The Complete Morgaine by C. J. Cherryh
—since the day his brother died.
“We will rest here an hour,” Morgaine said, sinking down to wash beside him, letting Siptah drink.
“Aye.” He dipped up another double handful. It was spring-fed, this stream, and like ice, taking the breath. He stood up with a sudden effort.
The daylight went to gray and to dark.
“Vanye—” Morgaine said.
“Watch them!” he said to her in the Kurshin tongue, and sat down hard where he stood, his balance simply gone, his foot off the edge into the chill water, his wounds jolted so he thought he would not get the next breath at all.
“Vanye!”
“Watch them,” he said again, calmly, fighting panic. He drew his foot out of the water. “Liyo, I will rest here a little. I am tired. That is all.”
He heard her bend near him, felt her shadow take the heat of the sun from his face. He heard footsteps in the grass nearby and that frightened him.
“Liyo, do not turn your back on them.”
She laid her hand on his brow. “Thee is fevered,” she said.
“Liyo, in the name of Heaven—”
“We will rest here,” she said. The daylight began to come back, but it was still brass and full of illusion, with her as a darkness in the center of it.
“We have no time—”
“Vanye, lie down.”
He did as she asked, reckoning if they must stop an hour for his sake, he had as well not waste the time it cost them in argument. He let himself back on the grass and rested his head on his arm, and shut his eyes against the giddiness of the sky. The ground seemed to pitch and spin under him. He had not felt that dizzy when he was riding, and now that he let go it was hard not to lose all his senses. His stomach tried to heave and he refused to let it, refused the panic that lay at the bottom of his thoughts.
A little time, he told himself. They had been pushing too long to keep moving; and a battle and a ride with enemies-turned-comrades did not count for rest. An hour on his back, and he would be good for another ten.
Only, O God, he was weak. And his head spun.
And Morgaine was alone with these men.
She came back to him, knelt down by him, dampened a cloth in the cold stream and laid it on his brow.
“You are watching them,” he murmured in his own tongue.
“I am watching them.”
“Liyo, kill them.”
“Hush, rest.”
“Kill them!” He sat up on his elbow and caught the cloth in his hand, the pulse at once hammering in his ears and his gut hurting and his ribs a blinding pain. “‘Man and man,’ you said. Then trust me to know. I am telling you these men are after the weapons; they are only waiting to see what more they can find out, whether we have anything else they want—Kill them. And do not give them any warning.”
Her hand rested on his chest, pressing him to lie back. He would not yield.
“Listen to me,” he said.
“Hush,” she said. “Hush. I have an eye to them.”
“This is a man who gave Chei to the wolves. This is the guide who lied to us, whose brother I killed. If it is sane inside it is a wonder.”
“Lie back. Lie down. Do not make me trouble. Please. Please, Vanye.”
He let go his breath and let himself back. She wet the cloth again and wrung it out and laid it on his brow. It set him shivering.
“I will ride,” he said, “in an hour.”
“Only lie here. I will make some tea.”
“We cannot be risking a fire—”
She touched his lips with her fingers. “Still, I say. Hush. A little one. Do not fret about it. Be still.”
“Willow tea,” he murmured, “if you are going to do it anyway. My head aches.”
He rested then with his eyes half-open, slitted on Chei and his two men, who sat apart on the stream-bank. He watched Morgaine gather up twigs and grass, and his gut tensed as he saw Chei rise and walk toward her and have words with her.
What they said he could not hear. But Morgaine settled down thereafter and made a fire with that means she could, and Chei and the others began to unsaddle the horses.
He sat up then, and began to get to his feet in dismay, but Morgaine looked at him and lifted her hand in that signal that meant no.
He fell back again, and lay in misery while the pulse beat like a hammer in his temples and the sun glared red behind closed lids.
She brought him tea to drink, infused very strongly with something bitter; and little pellets wrapped in leaves, that were from Shathan, and very precious. He took them and drank the sour-bitter tea, as large mouthfuls as he could bear, simply to get it down, and rested back again.
“I will be all right,” he murmured then.
“Thee is not riding in an hour. Or two.”
“Dark,” he said. “Give me till dark. We can cut closer to the plain at night. Gain back the time.”
But he was no better. If anything, he hurt the worse. It is because of lying still, he thought.
Then, clearly and honestly: I am getting worse.
And we are too near the gate.
He rested. It was not sleep that passed the hours into twilight, only a dimness in which Morgaine came and went, and gave him cold water to drink. “I will try,” he said, then, “try to ride. Have them put me on my horse. I will stay there.”
There was fear in her eyes. It verged on panic. She smoothed the hair back from his face. “We will hold this place,” she said.
“With what? With them? With—” Anger brought a pain to his skull. His eyes watered, blurring the sight of her. “It is foolishness. Foolishness, liyo. No more time. Too many of them. When will you sleep? You cannot—cannot depend on me to stay awake. Cannot depend on me.”
“I will manage.”
“Do not lose for me! Do not think of it! Ride out of here!”
“Hush.” She touched his face, bent and kissed him, weary, so very weary, her voice. Her hand shook against his cheek. “Forgive me. Trust me. Will you trust me?”
“Aye,” he said, or thought he said. She unlaced his collar and took the stone from under his armor; and took it from him.
“Not to him—” he protested.
“No. I will keep it. I will keep it safe.”
It was too difficult to hold on. The dark grew too deep, a place unto itself, tangled and mazed. He wanted to come back. He wanted to stay awake to listen to her.
He dreamed of dark, like that between the Gates.
He dreamed of dark, in which she walked away, and he could not so much as tell where she had gone.
• • •
Chei rested his head in his hands, weary with his own aches, with the foolishness that would not let the woman see reason.
Will not leave him, the inner voice said, and it echoed a night in Arunden’s camp, a doorway—embarrassed youth, rebuffed and dismayed and made lonely all at once, in a child’s way; Pyverrn, seeking exile—riding into Morund on a wretched, shaggy horse—Ho, hello, old friend—Court grew deadly dull without you. . . .
Thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, grimaced with the confusion of images.
“My lord,” Rhanin said.
He looked up to see the lady walking toward them—with further delay, he reckoned. She looked distraught, her eyes shadowed and her face showing exhaustion.
She had to sleep. There would come a time she had to sleep. Then there was a reckoning, with the weapons in his hands, and the lady brought to see reason once for all.
He was not prepared to see her hand lift, and the black weapon in it, aimed straight at him. His heart froze in him: death, he thought. Our death, only so a crazed woman dares sleep—
“My lord Gault,” she said quietly, “Qhiverin. Chei. I have a propositi
“My lady?” he asked, carefully.
“I am going to rest. You will tend him, you will do everything you can for him, you will make him fit to ride, my lord; and if he is not better by morning, I will kill you all. If he cries out—once—I will shoot one of you at random. Do you have any doubt of that, my lord?”
“He will not be fit to ride—the man is fevered—he is out of his head—”
“Do you doubt my word, my lord? Do you want an earnest of my intentions?”
“She is mad,” Hesiyyn exclaimed.
Chei gathered himself hastily to his feet. “Up,” he said, dragging at Hesiyyn, at Rhanin. And cast an anxious glance at Morgaine, whose weapon stayed centered on him, whose eyes were, as Hesiyyn said—mad and beyond all reason.
Chapter 16
“Vanye. Vanye,” Morgaine’s voice called him gently.
“Aye, liyo.” He opened his eyes, trying to bring her face out of the dusk. He could not, quite.
“Vanye, will you trust me?”
“Aye, liyo.”
“I am going to go over there and rest, the night. Listen to me. I have not the strength to take care of thee—” Her fingers brushed his cheek. Her voice shook. “Chei will help thee, he will do everything he can for thee—he has agreed, at peril of his life. Does thee understand, Vanye? I do not want thee waking and not knowing where I am. And if he hurts thee I will shoot him. And if thee does not mend I will shoot him. And he knows it.”
He blinked at her. When she took that tone it was her intention beyond a doubt, even if it made no sense at all.
“Thee understands?”
“Aye,” he said.
• • •
The dark swallowed him up a time, and there was movement about him—firelit faces between him and the night sky.
One was Chei’s.
He forgot, then, where he was.
“Ah,” he cried, and tried desperately to fight them.
“Be still,” Chei said, and put his hand over his mouth. “Be still, man. Vanye. Vanye—listen to me.”
He recalled then, some insanity that Morgaine was with him. Or would come. He could not remember which.
“Look.” Chei lifted his head, carefully, gently, and showed him a strange sight: showed him Siptah, and at Siptah’s feet a stump, or some object, and Morgaine sitting with her hands between her knees. He was afraid, until he saw Changeling across her lap.
“You are safe,” Chei said. “You are quite safe with us.”
“She has promised to shoot one of us.” Hesiyyn gently unfastened a buckle at his side as Chei let his head back. “I have no doubt which one of us. My lord Chei is necessary, Rhanin wins everyone, and I am told I make enemies. I pray you know I shall be careful.”
He blinked dazedly. He recalled some such thing, mad as it was, and lay still, until they needed to work the mail shirt off. But that they did gently, easing his arms as they worked it free.
It was all one with the dark, the fever, the nightmare that began to become ease of pain. They put warm compresses on his hurts, renewing them constantly; they put hot cloths over him, soaked in herbals; they made him drink something complex and musky, and breathe something that gave his throat ease. He became comfortable, finally.
And slept till Chei roused him and made him drink something else.
“No more,” he said.
“Drink this,” Chei said fiercely. “Damn you, drink; we will not die for your convenience.”
He heard the harshness of panic in that voice. He recalled a nightmare, wherein Morgaine had asked him bear with everything.
He struggled onto his arm, dislodging compresses, to see was she safe and his memory true.
She was there. Changeling was still with her. Siptah stood close by her. Her head had fallen forward, her pale hair touched with fire-glow and starlight.
“Drink,” Rhanin said.
He trusted them then, and drank, with a clearer head than he had had. He shivered, and the bruises hurt less. They renewed the compresses out of a pan of hot water, and smothered him in blankets.
Only his chest hurt sharply, where ribs might be cracked. But that, he thought, was bearable, if he were not so drained and weak. The burns hurt far less; the other injuries that had near taken his mind with pain, were so much relieved he seemed to drift in enervated numbness.
The qhal whispered among themselves, urgently, debating something they might give him. Or how much they might give him, to put him on his feet. One said no, there was risk. Another objected he had to ride, and could not else: he would never last in the saddle. And that was Chei and Hesiyyn.
He lay and thought about that. He tested his breathing, how much it hurt; he moved his right leg, to test whether it hurt as it had, and looked at the two who argued.
“Is there something,” he asked faintly, in a lull, “will let me ride today?”
He shocked them, perhaps. There was a moment’s utter hush.
“Yes,” Chei said. “There is something that will. But the end of it is worse than the first. Best you do without it. You will ride. That is what she asked. That is what she will have. We have kept our end of the bargain.”
“Do you drink it,” he asked, the faintest of whispers, “or swallow it?”
“Not, I say.”
“Chei—tell me what it will do.”
“It will kill you, that is what it will do. And no.”
“It would keep a dead man on his feet,” Hesiyyn said. “It would not improve his judgment. And my lord says the truth: it would take a heavy toll.”
“Give it to me. To carry. Chei, give it to me and we are quit of a great deal.”
Chei gnawed at his lip—young Chei’s face, a mature qhal’s calculation as he rested with his arm on his knee and his eyes, by firelight, flickering with changes.
“You would take only a taste of it on your tongue,” he said. “I will tell you the truth, man, if you use it in extremity—you will not survive it.”
He thought about that. He drew breaths against the ache in his ribs, and knew what his sword-arm or his archery was worth at the moment. He thought how far they had yet to go.
“You are not the man I would choose,” he said. “But there is a great deal you could learn from my liege. There are more worlds than you know. If you knew more than you did, I think you might understand her more. You would know why she is right. More than I do. Give me this thing and do not tell her. The important thing is that we get there.”
Chei looked at him in profound disturbance. His fist clenched and unclenched, of the arm which supported his chin, and his brow was ridged and glistening with sweat. “And you do what—lay this in her lap? Tell her then we tried to kill you?”
“We will have no quarrel, Chei. What do you want? That she stop somewhere further on—for my sake? That is what she is doing. Give it to me.”
Chei delved into his belongings, and gathered out a packet. “One pellet. One. No more than that. Three and your heart would burst. I am putting it with your belongings. That is all I will do.” He busied himself and mixed something with water, and boiled it.
“What is this?” he asked, when Hesiyyn intended he drink it.
“I thought we were allies,” Hesiyyn said. “Drink. This is for the fever.”
“Also,” Hesiyyn said when he had drunk it, “it will make you sleep.”
• • •
The sun came up, and Morgaine still drowsed, he saw as he lifted his head, with Siptah’s tether passed across her shoulder, with the sword in her lap, her back against a rock, and the small black weapon between her knees, in both her hands.
It was Chei whose eyes had shadows. It was Chei who offered him an overcooked porridge, with a hand that shook with exhaustion.
He took it. He forced it down. It came at too much cost to refuse.
Across the little distance, Siptah jerked his head up and snorted challenge to Rhanin’s approach. Morgaine lifted her head abruptly, the weapon in her hand.
But it was a bowl Rhanin brought, offering it to her. Rhanin came no closer, and Morgaine got quickly to her feet, Changeling in one hand, the black weapon in the other, and stopped, staring not at Rhanin, but toward him.
He stared back at her, weak as he was, and got up on his arm, feeling the shock of cold air as the blanket fell.
For a long moment she said nothing. Then: “How does thee fare this morning?”
“Much better,” he said. “Much better, liyo.”
“I had not meant to fall so far asleep—”
He drew a breath, such as yesterday would have cost him pain. It amazed him it did not, overmuch. Only it would be very easy, just now, to weep, and he moved, suddenly, and shoved himself up with a sudden straightening of his arm so that a twinge took his mind off it. He was dizzy then. The whole world swung round.
She came to him and swept Changeling, sheathed and crosswise, in curt dismissal of the others, who drew back a few paces. Then she knelt and spared a glance for him.
“I think the porridge is safe,” he murmured, “but I would not eat it.”
“Has thee?”
“Aye,” he said. “It is truly wretched.”
She slid the black weapon into place at her belt, touched him with that hand, brushed the hair off his unshaven cheek. She looked tired, tired and mortally worried. “We will ride at night,” she said.
“Liyo, we cannot wait!”
“Now how are we arguing? I take your advice and you will none of it. We are safe here for the moment. The horses are resting. We can make up the time.”
“We cannot make up two days. I can ride.” He sat upright and tucked his leg up; and she put her hand onto his knee.