barely a squeak as it opened inward and the only sight that greeted him was more darkness. A window at the far end of the room admitted some pale light, but some sort of covering over the glass blocked most of it. To his immediate right was a bed, the sheets looking recently disheveled. The floorboards creaked alarmingly under his feet, which he paid little attention to.
         What did capture his eye was the lack of anything else in the room.
         It was empty.
         A hollow feeling wrapped around his stomach. Where could he have gone? The window appeared intact and he certainly didn’t crawl through the floor or under the door. Perhaps they truly can turn into mist, he thought with a sickening lurch, the brief flush of panic making him giddy. No. No, this cannot be right.
         His mind racing, he began to turn back to Rathas, saying, “Are you sure this is the room you put him in-“
         At which point the door struck him in the face.
         “Ah-“ The initial impact bounced the door off his head and briefly rendered the world black, shot with streaks of oddly vivid color, sending a wave of pain thudding across his skull, coating it. Disoriented, he felt himself falling, tumbling backwards into the room, the bed hitting him just below the knees and sending him toppling onto it. What . . . what just . . .
         “How do you like that you-“ rasped a voice he didn’t recognize, as hands wrapped themselves around his throat, squeezing into the flesh of his neck, cutting off his air. A shadow darker than the room loomed overhead. Voices ricocheted in slow motion down a long tunnel to his ears.
         “Hey, what the hell is he . . .”
         Somehow he remembered how to make his arms work, leveraging them between him and the force trying to throttle him, pushing out sharply, feeling stiff and dusty fabric under his hands, hot breath spilling all over his face. His own breath was missing, restricted to a tiny hole that was quickly tightening further. Bright lights were flashing on and off in his head, sounding off a code he didn’t have time to decipher. Obscure angles formed a face above him, teeth bared and shining in the near-dark. Valreck had the distant impression he was being shaken.
         No . . . I will not . . . I won’t . . . I won’t let you . . .
         A desperate effort caused him to thrust out blindly, turning to the side as he did so to try and dislodge his attacker. He felt his shoulder protest as he threw all his weight against the other man, but was rewarded a moment later with the removal of the vice around his throat. Startled, he fell back against the bed, twisting his body in a vain attempt to regain his lost equilibrium.
         There was a sudden rush of running feet as the door slammed open, rattling against the wall. Rathas shouted something he couldn’t make out clearly. Shadows stabbed and sparred with each other as Valreck fought to regain his feet and clear his vision. The entire side of his face had become numb and he was sure he was tasting blood. A wave of dizziness washed over him as he struggled to his feet and he found himself sliding off the bed and crashing to the floor. The room wobbled and tilted crazily as he fought to restore his sense of balance. But the world kept dancing just out of reach, rebuffing every attempt he made to approach it.
         “Someone . . .” he said weakly, trying to shout over the ringing in his ears. “Someone . . . do . . .”
         As if in response there were several thuds in quick succession, like something heavy striking wood. Voices intermingled again, refusing to cohere into anything identifiable. Valreck had managed to raise himself to one elbow when a large object sailed by overhead, slamming into the opposite wall before rapidly sliding to the floor in a limp bundle. A strangled moan came from that end of the room, and then silence.
         “Well . . . that worked . . .”
         The whole affair had taken no more than ten seconds.
         Valreck rubbed his face, wincing as a latent bruise protested dully, and then checked his hand to see how bad he was bleeding. As it turned out, there was barely any blood, but his neck was sore and overall, he felt rattled and slightly unsteady. Using the bed as a prop without making it look like he was doing so, he lifted himself to his feet, keeping his eyes on the person crumbled against the far wall.
         Footsteps behind him announced Rathas’ entrance. Turning slowly to keep the world from whirling insanely away, he faced the other man, hoping that his gaze looked stern instead of dazed. The young woman was framed in the doorway. A trickle of blood from running from one nose, forming a red splotch around one corner of her mouth. She had made no effort to wipe it away.
         “Were you waiting for some kind of signal?” he asked Rathas, casually leaning against the bed and indicating the prisoner. “For future reference, you have my permission to jump in right away.”
         “Ah, you know how much I hate to repeat myself,” Rathas said lightly, coughing and patting his chest. With only the ambient light to highlight him, Rathas looked paler than usual, and his movements rigid and more deliberate. “And Junyul had already done the flinging him around the room thing . . . I wanted to be more creative than that.”
         “I see,” Valreck said, taking a good look at the prisoner for the first time. He was pale and lanky and a little worse for wear, but otherwise appeared to be flesh and blood. Slowly the man was righting himself, slipping into a sitting position, his back against the wall. His movements were stiff, like old injuries were conspiring to restrict his motion.
         “But I found I liked the elegant simplicity of her idea . . .” Rathas chuckled as his voice darted skillfully around the words, although his statement ended in another weak cough. “And besides, you go with what works, right?” He took a few steps deeper into the room, past Valreck, almost into the center. Sliding one hand into a pocket, he pointed at the man with his other hand and said to Valreck, “Wasn’t able to put him through the wall, though. Junyul must have put a little more oomph behind it, you know? I’ll have to get her to show me. I’m sure she’d like the opportunity to practice further . . . uh-uh, my friend . . .”
         The prisoner, who had been settling into a crouch, yelled as his head slammed back against the wall, the impact echoing with a sharp retort. Flakes of plaster fluttered to the floor as the man groaned and clutched at his head, nearly falling over onto his face.
         “Quite the tenacious one, aren’t we?” Rathas asked him, laughing again.
         “Ah . . . who . . . who the hell are you people . . . what . . .” the prisoner said, blinking hard and squinting at them in the dark. Valreck noted with some surprise that there was blood smeared all over his face.
         “That’s not important right now,” Valreck said sharply, before turning back to Rathas. “This makes two times now he’s tried to escape. What are we going to do . . . one of these times he’s going to succeed . . .”
         “That’s . . . that’s the idea, pal,” the prisoner jeered from across the room, glaring at them.
         “Yes,” Rathas mused, “eventually we’re going to run out of walls to throw him through and we can’t seem to affect him directly . . .” he paused for a second, concentrating, then murmured, “Nope, it’s like nothing’s there. Weird.”
         “We need to secure him somehow . . .” Valreck said, lightly banging his fist on the headboard of the bed. Tie him up? No, that wouldn’t work, he’d probably slip out. Construct a prison? Too much time.
         “If I may make a suggestion . . .” the man said, somehow managing to grin through his pain.
         “Oh do be quiet,” Rathas said, sounding irritated. Valreck noticed he was wheezing slightly and wondered how hard he had been hit in the fight. His delay in acting may not have been totally his choice. “You’d make this all a lot easier if you promised not to try and kill us every time we-“
         Someone tapped them on the shoulders.
         “What . . .” Rathas said, as both he and Valreck turned around. The young woman had entered the room and was standing there sedately, her face still the vapid mask it had been. With a languorous motion, she gestured for the two of them to come out into the hallway.
         “Excuse us, be but a minute . . .” Rathas said brightly to the prisoner.
         “I’ll be here,” the prisoner sighed, already beginning to struggle to his feet.
         Outside the young woman stood against the wall, one hand in a pocket. She seemed to be shaking slightly, almost vibrating.
         “What is it, Maleth?” Valreck asked impatiently. He had no time for this woman’s games and tedious lectures. “This had best not be-“
         With a swift motion the woman brought something out of her pocket, causing the two men to take an involuntary step backwards. Valreck saw that it was the piece of debris from before, a thick sliver of wood that the woman clutched lightly in one hand. Her eyes never left the other two men.
         “Maleth, what are you-“ Rathas started to say, then flinched as she drove the sliver into her palm. Her face never changed, nor did she make a sound. The wood bit deep, and blood immediately began to well around the wound. With casual ease, she slit down toward her wrist, until a gash about three inches long was opened in her palm. A few drops of blood struck the floor.
         “What is the point of this demonstration, woman,” Valreck asked, raising his voice, not caring who heard. “We already know what you-“
         The woman removed the splinter, now soaked in blood, and shook her hand, scattering flecks of blood on the floor. Then she placed her palm on the wall and began moving her hand up and down. Silently, Valreck watched as the woman made a series of quick, sharp gestures, the streaks of blood soon forming familiar symbols, the purpose rapidly becoming very apparent.
         shut up and listen
         “That’s different,” Rathas said quietly.
         Without pausing the woman continued to write. The letters were jagged and exaggerated, all wide loops and harsh lines, splattered in a madman’s kinetic style.
         you want to keep him from leaving from killing you caging him alone not going to work
         “Easy,” Rathas warned, “she doesn’t have that much blood. Don’t start writing a novel. Get to the point, already.” There was a tightness in his voice that Valreck had never heard before. Stealing a glance at the man he noticed that Rathas looked slightly ill.
         you have to remember these things
         you wish to stop him
         he will always try to escape
         you cannot hurt him for good
         Next to him, Rathas gasped and Valreck felt his own eyes widen. “We know that he heals, Maleth, but I don’t understand . . .”
         The next words were scrawled in an almost agitated fashion, the slashes and curves of the letters blurring into one another, her arm moving wildly, spraying more droplets of blood all over the wall and floor.
         a man can be alive but not effective
         do you see
         he can’t escape if he is not all there
         he cannot die
         do you idiots see
         he cannot die
         but he does not need it all
         Valreck felt a cold sensation flutter in the pit of his stomach. I see why you have survived for so long, old woman. You have outlived your conscience. “I believe I see what you are getting at, but I don’t know if we want to-“
         Another series of angry sketching.
         Rathas stared at the words on the wall, eyes wide. Then he grinned and let out a long laugh. “I like it,” he announced, looking at Valreck. “It might just work, at that.”
         then do it
         “Sounds like a party out there,” the prisoner called from deep inside the room. He sounded much better than before. “Care to let me in on the fun?”
         Valreck looked at the words written on the wall again, his face expressionless, before glancing over at Rathas, who only shrugged carelessly, and then finally into the room itself. Inside, he thought he saw the prisoner shift, clearly biding his time, an animal pacing a cage that would not serve to hold him for long. This is not the kind of man I want to be. These are the reasons I left, this wanton disregard. I want no part of it.
         Almost of its own accord, his hand touched his neck, feeling the welts already beginning to form, wincing as he swallowed painfully. He thought of the hole in the wall, of the five other soldiers, of the girl still eluding them, of other intruders unknown who might be encircling them even as they stood here, dithering.
         His eyes met the young woman’s, who stared back at him as cold as ever. Very slowly, as if fighting, her mouth slid into a slit of a smile, one that would look shy on any face other than hers, in any circumstance other than this. Here, it merely looked feral.
         One more time he read over the words on the wall, knowing what he was going to do and feeling another piece of him break away and fall, joining the other endlessly tumbling fragments of himself already plummeting away further each day.
         This is not the kind of man I want to be, he thought again, foolishly.
         Without looking at anyone at all, Valreck stated quite clearly, his voice betraying nothing, “Very well, then. Do it.”