Avelune, page 49
“Nemiah, are you there?” Rom’s voice was low with restrained emotion.
The figure of Cael scampered up the trunk and vanished. Nemiah rested her forehead against the rough bark. “I’m . . . all right. Just dazed.”
Her Arionad crouched at her side. The soldier, Anzo Nevia, stood behind. Nemiah could see their outlines now. Early light was beginning to touch the mist with grey.
“We’ll get you out. Can you move?” Rom set a hand on her shoulder.
“Of course I can move. I must just—”
Deep within her, at the center of her self, a thud echoed one last time and fell silent.
“No! No, don’t!”
Rom pushed closer. “Lady, what is it?”
“Gone. He’s gone!”
“The Pathwalker?”
“Oh, Goddess, I think he crossed the Gate.” She couldn’t really know. If the Pathwalker had died, she supposed the abrupt end to his footsteps would have been the same. “We have to go after him. He can’t be far.” She drew both hands beneath her and pushed against the trunk. Pain, sharp and dazzling, stabbed through her chest. With a cry, she collapsed back onto the tree trunk.
“Nemiah, you fell hard,” Rom said, gently touching the left side of her face. His fingers came away with blood on them. “You mustn’t go anywhere but back to camp.”
“Not yet. We must find him. Cael is watching him. From the tree.”
“The tree? Nemiah?”
“She took quite a blow to the head.” The gruff voice behind her belonged to the soldier.
She had taken a blow. Her head throbbed, and bells rang in her ears. But Cael had been there, hadn’t he? Speaking in a woman’s soft voice?
“Rom, you and Nevia go. Find him.”
Rom’s body tensed with his protest, but before he could voice it, the old soldier spun away from them. “Someone’s coming.”
Nemiah tried to turn her head to see, but was hit with a wave of dizziness and another stab of pain through her chest.
Rom stood. “Maybe the Pathwalker’s found us.”
“I don’t think so,” Nevia replied.
Dead leaves crackled as the two men shifted their balance. Nemiah lay on the log, maddened by her helplessness. Would the Pathwalker approach them of his own will? Leita had been afraid, had begged her to take a soldier. Nemiah didn’t understand why.
A stiff quiet fell among them. The creek muttered and cackled. Whatever Nevia had heard to warn him of an approach, Nemiah didn’t hear it.
“Ho, Nevia!”
The call came from far above them. The old soldier let out an audible breath. “Ho, Esran! Strength to the Fourth!”
“What’re you doing down there? Fishing?”
“Could use a hand. Not your smart mouth. We’re occupied. Need a tracker to go on after our quarry.”
“Can’t do it, old man. Time for you to be back in camp. Lieutenant’s order.”
“What? What’re you on about?”
“By the Lady, stop screeching for all Avelos to hear. I’m coming down.”
Skidding, snapping sounds spoke of a man speedily descending to the ravine bottom. A variety of curses embellished the descent before Nemiah heard Esran stumble to a halt near the water.
“Goddess protect you,” he panted. “Lady, are you all right?”
“Well enough,” she lied. “What’s happened?”
Esran looked unhappily from Nemiah to the other men. “We need to move out. Now. Far too exposed down here.”
“Esran, say what’s happened?” Nevia demanded.
“Lieutenant found signs of observers. Just as the Lady Bearer said. Someone skilled. Thinks they might be Abrigado’s people. Might be they know where we are now. He sent me to bring you back. And to give you an extra sword arm. In case.”
Nevia spat into the dirt. “We’re supposed to be taking care against Sahistens and highwaymen, not worrying about attacks from our own leaders.”
Rom remained steady as the shore against the sea. “Lady Nemiah won’t be able to climb. We’ll have to rig a litter.”
“No litter, Rom. No time. I’ll do it.”
The old soldier was examining the ridge again. Nemiah realized he had altered his position to stand in front of her, shoulder to shoulder with her Arionad. “Lady, I suspect you’ve broken some ribs. Walking up isn’t going to be pleasant.”
In answer, Nemiah carefully and slowly sat up. She kept her breathing shallow and ignored the way the world rocked around her. That she was accustomed to. “Then we’d best begin. So we can see an end to it.”
Nevia swore, then stopped himself. “Forgive me, Lady. It’s just that the temple breeds its women of iron and fire.”
“I wish that were true. Then I wouldn’t be sitting here bleeding into the dirt. Let’s go.”
She allowed herself Rom’s arm for aid. No need to be foolish and fall again. Nevia put himself one pace ahead of them and Esran took the rear. As they climbed, both soldiers continuously scanned the landscape.
The ravine wall didn’t run sheer all the way along the creek bed. By Riana’s weaving or Cael’s chance, Nemiah had fallen at one of the points where it did. Nevia took them back to the place where he and Rom had scrambled down. Although one might argue that it wasn’t sheer, it was still terrifyingly steep and rocky. The rising sun touched the edge of the ridge now, but didn’t yet dip into the ravine to light their way. Nemiah took slow, small steps, trying to avoid the need to suck a deep breath. Stones slid out from under her boots. Rom supported her with his arm around her waist.
“I wonder, Lady, what it is exactly that makes you run through a forest in fog at the naked edge of morning.”
The comment came from Nevia. A Forest Guard patrolman. She needn’t answer him, but considering how to frame a response forced her to think on something other than how hard it was to breathe and how far she had yet to climb. She suspected that he meant it to. “Someone was . . . journeying. Touching Riana’s ways. Does that mean anything . . . to you?”
“I know little of Riana’s mysteries, Lady. Mostly I’ve not thought on them beyond the prayers any soldier mutters at the start and end of his watch. But I saw some things while traveling with the Bearer of Cael’s Blade. And after.”
“When she tried to save you?”
Nevia remained silent a moment. “In the moment she did whatever it was she did to the northerners, I saw a hundred different ways my life could end. The consequences of things. Paths of my own, I suppose.”
“Me too. I saw them too,” Esran said, devotion subduing his tone.
“A gift,” Nemiah whispered.
If she had owned the breath for it, she would have asked them both questions about what they had seen. The men were no Pathwalkers, but they had been nearby when Leita called the Paths to converge upon Commander Ciam. Leita had been fighting for her life and the lives of others; she would have thrown every bit of her significant strength into the battle. Had her immense power done something that allowed others to glimpse their own potential Paths? Nemiah didn’t know if such a thing were possible. So many things she didn’t know: Ziabela had asked once why she didn’t just explore the Paths before her in order to spy out the consequences of her actions before they were woven. Amalia had been capable of traveling so closely on her Arionad’s Path they could communicate at will from a distance. A deep pang of loss echoed in Nemiah’s heart. They had lost an entire way of life—a way of existing in Riana’s web. Now just the slender hope of one wandering Pathwalker had become like a promise of light through the fog.
“Do you know who it is, this someone touching Riana’s ways?”
She returned to the moment. It was a pointed question from an observant man. Nevia had glanced back and was staring at her.
“I think so.”
“Ah.” A musing expression sketched the soldier’s grizzled features. He scratched at the stubble across his chin. “I see. Just a little farther to go, Lady. You’re almost there.”
“Almost” seemed miles. Despite the careful pace, Nemiah was panting shallowly long before they reached the top. As they finally clambered over the edge of the ridge, she dropped to her hands and knees and was immediately, convulsively ill.
Rom’s arms came around her. She sank backward against him, clammy and limp. Unexpectedly, the little veteran was also bending close, helping her to take a sip of water from his flask, and brushing the lose strands of hair off her damp brow.
“Soldier . . . you don’t even like me.”
The man shook his head. “Lady, I spoke thoughtlessly that day. I can’t pretend to be ignorant of the things you saved the boy from. And I’ve never wished you harm. Is it too late to ask forgiveness for an ill-spoken old man?”
In that strange moment, Nemiah felt as if she could truly see the old veteran, beyond his gruff manner and scarred features. He had served as a warrior all of his life, a scout at the uncertain and violent borders of Avelos, yet his ferocity was balanced by intelligence and his intelligence was balanced by acceptance of what life offered. A new thought came to her: one did not need to name the goddess to be worthy of her.
“The weaving needs such men. Even the ill-spoken ones.”
His lips quirked. “A rough patch I make in the tapestry, Lady. But thank you. I think now it’s time for you to let your fine Arionad carry you, eh?”
No more protests remained in her. She nodded.
She had not known that pain could be a wall, tall and impenetrable. It entrapped her, kept her from reaching any farther than the faces and the voices beside her. She recalled Rom carrying her along the stony terrain. She knew his rumbling voice and his reassuring scent.
She knew when she could no longer keep the walls from closing in.
“Obey the Bearer, Rom. And send Nevia after the Pathwalker. We need him.”
Her mind hurtled across all the years when she had held the bloody knife: How many babes had she cut in the Shearing? How many youths had she maimed and left to die after a failed Becoming?
A sacrifice would be required.
Foolish, Nemiah chided herself. This was no sacrifice: she had accomplished nothing and done nothing but fallen into a ditch.
23.
Rising Flames
The bed was warm and very soft. Nemiah felt like a splintered stick of wood swaddled in it. Glowing embers in a brazier on the floor painted the room with faint orange light. A feather of smoke carried the sweet-acrid scent of burning herbs.
There shouldn’t have been a room or a bed.
A hand moved from her shoulder. She hadn’t realized it had been there until it was gone.
“Water, my lady?”
She nodded, heard the sound of earthenware clinking, water pouring. The hand returned, helping her with the cup. A whimper escaped her as she tried to sit up. She realized that the swaddled feeling came from the bandages wrapped tightly around her chest.
“You must move slowly,” Rom said. “Nevia was right. Three ribs broken.”
The water felt good, although her jaw and face ached drinking it. She held the cup between both hands. In the quiet, Nemiah recalled the moment of flight from the ravine’s edge. It had been the incarnation of a nightmare, and yet in the space of that fall, she had known a flash of longing for something that couldn’t be hers. She thought of Cael on the tree above her, angry and vulnerable. The demon had spoken of loss. It occurred to her how very closely desire and loss were entwined; neither one could exist without the other. Then, for no reason she could articulate, she thought of Amalia and of Ziabela.
“The Shorn are the embodiment of loss and desire both, Rom. Did you know that?”
Her Arionad met her gaze; his eyes were black hollows in the dim light, his tone uncertain. “Lady?”
“We made it so. When we cut them apart and forced them each to live in a body they weren’t meant to have. They lost their greatest desire then: the glory of the sky. Can you see it?”
“I can see it, my lady. But nothing about it will change tonight. Close your eyes now.”
“Oh, Rom, there are so many parts of the weaving we can no longer see. We need to understand what’s been lost before we can turn this Path. When I fell, I felt as if I almost could.”
She trailed off breathlessly, seeing the concern in Rom’s expression. With a shallow sigh, she leaned back onto the pillow. From somewhere beyond the room rose a roar of laughter. Men’s voices, loud with drink.
“Ravia? The garrison?”
“No, my lady. An inn. The Blue Filly. We only made it as far as Nerre.”
Nemiah tried to remember her maps. Stretching her thoughts that far hurt her head. The town of Nerre lay within Clan Amerre’s territories, a crossroads town a day’s ride from the tower at Ravia. Clan Amerre’s lands. Abrigado’s territory.
“You gave up the wilds for a healer?”
“In part, my lady.” Rom hesitated. After a moment, Nemiah saw why.
“Oh. Of course. If Abrigado has already found us, then isolation is no longer a good idea.”
Rom nodded grimly. “Busy roads, busy towns offer a kind of protection. In this, I agreed with the lieutenant.”
An effortful admission there, but Nemiah heard a level of disapproval in it. In this . . . She wasn’t sure what that meant. She closed her eyes as another roar of laughter stabbed the quiet.
“The innkeeper’s sister left dreamsease for you,” Rom said. “She’s a fair hand as a healer I’m relieved to say.”
“No dreamsease.” Walls she could manage, but in this state, Nemiah dared not risk drugs that could thrust her spirit across the Gate. “Where’s Leita?”
“She’s well. Your injuries upset her, but she’s fine now. Rest, Nemiah. Guria says you should be allowed to sleep for at least three days. To let the mind and spirit reunite. It’s still many hours until morning.”
Nemiah made a face. She didn’t intend to delay them for three days, but she wasn’t going to have that argument with Rom right now. “What of the Pathwalker? Has Nevia gone after him?”
“All Sevar’s men are out. He sent two to Ravia with word for the general.”
Was her Arionad evading her? Nemiah couldn’t be certain; meanings seemed hard to pin down. “Good. Nadel will send support. More men.”
“That’s the expectation.” Rom brushed strands of hair off her brow. “Nemiah, Captain Kajhar left word for us. His decoy company was attacked north of Nerre.” Rom saw her start. “It’s all right. None of our people were injured.”
She exhaled a prayer of thanks on a careful breath. A woman had gone in her place, purposefully drawing danger to herself. “And the attackers?”
Rom shook his head. “They weren’t identified. But it means the decoy is exposed. Kajhar couldn’t have known we would stop in Nerre. He was concerned enough to leave word, in case.”
“Very well.” She closed her eyes again. Then forced herself to open them. Too soon to fade. “We need the Pathwalker, Rom.”
“Spare your breath, my lady. Please.”
“I’m not going to die from tripping over a tree,” she replied irritably.
An anguished chuckle rose from her captain. “Indeed not, but it may very well kill me.”
“Riana keep you always, my Arionad.” She inhaled. The herbs from the brazier were sweet, something to lighten dreams, she supposed. “I will sleep, I think. If you promise to do so as well.”
“Of course, my lady.”
Rom would never damage the web with a lie, but she doubted he would do more than drowse in the chair by her bed.
As she drifted back into darkness, she realized something important. “We must claim him, Rom. When they bring in the Pathwalker. Claim him for Riana. Don’t let the elder get to him.” Deserter, Elder Trianor had called the boy. Trianor and Sevar together could destroy him. “Tell the Bearer. She will stand for Jhared Denaban, if I cannot.”
“Riana weave you long in the web, my lady,” her Arionad said gently. It wasn’t agreement. Nemiah breathed in the sweet smoke from the brazier. She would have to deal with that another time.
Somewhere nearby a bird whistled a quiet morning tune. Sunlight splashed over Nemiah’s face. She’d slept too long. The morning was well underway; the others would be restless to go on. The Sahistens were waiting. She opened her eyes and looked around the small, bright room. It took her several heartbeats to recall where she was. The shutters of two windows stretched wide upon a sunny day and welcomed the fresh air. Across the room, a woman whistled to herself as she poked through Nemiah’s things.
“Is there something you need?”
The woman squeaked and spun to face the bed. “That’s a good way to send someone right off this path, Lady.”
“What are you doing?”
The woman didn’t falter. Her hair was white and clipped short; her thin lips curved downward over a blunt chin, giving her wrinkled face a distinctly testudine appearance. “The Lady Bearer asked me to see to laundering your travel clothes. I noticed a few things that could do with some mending as well.” She held up a pale green tunic and flapped the torn sleeve in Nemiah’s direction.
“Where are—?”
“The others are in the common room eating. It took your Lady Bearer and his own men before your captain would move from your side. Solid as stone, that one. And dedicated, eh? But he needed to eat. Could use some sleep, too, if you ask me. Though you didn’t.”
“How long have I—?”
“Been sleeping the better part of three days.”
“While I slept, I had such vivid—”
“Dreams. Of course you did. You’ve had my herbs on the brazier every night, haven’t you?”
Nemiah blinked. This brisk old woman was her healer? She wondered whether she should try calling for Rom. But when the woman marched to the bed and poured a cup of water from the pitcher, Nemiah took it.
