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.Look, I don’t know what set you off that night, but I’m sorry for anything I did to upset you.”“Upset me?!?” she screeched and launched herself out of her chair at him.Garnet caught her in mid-air and managed to restrain her.She struggled and clawed at him, but he forced her back into her chair and clamped his hands on her shoulders over the back of the chair.Everyone in the room stood silent, shocked by her outburst.“Upset me?” she screamed again, all reason fled from her mind.“You raped me, you Sin-cursed son of a bitch!”Silence.Danner’s jaw dropped, and he stared at her uncomprehendingly.His friends stared in shock first at Alicia, then at Danner.Marc’s face turned dangerous.“Danner?” Marc asked in a deceptively calm tone.Danner turned to face him, his mouth working silently for a moment.“I don’t know what to tell you, Marc,” he managed at last.“The last time I saw her was the night of the inn owner’s dance, when she slapped me for trying to give her my jacket.That’s God’s truth, I swear.”“Liar!” Alicia yelled.“You came back later that night when I was cleaning up the side room.You threw me on the ground.You cut off my clothes.You raped me!”“Alicia, I swear to you…”“Liar!” Garnet had to restrain her again and received more claw marks on his arms for his trouble.General mayhem broke out as everyone started talking at once.Danner was murmuring brokenly to himself, trying to sort out what she was accusing him of, while Marc was talking quickly to his sister to get details from her.The others were assaulting Danner with questions, either in amazement or suspicion.The only silent one in the room was Trebor.He asked his questions without words and received his answers with far more clarity than the others possibly could.He looked into Alicia’s mind and probed for her memories of the attack – which were understandably foremost in her thoughts – and he saw the entire scenario happen just as she’d seen it.That evidence was enough to condemn Danner, but he looked into his friend’s mind before making a pronouncement.Instead of confirmation, however, he saw Danner leaving the inn with his uncle and an elf, then traveling on the road to Nocka.Trebor felt a strange resistance, something he’d never felt while kything with anyone else.He’d never done more than a surface reading on Danner before, and while Danner was in no condition to hide anything from him, Trebor had the feeling that Danner could shut him out completely if he half tried.Trebor shrugged the feeling off and probed deeper.There was nothing there to support Alicia’s memories, rather the contrary.Confused, Trebor kythed back into Alicia’s mind and looked more closely at the images there.Suddenly he stiffened.“He didn’t do it,” Trebor said softly.Garnet turned.“What?”“Danner didn’t do it,” Trebor repeated, louder and with more confidence.Alicia immediately began to protest angrily, but Marc silenced her with a gentle hand to her lips.“Go ahead, Trebor,” Marc said guardedly.“I just scanned Alicia and Danner both, and I saw what happened to her etched painfully clear in her mind, but in Danner there’s nothing of the sort.After the dance, he left with his uncle and an elf without seeing Alicia again,” Trebor said flatly.“Even the most trusted of people can lie with their lips, but even the most depraved of men cannot lie with their minds.” Trebor made no mention of the strange resistance he’d felt, because he was certain Danner wasn’t hiding anything.“What is he talking about?” Alicia demanded.“I’m talking about this, Alicia,” Trebor kythed into her mind.“I can read minds down to your thoughts and memories, and even talk to people in this manner.I know what you saw, and I believe in what happened to you.But Danner didn’t do it.”“Get out of my head,” Alicia snapped, clutching her temples.“And if he didn’t, then who in Hell did?”You may just be closer to the truth than you think, Trebor thought to himself.“First, I need to show everyone else what happened,” Trebor said, “if only to get their opinion without clouding it with my suspicions.Nothing grotesque, just the lead up encounter, okay? This is going to feel a little weird, Alicia, but I promise it won’t hurt you.With your permission?”She stared at him suspiciously.She was understandably loathe to have the others see first-hand any of what had happened to her, even if she didn’t understand how it would be possible, but Trebor read something else in her thoughts.Confusion.Hope? A part of her didn’t believe it was Danner either, and it was that part that Trebor prayed would let her go through with it.“You can trust Trebor, Alicia,” Michael said from beside her, his voice calm and confident.“Your brother and Garnet are our friends, and they’re Danner’s friends, too.We want to know the truth almost as much as you.Trebor can help us find out what happened, and I don’t imagine you would want to hurt anyone if they were innocent.Right?”Alicia nodded but did not lessen her hostile stare one bit as she turned again to look at Danner.The doubt in her mind intensified, but none of it showed through to her face.Michael kept a dubious eye on her, but let it pass.“Good.Trebor?”Trebor opened the memory of the pre-rape portion of the encounter, while simultaneously kything into the others’ minds.It was difficult to do with so many people at once, but he managed.One and all, excluding Faldergash – who sat beside Danner in confused concern – they experienced the horror of Alicia’s experience.They not only saw what happened, but Trebor allowed them to feel her horror and helplessness as Danner’s likeness systematically immobilized and terrorized her.He ended the experience before anything truly horrific began – those memories were simply too invasive and horrendous for him to contemplate sharing with anyone.Had he been able to scrub the images from his own mind, he would have done so without hesitation.They were all in furious tears by the time Trebor closed the kything.He glanced at Danner to gauge his reaction and saw his friend staring at his own hands in horror.After experiencing something like that, Danner was no doubt questioning his sanity and wondering if he had done such a heinous crime and somehow didn’t remember doing it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]