passed through me, a sensation rather like sparkling wine spilling on my flesh. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Oh, no. No! What has happened? This cannot be. This cannot be!’
‘It’s all right,’ I reassured her. ‘I used up all the magic in me to try to stop the road. My body is dying, but I’m here with you. So that’s not so bad, is it? I’m content.’
‘Soldier’s Boy, no! No, it’s not bad, it’s terrible. You are a Great One! The magic made you a Great One. And now you are dying, treeless and untended. You are already fading in my eyes. And soon you will be gone, gone forever.’
‘I know. But once that body is gone, I will be here with you. And I do not think that is a bad thing.’
‘No. No, you fool! You are vanishing. You have no tree. And you have fallen—’ She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she did, tears spilled from them. She opened them wide and her gaze was full of anguish. ‘You have fallen far from any sapling. You are untended and unprepared and still divided against yourself. Oh, Soldier’s Boy, how did this happen? You will fade away. And when you do, I will never see you again. Never.’
The wind blew softly through me. I felt oddly diminished. ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said lamely. Stupidly. ‘I’m sorry.’ As I apologized to her, a flicker of panic raced through me and then faded away. There wasn’t enough life left in me to panic. I’d made a mistake and I was dying. Apparently not even a Speck afterlife was available to me. I’d simply stop being. Apparently, I hadn’t died correctly. Oops.
I knew I should be devastated. An emotion washed through me, too pale for me to recognize. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again, as much to myself as to her.
She stretched her arms wide and gathered in to her bosom what was left of me. I felt her embrace only as a faint warmth. It was not even a skin-to-skin sensation, but was perhaps my memory of warmth. My awareness was trickling away. Soon there would not even be enough left to be concerned. I’d be nothing. No. Nothing would be me. That was a better way to express it. I vaguely remembered how I would have smiled.
The water was sweet. Not just sweet as fresh water is sweet, but sweet as in flavoured with honey or nectar. I choked on the gush of it into my mouth, coughed and felt the coolness spatter down my chest. Then I drew a breath through my nose, closed my lips around the mouth of the waterskin and sucked it in. I drank in long gulping draughts, pulling in as much liquid as my mouth would hold, swallowing it down and then sucking in more. I sucked the waterskin flat. Nonetheless, I kept my mouth firmly clamped to it, sucking fruitlessly at it. Someone pinched my nose shut, and when I had to open my mouth to breathe, the waterskin was snatched away. I moaned a protest.
Another one was offered to me. This one was even better; it was not just sweet water. The liquid was thicker. Meat and salt and garlic were blended in a thick broth with other flavours I did not know. I didn’t really care. I sucked it down.
The disorganized sounds around me suddenly evolved into language. ‘Be careful. Don’t let him have that much that fast.’ A man’s voice.
‘Would you like to be his feeder, Jodoli?’ That was a voice I recognized. Olikea sounded just as angry as she had been when last we parted. She was a powerful woman, as tall as I was and well muscled. Her anger was not a thing to dismiss. I suddenly felt exposed. I tried to draw my arms and legs up to protect myself, but felt them only twitch in response to me.
‘Look. He’s trying to move!’ Jodoli sounded both surprised and relieved.
Olikea muttered some sour response. I did not make out her words, but someone else did. A woman spoke. I did not know her voice.
‘Well, that is what it means to be a feeder of a Great One. If you did not wish to have the work of it, you should not have taken it on, little sister. It is not a task to take up lightly. Nor should it be seized merely as an opportunity to advance yourself. If you are weary of the honour of tending to him, say so plainly. I am sure there are other women of our kin who would be glad to take him on. And they, perhaps, would not have let him fall into such a state. What if he had died? Think of the shame you would have brought down on our kin-clan! Such a thing has never befallen one of our Great Ones.’
‘Jodoli has extended himself into such a state! I have heard you complain of it. He often tells the story of nearly dying from using too much magic.’
Olikea’s sister stiffened with fury. I became aware I’d opened my eyes to slits. I recognized her. Oh. Yes. Firada looked very like her younger sister, yet their features bore very different expressions at that moment. Firada’s hazel eyes were narrowed with displeasure. She had crossed her arms on her chest and stared at her younger sister contemptuously.
Olikea was crouched over me. She held an empty leather skin in her hands and her lips were drawn tight with fury. Her eyes were green. She had a dark streak from her brow to the tip of her nose and the speckles on her face were more generous than her sister’s. On the rest of her body, her specks were a dappling that became streaks on her ribs and legs, almost like the striping on a cat. The striping was repeated in her hair. I had thought she was about my age but now she seemed younger. Her skin blushed a hot pink today around her dapples. She wore the most clothing I’d ever seen her don. It consisted of a leather belt slung on her hips, with several pouches attached to it, and some loops that held simple tools. Although it was decorated with beads, feathers and small charms made from fired pottery or beaten copper, its function was to allow her to carry her supplies with ease rather than to cover her body.
Jodoli stood well back from both of the sisters. My fellow Great Man and sometime rival was not nearly as large as I was, but his size would have turned heads in any Gernian setting. He wore his black hair in plaits. His blue eyes were surprising in the dark mask of pigment on his face. ‘Stop your quarrelling. He’s awake. He needs food now, if he can stomach it.’
‘Likari! Give me that basket of berries and then go and get more. Don’t stand about staring. Be useful.’
For the first time, I noticed a small boy just behind Olikea. He had green eyes like hers and the same stripe down his nose. Probably their younger brother. In response to her words, he jerked as if poked with a stick. He thrust a heavily laden basket at her. The moment she took it, he turned and scampered off. His reddened bare buttocks were dappled like a horse’s; I almost smiled to see him run.
But Olikea’s scowl bored into me. ‘Well, Soldier’s Boy. Are you going to eat, or just stare about you like a frog on a lily leaf?’
‘I’ll eat,’ I said. Her offer of food drove all else from my mind. I would do nothing to offend her, lest she change her mind about feeding me.
Slowly it broke through my foggy brain that I was going to live. I felt a pang of regret at that, strange to say. I had not planned to die nor especially enjoyed the prospect, but it had been invitingly simple. All my worries would have been over: no more wondering if I was doing the right thing. Now I was back in a world where people had expectations of me.
I reclined in a natural shelter formed by a vine that had climbed up a sagging branch of great tree. Its drapery made a thicker shade for me in the muted light of the forest. The moss beneath me was deep and soft. I suspected that Jodoli had used his magic to form such a comfortable couch for me. In the same moment that I knew I should thank him, Olikea dropped the basket of berries beside me. My attention was riveted upon it. It took all the strength I had to command my wasted hand and arm to move. The emptied flesh hung from my bones in a flaccid curtain of skin. I dug a handful of berries from the basket, heedless of how I crushed the ripe fruit and shoved it into my mouth. The flavour blossomed in my mouth, life-giving, sweet, tangy, redolent of flowers.
