Wall of Shiuan

His armor, familiar helm that had been in her keeping: he was surprised and pleased that she had kept it as if sentiment had moved her, as if she had hoped to find him again. There was his mail, cleaned and saved from rust, leather replaced: he received that back with great relief, for it was all he owned in the world save the black horse and his saddle. He gathered it up, knowing the weight of it as he knew that of his own body.

And out of it fell a bone-handled dagger: Roh’s—an ill dream recurring. It lay on the stones, accusing him. For one terrible instant he wondered how much in truth she knew of what had passed.

“Next time,” she said from behind him, “resolve to use it.”

His hand went to his brow, to bless himself in dismay; he hesitated, then sketchily completed the gesture, and was the more disquieted afterward. He gathered up the bundle, dagger and all, and carried it into the other room where he might have privacy, where he might both dress and breathe in peace.

He would die in this forsaken land the other side of Gates, he thought, jerking with trembling fingers at the laces of his clothing; that much had been certain from the beginning—but that became less terrible than what prospect opened before him, that little by little he would lose himself, that she would have all. Murder had sent him to her, brother-killing; ilin–service was just condemnation. But he reckoned himself, what he had been, and what he had become; and the man that he was now was no longer capable of the crime that he had done. It was not just, what lay before him.

He set himself into his armor, leather and metal links in which he had lived the most part of his youth; and though it was newly fitted and most of the leather replaced, it settled about his body familiar as his own skin, a weight that surrounded him with safety, with habits that had kept him alive where his living had not been likely. It no longer seemed protection.

Until you have no choice, Morgaine had warned him, as I have none.

He slipped Roh’s dagger into the sheath at his belt, a weight that settled on his heart likewise: this time it was with full intent to use it.

A shadow fell across the door. He looked up. Morgaine came with yet another gift for him, a longsword in its sheath.

He turned and took it from her offering hands—bowed and touched it to his brow as a man should when accepting such a gift from his liege. It was qujalin, he did not doubt it: qujalin more than Changeling itself, which at least had been made by men. But with it in his hands, for the first time in their journey through this land, he felt a stir of pride, the sense that he had skill that was of some value to her. He drew the blade half from the sheath, and saw that it was a good double-edged blade, clean of qujalin runes. The length was a little more than that of a Kurshin longsword, and the blade was a little thinner; but it was a weapon he knew how to use.

“I thank you,” he said.

“Stay armed. I want none of these folk drawing for your naked back; and it would be the back, with them. They are wolves, allies of chance and mutual profit.”

He hooked it to his belt, pulled the ring on his shoulder belt and hooked that, settling it to a more comfortable position at his shoulder. Her words touched at something in him, a sudden, unbearable foreboding, that even she would say what she had said. He looked up at her. “ Liyo,” he said in a low voice. “Let us go. Let us two, together... leave this place. Forget these men; be rid of them. Let us be out of here.”

She nodded back toward the other room. “It is still misting rain out. We will go, tonight, when there is a chance the flood will ebb.”

“Now,” he insisted, and when he saw her hesitate: “ Liyo, what you asked, I gave; give me this. I will go, now, I will find us a packhorse and some manner of tent for our comfort... Better the cold and the rain than this place over our heads tonight.”

She looked tempted, urgently tempted, struggling with reason. He knew the restlessness that chafed at her, pent here, behind rock and risen water. And for once he felt that urge himself, an instinct overwhelming, a dark that pressed at their heels.

She gestured again toward the room beyond. “The books... I have only begun to make sense of them... ”

“Do not trust these men.” Of a sudden all things settled together in his mind, taking form; and some were in those books; and more were pent in the shape of a priest, locked in the dark down the hall. She could be harmed by these things, these men. The human tide that lapped about the walls of Ohtij-in threatened her, no less than the qujal–lords.

“Go,” she bade him suddenly. “Go. See to it. Quietly.”

He snatched up his cloak, caught up his helm, and then paused, looking back at her.