If we couldn't rouse him soon, though, he was going to starve. Taking him away from the oculus had surely broken the heavy enchantments intended to keep him living without nourishment, but the only thing I could get down him was tiny portions of bread, soaked in our gritty water until they became almost liquid. Thus I was delighted when Nim and Rab arrived near midday with three large bundles of brush to burn, a stone crock of reasonably fresh goat's milk, and the slightly ripe haunch of an oryx.
Relieved to see that Paulo and I were still intact after spending two days with a demon, the ragged scavengers decided to stay for a while. They squatted in the shade, picking their teeth with long splinters, and watched me set the oryx haunch to boiling in a large pot I borrowed from their metal cache. They must have pulled the splinters from the charred beams of Zhev'Na, for their activity gave them slightly dusky smiles as I thanked them again for their hospitality. The old man, Rab, never said a word, but he pulled up a few of the spiky gray plants growing near his bare feet and gave them to me, gesturing at the boiling pot. The root smelled a bit like moldy onions . . . very like Rab, I realized. I smiled at the toothless man, peeled the sandy outer layers from the plants, and slipped the things surreptitiously into my pocket.
While the oryx meat slowly disintegrated into a strong-smelling broth, I soaked a bit of bread in the milk and spooned it down Gerick's throat. Perhaps the milk and the meat broth would give him strength to travel if we could ever get his eyes open.
Evening brought encouraging signs. Gerick's skin had cooled, and Paulo had drained his suppurating wound without sending the fever shooting skyward again. Once he had the foot bound up in our last clean bandages, Paulo sat for a moment, his head drooping, his hands dangling in his lap. He hadn't slept since I'd gone for the oculus. "Might you … I hate to ask it. . . but could you see to his hands? I'm swiped."
"Of course I will. And I'll wake you if there's any change."
I was proud that I resisted any sarcasm in my agreement. But then, he likely wouldn't have noticed. He was asleep before I finished speaking.
The red-gold light faded, and the wind picked up, skirling sand through the rock gorges. Nim and Rab had slept the hot afternoon away, and scurried off as soon as the sun set. I sat by my little thornbush fire steeping a few eutonia leaves, hoping the tart, bracing tea would keep me awake and perhaps reduce the swelling in my shoulder. All the digging and rock-moving to bury the oculus had set my own healing back several days.
"Thank you."
I jumped, almost upsetting my little pot, when the soft voice came from the shadows.
"Heaven's lights," I said quietly. "You scared me out of a year's growth. How are you feeling?"
"Empty. Stiff. Damp. Alive."
With no small trepidation, I cast a faint handlight and peered across the rock floor to the pallet of sand and blankets where our patient had managed to raise himself on his elbows. His skin color was definitely improved-no longer graveyard white—and to my intense relief, his eye color had reverted to a deep brown, and only in the part of his eyes where there should be color. The ugly mark on his forehead where I had taken out the smallest of the barbed spikes was only a greenish bruise with a ragged black line through it.
"Well, you look a thousand times better, and if we can get a little more food down you, maybe we can fill you up again. You lost a lot of blood, and who knows how long it's been since you've eaten anything substantial."
Neither food nor water would cure the worst of his emptiness. But no one was going to be able to do anything about that part of it.
He eased himself the rest of the way to sitting, stretched out his neck and shoulders, and then shifted around and slumped against the rock wall as if the small movements had exhausted him. "How long has it been?"
"Four days since we brought you out."
"Since the day I was . . . taken."
"Almost four weeks."
"Earth and sky . . ." He closed his eyes, and for a few moments I thought he'd fallen asleep. But after a time he opened them again, and peered at the motionless body sprawled on the ground on the other side of me. "Is Paulo all right? He's not—"
"Just worn out." I stretched my hand toward Paulo, hesitating. "I ought to rouse him. I promised to if you woke."
"No! Don't. I don't think I'll be awake long."
"Well, then. You must drink, and you ought to eat something if you can."
I lurched to my feet with only a small grunt of discomfort and grabbed a waterskin.
"You shouldn't—"
"You have to drink," I said, stuffing the pouch in his hands. "Sorry the water's a bit gritty."
He drank long and gratefully.
"So what do you think? Can you stay awake long enough to get some broth down? It's already made. It would only take a short while to warm it."
"You don't have—"
"Vasrin's hand, I know I don't have to do it! But if I were to come up with something, could you eat it?" Were there two more exasperating men in the universe than these?
"That would be very kind."
Stiff. Formal. But on the whole, things could be far more awkward, considering our several encounters of the months just past. I had whacked him on the head, come a hair's breadth from killing him, and pried relentlessly into his private affairs. He had avoided me like a disease for half the summer, and then he had done . . . whatever it was he did when I was stranded on D'Sanya's roof, an incident that still sat in my stomach like undigested meat.
As I busied myself heating up the broth we had stored in a clay jar, I wished I'd gone ahead and waked Paulo. He could occupy his friend so the man would stop looking at me. What did you talk about with someone you'd just rescued from an eternity of horror?
"Why?" Gerick's quiet question was such a perfect echo of my thoughts that at first I didn't even realize the source. But a glance his way confirmed the depth of his interest in my answer.
Fundamentally, I was still without an adequate answer—certainly without any explanation I was going to voice to him . So I handed him the mug of broth and said the first likely thing that came to mind. "Your mother is very persuasive."
His face, so determined in its sobriety, broke into a soft smile at that, eyes brightening with amusement and affection. "I've noticed that myself," he said. The smile fell away quickly, and he dropped his gaze to his cup.
He said nothing more, and drank perhaps half the broth before his eyelids drooped and I had to rescue the cup to keep it from spilling onto his blankets. As well as I could manage with one hand, I eased him down onto his back again, and then resumed my tea-making, as tired and relieved as if I'd just survived a battle.
Only later, as I cleaned and dressed the wounds on his hands, did the thought occur that those very hands had sealed my slave collar.
Disgusted, nauseated, I tied up the bandage, then went out into the ancient riverbed and used every paltry bit of power I could summon to shatter a brittle shelf of rock high on the cliff. The sharp bits rained on my back—an unfortunate miscalculation.
". . . all bloody hell, thinking she's played me for a fool and done for you after all. I can't figure the woman. Not a bit. Gutsy, I'll say, though. Smart. It's a good thing for you I didn't leave her in the desert any of the fifty different times I thought of it."
"Don't ask me to explain her. I resign from all investigations for any matter whatsoever."
The quiet voices drifted over my head along with the odors of burning thornbush and scorched barley. Though my mouth was full of grit, my eyes stung with the acrid smoke, and my shoulder throbbed unmercifully, I wasn't about to give away the fact that I was awake. There was always a possibility of hearing something interesting when people thought you were asleep—an annoying childhood habit I had perfected while in captivity. And too, these two were friends and deserved some time together without an interloper or the immediate business of the day to disturb them. I shifted ever so slightly so that both of my ears were exposed.