He lay back, and immediately fell back into the dream. Lici had been transformed into the old woman he'd killed earlier that day, but otherwise nothing had changed. She had her hand wrapped around his neck, her bloodied nails digging into his flesh, her hot, sour breath on his face.
"I'm not finished with you," she said coldly. "I'll never be finished with you.”
Again she started to chant a curse, and again he awoke. The glow of the coals had grown faint, and Sirj was snoring loudly. Besh tried to rouse himself, but soon found himself in the dream again. On and on this went. Sometimes he encountered Lici as the old, crazed Mettai witch, other times as the pretty young girl he'd known in his youth. But always she was strangling the life out of him; always she had the words of a curse on her lips.
When, mercifully, morning came and Sirj woke him, he felt wearier than he had when he first had lain down for the night, and he despaired of ever sleeping again.
Under F'Ghara's direction, the Fal'Borna sold them a good deal of food, including lots of dried rilda meat, which might have been the best smoked meat Besh had ever tasted. He had expected that they would have to pay dearly for the food-the Fal'Borna were known as stubborn negotiators. But F'Ghara charged them about what Besh might have expected to pay in the Kirayde marketplace. When they thanked the a'laq, he nodded, looking grave, and then drew the two of them aside, so that the others in his sept wouldn't hear.
"Where will you go from here?" he asked.
"With your leave, A'Laq," Besh said, "we'd continue west, farther into Fal'Borna lands. We know the name of the merchant who has the woman's baskets. We want to find him and keep him from doing more damage."
The a'laq regarded them both. "You have my permission to cross the clan lands. And you have my thanks as well. Your people…" He grimaced, shaking his head.
"The Mettai are hated by Qirsi and Eandi Besh said. "It's no great secret."
F'Ghara smiled. "Perhaps not. But it does seem undeserved. You've made a friend today, not only for yourselves, but for all the Mettai." He reached behind his neck and untied the necklace bearing the small white stone. "Take this," he said, handing it to Besh. "It's a token of my gratitude for killing that woman, and if you encounter other Fal'Borna it will serve as proof that I've named you both friends of my people."
"Thank you, A'Laq," Besh said, closing his hand over the necklace. F'Ghara placed one powerful hand on Besh's shoulder and the other on Sirj's. "Go in peace."
A few moments later, they steered Lici's cart out of the sept and started westward toward the Thraedes. Lici's few personal belongings were still in the cart-her clothes, several small blades that she might have used for making her baskets, some rope, and a small skin she'd used for water. Besh piled these things in a corner of the cart, and tried to ignore them as he rode beside Sirj in front. But he was aware of them constantly; he felt as though she were still there, watching them, silently accusing him. At last he told Sirj to stop.
"Why? Are you all right?"
"Just stop. Please."
Sirj tugged on the reins until the horse halted. Besh climbed down off the cart, grabbed her things, and threw them on the ground. Then he pulled his knife free, cut himself, and conjured a fire that quickly engulfed the pile he'd made. He watched it burn for a few moments before climbing back onto the cart.
"You can go now," he said.
"What about the horse and the cart?"
He looked sharply at Sirj, but the younger man was grinning. Besh smiled reluctantly.
"I suppose I can live with those," he said.
"Are you sure?" Sirj asked him, growing serious. "I'm certain the Fal'Borna would take them, particularly the horse."
"No, it's all right. And I don't feel much like walking to the Horn."
Sirj nodded and flicked the reins. "Good," he said, as the nag started forward again. "I don't either."
They traveled west for several days, covering more distance by far than they ever had with Lici. Besh still dreamed of the woman, though with each night that passed, the visions grew less disturbing, until Lici was little more than a distant, silent presence in dreams of other people and places. But she was always there, on the fringe of Besh's consciousness, and he wondered if she'd ever leave him.
During the waking hours he and Sirj talked but little, not because of any lingering discomfort between them, but simply because there seemed to be little to say. Sirj had some idea of what had happened between Besh and Lici that last terrible day, and it wouldn't take much imagination to piece together those details that hadn't been so apparent. Still, had Besh been in the younger man's position he would have been curious to know more, and he was grateful to Sirj for sparing him all the obvious questions.
Yet, he asked himself the same questions again and again. Could he have defeated Lici without killing her? Would he have wanted to? Had Lici, in some small way, been hoping that he would kill her? Was that why she had done and said all those things at the end? Even if she had been hoping to die, Besh knew better than to think that absolved him in some way. If anything, it made him wonder if he had been so transparent in wanting her dead that she'd seen fit to use him to achieve this dark end.
By their fourth morning out from F'Ghara's sept, Besh had grown weary of thinking about the old witch day and night. As they rode through yet another desolate stretch of plain, caught between the monotony of the grasses and another grey sky, it occurred to him that whatever else he might have accomplished by killing the woman, he certainly hadn't rid himself of her. For some reason, this thought struck him as funny and he chuckled.
"What are you laughing at?" Sirj asked him.
Besh shook his head. "It was nothing."
Sirj just shrugged.
"I've been thinking about Lici," Besh admitted, flexing his wounded hand, which still felt stiff and a bit sore. "Dreaming about her as well. And it just came to me that she's troubling me nearly as much now as she did when she was alive."
Sirj didn't laugh, nor did he say anything, at least at first. Besh could see, though, that he was considering what Besh had told him.
"You saved my life the other day," the younger man finally said. "And not just in the obvious way.
"What do you mean?"
Sirj didn't look at him, but Besh could see the muscles in the man's jaw bunching. "When I was riding to the sept to speak with the Fal'Borna, I wished that you'd gone instead of me. I assumed I'd make a mess of talking to them." He laughed. "Actually, I did make a mess of it."
"It seemed to me that you did just fine," Besh said. Even as he said the words though, he realized that he'd heard little about Sirj's encounter with the white-hairs.
"No, I didn't." He described for Besh his conversation with the warriors and his offer to submit to the a'laq's mind-bending magic. "They learned about Lici. They were ready to kill all three of us."
"I doubt I would have done any better."
"Yes, you would have," Sirj said. Then he shook his head. "That's not important, though. But I think that if you'd left me with Lici, I'd be dead now, and she'd have escaped."
Besh frowned. "I don't think-"
"Please." Sirj's smile was pained. "I know myself pretty well. I'm not being modest, or paying you idle compliments. I have my strengths, but using magic as you did isn't one of them." He glanced at Besh, looking almost shy. "Elica told me that you vowed to keep me safe, and I just wanted to say that you've done that and more." He shrugged again. "Anyway, I don't know what you're thinking about Lici, or what thoughts are troubling your sleep, but I wanted you to know that."
"Thank you," Besh said.