David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

"Well, I didn't want to push you …"

"Of course you didn't. But that's not my point, either."

"In that case, what is your point?" he asked with an unusual sense of frustration.

"It's about our bond, Jathmar," she said softly, her eyes anxious.

"What about it?" His expression was perplexed, and she sighed.

"You're not a Voice," she said. "Maybe that's why you haven't noticed."

"Noticed what?"

"It's weaker, Jath," she said very softly. "It's weaker."

"What?" He stared at her in consternation.

"It's weaker," she repeated. "Oh, it's not like it was when I had that head injury. It went away practically entirely then. This is different. It's … it's like we're losing some of our connections. When Voices Speak to one another, there are all sorts of side traces-emotional overtones, thoughts which aren't fully articulated but still transmitted, traces of memory. We're trained to filter those out when we're working to pass on messages, but they're always there. Well, marriage bonds are like that, especially when they are as strong as ours has always been."

"I've never really noticed it," he said slowly. "Not the way you're describing it right now, at least."

"Yes, you have," she disagreed. "But because you're not a Voice, you haven't realized they were all there, deepening and enriching the way our feelings flow back and forth. I am a Voice, though. I've always been aware of them. And now, for some reason, they're … weakening."

"What do you mean?" For the first time since the conversation had begun, he felt truly frightened by where she seemed to be going. "You mean we're losing our bond, somehow?"

"I don't know. I wish I did. All I know right now, though, is that we started losing those side trace elements a universe or two back. I don't have any idea why, and I don't have any idea how far it's likely to go. I've never heard of anything like it, so I don't have any way to hazard a guess about any of those questions."

"Then what do we do, love?" Jathmar hugged her tightly.

"I don't know," she repeated yet again. Then she looked up at him again.

"Have you tried using your Talent lately?"

"Not really," he replied slowly. "We haven't really stopped anywhere long enough for me to get a clear Look at things."

"Well, maybe the next time we stop, you should try," she suggested. "I'm the only Voice in this entire universe. I don't have anyone else to test my Talent with, but you don't need another Mapper."

"I don't think I like where you're going with this one, love," he said unhappily.

"I don't like where I might be going with it," she told him.

"Do you really think we should discuss it with Gadrial?" he asked her after a moment, trying to ignore the sick look in her eyes which he knew was mirrored in his own.

"I can't think of anyone else to discuss it with," Shaylar replied with a small, wan smile. "There's no one else with a Talent in the vicinity, that's for sure. She might have at least some suggestion about what could be causing it. Even if she can't come up with an answer, she might start us thinking in the direction of one."

"But then she'd also know about the problem."

Shaylar's eyes narrowed as she tasted the suddenly darker tinge of his emotions.

"Of course she would. Why?"

"Shaylar, I know Gadrial is our friend. And," he added a bit more reluctantly, "I know Jasak will do everything in his and his family's power to protect us. But unless these negotiations of theirs actually produce some sort of peaceful resolution, without anyone else getting killed, they're still going to be the enemy, love. Maybe not of us personally, but of Sharona. And both of them are honorable people who take their obligations seriously. If there is something happening to our marriage bond, to our Talents-

possibly because we're spending so much time in proximity to someone who's Gifted, for all I know-do we really want to let the enemy know? Even if they would never do anything to hurt either of us, if it turns out to be something they could use against other people's Talents, you know that Jasak, for sure, and Gadrial almost equally for sure, would feel compelled to pass it along."

"But if we can't even ask Gadrial about it, then who can we ask?" Shaylar asked in a tiny voice.

"I don't know, love." Jathmar said softly. "I don't know."

"So, how's your problem patient this week?" Regiment-Captain Namir Velvelig asked, turning from the office window through which he had been contemplating Fort Ghartoun's parade ground as Company- Captain Golvar Silkash completed the rest of the semi-weekly sick report.

"The esteemed Hadrign Thalmayr?" Fort Ghartoun's senior medical officer grimaced. Then he shrugged with a combination of helplessness, irritation, and smoldering frustration.

"The truth is, Sir," he continued, "that Tobis is more and more convinced the man's strongly Talented himself. Which, if you'll pardon my saying so, would be a dead waste of a Talent even if Thalmayr had the least clue of what a Talent was, in light of his total and invincible stupidity."

"Now, now, Silky," Velvelig admonished gently. "We've known one another a long time. There's no need for you to indulge in all these euphemisms to hide your true opinion of our guest."

Despite the sourness of his expression, Silkash made a sound that was halfway between a snort and chuckle. Any temptation towards amusement vanished quickly, however, and he shook his head.

"Honestly, Sir, Thalmayr is a disaster. I don't know what we're going to do with him. As nearly as Tobis

– " Platoon-Captain Tobis Makree was the un-Talented Silkash's strongly Talented assistant surgeon "-

and I can tell, he's convinced himself our efforts to Heal him are actually some sort of insidious brainwashing or mental torture."

"You're saying he's a lunatic, as well as an idiot?"

"I wish I could dismiss it quite that easily, actually." Silkash shook his head again. "The thing is, the Talent he's got is sufficient, even without his having any idea in the world what it is, to throw up a mighty tough block. So he managed to tremendously limit what Tobis could do to control his pain. He even managed to limit the speed of the physical Healing we could encourage. And that same block made it all but impossible for Tobis to get through to those suicidal urges of his, and that-"

"Don't tell me," Velvelig interrupted. "Because he made it so hard to get through, Tobis had to adopt a brute force approach, and that only made things worse. Right?"

"Exactly right," Silkash agreed. "We didn't have a choice if we were going to keep him alive. We had to get through to him, so Tobis did … despite the fact that Thalmayr was fighting him every inch of the way. And despite the fact that Thalmayr's resistance really did turn the entire effort into something that could be readily mistaken by the uninformed for the 'mental torture' he thinks we were out to inflict in the first place!"

"Wonderful." Velvelig pursed his lips and looked back out the window.

Frankly, he could have gotten along just fine indefinitely without having Hadrign Thalmayr dumped on him. The regiment-captain wasn't much given to coddling weakness. That wasn't part of any Arpathian's cultural baggage, and in this case, Velvelig's contempt for Thalmayr's indescribably wretched performance as a military officer left him even less inclined to pity the Arcanan.

Which, unfortunately, did nothing to absolve him of his responsibility to see to it that the medical needs of any POW in his care were met.

Assuming the camel-fucking idiot will let us meet them! he thought sourly.

"Is there anything we can do about that situation?" he asked aloud.

"At this point?" Silkash shrugged. "Probably not. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that the best thing we can do, for the next few weeks, at least, is to pretty much leave him alone. Physically, he's close to fully recovered-or as close to it as a man who'll never walk again is going to get. The discomfort he's still experiencing can probably be treated by an herbalist almost as well as by a Healer at this point.