She began walking toward the figure. Part of her considered that it might be dangerous, that whoever it was might not be friendly, but she was eighty-three years old and death no longer frightened her, if it ever had. And perhaps this person had been drawn to the lake the way she had, and maybe knew something about what that impulse was, and why it had taken hold of her.
The person didn’t move as Alison approached, though she was still convinced that he—she was close enough now to see that it was male—was watching her closely. She was also, irrationally, convinced she should know him, though the only man she knew in Longbourne was Ben and he wouldn’t just stand there silently waiting for her to reach him. And she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see his face clearly. It was as if the moon was moving to put him in shadow, trying to deceive her. It made her a little angry, though she knew it was ridiculous to be angry with the moon. So she turned her anger outward, toward the silent man. “Who are you?” she said.
In response, he whistled a phrase of the tune. “Who do you think I am?” His voice was unfamiliar.
“I have no idea. Why did you come here?”
“Who do you think I am?”
Alison’s temper flared. “I can’t even see your face. If the moon—”
She stopped. There hadn’t been a moon before, just the starry blanket over Longbourne. And this moon was too bright, too large, and it lit everything except the stranger’s face. Alison looked back toward the woods. Nothing of Longbourne was visible, but she felt absolutely certain that if she were to retrace her steps, she’d never find Longbourne again. “Show me your face,” she said.
The man turned, and in that moment she knew who he was, and before he could do more than say her name she flung herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and sobbing, “Anthony, Anthony, I didn’t know!”
She felt his arms, those familiar arms, go around her waist, and then his lips were on hers with a passion she had never forgotten, gentle and insistent and offering her his whole heart if she’d only do the same for him. She smelled again the spicy scent of his cologne and felt the faint roughness of his cheeks, and it felt as if her forty years of loneliness vanished, swallowed up by the lake. Anthony brushed tears from her eyes, kissed her forehead, then drew her into his embrace while she cried, not knowing whether she was happy or confused or grieving all over again. “It’s forever now, love,” he whispered to her. “Forever, and past forever.”
“Were you speaking to me, these last weeks? Was that real?”
“No. But it is now.”
“I woke up that morning, and you were just lying there—”
“I know. I’m sorry you had to endure that. It hurt so much knowing you were suffering and I couldn’t comfort you.”
“It doesn’t matter now. You won’t leave me again?”
“Never.”
She heard the music again, and this time it made sense: the old lullaby Ben had sung, now filling her with joy instead of sadness. “Is this why I came to Longbourne? To make one last goodbye?”
“I don’t know. There’s a lot about this place no one understands. Like why earth is as invisible to us as heaven is to them. Or what we leave heaven for, when it’s time. We only know there’s no more pain, no more sorrow, just ourselves and our loved ones until we, too, pass on. Together this time.”
She stepped away, just a little, and clasped Anthony’s hand, and saw instead of the wrinkled, blue-veined, age-spotted claw she was used to, firm, smooth skin. He, too, looked young, as young as he’d been when they first met, and it pained her a little that he wasn’t the forty-five-year-old man whose memory she’d carried all these years, but she’d have been just as happy if they’d both been eighty. “When does that happen?”
He shrugged. “When it’s time. Whenever that is. When we decide.” He tugged on her hand a little. “Come with me. There are so many people who want to see you.”
“Just a minute.” She turned to face where Longbourne would be, on earth, and took in a deep breath of green-scented air. “You won’t hear this,” she said quietly, “but it has to be said. You won’t be lonely forever, Zara. And we’ll wait for you. However long it takes.”
Her words floated away into the distance, and the lullaby came back to her, so quiet it was impossible to tell who was singing it, or to whom. Promise, said the wind, and Alison held Anthony’s hand more tightly and let it follow her all the way to the mountains and beyond.
Ransom
(Voyager of the Crown, late fall 963 Y.B.)
I wrote this story as an indulgence. I liked Ransom from the beginning, his irascible nature and his secret soft side, his well-disguised chivalry and how he was attracted to Zara from the start. And that’s really all there is to it. I can’t remember at what point in the process I wrote this—it might even have been after the book was finished—but it was long after I knew who Ransom was, what he was like, so I think there wasn’t anything more to it than wanting to see this meeting from the other side.
* * *
Ransom poked the fire, shifting the burning logs until the flames rose higher. It was too damned hot, even after sunset, to need it for heat, but roasted tubers and a hot drink refreshed him after walking through the jungle all day. He scooted his camp stool back from the blaze and stretched. Another day, maybe a day and a half, and he’d be at the village and sleeping in a real bed. A stuffed mattress high above the jungle floor, anyway. Not anything his mother would call a real bed.
Across the clearing, Nettles took a few hobbled steps and bit off a mouthful of leaves, masticating them into a drooling mess of green that stained his lips. The donkey was too smart to eat anything poisonous, or for that matter anything with medicinal value, but he was a messy eater and Ransom was just as happy not to watch him do it.
High above, a family of tamarins chittered at each other. Ransom looked up, but the firelight turned everything more than twenty feet away black and impenetrable. He couldn’t even see the stars, thanks to the dense canopy. It was eerie, the way the jungle took in the light and gave nothing back, as though he was in a bubble of air at the bottom of the ocean where no light came.
He prodded the fire a bit more, then threw the stick atop the fire and rubbed dirt from his palms. He’d stowed all the plants he’d gathered that day, made sure Nettles had plenty of food, eaten his own dinner, and now he was tired but not sleepy.
Idly, he began composing a letter to his sister in his head—the sister he remembered, that is, not the woman obsessed with the Resurgence who resented him for not following her lead as he’d done all his life. Sharon, tonight the tamarins slept in the trees above me. They’re small monkeys, not much bigger than a large cat, and they’re very intelligent. I wish I could show them to you. Some of them have never seen people before and come right up to be petted.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes. Maybe he’d stay at the village for a week this time. It wasn’t as if he needed human companionship; it was just that he was tired of not having anyone to talk to but Nettles, who wasn’t a good conversationalist. And a week was about as long as he could bear the flirting of the young women, none of whom cared that he wasn’t Karitian. So much better than the cities, with their laws restricting foreigners’ movements and interactions with the natives. If he could go another year without having to enter a city, he’d be happy.
Something rustled across the clearing, and he heard a sound like a low-pitched gasp. Nettles grunted and took a few steps forward, behind a tree. “Who’s there?” Ransom said in Karitian. No one replied, but Nettles took another step and a bush rustled again. Ransom stood and walked toward the donkey. “Look,” he said, “if you’re hungry, I’ve got some food left, but it’s ridiculous for you to go on pretending you’re not there.”
He was a few feet from the tree when the rustling started again, and a woman stepped out into the light. “I’m sorry to intrude,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.”
Ransom stopped with his hand
outstretched to pet the donkey’s neck. “Sweet heaven,” he said. “I thought you were Karitian.”
“You’re Tremontanan,” the woman said, apparently as startled as he was.
“I was,” Ransom said. “No wonder you didn’t respond when I told you to come out into the open. Where did you come from?”
The woman tilted her head to look at him. She was in her mid-thirties, with thick, messy black hair and eyes that were an extraordinary blue even in the yellow firelight. “That’s a very long story. I’ll be happy to tell you, but I’d feel more comfortable if I could see your face.”
She sounded so confident, so unafraid, that Ransom’s lips quirked in a smile. He backed toward the fire and sat on the stool, leaning forward slightly. She was beautiful in a sharp-boned way, and he couldn’t help noticing the curves of her figure that the filthiness of her clothes couldn’t obscure. She, in turn, examined him closely, and he thought I wonder if she likes what she sees and felt slightly embarrassed. He’d been alone for far too long. “Satisfied?” he said, resorting to sarcasm in his discomfort.
“I hardly think my satisfaction is what matters,” she said, somewhat tartly. “My friends and I—”
“Friends?” He made a show of looking around the tiny clearing. “Do you keep them in your pockets?”
“We didn’t know whose fire this was,” she said, irritated. “Better to be safe than dead.”
“You don’t know I’m not dangerous. Or did you assume because we were born in the same place, we’d automatically be friends?”
“I assumed I’d have a better chance convincing someone who speaks my language to help me than a Karitian who probably would kill me on sight.”
“That’s a typical Tremontanan attitude, that all Karitians are bloodthirsty bigots.”
The woman took a deep breath, visibly controlling her temper. “I admit I don’t know anything about Karitians except merchants’ tales,” she said, “so I’m sorry if I sound prejudiced. Are you going to let that stand in the way of helping us?”
“There’s that ‘us’ again. Who are you?” He leaned forward with one elbow on his knee and propped his chin on his hand. He probably ought to offer her the stool—though were good upper-class Tremontanan manners worth anything here in the jungle?—but he was enjoying watching her, the way she stood as if preparing to conquer the world, or at least this part of it. He hadn’t seen another Tremontanan in four years, but he was sure he’d never seen anyone like her before.
“My name is Rowena Farrell,” she said, “and my friends and I were traveling by ship to Goudge’s Folly when we were attacked by pirates and shipwrecked. We think we’re the only survivors. We were going to Manachen to look for help, but we…accidentally went the wrong way and ended up on the banks of the Kulnius.” A flash of irritation crossed her face again. “We’re traveling upriver to where the Amgeli and Kulnius diverge, then we’re going to follow the Amgeli north to Manachen. We were hoping you might be able to help us.”
Ransom shook his head. “None of you have any more sense than babies. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get from here to the junction of the Amgeli and the Kulnius? Let alone down the river to Manachen?”
“Of course not,” Miss Farrell said. Miss, or Mistress? “It’s not as if we had much choice. Were you listening at all, or did you just miss the part where we were shipwrecked?”
“Even so, you ought to know traveling along the coast is safer.”
“Well, we do now, and thank you so much for that ‘help.’” She turned and stalked away across the clearing.
Even the way she walked appealed to him. “Wait,” he said, and Miss Farrell paused, though she didn’t turn around. “The name’s Ransom,” he added. “You all might as well stay the night here. The jungle can be dangerous if you don’t have a fire. Sometimes even if you do.”
“Thank you,” Miss Farrell said stiffly, but her stride relaxed. Ransom watched her go. That had been unexpected. Were her companions as unusual as she? Was that even possible? Ransom looked around the clearing. Well, they’d have to sleep on the ground, though he could offer Miss Farrell his tent, not that she was likely to take it.
Loud rustling in the undergrowth signaled Miss Farrell’s return with her friends. There were five of them altogether, in varying states of exhaustion. A plump woman in her early forties looked the worst off; she showed signs of dehydration and her eyes were dilated as if she were in shock. A dark-skinned youth walked beside her, holding her elbow in support. Two tall Eskandelics brought up the rear, the man supporting the woman, who leaned heavily on him. Her forearm was bound up with two rough planks and she held it across her chest, protecting it.
“You didn’t say anyone had been hurt,” he said, rising.
“I didn’t think you’d care,” Miss Farrell said, disdainfully, and it made him smile. Lost in the jungle, filthy and exhausted and probably hungry, and she still had enough energy to snub him. He gave her an amused look and approached the Eskandelic woman. Her companion—looked like he might be her husband, or possibly her brother—immediately put himself between her and Ransom.
“You do not touch her,” he said.
“I won’t hurt her,” Ransom said, “I’m a doctor. Or did you want her to go on suffering?”
The man glowered, but stepped back. Ransom freed the woman’s arm from the makeshift splint and felt along it. He was gentle, but she hissed in pain anyway, and the man moved forward again. “It’s broken,” he said.
“We knew that,” Miss Farrell said.
Ransom ignored her. “Sit down,” he told the woman, and guided her to the stool. “You’ll want to hold her for this,” he told the man, who knelt behind her and took her in his arms. Husband, then. Ransom knelt in front of her and took hold of her broken arm with both hands, spaced evenly on either side of the break.
It was impossible to explain to a non-healer what he did, so in general, he lied about it. No, he didn’t so much lie as weave a story that would make sense to the person being healed. He might say that he was teaching skin and bone to become one, or that he was destroying the germs that caused infection, but the truth was he spoke to the body, and the body responded. It was nothing so simple as sight or sound or touch that let him perceive the body at its deepest levels; he just knew where the damage lay and could encourage the body to repair itself, faster and more surely than if left to heal on its own. The young woman’s bone was cracked; he held it in place, then let his magic wash over them both.
The young woman shrieked in pain, then sagged, unconscious. Her husband shouted and let go of her with one hand, reaching for Ransom’s throat with the other. “Don’t be a fool,” Ransom said, not raising his head from where it was bowed over his work. “I’m healing her arm. It accelerates the natural healing process, and it hurts like hell, but it shouldn’t take long. You’re Eskandelic, you should be more sensible about this.”
“You should to warn,” the man said.
“Sorry, I thought I did,” Ransom said. Hadn’t he? You were too preoccupied with looking good in front of Rowena Farrell. Another rush of embarrassment startled him. She was a good six or seven years older than he, they were in the middle of the jungle, she no doubt disliked him, and all he could think about was impressing her.
When he felt the bone was sound, he released the woman’s arm and pressed the tip of his forefinger to the center of her forehead. Wake, he thought, and her eyes fluttered open. She flexed her arm in wonder. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” said Ransom. “Now, will you make introductions, Miss Farrell?”
“We won’t be here long enough for that to matter,” she said.
“Nevertheless, it’s polite, don’t you think? You can call me Ransom,” he added, addressing the group at large.
Miss Farrell scowled. “Belinda Stouffer,” she said, indicating the plump woman. “Theodore Jenkins. Zakhari Cantara and her husband Arjan.”
“Welcome to my camp,” Ransom said wit
h a bow. “Now, why don’t you all find spots around the fire. Nettles will give warning if anything large comes calling, but there’s no point not using every advantage.” He ducked into his tent before Miss Farrell could respond with something scathing. Just as well she was moving on tomorrow; she might be attractive, but they were too alike to be comfortable companions for long. And he didn’t have time to take them all back downriver to the coast.
He rearranged some things to make the little tent more roomy, then went to where Miss Farrell and Miss Stouffer lay. Miss Farrell had used some fallen branches, whip-thin and loaded with soft leaves, to make bedding for both of them, but Miss Stouffer still looked uncomfortable. She must be at the end of her reserves. “Miss Stouffer,” he said, squatting next to her, “I think you should take my tent. You’re suffering from dehydration and what looks like the delayed effects of shock. You need more rest than a bed on the ground can provide.”
“But—”
“Go on, Belinda,” Miss Farrell said. “No one’s going to begrudge you.”
Miss Stouffer sat up. “Well…all right. Thank you, Dr. Ransom.”
“It’s just Ransom,” Ransom said, and helped her rise. He escorted her to the tent and took a minute to assess her physical condition, then gave her a salt tablet and a drink from one of his waterskins. Rest would take care of everything else.
He stood outside the tent, scanning the clearing. The Zakharis were cuddled up together near the tent, and it looked like Mistress Zakhari was asleep already. Young Mister Jenkins lay a few feet away on a bed of leaves similar to Miss Farrell’s. They might be completely unsuited to surviving in the wild, but they weren’t stupid. A twinge of guilt struck him. You don’t have time, and following the river will be easy for them. Stop feeling guilty over something that’s not your fault. It’s not as if you made them be shipwrecked.
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