I opened my eyes. It was dim in the room. Shades were pulled over the windows. I tried to get up, but just getting to a sitting position took the wind out of me. “Hello?” I called.
The door flew open and Mamma ran in. “Clint? Oh, thank the Lord, Clint, you’re awake! How do you feel, boy?”
“Like I’ve been pulled through a knothole and wrung out. And like I could eat a bear whole, without salt.”
Tears glinted in her eyes. “Well, I’m sure we can find something to eat for you! Just stay there and take it easy and I’ll be right back!”
“Jodi, Mamma! What about Jodi?”
Mamma hesitated. “She hasn’t woken up yet, Clint, but now that you’ve come back to us I’m sure she’ll be up and about in no time.”
“But she’s alive?” I felt a huge weight lift off my chest.
“She is indeed alive, Clinton Slade.” Rokhaset entered the room. “Did I not give my word that we would get you home and that we had Jodi as well?”
“Yeah, and I didn’t doubt you meant it . . . but sometimes the world can make liars of the best of us.” Mamma, seeing that I had someone to talk to, headed on out, presumably to round up some food.
It suddenly dawned on me that I was not wearing any transducers. I glanced around and saw speakers on the bedside table. Obviously someone had decided to distribute the ability to talk to the Nome King around the house. Probably Adam, I guessed.
“She is recovering, I assure you. Though it was indeed a near thing for you both. It took the medicine of both worlds to bring you back from the edge of death.”
“So you were the one making me drink that stuff.”
“You needed the Nowë H’wadalo, the True Fire of Her spirit, and the elixir gave it to you. Mishtarkistekh’ orametanerala intended for both Jodi Goldman and yourself to never return from the paths below the Earth, and tried to extinguish the fire of life within you. Had you been of our people, you would have died on the spot; had you been ordinary Tennathada, I doubt it would have affected you any more than an ordinary blow. But by being brought closer to Nowë by the H’adamant elixir, you were in a unique state and his attempt to destroy you neither entirely failed nor entirely succeeded.”
“Dang. Slades don’t usually do anything halfway. Well, better half dead than all dead, that’s what I say.”
“That would be my assessment as well.”
“So . . . no big quakes then?”
Rokhaset nodded slowly. “For now, no. Yet it is true that the Lisharithada shall recover in time, and the Earth still builds its tensions which will need careful release if they are not to harness its strength for destruction. But that will be a problem for a later day. Your deeds this time have struck fear and confusion into them, and there is no need to worry; I shall know when they begin to think of the great rituals again.”
Mamma came in with a tray piled with everything from soup to drumsticks. “Now that’s enough jawing, Rokhaset. Let my boy eat.”
I ate, as directed; by the time I was done, my eyelids were sagging again. I don’t really remember putting the tray down.
* * *
When I woke again, it was nighttime, the moon shining through the slits in the window and lighting the room up so it looked almost like daylight. I tried to move and found I could get up, though I felt like Grandpa on a bad day. I tottered across the room and almost fell over Evangeline, who steadied me. “Careful, Clint. Nice to see you up, though. You wanna see Jodi, I bet.”
“You’d win that bet.”
“Well, c’mon. Mamma would probably try to keep you in bed, but that wouldn’t be fair.”
Evangeline led me down the hall—which seemed ’round about five times longer than usual—and opened the door to Jodi’s room.
Jodi’s eyes were open, and I felt tears suddenly well up in my own. I staggered to her bed and hugged her tight. “Jesus, Jodi, I thought we were dead.”