Fires of Azeroth

He drank, thirstily. Roh knelt and took the cup back when he was finished, tossed it aside into the straw, then dipped a cloth into the pan of cold water and began, very gently, to wash the dirt from his wounds, starting with his face. "I will tell you how it is," Roh said. "At the first is utter shock . .. and then a few days that are like a dream. You areboth. And then part of the dream begins to fade, and you know that it was once there, but you cannot recall it in daylight. I was Liell once. Now I am Chya Roh. I think that I like this shape well. But then I probably liked the other. And the others before that. I am Roh now. Everything that he is, all that he remembers-all that he loves or hates. All, in short-that he is or ever was-I contain."

"Except his soul."

A touch of irritation came over Roh's face. "I would not know about that."

"Roh would have."

Roh's hands resumed the gentle ministering they had for an instant ceased, and he shook his head. "Cousin-sometimes-there is a perverseness in me that I cannot help. I would not harm you, but do not prick at me. Do not. I do not like it when I have done such a thing."

"Oh Heaven, I pity you."

The cloth found a raw spot and he winced. "Do you prick at me," Roh repeated between his teeth. The touch gentled again. "You do not know what trouble you have caused me .. . this whole camp. You know the marshlanders are across that barricade trying to figure how to get their hands on you."

He gazed at Roh, distantly.

"Wake up," Roh insisted. "They have put too much of that into you. What did you tell them?"

He shook his head, confused. For a time he truly did not remember. Roh seized his shoulder and forced his attention.

"What, confound you? Will you have them to know and not me? Think it through."

"They asked-asked me to tell what I knew of the Gates. They are tired of relying on you. They said-that because the Men in this camp want to kill me, they would have more hold on me than on you� that was Shien's thought� or someone's� I cannot remember. But Hetharu� meant to have what I know-and not to tell you until a time suited him-"

"What you know. And what do you know of Gates. Has she given you knowledge enough to be dangerous?"

He thought over the hazard of truth with Roh. Nothing would focus.

"Have you such knowledge?'' Roh asked.

"Yes."

"And what did you tell them?"

"Nothing. I told them nothing. You came."

"I heard that they had brought you in. I guessed as much as you have told me."

'They will cut your throat when they can."

Roh laughed. "Aye, that they will. And yours, sooner, without my protection. What do you know that you did nottell them?"

Panic flashed through him, muddled with the akil.He shook his head desperately, not trusting to speak.

"I will tell you what I suspect," Roh said. "That Morgaine has had help staying out of sight. She has been in a certain village; I have learned that much: Hetharu knows it too. Men live here, elusive as they are, and there are others too, are there not?"

He said nothing.

'There are. I know that. And I think that there are qhal-are there not, cousin? And you have friends. Perhaps that is who rode off with her, when she fled. Allies. Native allies. And she thought to go to the high place and seize control of the Gate and destroy me. Well, is that not her purpose? It is the only sane course for her. But I am less worried about what Morgaine will and will not, in the state she must be in now, than I am worried for who has his hands on that weapon of hers. A qhaland a Man are with her. So Fwar reports. And who are they, and what would either of them do with such a weapon as that sword in his hands?"

The thoughts tumbled chaotically about him: Merir,he thought. Merir would use it well.But then he doubted, and recalled that he and Morgaine held purposes at odds with the arrhendim.

"Fwar brought me something," Roh said. "Oh, he did not want to give it, but Fwar has a great respect for my anger, and he most readily gave it up for his health's sake." He drew from his belt a silver circlet on a chain� Merir's gift. "You wore this. I find it very strange workmanship, nothing like home, nor even like Shiuan. See, it is written over with qhalurrunes. Friendshipis the inscription. Whose friend are you, Nhi Vanye?"

He shook his head and his eyes hazed. He was exhausted. Of a sudden the fear that had stayed remote began to trouble him, nearer and nearer, stalking him.

"Hardly honorable� to worry at you when you are full of that foul stuff-is it? You are easy as a new-written page. Well, I shall not, any more. But I do tell you this that you may think on when you are sober again� that what I have asked of you I have not asked with purpose to harm you. And you must stay awake, Vanye. Come, keep your eyes clear. Look at me with sense."

He tried. Roh hit him, enough to sting, but not with malice. "Stay awake. I will make you angry with me if that is what it takes. Your eyes are still hazed with that drug, and until that goes, you will stay awake, whatever I have to do to keep you that way. I have seen men die of it in this camp. They sleep to death. And I want you alive."

"Why?"

"Because I have put my neck on the block for you tonight and I want reward of it."

"What do you want?"

Roh laughed. "Your company, cousin."

"I warned you-warned you that you would not find your companions grateful when you joined them. You are a Man, and they hate you for it."

"Am I?" Roh laughed again. "You admit it then, that I am your cousin."

"A qhal�" -told me,he almost said, what it was like for you.But he was not quite hazed enough to let it slip, and stopped himself in time. Roh looked at him strangely, and then shrugged and let it pass, beginning again to wash at his injuries. Roh's touch hurt, and he winced: Roh swore softly.

"I cannot help it," Roh said. "Thank Fwar for this. I am as careful as I can be. Be glad of the akilfor a while."

Roh was indeed careful, and skilled; he cleaned the wounds and dressed them with hot oil, and tended those that were fevered. He put hot compresses on the knee, changing them often. In time Vanye let his head fall. Roh disturbed him to look at his eyes, and finally let him sleep, rousing him only when he changed the compresses. It was far into the night, Vanye judged at one of these wakings, and yet Roh disturbed him again, putting heat on the knee. "Roh?" he asked, perplexed by this.

"I would not have you lame."

"Someone else might see to it."

"Who? Fwar? I am scant of servants in this grand hall. Go to sleep, cousin."

He did so, a quiet sleep, for the first time since Carrhend. This last and better effect the akilleft on him, that its passing exhausted him and he was able to rest.

Chapter Nine

Roh roused him again with daylight flooding through the door and hazing tlirough the smoke from the opening overhead. There was food; Vanye bestirred himself and took it, bread and salted fish and a little of Shiuan's sourish drink� for the first time in days, enough to eat, poor though it was and foul with the memory of Shiuan.

His jaw hurt in eating, and there was little of him elsewhere that was not bruised or wounded. But the knee had freedom of movement this morning, and the pain there, which had become so constant he had ceased even to realize it, had somewhat abated. He did not dress again, but sat with a length of cloth wrapped about him, and Roh saw to it that the hot compress stayed on the knee even at breakfast, a bit of rag constantly aboil in a pot on the fire, one and then the other.