'I don't like this,' complained Gwena.
'I am perfectly well aware that you don't like this,' Elspeth replied crisply.
'I think this is a mistake. A major mistake. It's still not too late to turn back.' Elspeth did not reply, prompting Gwena to continue. 'If you turned around now, we could be in Lythecare in-' Elspeth's patience finally snapped, and so did the temper she had been holding carefully in check. 'Dammit, I told you I won't be ~ into doing something, like I was the gods' own sheep! I don't believe in Fate or Destiny, and I'm not going to let you lot move me around your own private chessboard! I will do this my way, or I won't do it at all, and you and everyone else can just find yourself another Questing Hero! Do you understand me?' Her only answer was a deep, throaty chuckle, and that was absolutely the final insult. She was perfectly ready to jump out of the saddle and walk to Kata'shin'a'in at that point.
'And. Don't. Laugh. At. Me!' she snarled, biting off each mental word and framing them as single words, instead of an entire thought, so that her anger and her meaning couldn't possibly be misunderstood.
Absolute mental silence; then Gwena replied-timidly, as Elspeth had never heard her speak in her life with her Companion, 'But I wasn't laughing.' Her temper cooled immediately. She blinked.
It hadn't really sounded like Gwena. And she'd never known a Companion to lie. So if it wasn't Gwena who was it?' she asked. 'If it wasn't you, who was it?'
'I-: Gwena replied hesitatingly, lagging back a little as Skif rode on ahead, blithely oblivious to what was going on behind him. 'I-don't know.' A chill crept down Elspeth's spine; she and Gwena immediately snapped up their defensive shields, and from behind their protection, she Searched all around her for someone who could have been eavesdropping on them. It wasn't Skif; that much she knew for certain. The mind-voice had a feminine quality to it that could not have been counterfeited.
And it wasn't Cymry, Skif's Companion; other Companions had only spoken to her once, the night of Talia's rescue. She could not believe that if any of them did so again that it would be for something so petty as to laugh at her. that was as unlikely as a Companion lying.
And besides, if it had been Cymry, Gwena would have recognized her mind-voice and said something.
Kata'shin'a'in stood on relatively treeless ground, in the midst of rolling plains. While there were others within Mindhearing distance-there were caravans both in front of and behind them-there was no one near.
Certainly not near enough to have provoked the feeling of intimacy that chuckle had.
In fact, it was incredibly quiet, except for the little buzz of ordinary folk's thoughts, like the drone of insects in a field.
The chill spread from her spine to the pit of her stomach, and she involuntarily clutched her hand on the hilt of her sword.
'You-: said a slow, sleepy mind-voice gravelly and dusty with disuse as she and Gwena froze in their places. 'Child. You are... very like... my little student Wlyana. Long ago... so very, very long ago.' And as the last word died in her mind, Elspeth gulped; her mind churned with a chaotic mix of disbelief, astonishment, awe, and a little fear.
It had been the sword that had spoken.
Skif looked back over his shoulder. 'Hey!' he shouted, 'Aren't you coming? You're the one who wanted to go here in the first place.' But something about their pose or their expressions caught his attention, and Cymry trotted back toward them. As he neared them, his eyebrows rose in alarm.
'What's wrong?' he asked urgently. Then, when Elspeth didn't immediately reply, he brought Cymry in knee- to-knee with her and reaching out, took her shoulders to shake her. 'Come on, snap out of it!
What's wrong? Elspeth!' She shook her head, and pushed him away. 'Gods,' she gulped, her thoughts coming slowly, as if she was thinking through mud. 'Dear gods. Skif-the sword-'
'Kero's sword?' he said, looking into her eyes as if he expected to find signs that she had been Mindblasted. 'What about it?'
'It talked to me. Us, I mean. Gwena heard it, too.' He stopped peering at her and simply looked at her, mouth agape.
'No,' he managed.
'Yes. Gwena heard it, too.' Her Companion snorted and nodded so hard her hackamore jangled.
A sword?' He laughed, but it was nervous, very nervous. 'Swords don't talk-except in tales-'
