The Far Side Of Forever Part 35

waist as I s.h.i.+fted on the saddle, making sure I wouldn't go far if 1 tried to throw myself off his horse again- He hadn't hurl me in any way, even when I'd been kicking his legs black and blue, but he also hadn't let me get away from him. He and his friends had begun laughing almost hyster- ically since we'd left the woods, congratulating themselves on their fantastically good fortune, which led me to believe they were in line for a reward quite a bit more substantial than what had been promised to the small, frightened people. The man who held me had almost killed his horse by making it gallop while carrying double, and it hadn't bothered him in the least. Either horses were cheap and easy to come by to someone of his station, or he was antic.i.p.ating being soon able to buy as many horses as he wanted or needed.

We were only moving at a walk, but that was fast enough to take us from small buildings to larger ones to big, tail, sprawling ones in just a few minutes. The people walking and riding in that part of the city had even more gray in me color scheme of their clothing, and just when I thought there weren't any such things as women who weren't small and obvious servants, I began seeing a few.

They wore long, loose dresses^with thin veils over their faces and none of them was without escort, but they were there and real and they also took their turn staring at me. I kept telling myself I didn't know why they were all doing so much staring, but unfortunately for my peace of mind, I didn't believe myself for a minute.

We threaded our way through the city without stopping even once, up narrow streets and alleys, down wider ave- nues, past shops and houses and taverns and stables, around wells and fountains. It took quite a while before I lost track of the turns, but eventually the riding around and about, twisting and turning, overcame my ability to follow mem and remember. I wondered if the men had been trying to confuse me on purpose, and then we rounded a test turn and I understood that confusing me had nothing to do with the route they'd chosen. At the end of the widest avenue I'd seen yet stood the guarded entrance of a palace of light gray stone blocks, a palace whose walls stretched

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away into the distance, the place we'd obviously been heading for all along. My escort had wanted to get there as soon as possible, so they'd taken the shortest backstreet route they'd known.

"Starting that kicking and fussing all over again won't get you any more than tired, girl," the man behind me said, his accent as thick as that of the man from the night before, but in some way slightly different. "We were told you don't tike the idea of being given to the G.o.d-king and would run away from the honor if you could, but none of us is going to let that happen. You belong to Thannar now, blessed be his name, and that's the way it's going to stay."

The others came in as an automatic echo to the blessed-be part, just like the small people the night before, and that made me more upset and frantic than I had been. Those men weren't simply looking forward to a reward, they were eagerly bringing their G.o.d-king something he very much wanted, and part of their reward was the fact that they were the ones doing it. If everyone in that palace felt the same I'd never escape, not unless the impossible hap- pened and I regained the Sight. Right then I felt the loss of magic more than I'd thought I ever would, finally begin- ning to understand just how important it was to my life.

I'd always considered it something I did simply because Morgiana wanted me to, and because I did it well; after all those years I was learning there was more to magic than just doing it, and the revelation was a very unsettling one.

The guards at the palace entrance did no more than stare as they stepped aside, so it was no more than another couple of minutes before we stopped in the middle of a wide stone courtyard and my escort began dismounting.

Ignoring the advice of the man who was holding me I'd been struggling anyway, which accomplished bringing over two of the other men to pull me to my feet and hold me instead of just one. As soon as the man who had been holding me dismounted he took over possession of my right arm, and he and the second man dragged me between them, through wide wooden doors and into the palace proper.

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If I'd been expecting to find the brightening of color in the palace, 1 would have been disappointed. Gray stone walls, floor and ceiling, brown wooden tables, dark paint- ings, dark sculpture, dull silver weapons, even dark wall hangings, in the few places there were any. The corridors and halls were wide, high and cold, the people either creeping along if they were servants or moving quietly if they were of higher cla.s.s, and no one anywhere seemed capable of normal laughter. Even my escort had com- pletely sobered, and at one point I wondered briefly if people could have been staring at me because of what 1 was wearing. My rose-colored s.h.i.+rt and gold trousers weren't exactly bright and fresh, but they were a far cry from brown and gray.

Our walk through the palace seemed to have as many turns and twists as our ride through the city, but eventually we got where we were going. A dark door of carved wood had two guards standing in front of it, and as we ap- proached one of the guards knocked and entered. He was out again and off somewhere even before we reached it, so the second guard had to be the one to open it again for us.

Inside was a man wearing quite a lot of gray over his pudgy body, a man who was snort but not as short as the small servant people. He sat behind a thin-legged table in the large, cold room, a table he seemed to be using as a desk, and once I'd been pulled through the doorway he rose and walked around to the front of the table to study me.

"Excellent," he said with a faint smile as he looked up at me, his dark eyes bright with pleasure. "There can be no doubt that this is the female meant as a gift for our beloved G.o.d-king, the one he has been expecting. The reports of her arrival were true after all, and soon he will make her his."

"I'm a human being, not a gift, and I don't belong to anyone but myself," I said, looking down coldly at the overweight man. "Tell these idiots to let me go, and show me the way out of this place. I have things to do, and you imbeciles are wasting my time."

"1 can see you have much to leam about your new

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place," he told me, the gleam in his eyes s.h.i.+fting to one of antic.i.p.ation. "Our G.o.d-king will find a great deal of plea- sure in teaching you those lessons, and once he has begun you'll see the necessity in teaming them quickly. What you were allowed with the G.o.d-king who sent you will not be allowed here."

The short man stepped back then, dismissing me com- pletely from consideration, and looked at my escort with a warm, full smile of approval.

"You men will be more than commended for your work this day," he said, his tone causing them to straighten with pride and pleasure. "The G.o.d-king himself will give you his blessing when he gives you your reward, and your names will be entered in the Registry of the Ages, as those who gave invaluable a.s.sistance to our beloved leader. You will also, of course, now be allowed to choose females of your own, who will bear you sons to carry on your names, rather than to simply continue producing sons of the G.o.d- king whom you are forbidden to know. You will establish Families, very minor ones but Families nonetheless, and not until the third generation will those Families need to be reestablished. You should be well-pleased with what you've earned."

The five men were more than we)! pleased, their s.h.i.+ning eyes totally unaware of the disgust 1 was feeling. It's not hard to know a culture by what rewards it gives its people, and on that scale of measurement their culture sickened me. The small servant-people weren't the only ones being oppressed, and for the life of me 1 couldn't understand why they all put up with it.

"Ah, here are the House guards," the short man said, gesturing to the door behind us which still stood open. A group of newcomers in uniform had appeared there, and they looked at my escort with undisguised envy. "They'll take the female now, while I take your names for my records."

The two men holding my arms gave me up without a murmur to two of the newcomers, and the last 1 saw of the five was the way they crowded around the short man's desk, waiting for him to reseat himself. My new escort

consisted of four, and they took me in a direction away from the one we'd used coming in- Their att.i.tudes were even more impersonal than those of my first escort, and I couldn't keep from feeling even more depressed.

After only a few minutes of walking, we turned a comer to see a wide corridor that led nowhere but to a plain, very heavy wooden door that had metal bars in a small square about two-thirds of the way up it-and a wide metal bar locking it closed. In front of it stood four guards, big men who looked as if they could use the swords they were wearing, and with no other door or corridor in sight, the door they were guarding had to be where we were going.

It didn't take much to see that if they got me behind that door I'd really be trapped, and the panic that rose up in me gave me even more strength than I normally had. Without warning I twisted hard against the hands holding my arms, using surprise to break me loose, then turned and shoul- dered between the shocked pair of men walking behind, knocking them aside. With the corridor behind suddenly wide open I took off like an arrow, running faster than I ever had in my life.

I hadn't known running with your hands tied could be so hard, but I couldn't let that stow me any more than I couid let myself hear the pounding of feet'behmd me- Doors and corridor walls flashed past in a blur, some with small, brown-clad figures huddled uncertainly in front of them, and then 1 nearly went down when I charged around one comer right into a man in a suit. The man, smaller than me, went flying to the right from the sudden collision, but although he hadn't stopped me he had slowed me enough.

I was able to take no more than another four steps before hands closed on my arms again, big hands that weren't going to let me pull loose a second time. I screamed in rage and swung my bound arms around and kicked, but even the strength still being pumped all through my body couldn't help me again. They lifted me off my feet in grips I couldn't break, and this time I was carried where they wanted me to go: up to the door, through it, and inside.

By the time they put me back on my feet, my heart was no longer pounding. 1 was still sweating from the run and

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my breathing wasn't exactly even, but the surge that had come from the thought of escaping was long gone, buried under the bitter realization that I'd been kidding myself.

Even if I hadn't collided with that man I wouldn't have made it out of the palace, not with pursuers only a few steps behind me and guards all over the place ahead. I hadn't wanted to admit that I really was trapped there, permanently caught because of my own stupidity. I de- served whatever they did to me-and the worst part of that was that 1 didn't know what the whatever would turn out to be.

"Ah, that's her, of course," a voice said, making me look up to see the thin man who had come out from behind a hanging of gray, two bigger men following along behind him. We now stood in the room behind the heavy wooden door, an area of about ten feet by ten feet that was completely bare except for the gray hanging on the wall opposite the door.

"Yes, that's her," one of my escort agreed, his voice the least bit unsteady. "She tried to run, but we caught her without any trouble."

"Fortunately for you," the thin man said, the look in his dark eyes making the guard beside me pale "So she's a runner, is she? Well, she won't find anywhere to run in here. You four may leave now."

The men nearly stumbled over their own feet getting out of there, and although 1 wasn't in the mood to sympathize with them, I knew exactly how they felt. If I could have walked back out of that door the relief would have been indescribable, but all I could do was stand there and hear it closed and locked behind me.

"Well, we can dispense with that now, can't we?" the thin man said, coming over to begin untying the leather strip on my wrists. His long-fingered hands worked quickly, and when the leather was off he stepped back to coil it, staring at me thoughtfully. "I couldn't quite believe any female would be foolish enough to try to escape the ulti- mate honor, but I can see from your expression that it's true," he said, his voice cold and disapproving. "You'll soon have that nonsense knocked out of you, of course,

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and that stubborn, insolent look in your eyes as well.

Follow me, now, and no more foolishness from you."

He turned and walked back toward the gray hanging, the two men behind him stepping aside to let him by, but all 1 did was stand there rubbing at my wooden wrists. I'd been tied so long I could barely feel them or my hands, but not so long that the numbness had affected my mind. I didn't know what lay behind the hanging, and had absolutely no interest in finding out, and when the man glanced back over his shoulder, he got the message immediately -

"How annoying you are'" he complained as he stopped, his chin rising indignantly. "How I wish the G.o.d-king had the time to take you in hand at once! Bring her!"

The order was directed to the two men who had stepped aside for him, men who were wearing uniforms rather than the suit he had on. Their uniforms weren't precisely like me uniforms of the men who were members of the Sacred Guard, but even with the extra gray they were still uni- forms. As the two men came to take my arms I tried to resist, but after an unbelievably short scuffle ! found my- self being forced through the hanging, following after the thin man who led the way with a good deal of satisfaction.

Directly behind the hanging-was a very large room that seemed to be round and was torch-lit to the point of brightness, and this time I couldn't help returning the stares 1 was getting. A thick, soft cloth of gray covered most of the floor, and on that cloth sat dozens of dark- haired, dark-eyed women, very beautiful, very shapely women who were combing each others' hair, helping each other exercise, or simply sitting and holding low conversa- tions. They all slopped what they were doing to stare when I was brought into the room, and my return stare was more distraught than curious; except for one woman being draped in clingy gray cloth by three small servant women, every one of them was naked.

"This, of course, is the place the G.o.d-king's favorites are kept," the thin man said over his shoulder to me, his tone now smug. "You'll find that I'm in complete charge, subject only to the G.o.d-king himself. If punishment should be ordered for you, I'm the one who will see it carried out."

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The women were all absolutely silent as I was taken across the floor, many of them looking very frightened at the mention of punishment, and then the thin man stopped in front of one of a series of narrow oval openings, and gestured toward it as I was brought to a halt in front of him.

"For your impertinence and disobedience, you'll be kept in here until the G.o.d-king sends for you," I was (old, the words cold but very satisfied. "If you want to be allowed the company of other females, you'll have to earn the privilege."