The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) (68 page)

Rowan was not cold, was not warm, but when she breathed a long breath out, she felt the breath stand hot before her face like a burning ghost.

“So I knew that there was no demon poison on her.”

Rowan made a small movement, subsided.

“Instinct, I suppose,” Janus said. “There’s always something, Rowan . . . there will always be something that can drive us down to instinct. You should remember that.”

The trembling had become shudders: hard, continuous.

He leaned forward, looked at her face. “I don’t think we’ll be traveling tomorrow. It looks like you’re taking a turn for the worse.”

She knew nothing but heat, and cold, and motion, and sometimes, food. It was all there was; it was all there had ever been.

Then, at last, there was light and stillness.

She looked about, seeing sand, stones in a ring around charred wood—

A campsite. She knew about campsites. This was one.

That was good. A steerswoman, alone, outdoors, at a campsite. That was proper. All was well. She closed her eyes.

But she was supposed to be doing something. She could not recall what. But it was urgent, necessary, and wrong that she was not doing it.

Going. Moving. Yes. Steerswomen went. That was it.

She ought to be going somewhere. She did not know, at the moment, where. Still, one went. After resting, always, one went on.

She pushed off something that was on top of her, in her way, stopping her from going. She rose; but then found she had not risen. She tried again, and again. Finally she turned on her hands and clambered to her feet, and fell.

She needed something. Something like a stick. She found one, by her. It was the right size.

Where was her pack? She could not see it.

She was forgetting something— what was it?

Move. That’s what it was. Move.

She did; then she got up and did it again.

She passed something; it took a long time. It’s a house, she thought, just a house. But she did not like the people who lived there, did not like the way they peered out at her through their little windows.

No, no stopping there.

She got up again. She moved.

And it seemed the whole world opened up in front of her, the wide horizon that she loved. And all she had to do was go, walk out endlessly, and there was nothing more to the world, nothing else that mattered.

She got up again. She moved.

“We’ll walk for the rest of our lives,” Janus said.

Of course we will, she replied, how else can we see new things?

She did not hear her own voice; but Janus did, apparently. How clever of him. “Well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? But how many new things can a person see before even new things are familiar?”

That was a young thing to say; how very young he was. He was just a boy, with his new cloak and his soft boots and his map case jutting out of his pack. She was so much older than he; how did she get this old?

“Get up,” Bel said.

Yes, Rowan said, and did so.

She was explaining something to Bel; she often explained things to Bel. Rowan wondered what she was saying, since her own voice made no sound at all. But Bel listened, tilt headed, nodding, striding along beside Rowan, as ever; and all was right, all was well.

“Get up,” Bel said. Rowan got up.

And then there was music, but she could not tell if it was Janus’s flute, or Bel singing, and that was strange, because she ought to know the difference. Perhaps it was birds; Rowan loved birds— where were they?

“Get up,” someone said in a voice that scratched and cracked and hurt Rowan’s throat. “Get up get up get up.”

Yes.

There was light, far ahead, white light all around the horizon; air flickered and shuddered above it. Something moved inside it: a person in the distance, very far ahead, but she could not see him clearly, and he would not stand still.

No matter. She was going the same way. She would get there, in the end. And she would see what he saw, know what he knew.

And then, she would go on.

Bel said, “Get up,” and Rowan said, Yes, and got up.

There were people with her.

They walked beside her, behind her, all moving together. A quiet people. So many; she could not count them.

They had no faces. That was all right; not everyone had a face.

Get up, Bel said again, and Rowan did not answer, but she knew what to do. She did it.

Then Bel said, Get up, and Bel said, “Be still.” She said them both at once.

Make up your mind, Rowan said.

You have to move, Janus said; and Rowan said, Yes. One of the quiet people handed her, Get up; and Rowan handed back, Yes; and Bel said, Get up; but Bel said, “Stay put.”

And then Bel rose, and her shadow blocked the sun, and she waved her arms wide. There was a sound, not far off; Rowan did not know what it was. Bel bent down again. “Stay put, you fool, you can’t walk like that.”

Clattering, hisses, thumps. “What’s she doing way out here?” Steffie asked.

“I don’t know. She’s out of her mind. Lend me a hand.”

Rowan felt herself lifted half up, found water in her mouth. She swallowed, coughed. “You’re real.” They were alone, the three of them, under a sky of bright and painful blue.

“Of course we’re real,” Bel said, “and we had the devil’s own time finding you. You were going in the wrong direction.”

“She should have stayed where Janus left her,” Steffie said. “How’d she expect us to find her, wandering off like that?” He looked down at her, his face twisted in distress. “Fool woman, why didn’t you stay put?”

Rowan looked from face to face, leaned back in Bel’s arms, breathed in, breathed out.

“Instinct,” she said.

46

H
umming.

Demons.

No— music. A rich, dark voice.

Rowan opened her eyes.

Bel was seated on the floor, leaning back against the wall; she noticed Rowan’s gaze, stopped humming. She picked something up off the floor, slid herself closer. “Here you go,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s try some more.” She levered Rowan up, held a mug to her lips.

Fish stew. “Actually,” Rowan said in a rather small voice, “I’m not very hungry at the moment.”

Bel regarded her with something like astonishment. “All right,” she said, and set it aside, eased Rowan back down. She studied Rowan’s face carefully. “How do you feel?”

Rowan searched for adequate words. “My leg hurts,” was what she finally settled on. She had no idea where she was.

Bel made a noise. “That’s no surprise. Zenna had to do some nasty work on it. You were a mess.”

Rowan looked down at herself. Her hands lay atop a thick wool blanket. She was lying on a mattress that lay directly on the floor— no, the deck, the deck of the aft cabin, where the bunk housing had been torn out. Packets of gear hung in rope-tied bundles from the ceiling. They shifted, swinging slightly, and Rowan recognized the sweet motion that had comforted her in sleep.

And beside her, Bel. The Outskirter’s face was evolving a grin. Rowan observed the process with interest. “How long have I been sleeping?” she asked.

“This time? A few hours.”

“ ‘This time?’ ” Rowan tried to sit up, and managed only the slightest shift in position. The action caused her left leg to feel as if some extremely large and cruel person were sitting on it.

Rowan blinked, breathed, waited for the sensation to pass. “How long have I been here?”

“On the ship? A week or so. Almost two since we hauled you up the cliffs.”

Rowan attempted to piece together events, found it impossible. She seemed to have no memories that she could trust. “How did you ever manage to find me?” From the deck above, thumps, voices.

“Well, it wasn’t easy, with you crawling around the landscape. But Janus had told Zenna and Steffie exactly where he left you, so we started there and worked outward.”

Rowan attempted to translate the peculiar images in her mind. “The first cache?” she ventured. “The camp by the crypt?”

Bel nodded, her short dark hair sifting forward and back. “I like that crypt; it’s very poetic.”

Things began to make more sense. “But, Bel,” Rowan said, “how did
you
get here?”

Laughter. “Mostly, at sword point,” the Outskirter said. “None of the sailors in Alemeth were willing to take me, so I slipped aboard one ship at night and made them do it. Just as far as a fishing village. Then I went ashore and kidnapped some fishers and got farther. Then I did the whole thing again. We always stayed close to the shore. I was only a day or so behind you at first— I saw your sails once or twice. But when the fishers got more afraid of the sea than of me, I had to let them go. I walked the rest of the way.”

And there she was, an Outskirter, cross-legged on the plank floor, barefoot, wearing a huge gray silk shirt Rowan recognized as Steffie’s. Her thatch of brown hair, her dark eyes, the neat muscularity of her form, even while sitting, all stunningly familiar, missed, welcome.

“Have I mentioned,” Rowan said, grinning, “how very glad I am to see you?”

Bel nodded broadly. “Every time you woke up. At first it was flattering, but then it got to be embarrassing.”

Rowan laughed: a thin sound but laughter nonetheless. “Well, I don’t remember it.” But then, suddenly, she could: a collection of discrete images and sounds and sensations, strewn about randomly in her mind. As if on command, they ordered and connected themselves into nearly contiguous, and extremely unpleasant, memory.

The memories included rather a lot of irrational behavior on her part.

Rowan watched herself, in retrospect. “Oh, dear.” Bel made an amused noise.

Still, if anyone could survive the trek through the wild lands, it was certainly Bel. “How did you know where to go?”

“I took those maps you left behind.”

Something about this statement disturbed Rowan; she was a moment identifying it. “Bel,” she said eventually, “those maps were originals.”

“Yes, and you needn’t lecture me. Zenna already did. But her heart wasn’t really in it. The maps got me to the anchorage, and as far as I’m concerned that’s the best use that anyone could put them to. But by the time I arrived, Steffie had already gone down the cliffs after you.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“He wasn’t supposed to do that.” The idea of Steffie wandering the demon lands alone was appalling; he was Rowan’s responsibility; she ought not have led him into danger. She ought, somehow, to be able to protect him, and Zenna as well. “He was supposed to stay with Zenna.” Rowan thought she was speaking sternly, but discovered, by the sound, that she had achieved only a sort of plaintive petulance that embarrassed even herself.

“Wonderful. And how were you supposed to get back to the Inner Lands? Janus couldn’t get you any farther. And you couldn’t walk. And you were trying to go in the wrong direction. Not to mention conversing with rocks and bushes, as near as I could tell.” Bel leaned over her. “You know, Rowan,” she said, “you can’t expect to do everything by yourself. Sometimes you just have to shut up and let your friends help you.”

Rowan looked up at her. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “I’m hardly in a position to argue. Oh, my . . .” This when she attempted to sit up again, to no visible effect whatsoever. The effort left her suddenly, completely, drained.

“What do you need?” Bel asked immediately.

“Um . . .” Rowan was a moment recovering words. “Water?”

Bel rose, thumped on the ceiling three times, sat again. Above, the murmur of conversation ceased. Footsteps crossed the deck toward the companionway. “Hey, ho,” Steffie called as he descended. Rowan heard him in the pantry; then he entered the cabin with a cup in his hand. “Here you go, then,” he said to Bel, and passed it to her.

“Have a seat. She’s talking sense.

A glance in Rowan’s direction. “See how long that lasts.”

“As long as I can manage to stay awake, I should think. And don’t worry: I don’t intend to greet you like a long-lost brother, as I seem to recall having done so a number of times already.” It took a great deal of effort and concentration to make so long a statement, but Rowan was rather pleased with the effect.

Steffie sat right down where he had stood, opened his mouth, closed it again. “That’s the most she’s ever said in one go.”

“And she’s been at it for a while now.”

“It
is
possible to address me directly,” Rowan said. Bel held the cup and steadied Rowan’s head as she drank. The water was cool and delicious, and Rowan felt herself somewhat stronger.

“Well,” Steffie said when she was done, “sorry. Zenna was saying that things’d settle down for you pretty soon. Guess she was right. She could be a healer, if she wasn’t a sailor, except she’s a steerswoman.”

Rowan lay back again, nodded. “Can you send her down here?”