“You’ll kill me.”
“I’ll go easy, minnow.” Duun’s face staring at him, half good, half bad, with that forever mocking smile. “You’ll manage.”
(Is he happy with me now? Was it a test I passed?) “Duun, they had me-”
Duun lifted his right hand, the single finger. Silence, that meant. (I don’t want you to talk.)
“They-”
“It didn’t happen.”
“Dammit, it-”
“It didn’t happen. Hush.”
Thorn’s pulse picked up. He lay there staring at Duun’s scarred face, at the unblinking stare. His heart thumped against his ribs. (What are you doing to me? What are you doing to me, Duun-hatani?)
“You’re slow, Thorn. Slow. Speed!”
Thorn tried. He spun and lost his centering, dived backward to save himself as the capped knife crossed his belly: he felt the touch of it, spun away and brought his blade up in defense at what followed. Time, Duun called, and hunkered down. Thorn sat down and wiped his face.
“I’m off. I’ll get it back.”
“You’ll go on practicing,” Duun said.
“What-‘go on’?” (Has something changed? What’s wrong?) Go on had the sound of finality.
“Three mornings of a five you’ll have your study. Every other day you’ll go back to that room. It’s another kind of study.”
“Duun-”
“-which we won’t talk about.”
“Duun, I can’t!”
“Can’t?”
Thorn flinched. He clenched his arms about his knees. “Have you? Have you been through it?”
“We won’t talk about it. Every other day you’ll face that. You’ll know you’re going to face it; and you’ll walk in on your own and be polite with the meds. This is the only time I’m going to tell you this. If you truly begin to suffer they’ll put you down to once a five-day. But that’s something the meds will decide for medical reasons, not your untutored whims.”
“Forever? For the rest of my life?”
Duun hesitated. Duun rarely hesitated in answers, though he might stop to consider. In this, the pause was minute and Duun frowned. “It’s a test, minnow. You’re not going to fail it, hear? I’m not going to tell you how long it lasts. You’re not going to bring the matter through that door. Next time you’ll sleep it off in the medical section. When you can walk home on your own you’ll do it; and you’ll walk in at whatever hour and say Hello, Duun, I’m home, what are we going to do?-the way you do every day. Sagot was soft and let you do as you pleased, and I should have sent you back right then and not coddled you. Life’s not likely to coddle you.”
“Neither are the meds, Duun! It hurt, it-I don’t know how to handle it, Duun, give me some help, for the gods’ sakes tell me how I ought to handle it!”
“Accept it. With dignity. Embrace it. With all the strength and cleverness you’ve got.”
“Did I fail today?”
“No,” Duun said. “No, you did marvelously well. You can be proud of yourself. You’ve made a lot of people happy with you, people you’ve not met. But we won’t talk about it anymore. You’ll come home and you won’t have to talk about it; we’ll do everything we always do. I think you’ll be glad of that.”
“You won’t shout at me.”
A second time Duun looked taken aback, and that was rarer still. “No, minnow, I won’t shout at you.”
* * *
* * *
XI
“Good morning,” Sagot said.
Thorn walked across the sand the length of the room to where Sagot sat, as she had sat the first time he saw her. Reprise. He walked to the riser facing hers and sat down on the edge, feet dangling, hands locked in his lap. Sagot’s face was a stranger’s face, withholding everything behind the eyes, an aged, white-dusted mask. “How are you, Thorn?” (As if we started over.) “I’m fine, Sagot. Duun says I have to go back there tomorrow. Is it going to be the same?” “I can’t discuss it, Thorn.”
He sat there a moment. “I want to know, Sagot. What are they doing?”
“I can’t discuss it. Can we get to our lessons?”
“Will you go with me tomorrow?” (Please, Sagot.)