Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 (75 page)

Because she could
had been an answer, and acceptable. But now again he was held in that waking nightmare, his body somehow robbed from him, only an oppressive weight of flesh and bone that was a dead cage around the quick of him and would kill that too in just a
little
time.

He lay helpless and irredeemable, and nothing changed; he felt as though he hung on the point of death like a moth on a thorn. This would be a cruel way to spend eternity, feeling the blade in the heart and its stillness after, waiting and waiting for that stillness to reach his mind
...

He was lucky, though, if this was luck. It did not last for ever, it only seemed to do so; and he was neither helpless nor irredeemable, only that he could neither help nor redeem himself. He felt her come, whom he had not dared to hope for: fire against his ice.

She walked in the ways of his body, and made herself free of them. Where she went, he felt the warmth and power of her passing, and never mind if he felt it as pain. Better to have his body hurting than to have it not at all. Her trail was his path back into possession, and he followed where she led.

Followed eagerly, tirelessly, riding on the surge of pain as though it were a wave that lifted him floating and free; and felt he could do this for ever and not regret it.

And was wrong, of course, because pain is a measure of time and he was back in the blood's beat of his body again. He followed her up from the core to the skin of him, and then she left him and he tried to follow her out.

And so felt her first, warm and firmly pressed against his skin, wherever she could reach; and so defined the limits of himself, rediscovered that he had skin because that was where she ended, and so he began. And then his eyes opened, because he was still trying to be as free as she was with the world, to come and go; and he could not do it, but the closest he could come was to let the world come to him.

So his eyes opened and he saw her eyes, her face just a moment away from his. No smile, only a fierce determination, a glare that would not permit him to be weak, to die after so much effort had been expended on his behalf. It had been effort, it always was a terrible effort for her: that familiar ferocity floated like a scum atop extreme exhaustion. He could feel a tremble beneath all her skin, as though she'd physically dragged him further than her strength could bear.

He could also feel that she was naked, he could see it as she pushed herself suddenly away from him, but no matter for that. It had been so before, the last time she saved his life; it meant nothing. What he needed to know, he could not tell by looking: how it was that she had saved his life again, how he had come here, where this was and who had brought him. Even those questions lacked urgency, though. For the moment he was content to let his curiosity slip back inside himself and work there to find how badly or how deeply he was hurt, how much she had mended, how weak he was.

Lisan stirred, struggling to sit up; Julianne appeared at her side, to
lift
her onto her knees and ease a robe over her head. The smaller girl looked grey and ill, in need of healing on her own account. Julianne fussed with her dress briefly, then produced a flask and held it to her lips.

Lisan drank, then spluttered.

'Julianne, how did you—? I thought it was water!' She ran her hand across her face and licked it, to salvage what she could of what she'd spat or dribbled.

‘I know you did,' smugly. ‘I
fetched it before I came to you this morning, I thought we might have need. This is all I've brought, though, so don't waste it. If you're going to cough the rest of it around, you can have water indeed. Shall I fetch some, or
do you want to drink this decentl
y, like a civilised woman in company?'

'Give me.'

Julianne gave her another drink, then brought the flask to Jemel. At that moment, his last doubts faded. Not one of their Patric wines, if she would offer it to a Sharai; only one possibility, then.

'Please
...'
he whispered, trying to haul himself upright, falling back.

'Easy, Jemel. I'll help. Here
...'

An arm slipped under his shoulders, a quick heave and the tall girl lifted him as simply as she had Lisan. His head lolled disgracefully against her shoulder; he scowled, tried to straighten his neck and found that he could not, even so little effort was too much strain.

Julianne laughed in his ear, reading his thoughts with transparent ease. 'Don't be afraid, you'll be running around quarrelling with everyone again soon enough. It's only weariness, and weakness. You must have been in a terrible fight, there were so many wounds on you; Elisande's only healed the worst of them, all she had the strength to cope with. The rest I've patched up myself, in mortal fashion. With no proper dressings. You'll yelp when they're changed; best ask me to do that too, you won't want Marron to hear you. But at least you're not bleeding any more. You're an awful colour still, worse than she is, and she doesn't look good. You need to rest, that's all. Now stop talking so much, and drink
...'

He would have opened his mouth, obedient as a child, impatient and greedy as a child; but it was hanging open already, a fact he only realised when she set the flask's
lip against his and tipped gentl
y.

Bitter and sweet in subtle balance, herbs and fruits: potent beyond medicine, the
jereth
coursed down his throat like a renewing draught of the desert. Gold for the Sands, green for the oases — and it was in the gold that the sweetness lay, he thought as he always had thought, and bitterness in the green. Green could be for all the wet lands beyond the borders now, and gold could be for the land of the djinn, which was nothing but gold; he'd learned so much at least, that understanding changed as the world changed, as it grew wider.

The Patrics had never understood
jereth.
They drank it for a drink, and nothing more; they had never known its meaning. Blood-dark in their glass goblets, it showed them nothing of its sources; they misunderstood its making and its uses both, the sheer burning power of the thing. Even Lisan: she wanted more, but had no true idea why she craved it so.

He felt that first mouthful lying like a liquid fire in his belly, like gold transmuted into oil, as though a lamp's fuel could contain its own flame. Let his body only absorb it, and he could shrug off this dreadful feebleness; he could draw strength
from
jereth
as the Sharai had done for many, many generations. Properly taken and properly appreciated,
jereth
would drive back weariness, stiffen aching muscles and lend as much support to flagging spirits. It had saved many a life in the Sands; many a man who had lost his water and been given up as white bones walking had walked into his camp fully fleshed and lucid, thanks to the little flask he kept within his robe.

Already, simply from the taste in his mouth and the knowledge of its being in his body, Jemel could lift his head, straighten his spine, look around him. Julianne looked a
little
startled at the ch
ange; she would be more so shortl
y.

He touched his tongue to his lips, to catch what drops had slipped from the flask or from his own loose mouth before he'd swallowed. For a moment he closed his eyes, savouring, welcoming. Not to judge: this brew was not of Saren making, but that was immaterial. It had come into the world, and come to him. Besides, he was no longer Saren himself.

Words were still difficult; he should probably drink water to ease his throat. But he wo
uld have to ask for it, apparentl
y, neither girl had thought to pass a skin. If he had to speak anyway, he might as well ask his real question.

'Where is Marron?'

Not
where am I? or how did I get here?
or any of the other puzzlements. He thought they could all be answered by the one, or else they did not matter.

The girls looked at each other. It was Elisande who won that exchange, or lost it; she said, 'He went north.'
Where you cannot follow him
was inherent. Neither one of them needed to glance at the raging river, or the great gulf between here and the bank. She made a point of not doing so, indeed; he had seen it already, and was starting to answer
where am I?
on his own account. On an island, clearly, surrounded by a terrible force of water. The spray of it was cool on his skin, hanging in the air like a mist that the sun could not burn off.

He looked to Julianne, who had an overrun of words where Lisan hoarded hers as close as water. He supposed that in this country, no one would hoard water; but words were treasures, meanings were gifts.

'Mar
ron brought you to us,' she amplified, speaking hurriedly against his silence. 'You must have been in a great fight, you were horribly wounded, but I think you must have won the fight. He said he took you from some of our people, but none of your hurts were sword-wounds, so you cannot have been fighting them?'

'I was fighting 'ifrit,' he murmured, remembering. 'Many

'ifrit like serpents, or one that had made itself many; I do not know if they can do that, but they each seemed small-minded, easy to kill. It was only the numbers that defeated us. We were defeated, I think. I fought beside your people, Lisan, but they were mostly dead before yours came, Julianne. Perhaps they rescued me. I was small-minded myself by then, I could not think; only remember that there was a Patric I had to fight when I was finished with the 'ifrit, or they with me. I thought I had found him, tall and white and cloaked in black, but he said not, he said his name was Karlheim
...'

Julianne gasped, but quite silently; he only felt it because she had her arm around his shoulders still.

It was Lisan who pressed him. 'Was he a young man, blond-headed?'

'I suppose. He wore a helmet, and all Patrics are blond to me.'

'Was he hurt?' That was Julianne, picking at the ground like a child, trying to look as though it mattered not at all.

'He seemed well. I did not kill him, at least. I thought I might die in his arms, which was very wrong.' And something else was wrong too. He was coming at it all askance, but in the end the most sidewise shuffle must bring a man to the place where he must stand. He said, 'Marron came to fetch me? I do not remember that.'

'You had swooned before he brought you here,' Elisande observed neutrally.

'Before then, I think, before he found me. How did he find me?' Jemel didn't believe in the calling power of love; he had heard of too many men and women too who lost themselves in the Sands, searching for those who were lost already.

Besides, this was Marron. There was no telling whom he would have called for, or whose calling voice he would have heard.

'He knew, he said. Where you were, where we were. And so he brought you.'

Which was all the answer he needed, to all the questions that he needed to ask. Meanings were gifts and gifts could be poison, did they not know that, these girls? He'd no more asked them than he would have asked a djinni,
has Marron taken the Daughter back? —
but they'd told him regardless, and now he had that to deal with as well as another certainty.
He went north to find Sieur Anton, didn't he? Once he'd found me
...

'Give me more
jereth,'
he said.

'Oh, no,' Lisan objected. 'It's my turn, if either of us is to have treats.'

'Not a treat, it's needful. You don't know
...'
He would pay for it later, he would overtax his body to the breaking-point, but he had somehow to go north.

'Give it him,' came another voice,
unexpected and startl
ing, none of theirs.

Briefly they stared at each other, then around the tiny flat landscape of the island where nothing could hide.

Nor was it in hiding, only small and unlikely and hard to see in the bright light and the dense spray from the dashing river. Elisande found it first, but seemed to have lost her tongue with the surprise of its arrival; she simply gestured, and then glowered furiously up at where it hung like a trick of the sun in the wet air, betrayed by water-drops.

It was Julianne who spoke to it; Jemel saw no need for conversation, it had said what they should do and he thought that ought to be enough. But they were Patrics and they were girls, and so they would be elaborately cautious and take terrible risks and never know it. Even Elisande, who thought herself so wise in the ways of the desert and its peoples - even she was a child at play among scorpions, when she dabbled with the djinn.

‘I
t is unusual to see you, Djinni Tachur, where you have not been summoned.'

‘I
t is impossible to see me, Julianne de Ranee, where I do not wish to be seen. But time presses, the river is in flood and cannot be Folded away. Give the boy what he wants; and Lisan, do you be ready to follow as he drinks. It will take you deep, so keep a thought always for your way back.'

'You mean— I have done all I can for Jemel, for anyone just now. I have no strength left
...'