Water (20 page)

breathing was dreadful.

Tamia did not remember how she got her up the house-steps and indoors, but she managed it

somehow. She pulled her Guardian’s wet clothes off, and towelled her dry, and wrapped her in

her warmest dressing-gown, trying to be as gentle as possible with the heavy inert weight of her

beloved mentor, trying to fight against the battering strength of her own fear. She noticed that the

left side of her Guardian’s body was chilly and stiffer than her right, but she thought this was

only on account of her having lain in the water. She lit a great fire in the hearth, and made up a

bed for her Guardian near it, and then sat by her side, holding her hand, trying to make her own

mind less blank, less frozen with dread and grief, more able to think what she must do.

At last, near dawn, it seemed to Tamia that her Guardian’s sleep shifted a little, and became more

like normal sleep. She put an arm round her shoulders and raised her up, and tried to make her

drink a little water; and her Guardian seemed to half rouse, and her lips closed on the rim of the

cup. When

Tamia held it up higher, the liquid trickled out of the left corner of her Guardian’s mouth; but

Tamia saw her Guardian’s throat move in a swallow, and for the first time since Tamia had

found her lying in the pool, her own mind came out from under the deep shadow where it had

lain.

There were ways for the Guardians to send messages among themselves, but Tamia did not yet

know them, for messages were tricky, and ill-handled could disturb or confuse the intricate

network of protection which was the Guardians’ chief task. No trader was due to visit them for

weeks, and in her Guardian’s present condition, Tamia could not leave her long enough to look

for help. The first day passed while Tamia continued to sit at her Guardian’s bedside, and fed her

water and broth when she could, and cleaned her up when her body failed her in other ways, and

spoke softly to her so that her mind, if it had been cast adrift by whatever had seized her body,

might hear her voice and find its way home.

Another day passed, and another. Tamia had to leave her Guardian’s bedside to brew more broth,

to dip up more water from the well; even to sleep, and eat, and wash herself, and to do the

laundry, that the Guardian might always have clean sheets to lie on. But Tamia was not without

hope, for while the Guardian had still not opened her eyes and recognised her, sometimes her

right hand moved towards the cup that Tamia was holding, and sometimes, while she drank, she

was almost sitting on her own.

On the fourth morning, Tamia went outside, down the house-steps to the water-garden, and

paused there, for the first time since she had found her Guardian stretched out at its edge. The

last few days she had crossed the stepping-stones quickly, intent on some errand. The watergarden had had to look after itself in the much greater need to look after her Guardian; Tamia

had barely remembered to wish the yew tree good-day and good-evening. But the water-garden

could not look after itself; and besides, Tamia had thought of something she might try—a

message she might be able to send.

This was much harder than that first solitary magic she had done—lifetimes ago, it seemed now.

But that had not been truly solitary, any more than any of the other magics she had done since

had been, because her Guardian had been there. Even if she was indoors or on the other side of

the meadow and could not see what Tamia was doing, she was always there if Tamia needed

help. And what Tamia was doing now was something new, something she had not been trained

to do.

She walked three times round the house before she felt the presence of any stones that might do

for her purpose. When she knelt beside them, their presence seemed to waver, like the reflection

of a disturbed pool; she had to wait till everything—including her anxious breath—had calmed.

Yes, these would do. She chose one, two, three—oh dear—four, five, six and seven—this was

too many. She sat with her stones in her lap and looked at them; the gold flecks blinked at her

hopefully. Well, it was the best she could do. A real Guardian could do new things with her

water-garden, things she hadn’t been trained for, because she felt its water like a part of the tidal

rhythm in her own body, the individual stones as thoughts she had thought or might one day

think. But Tamia was only an apprentice. An apprentice’s standard service to a Guardian was

twenty years—and Four Doors, who liked to talk, had told Tamia stories of apprenticeships that

had been thirty or fifty years. Tamia had had only five years. She would have to create a rough,

clumsy magic because she could not create a subtle one.

The golden flash, when it came, was blinding. When her vision cleared, her seven stones lay in a

sandy-grey bed, and the golden glitter even on the far side of the water-garden seemed muted.

She swallowed with a suddenly dry mouth; but it was done, and she had done it.

She was so exhausted, she could barely drag herself up the house-steps again, and into the front

room where her Guardian lay. There she dropped down beside her, clasping her Guardian’s right

hand, her head on the edge of the mattress, and fell asleep.

It was her first deep sleep in days, and she was woken out of it by a sense of uneasiness. It

seemed to her that she heard her name being called, very softly, but over and over again, and that

she should recognise the voice that spoke it, but she did not; and that there was something wrong

with her name as it was spoken—

She woke up, and found that her Guardian was holding her hand firmly enough to be giving her

tiny squeezes as she repeated her name—“Tamia, Tamia”—but why did it sound so strange?

Tamia said, or half-groaned, “Oh, I am so glad you are awake!” and bent towards her and kissed

her, and then as she turned away from her to look for the tinder-box and kindle the lamp, she saw

the rain streaming in through the open shutters on the far side of the Guardian’s bed.

She lit the lamp first, and saw the pools of water the rain had left, and had a nasty, sick feeling in

her stomach that the pools were too regularly shaped, and looked rather too much like the shape

her seven stones made in the water-garden. She closed the shutters and then flung all the rags she

could find in the pools of rain-water, just to disturb their shape, till she had time to go round

them one by one and mop them up properly. She blew on the red heart of the drowsy fire, and

stirred it, and fed the tiny flame that wavered into being (rain stung her face like embers, hissing

down the chimney); and then she went to the water-ewer, and was glad to find that it was still

half full, because it was now quite dark out, and drawing water in darkness and heavy rain would

have been unpleasant.

She brought the lamp nearer the bed, so she could see her Guardian’s face; and reassured herself

with the warmth of her hand that the Guardian had taken no chill from Tamia having let the fire

almost go out. “Guardian, you’re better!”—and a little joy and relief slipped out in her words;

but she knew there was still something badly wrong. “Guardian—”

“Tamia,” her Guardian said again, and now, in the lamplight, Tamia saw that her mouth was not

working the way it should, and that one whole side of her face looked slack and limp. The

Guardian saw the shock register in Tamia’s face, and patted her hand with her own good hand;

for the weakness extended all down one side of her body. Trying to speak very carefully, she

said, “I know—a little—about what has happened. Something that happens sometimes to old

people.”

But Tamia put her hand over her mouth and said, “Don’t talk. You must eat something, now that

you’re awake. You must get stronger. And then—then we’ll know better what to do.” She turned

away before she could read the expression on her Guardian’s face, and when she sat down again

with some hastily reheated porridge, her Guardian allowed herself to be fed like a little child, and

Tamia learned quickly to slip the spoon in the side of her mouth where it wouldn’t all helplessly

dribble out again.

The rain continued over the next several days. It was early autumn, when the change of weather

often comes quickly and strongly, and when storms are common. The winds that caromed around

their little meadow seemed wilder and more directionless than usual, even for autumn; but Tamia

deliberately did not think about this. She had mopped up the rainwater pools, and while she

opened the shutters as often as she could for daylight, however grey, and fresh air, however

damp, she kept sentry-watch against the rain spotting the floor. Her Guardian drifted in and out

of sleep, but Tamia hoped it was only sleep now. She ate obediently, and tried to help when

Tamia washed and turned her, so she would not grow sore from lying in the same position too

long; and she regained control over her body functions. And she allowed—because she was

given no choice—her apprentice to rub the dead side of her body, and to move that leg and foot,

and bend the arm, and curl and uncurl the fingers.

Every time Tamia went near that side of the house, indoors or out, she felt—what she had done

to the water-garden pulling at her.

As the days passed, the rain fell harder and the wind blew stronger, till Tamia could rarely open

the shutters at all, and during the days as well as the nights the world seemed very dark. Even

with the shutters closed the house rattled and creaked, and the wind and rain battered the walls

like fists, and little draughts crept in and played with the lamplight.

The cloud-cover hung low and thick and menacing over their meadow, and Tamia only went

outdoors long enough to draw water from the well, and to greet the yew tree, and ran back in

again. She began to wonder if she might not be able to collect enough water by setting bowls and

basins on the stepping-stones, and then she would not have to linger so long beneath this bleak

and accusing sky. When she had lived in the valley she had hated stormy weather, when she

could not go outdoors; but now the pressure of the gloomy hostile weather seemed the proper

backdrop to her fears. The water-garden throbbed like a bruise.

“Something wrong—this weather,” said her Guardian; Tamia shrugged. She was more interested

in gently flexing her Guardian’s ankle. “Water-garden?”

Tamia frowned a little at the foot she was holding. The seven stones meant that the rest of the

garden felt so different, she had not dared touch anything else; but she was determined that her

Guardian should know nothing that might trouble her, if it could be done by Tamia not telling

her about it. She had been sure that her seven stones would be noticed by some other Guardian.

Well; apparently she had guessed wrong. It had been almost a fortnight. Perhaps she should

remove them; the bruise feeling was growing stronger, and every time she walked across the

stepping-stones now she got a headache as well.

Perhaps the weather was so savage outside their meadow that no one could come to them.

Tamia’s eyes strayed to the larder. They were already running low on lamp oil but they had some

weeks’ food left; and then a trader must come—

The last thing she expected was the apparition that burst through the door late that night, in the

middle of the worst storm yet. It was a tall male apparition, wringing wet, and it found Tamia

with its eyes and roared at her.

She had been sitting, as she sat every evening, by her Guardian’s bed, holding her hand. It was

nearly time for her to go to her own bed, dragged out from her own little room to the other side

of the hearth, so that she could hear her Guardian easily in the night. The bellow of the storm

tonight was curiously soporific; and she had been thinking about nothing in particular for some

time when the door was flung open, and a wave of water hurled the tall figure in upon them. The

water, as it fell on the floor, arranged itself into seven small pools like seven stones in a watergarden.

“What have you done, girl, are you
trying
to drown the world?”

Tamia sat where she was, open-mouthed in shock; barely she felt her Guardian stir herself for a

great effort, and sit up, leaning on her good arm. The force of the man’s gaze held Tamia

motionless; she felt it burning through her, and she thought, When it reaches my heart, I will die.

But her Guardian said, “Water Gate! You let my apprentice go, or I will fry your entrails for my

supper!” It was the longest sentence she had spoken since she had fallen ill.

Tamia was released so suddenly, she fell off her low stool and onto the floor. Dimly she heard

the conversation over her head, her Guardian’s exhausted voice, speaking in broken phrases now,

and the slurring, which Tamia had grown accustomed to, so strong, she could hardly make out

the words; and the man her Guardian had called Water Gate, his voice dropping down in sorrow

and grief as he understood what had happened. And then they talked of other things, but Tamia

did not listen, drifting in and out of some cold grey place where the wind howled.

At last Tamia felt Water Gate’s hard strong hands, under her arms, pulling her gently but

irresistibly upright. He did not put her on her backless stool, but leant her against the edge of the