Wall of Shiuan

She stared past him, down the long road where the halflings were only beginning that hill. “A time to rest,” she said.

“Aye,” he agreed gladly enough, and busied himself loosening girths and slipping bits to ease the horses, tending to them while Morgaine withdrew a little to that rocky up-thrust that was the cap of the hill, where flat stones afforded a place to sit other than the damp earth.

He finished his task, and brought the flask of Hiua liquor and a wrapped bit of food, and offered them to her, hoping against expectation to the contrary that she would accept them. She sat with Changeling unhooked and leaning against her shoulder, her right arm cradled in her lap in an attitude of evident pain; but she lifted her head and bestirred herself to take a share of what he offered, as much to avoid dispute with him, he thought, as because she had appetite for anything. He drank and ate a few mouthfuls himself; and by this time the halflings were drawing near them, with Jhirun lagging far behind.

“ Liyo,” Vanye said carefully, “we would do well to take what chance we have to rest now. We have pushed the horses almost as far as possible. We are climbing; there looks to be more of it, and there may be a time ahead that speed will serve us better than it does now.”

She nodded, mutely accepting his argument, whether or not it coincided with her own reasons. Her eyes were void of interest in what passed about her. He heard the approach of the halflings with a private anguish, not wanting strangers near her when this mood was on her. He had seen it before, that soulless energy that seized her and kept her moving, responding only to the necessity that drove her. At the moment she was lost... knew him, perhaps, or confused him with men long since dust; the time was short for her, who had passed Gate and Gate and Gate in her course, and confounded then and now, who but months ago had ridden into a war in which his ancestors had died.

A hundred years lay in that gap for him. For Jhirun... He gazed upon her distant figure with a sudden and terrible understanding. A thousand years. He could not conceive of a thousand years. A hundred were sufficient to bring a man to dust; five hundred reached into a time when nothing had stood in Morija.

Morgaine had ridden across a century to enter his age, had gathered him to her, and together they had crossed into a place a thousand years removed from Jhirun’s beginnings, whose ancestors lay entombed in the Barrows... men that Morgaine might have known, young, and powerful in that age of the world.

He had crossed such a gap, not alone of place, but of time.

O God, his lips shaped.

Nothing that he had known existed. Men, kinsmen, all that he had ever known was aged, decayed, gone to sifting dust. He knew then what he had done, passing the Gate. It was irrevocable. He wanted to pour out questions to Morgaine, to have them answered, to know beyond doubt what things she had never told him, for pity.

But the qujal were with them. Horses drew up on the margin. Lord Kithan, armorless, bareheaded, swung down from his saddle and walked toward them with one of his men, while the other attended the horses.

Vanye rose and slipped the ring that held his sword at his shoulder, setting himself between Kithan and Morgaine; and Kithan stopped—no longer the elegant lord, Kithan: his thin face was weary; his shoulders sagged. Kithan lifted a hand, gestured no wish to contend, then sank down on a flat stone some distance from Morgaine; his men likewise settled to the ground, pale heads bowed, exhausted.

Jhirun rode in among the qujals’ horses, slid from the saddle and held to it. In a moment she made the effort to loosen the girth of her horse, then led the animal to a patch of grass, too unsure of it to let it go. She sat down, holding the reins in her lap, and stayed apart from them all, tired, seeming terrified of everything and everyone about her.

“Let go the reins,” Vanye advised her. “The mare will likely stand, with other horses about; she has run too far to be interested in running.”

And he held out his hand, bidding her to them; Jhirun came, and sank down on the bare ground, arms wrapped about her knees and her head bowed. Morgaine took note of her presence, a stare she might have given one of the animals, disinterested. Vanye settled his back against a rock, his own head throbbing with lack of sleep and the conviction that the earth still lurched and swayed with the motion of the horse.

He dared not sleep. He watched the halflings from slitted eyes until the rest had at least given him space to breathe, and until thirst became an overwhelming discomfort.

He rose, went back to his horse and took the waterflask that hung from the saddlebow, drank, keeping an eye to the qujal, who did not stir. Then he slung it over his shoulder and returned, pausing to take from Jhirun’s saddle the awkward bundle she had made of their blankets.