WE PASS OVER THE lip of the volcano. I grasp the stallion’s mane and guide him down the mountain, although he seems to need no guidance.
Olus was willing to die for me. He would become mortal, Puru said, if he followed me to Wadir.
The wind is bracing. I let go of the horse’s mane to raise my arms and wriggle my fingers. I smell pine, not mold. The trees are alive. Every breath makes me want to smile, not weep. The sky is cloudy. Enshi Rock is hidden.
I wish Senat and Merem and Aunt Fedo could see me on this flying steed.
The stallion flies over a river, then a strip of trees, and lands in a meadow. Olus and I dismount, and the huge creature begins to graze.
Olus kisses me. He’s growing a beard. The hairs tickle.
After the kiss, he murmurs into my hair, “Where are our feathers?” He sounds disappointed.
For a moment I don’t understand. Then I’m laughing against his shoulder.
He holds me out at arm’s length, his expression puzzled.
Oh dear, he thinks he’s dead and wants his feathers. It takes me a few minutes to get out, “We’re not warkis. This is Mount Enshi.”
His face is so surprised, I laugh even harder.
He begins to laugh too.
Real laughter is the opposite of Wadir. Gradually we sober.
“You saved my life.”
“You were going to die for me.”
“I was going to find you.”
A bird trills. I’ve never heard anything sweeter.
“You’re a heroine now. You escaped from Wadir.”
I take this in. A heroine. The first step to becoming immortal. I sit and watch an ant crawl through the grass.
“I couldn’t count the days down there.” I’m afraid to look up. “Has the day of my sacrifice passed?”
“Not yet.”
“When?”
“Fifteen days after today.”
Nine days lost in Wadir. Only nine days. He might have said nine years and I wouldn’t have been surprised. I’m grateful, and yet . . . Nine days out of the twenty-five I had when I entered the tunnel. Nine days of sky and sun and kisses.
Olus sits next to me.
I lean against his shoulder. “If you had fallen into the lava, I don’t think you would have become a warki.”
“No? I was mortal as soon as I jumped.” He folds his fingers over mine.
“The warkis are not the dead.” I tell him about Wadir.
He listens. Sometimes he says “Oh, Kezi” in such a soft, sorrowful, and respectful way.
The respect is the most soothing of all. My tears spill out. “The warki god said his worshipers are not the dead, but they come seeking the dead.”
“Did you see new ones come?”
I shake my head. “To go into the moldy earth . . . few would do it. People must be grieving terribly. They probably cause the melancholy in the air. Taram wept when I asked her what her name used to be. Her eyes were always sad. I’m glad I won’t go there if I die. I’m glad Pado and Mati and Aunt Fedo won’t.”
He kisses me.
I could let him comfort me, but I need to confess. I pull away. “I didn’t find Admat. A believer would have looked longer. No, a believer wouldn’t have had to look at all. I don’t know what happens when anyone dies. We could each have a different afterlife or no afterlife at all.”
He strokes my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “We can go to Enshi Rock. You can come now, and I can take you.”
“Yes? You’re a champion!”
He nods, smiling.
“Were you shut in somewhere?”
“You guessed! You were thinking of me?”
“Yes, I was thinking about you!”
He tells me about the well and the spiders and the bees. “I am no longer afraid. If you’d like, we could live in the cave behind the falls of Zago.”
I smile, but I’m thinking how awful it must have been for him. “Why couldn’t they have just let you bring me to Enshi Rock?” I realize I’m criticizing the Akkan gods, but I don’t stop. “Why did we have to be tested?”
Olus’s smile becomes a frown. “I don’t know.” After a moment, he adds, “Why do you have to be sacrificed?”
“The oath laws. Oh!” If there is no Admat . . . “Who made the oath laws?”
A different god? People?