The Farwalker's Quest (24 page)

She planted her fists on her hips.

He chuckled. “I don't know why I'm still surprised. It's hard for me to look at you without seeing a young girl, I guess. But … it feels pretty bad, Ariel. Are you sure you're up to it?”

With her jaw clamped, she nodded. He tipped his head in submission, sat on a stone with his back to her, and unbuttoned his shirt. When he had trouble peeling it back, she took it and pulled. She tried to be gentle, because she could
see the bloody fabric sticking to him, but he still sucked air through his teeth.

When the shirt was finally out of the way, she sucked air through her own teeth. Her knees wobbled, too. She shoved them ramrod straight and pretended to be watching her mother. That helped.

A knife had sliced a long, ragged curve into his upper back. It looked deepest around the bottom of his right shoulder blade, as if the knife had slipped under the bone there before popping back out. The wound no longer bled, mostly because it was caked full with sticky sand.

“Well?” he asked.

“I don't think you'll be giving me piggyback rides again anytime soon.”

“Good. You're heavy.” His weak jest fell flat.

Ariel fumbled for a cloth and realized just how little they'd escaped with. “We don't have any of our packs.”

“No, we haven't been so lucky as that,” he said. “I do have the needle in my coat, though. Think you'll want it?”

“I'll be sewing until winter,” she replied, trying not to be daunted.

She picked up his shirt and soaked it in the pool, rinsing out as much blood and sand as she could. Then she lifted it, dripping. Recalling how cold water had felt in the cut on her arm made her stomach flutter.

“This is probably going to hurt.”

“It already hurts. Go ahead.”

She drenched him, squeezing the cloth over his back. Gingerly, as some of the sand flowed away and she could see the wound better, she started wiping at it. Grit clung stubbornly in the torn flesh. She could tell by the way Scarl inhaled when
the pain of her swabbing was awful and when it wasn't so bad. After a while, he braced his left elbow on his knee and leaned his forehead into his hand, his eyes closed.

Once she got past the distress of hurting him, Ariel slipped into an efficient coolness. She bent many times to the water and even, at the end, carefully slipped two wet fingers inside his sliced muscle to draw out the last grit.

“I bet you wish you'd hurt me more when you stitched up my arm,” she said when she was done cleaning. She had remembered, almost too late, that talking might help distract him.

He took a shaky breath before he answered. “Are you going to enjoy yourself for much longer?”

“No. I'm ready to stitch it. But what should I use for thread? We could probably take the stitches out of my arm. It's healing pretty good. But I'm afraid the bits will all be too short.” There wouldn't be nearly enough, either, but she didn't say that.

“Hand me my coat.”

He pulled a coil of fish line from one pocket and removed the hook.

“That's awfully thick,” Ariel said.

“It'll do.”

“Not if I can't get it through the needle.”

“Do I have to do everything?” At her silence, he added, “I was joking. You're doing fine. I'll put it back on the fishhook. Use that instead of the needle.”

Ariel groaned. The prospect of running him through like bait nearly emptied her stomach.

“The only other choice is to leave it,” Scarl said.

“It'll never heal without stitches.” The wound gaped with every movement he made.

“You decide. I can't see it. You can.”

She gazed sourly at his back and remembered that this had been her idea.

When she didn't reply, he said, “That's all right. Washing it out should help quite a bit. Where's my shirt?”

“No.” She held out her cupped palm. “Give me the stupid hook.”

He handed it to her. “You can do it. If I can put up with it.”

Taking a deep breath, she rethreaded the hook and bent to the deepest end of the cut. Her mother, she thought, would have been proud. Her Fisher father also, perhaps. She blinked tears from her eyes and began baiting her hook.

It was the ugliest stitching Ariel had ever done, but slowly the gaping wound closed. Zeke came back and stood at a distance, watching and then looking away. Not long after she'd started, Scarl stopped her so he could pick up his coat. His hands trembled.

“I'll work on some finer threads,” he explained. “So you can switch to the needle before I pass out.” He began teasing threads from a raveled edge of the fabric.

She gladly took the oilcloth thread and the needle when she could. At that point, the stitching got easy enough that she could talk and distract him a little.

“Who were those people? Gust and the rest?” she asked.

“All but Gust are the other Finders I told you about, sent out by Mason.”

“They were looking for me?”

“They were looking for me. Or Elbert, or both. To learn if we'd gotten our work done.”

“They already finished theirs,” she muttered.

“I'm afraid so.”

Zeke spoke up. “I don't think they're coming after us here.
‘Two have dwindled to dust,' that's what the stones say. The rest are still out there, but they're not getting closer.”

“They'll probably regroup and try to catch us off guard,” Scarl said. “We need to reach Hartwater as soon as we can. You'll be safer with more people around you. I thought I'd be enough to protect you, but nothing went as I expected.” He sighed. “The worst of it is losing your dart. Now there's no way to find out any more about the summons, let alone answer it.” He kneaded his forehead with the heel of one hand. “Too many mistakes.”

Zeke caught Ariel's eye. Casually, he shook his right forearm. Ariel's whalebone needle still hid tucked in his splint. She'd slipped it back to him for safekeeping before they left the mountains because she hadn't wanted Scarl to notice it in her pack. Now she gave Zeke a tiny shake of her head. She wanted to keep that secret yet.

“Still,” Scarl said, “you're alive. I've managed that much.”

“It was a good thing Misha helped us,” Ariel muttered.

“Well … your ghost makes me nervous,” he replied. “If he stirred up the sandstorm, I have to give credit. But Zeke's cool head helped enormously, too. If he'd bolted too soon, they would have caught him for sure. And the way you swooped back, shrieking—it distracted them at just the right moment. Together those things probably saved all our lives.”

Ariel said nothing. Recalling the last moments before the sandstorm brought a bitter taste to her mouth.

Some of her unease must have passed through her hands.

“Do you want to rest?” Scarl asked softly, after a moment.

“No. I'm almost finished.”

By the time she tied the last knot, she felt drained and her stomach was churning. Scarl, his face drawn and pale, started
to rise. He thought better of it. Instead he slipped down to one knee and carefully stretched out on his belly, resting his cheek on his left forearm.

“Wait. One more thing.” Ariel eyed the plants that grew in the chasm and settled on a canterberry vine. “Are we going to stay here awhile?”

“If Zeke still feels we'll have it to ourselves,” Scarl replied.

When Zeke nodded, the Finder said, “Good. We need the rest and the water. It's going to be a hard push to escape the Drymere without any supplies.”

“Great,” Ariel grumbled. She ripped the largest leaves off the vine, feeling as though invisible fingers were clawing at her, too. She shredded the leaves, made a paste with a few drops of water, and spread the mash over her stitching.

“There,” she said finally. “That should help keep out infection. It's the best I can do.”

Scarl waited until she crossed his field of vision to say, “Thank you, Ariel.”

Tired and cranky, she didn't reply. To escape the sun, now high enough to pound into the chasm, she moved into a shadow that still curled around one side.

She'd just sunk into a comfortable nook when Scarl spoke again.

“If you'll look in the pockets on the left side of my coat, I think there may still be a few strips of dried meat there.”

Zeke jumped up to check.

“What else have you got in that coat?” Ariel wondered when Zeke found the food.

“It pays to have lots of pockets.”

Zeke took the meat first to Scarl, but the Finder shook his head. “Can't do it,” he said. “You go ahead.” Too hungry to
argue, Zeke and Ariel split the meal. It took plenty of chewing, but Ariel's stomach welcomed each bite.

The meat made her thirsty again, though. A long drink didn't flush away the single thought that had been grinding away in her head while she'd chewed. As she returned to her nook, she noticed that Scarl's drooping eyelids had parted again at her motion.

“I want to ask you a question,” she told him. She wasn't sure, in fact, that she did, but the suspicion gnawing at her wouldn't rest.

He didn't bother lifting his head. “I'll answer if I can.”

Ariel took a deep breath. The question rushed out bitterly. “If you had to kill Zeke to save me, would you do it?”

Distaste cramped Scarl's features. “He's sitting right next to you, isn't he?”

“This time,” whispered the shadow in Ariel's heart. She didn't relent. “That doesn't answer my question.”

Scarl turned his face to the ground and sighed into the dirt. “I told you I'd never lie to you.”

“You'd do it?” she demanded.

Finally he met her eyes. “If I had to, Ariel. Yes. But only if I had no other choice.”

“I understand,” Zeke said quickly.

“I don't.” Ariel crossed her arms.

Scarl and Zeke shared a glance that left her out. A wave of fury rolled through Ariel's weariness. How could Zeke still look at the Finder with any respect? She stomped her heel against the stone in frustration.

“It's easier to be nobody,” Scarl said. “But you're not.”

She'd heard enough. Turning her back, she leaned into her
stone pillow, buried her cheeks in her palms, and closed her eyes.

But Zeke asked a question she had avoided. “Would you kill yourself to save her?”

Ariel shot him a glare.

“That's easier,” Scarl told Zeke. “If I thought she'd be safe, with people who would help her, I'd do that before I'd ever hurt you.”

Ariel moaned. She didn't want such information to get in the way of her anger. “But why?”

“Because everything and everyone I care about most might depend on you. But I'm not up to explaining right now. If it can wait a few hours.”

“I don't care if it waits forever,” she retorted.

The chasm filled with pained silence. Gradually all three of them slipped into sleep.

Or perhaps sleep hosted four, because at last Ariel met Misha again in a dream.

Ariel dreamed she explored the halls of the abbey. Turning a corner, she heard her name and glanced up. Misha lay draped like a cat across one of the great wooden beams supporting the roof.

“You saved us,” she said. “Thank you.”

He smiled. She thought he might float down from above, but he didn't. A hand touched her shoulder. She whirled. Now he stood before her. Only cobwebs decked the beam where he'd lain.

“Don't. Please. That scares me.”

Without reply, he took her hand and pulled her down the hall. Ariel guessed where they were going. As she thought it, the wooden door appeared. She wanted to pass through it no more than she had the first time she'd dreamed of it, but she knew she must. She owed him.

“That scares me, too,” she whispered. “What's behind it?”

Misha only gestured an invitation to enter, then shifted like smoke, moving through her to stand at her shoulder. Apparently she must open it and find out for herself.

Her lips numb with fear, she murmured, “All right.” Before
dread could leach out her will, she put her palm on the heavy door and pushed.

Blinding light spilled over her. Ariel shaded her eyes and stepped into a long, brilliant room. Its stone walls held astonishing windows that stretched nearly from the floor to the high, curving roof. Sunlight blazed through. Narrow wooden tables stretched beneath them, casting shadows into the room. Ariel's fear, primed for a tomb, dwindled.

“Where are we?” she asked.

Misha moved past her to trail his fingers through the dust on one polished tabletop. The sunshine faded him to little more than a gossamer outline. With a look of despair, he lifted his shimmering fingertips to her. The dust there was more solid than he was, but she noticed again that his hand was stained red.

The suggestion of blood triggered a cascade of images in Ariel's dreaming mind: wounds, stitching, Scarl. The attached emotions pulled her out of the dream. She jerked awake.

The chasm swirled with shadows. The sky was pale, the afternoon sun probably near the horizon. Ariel sat up with a groan, rubbing a numb spot on her hip.

Zeke was gone. Panic welled through her before she spied his silhouette near the top of the chasm. He was probably just talking to rocks again.

Sleep still slacked Scarl's face. Ariel's eyes stole to his coat. Her hunger had awakened with her, worse than before. She argued with herself for a moment. Her honesty lost. Slipping over the rough ground to the coat, she looked through its pockets for anything more there to eat.

She found a coil of thin rope, a pack of waxed flamesticks, and his blackened tin cup, but nothing she could eat. She also discovered, in a small pocket by itself, his Finder's glass. It
wasn't quite round, and one edge was chipped ragged. Holding it up to the sky, she could see a few bubbles in the glass, but nothing more.