Yes, Zanja could easily read this glyph. She dropped to her knees beside the incinerated box. Of course Karis could not imagine herself free from Mabin’s control and Nonna’s expectations if she could not also imagine herself free of smoke. Nearly a month of battling back the smoke must have given her an insane hope that she might be able to defeat it for good. That was the doorway she had decided to enter, the doorway where certain death lurked.

And then Norina was shouting at her: “What have you done! What did you do to her!” And it did not even occur to Zanja until too late that she had to defend herself, and Norina’s heavy boot slammed into her side–once, twice, a third time–before Zanja had managed to catch Norina’s foot and take her down. And then they were rolling, their blades of folded steel ringing like bells, a sweet, terrible sound. But no matter where Karis was, at the very moment that Zanja’s blade cut into Norina’s flesh, Karis would know.

Zanja flung her dagger away and blocked with her forearm a stroke that could have killed her, and felt the dagger slice through cloth and flesh and all the way to bone. She brought her knee up reflexively into Norina’s crotch and heard her shout, and then she was rolling away and rising to her feet, but Norina’s heavy boot cracked into her knee and Zanja heard, rather than felt, the bone shatter like pottery. Then Emil took Norina from behind and the fight seemed to be over. And then the pain came.

“Hold still,” J’han said, his voice deadly calm.

“Gods burn her to ashes–”

“Zanja, hold still. Your ribs might be broken and you could be killed yet.”

Zanja had seen the kind of death that came when a rib pierced a lung, and she held herself still, or as still as she could. A very bad time followed. There was much frantic activity around her, and sometimes J’han’s voice penetrated the haze of pain, always calm, measured, talking steadily to her or to someone else: “I know it’s bad, Zanja, but there’s no time to brew a potion. Just keep breathing–you know how to keep the pain from taking control of you–Now, sir, give me the bandages, and that grayish bottle–yes, that one. Put more pressure on her arm; it’s starting to leak again …” He faded out, and when he came back he was working with needle and thread like a seamster–nice of him to mend Zanja’s shirt–except that it was her arm he was mending–and she couldn’t take a deep breath for some reason. “You’re awake again?” he said. “Almost done now. Amazing how easy it is to do this kind of damage and how much work it takes to fix. You can’t breathe very well because I’ve got your ribs bound, but they’re just cracked.”

“What happened to my leg?” she croaked. Her entire leg seemed to be immobilized with a splint of some kind, but the pain was dazzling and nauseating.

“It’s not good at all–sir, can you cut that?–Your kneecap’s shattered so badly I don’t know if it can mend. At the very least it’ll be a long time before you can move about at all, even on crutches. I’ve got it in a splint, but–”

Zanja shut her eyes to understand him better, but the information seemed beyond comprehension. All she could think of was Karis, incinerating her entire smoke supply and walking away. How long would it take for her to die? Would Zanja feel it, when Karis died?

“What happened to Norina?” she asked.

“She went away,” J’han said distractedly.

Zanja glanced sideways and saw Emil, holding Zanja’s arm still so that J’han could work on it, watching J’han’s work with professional interest. There was blood everywhere. Feeling Zanja’s attention, Emil raised an eyebrow and said mildly, “Now that was the dirtiest fight I’ve seen outside of a tavern. Too bad you were at the receiving end.”

Zanja gasped, “I’d hurt Karis if I hurt Norina.”

“Unfortunately, Norina had no such compunctions. But this is an amazingly clean wound.”

J’han said, “With the right blow, a blade like that could kill you before you knew you were hurt. I wish my surgeon’s knives were that sharp.”

“Where’s Medric?” Zanja said.

“Now you’re starting to think,” Emil said. “Karis seems to have convinced Medric to keep his mouth shut. He’s refused to help look for Karis, as have the Lake People refused. It’s been just me and Annis, chasing around the countryside like a couple of wastrels. I even tried your trick with the directional glyphs, but it doesn’t work for me.”

“Hold still!” J’han said.

“Gods’ curses on that madwoman,” Zanja gasped as a fresh wave of pain washed through her. “I’m the only one who can find her!”

“You’ll have to accept that you’re not going anywhere,” J’han said.

Annis brought over a steaming bowl of dark, stinking fluid and held it out for J’han’s inspection. He dipped in a fingertip and tasted it, and made a face. “Practically undrinkable. That’s about right.”

“No one’s been able to find Medric either,” Annis said. “He’s around, but no matter where you are, he’s just left moments before.”

Medric said at the doorway of the cave, “I’m here now. Good gods.” He looked around the blood‑smeared cave.

“You didn’t dream this part?” Emil said bitterly.

Pale, red‑eyed with sleeplessness or sorrow, Medric dropped to one knee beside Zanja. “Karis promised to make it possible to find her. She said she’d go west along the canyon rim as far as she could go in five days travel, and then she’d hole up in some hollow place where she could see the sky. She asked me to beg your pardon, Zanja, for deceiving you, but she had to fight this battle alone.”

“She brought enough smoke to last until today?”

“Yes.”

“All three of you must go find her, then. If she can be saved–”

J’han said, with that terrible honesty that was sometimes the only gift a healer could give, “Zanja, there is no hope of that. Even if we can find her before she dies, the only thing that could save her is smoke, and we have none.“

Emil said in a low voice, “Mabin has some.”

There was silence. Zanja said, “Karis would rather die.” She made the mistake of moving, and for some time she could do nothing but breathe and struggle to stay conscious. When J’han put the bowl to her mouth she drank just a swallow of the bitter pain killer. “J’han, Karis is vested with the power of Shaftal,” she said.

He sat back sharply, nearly spilling the bowl of potion. “What!”

“Go with them to find her. If she is dying, at least she should die with dignity.”

“Annis can take care of Zanja,” Emil said.

Annis grumbled because her long recess with the Otter People had come to an end, but she did not refuse her old commander’s will. They settled Zanja onto the pallet with the potion beside her, and within the time it would have taken ten drops of water to fall from the water clock, they were gone.

Zanja took one more swallow of the bitter potion, and told Annis to leave her alone. After that came a merciful darkness and stillness.

As she slept, Zanja dreamed that she was an owl, flying across the face of the earth, with the river flowing to her right, black as blood, and rocks below, like scattered bones. At last, she found Karis, a broken and twisted body in a grassy hollow where sharp stones broke through the earth like teeth. Her body was cold; no breath passed her lips. Emil, Medric, J’han, and Norina knelt in a circle around her, digging with their bare hands to cover her with earth. Norina was weeping, racked with a grief made all the more terrible by the bitter strength her sorrow had overcome.

Zanja must have cried something in her sleep, for she opened her eyes to find Annis beside her, with a cool hand upon her burning forehead. Zanja’s throat felt scoured raw, and her voice came out a whisper. “They will find her too late. Is there any word?”

“Zanja, it’s much too soon.”

“But someone is here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I feel it.”