Shakes her head—“Not those, none of those. My friends—they have gone to fight a wizard, and there is no fighting him. I know this, I know this!” Trembling in the body now, brown eyes full of tears, but none fall. “He cannot be killed—I know!”
There, old nothing? Is that it, what you want? Man-shape chuckles, much hand-patting, says, “Take heart, my dear, there never was a wizard who could not die. All the stories about bargains with Uncle Death, about elixirs, hearts hidden in golden caskets or hollow trees or the moon—all stories, child, and you may believe me.” And a comfort to me, as much as the girl—an immortal magician, the thought of it, the injustice. Old nothing would never permit, surely.
But she is not comforted, never even lets me finish, but pulls her arm away, crying, “No, no—I told them, I did tell them, but they would not understand. He cannot be killed!” Staring at me, pale face pleading, wanting so much for nice white mustache to understand. Me? Oh, I look up, down, away toward the highway, away toward the inn. Well-pump squealing, a few drunken drovers singing, no one in sight. But something watches. I know what I know.
Her voice, low, quiet, but tearing too, like the sky. “I was dead once. I drowned in a river. Lal found me.” Every night, the same whisper into bedtime fox’s fur, telling herself the same story again, maybe this time it comes out differently? She says, “Lal promises me and promises me that I am alive now. But all I understand is death.” No Uncle Death—always supposed to call him “Uncle Death,“ even foxes. Lukassa says, ”Everything I knew before the river has been taken from me. In that emptiness, death sits and talks to me and tells me things. Lal and Nyateneri cannot ever defeat Arshadin, cannot ever kill him. He is just like me—there is no one to kill.”
“Ah,” sighs old nothing, a long, long breath across all my lives. “Ah.” Very good for old nothing, but man-shape still has to make words. Man-shape pulls mustache, rumples side-whiskers, rounds kindly blue eyes. “Well, child, if your friends have gone off to do battle with a dead wizard, the worst that can happen to them will be a long walk back. Dead is dead, whoever you are, and you may believe me.”
But now she is the one looking away, not hearing at all. Turn, quickly, and there he is, stumping along, big pale hands shut tight, big bald head down, dirty apron slipping off his waist—who but fat innkeeper himself? Lukassa’s hand slides through man-shape’s hand like snow. Not another word, not a glance, straight past innkeeper, proud as princesses she has never seen, walking back to her invisible cage. And in me, of me, old nothing: “Ah.” All slow and dozy again, got whatever it wanted, time to sleep now—good, let it sleep, sleep, turn, grumble, sleep more, stop playing with fingers and toes. Time to leave poor foxes alone for a while.
Innkeeper looks after Lukassa, rubs his head, slow look at man-shape. Oh, too much not to laugh, too much to ask! Quick-quick, squeeze it into rumbly old chuckle, a greeting to fat fool who tumbles his own house upside down, every room to pieces, every guest out of bed, all for such a few, few pigeons. Always stares at man-shape, never speaks, never serves. Imagine if I tell him, “Hello, new foxhound is no good, waste of money. More birds in soon?” Instead a deep bow, one gentleman to another, a smile, a compliment on beautiful evenings always served at his inn. Man-shape will say anything.
Grunt. “None of my doing.” Grunt. “You see my stable boy anywhere?” In the stable, surely? Grunt. “Looked there.” Rubs head again, yanks off dangling apron. “Bloody boy, never where he’s supposed to be these days.” Not angry, not quite sad—not quite anything, only tired. Interesting.
“Ah, well,” says man-shape, “on a night like this, it would be a shame if your boy isn’t out singing foolish songs under some little girl’s window. Don’t be hard on him when he returns, mine host—leave him the one bit of his childhood, yes?”
Not listening at all—nobody listens to Grandfather man-shape lately—but the last words, ah, those catch him. Scowls heavily, angry enough now. “What do you know about it? What do you know about it, heh? The idiot brat wouldn’t have had a bloody childhood, if not for me. Worst day’s work I ever did in my life, but I did it, what else should I have done, heh? No bloody choice.” White, lumpy face redder and redder, even through the dusk, little pale eyes squinting and burning. “What does anybody know of it? And what did I ever get out of it but aggravation and a bellyache and”—stops himself then, hard to do, skids along just a bit further—“and plain bloody inconvenience? Heh?”
My. Even man-shape looks around for answers, not that mine host bothers to wait. Another scowl, another nice grunt, and away back toward the inn, bawling for stable boy. “Rosseth! Rosseth, damn your miserable skin, Rosseth!” How pretty, evening song of one fat innkeeper, leave man-shape to listen. Something tasty rustles beside pathway, hurrying home. Never gets there.
LAL
I never sensed him behind me, not once, but the Mildasi horse did. As long as those shaggy black ears stayed back and those scarlet nostrils kept flaring and rumbling, I kept moving upriver in the dying light.
The trap we were laying was so childishly obvious that we could only count on our pursuer’s dismissing it out of hand as a blind to cover our true deadfall. We had expected him to track me some distance, against the off chance that I really might double back to ambush him. But it would seem far more likely—or so we hoped—that I might be trying to lure him away from Nyateneri, and he could never afford the greater risk of his quarry actually escaping on some lashed-together heap of floating debris. He would turn back before I dared and reach Nyateneri well before me. Exactly how well was my responsibility.
When the black’s behavior finally told me that we were no longer being trailed, it was past sunset and I had lost sight of the Susathi. I had held to its course as closely as I could, but the further I traveled, the more impassable the bank became for a rider, and I was forced steadily away into brambles and sword-grass, and so into the trees. I could not even smell the river now.
I dismounted, unsaddled and unburdened the horses, and loaded myself with whatever would not slow me. Then I took the beasts’ heads between my hands, each in turn, saying certain words, and told them that they were free to follow me back down the river or not, as they chose, and that the Mildasi black would be their leader and bring them safely to kindness and good grazing. My friend taught me always to do this when forced to abandon horses. What use it may be to them, I cannot say, but I have always done it, just so.
Hard going it was at first in the wild old tree-dark, on a path that only my three horses had trodden before me. There were mossy roots to stumble over, thorny creepers to snatch at my legs, and a sickly weight in the air that sometimes forced me to stand still for too long, my heart pounding absurdly and my mind unfamiliar. In those moments, nothing would stay in focus, not even Nyateneri’s peril, which became infinitely less real than the dimmest of my old dreams. I did not then know what was happening to me, and that frightened me as nothing waiting in the woods or on the river shore could ever have done. Madness is my enemy, not wizards or assassins.
I lost the path twice, and nearly my swordcane as well—a vine twitched it neatly out of my belt, leaving me to scrabble wildly through brush and leaf-mold in the dark—but I did find my way back to the Susathi at last. No moon yet, but better than the moon is the long summer twilight of the north that turns clouds to a pale gold-violet that exists nowhere else, and riverbank reeds to glowing shadows. Compared to the woods, it was brightest noon, and I slung my boots around my neck and settled down to running with great relief.