"2565-83" - читать интересную книгу автора (Warlady 1 - 2565 Ad Book 2)2565 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN By Jerome B. Bigge Book Two Chapter Forty "You aren't going to try to `take control of my mind' or something, are you?" Darlanis asked as she relaxed beside me there on the sofa. I felt it best that we retained eye contact. "It is quite `impossible' for me to do so to anyone of this era," I answered. I had once tried hypnosis with Gayle as an ex- periment. I had been unsuccessful in my attempt although Gayle had been willing to let me try, saying that she had no terrors of allowing me to practice my "witchcraft" on her! I had then learned from Sanda that what I had attempted was illegal and that I should never attempt to do it again or I could be in very seri- ous trouble if word ever got out of what I had attempted to do. Sanda telling me that the Priestesses of Lys turned such people like me over to the "civil authorities" for execution as witches! "I'm glad of that," Darlanis answered, regarding me, perhaps more fearful of being treated by a "shrink" than would someone of my own era. I had no doubt that she "trusted" me, but yet I had no doubt that she also "feared" me in a way, perhaps because to her and others I will always be "alien", a woman from a past now more legend than fact. I wondered why there was such a terror of hypnosis in this era, when the Priestesses of Lys routinely used their own secret technology of electronic hypnosis to reprogram people's minds almost as a matter of course. I had asked a num- ber of questions, gotten back answers that hinted of things per- haps better left alone! Word had finally gotten back to the High Priestess at the temple in Thistle and I had been very politely "asked" by her that it would be best to discontinue my question- ing of the people before I "got myself into `serious' trouble"! "We are just going to talk," I assured her, "Nothing more." "And people actually `paid' you to do this?" Darlanis asked with a smile, not believing perhaps that such services as mine actually deserved the fee that I used to charge for my services! "You do make a `donation to the temple' when you go see a Priestess, don't you?" I challenged her back. You are expected to make the "donation" according to your own level of "income". For someone in Darlanis' income category, that would be in the multi gold crown range. The Priestesses live simply, but they do not lack for much, I notice. On the other hand they are far more "helpful" to Humanity than were any of the religions of the past. "You're not a Priestess," Darlanis pointed out with a smile. She is "quick-witted", and a lot "smarter" than she "looks" too! "I am in my own way `responsible' for their existence," I pointed out in reply. I had suggested the basic concept of the Priestesses to Janet Rogers back in 1988 a month or so before Sharon and I had made our epic flight through time to this era. I am glad that she followed my advice to the letter in this too!! "You are `like' a Priestess in a way," Darlanis admitted. I had given orders that we were not to be disturbed for "anything". "You can trust me as you would a Priestess," I told her. I drew the entire story slowly from Darlanis, starting with her experiences as a little girl. Seeing through her words how a Princess of Dularn lived. She had been a beautiful little girl. Much like Sharon in a way, but yet different. Her father had died when she was small, although she did remember him somewhat. She had grown older, reached puberty, felt those strange and to a young girl terrifying feelings. Experienced her first peri- od before her mother took her to the Priestesses for the drug that would control her reproductive system. She told me of hav- ing her nipples pierced, of wearing her first set of clips al- though at that time her breasts were small and not yet developed. Her brother had later seen her nude while she was bathing, made some sort of a comment about her sexuality and "exposed" himself to her. Darlanis had been horrified at such ideas! She knew that men desired a woman for her "body", but she did not un- derstand very much about sex. She had been raised much like a girl of the "Victorian Era" back in the Nineteenth Century. Her sex-education, what there had been of it, had been mostly rumors and terrifying tales told by the other girls her own age. Girls of the aristocrats of Arsana, who were raised much as she had! I knew from my conversations with Gayle that such practices were a common feature of life among the upper classes of Dularn, al- though Gayle of course had never suffered all that Darlanis had. Then had come the rape I've mentioned earlier. I dragged the details out of Darlanis as she sobbed softly to herself while telling of how she had known it was her brother by a birthmark on his groin. There had been two other boys, ruffians of a gang her brother ran around with, a teenage gang much like those of the 20th Century, and just as troublesome as any of my own time too! The three boys had been masked, but Darlanis recognized her own brother as one of the three, and he appeared to be their leader too in the horrible crime committed on her innocent young body! Then bruised from her struggles and the beating she had got- ten in return, bloody, she having bled considerably from the breaking of her maidenhead, Darlanis made her way stumbling back home to the palace, a sobbing terrified young Princess of Dularn who had not understood why she had been so horribly attacked by her own brother. Why they had hurt her as they had "down there"! In that same place that her own mother had told her was a "bad place" and not to touch! Queen Tulis being the sort who obvious- ly believed that young girls should be kept scared of their own sexuality! There are also a number of other issues here, but as they would be of interest only to a member of my own profession, I will say no more of them but to say that Tulis failed Darlanis as a mother in every sense of the word. This fear of "sex" that is common among Dularnians is one reason why I consider their own society badly "flawed", and why we of Trelandar cannot look to Dularn for any example in the setting up of our own social order! Then came the even worse horror when the disbelieving Queen slapped her own daughter's face in front of everyone. Calling her a "lying slut" and saying that it would have been better if she had been drowned at birth like an unwanted puppy rather than place such disgrace upon the royal family of Dularn! The tale of her rape soon spreading over the land, and growing more and more distorted as it spread until poor little Darlanis was made out to be a some sort of fifteen year old prostitute who gave her "fa- vors" to everyone, including her own brother. Darl Jord having claimed that Darlanis had actually "offered" herself to him and all his friends, telling them as they sat together that they could each "have" her any way they wanted for only an Eagle apiece! The tale spreading to the point that Darlanis was said to have performed every perverted act there was with her own brother and his friends! That she was a disgrace to the country! She was eventually officially "disowned" by her own mother, and sent in shame to a boarding school, where she suffered the insults and torments of the other girls, who believed the rumors that had been spread about her to the point that she had several times seriously considered killing herself. Putting an end to all of the suffering, the cruel words, the whispered accusations that she was but a "royal whore", a teenage slut who had been ex- iled from her own country, from her own people, for her uncon- trollable sexuality! She grew vicious, learned to fight back. Pounded several girls nearly senseless. Became bitter. A hard embittered young woman that no wanted to be friends with anymore. She learned the sword, fought her first duel at the age of eighteen. Killed one of her own classmates at the Warrioress Academy. Killed another before she graduated at the age of twen- ty hard and bitter. A tall beautiful golden "swordfighter" who all feared to "cross"! A woman who caused even her instructors concern for fear of being challenged to a duel! That was this woman who now sat dry eyed before me, telling me her own story! "Then you entered the `Games'," I said to her, guiding her. She was "big" now, 5'10". a hundred and fifty pounds. A beauti- ful big muscular blonde that men lusted after, but Darlanis was unable to have sex and enjoy it. She was "frigid", and hated all men with a passion. To her a man wanted only "one thing" from a woman. Love to her was but a word that "liars" spoke to deceive her. I called forth the hatred, let it flow, horrified at what I heard! Only my own professional training allowing me to go on! I once treated a hard core feminist, but her own anger was noth- ing compared to Darlanis' own deep seated hatreds of all men... "And Thar Marden saw me, had me sent for," Darlanis replied. The rest was history. The new King of Sarn (he was a "Warlord of Sarn" who had just married the recently widowed Queen Tara Bisan) quickly divorced Queen Tara so that he could marry the more beau- tiful Dularnian and make her his Queen. He had one child by Dar- lanis before dying in a battle against the Nevadas. Anna Mar- den, the first Imperial Princess, being "lost at sea" before Dar- lanis' eyes as the horrified Empress saw her drift off! Sarnian Queen, her flagship, having been sunk in a storm when it struck an uncharted rock at night somewhere north of Trella. Little Anna then being "picked up" by a Lorr battle-disc investigating the area and taken to Mars where she quickly became the "child" of another, the lovely Aurora of Mars. Aurora's own actions here no doubt are subject to a certain degree of criticism as she cer- tainly knew "better" here than to "keep" Darlanis' daughter!* * There is of course a "good reason" why she did so. The details are in my own book, which I think will shock everyone! (Darlanis) "And now you know the entire story," Darlanis said to me, sipping at the wine I had provided for us. We were alone, with- out slave girls or anyone else who might overhear or repeat what had been said. "And why there is now nothing but hatred between me and Queen Tulis. Why peace between Dularn and the Empire is impossible." I recalled what Jon had told me about Queen Tulis. The fits of rage, the now obvious signs of mental instability!* * These were caused by her brain tumor, I now understand. I wondered about Queen Tulis. About the "guilt" she carried deep within herself. One does not do what she had done to one's own daughter and not suffer later on. I suspected Tulis was now well aware of what she had done to her lovely little girl. Aware perhaps even that Darlanis had been telling the "truth" and that her own brother had indeed raped her some thirty years ago now! "And what of you?" I asked Darlanis. "Tell me your feel- ings. What do you feel deep inside? Hatred or longing for what could have been?" That was part of my task as her psychiatrist. To bring out HER deepest feelings. To bring everything to light! Then "guide" her in seeking a "solution" to her own "problems"! In some cases where possible I used hypnosis to get at the TRUTH, but this was now impossible here for reasons as I have mentioned. "I do have a mother who loves me," Darlanis said to me, much to my surprise. "She would never `hurt' me even if sometimes she doesn't understand how I truly `feel' about her." Darlanis was starting to weep again, her azure eyes filled with tears as they looked into mine. "She is good, kind, and very understanding." "And this woman in your fantasies has replaced your own ac- tual mother?" I ventured. I had encountered this before in my own practice back in the 20th Century. Often abused children do create for themselves a loving parent in their fantasies to re- place the cruel parent of reality. Considering what Darlanis had gone through, such a "retreat" from "reality" didn't surprise me! "She is not a `fantasy'," Darlanis said to me. "She is real. She is the woman I wish could have been my real mother!" At this point Darlanis broke down completely and could only sob as I held her, still wondering just who this woman could have been. Perhaps some instructor at the Warrioress Academy who had understood the torment that this lovely young woman had suffered. "If only you-you could do it!" Darlanis sobbed against my silken dress, wetting it with her salty tears. I wondered what I could "do" for her. What she now hoped that I could do for her. "And what is that?" I asked, raising that beautiful tear- stained face to mine. Those lovely azure eyes brimming with hot tears of emotion. She is a very beautiful woman. At first I used to resent her for being so beautiful, but I do not any more. "Go-go back in time! Be my mother!" Darlanis sobbed, cling- ing to me. "Oh Lorraine! Could you do it? Do it for me?" She wasn't making too much sense here. I knew time travel was possi- ble in the sense that I had traveled from 1988 A.D. to 2565 A. D. by means of one of the "Gateways", but such travel was completely unpredictable, and Sharon and I could have just as well ended up in the Fourteenth Century instead of in the Twenty Sixth instead! "You have made me into your mother?" I ventured, not knowing what else to say. Even in my own professional experience, I had never encountered anything like that before! I have no doubts that Darlanis didn't really consider me as her mother, but yet at times she had behaved towards me much like my own child might! I was "older", at least in appearance, Darlanis appearing to me as a woman in her middle twenties in the 20th Century, although she is actually well over forty years old, and will soon celebrate her forty fifth birthday in another month or so. Her own mother was close to a hundred, but still yet looked younger than I did! "I know that you aren't, but I often dream of what it would have been like had you been my actual mother." Such fantasies are of course usually not too "realistic" as had I given birth to Darlanis she wouldn't have looked anything like she does today! "Sharon seems to prefer you to me," I pointed out in reply, quickly changing the subject to something that I was more com- fortable with! Darlanis is a good mother to Sharon, perhaps bet- ter than me in some respects, although she "spoils" her a lot. "Sharon sees only what she wants to see of me," Darlanis an- swered with a smile. I thought that she was speaking the truth. Sharon tended to some degree to see Darlanis as a "fantasy" fig- ure, not as a real person. There was just enough "child" left in Darlanis that their relationship did work as it did. Sharon did enjoy Darlanis' own sense of humor, Darlanis being a less "sober" person than me. More like a "big sister" than a "mother" figure. "Sharon also gives you something you never had," I told her. Sharon was an "emotional prop" for Darlanis. She now "depended" on Sharon. Darlanis no doubt at times saw Sharon as herself! I knew of such things. Of mothers living through their daughters. Darlanis was raising Sharon as she would have wanted her mother to raise her at the same age. She was "reliving" her own teenage years now through Sharon! That was why she seemed to Sharon more as a "sister" than as a "mother". Why she liked Darlanis better! I was "older". Not like Darlanis. Not "playful" like she was! "You have also made yourself `vulnerable' to Sharon," I pointed out. I had already seen "evidence" of that. I wondered how long it would take before Sharon realized the power that she had over Darlanis. I prayed that she would not abuse her power. "She is the girl I wish I could have been," Darlanis said, refilling her glass. "The girl my own mother never let me be." I saw the hostility, the hatred flaring once again in those eyes. "Have you ever written to your mother?" I ventured. It was now nearly thirty years now since Darlanis had last seen her. "Why?" Darlanis snapped back. "Why should I do something stupid like that? She hates my guts for telling the truth about my brother. That fancy `pet' of hers that could do `no wrong'! She always `liked' Darl and Janis a lot better than she did me!" "What about Janis?" I ventured. Janis had been her older sister. The heir to the throne once Tulis died or was deposed as now seemed likely from what Jon had told me. Such could be done I knew by a vote of the Dularnian Assembly, although it took a four fifths vote to do it. The society had a lot of defects, but at least there was a way of getting "rid" of a bad Queen if it became necessary. The only trouble was that there was no Prin- cess of Dularn to replace Queen Tulis unless Darl Jord married. And as Dularn was a "Queendom", only a woman could be the ruler! "Janis always took my mother's side," Darlanis snapped. I recalled the two there on Sarnian Lady. They had not been very much like two sisters. I had wondered why. I thought now that I knew why. Yet I recalled Janis' emotional reactions. The bitter tears, the later attempted suicide Sharon had stopped when Darla- nis had seen her sister die there on the decks of the Seahawk. "We still have to go to Dularn to end this war," I said. "You can go as my representative," Darlanis snapped back. "You have no desire to see your mother again?" I asked. "After what she DID to ME?" Darlanis then "snapped back". "If you could save Queen Tulis' life or Princess Tara's, which would you save?" I suddenly challenged her in reply. I saw those azure eyes widen in shocked surprise at my words. I needed to break through all of Darlanis' "armor". Break on through to the TRUTH! This was the only way that I could do that now! "Tulis isn't Tara," Darlanis snapped back. "And I don't ap- preciate having you compare them like that either," she snapped! She was angry now, her eyes like a icy cold azure as they burned into mine! I had struck "pay dirt" with my insistent probing! I don't think Darlanis really understood what sort of "doc" I was! "There is still a bit of love left, isn't there?" I smiled. I had hoped that there might be buried deep in the most secret recesses of Darlanis' heart. I could only hope that Queen Tulis still had some for the daughter she had disowned thirty years ago. Darlanis nodded, her eyes moist and saw something I did not as we sat there together. I suspected, however, what she saw. 2565 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN By Jerome B. Bigge Book Two Chapter Forty "You aren't going to try to `take control of my mind' or something, are you?" Darlanis asked as she relaxed beside me there on the sofa. I felt it best that we retained eye contact. "It is quite `impossible' for me to do so to anyone of this era," I answered. I had once tried hypnosis with Gayle as an ex- periment. I had been unsuccessful in my attempt although Gayle had been willing to let me try, saying that she had no terrors of allowing me to practice my "witchcraft" on her! I had then learned from Sanda that what I had attempted was illegal and that I should never attempt to do it again or I could be in very seri- ous trouble if word ever got out of what I had attempted to do. Sanda telling me that the Priestesses of Lys turned such people like me over to the "civil authorities" for execution as witches! "I'm glad of that," Darlanis answered, regarding me, perhaps more fearful of being treated by a "shrink" than would someone of my own era. I had no doubt that she "trusted" me, but yet I had no doubt that she also "feared" me in a way, perhaps because to her and others I will always be "alien", a woman from a past now more legend than fact. I wondered why there was such a terror of hypnosis in this era, when the Priestesses of Lys routinely used their own secret technology of electronic hypnosis to reprogram people's minds almost as a matter of course. I had asked a num- ber of questions, gotten back answers that hinted of things per- haps better left alone! Word had finally gotten back to the High Priestess at the temple in Thistle and I had been very politely "asked" by her that it would be best to discontinue my question- ing of the people before I "got myself into `serious' trouble"! "We are just going to talk," I assured her, "Nothing more." "And people actually `paid' you to do this?" Darlanis asked with a smile, not believing perhaps that such services as mine actually deserved the fee that I used to charge for my services! "You do make a `donation to the temple' when you go see a Priestess, don't you?" I challenged her back. You are expected to make the "donation" according to your own level of "income". For someone in Darlanis' income category, that would be in the multi gold crown range. The Priestesses live simply, but they do not lack for much, I notice. On the other hand they are far more "helpful" to Humanity than were any of the religions of the past. "You're not a Priestess," Darlanis pointed out with a smile. She is "quick-witted", and a lot "smarter" than she "looks" too! "I am in my own way `responsible' for their existence," I pointed out in reply. I had suggested the basic concept of the Priestesses to Janet Rogers back in 1988 a month or so before Sharon and I had made our epic flight through time to this era. I am glad that she followed my advice to the letter in this too!! "You are `like' a Priestess in a way," Darlanis admitted. I had given orders that we were not to be disturbed for "anything". "You can trust me as you would a Priestess," I told her. I drew the entire story slowly from Darlanis, starting with her experiences as a little girl. Seeing through her words how a Princess of Dularn lived. She had been a beautiful little girl. Much like Sharon in a way, but yet different. Her father had died when she was small, although she did remember him somewhat. She had grown older, reached puberty, felt those strange and to a young girl terrifying feelings. Experienced her first peri- od before her mother took her to the Priestesses for the drug that would control her reproductive system. She told me of hav- ing her nipples pierced, of wearing her first set of clips al- though at that time her breasts were small and not yet developed. Her brother had later seen her nude while she was bathing, made some sort of a comment about her sexuality and "exposed" himself to her. Darlanis had been horrified at such ideas! She knew that men desired a woman for her "body", but she did not un- derstand very much about sex. She had been raised much like a girl of the "Victorian Era" back in the Nineteenth Century. Her sex-education, what there had been of it, had been mostly rumors and terrifying tales told by the other girls her own age. Girls of the aristocrats of Arsana, who were raised much as she had! I knew from my conversations with Gayle that such practices were a common feature of life among the upper classes of Dularn, al- though Gayle of course had never suffered all that Darlanis had. Then had come the rape I've mentioned earlier. I dragged the details out of Darlanis as she sobbed softly to herself while telling of how she had known it was her brother by a birthmark on his groin. There had been two other boys, ruffians of a gang her brother ran around with, a teenage gang much like those of the 20th Century, and just as troublesome as any of my own time too! The three boys had been masked, but Darlanis recognized her own brother as one of the three, and he appeared to be their leader too in the horrible crime committed on her innocent young body! Then bruised from her struggles and the beating she had got- ten in return, bloody, she having bled considerably from the breaking of her maidenhead, Darlanis made her way stumbling back home to the palace, a sobbing terrified young Princess of Dularn who had not understood why she had been so horribly attacked by her own brother. Why they had hurt her as they had "down there"! In that same place that her own mother had told her was a "bad place" and not to touch! Queen Tulis being the sort who obvious- ly believed that young girls should be kept scared of their own sexuality! There are also a number of other issues here, but as they would be of interest only to a member of my own profession, I will say no more of them but to say that Tulis failed Darlanis as a mother in every sense of the word. This fear of "sex" that is common among Dularnians is one reason why I consider their own society badly "flawed", and why we of Trelandar cannot look to Dularn for any example in the setting up of our own social order! Then came the even worse horror when the disbelieving Queen slapped her own daughter's face in front of everyone. Calling her a "lying slut" and saying that it would have been better if she had been drowned at birth like an unwanted puppy rather than place such disgrace upon the royal family of Dularn! The tale of her rape soon spreading over the land, and growing more and more distorted as it spread until poor little Darlanis was made out to be a some sort of fifteen year old prostitute who gave her "fa- vors" to everyone, including her own brother. Darl Jord having claimed that Darlanis had actually "offered" herself to him and all his friends, telling them as they sat together that they could each "have" her any way they wanted for only an Eagle apiece! The tale spreading to the point that Darlanis was said to have performed every perverted act there was with her own brother and his friends! That she was a disgrace to the country! She was eventually officially "disowned" by her own mother, and sent in shame to a boarding school, where she suffered the insults and torments of the other girls, who believed the rumors that had been spread about her to the point that she had several times seriously considered killing herself. Putting an end to all of the suffering, the cruel words, the whispered accusations that she was but a "royal whore", a teenage slut who had been ex- iled from her own country, from her own people, for her uncon- trollable sexuality! She grew vicious, learned to fight back. Pounded several girls nearly senseless. Became bitter. A hard embittered young woman that no wanted to be friends with anymore. She learned the sword, fought her first duel at the age of eighteen. Killed one of her own classmates at the Warrioress Academy. Killed another before she graduated at the age of twen- ty hard and bitter. A tall beautiful golden "swordfighter" who all feared to "cross"! A woman who caused even her instructors concern for fear of being challenged to a duel! That was this woman who now sat dry eyed before me, telling me her own story! "Then you entered the `Games'," I said to her, guiding her. She was "big" now, 5'10". a hundred and fifty pounds. A beauti- ful big muscular blonde that men lusted after, but Darlanis was unable to have sex and enjoy it. She was "frigid", and hated all men with a passion. To her a man wanted only "one thing" from a woman. Love to her was but a word that "liars" spoke to deceive her. I called forth the hatred, let it flow, horrified at what I heard! Only my own professional training allowing me to go on! I once treated a hard core feminist, but her own anger was noth- ing compared to Darlanis' own deep seated hatreds of all men... "And Thar Marden saw me, had me sent for," Darlanis replied. The rest was history. The new King of Sarn (he was a "Warlord of Sarn" who had just married the recently widowed Queen Tara Bisan) quickly divorced Queen Tara so that he could marry the more beau- tiful Dularnian and make her his Queen. He had one child by Dar- lanis before dying in a battle against the Nevadas. Anna Mar- den, the first Imperial Princess, being "lost at sea" before Dar- lanis' eyes as the horrified Empress saw her drift off! Sarnian Queen, her flagship, having been sunk in a storm when it struck an uncharted rock at night somewhere north of Trella. Little Anna then being "picked up" by a Lorr battle-disc investigating the area and taken to Mars where she quickly became the "child" of another, the lovely Aurora of Mars. Aurora's own actions here no doubt are subject to a certain degree of criticism as she cer- tainly knew "better" here than to "keep" Darlanis' daughter!* * There is of course a "good reason" why she did so. The details are in my own book, which I think will shock everyone! (Darlanis) "And now you know the entire story," Darlanis said to me, sipping at the wine I had provided for us. We were alone, with- out slave girls or anyone else who might overhear or repeat what had been said. "And why there is now nothing but hatred between me and Queen Tulis. Why peace between Dularn and the Empire is impossible." I recalled what Jon had told me about Queen Tulis. The fits of rage, the now obvious signs of mental instability!* * These were caused by her brain tumor, I now understand. I wondered about Queen Tulis. About the "guilt" she carried deep within herself. One does not do what she had done to one's own daughter and not suffer later on. I suspected Tulis was now well aware of what she had done to her lovely little girl. Aware perhaps even that Darlanis had been telling the "truth" and that her own brother had indeed raped her some thirty years ago now! "And what of you?" I asked Darlanis. "Tell me your feel- ings. What do you feel deep inside? Hatred or longing for what could have been?" That was part of my task as her psychiatrist. To bring out HER deepest feelings. To bring everything to light! Then "guide" her in seeking a "solution" to her own "problems"! In some cases where possible I used hypnosis to get at the TRUTH, but this was now impossible here for reasons as I have mentioned. "I do have a mother who loves me," Darlanis said to me, much to my surprise. "She would never `hurt' me even if sometimes she doesn't understand how I truly `feel' about her." Darlanis was starting to weep again, her azure eyes filled with tears as they looked into mine. "She is good, kind, and very understanding." "And this woman in your fantasies has replaced your own ac- tual mother?" I ventured. I had encountered this before in my own practice back in the 20th Century. Often abused children do create for themselves a loving parent in their fantasies to re- place the cruel parent of reality. Considering what Darlanis had gone through, such a "retreat" from "reality" didn't surprise me! "She is not a `fantasy'," Darlanis said to me. "She is real. She is the woman I wish could have been my real mother!" At this point Darlanis broke down completely and could only sob as I held her, still wondering just who this woman could have been. Perhaps some instructor at the Warrioress Academy who had understood the torment that this lovely young woman had suffered. "If only you-you could do it!" Darlanis sobbed against my silken dress, wetting it with her salty tears. I wondered what I could "do" for her. What she now hoped that I could do for her. "And what is that?" I asked, raising that beautiful tear- stained face to mine. Those lovely azure eyes brimming with hot tears of emotion. She is a very beautiful woman. At first I used to resent her for being so beautiful, but I do not any more. "Go-go back in time! Be my mother!" Darlanis sobbed, cling- ing to me. "Oh Lorraine! Could you do it? Do it for me?" She wasn't making too much sense here. I knew time travel was possi- ble in the sense that I had traveled from 1988 A.D. to 2565 A. D. by means of one of the "Gateways", but such travel was completely unpredictable, and Sharon and I could have just as well ended up in the Fourteenth Century instead of in the Twenty Sixth instead! "You have made me into your mother?" I ventured, not knowing what else to say. Even in my own professional experience, I had never encountered anything like that before! I have no doubts that Darlanis didn't really consider me as her mother, but yet at times she had behaved towards me much like my own child might! I was "older", at least in appearance, Darlanis appearing to me as a woman in her middle twenties in the 20th Century, although she is actually well over forty years old, and will soon celebrate her forty fifth birthday in another month or so. Her own mother was close to a hundred, but still yet looked younger than I did! "I know that you aren't, but I often dream of what it would have been like had you been my actual mother." Such fantasies are of course usually not too "realistic" as had I given birth to Darlanis she wouldn't have looked anything like she does today! "Sharon seems to prefer you to me," I pointed out in reply, quickly changing the subject to something that I was more com- fortable with! Darlanis is a good mother to Sharon, perhaps bet- ter than me in some respects, although she "spoils" her a lot. "Sharon sees only what she wants to see of me," Darlanis an- swered with a smile. I thought that she was speaking the truth. Sharon tended to some degree to see Darlanis as a "fantasy" fig- ure, not as a real person. There was just enough "child" left in Darlanis that their relationship did work as it did. Sharon did enjoy Darlanis' own sense of humor, Darlanis being a less "sober" person than me. More like a "big sister" than a "mother" figure. "Sharon also gives you something you never had," I told her. Sharon was an "emotional prop" for Darlanis. She now "depended" on Sharon. Darlanis no doubt at times saw Sharon as herself! I knew of such things. Of mothers living through their daughters. Darlanis was raising Sharon as she would have wanted her mother to raise her at the same age. She was "reliving" her own teenage years now through Sharon! That was why she seemed to Sharon more as a "sister" than as a "mother". Why she liked Darlanis better! I was "older". Not like Darlanis. Not "playful" like she was! "You have also made yourself `vulnerable' to Sharon," I pointed out. I had already seen "evidence" of that. I wondered how long it would take before Sharon realized the power that she had over Darlanis. I prayed that she would not abuse her power. "She is the girl I wish I could have been," Darlanis said, refilling her glass. "The girl my own mother never let me be." I saw the hostility, the hatred flaring once again in those eyes. "Have you ever written to your mother?" I ventured. It was now nearly thirty years now since Darlanis had last seen her. "Why?" Darlanis snapped back. "Why should I do something stupid like that? She hates my guts for telling the truth about my brother. That fancy `pet' of hers that could do `no wrong'! She always `liked' Darl and Janis a lot better than she did me!" "What about Janis?" I ventured. Janis had been her older sister. The heir to the throne once Tulis died or was deposed as now seemed likely from what Jon had told me. Such could be done I knew by a vote of the Dularnian Assembly, although it took a four fifths vote to do it. The society had a lot of defects, but at least there was a way of getting "rid" of a bad Queen if it became necessary. The only trouble was that there was no Prin- cess of Dularn to replace Queen Tulis unless Darl Jord married. And as Dularn was a "Queendom", only a woman could be the ruler! "Janis always took my mother's side," Darlanis snapped. I recalled the two there on Sarnian Lady. They had not been very much like two sisters. I had wondered why. I thought now that I knew why. Yet I recalled Janis' emotional reactions. The bitter tears, the later attempted suicide Sharon had stopped when Darla- nis had seen her sister die there on the decks of the Seahawk. "We still have to go to Dularn to end this war," I said. "You can go as my representative," Darlanis snapped back. "You have no desire to see your mother again?" I asked. "After what she DID to ME?" Darlanis then "snapped back". "If you could save Queen Tulis' life or Princess Tara's, which would you save?" I suddenly challenged her in reply. I saw those azure eyes widen in shocked surprise at my words. I needed to break through all of Darlanis' "armor". Break on through to the TRUTH! This was the only way that I could do that now! "Tulis isn't Tara," Darlanis snapped back. "And I don't ap- preciate having you compare them like that either," she snapped! She was angry now, her eyes like a icy cold azure as they burned into mine! I had struck "pay dirt" with my insistent probing! I don't think Darlanis really understood what sort of "doc" I was! "There is still a bit of love left, isn't there?" I smiled. I had hoped that there might be buried deep in the most secret recesses of Darlanis' heart. I could only hope that Queen Tulis still had some for the daughter she had disowned thirty years ago. Darlanis nodded, her eyes moist and saw something I did not as we sat there together. I suspected, however, what she saw. |
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