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"Why did you ask the time?" he demanded in a voice that scraped bone. How, I
wondered, would he have treated me, were he not planning to return me to Khys?
His hand slid about my throat, longing. I saw him restrain himself, whatever
violence crossed his mind. He shook my head about savagely.
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"I am only hungry," I choked.
"I have no intention of feeding you until we've finished our little talk. How
and why was the band put upon you in the first place?" I marked him
disquieted. He believed the artifactual evidence upon me. His machine had
spoken for my truth. M'tras clicked, shifted. I took comfort in his unease.
"Did not he from whom you obtained aid explain that to you?" I dared.
"Don't push me." His fingertips played a syncopated pattern upon my throat.
"It is rather complex, what you ask." I sighed. "As to how it is done it is
simply done. When Khys had me brought before him, I was much wounded. He
merely put me in flesh lock and slipped it about my neck. He made me hold up
my hair while he did it."
"What's flesh lock?" he rejoined, eyes narrowed.
"You would surely be angered if I tried to explain it. The band is fastened
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about the neck of the victim by he to whom it is keyed. It must be removed by
that same hand. Not even the high chadler, who has charge of the bands until
they are keyed, can remove them." My eyes begged his, that I might be silent.
"Where do they come from?"
"Normally they are produced by the dharen's council. One puts a band of
restraint upon a highly skilled person only, one who may not be bound
otherwise. They are little used. I had never heard of them upon Silistra until
I was taken to the Lake of Horns."
"You have not told me why you wear it," he prodded, implacable. I shifted upon
icy limbs between his legs. I did not want to speak to him of my diminishment,
my shame. I did not want to think of what I had been so highly skilled, so
arrogant, so foolish. His hand twisted in my hair. By it he pulled me closer.
WIND FROM THE ABYSS
181
"I abrogated, in hauteur, my chaldra. I became couch-mate of a chaldless
outlaw. We caused a great deal of bloodshed, hearkening to the law within.
Khys did not deal harshly with us. He left us our lives. He wanted a child
from me. I would not give it. He stripped me of my memories, that I might not
object. When it was done, I did not object, but asked for his seed." Blinking
back tears, I regarded him. His face was emotionless. His grip upon my hair
relaxed. I sank back, resting on my heels.
"How did he get you to put the band on you, if you were, as you put it, so
highly skilled?" I thought him further disquieted. His brows had both
descended. I had been reminded, relating what had occurred, of the damage done
to me. Could I ever, I wailed silently, be again what I had been before
Amarsa, '695, what I had been with Sereth, upon Mount Opir? Even might I
regain such skills as I had been pleased to employ when I found myself in the
Parset Desert? I doubted it. I dropped my eyes to M'tras' belt. Doubtless I,
too, would need such a machine to think for me, to direct me as to what
owkahen had in store, and how to meet it. He cuffed my head to one side,
against his thigh. I let it lie there, slumping against him.
"How did he acquire me? He hested it. He brought his will into the time. He
waited, and when the moment matched his sensing, he sent men to fetch us. I
had fallen unconscious. I awoke in the hands of his minions." Without my
power, and without most of my sensing, I recalled. "We were brought before
him. He tried and sentenced us as suited him. He, as I just told you, put the
band upon me. The rest also I have told you." From my slanted viewpoint, his
face seemed gray, alien, forbidding. I raised my head, held it straight. His
hand freed my hair, touched his eyes, rubbed there.
"Sit as you wish," he said, releasing me totally. I did not try to rise. I
would not have been able.
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Janet E. Morris
By my arms I pushed myself backward and slid my legs out and around. I could
not feel them. In a few moments, I knew, I would long for this state. They
were clumsy, as if another owned them.
"What are you thinking?" he demanded, rising. He stretched, his hands at the
small of his black-clothed back. His boot heels thudded on the metal as he
went and stood before the real-seeming Western Forest, truly upon far
M'ksakka. We were not going. I knew, to M'ksakka. "If you want to eat, you had
better be responsive/' he warned, turning to face me, arms crossed above his
wakened belt.
"That we are not going to M'ksakka. I wondered where we were bound. Then how
long that might take. They I took thought of you, and your machine-symbiote.
Does it speak to the ship's computer?" I rubbed my calves, slapped them. The
pain was begining.
"This ship has an A-systems unit, yes. I couldn't wait for relay. M'ksakkan
devices are nowhere as sophisticated. The brain that runs this ship is
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M'ksakkan. The A-systems unit we carry is as advanced in comparison as I am to
my cave-dwelling ancestors." Looking at him, I wondered if he knew how close
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