Timmuth - A Dark Sun Short Story

                Timmuth’s cry of fear and pain ripped though Zarnian’s body more than any blade. Before he was finished sitting up in bed, her arms were around him. “What happened?” she demanded, her fear making her voice harsher than intended. Covered with a thin sheen of sweat, Timmuth shook his head, shivering against Zarnian’s arms. Then she realized what happened. “Did you have a nightmare?” He nodded against her chest. Sparing an arm just for a moment, she wrapped the blanket around him again to keep off the chill of the night, and held it in place as she rocked him for a moment. Since she freed him from Esticles the nightmares came frequently. When they did, for a short time Timmuth reverted to the child of six who did not speak for a year in the wake of his parent’s death. Over the last few weeks Zarnian had learned to be much more intuitive about what he needed or had happened.

After a few moments in her arms, he stopped shaking. She kissed the top of his head, and relaxed her arms a little. She didn’t ask him what his dreams had been about. After trying to get an answer several times over the last weeks, and only getting shakes of the head in response, she gave up. Her guess was that while the physical scars of his slavery had begun to heal, his mental scars remained. She had her own mental scars from her slavery, and most of the trauma happened when she was much older than Timmuth. Not for the first time, she wished she could whip Drugar so he could see how it felt. Reaching down, she poured Timmuth a cup of water which he took, and a bit of sponge bread soaked in weezer nectar to make it a little sweet. It was a small comfort but one he took and consumed quickly. Once he was done eating and drinking, he said, “Zarnian, I can’t go back to sleep.”

“Well, I am not sleeping tonight. What do you want to do?”

“Train. I want to get better with a spear. I want to be as good as you. You can kill anyone you want with your spear.”

“Not anyone,” she corrected. “That is why you have to train with your mind and not just your fists, or your weapons. If you strictly rely on brute force, with no cunning and no thought, you will harm yourself and those you seek to protect. But, if you use your mind, you can disable your enemies sometimes with no violence, sometimes with very little.”

The boy’s eyes brightened. “You mean the Way? I want to learn.”

“And I will get you a teacher someday very soon, but I actually meant reactions, mental and physical. You have to be intelligent about all your actions. When I was younger, I had the best physical reaction times at the school. I was quick, graceful, and I was undefeated for a very long time. That made me cocky.” She smiled at the admission. “When Malik came, he could not move as quickly as me, but he used strategy and battle intelligence to defeat me in less than a minute. I was humiliated, but I learned. The battle is won here,” she tapped his head. “You have to plan, you have to know what your enemy will do before he does it, and then you have to know how to stop him without even picking up your weapon.”

A few moments of silence passed between them, before the boy again asked, “Zarnian?”

“Yes?”

“You love him, don’t you? Malik.”

Now it was her turn to pause. “I do,” she finally admitted, “but it is very complicated.”

“What if he doesn’t want you to raise me? I’m the son of the man that separated you and sold him away. What if he hates me?”

“Then I will not be with him. You are my son. You come first. If he cannot accept that, then he is not the man I loved.”

“Then will you be with Trakas again?”

The question shocked her. After taking a breath, she replied, “I do not know. That is also quite complicated.”

“You are very confused about him.”

“And how can you tell?”

“Well, you kissed him, and then you punched him.” Timmuth’s answer made her smile. “But you are also very confused around him.”

She raised a single brow. “You can read my emotions?”

Timmuth flinched reflexively, expecting a blow. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. When they’re really strong, sometimes I can’t help it.”

His reaction softened hers. She hugged him. “Try not to. I prefer to keep those things private. Yet, you are correct. I do have very mixed emotions about him. But, Timmuth, no matter who I chose to share my body and heart with, they will have to accept and love you first. They will have to honor your place in my life, or I will not be with them.”

“Even Malik?”

“Even Malik.”

“And I can train with a psionicist?”

“Soon. First, you are going to learn how to use your mind to think. We will speak to Aein about starting your lessons tomorrow. I also want you to help around the warehouse. Learn from whoever you can, anything you can. Educate yourself. We will work together on reading and writing dune trader code, and standard writing.” He looked like she had just sentenced him to prison. “And every day you will also have weapons training.”

“Yay!” He made motions of training with his spear. Then, he relaxed a little against her chest. “I’m getting tired again.”

Gently, she moved herself and fluffed his pillow, before letting him recline. Tucking him in, she kissed his forehead. Returning to her small desk, she waited until she heard his breathing slip into deep, soothing rhythms before allowing her face to fall. She did love the child, and wanted to raise him. She wanted the chance to be everything for him that Carn had been for her. When Malik said she would be a good parent it was all she could do to not scoff at him. He may or may not yet be right about how good she was, yet she loved every moment of it. But, in less than a month he would be safe at the house and she would be dead. With a sigh, she returned to her careful sketches, mapping the entrances to Undertyr that were near the ziggurat, and to thoughts of how to kill a god.