by G. Deyke
~*~
As promised, we do the ritual the next day. Mel has no interest in seeing it, so she stays in her room, far from the sight of all those who might tell House Chinlar where she is. Ty and I ride a ways into the forest, seeking an open area away from people, where we may be without interruption.
Because we must not ride far, nor fast, Ty ropes our steeds together. I am glad of this. I still fear that my steed might run off without the rope; I am glad to rely on anything other than its instinct to follow Ty's.
Now that I am riding again the soreness in my legs and back returns with a furious strength. I am glad we must not ride far today.
“Is there truly any danger that you may die?” I ask, remembering Rih's fear.
There are those who sell their talents. It is easy enough to find someone with a strong talent for hire in any city. They can become quite wealthy. But they must do difficult, intricate things with their talents, and every time they do something so difficult it is a little more likely that it will be too much, and they will die. They die young without fail, and always in the course of their work.
Ty's conjury is very strong; I am sure he could sell it if he wanted, but it seems he does not. I hope this ritual will not be too much for him. Those who sell their talents often spend several days doing nothing at all after an especially intricate bit of work, but he must do two such conjurations on successive days.
“There is always a chance,” he answers. “This will be very difficult, far more than merely summoning a demon to distract or kill someone. But I doubt I shall die of it.”
I hope he is right.
“Here is a good place,” he says, halting. “There is a large clearing, and we are far enough from Quiyen that we may be safe from interruption.” And he lifts me from the steed, and sets me down.
I stand for some time, waiting. I don't know what he's doing. Perhaps he is tying up the steeds, or perhaps he is beginning the ritual already, or perhaps – but no, I mustn't think of the things I cannot see.
“Walk forward,” he directs me at last, “– now stop. Sit there. Take off the sleeve from round your head, and take out the stone.”
I walk; I sit; I unwrap the cloth that covered my empty left socket and cast it aside; I take the focus from my pouch. It fits neatly into my hand, and it feels good to hold it. I wonder how it will feel in place of my eye, but I cannot think of it.
“Now wait, and try to be calm,” he says. “This may take some time, and any distraction might kill us both.”
Perhaps this is not the best thing he could have said if he wanted me to be calm.
I wish I could see what he is doing, that I might know something of this conjury that may give me back my sight, but of course that is impossible. I don't dare distract him with questions. I try at first to hold perfectly still; then I grow tired, and begin to tremble with the effort of making no motion at all. Every time I relax a little, and try to hold the relaxed position, the same happens again and I must try again to put my strained muscles at ease.
I sit so long that sitting becomes awkward and wearisome. I should like to move a little, to stretch out my legs or to lean back on my hands, but I am afraid to move too much, afraid it might prove a distraction. Instead I stay where I am, sitting with my legs folded and my knees pointing outward, and my hands resting in my lap.
To relieve the dreariness, I think of the slight wind rustling in the leaves and of the scent of earth and grass around me and of the warm sunlight on my arms, and of the feel of the stone I hold. It warms in my hand and soothes me with its smoothness. Were I free to move, I might almost feel content now, here, with this stone in my hand. The fear has left me, and I am calm.
At last Ty speaks: “Hold out your hand with the focus.” His voice is strained, as though he is already finding this conjuration difficult. I listen and obey, holding out my right hand flat before me, with the stone resting in the palm. He gives no sign that he has noticed. Perhaps the task at hand takes up too much of his attention. Perhaps he has none to spare.
The stone rises up as though plucked from my palm. Ty must have taken it; but his voice sounded from farther away.
I don't know quite what to think of this, and I am afraid of distracting Ty or of making some mistake that would ruin this conjury, so I do nothing at all. I do not even lower my hand, but leave it outstretched and empty. After a few moments it begins to tremble with the effort. I am unpleasantly reminded of carrying the sacred water for Mel; I try very hard not to think of this.
Then I feel something entering the hollow where my eye once was: not something solid touching the raw skin, but something like a gentle warmth, like the feel of sunlight on my skin. It moves about in my eye, not a solid warmth but a playful moving one. I am a little nervous of it at first, but it doesn't hurt me, and I quickly grow accustomed to the feeling.
Still I do not dare to lower my hand.
I wait a little while longer, and then I feel something washing over and into my mind. It isn't painful, but it is very uncomfortable, and I hope it will be over soon. Then there is a sudden twisting feeling in my mind, and then the discomfort is gone, and I can see.
It comes suddenly, but once it does it is as though it were always there, and I had merely blinked. Still, my sight is not what it once was. There is something very strange about the colors I see, as though they are at once brighter and more faded; and although there are shadows and darkness and bright blades of grass brilliant in the sunlight, my sight is not drawn to the light, nor along the shadows. I see everything as though it were equal.
The first thing that greets my new demon-eye is Ty: he stands before me, at the edge of the clearing, swaying gently. His face is as pale as I have ever seen it. I can see his legs trembling, and a light sheen of sweat on his brown skin, even from my distance (and it is so clear, though I know my old eye could never have seen this!), but his hand is sure as he draws a final symbol in the air. He finishes, and something changes in the air around me, and he falls. His knees buckle and his eyes roll back.
He lies on the ground, pale and still.
I hold perfectly still for a long moment. Then, because I can hold it aloft no longer, I slowly lower my hand. I blink when I must, but – as only my blind right eye can close, now – I never stop watching the still form on the ground before me.
I do not move, still afraid that I might distract him, that I might kill him.
He is still breathing, but only just. The rise and fall of his breath is so slight that I wonder that I can see it at all. He hasn't the strength to breathe more deeply.
The wind brushes a blade of grass against my wrist, back and forth. It tickles, and I want to scratch at it, but I don't dare move. I will sit here and I will wait. I will wait until Ty can move again, and stand, and take me back to the inn. If I must wait here all day, even all night, I will do so.
At long last he moves: he takes the waterskin from his belt and holds it over his face. Water pours into his mouth, so much at once that I fear he may drown. He finishes with it and puts it away, but does not sit up. As slowly as he took out the waterskin, he pulls a black strip of cloth from a pouch with his right hand and holds it toward me, resting his arm on the ground.
With one finger, he beckons.
I will not stand, but I crawl over to him and I kneel beside him. His eyes are barely open, and he is so tired, and so pale, and so drained. When he speaks his voice is scarcely more than a whisper: “Put this on.”
For a moment I don't understand; then I take the cloth from his hand. It is an eyepatch, black and well-made, and thin enough that I can see through it. I slip it over my head and carefully arrange the broadest part of it over my left eye. It is strange to cover the eye which can see and leave the blind one exposed, but I do not know what the demon in my left socket looks like, and with the eyepatch I shall look like I have one seeing eye – which is, after all, true.
Now there is a black film over everything I see. I don't like it, and I kno
w that I shall leave my eye uncovered whenever I can – except to sleep, when it might serve as an eyelid – but I can see through it, well enough.
“Can you see?” Ty whispers. I nod.
“Help me back.”
I cast around for the steeds. They are tied to a tree, some ways off, and are grazing. I find I know which is mine, though I have never seen it before. Ty's is looking our way, and it snorts softly.
I cannot carry Ty back – he is rather larger than I am, and I am not strong – but I help him to his feet and I let him lean heavily on me as I walk him back to the steeds. His skin is clammy and his breathing shallow. He cannot mount his steed alone, but needs my help to push him up – a difficult task, as his steed keeps backing away. He rides with his head bowed, looking as though he might swoon at any moment. I hope he will last until we reach the inn.
“What shall we do with the steeds tomorrow?” I ask.
“Leave them,” he says. “The innkeeper will be glad to gain three steeds.”
His reply is so weak that I wish I had waited until he was better-rested to ask.
Now that I can see I mount my own steed without help; but it is so large and I am so unused to doing so that it takes me four attempts, and at last I must use a large rock to reach its back. Fortunately it is very patient with me. For the second time, I am glad that I was given a steed with such a mellow nature.
At first I want to lead and let Ty's steed follow, while he is this weak, but I cannot. “I don't know the way,” I say. “You must lead.”
And he leads, and I follow. Now I can see the forest, and when we reach the city I see Quiyen again for the first time in many years.
I fear that Ty may soon fall again, but it seems that his strength is slowly returning. Though he is still pale and tired when we reach the inn, he dismounts without my help, and walks to our room alone, leaving me the key. It seems he is so thoroughly exhausted that he would rather sleep than eat supper.
Then I must eat alone with Mel.
We sit at the same table, but I do not look at her. I glance her way only once: instead of the beautiful noble I followed so eagerly for years, I see a girl a little older than myself, disheveled and dirty, her hair pulling loose from the intricate braid that has held it since we left Therwil, her face tired and almost forlorn, but her eyes still hard and cold. As I see her my stomach twists painfully with fear. I want to vomit. I do not look her way again.
Instead I look everywhere else, anywhere else. I see that the inn is filled with dark wood, and that the innkeeper is a large, plump man with a round red face and brown curls and beard. His eyes are watery and blue and unfriendly, although perhaps this is only because I am kretchin.
There is soup as well as bread and water, and now that I can see it I eat of that as well. The taste is good enough, but the dull ache in my belly is still there, always there when she is near.
“You have a new eyepatch,” she says.
I nod quickly, duck my head down.
“You can see, then?” I think that must be disapproval in her voice. I nod again.
“How does a conjurer heal eyes?” Now it is doubt I hear. I don't want to answer her. My stomach hurts. I cannot leave the question unanswered. I speak through the pain in my gut, my voice unsteady: “He summoned a demon.”
“What, and this demon looks around for you and tells you what it sees?”
I nod. It is not precisely true, but it is true enough, and I would much rather nod than speak.
I eat as quickly as I can, and I eat perhaps less than I usually would, because I cannot bring myself to finish. I do not know how much of the pain in my belly is hunger and how much of it is Mel's nearness and my fear of her. The thought of food sickens me, but I know I must eat – when I was young my mother would yell if I did not eat at least a little something at every meal – and so I eat until I cannot bring myself to swallow any more, and then I leave, glad to escape her presence. Only tonight and tomorrow now, I think. Then I will be free of her. Then I will be gone.
I take the cup of water with me, hoping to see my new eye in its reflection.
I am glad to be in our room, with the door locked, where she cannot reach me. Ty is lying on the bed, fast asleep. He does not wake as I enter the room. I am very glad that Mel did not think to kill him now; perhaps she thinks it better to wait until he has done what he was hired for, summoned the demon that will kill Therrin. But that is a demon he will never summon.
I take the eyepatch off now, and without it I can see easily even in darkness. It seems the demon in my eye has little need of light. I set down the cup of water and look into it; and I see that it makes its own light, and I know why I must never be seen without an eyepatch by strangers.
The calcite-stone floats in the center of what was once my eye, spinning slowly, shining white. Around it swirls a purple mist with a dimmer glow, which twists around the calcite like a snake. The play of light in my eye reminds me of rippling water under the moon.
Although the Queen's sacred water helped to heal it a little, the empty socket must still be raw and wounded; but the glow overshadows this so that I do not see it. And the hurt is almost completely gone now.
I do not look like the slow, frightened child I have always been; the glow that is my eye lends me an air of mystery and strength. I wonder if I can gain this strength only by looking as though I ought to have it. Somehow I must become worthy of the demon in my eye, and Ty has said I cannot be kretchin any longer.
I cover the demon so that I may sleep, and lie down with my blanket in darkness. I fall asleep hoping that, somehow, this new eye will give me the strength to betray Mel, to free myself from her, to run away from Thilua and never think of her again.