A terrible sympathy welled up in Ki. She wanted to comfort her, but had no words, for the truth could not be compromised. Slowly she sank down beside her. 'Drink then, and be eased.'
Hollyika reached for the jug, then slowly put her hands back on her knees. 'No. You will need it to reach the Limbreth. If I drink now, we shall both be lost. I am going to die here, Ki, on this road, and I will never see the Jewels of the Limbreth. The doing of any great deed is denied me, but I am left the chance of not doing a foul one. I will not drink and by not drinking, I shall be sending you on the Limbreth. Whatever peace you gain when you reach the Limbreth, think of me.'
'I shall.' Ki did not try to sway her. The longer she was in this land, the more often she drank its water, the clearer her path became. Old patterns of thought and behavior were sloughing from her like outgrown skins and in their stead she was finding wisdom that welled up in her as effortlessly as the silver waters welled up from the land. Decisions no longer troubled her, she did not seesaw at crossroads, nor torment herself with wondering. The better way, the right way, was clear before her like a shining silver thread to be followed. Hollyika was doing the right thing in denying herself that Ki might go on. In any other place and time, Ki would have tried her best to dissuade her, would have felt by friendship bound to do so. But her new wisdom taught her better. Hollyika was not designed to live in this land, and for Ki to force her to strive on would be a cruelty, a giving of false hope. Both of them had grown beyond that.
'I will stay with you,' she said softly, 'for a while, that your candle will not burn out alone. Then I shall go on to the Limbreth and the Jewels, and in their peace I shall hold your memory.'
Hollyika looked up at her with great brown eyes full of wisdom and sorrow. She knew, in the same way Ki did, that her decision was correct. She nodded slowly. 'I shall not keep you long,' she promised. 'My strength was ebbing before I met you by the river. Since then I have traveled on the reserves of my flesh, burning what the Brurjans call the oil of the last lantern. My body follows most closely the way of that folk; to be strong and to strive, until the very last moments when there is no strength left. Death, now, is not far off.' She lowered her head slowly until her broad forehead rested again on her knees. Ki sat beside her in the midst of the strange land they had traveled together. The air was keen, but the chill no longer troubled her body. The water had seen to that.
The wide lustrous fields of the farmers had been left behind as the road climbed straight and true, and now it threaded hilly country, ungrazed by any save wild flocks. Small yellow and white flowers shone out in the grasses like stars come to earth; and even the bare bones of this place, where the rocks thrust suddenly from the verdant hillside, seemed to scintillate coldly with a light of their own. Hollyika alone was a dark and huddled thing, a lightless lump in a place of glowing life. To be so strange and alien in this comforting place was lonesome enough; but Hollyika was dying in a world where living was peace. Ki reached over and took her hand, holding it loosely and companionably in her own. She stroked the downy fur on the back of the hand and looked down on the clean black nails that thickened like claws.
'Ki?' Her voice was muffled. 'For all the Romni, will you forgive me?'
'I will.' Ki gave no thought to the words, for the decision was plain. 'For all the Romni, I forgive you.' It was so simple, with the water running cool within her and the black road running straight before her; it was all so very simple and easy and good. The pale far lights of the Limbreth blinked at her, letting her stay for now, but waiting for her.
Without warning Hollyika fell over on her side and lay slightly curled in the road. With each softly expelled breath, she made a 'kah' sound. She looked terrible, with dry crusts forming around her eyes and her breath foul with dying. Ki set her hand down gently against her breast and stroked the dry fur, once sleek, that covered ribs beneath scanty flesh. If she had seen Hollyika as a Brurjan, she would have known from her first sight of her that she was starved to the edge of death. But Ki had imputed her lack of bulk to her Human side.
Ki rose stretching. As she did so, she looked down at her own body and was amazed at how ribby she herself had become. She could not remember when she had last eaten, but no pangs of hunger stirred in her. She unstoppered the jug and took a tiny swallow of water. Even that small sip spread coolness and comfort through her, and she was able to see Hollyika's death in a calm, clear light. The poor creature had tried to set aside her martial ways and become a seeker of peace, but her body could not adapt. Her death was not upon Ki's head, and she basked in the comfort of that knowledge - and then realized how foreign it was to her former way of thinking. Even as she startled at it, she realized it was the Limbreth reaching into her mind and bringing order out of the chaos that years of unguided living had created. The Limbreth were to guide her now. She sat down upon the road again, hugging her knees, letting their wisdom flow through her.
Dimly she became aware of a sound: hoof thuds and the creaking rumble of a wagon. Whoever was driving was in a hurry; only a fool would drive so rapidly in the dark. But he was yet a long ways off; she seemed to feel the sounds through the road rather than hear them with her ears.
Slowly she moved to the side of the road. She thought about Hollyika lying where she would be trampled, but the Limbreth wisdom touched her, and she saw it did not matter if she died of starvation or was trampled to death, for death was her goal. Ki should give her no grief, nor any further thought. Hollyika had been her guide, and in following that vocation she had risen as high as was possible for her. Her death would be a peaceful one, no matter how it came, for in her own heart she knew these things. Her honor had been to prepare Ki for the path that lay before her. And now Ki must come, for she was ready. Come.
The sound of the wagon and team distracted her. They were still far away, but the sound came to her clearly, and it stirred something in her. Come now, a voice within her cried, and she received animpression of terrible danger. She rose to her feet, feeling for an instant woozy and unsteady; then the night snapped into clarity. In the new Limbreth darkness, she saw with a clarity her eyes had never enjoyed in the harsh brightness of sunlight. The subtlety of shades of colors came to her and new insights flooded her. She was able to see how the leaves held up the branches of the trees; she understood for the first time that a mountain was a place where the substance of the sky had withdrawn and the earth had risen to fill it. All the immense things that made up the world, the mountains, the rivers, the forests, were actually very tiny things bound together in a common purpose, just as her life was a very small and finite thing, a tiny being coming into a place where a tiny bit of non-being had withdrawn. She was made not merely of flesh, but of moments of time, and of a greater purpose she did not know, any more than an individual leaf knew its tree. Anything she ever wanted to do, she must do now and at the risk of failure, for the length of her life was not revealed to her: she might be called at any time to surrender her life spark. All she could be sure of accomplishing were the things she had already done.