~*~
Once when we wake and head for the river, Mel stumbles in the darkness. She is not hurt, but she seems more afraid of the blackness around us. She leans on me until we reach the river. I walk slowly and carefully so as not to run her into a wall, but I don't think she quite trusts me not to.
“The darkness is driving me mad,” she tells me, perhaps so quietly that Ty does not hear. “The light of your... water is not enough to banish the shadows. I shan't trust that I can still see until we have reached Qualin. I long for the light of the sun...”
Mel has never confessed fear to me before. I did not know she could fear. I don't know what to say to her. And I find the darkness comforting, so I don't understand.
“Again and again I think I see faces,” she whispers. “There – there, just beyond my grasp... they will kill us, Arri, if they can. We cannot trust the shadows.”
But all around is gentle darkness. I see no faces. Perhaps she is indeed going mad.
She is still nervous when we reach the river. She glances around, watching the shadows, tapping her feet impatiently as I drink. “Come,” she says. “Come, we must go as far as we can today. I would spend no more time in this cave than we must: if there is any way we can reach the well tonight, I will not stop. We can rest in Qualin, where the faces may not reach...”
“Seeing faces, flower?” Ty asks.
“What of it?” She turns on him, eyes bright and angry. I can see how close she is to breaking, and for the first time I pity her. I wish there were something I could do to ease her fear, to drive off the faces she sees. But even now I am of no aid to her.
The faint derisive smile is back on Ty's lips. “They say these caves are sacred to the Queen of the Dark-dust,” he says. “I have heard of clansmen who cannot be here for long. They darken the water as you did, and they see faces – as you do. They say it is the Queen's way of removing those who do not belong.”
“What? What?” Her fists are clenched and I can see her trembling. There is a mad hope in her eyes, behind the fear. “They can – the others, they can lift the water?”
He shrugs. “So I have heard.”
“Then it is not Arri's nature talent which lets him do so?” Her voice is almost desperate.
He shrugs again. “Perhaps, perhaps not.”
“Could you?”
For a long moment he says nothing. Mel breathes deeply, calms herself. There is still a tremor in her voice, but the desperation is gone. “I don't suppose you can,” she says, goading him. “After all...” her voice softens, lowers. “Why should a mere traveling conjurer have the Queen's favor? One who so clearly has no talents but conjury? One who refuses aid even to those who pay him for it?”
“Believe what you will.”
“Try it,” she says. “Show me.”
He sighs. “I thought you wanted no more delays?” But he dips a hand into the water, quickly, lifts it, lets it fall. He holds it so briefly that I nearly miss it, but I can see that the water shines just as brightly in his hand as it does in the river. It does not even dim, as it does for me.
“It is not so difficult,” he says.
I don't understand. Perhaps Ty is better than I first took him for. Perhaps I no longer want him to die. Perhaps I even begin to trust him. But why would the Queen of the Dark-dust have more favor for him than for Mel? She is the best person I know. She is my friend. And Ty is still discourteous and mocking and he still unfairly accuses Mel of hurting me. She is a better person than he. Why would she kill the light while he can keep it whole?
If the Queen of the Dark-dust dislikes Mel or disapproves of her mission, there is a reason her water is always dark – but that does not explain why Ty's is not.
“Then you must help to carry the light,” she says.
He nods to me. “Your dog carries enough light for us all. I shall walk in darkness. Besides,” he says smiling his humorless smile, “even my light cannot drive off your visions.”
As though in response, she spins around to put the river at her back. “They will kill us,” she says. “See their pale faces! See how they mock me!” And she forms a weak blue spell and flings it into the darkness, where it flickers and dies.
“See how they suck out my spell? So they will suck out my life!” she cries. “Arri, Arri, what shall I do? I cannot fight them. I cannot touch them. Even my spells do not hurt them. Arri, we must flee, Arri, come, let us flee them!”
I stand helpless, wanting to help her, to defend her, but not knowing how. How can I fight that which I cannot see? What could I do that she cannot?
“He cannot fight your shadows,” Ty breaks in. “He will not help himself – how could he help you? And I very much doubt he even sees them. I certainly do not. These faces are yours alone, noble flower.”
“Then let us flee,” she says. “Arri, show the way, come. We must reach Qualin tonight. Are we close?”
“Closer,” I say. “Perhaps we can reach Qualin, if we do not rest.” I take my handful of water and lead the way.
We walk a long time, longer than we have before in these caves. My legs and feet grow weary. My arms and hands grow wearier. They tremble from the effort of holding the water, carefully, for hours on end. I want nothing more than to drop the water, the precious light, but I know that I mustn't. I steady my arms against my chest and try not to think of the ache.
The first time I went this way I went without water, without light. It was easier to feel my way – my arms weren't as tired – I could rest when I needed to...
We walk beside the river, close beside it, but there is a wall separating us from its light, so that I must still carry my own. Sometimes there are small breaks in the wall through which it shines, wanner still than that which I carry, just enough to see that it is there. It is beside one of these breaks that Mel in her weariness stumbles a second time. She falls, and she falls against me, into me. I let out a short cry, startled; and I let fall the water.
It plashes against my shirt and my bare feet. We stand in the darkness.
Mel stands. The light from the river comes through the break in the wall so that can I see her face a little, the tears of rage or fear in her eyes; and I know that I have betrayed her.
“You have doomed us,” she hisses, and then there is an eruption of pain and light in my face. The burst of light fades away quickly; the pain remains. I can feel something trickling down my left cheek, and I want to wipe it away, but the pain is so great that I don't dare touch my face at all.
I can't see. I can't see Mel anymore. I don't know where she is. It hurts. My eye – my left eye, my good eye – my eye is gone. I cannot see. I can't see and my eye hurts, my eye hurts in the place where it was.
It hurts.
I am torn between pain and remorse and fear.
Maybe the Queen's water was truth – maybe – but no, I deserve no better. I betrayed Mel. I dropped her water. I ought to have kept hold of it. She was right to punish me. But it hurts.
“I will find the way in darkness,” I promise shakily. I have done it before; I can do it again. “We must be very close now. We can reach the river soon, and the well soon after. I will guide you there. Take my hand.” My voice sounds very strange to me, and it hurts, it hurts, but I will guide Mel all the same.
I don't need to see here. I can walk in darkness. My blind right eye and the tunnels of my childhood prepared me for this long ago, and with or without light these paths will be in my mind forever. I walk with one hand on the wall, and one hand holding Mel's, and I step carefully so that I will not stumble, and I try to put the pain out of my mind. It will not be put. It stays with me, steady and fierce.
My heart is pounding, pounding. I don't need to think about what to do. I need to take Mel to the river and then I can bathe my eye in the Queen's river, the Queen's shining blood, and maybe she will help it as she helped my leg, and I need to take Mel to the well, and that is as far as I can think, but I don't need to think. I need to do it and then I can maybe
think about what comes after by the time I must. I don't need to think about the mission or about Snake's warning.
Ty walks behind us in silence. He says nothing at all, not a word. I wish he would say something, anything. I don't know his thoughts.
I can hear the river, but I don't see it; I'm not sure if we're in the right place. But Mel lets go of my hand and runs forward, so it must be here. I see nothing at all. I whistle to Snake, suddenly afraid that I may fall in. I can feel myself shaking, and I fear that I may start crying. I don't want to know what will happen if I cry now. I don't want to think of my tears worsening the pain.
Then there is a hand on my shoulder, just for a moment, and Ty walks past me. I can feel him walking, perhaps from the wind of his passing and perhaps from my nature sense. I follow. When he stops I stop beside him, and kneel, and stretch out my hands blindly. The water surprises me when I feel it, sudden and cold. I wash my face, as gently as I can, as thoroughly as I dare. The water does not sting as it touches the wound, but soothes it. I suppose the Queen of the Dark-dust is indeed a healer. I wish I could hang my head in the water, but we must press on.
“That's repugnant,” Mel says. Her voice is unsteady. “Cover it up.”
I tear my sleeve. The first several strips I tear are too short to wrap around my head; at last I rip off my entire other sleeve, and use that. I wet it with the Queen's water before I tie it, hoping she may heal me.
Ty is beside me, and unusually still. He must be filling his waterskin; I don't know what else he might be doing. He speaks now, and when he speaks his voice is strangely devoid of all traces of scorn, or derision, or any emotion whatever. He sounds utterly unmoved. But his voice worries me, because it is different.
“Melianarrheyal,” he says. I think it is the first time he has used Mel's true name when speaking to her. “It was foolish of you to act in rage.”
“Arri dropped the water and let in the dark.” She sounds defensive, defiant, almost afraid.
“You have blinded him and so slowed your mission.”
“He has one eye left. That will last him.”
“That eye is blind.”
“What?”
I don't understand either. I never told him. How can he know?
“Arri,” she says, “would you not have told me if this was true? Am I not your friend?”
I cower, shake my head. “I didn't think it was important,” I say. My voice still sounds very strange to me, and small, and yet all too loud. I don't want to speak again.
“And rightly so,” she says, her voice cold. “But to tell this conjurer?”
“He told me nothing,” says Ty. “When something happens to his left he looks with his eyes, and when something happens to his right he turns his head. It was easy enough to guess why.”
She is silent for a moment. “Then he is blind,” she says at last. “He must still guide me, but I cannot trust him with the water any longer; you must carry it in his place.”
“For gold? No. If I go so far as to carry this water for you, you must pay me with something more.”
“Name your price.”
I can picture her so easily. Whenever she speaks in that tone she raises her chin and thrusts it forward a little. But I cannot see her. I shall never see her again.
“Swear that I have the right to concern myself with your mission, beyond those services which you have bought.”
I don't understand why he needs to bargain for this – unless he plans to do something against the mission rather than for it. But I say nothing.
“May you concern yourself with whatever you will,” says Mel. “Now hold the water.”
“So it is sworn,” he says, and I hear him dip his hands into the river. “Lead on, now. I have the light, so I must take the middle.”
“It is close,” I say, and I lead the way. We are very close now. I wade into the river and walk upstream. Ty walks between me and Mel, and I do not hear him drop his water, although the light must be very strong here.
I walk with one hand on the wall, and at last the feel of it changes. “We are here,” I say, and I let myself down at the edge of the well, exhausted.
Only now does Ty drop his water. It falls and plashes as it rejoins the stream.
“Daylight!” cries Mel. “At last! Now we must only climb these walls, and be free!”
“Now?” Ty's voice is back to normal. I am almost relieved to hear his scorn. “We are all tired. We have been walking a long time. Your dog may not be able to climb out blindly, particularly without being seen; and any of us may be seen, if we climb out in daylight.”
“We must find the child,” says Mel. “I must ask around for it, and that had best be done during the day.”
“Hardly. Do you think you can ask another noble? I thought you were concerned about being caught – and besides, you look a fair sight, all dirty and sodden and disheveled. No noble would trust you looking as you do, scar or no. If you wish to assume the guise of a servant, you can do so after we've rested.”
“Then we rest,” she says, but I can hear the fury in her voice. Still, I am glad to rest. I lie down at the shallowest part of the water, so that the hole where my left eye was is covered by it, and hope I shan't drown.
I hear Mel's breathing slow and even. She sleeps. I am nearly asleep myself when I breathe in a little of the Queen's water through my nose and sit up, snorting and coughing.
“Be still, lest you wake the flower,” Ty warns me. I quiet myself. No, I will not wake Mel. She needs the rest after our long walk.
The pain is worse now that the wound is above the water. I try to put it out of my mind, and lean back against the wall with my eye closed, awaiting sleep. I try not to heed the hunger and the pain.
“Tell me, whelp,” Ty says after a while, “do you still believe she is your friend?”
“Of course.” I am too restless to pretend I don't hear him.
“Though she blinded you?”
“She didn't know,” I say. “I never told her. And I betrayed her by dropping the water; it was her right to punish me.”
“Still, she put out your eye. And still you call her friend.”
“She saved me,” I tell him. “I was new in Therwil and I stole some eggs on the market. The seller saw me and ran after me. Mel saw this and she misled him, though she didn't even know me, and so he never found me.”
“One kindness does not excuse years of mistreatment.”
“I am not mistreated,” I say.
“You do not love your friend. You worship her as a god risen from the darkness beneath the earth. Your fear of her is so great that you cannot even see that you fear her.”
“She...” I stop.
“When did she last spare you a kind word, a glance, anything?”
I don't know. I don't know, and I don't want to think about it. I say nothing for a time, and sleep claims me before I can think of a response that will not betray her.