by G. Deyke
~*~
We ride all through the night and all through the next day. I am completely exhausted, and I am still hungry, and though I feel the warm sunlight on my arms I can see nothing but darkness. I am in a world all my own, wherein there is no light, only sound and smell and the feel of my steed beneath me.
They speak once, to discuss stopping for a rest, but Mel wants to move on. “If we must wait three days after you have your focus, we can use that time to rest,” she says. “Now, we must reach Quiyen. We may rest once we arrive there.”
The pain in my eye is less now, perhaps because of the sacred water, but it still hurts, and I am still hungry, and I am still very tired. Several times I nearly fall asleep, but then I slip and wake, filled with the fear that I may fall. Then I grip my steed's mane even more tightly, and try to sit up a little straighter, to stay awake.
We ride at a steady trot, in the hope that the steeds may last until Quiyen without rest, but I would not work them so hard were it my choice. I can feel the lather of sweat on my steed's hide long before we are allowed to rest.
There must be some villages on our way, but I never hear any voice but Ty's and Mel's. Perhaps we skirt them, or perhaps I cannot know without my sight when we ride through them. For me, the hours pass without incident. I cannot even watch the trees passing by to stave off my weariness. For many hours I feel nothing but a dreary sameness and the knowledge that I cannot sleep until we reach Quiyen; I am too tired to think of anything but my tiredness itself, and my hunger, and the pain in the hollow where my eye once was, and the state of my steed beneath me.
It runs with the others, but I know that it would rest if it could, that it longs for rest. Perhaps it only follows them because it would rather trot on as long as it is able than be lost and alone without them. I hope it will last until Quiyen. Once it is there, I promise silently, it shall be allowed to rest. It shall be given some sort of a stable and it shall be given food and it shall be with its two friends and it shall be given three days on which to do nothing but eat and rest.
I do not know if all these promises are true, but I must make them, because if I did not I couldn't drive the poor beast this far. I would let it stop here to graze and hunt and sleep a few hours. But Mel will not be stopped.
We halt only once, and only for a few minutes, long enough for us to piss and for the steeds to lick up some water from Ty's hand. I am glad to stretch my legs a little, but so tired, and we cannot sleep. Almost at once we ride on.
I can feel the warm glow of sunlight, and it is hot and uncomfortable. Sweat drips into the hollow where my left eye was, and it stings, so much. I find myself amazed, and glad, that the sacred water did not. I long for sweet shade, but we must ride on, whether the air above us be clear or shaded. We must always ride on.
The mind-numbing dullness has driven me nearly mad by the time it ends. “There lies Quiyen,” says Ty at last, and shortly thereafter we ride into the city. There are strange voices all around us, now, and the sound of the ground beneath our steeds' hooves changes. We slow to a walk. I am glad more for my steed than for myself: I have sunk so far into the dreariness that I cannot even think of awaking out of it.
Ahead of me Mel and Ty are speaking: I think they are discussing an inn to stop at, but my tired mind cannot grasp more than a few words they say. At last we stop, and I am lifted off my steed. I cling to its mane at first, unwilling to leave it.
“Be calm,” says Ty. His voice sounds strangely real. “Your steed shall be safe here, and well taken care of. It needs rest more than your presence, now. Come along.”
I feel a little more awake now that I have the ground beneath my feet again, but those feet are unsteady: my legs and back are painfully sore from the long ride, and will not bear my weight. I cling to his wrist, afraid I may lose him if I let go. He endures my touch without comment.
“What time is it?” I ask in a thin and shaking voice, and “Early evening,” I receive in answer.
I walk after him, holding on to him, following his lead. Mel must be ahead of us. I hear a door opening, and I step through the place where it must be, running into the frame with my shoulder. It swings shut behind me. I jump a little at the sudden wind it makes, not knowing what it is; then I hear it shut, and at once I feel very foolish.
Here is the smell of wood and cooking meat and other food, and it is sheltered and cool, and I hear quiet strains of conversation nearby. A man's voice greets us angrily: “What's that doing in here, then? We don't serve their kind here.”
Ty says, “Of course we'll pay the full amount for him.”
There is silence. Then the man speaks again, obstinate: “I won't give it a room.”
“Then he can use mine.”
More silence.
“You'll pay for three rooms and use but two?”
“And food.”
“All right,” says the man, but his voice conveys the dislike he has for the idea. “Be sure it doesn't break anything, and try to keep the room clean.”
“You're paid twice what the room's worth,” says Ty. “You can afford a little cleaning.”
There is talk of how they will divide the cost, and then there is the clink of coins, and then Ty leads me away. He separates his arm from my hand, places his own hand upon my shoulder, and guides me to a chair. “Sit,” he says.
I sit.
Mel sits down on my left side and Ty on my right. We sit in silence, all of us too tired to speak. Then there is the heavy breathing of a stranger, and the sound of things being put on the table, and the stronger smell of food; and then the breathing stranger leaves us, without a word.
I sit. I try not to move, not to think. I wait. There are sounds in front of me: things are being moved, things touch against each other, Mel is eating.
“There is food in front of you,” Ty says softly. “Bread, and a cup with water. Eat.”
I want to look at him, to know if he means what he says. I want to look to Mel for permission. I want to know what will happen if I eat; I am afraid to, afraid to touch what isn't mine. But I can no more see him than I can see the food before me. I grope blindly: there is my knee, there is the underside of the table, there is the edge of the table – it is rough; I must be careful of splinters – there is the cup. I can hear the water move as my fingers brush against it. I lift it, drink, almost drain the cup. I set it down again carefully, hoping that I don't put it down on top of the bread.
There is the bread, then: I fall upon it, devouring it as fast as I can swallow. The feel of food in my belly awakens me a little to the world around me. I feel better now, much better. I drink the last of the water and set down the cup.
I want to tell Mel I am sorry for dropping the water, but I know that my apology cannot begin to make it right. I say nothing. Nor does she say anything, except to bid us goodnight when she is finished with her food. “Tomorrow we must acquire your focus,” she says curtly, and then she is gone.
“Are you finished?” Ty asks me, and when I nod he guides me to our room, pushing me along with his hand and warning me when there is an obstacle in my path (“Careful – there is a stair here,”). At last he opens a door, pushes me through it, follows me in, closes it. I hear him doing something more, perhaps locking the door, and then he walks past me into the room.
I sit down, lie down, curl up on the floor. It is a wooden floor, very hard and not very comfortable, but I am glad of any place to rest.
“You'll take the floor?”
I cannot nod from this position, but I don't want to speak. Maybe I am afraid of it as I am afraid of thinking. I don't want to think of words. I sit up so that I can nod, and I will not lie down again until I know he is through with speaking for the night. I nod.
“Then I shall take the bed, and you'll have the blanket.” He drops it before me. The sound is soft and heavy. I nod. I want to thank him, but I don't want to speak. I am afraid of words. I keep quiet.
“Will you listen to me?”
I nod.
“Without telling the flower?”
I don't know how to answer. I start to shake my head and then to nod, and at last I shrug.
“I told you that I am here to make right my wrong.”
I wait until the silence stretches on too long – it seems he will not tell his story if I do not respond. I nod. I want to ask him what his wrong was, but I am afraid to ask. I hope that he will answer of his own accord.
“In order to do so, I must betray the flower.”
He waits, but I say nothing. I think: then that is why he felt he had to bargain for the right to concern himself with the mission. I try to put out the thought, because it is a thought at all. I will have time to think tomorrow. Tonight, I must only listen.
He draws breath, stops. And again. Maybe he is trying out the words in his head and finding them insufficient. I wish I could be sure.
When he speaks at last, I do not see what his words have to do with betraying Mel: “Do you remember what I told you of the thousand years' prophecy?”
I nod.
“The prophecy says that the one who frees whatever is trapped in the stone plain will be an orphan, born of both worlds, born in Saluyah. At least, I think that is what it means. It speaks of the guardian – I think that is Saluyah, but it may be a person – but if I am right, I believe the child Therrin is the chosen one of the prophecy.”
Ah.
“The flower means to kill this child of prophecy. If I had not happened to see you in the Desert, and saved you from the great insect, she might have died there and the child might have been safe. But as I meddled I doomed the child, and perhaps I doomed the prophecy. I am here now in order to prevent the flower from completing her mission.”
I listen without response.
“She has not wronged me directly, and so I would prefer to betray her without killing or hurting her, if I can. For that I need your help. If you continue to follow her, I may be forced to kill you both, as I doubt I can keep the two of you distracted for long enough if I do not.”
This is clearly a threat, but it does not feel like one, and I do not feel threatened. I say nothing.
He starts again to say something, stops, considers. At last he says, carefully: “I have been with you for some time now. I have seen how she treats you. And it is for your sake as well as mine that I ask you to join me.
“She does not treat you as a friend, nor even as a servant, but as a toy to play with. She does not allow you to stray even slightly; she expects you to do the impossible without complaint; any kindness she shows you is fleeting, and she is only kind when her kindness serves some purpose; she punishes you without reason; she does all she can to make you believe that you are unworthy of even the slightest respect, and that when she shows you any kindness at all it is only because she is so tolerant. I'd wager that when she first met you, she helped you not out of kindness but because it amused her to mislead the seller of eggs. Nobles are taught to enjoy deception; it seems she learned that lesson well.”
I cringe at his accusations of Mel, but I have said I will listen and I will listen. I try not to think on his words.
“You don't like to hear this?” I will not deign to respond. “Perhaps you are afraid she may learn of it? Perhaps you are afraid that if she does, she will punish you, even if you assure her – even honestly – that you never believed it?
“I offer you an escape. Come with me, help me, and I will protect you from the vengeful flower. You may be free of her.”
I find that my heart is pounding: slowly, but very loudly, so that I am aware of each beat.
“You have some time to decide. Before you do, think on this: she has not spoken to you at all since we left the well. She would have left you there: you were her toy, and once you were broken and blind she no longer wanted you. Even before that, in the Desert, she would have left you when your leg was hurt, but for her need of your guidance through the caves.”
No.
“The choice is yours to make, and I will respect it. Yet I hope for your sake that you choose to betray her – not because I will kill you if you don't, but because she may.
“I shall ask you again tomorrow.”
For a long moment I make no response, no movement at all. I wait for my heart to quiet; it doesn't. At last I nod and reach for the blanket.
“Goodnight,” he says, and then he is quiet. I pull the blanket around myself, under myself, to soften the floor. It is comfortable and warm. But I cannot sleep with this pounding in my chest.
I don't want to think about Mel, so I think instead about Ty. Now I remember: he chose to come with us because he heard of a noble bastard in Saluyah. Perhaps he heard the same rumor I did, that this child was blessed. Perhaps he thought even then that she was the chosen one of the prophecy.
I recall what was said of her mother: she was young, but with white hair and silver eyes, and she would not speak, and she was a stranger. And Ty said she was no more Anarian than Thiluan. Then maybe she did come from another world.
And I recall, now that I am thinking of it, that Ty did not swear to the mission, and that he never once said he would summon a demon to kill the child. When he spoke of that he spoke in ifs and woulds. He said he would kill the mother, but perhaps that was before he knew who the child was – or perhaps he knew the child was an orphan – I do not know.
I wonder now if the strange blessing on the child was the blessing of the trapped thing in the stone plain.
Now I am a little calmer, but my thoughts of the prophecy run thin. They return unbidden to Mel. They return unbidden to what I saw in the Queen's water in my dreams. I am afraid to relive that dream, afraid even to think of it, so I try to think of nothing at all; and at last I fall asleep.