by Ari Marmell
Issisk straightened, hand hovering near the blade at his belt. “What do you intend?”
“Issisk, please. I will help you get home, and submit myself to whatever penance you see fit, but do not tell the others! Their belief may be all that keeps us from the Terwa!”
“I am not you, Seyusth. I will not deceive our people. I will let them make their own choice. And where Hasseth and the others were tribesmates, I am family. I do not believe you would murder me to keep your secret.”
Seyusth lowered his gaze, and Issisk turned to walk away.
∗∗∗
For several days they traveled. They rested as well as they could, in the best shelters they could find, and said little. Finally, they awoke one morning to the welcome sight of the Mwangi jungles against the eastern horizon.
Ameyanda rose, stretched, preparing herself for another day’s hike. She eyed the rough blade she carried with distaste and more than a little sadness. Those mambeles had been her trusted companions for years. She could acquire new ones readily enough, but it wouldn’t be the same.
Seyusth appeared beside her, also ready for travel—and apparently still digesting what she’d told him over breakfast.
“You really hid inside—”
She shuddered with the memory of the charnel stench, the wet coils looping around her arms, the hot, reeking fat closing in around her. “It worked. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I understand.”
“And Issisk?” She hadn’t planned to ask; the fact that Seyusth had returned alone was evidence enough of the lizardman’s fate. The question just burst out in response to the unwanted imagery he’d inflicted on her with his own comment, however unintended.
“The White Leech reached him before I did,” Seyusth’s attention fixed on the distant jungle. “I was unable to save him.”
“So this was all for nothing.”
“I… fear so.”
Ameyanda growled and started walking—then stopped once more when she realized the lizardman was still behind her.
“Isn’t this about where you turn north, if you’re returning to Haa-Ok?”
“I am not returning yet. I owe you—”
“No, we’re even. I was repaying a debt.”
“Yes, you accompanied me as repayment. But then you saved me, when it would have been wiser to make your own escape from the White Leech.”
“I’m not keeping count. And I have my own tasks, Seyusth.”
“And I will assist you.”
“You owe me nothing, shaman. Go home.”
The huntress began to walk once more, and this time she did not look back.
∗∗∗
“Go home.”
It sounded nice enough. But Seyusth wasn’t certain he had a home any longer. The visage of every relative would be Issisk’s dying face; every glance, his eyes; every raised voice, an accusation.
Issisk had been right. He’d felt guilt before, but not until it was one of his own family had he felt like a traitor.
Seyusth had meant to save Issisk, he truly had. But the tribe must be protected. Haa-Ok was safe. The people still believed the spirits disapproved of the Terwa Lords. They were in no danger of losing their identity, their culture, their souls to those monsters. And Seyusth’s own apprentice could serve their spiritual and mystical needs for many moons to come.
I can do more good here. Allies among the humans will prove useful, someday, when the Terwa do come to Mwangi.
So he told himself again, and again, in the hopes that he would start believe. Because responsibility was easier to bear than guilt.
Seyusth sighed a very human sigh, and set off after his distant companion.