Old White tightened his grip on his staff. Let us pray the Power of Trade still holds here.
Twenty-six
Two Petals stumbled, trying to protect herself from the onslaught. Keeping her feet took all of her concentration. If only the confused voices babbling around her souls would be still! Some cried out in panic; others hissed warnings. Beyond those, a growing chorus of sounds and images spun around in the darkness. She glanced this way and that, catching phantasms of colored light in the darkness. At the peripheries of her senses, she could feel the blind man, could almost make out his bound eyes as he watched them approach. They were closing the distance between them with each step; his Power drifted through the very air, carried on the evening breeze. It lingered like a recent touch, hidden there in the odor of smoke, waste, and human sweat.
Panic rose, bubbling around her confused and frightened souls. She clapped hands to her ears and threw her head back, filling her lungs to scream.
A shimmering darkness slammed down around her. The sensation was akin to being slapped with a wet blanket. Mercifully, it blocked the circling sights and sounds. “Go away,” she pleaded. Old White’s question came through as an incoherent babbling.
“He’s right here, with us,” she tried to explain. The dark veil—thicker than any night—pressed down around her. She peered out at it, aware that it blocked anything beyond her immediate surroundings.
He’s placed a wall around you, a disembodied woman’s voice said in her head. He fears you.
Fears me? The very notion of it left her unbalanced. Why would anyone fear her, of all people? Her own terror was all consuming.
He doesn’t want your Power to run free.
After climbing a steep slope, they passed through a gate in a tall palisade that perched on the edge of the bluff. Two Petals imagined it in greater detail than she could see, given the gloom.
What place was this? She reached out with her hands, trying to part the gloom. In her fingers, the sooty darkness felt like soft fabric. Desperately, she ripped it aside.
Sensations, like a rupture in a dam, poured through. A howling of sound, like a great wind, blew over her. She stumbled. Thousands of souls rushed toward her from every direction. The people, gods, thousands of people, they all hummed with thoughts and life. She clamped her hands to her ears, tried to shut out the buzzing activity that swarmed around her like an impenetrable fog of insects.
Let it go, a voice told her. See them. Hear them. Become them. You only need to set yourself free.
She took a breath, frightened and horrified, reaching out with her senses in an attempt to escape the press that threatened to drown her. Bits of her souls were batted this way and that. Visions—the compressed memories of a lifetime—whirled around her like autumn leaves in a gale: a woman feeding a baby, two men arguing, a wife scolding her husband, a teenage girl cooking a pot of beans, a warrior in a sweat bath, a man coupling with his woman, a child crying from fever, and a thousand other images flooded through her.
“Too much! Too much!” she cried, seeking desperately to block it all out.
She blinked, trying to absorb it all: swirling lights, faces, bodies, souls. So many demands. Too many. Her world whipped around, ever faster and faster, spinning like a top. She felt herself whirling in the tornado. Whirling, ever faster, falling … into gray oblivion.
“What happened to her?” Trader demanded, dropping to one knee beside Two Petals. The Contrary had crashed to the hard ground with a soft thump. She lay with one leg bent, an arm sprawled out.
“I don’t know,” Old White said, crouching beside him. “She just said, ‘Too much,’ then seemed to lose her balance and fall.”
The Priests had turned, looking back in the light of the torches.
“Carry her,” Old White ordered as he glanced around at the muttering warriors and growing crowd of locals. “Here, I’ll take Swimmer.”
“Is she ill?” one of the Priests asked.
“I don’t think so,” Old White told him as he took the squirming Swimmer from Trader’s arms. “She was complaining of the noise, but I didn’t hear anything unusual for a city at this time of night. My friend can carry her. Let’s go find your Kala Hi’ki; perhaps he can determine what’s wrong with her.”
Trader heard the warriors growl darkly behind him. Gods, this was turning into a nightmare. He scooped Two Petals up and tossed her easily over his shoulders. The feel of her awed him; her muscles were locked, rigid. Her body barely flexed in reaction to his hurried steps. Catching a glimpse of her face, he saw a frozen rictus, her eyes rolled far back in their sockets.