For a moment she eyed me appraisingly. “It is well,” she commented. “The poison no longer fills you. Now, eat, and so grow strong, for danger stalks this land, with net and spear, to take you.”
Her net bag she put down and opened to show small leaf-wrapped parcels in it. Hunger—yes, I was hungry—with the hunger that follows involuntary fasting. I glanced at the parcels and knew I would not question flavor, nor source, that only the substance interested me.
There were small slivers of white meat, moist, and I believe, raw. Over these she scattered a flour-like dust from another packet. I ate eagerly, and found it good, where I had been prepared to overcome repugnance because of my need. There were four or five things which might have been roots, peeled and scraped, which had a sharp flavor, a little biting to the tongue. When I had finished, Orsya folded away the net.
“We must talk, man from over-mountain. As I have said, you are not free from danger—but very far from safety. At least, beyond these walls you are. The Valley is far from here. Also, those who rode with you believe you dead.”
“How did I get to that island?”
She had brought out a comb and drew it through her cloud of hair, smoothing and parting those filmy locks with a kind of unconscious sensual pleasure.
“Oboro was sent to take you, or one of you. The People—the Krogan as you earth walkers call us—are very frightened; and fear has made them angry against those they believe have brought them danger. No longer may it be in this land to answer no war horn except one’s own. You and Ethutur came to Orias and asked for our aid. But other, and greater, lords had come before you. After you were gone they sent such messengers as we did not dare to deny hearing.
“We want none of your wars; do you understand? None!” Her mind touch was a ringing shout in my brain. “Leave us to our lakes and pools, our rivers and streams. Leave us in peace!”
“Yet Oboro caught me—”
For a moment she did not answer, but busied herself ridding one long strand of hair of a tangle, as if that was the weightiest act in all the world. But I guessed that she hid behind her comb and combing as one might cower for refuge under the spreading limbs of a welcoming tree.
“You called upon water to war with the Thas—loosed one of the ancient weapons the Krogan once built for a lord long since dead. Now the Thas, and those who sent them, cry out upon my people, saying that in truth we have secretly allied ourselves to you. Those sent among us to see we do not do such a thing, they will take toll—”
“But why was I captured?”
“You are one of those who began the troubling, one who helped to loose the flood. You were wounded and so easy to capture,” she replied frankly.
Suddenly I discovered that I was watching the rise and fall of that comb in her hair with a serious attention which woke an uneasiness in me. Reluctantly, and that reluctance alarmed me even more, I looked away from her, fixing my eyes on the dome wall above her head.
“So Oboro thought me easy prey—”
“Orias ordered that one of you be taken, if it were possible. He might use such a prisoner as a peace-offering to those. And mayhap, if he drove a good bargain, free us from their notice.”
“But if it meant so much to your people, why did you rescue me?”
Her comb was still now. “Because what Orias ordered would bring trouble also. Perhaps worse trouble in the end. Is it not the truth, that you spoke and one of the Great Ones answered?”
“How—how did you know that?”
“Because we are who we are, man from over-mountain. Once, very long and long ago, we had ancestors who were of your breed. But those chose to walk another road, and from that walking, little by little, were we born. But powers shaped us, and once we answered to their pull and sway. So when one of the Great Ones stirs, then all like unto us in this land know it. And if you are one who will be answered, then you might loose upon us worse than those can summon in their turn.”
“But Orias did not think so?”
“Orias believes what he was told—that only by chance did you hit upon some spell which moved a long closed gate. His informer also said better give you unto those who can force you to put such a key into their hands.”
“No!”
“So say I also, man from over-mountain.”
“My name is Kemoc.”
For the first time I saw her smile. “Kemoc, then. No, if you have such a spell, I would rather have it serve those you company with in the Valley, than others. Thus did I come to take you from the island.”
“And this?” I looked about me.
“This is a winter dwelling for the aspt. Since they are of the rivers, so are they biddable when we approach them properly. But time passes and powers walk. I do not think it will be much longer that you dare an overland trip to the Valley. It is whispered that the Shadow forces will soon have that under siege.”
I rapped my hand against the stone-hard covering of my wound. “How long must I be tied here?”
Again she smiled and put away her comb. “For no longer than is needed to chip you free, Kemoc.”
Chip she did, hammering with stone and the point of her knife. I thought that what she had plastered on me and left to dry must be the same healing mud as had brought my brother back from the edge of death. For when the last shards fell away there was no wound, but a half-healed scar seam, and I could move the limb with ease.
She took me out through the underwater tunnel and we sheltered warily in a thicket of reed growth, rooted where the water swirled. It was early morning and a mist clung to the surface of the river. Orsya sniffed, drawing deep breaths into her lungs and expelling them slowly, as if in that way she tested for some message which eluded me.
“The day will be fair,” she announced. “That is good—clouds favor the Shadow; sun is the enemy to those.”
“Which way do I go?”
She shook her head at me. “Way we go, Kemoc. To let you blunder helplessly in this land is to pick a possel from its shell and throw it to a vuffle. We go by water.”
Go by water we did, first swimming with the current of the river, and then against the push of ripples in a smaller side stream to the south. Although the land seemed open and smiling under the sun, yet I paid close attention to all Orsya’s directions. We lay in a reed bank once—she underwater, I with a hollow reed in my mouth for air—while a small pack of Gray Ones lapped water and growled to one another within arm’s touching of our hiding place.
It was irking to my guide that I could not take wholly to the water as she was able, but needed air for my laboring lungs. I am sure she could have made that journey in a third less time than we took. At night we sheltered again in another river dweller’s abandoned burrow, one not finished with the skill of the aspt dwelling, merely a hole cut in the bank.
There she spoke of her people and their like. I learned that she was the first daughter of Orias’ elder sister, so by their way of ranking kinship, thought closer to him than his own children. She was more adventurous than most of her generation, having slipped away from her home on numerous occasions to explore waterways where only a few, if any, of the males had ever ventured. She hinted of strange finds in the mountains, and then said impatiently that with the coming of war such searching must be abandoned. Mention of the war silenced her and she curled into sleep.
It was midmorning before the stream we had followed dwindled to a size so we could no longer swim. Then she motioned to the heights ahead and said:
“Guide your way by that peak, Kemoc. If you take care and make haste, you will reach your Valley by sundown. I can abide for short periods of time in the open air, but not for long. Thus, this is our parting place.”
I tried to thank her. But what are adequate thanks for one’s life? She smiled again and waved. Then she splashed back into the water and was gone before I could finish what I was stumbling over to say.