“You know I can read lips, sir,” Duncan said. “Once I went up to the tower observatory. I saw Lucilla and Schwangyu down below talking. Schwangyu said: ‘Never mind that he’s so young! You’ve had your orders.’ ”
Once more cautiously silent, Teg stared back at Duncan. It was like Duncan to move around secretly in the Keep, spying, seeking knowledge. And he had seated himself in that memory-mode now, not realizing that he still was spying and seeking . . . but in a different way.
“I didn’t think she was supposed to kill me,” Duncan said. “But you know what she was supposed to do because you’ve been obstructing her.” Duncan pounded a fist on the table. “Answer me, damn you!”
Ahhhh, full desperation!
“I can only tell you that what she intends conflicts with my orders. I was commanded by Taraza herself to strengthen you and guard you from harm.”
“But you said my training was . . . was flawed!”
“Necessary. It was done to prepare you for your original memories.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“You already know.”
“I don’t, I tell you! Please teach me!”
“You do many things without having been taught them. Did we teach you disobedience?”
“Please help me!” It was a desperate wail.
Teg forced himself to chilly remoteness. “What in the nether hell do you think I’m doing?”
Duncan clenched both fists and pounded them on the table, making his cup dance. He glared at Teg. Abruptly, an odd expression came over Duncan’s face — something grasping in his eyes.
“Who are you?” Duncan whispered.
The key question!
Teg’s voice was a lash striking out at a suddenly defenseless victim: “Who do you think I am?”
A look of utter desperation twisted Duncan’s features. He managed only a gasping stutter: “You’re . . . you’re . . .”
“Duncan! Stop this nonsense!” Teg jumped to his feet and stared down with assumed rage.
“You’re . . .”
Teg’s right hand shot out in a swift arc. The open palm cracked against Duncan’s cheek. “How dare you disobey me?” Left hand out, another rocking slap. “How dare you?”
Duncan reacted so swiftly that Teg experienced an electric instant of absolute shock. Such speed! Although there were separate elements in Duncan’s attack, it occurred in one fluid blur: a leap upward, both feet on the chair, rocking the chair, using that motion to slash the right arm down at Teg’s vulnerable shoulder nerves.
Responding out of trained instincts, Teg dodged sideways and flailed his left leg over the table into Duncan’s groin. Teg still did not completely escape. The heel of Duncan’s hand continued downward to strike beside the knee of Teg’s flailing leg. It numbed the whole leg.
Duncan sprawled across the tabletop, trying to slide backward in spite of the disabling kick. Teg supported himself, left hand on table, and chopped with the other hand to the base of Duncan’s spine, into the nexus deliberately weakened by the exercises of the past few days.
Duncan groaned as paralyzing agony shot through his body. Another person would have been immobilized, screaming, but Duncan merely groaned as he clawed toward Teg, continuing the attack.
Relentless in the necessities of the moment, Teg proceeded to create greater pain in his victim, making sure each time that Duncan saw the attacker’s face at the instant of greatest agony.
“Watch his eyes.” the instructions warned. And Bellonda, reinforcing the procedure, had cautioned: “His eyes will seem to look through you but he will call you Leto.”
Much later, Teg found difficulty in recalling each detail of his obedience to the reawakening procedure. He knew that he continued to function as commanded but his memory went elsewhere, leaving the flesh free to carry out his orders. Oddly, his trick memory fastened onto another act of disobedience: the Cerbol Revolt, himself at middle age but already a Bashar with a formidable reputation. He had donned his best uniform without its medals (a subtle touch, that) and had presented himself in the scorching noon heat of Cerbol’s battle-plowed fields. Completely unarmed in the path of the advancing rebels!
Many among the attackers owed him their lives. Most of them had once given him their deepest allegiance. Now, they were in violent disobedience. And Teg’s presence in their path said to those advancing soldiers: