I turned away, my eyes burning. So it had been for me. So it would never be again. I crept away, ashamed, piteous, angry, needing to stand for a long time at the edge of the grove before I could return to the wagon. In time, Leelson returned, his face empty, as though he had purposefully decided not to think of anything. Later Lutha came back. There were still tears in her eyes. So. Passion and pain. Attraction and anger. Two who would not, but must.
When we went to our beds, Trompe propped himself near the slightly open door, saying the night air (and the Kachis, no doubt) would keep him awake while he kept watch on Leely. He was there when I fell asleep. He was there when I woke the following morning, his head lolling on his chest, breathing heavily.
It was barely light. I slipped out past him and went to the panel that had been loose the day before. It was loose again. Even as I stood there I saw Leely coming from among the stones at the canyon’s mouth, skipping like a little gauf, arms extended, hands waving, a portrait of perfect contentment. I pulled the panels apart to let him in, and he looked at me as he went past. I have seen that look in the eyes of birds, or lizards. A kind of fearless wariness. A look that says, “I know you could get me—kill me, eat me—but at this moment you are not a danger.”
His arms were marked as they had been the morning before, as was his forehead, a dozen small, slightly reddened spots that were already fading. He gave me that lizard look again, then went into the wagon silently, he who was rarely silent! I stood listening, but there was no outcry from within. He had sneaked out; he had sneaked back. Considering how everyone felt at the moment, perhaps it was best that I keep Leely’s excursion to myself. If I said anything about it, Lutha—whose emotions were always at the surface of her, quick to erupt, quick to cool—would blame Trompe, who would be angry at her, which would annoy Leelson, which would make Lutha angry at him. Angrier. She who could no more resist him, or he her, than the stone can resist the rootlets of the tree. Even the hardest stone will break, for the tree will grow, despite all.
Far better say nothing.
We broke camp without incident or argument. We drove into the Canyon of Burning Springs, the mouth and throat of which are no different from any other canyon: a trickle of water at the center, water-rounded stones along the sides among a sprinkle of low grasses and forbs and woody plants, then a long slope of rubble piled at the foot of the canyon walls, then the walls themselves, fissured and split, some parts actually overhanging us as we wandered slowly below. The canyon tended generally westward, so we were in light, the sun lying midway between the zenith and the southern rim. We heard no sounds, we saw no living things except ourselves. The canyon curves slightly, so we could not see far ahead, though we could hear the sound of water. We did not realize we had made a considerable change of direction until we were well into what Leelson called a “dogleg.” (I called it an elbow. We have no dogs on Dinadh.)
The change impressed itself on us when the light went out as though someone had closed a shutter. Even in a sunlit canyon there are often narrow shadows thrown across the way by protruding boulders on the rims, but we had come to a veritable lake of shadow, thrown by a monstrous monolith we could see black against the sun glare, south and east of us. We blinked and murmured and stared around ourselves, dark afterimages of the sun dazzle swimming across our eyes. Only after we stepped into the shadow and let our eyes adjust to it did we realize we had come to the place of fire.
Songfather had often amused the children of Cochim-Mahn with tales of this place, but I’d never imagined it as it really was. I’d thought there would be small fires here and there, like a gathering of campfires, perhaps. When our eyes cleared, however, we saw a world of flame. Fountains gushed everywhere, up the sides of the walls, along the rubble slopes, in the canyon bottom, beside the steamy stream that trickled along beside us, braided into a dozen vaporous streamlets. We were surrounded by firelight and water noise, by fire roar and water glimmer. The light and the sound twisted and warbled together, so that it was hard to know whether we saw the movement or heard it. There was a mineral smell, not unpleasant, and warm damp upon our skins that turned clammy as we moved.