When they had packed away the food and hooked the canteens to their packs, Damien took out his one spare shirt and pulled off the bloodstained one he was wearing. Neither was clean by any standard, but the new one was at least still in one piece; the other was so badly scored by claws that it pulled free of his body in strips, glued to his flesh by the blood and the sweat that had soaked into it. Not a pretty sight, he thought grimly as he packed away the ragged garment. Tarrant, with his usual hygienic chauvinism, would doubtless make some disparaging comment when he arrived.
If he arrived.
They watched together as the Core followed the sun into its western grave, the golden light turning amber and then blood-red as it was filtered through Erna’s veil of volcanic dust and windborn ash. Still the Hunter did not return to them.
Tarrant, I need you. I need your knowledge, I need your insight, I even need your God-damned cynicism. Get back to us soon, will you please?
But Tarrant didn’t come.
And in time, his heart as cold as ice, his brain a numb morass of confusion, he whispered to the girl, “We’re on our own.”
To do what? Confront the rakh?
Numbly he lowered himself to the lava plain, and helped her down beside him. Numbly they started off across the black earth, their movements mechanical, their conversation strained. Again and again Damien went over their situation in his mind. Again and again he didn’t like what he saw.
You’re on your own, Vryce.
The girl might help him somehow. She had been close to Hesseth, close enough to absorb some of her language and a number of her memories; Damien regretted now that he had respected their privacy too much to explore the parameters of that absorption. And Jenseny had power. Wild power, untamed power, but power nonetheless. A power the Prince could neither foresee nor dominate, if ever she could learn to wield it properly.
If.
The miles passed beneath their feet like an abstract painting, details blurred by the brushstrokes of a distracted mind. Occasionally Damien surfaced from his thoughts long enough to see a tree, an outcropping, a blistered dome. Most of it passed unnoticed by him as he trod the hard earth, careful always to set a pace that Jenseny’s young legs could manage.
The river. That was the thing. They needed to reach the river first, and then all the rest would follow. Fresh water would renew them in body and spirit, and give them the strength to plan. If they were lucky, there would be some kind of food there, some plant or animal whose flesh could supplement their meager dried fare. And perhaps there would be time enough and safety enough for him to wash up a bit, so that when Tarrant arrived-
He stopped suddenly, unable to walk any farther. Emotion welled up in him with such force that it nearly drove him to his knees; only the knowledge that the trees were waiting for him to do just that kept him standing.
Tarrant was gone. There was no doubting it now, not after all these hours. First Hesseth, and then the Hunter . . . and the most painful part of all was that he couldn’t begin to untangle his emotions, couldn’t tell where the grief began or the anger ended or the pragmatism of their quest gave way to genuine caring . . . did he really care if Tarrant lived, beyond the practical advantages of their partnership? He abhorred what the man stood for so passionately that it was painful even to ask the question, and he dared not try to answer it.
I hope for his sake that he’s dead. That would be far more merciful than the alternatives: To be incapacitated but not killed by the earthquake’s power, so that he must wait out the centuries in a land bereft of food or healing. Or to be captured by the enemy, perhaps, while the earth-power still surged. After what he went through in the rakhlands, I think even he would prefer death to such an imprisonment.
“Are you all right?” the girl asked him.
He drew in a deep breath, then managed to nod. “Yeah. I am now.” He caught up her hand in his—so small, her fingers, and her skin was so cold—and he squeezed it with all the love he could muster. “I was just thinking. Trying to figure out where we’re going . . .”
“The river,” the girl reminded him.
He chuckled—somewhat sadly—and squeezed her hand again. “Yeah. The river. Thanks, kid.”
They didn’t see it until they were nearly upon it.
The Wasting’s one river had flowed long enough and hard enough to have eroded its way down through the layers of volcanic rock, down through the base rock beneath, carving out a steep canyon whose walls glistened in layers of black and gray and marbled white strata. Between those walls the current rushed westward, audible even from where they stood as it gushed over the rocks at its border. In the center it was deep enough that the water moved smoothly, swiftly, a silken black reflector that cast the moonlight back in a thousand shivering bits. After days in the desert, the smell of it was like something from another world.
For a moment he just stared at it. One moment. A luxury. Then, with a finger on his lips to warn the girl to silence, he worked a Knowing. Casting out a fine net, to trap the scent of danger. But though he directed his Working west and east and then both ways again, there was nothing upstream or downstream that seemed the least unnatural. Nor was there danger lurking hidden on either side of the canyon.
“Thank God,” he whispered. “Tarrant pulled it off.”
“What?” the girl demanded.
“He was trying to make the Prince think that we were going somewhere else. Somewhere farther west along the river. I guess it worked.” He sighed heavily, feeling a weight lift from his chest at last. One weight among thousands. “We’re safe here, Jen. For a while at least.”
He led her along the edge of the canyon, searching the ground far below by Domina’s light. At last he found a place where descent seemed possible and there was dry ground at the bottom, and after that it was easy. After days and nights of combating wraiths and nightmares and preternatural malaise, he welcomed the logistical challenge of simple rock climbing. Within minutes he had marked his path of descent, and soon after was rappelling downward with the child clutched tightly to his chest. It pleased him that the end of his rope had been looped about the trunk of a killer tree for support; let that species serve him now.
Water. He could feel it at his back even as he looked back up the way they had come, wondering if he should leave the rope where it was or yank it down to them. The water was more than a mere substance now, but also a symbol; in reaching it they had beaten the desert at its own game, at least for this leg of the journey. He breathed in its cool scent gratefully as he turned from the rope, leaving it in place for the moment.
He saw the girl moving toward the river and reached out quickly. “Be careful,” he warned.
She looked at him with frightened eyes; he felt her tremble beneath his hand. “Is something in there?” It was a reasonable question for one who had seen the Terata’s warped creations, and before he answered he muttered the key to a Knowing under his breath. But the water held no secrets beneath its shimmering surface, and he assured her of the fact.
“The current’s fast and the rocks’ll be slippery . . . and it’ll be damned cold besides. Wait till the sun comes up, girl. It’ll be safer then.”
It seemed to him that even as he spoke something flickered out on the river’s surface. He recalled the sirens of the Sea of Dreams, the flickerings that had preceded their attack. His hand moved instinctively toward his sword, even as he told himself that it couldn’t possibly be that, or anything like it. His Knowing would have detected such a threat.