The sword released its hold on them, and Elspeth sat and shook for a long time.
It was a small comfort that she recovered from the experience before Skif did. She had never been so intimately one with someone's thoughts before. Especially not someone who had shared an experience like Need's death and rebirth.
She had never encountered anyone whose thoughts and memories were quite so-unhuman. As intense as those memories were, they had felt old, sounded odd, as if she was listening to someone with a voice roughened by years of breathing forge smoke, and they contained a feeling of difference and distance, as if the emotions Need had felt were so distantor so foreign-that Elspeth couldn't quite grasp them. Perhaps that made a certain amount of sense. There was no way of knowing quite how old Need was. She had gotten the distinct impression that Need herself did not know. She had spent many, many lifetimes in the heart of the sword, imprisoned, though it was by her own will. That was bound to leave its mark on someone.
To make her, in time, something other than human? It was possible.
Nevertheless, it was a long time before she was willing to open her mind to the blade again, and to do so required more courage than she had ever mustered up before.
'I wish you wouldn't do that,' the sword said, peevishly, the moment she reestablished contact.
'What?' she replied, startled.
'Close me out like that. I thought I made it clear; I can only see through your eyes, hear through your ears. When you close me out, I'm deaf and blind.'
'oh.'' She shivered with the recollection of that shared moment of pain, disorientation-and then, nothing. What would it be like for Need, in those times when she was not in contact with her wielder?
Best not to think about it. 'Can you always do that?' she asked instead. 'As long as you aren't closed out, I mean.' Skif showed some signs of coming out of his stunned state. He shook his head, and looked at her, with a bit more sense in his expression, as if he had begun to follow the conversation.
'Once I soul-bond, the way I did with Vena, and most of my other wielders, yes. Unless you deliberately close me out, the way you just did. I had forgotten that there were disadvantages to bonding to someone with Mindspeech.' Need seemed a little disgruntled. 'You know how to shield yourselves, and unless you choose to keep me within those shields with you, that closes me out.' Given some of what Kero had told her about her own struggles with the sword, Elspeth was a little less inclined to be sympathetic than she might ordinarily have been. Need had tried, not once, but repeatedly, to get the upper hand and command the Captain's movements when she was young. And she had taken over Kero's grandmother's life from time to time, forcing her into situations that had often threatened not only her life, but the lives of those around her. Granted, it had always been in a good cause, but-But Kero-and Kethry-had occasionally found themselves fighting against women, women or things in a woman's shape. Creatures who were frequently the equal in evil of any man. And when that happened, Need had not only not aided her wielder-she had often fought her wielder.
More than once, both women had found themselves in acute danger, with Need actually helping the enemy.
Given that, well-it was harder to be in complete sympathy with the sword.
Poor Kero, Elspeth thought. I'm beginning to understand what it was she found herself up against, here...
And that made something occur to her. 'Wait a minute-Kero had Mindspeech Why didn't you talk to her before this?'
'I was asleep.' the sword admitted sheepishly. 'there was a time when all I could bond to were fighters, with no special abilities whatsoever. During that rather dry spell, there was a long period between partners. I am not certain what happened; I didn't get a chance to bond properly, because she didn't use me for long. Perhaps my wielder put me away, perhaps she sold me--or she might even have lost me. I don't know. But my bond faded and weakened, and I slept, and my wielders came to me only as dreams.'
'What woke you?' Skif asked. He sounded back to his old curious self.
'I think, perhaps, it was the one before you. Kerowyn, you said? She began to speak to me, if crudely. But because I had been asleep for so very long, I was long in waking. Then, as I gradually began to realize what was going on and came to full wakefulness, she brought me to your home.' Need fell silent, and all of them-Elspeth Felt Gwena back with her again-waited for her to speak. Gwena finally got tired of waiting.
'Well?' she snapped. 'what then?' Elspeth clearly felt the sword react with surprise. what then? I stayed quiet, of course! The protections about your land are formidable, horse. Someone has changed the nature of the vrondi there. they-'
'The what?' Elspeth asked, puzzled by the strange reference.
'The vrondi, child,' Need responded, impatiently. 'You know what they are! Even though you have no mages within your border, you use the vrondi constantly, to detect the truth!' Unbidden, the memories of first learning the Truth-Spell sprang into her mind.
