“They’ll want to leave soon,” I said.
“It will be good to be at home,” said Lutha. It was it sounded like a question.
“I have no home,” said Snark.
“Nor I,” I said, as softly. “In any case, that is not allowed to come. It did not come merely to take us home. Remember what Behemoth said when it spoke to us first.”
“What did it say?” asked the ex-king. “I don’t remember.”
“You wouldn’t remember,” said Lutha in an expressionless voice. “You were … dead. It was after it tore … tore Leely to bits. It asked if we would live by truth. It told us to reflect.”
“Such violence,” he said distastefully, as though it had happened to someone else.
I broke the long silence that followed. “The violence wasn’t arbitrary. The question wasn’t rhetorical.”
Lutha did not look at me. I knew she had heard me, but she didn’t meet my eyes. She was watching Leelson, who had broken away from a small group near the ship and was striding up the slope toward us.
He put his arms around Lutha, hugging her joyously.
“We can go home,” he said. “We can take … our son and go home.”
She turned toward me, her eyes spilling tears. I knew what she was thinking. She had wanted him to say that, something like that.
“He’ll be of great value in Fastiga,” Leelson assured her, stroking her hair. “For his healing power alone.”
My throat was dry. I cleared it, painfully. “Yes, he’d be of great value. For his healing power alone.”
The ex-king looked off toward the horizon. “Fastigats should be able to live almost forever, with all the Leelies around.”
Leelson frowned, shook his head, stepped away from Lutha. “But … I hadn’t … I thought we’d only take … just the one, Lutha.”
“But they’re all … ” she cried, her hand to her mouth, finishing the sentence. She was right, however. They were all.
“As you say, they’ll be enormously valued,” repeated the ex-king, “for their healing power alone. Not to speak of raising the recently dead. Extending human life spans for how long? Increasing human population by how much? All Firsters will be delighted, of course. It shouldn’t take long for there to be a profitable market in Leelies.”
Leelson recoiled as though he’d been slapped.
“Later,” Lutha said in a voice that was almost a scream. “We’ll discuss it later.”
“But the ship’s leaving … ”
“They’ve sent men to get the Procurator’s body. The ship won’t leave until they return. Leelson! If you love me, let me be. Give me a moment!”
He backed away, uncertainly. Poracious called his name, and he went off toward her, glancing at us doubtfully over his shoulder, unable to decide whether to be hurt or angry. Poor Fastigat. Even he could not read this tangle!
Lutha turned away from us, her shoulders shaking, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. She shuddered, drew a deep breath, then wept again. In a moment she stopped trying to control herself and simply walked away toward the sea.
Snark said to me, “Go after her, Saluez. She talks to you.”
The ex-king nodded, nudging me, so I went after her. By now it was starlit evening, with just enough light to see by. She wound her way among glistening pools with me trailing after, and when we came to the beach, I wasn’t surprised to find Leely already there, perched on a rock. He was her destination, after all.
“Lutha mother love,” he called in his small voice, sliding off the rock to hug her leg and look happily up at us. “Saluez of the shadow.”
She lifted him, hugged him gently, then sat on the rock where he’d been perched.
He settled into her lap. I leaned against a boulder, being invisible, watching the stars come out.
“Tell me about home,” he said.
I saw her throat tighten, as though she choked. She swallowed deeply. “Isn’t this home, Leely?”
“No. Home home I remember. Alliance Central home.”
Who would have thought he would remember Alliance Central? And yet, why would he have forgotten.
“What do you remember?” Lutha asked, looking helplessly at me.