Fires of Azeroth (27 page)

"Sit down," Nthien said then to Vanye, indicating the bench where he had set his vessels and instruments. There was no cautery at all. Nthien's gentle hands prepared each wound with numbing salve; some he must open, and he kept the
arrhendim
coming and going with instruments to be washed, but there was little pain. Vanye simply shut his eyes and relaxed after a number of the worst were done, trusting the
qhal's
skill and kindness. The numbness preceeded from the most painful to the least of his hurts, and afterward there was no bleeding; clean bandages protected them.

Then Nthien examined the knee . . . called in Arrhel, to Vanye's consternation, who laid her wrinkled hands on the joint and felt it flexing. "Leave the splint off," she said, then touched her hand to his brow, pressed his face between her hands, making him look at her. Regal she was in her aged grace, and her gray eyes were surpassing kind. "You are fevered, child."

He almost laughed in surprise, that she could call him child; but
qhal
lived long, and when he looked into those aged eyes, so full of peace, he thought that perhaps most Men to her years were children. She left them, and Roh gathered himself up off the mat, staring after her with a strangely disturbed expression.

His kind,
Vanye thought, and his skin prickled at the thought.
Liell's kind . . . the Old Ones.
He was suddenly frightened for Roh, and wanted him quickly out of this place.

"We are done," said Nthien. "Here. We have found you both clean clothing."

The
khemi
offered it to them . . . soft, sturdy clothing such as the
arrhendim
wore, green and brown and gray, with boots and belts of good workmanship. They dressed, and the clean cloth next the skin was itself a healing thing, restoring pride.

Then the
arrhendim
held back the curtain and showed them again into Arrhel's presence.

Arrhel was standing at the tripod table which had not been there before. She stirred a cup, which she brought then and offered Vanye. "For the fever. It is bitter, but it will help." She gave him a small leather pouch. "Here is more of it. Once daily as long as the fever lasts, drink this steeped in water, as much as covers the center of your palm. And you must sleep much and ride not at all, nor wear armor on those wounds; and you must have wholesome food and a great deal of it. But it seems that this is not in anyone's plans. The supply is for your journey."

"Journey, lady?"

"Drink the cup."

He did so; it was bitter as promised, and he grimaced as he gave it back to her, uneasy at heart. "A journey to or from where I asked lord Merir to go?"

"He will tell you. I fear I do not know. Perhaps it depends on what you say to him." She took his hand in hers, and her flesh was soft and warm, an old woman's. Her gray eyes looked into him, so that he could not look away.

Then she let him go and turned, sat down in her chair. She set the cup on the tripod table beside her, and looked at Roh. "Come," she said; and he came, knelt when with her open hand she indicated a place before her-hall-lord though he was, he did so-and she leaned forward and took his face between her hands, gazing into his eyes. Long and long she stared, and Roh shut his eyes finally rather than bear that longer.

Then she touched her lips to his brow, and yet did not let him go. "For you," she whispered, "I have no cup to drink. There is no healing that my hands can work. I would that I could."

Her hands fell. Roh thrust himself away and to his feet and came against the warning hand of the
khemeis
who kept the door, stopped cold.

Vanye cast a look back at Arrhel, remembered courtesy and bowed; but when the lady then dismissed them, he made haste to take Roh from that place. Roh did not look back or speak, not then nor for a long time after, when they were settled again in their own tent.

Merir sent for them in the afternoon, and they went, escorted by the same several
arrhendim.
The old lord was wrapped in his feather-cloak, and bore the circlet of gold about his brow; armed Men and
qhal
were about him.

Roh bowed to Merir and sat down on the mat; Vanye knelt and performed the full obeisance, and settled as much as he could off his injured leg. Merir's face was grave and stern, and for a long time he was content only to stare at them.

"Khemeis
Vanye," Merir said at last, "your cousin much troubles what little peace I have found in my mind. What will you that I do with him?"

"Let him go where I go."

"So Arrhel has told you that you are leaving."

"But not where, lord."

Merir frowned and leaned back, folding his hands before him. "Much evil has your lady loosed on this land. Much harm. And more is to come. I cannot wish this away. The wishes of all the folk of Shathan cannot turn this away. Even yet I fear you have not told me all that you know ... yet I must heed you." His eyes flicked to Roh and back again. "The ally that you insist to take: would your lady approve him?"

"I have told you how we came to be allies."

"Yes. And yet I think she would warn you. So do I. Arrhel vows she will not sleep soundly for days for his sake, and she warns you. But you will not listen."

"Roh will keep his word to me."

"Will he? Perhaps. Perhaps you know best of all. See that it is so,
khemeis
Vanye. We will go to find your lady Morgaine, and you will go with us ... So will he, since you insist; I will reserve my judgment. I have misgivings-for many things in this-but go we shall. Your weapons, your belongings, all are yours again. Your freedom, your cousin's. Only yon must return me assurance that you will ride under my authority and obey my word as law."

"I cannot," Vanye said hoarsely, and turned his scarred palm toward Merir. "This means that I am my lady's servant, no one else's. But I will obey you while obeying you serves her; I beg you take that for enough."

"That is enough."

He pressed his brow to the mat in gratitude, only then daring believe they were free.

"Make ready," Merir said. "We leave very shortly, late in the day as it is. Your belongings will be returned to you."

Such haste was what he himself desired; it was more in an respects than he had dared hope of the old lord . . . and for an instant suspicion plucked at him; but he bowed again and rose, and Roh stood with him to pay his respect.

They were let out, unguarded, the
arrhendim
withdrawn.

And in their tent they found all that they owned given back to them, as Merir had said, weapons and armor, well-cleaned and oiled. Roh gathered his bow into his hand like a man welcoming an old friend.

"Roh," Vanye said, suddenly apprehensive at the dark look.

Roh glanced up. For an instant the stranger was there, cold and menacing, for all the affront the lord Merir had offered him.

Then Roh slowly shed that anger, as if he willed it so, and laid the bow down on the furs. "Let us leave off wearing the armor, at least until the next day on the trail. There is no need to bear that weight on our aching shoulders, and doubtless we are not immediately in range of our enemies."

"Roh, deal well with me and I will deal so with you."

Roh gave him a hard look. "Worried, are you? Abomination. Abomination I am to them. How kind of you to speak for me."

"Roh-"

"Did you not tell them about
her,
about your
half-qhal
liege? What else is she? Not pure
qhal.
Nor human. Doubtless she has done what I have done, no higher nor nobler. And I think you have always known it."

Almost he struck . . . held his hand, trembling with the effort; there were the
arrhendim
outside, their freedom at hazard. "Quiet," he hissed. "Be quiet."

"I have said nothing. There is much that I could say, and I have not, and you know it. I have not betrayed her."

It was truth. He stared at Roh's distraught face and reckoned that it was no more and no less than Roh believed. And Roh had not betrayed them.

"I know it," he said. "I will repay that, Roh."

"But you are not free to say so, are you? You forget what you are."

"My word is worth something . . . among them, and with her."

Roh's face tautened as if he had been struck. "Ah, you do grow proud,
ilin,
to think that. And you trade words with
qhal-
lords in their own language, and dispose of me how you will."

"You are lord of my mother's clan. I do not forget that. I do not forget that you offered me shelter, in a time when others of my kin would not."

"Ah, is it 'cousin,' now?"

There was no appeal to that hardness. It had been there since Arrhel gazed at him. Vanye turned his face from it. "I will do what I said, Roh. See you do the same. If you ask apology as my clan-lord, that I will give; if as my kinsman, that will I give; if it galls you that
qhal
speak civilly to me and not to you . . . that involves another side of you that I have no reason to love; with
him
there is no dealing, and I will not."

Roh said nothing. Quietly they packed their belongings into what would be easy to carry on the saddles. They put on only their weapons.

"I will do what I said," Roh offered finally.

It was Roh again. Vanye inclined his head in the respect he had withheld.

In not a long time,
khemi
came to summon them.

Chapter Thirteen

The company was forming up outside Merir's tent... six
arrhendim,
all told: two younger; two older, the
khemeis's
hair almost as white as his
arrhend,
with faces well-weathered by time; and an older pair of
arrhendim,
women of the
arrhend
... not quite as old, for the
khemeis
of that pair had hair equally streaked with silver and dark, while her
arrhend,
like all
qhal,
aged yet more slowly and had the look of thirty human years.

Horses had been readied for the two of them, and Vanye was well-pleased with them: a bay gelding for him and a sorrel for Roh, both deep-chested and strong, for all their gracefulness. Even the herds of Morija would have been proud of such as these.

They did not mount up; one horse remained riderless, a white mare of surpassing beauty, and the party waited. Vanye heaved his gear up to his saddle and bound it there, found also a waterflask and saddlebags and a good gray blanket, such things as he would have asked had he dared press at their charity. A
khemeis
from the crowd came offering them cloaks, one for him and one for Roh. They put them on gratefully, for the day was cool for their light clothing.

And when all that was done, they still waited. Vanye stood scratching the bay's chin and calming his restiveness. He felt himself almost whole again, whether by Arrhel's draught or by the touch of a horse under his hands and his weapons by him . . . fretting to be underway, to be beyond intervention or recall, lest some circumstance change Merir's mind.

One of the
khemi
brought a chain of flowers, and bound it in the mane of the white horse; and came others, bringing such flower chains for each of the departing
arrhendim.

But it was Ellur who brought a white one for Roh's horse, and Sin came bearing a chain of bright blue. The boy reached high to bind it into the black mane, so that they swung there like a chain of tiny bells. And then Sin looked up at him.

Premonition came on him that he was looking on the boy for the last time, that there would be-one way or another- no return for him from this ride. Sin seemed to believe it too this time. Tears brimmed in his eyes, but he held them; he had been through Shathan: he was no longer the boy in Merrind.

"I have no parting-gift," Vanye said, searching his memory for something left that he owned but his weapons; and never had he felt his poverty as much as in that moment, that he had nothing left to spare. "Among our people we give something when we know the parting will be long."

"I made this for you," said Sin, and drew forth from his shirt a carving of a horse's head. It was made of wood, small, of surpassing skill, as there were so many talents in Sin's hands. Vanye took it, and thrust it within his collar. Then in desperation he cut a ring from his belt, plain steel and blue-black; it had once held spare leather, but he had none of that left either. He pressed it into Sin's hand and closed his brown fingers over it. "It is a plain thing, the only thing I have to give that I brought from home, from Morija of Andur-Kursh. Do not curse my memory when you are grown, Sin. My name was Nhi Vanye i Chya; and if ever I do you harm, it is not from wanting it. May there always be
arrhendim
in Shathan, and Mirrindim too. And when you are
arrhendim
yourselves, you and Ellur, see that it is so."