The Price Of Spring(112)

"Do you think he only speaks to you?" Vanjit spat.

Maati sputtered, falling back a step when Vanjit lunged forward. She only scooped up the andat, turned, and ran into the darkness.

Maati scrambled after her, calling her name with a deepening sense of despair. The trees were shadows within the night's larger darkness. His voice seemed too weak to carry more than a few paces before him. It couldn't have been more than half a hand-less than that, certainlywhen he stopped to catch his breath. Leaning against an ancient ash, he realized that Vanjit was gone and he was lost, only the soft rushing of the river away to his left still there to guide him. He picked his way back, trying to follow the route he had taken and failing. A carpet of dry leaves made his steps loud. Something shifted in the branches overhead. The cold numbed his fingers and toes. The halfmoon glimmering among the branches assured him that he had not been blinded. It was the only comfort he had.

In the end, he made his way east until he found the river, and then south to the wide mud where the boat still rested. It was simple enough to find the little camp after that. He tried to nurture some hope that he would step into the circle of firelight to find Vanjit returned and, through some unimagined turn of events, peace restored. The laughter and soft company of the first days of the school returned; time unwound, and his life ready to be lived again without the errors. He wanted it to be true so badly that when he stumbled into the clearing and found Eiah and the two Kaes seated by the fire, he almost thought they were well.

Eiah turned gray, fogged eyes toward him.

"Who's there?" she demanded at the sound of his approaching steps.

"It's me," Maati said, wheezing. "I'm fine. But Vanjit's gone."

Large Kae began to weep. Small Kae put an arm over the woman's shaking shoulders and murmured something, her eyes closed and tearstreaked. Maati sat at the fire. His bowl of soup had overturned.

"She's done for the three of us," Eiah said. "None of us can see at all."

"I'm sorry," Maati said. It was profoundly inadequate.

"Can you help me?" Eiah said, gesturing toward something Maati couldn't fathom. Then he saw the pile of wax fragments. "I think I have them all, but it's hard to be sure."

"Leave them," Maati said. "Let them go."

"I can't," Eiah said. "I have to try the thing. I can do it now. Tonight."

Maati looked at her. The fire popped, and she shifted her head toward the sound. Her jaw was set, her gray eyes angry. The cold wind made her robes flutter at her ankles like a flag.

"No," he said. "You can't."

"I have been studying this for weeks," Eiah said, her voice sharpening. "Only help me put these back together, and I can ..."

"You can die," Maati said. "I know you've changed the binding. You won't do this. Not until we can study it. Too much rides on Wounded to rush into the binding in a panic. We'll wait. Vanjit may come back."

"Maati-kvo-" Eiah began.

"She is alone in the forest with nothing to sustain her. She's cold and frightened and betrayed," Maati said. "Put yourself in her place. She's discovered that the only friends she had in the world were planning to kill her. The andat must certainly be pushing for its freedom with all its power. She didn't even have the soup before she went. She's cold and hungry and confused, and we are the only place she can go for help or comfort."

"All respect, Maati-kvo," Small Kae said, "but that first part was along the lines that you were going to kill her. She won't come back."

"We don't know that," Maati said. "We can't yet be sure."

But morning came without Vanjit. The sky became a lighter black, and then gray. Morning birds broke into their chorus of chatters and shrieks; finches and day larks and other species Maati couldn't name. The trees deepened, rank after ragged rank becoming first gray and then brown and then real. Poet and andat were gone into the wild, and as the dawn crept up rosy and wild in the east, it became clear they were not going to return.

Maati built a small fire from last night's embers and brewed tea for the four of them still remaining. Large Kae wouldn't stop crying despite Small Kae's constant attentions. Eiah sat wrapped in her robes from the previous night. She looked drawn. Maati pressed a bowl of warm tea into her hand. Neither spoke.

At the end, Maati took the belts from their spare robes and used them to make a line. He led Eiah, Eiah led Small Kae, and Small Kae led Large Kae. It was the obscene parody of a game he'd played as a child, and he walked the path back to the boat, calling out the obstacles he passed-log, step down, be careful of the mud. They left the sleeping tents and cooking things behind.