“Of course.” I can see there’s more, so I wait. She examines me. “We’re probably going to end up fighting her.”
“I know.”
“Do you still love her?”
I blink. Uncertain as I interrogate the question. Most other people and it would be too forward, far too personal for me to even consider answering. But Aequa and I have been through the naumachia and the Iudicium and more together. Aside from Eidhin, she knows me better than anyone.
“Can you really love someone you don’t completely trust?” I ask eventually. The same question I’ve asked myself too many times, since the Academy.
She considers. Nods slowly, and squeezes my arm in farewell.
“See you tonight, Vis.”
LXIX
ALL IS SILENT AND STILL AS I CRAWL, STINGING ANDburned and naked, into the vast darkness of Qabr. I drag myself unsteadily to my feet once through the tunnel, ignoring the cuts on my knees and instead scrubbing at my arms madly, finally able to properly address the blistering itch again. I used sand, initially, to try and scour myself of the toxic water once I finally emerged, rasping and spewing, from the nightmare of the drainage system and into the desolate delta of the Infernis. Barely had the strength to find the surface and drag myself to shore. It was fortune alone that the moon was already out in the young night, and that the sky was cloudless. Without that faint silver to guide me upward, I may well have flailed in the noxious muck until I succumbed.
I gaze around now, eyes adjusting enough to see by the faint light that leaks through the crevices above. Wary and tense. I have already desperately buried myself twice to hide from Gleaners on the journey here; whether they are patrolling more frequently or I have simply been unlucky, I do not know. Sand still coats the inside of my mouth, scratches at my eyeballs. A minor discomfort next to my lack of clothing, which eventually sloughed away like rotting skin as it yielded to the acidic waters. I am beyond thirst and beyond hunger, barely able to focus for more than brief periods. My legs ache awfully and I would have fallen a thousand times over if it were not for the scarabs still embedded deep beneath my skin.
No sign of Gleaners, here and now, but I still have to be cautious: not having left a watch on this place doesn’t mean they won’t patrol it. For the moment, though, it seems I can move in relative safety.
I need water before anything else. I make for the garden.
As I stumble past the familiar dark maws and gilded glyphs, some distant part of me realises how strange it is to feel truly alone again. The stretch of stone ground where the Qabrans were laid out is bare, only a faint, ugly darker stain to mark what occurred six months ago. None survived, none still lurk here, of that much I am certain. And if Caeror did avoid capture, he will not risk returning. Which means that—discounting the times I was actively eitherrunning or hiding—this is the first I have been entirely without the company of others in … I don’t know when. Possibly the first time in this world.
My thoughts drift briefly to Ahmose as I struggle my way up the stairs to the garden’s entrance. My heart aches for what he was driven to do, and yet I find myself again probing my own sadness. The man was already dead. Should that matter? I didn’t know him when he was alive and I am not sure we would ever have become friends, if I had. But wewerefriends, in the end.
Not really something I thought about, when he was here. I suppose maybe my answer lies in that.
I finally reach the obsidian door and touch the symbols for entry, barely able to stand as the stone folds away.
“Oh,vek,” is all I have the energy to mutter.
I start in at a slow, dismayed stumble, collapsing to my knees among the brown plants. Dying but not completely dead, on closer inspection. A few bits look edible, and I carefully snap them off and stuff them in my mouth. My hunger easily overcomes their bitterness, and I chew and swallow gratefully.
After taking some breaths to recover, I start my examination of the garden. Its failure is not deliberate, not some act of sabotage as far as I can tell. Instead, it seems its supply of water has simply dwindled to the point that the plants were unable to survive.
Which is a problem, because while I’ve eked a little moisture, I am still desperately in need of a drink.
I head for the well, leaning down and scooping my hand through the soil as I go, searching for any trace of dampness. The dirt seems darker to me as I let it crumble through my fingers, but there’s no hint of what I need. Some trees along the way are wilting but remain intact, and I pause to salvage what fruit I can, careful to save any juices that threaten to flow from the corners of my mouth. The Gleaners somehow got past the door, but it seems they didn’t destroy everything. Just what might have allowed a community to thrive down here. Following orders. Chasing efficiency, I suppose, not hatred.
My mind, so intent on simply getting here up until this point, races. What could have stopped the water from flowing? I asked Caeror where it came from, once, and he admitted he didn’t know. He’d assumed that it was some deep underground aquifer that had remained untainted.
I think of the “clean” water in Duat. I think of how it tasted the same as it did here.
Vek.
My fears increase as I pull up a far too light bucket from the pitch of the well; there is an inch of moisture in its bottom and I gulp it greedily, firmly refusing to think about its possible source. The drink is enough for my head to clear; I drop the bucket and I think I hear an echoing splash as it hits the bottom, but when I draw it again, only a few drops sit inside.
I stare into it grimly. This isn’t enough. I need more to recover my strength, and to rinse the toxins from my body, and to fill a waterskin before I undertake the journey back to Duat. The Vitaeria beneath my skin can take me only so far.
With a sigh, I estimate the length of the chain and then test its strength. It should easily hold my weight.
I unhook the bucket, wrap the links several times around my waist, and begin lowering myself into the black.
The well is barely a few feet across, and my shoulders brush the stone sides as I descend, already exhausted muscles straining. Complete darkness comes quickly, the warm lights of the garden consumed by the stone surrounding me. Soon my only point of reference is a bright dot far above, though I have the vaguest sense that the space around me is opening out.
Then the hint of a splash as my bare feet touch a veneer of liquid over rock.
