“Looking for you,” said Kta. “I thought you might understand a beacon fire, which drew me once to you. And you did see it, thank the gods. I planned to reach your ship and wait for you there, but I have not been able to find it. But gods, no one walks cross-country. You are mad.”
“It was a hard walk,” Kurt agreed. Kta smoothed his filthy hair aside, woman-tender, his fingers careful of burned skin, pouring water to cool his face.
“Your skin,” said Kta, “is cooked. Merciful spirits of heaven, look at you.”
Kurt rubbed at the stubble that protected his lower face, aware how bestial he must be in the eyes of the nemet, for the nemet had very little facial hair, very little elsewhere. He struggled to sit, and bending his legs made it feel like the sunburned skin of his knees would split. “Food,” he pleaded, and someone gave him a bit of cheese. He could not eat much of it, but he washed it down with a welcome swallow of telise from Kta’s flask.
Then it was as if the strength that was left poured out of him. He lay down again and the nemet made him as comfortable as they could with their cloaks, washed the ugly wound across his ribs with water and then-which made him cry aloud-with fiery telise.
“Forgive me, forgive me,” Kta murmured through the haze of his delirium. “My poor friend, it is done, it will mend.”
He slept then, conscious of nothing.
The camp began to stir again toward dawn, and Kurt wakened as one of the men added wood to the fire. Kta was already sitting up, watching him anxiously.
Kurt groaned and sat up, dragged himself to a cross-legged posture despite his knees. “A drink, please, Kta.”
Kta nodded to the boy Pan, who hastened to bring Kurt a waterskin and stas, which had been baked last night. It was cold, but with salt it went very well, washed down with telise. He ate it to the last, but dared not force the second one offered on his shrunken stomach.
“Are you feeling better?” asked Kta.
“I am all right,” he said. “You should not have come after me.”
And then a second, terrible thought hit him: “Or did Djan send you to bring me back?”
Kta’s face went thin-lipped, a killing anger that turned Kurt cold. “No,” he said. “I am outlawed. The Methi has killed my father and mother.”
“No.” Kurt shook his head furiously, as if that could unsay the truth of it. “Oh, no, Kta.” But it was true. The nemet’s face was calm and terrible. “/ caused it,” Kurt said. “/ caused it.”
“She killed them,” said Kta, “as she killed Mim. We know Mim’s tale from Djan-methi’s own lips, spoken to my father. My people will not live without honor, and so my parents died. My father confronted the Methi in the Upei for Mim’s death and for the Methi’s other crimes, and she cast him from the Upei, which was her right. My father and my mother chose death, which was their right. And Hef with them. He would not let them go unattended into the shadows.”
“Aimu?” Kurt asked, dreading to know.
“I gave her to Bel as his wife. What else could I do, what other hope for her? Elas is no more in Nephane. Its fire is extinguished. I am in exile. I will not serve the Methi any longer, but I live to honor my father and my mother and Hef and Mim. They are my charges now. I am all that is left, now that Aimu can no longer invoke the Guardians of Elas.”
Kta’s lips trembled. Kurt ached for him no less than for his family, for it was unbecoming for a man of the Indras to shed tears. It would shame him terribly to break.
“If,” said Kurt, “you want to discharge your debt to me you have discharged it. I can live in this green land if you only give me weapons and food and water. Kta, I would not blame you if you never wanted to look at me again; I would not blame you if you killed me.”