When Penrys awoke for the last time, it was well past dawn. The friendly sound of morning activity around the camp had helped her feel safe at last.
The healers’ tent was empty, but she detected the hand of Hing Ganau in the pile of clean clothing laid on the chair Zandaril had been using the night before. On top was a roll of the same wrapping the healer had used on her left hand and a small but sturdy ceramic pot sealed by wax. The fragment of chain lay next to it.
She swung her legs over the side of the cot and, when her head stopped spinning, she picked up the pot and gave it a sniff. For my neck. Nice of her. Must think I’m going somewhere.
The sight of new boots made her sigh. Ah, yes, my old ones are still in Kunchik. I hate breaking in new boots.
She dressed, tentatively using the thumb on her left hand to help. It was clumsy, and it made her hand ache, but it was much better than no hand at all. No more needing assistance in the bushes like the day before. Her face burned at the recollection. She pocketed the chain, grateful to have pockets again.
All that effort, all those deaths, and that bit of metal is all I have to show for it.
Faced with the boots at last, she contemplated the loops at the top on either side. That’s not standard issue. She picked one up and examined it more closely. The loops didn’t quite match the leather of the boot tops, and the stitching looked new.
Zandaril. So I could use my thumb to help pull them on.
Unexpected tears rose to her eyes and she bowed her head to hide the weakness. We’re done, aren’t we. He jollied me along yesterday when I needed it, like the kind man he is, but the things he saw me do…
She sniffed, and forced herself to stop. At least he survived, I didn’t get him killed. That’s something.
Now what? Where do I go? There’s no point staying here.
She took a couple of deep breaths, and pulled on one boot. When her hand stopped throbbing, she tugged on the other one, picked up her pair of shoes, and limped out of the tent.
Penrys found Hing Ganau’s wagon where she expected it, the camp not having moved in several days. Neither Hing nor Zandaril was there, and she lowered the tailgate one-handed and climbed in.
The bean sacks were much the same, but all the personal marks of Zandaril’s occupation were diminished. She saw one tidy roll bound by leather straps which she suspected was his little rug, the one that had made such a comforting bit of color between them.
The books were gone, and his special stones, no doubt into the open packs she saw lying along the wooden wall. Only his bedroll was still laid out.
Her few possessions, all provided by the squadron, were in a neat pile against the opposite wall, with an old, empty, pack beside them. They included her folded bedding and the half-empty bag of power-stones.
The inference was clear. It was time for her to gather her possessions up and leave.
She set her face and bent to the task. The shoes she was carrying would fit in the bottom of the pack, once she’d cleaned them.
“You’re here!”
Zandaril’s cheerful voice interrupted her packing.
Penrys made sure her face was under control before turning, and raised her shield.
“I went looking for you in the healers’ tent but you were already gone,” he said. “Sorry I wasn’t there, but I had errands to run.”
He dropped a small burlap bag on the floor of the wagon and hauled himself up. He stuck his hand in the bag and pulled out a tidy knife in a belt sheath, and put it aside.
“No, not that one.” Rummaging in the bag again, he came out with a different knife and laid it down in front of where she was kneeling.
“Look—for Tak Tuzap. Think he’ll like it? I never saw what he gave you, but I had the sheath to give me an idea of the size.”
He reached down and handed her the other one while he spoke.
“This one’s for you—to replace the one you lost.”
She looked down at the sheathed knife in her hand, and couldn’t speak.
Into the drawn-out silence, Zandaril said, “What’s wrong, Pen-sha?”
She clamped her jaws until she thought she could control her voice.
“When are you leaving?” she asked, her face still concealed by her hanging hair.
“Tomorrow, I think. The smith won’t be done with the ax before then.”
She heard him reposition himself until he was seated cross-legged in front of her.
“Aren’t you coming, Pen-sha?” he asked, gently.
“I… I thought I might find a way back to the Collegium. Maybe I can find some sort of clue now that I have some of the chain, his chain, to examine. There must be ships…”
She cleared her throat. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry.”
Her eyes seemed to find the floorboards of the wagon fascinating. Every bit of dust, every scratch—it gave her something to look at.
“And why would you do that?” he asked.
When she didn’t reply, he prodded, “You can do better than that…”
It stung her, and she muttered, “Blood. Death. Monsters. Power.”
She finally made herself lift her head and look at him. “Next time you’ll get killed.”
His face wasn’t shocked, or even puzzled. It was steady.
“I have better idea,” he said. “We go give Tak his yarab mar uthkahi, his honor gifts, buy some donkeys from him so I can experiment with mules. You come meet my family. We feed you better, lots of wishkaz spices to keep you warm in winter, and we have real winters, not like here.”
“You can’t! It’s much too dangerous. I’m too dangerous.”
She cleared her throat. “I killed Vladzan—stole all his power, stopped his heart, and watched from the inside when he died.”
He nodded, as if it were no surprise to him. “What he deserved. Like the Khrebesni you killed to stop the attack. Killing the enemy is not wrong.”
“Not like that. Not reveling in it, not… glorying in the power of it.”
“But you gave it back, all the power you stole. You are not like the Voice.”
“Oh, Zandaril, I am. I will be.”
“Every warrior learns what it feels like to kill an enemy. Sorrow to kill a man, pleasure to defend family and friends, righteousness to wield justice, pride in success. They learn this, or they are not warriors but murderers. You have learned this now.”
“This time around.” She trailed off. “The mage council, they wanted to know where I came from, so they robbed me of my strength with a drug and forced me to look.”
She unclenched her teeth. “There was nothing there, Zandaril. I don’t care what m’body knows, there was nothing there. I’m not getting it back.”
Looking at him directly, she said, “I am building on sand, and this can’t be the first time. M’body got its own memories somewhere. How old am I? Do I just stay this age? How would you tell, if I heal so well? Maybe wrinkles are just something else to heal and I’ll never see them. Maybe I did have children… but think what monsters I might breed.”
She bit her lip.
Zandaril let a few moments pass, then asked, “Have you looked in the inside pocket of that pack yet?”
Penrys stared at him. She turned and felt around inside until she located a hard lump and fished it out. The small leather pouch was unfamiliar, and when she loosened its thongs with the aid of her teeth she discovered the stone she had picked up on the way from Lupmikya, after stopping at the mill.
“This?”
She held it out on her palm. “I know it’s not right. It won’t balance on its own, but I… like it.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a matching leather pouch.
I suppose he must have made both of those pouches. How did he know about my stone?
The stone he uncovered was broad and flat-bottomed, with a deep depression that marred its appearance. He placed it on the wagon boards between them and plucked her stone out of her hand. Its rough base fit the top of his as though they had been made together, and yet they were different minerals—his was a dark gray granite, solid and speckled with black bits, and hers was an orange-gray sandstone with streaky layers.
The combined stone, to her eye, was strong but not simple. The movements were complex, the colors and materials were a contrast, and yet it made a pleasing whole.
She wondered what he saw.
Zandaril told her, “I have never heard of a two-part had-kighat mar-lud, and I don’t know what it means, but they belong together, you can see that. And they are wrong when they are apart.”
He left the conjoined stones between them.
“Listen to me. Just living is dangerous, and yet we embrace it, we must. At least you do not build on sand now.”
He gestured at the double stone. “We have real foundations. Maybe you have another family, maybe two, maybe none.”
He shrugged. “We will deal with that when we must.”
How can hope roil my stomach like this?
“You’re not scared of me, like any sensible man?”
He grinned at her. “You? You should meet my nurti, my second sister. Much scarier. That’s why I bring her donkeys, to distract her from me. She should get along fine with mules.”
Sobering, he said, “I need a student, now that I am a jarghal, a master, and I need a taghulajti, a teacher, too. I teach you, and you teach me. How else do we learn?”
He shoved the two stones over to her, with his own pouch. “Here, you hold them both. Look at them and remember why we do this.”
Bowing deeply from his seated position, he took a deep breath. “My name, Zandaril—that isn’t really a name, I told you. It’s a title. Means one who travels, a journeyman. It’s what we call ourselves after we’ve left our masters, while we search.”
He shrugged. “Kigaliwen don’t know any better, and they don’t approve of Zannib names anyway.”
He bowed again to her. “You have recognized my nayith, jarghalti, my masterwork, and so I take my name back, and you are the first to hear it again. I am Najud, son of Ilsahr of clan Zamjilah, of the Shubzah tribe, and my mother Kazrsulj is the daughter of Khashjibrim of the same clan.”
Penrys mouthed his name. “Lucky,” it meant, and “Fortunate.” Then she tasted wirqiqa-Zannib for the intimate forms.
“Naj-sha, would it be?” she murmured, and watched with interest as he blushed.
