"What do you mean by, 'you're going to be traveling fast'?" he asked. "No one's ordered me to go."
"No one's ordered you, but I thought you told me that An'desha and Altra both wanted you to go," she replied with surprise.
"They can want as much as they please," he said stubbornly. "I'm making up my own mind on this one. I've had my fill of other people making it up for me."
She frowned. "Are you going with the mages to the Plains or not?" she demanded. "If you don't want to because you don't want to, that's one thing, but you'd better not be wavering on this because of me!"
He was taken aback by the stern tone of her voice, and the hint of anger in her eyes. "Why not?" he asked.
"Because I won't have it, that's why!" she exclaimed. "If Altra wants you to go, doesn't that mean it's your duty to go? I won't have you neglecting your duty just because you want to keep me company! I don't expect or want that kind of behavior out of you, and you'd better not expect or want it out of me!"
Her vehemence left him speechless for a moment, and she filled in the silence.
"My job is to uncover new facts, find new ways of doing things, and sometimes that's dangerous," she continued, calming her tone of voice somewhat. "Well, look what happened with the boiler. I could have been killed!"
"I know—" he said numbly.
"So?" she gazed at him demandingly. "Would you ask me to choose between you and my work?"
If I did, I'd lose her, he realized. She has a right to her work, her life. I don't have a right to ask her to give up any of that.
"No," he replied quietly.
"And I don't and won't ask the same of you," she replied, as her fingers brushed restlessly back and forth along the bandages on her arm. "It's not fair and it's not right. This thing the mages are doing—it's dangerous, isn't it?"
He shivered. "More than dangerous. The Shin'a'in know where the Tower is, of course, and they've been working to uncover the entrance to the Vault since we decided what to do—but once we get in there, we'll be sorting through weapons that are very old, probably unstable, and not all of them are magical in nature. The mechanical weapons may be very unstable, the others think. Then when we find what we're looking for, we aren't sure what, exactly, we're going to be dealing with."
He heard himself saying "we" before he thought about it, and knew she'd noticed the phrasing when she smiled.
"So you're going." She made it a statement.
He sighed. "If Altra wants me along and he's being cryptic, it's because there's something he thinks I might have to do, and it's something he knows I probably wouldn't do if I had any choice." He grimaced. "I'm sure if I don't go, they'll find a way around any problems they encounter, but I'm also sure that it will be easier if I do go. In a case like this—the next best solution might not be good enough."
She reached for his hand with her uninjured one. "You know how you'd feel if this failed because you weren't there."
"If this fails, we're going to be in worse trouble than Hardorn is now," he corrected and shivered. "Think what would happen if the shielding all failed on the Heartstone here."
She blanched, as well she should.
"But we may be worrying at nothing," he went on, "And I may prove to be no more useful than an extra pair of hands to brew tea. If Altra knew I was needed, he wouldn't be giving me a choice. He said I should go as a 'contingency' measure. We've had everyone with any kind of ForeSight trying to probe in the direction of this situation, and none of them can tell us anything. They say that the images are all too confused, and that there is no clear path to the future once they get past the fact that we do find the Vault and we do find the weapons there." As he squeezed her hand, he allowed himself a moment of annoyance. "Now tell me this—what good does it do to be a Priest or to be able to talk with Avatars if neither your God nor the representatives of your Goddess are going to give you any clues?"
Natoli chewed her lip thoughtfully for a moment. "I've been listening to you and An'desha talking about Vkandis and the Star-Eyed, and I wonder if this isn't another one of those cases where there are many choices, and since none of the choices are a Second Cataclysm, They aren't going to help. I mean—they watch while people kill people and let people die all the time, and only take a hand in things once in a while, when it will make a big difference down the road. The rest of the time, people have to do what they feel they should, and accept the results. It's that 'free will' thing again."
He groaned. "I could do with a little more guidance and a little less free will!"
"I couldn't." Once again, she surprised him. "I want to make my own decisions, and if they're the wrong ones, then I'll learn from them. I want to be an adult, not a child. I don't want to be led along the safe path! The safe path is never new, and the safe path never teaches you anything others don't already know!"
Had she always been like this, or had the enforced idleness given her time to think about these things? He was astonished at the clarity and fearlessness of her outlook. "A lot of people wouldn't agree with you," he replied, answering her as seriously as she had spoken. "A great many people would rather have the safe path, and be taken care of. They'd rather have all their answers assured, neatly packaged, with 'the end' put on the last page."
"Then they can look for that neat package, but it's a false one, and they're only fooling themselves." Her eyes were shining, and her color heightened with excitement. "There is no end to questioning, except decay. And I'm not ready to sit and rot, and neither are you."
"You're right, I'm not." He leaned over then, and dared a kiss; her lips were warm and soft and she didn't pull away. "And you're right; I should go. I'll be lonely without you, but I'll go."
Natoli squeezed his hand and whispered, "Be brave, Karal, and be careful. Come back to me."
Sejanes led a group of mixed Herald-Mages and White Winds mages who would be establishing the Gate under his direction and control; as Altra and Hansa had, they were using the old ruin in Companion's Field. "They're going to be worthless when we're done," he'd warned Selenay. "And they're going to be weak as newborn kittens for at least a day." Accordingly, she had sent along a contingent of servants with litters to carry them off when they collapsed. Sejanes had approved.
Now the expedition force stood in knee-deep snow beneath an overcast sky while Sejanes reiterated the plan. "We'll hold the Portal open long enough for you all to get through," he said, squinting into the bright snow glare. "That's all this lot will be good for. We'll reopen it in a fortnight, and you'd better be up on that rim when we do."