2
nd
Levantday of Youngsun, Anna Nol 1407
P’dáronï’s hair may have been be caked in dry mud, and her flowing Armittalese robes and trousers were now as soiled and tattered as though she had played for makh in a porker’s favourite mud-pit, but to me she was still the most beautiful woman in the world. My happiness reached an absurd pitch. This woman had crossed the Fiefdoms for me. How many nights had I not dreamed of speaking with her again? Must I convince her of my love? A task most agreeable!
“Where did you get the bread?”
P’dáronï asked.
“Having stolen from your pouch, I bought bread and ale at Darrow,” I smiled. “With this breeze we must be at least a makh ahead of the Wurm.”
“I felt you enter me.”
“I did not!” I began hotly, and then blushed even more heatedly
than before. “Oh–you meant, by magic? Ay, truly told. You’re an enigma, a wonder, a–”
“And what did you learn?”
“I choose not to read minds, P’dáronï. Not without your consent.”
She inclined her head graciously. “Manners that once would once have endeared you in Eldoran, Arlak-
nih
. Now the
gyael-irfa
is spoiled and split. And Jyla daily adds to the number of those in her thrall.”
“By force?” I asked, half-hoping I was wrong
.
“
All Eldoran, and indeed, all of the Eldrik peoples, pass their days in mortal fear. Having lived all of their lives open to the racial mind, they are helpless to resist–and should they resist, Jyla has learned how to bring the full force of her sorcerous cabal against them through the
gyael-irfa
. Even
those Warlocks and Sorcerers who fall into her hands, like Amal, have been undone. Worse, she turns them to her side, as though all are coins of the same stamp. They speak alike, act alike, even
think
alike. We are lost as to how she achieves this.”
“Perfect harmony,” I muttered, tearing off a crust with my teeth and champing at it with all the strength in my jaw. “The ultimate
ambition of Lucanism. Then riddle me this: why come for me? Why did you and Amal brave the many leagues?”
“Because we felt you.
Every Eldrik felt you, Arlak-
nih
, from the lowest to the highest–like the thundering of Mata’s voice, ‘I am alive!’” She reached for my hand and took it between hers; gently stroking the path of my veins with her fingertips, as though through this gesture she sought to comprehend the very course of my life. So many nuances I had forgotten since leaving Eldoran! “You are a beacon, a Doublesun dawning,” she whispered. “To the Interrogators, you embody their worst fears. A rogue Eldrik Sorcerer of unimaginable potential. To Jyla, you are the fount of her power. To those opposed, led by Eliyan and Amal, you represent hope.”
“And to P’dáronï of Armittal?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
“
I am asking.” I clasped her fingers. “P’dáronï-
nishka
, I have to know.”
“Is that I crossed the Fiefdoms for you, not enough? That I
held Eliyan’s knee and begged until he let me go?” To me this picture was rather unlikely. I shifted upon my bench and pretended to adjust the sail. P’dáronï added, a trifle tartly for my taste, “And you can unbend that smirk from your lips, Arlak Sorlakson! Eliyan bade us–if we could not reach you–to see you killed.”
“Better a friend than an enemy
,” I chuckled, secretly riled at the capacity of this blind woman to deduce the expressions upon my face.
She
worked her hand free and laid it upon her lap, rubbing her fingers where I had gripped them. I wished I had taken more care with my augmented strength.
When she spoke, i
t was with a quiet gravity that sobered me at once. “I spoke the truth. Eliyan fears that should you return, it would be the end. The Sorceress would be irresistible; availing herself of all the power you have stored in the Wurm. Who could withstand her, then? Eliyan charged us to stop you … before that day.”
“But
… Amal …”
“She believes you can break the curse.
And Eliyan? He has lost faith, I fear.”
I pressed the tiller
with my elbow, sweeping us around another lazy bend of the Nugar River. Eliyan, First Councillor and Sorcerer, had always struck me as a river of mysterious depths. Now I knew that his stillness hid rapids, too; doubts, and decisions birthed in necessity. Oddly enough, I understood why he wanted to have me killed. I just did not understand why he demanded P’dáronï be the instrument of his will. Had she wanted to, she could have finished me a dozen times already. Yet she had withheld. What did this portend? Necessity, belief, or love?
Mata,
grant me strength!
“And P’
dáronï of Armittal?” I murmured, after a time. “What does
she
think?”
“You!
” she hissed. I flinched as though she had slapped me. “Do you have to make everything so difficult? The fate of an entire race hangs in the balance and El Shashi, he who walks with the Gods–he would prattle on and on about the feelings of a worthless slave from Armittal.”
“P’dáronï–”
“Stop saying my name, you impossible man!”
“Very well. Beloved of my quoph–”
“Nor that! I’ve a Warlock’s training, I warn you. I can carry out Eliyan’s orders in a heartbeat.”
My quoph
sang an old Roymerian drinking song I barely remembered: ‘
… like a torfly bit me in the neck, like a jerlak struck me to the deck! Must be love!’
But I balked at pressing her further. Instead, I gentled my voice in reason, “Then what should I call you, woman? I’ve a thousand names. Will you forbid them all?”
“Tend the tiller before you run us into the bank.”
I searched her face for clues. “We are in the middle of a flow a hundred paces wide if it’s a dyndigit, the rapids are three days sailing distant, and the Wurm is a league behind. Suthauk smiles upon us. And I don’t give a brass terl for Eliyan’s orders. You won’t kill me.”
P’dáronï
tilted her chin at me, a sharp little point of negation. “Oh? Why not?”
“Because the jerlak saved us.”
My answer rattled her; I read that from how her pulse leaped against the delicate arch of her neck. “And you believe some animals–”
“–carried us to the bank of the Nugar when we were no longer fit to walk.
” Perhaps she had expected me to declare my love once more; this course seemed fraught with danger for reasons beyond my grasp. Convicted by a sudden inspiration, however, I added, “Ay, P’dáronï-
nish
. There are greater forces at work in our lives than you or I imagine. Greater than that Wurm chasing us. Your job, and mine, is to find out why.”
P’dáronï
smiled thinly, and her measured reply maddened me. “A majority of Sorcerers would argue for a simpler solution. A swift end to doubt; an end to Jyla’s surpassing power.”
“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you!”
“Would you prefer that I lie?”
I made a
rude noise in my throat. “You remind me of nought so much as Jyla when you discuss death so coldly.”
P’dáronï squeezed her hands together until her knuckles turned white. “Truly told, you wield words as swords
, Arlak.”
My heart thumped up in my throat
as I stared at this superb, frustrating, inexplicable woman. I swallowed back my anger and said, “I should have you know that Jyla has not drawn upon the power of the Wurm in anna, P’dáronï. Who says removing me would destroy the Wurm? All you described of Jyla dominating the Eldrik through the
gyael-irfa
has been accomplished without the Wurm. I should know. I’m connected to the beast. If you believe Eliyan, I
am
the accursed beast.”
“
You’re a beast if you accuse me of being like that woman!”
She was fairly trembling. I sighed, “P’dáronï,
I apologise. Those were thoughtless words. I haven’t seen you these past twenty anna and we’re arguing, both to the same end. Why? I’m worn out and wounded, and I don’t know what to do but follow this fate to its Nethe-be-cursed end. I feel like some insect with instincts and no brain. But, before I give my life into your hands, I would beg one condition of you. One small thing. And then I will fight you no longer.”
P’dáronï sighed too, and her shoulders s
lumped. “Name your condition.”
At last I saw her
inner turmoil, the lack of conviction; her desire to carry out her sworn duty warring with what I hoped was love for me. Ay, how fervently I hoped! “Mark my words well and carefully, P’dáronï of Armittal,” I said. “Do you not think I have many times considered ending my life? When Eliyan bade me hide myself amongst the Fiefdoms, I became as one of the lost, wandering souls, those who roam the lands never finding their way to rest. I dwelled among the Faloxx. I ran from the Wurm. I ploughed the southern deserts. I lived there for a time and in many other places besides–a story with which I shall not trouble you now.”
“
As I told you, I became a monk. Father Yatak joked that I was the worst monk ever to disgrace the inside of Solburn Monastery’s walls. Not for me the life of contemplation, the solitude, the reflection of Mata’s presence in the peaceful, untroubled waters of my life. Always I had to be busy. To take a task in hand. Truly told, to try to forget what had been. But I never could. Twenty anna since I left Eldoran, and still I dream of no other but a woman with golden hair. Beneath the mud you are little changed in appearance, but what of the condition of your quoph, I wonder?”
Although she sat very still, I sensed that P’dáronï was listening with the entirety of her being.
“I thought when I rediscovered my family that I should forget you at last–as I had been unable to in the bustle of the Fiefdoms, in the dark of the desert nights, in the solitude of my monk’s cell, and in the scope of my labours as Benok Holyhand. In happiness, at last, should I not forget? Mata’s truth, P’dáronï, it served only as a whetstone to sharpen my memories. I have never been content.”
“
Thirty anna I lost my family. Twenty and more I lost you. What more could a man lose in this life, I wondered? What more could Mata wrest from his grasp?” The breeze had stilled, I noticed, as though Mata Herself were withholding Her breath from the world. “Today, you’ve taught me anew the meaning of despair.”
She made a soft sound, but otherwise
reminded me of a butterfly perched upon her bench, drinking in the golden sunshine until its wings should suffuse with life and flutter her away to pastures new. I groaned within. Would I ever know this woman? Be with her? Grow old with her? I looked to the river banks, to the smooth flow of the mighty Nugar, which flows from the Lyrn Mountains bordering Roymere to spill into the Gulf of Erbon, as if I should somewhere find answers to the pain devouring my quoph.
“P’dáronï
, I remember every detail of our anna together: that day we parted, you called me Arlak-
nevsê
. Did you mean to call me Arlak-my-soul? Did you mean what you wrote in the books you gave me? Truly told, much water has flowed down the rivers of our lives since. I can accept your feelings might have changed. I must accept.”
I stood carefully in the boat, and seated myself next to her. I noticed
she touched the tip of her tongue to her lips. “So, my condition is this. I will place my life in your hands
after
you kiss me.”
“Oh, Arlak
…”
“And n
ot upon the cheek as before,” I rushed on, lest I be utterly undone by the import of her gasp. “That is not acceptable. Also, not as though you are some worthless slave and I am the high, and yet the lowly, El Shashi; nor as two persons of peculiar power fleeing from a terrible fate toward another, perhaps even more horrific, future; nor even as Umarite and Armittalese; nor any other nonsense you care to invent to excuse yourself. I want a kiss as man and woman.”
She sat so still, I almost missed the only part of her that moved.
Her lips curved upward. “I thought this was a small thing.”
“Conditions to the condition,” said I. “
Would my name otherwise be Arlak? What say you?”
“I say
you’re a stubborn, demanding jatha in harness.”
“I promise not to bite.”
“Oh, so one simple kiss is supposed to nullify my resolve? You flatter yourself, Arlak Sorlakson.” I smiled at the tremor in her voice. She said, “But … what of the Wurm?”
“
I’m not proposing to kiss the Wurm, if that’s what you’re asking.”
P’dáronï giggled nervously. But,
after a long pause, she inclined her face toward mine. A fingertip touch upon my cheek assured her of where my mouth was. She tried to purse her lips for a kiss, but evidently found her body more disobedient than she expected. Her lower lip quivered. Suddenly she sucked in a deep breath, pressed forward, brushed my lips with hers, and jerked back with a tiny cry though she had been pricked by a thorn.