XXII

[oh no not again]

On her first cycle in Andunor she is beaten.

She does not know what she has done to offend the man in his shining plate, with his cruel axe and his cruel laugh and his cruel philosophy.

But she shakes at his coming.

She does not know why he speaks of strength and of murder, of cities of brass and the breaking of chains, but it leaves the blood in her feet sluggish and slow, and her face cold and white as the wriggling things beneath the earth.

He laughs, and he tells her that he is Free.

She looks at him, who has the laugh of the drow, and all their hideous strength, and all their ruthlessness. She looks at him who has broken his chain by becoming crueller and harder than iron and lash. Who is as free as a knife.

She looks at him, beneath the terror that twists her heart and steals her breath.

And she knows that he is more maimed than she.