Thendara House

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  CHAPTER SEVEN

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  Four more times night settled down over the cave on the canyon wall; four more dawns rose red, and on the third dawn, when the Bloody Sun rose over the canyons, the rain had stopped and by that night the water had begun to go down. Magda, leading the horses out to graze on the slope, felt relieved, for though they had enough food, the grain she had brought for the horses was beginning to fail. But it would be a considerable time before the canyon was passable, and they were running short of dry wood for fires. Resin-trees would burn, even when wet, but not very well.

  Jaelle was sitting up when she came back, and Magda realized that she was dreadfully worried about her. She was rational most of the time now, but she clung to her obsession that she had murdered Peter and Magda would not talk with her about it. Jaelle believed it; that was all there was to it. Magda firmly refused to believe it.

  And the short Midsummer season was waning; soon they would need fire to survive. They must be ready to ride out as soon as the canyon waters went down enough so that they could get out even by swimming the horses, and for that Jaelle must be stronger. The fever hung on, and every night she woke screaming from nightmares, so that Magda had to hold and soothe her for a long time before she knew where she was; all her forgotten Dry-Town childhood seemed to be coming back to her, and again and again she woke screaming, believing herself in chains. Magda shared enough of these nightmares, with her new awareness of Jaelle, so that she insisted that they should sleep at opposite ends of the cave.

  “We’re simply picking up each other’s nightmares and reinforcing them,” she said, “and we each have enough of our own, I’d think.” But it was really too cold and they did not have enough blankets for that, so she slept beside Jaelle, and when the other woman woke shrieking, she would hold her and soothe her back to sleep. Magda was always grateful to see the cave begin to lighten. But during the day, though Jaelle was feverish and in pain—Magda wondered if she had caught some illness on the trail—she was rational enough. Except for that damned delusion about Peter. Or is it a delusion?

  Yet she was equally sure Aleki was alive. “He’s trapped in one of these caves, just like us,” she insisted, and as she spoke Magda had a flash of him there, lying alone and filthy, unable to move. He’s hurt. And we’ve got to get him back to Thendara. If he dies, out here, it’s going to cause a full-fledged diplomatic incident.

  “And it’s my responsibility,” Jaelle said quietly. “I made myself personally responsible for him.”

  “And I have made myself personally responsible for your obligations,” Magda said, touching her hand lightly. “I am better fitted now than you to honor that pledge. That is what Oath-sisters are for.”

  “I feel a little guilty,” said Jaelle after a long silence, “I wanted this mission to fail. And now it has, for we can take him back to Thendara—I didn’t want him to get out to Armida and question that man Carr, or Dom Ann’dra, or whatever he calls himself—”

  Magda smiled faintly. “From what I saw of him, that man Carr can take perfectly good care of himself. Between the two of them, I’d bet on Carr.”

  “I am not so sure. When Li is on the trail of Comyn, he is tenacious, Magda. You don’t know how stubborn he is. I—I am Comyn, though I never fully realized it before. Comyn, but I am free of it through the Rununciate’s Oath so I can see Darkover from both sides. Comyn and commoner. And I have seen the worlds of the Empire through their little screens. I don’t want my world to be like that. And that’s what Li—Aleki wants.”

  “And he will do it, if anyone can,” said Magda. “That’s what Agents are made of.”

  “And you are one of them—” Jaelle said hesitantly. “Do you—do you want to help him on his mission? Or will you stand by Darkover?”

  Magda took her hands gently. “It’s not as simple as that darling. There’s no way to say, Darkover against Terra. Neither of them is all good or all bad. Let’s be sure he’s alive before we start worrying about his mission.”

  Jaelle should be getting better, if it’s only a cold or a chill or some mutant strain of influenza. But she isn’t. She did not want Jaelle to know how much she was worried about her.

  She herself had recovered after the fatigue of travel and fear. If this is laran, I am one of the fortunate ones. I have escaped threshold sickness, she thought, not realizing how much she had picked up from Jaelle’s mind. She was eager to be on their way. Perhaps it would be better for Jaelle to try to travel, even when she was sick. If they had been in the Terran Zone she would unhesitatingly have put Jaelle into a hospital. She’s really sick, and she’s not getting better. So it’s up to me. But tomorrow morning if she can travel at all we’ve got to get out of here.

  Toward morning, as cold crept into the cave from the snow outside, they began to dream.

  Red sun rising over jagged rocks, blood spreading out on the sand. It was worth it, Jaelle. You are free. You are free. And then her mother was gone, was nowhere, like Peter, gone, dead…

  No, my darling. I am here. And I am free, too. She was standing on the red sand, tall and beautiful, her red hair not braided in the loops of a Dry-Town woman but in a heavy coil caught by a copper butterfly-clasp.

  Mother! Mother! Come back, mother… But she had faded away, had gone to her own freedom. And I am free too. The crimson stain of blood on the red sands was gone, but she could still feel all her mother’s pain, as the world dissolved around her. And she was a little girl, lying shivering in the bedroll of the strange old emmasca, who was holding her, touching her as she had never wanted to be touched by any woman… no, she was Magda, lying in Camilla’s arms… it was not I. I never thought of Camilla that way. Of course not. Camilla was my mother, one of the ones who mothered me when I had lost my own mother, when I could not remember her at all. And I was the nearest to a child of her own that Camilla had never had. But Magda was not Camilla’s child, she could be Camilla’s lover…

  But the little girl was still there, a little girl who wanted so much to live… No, Jaelle said, it’s not possible, chiya, you will have to go back. To choose another mother.

  But you have chosen me and I have chosen you, said the little girl. Why could she not see the child clearly, only hear her voice? She was in so much pain. Her mother had felt like this and Jaelle could not barricade away her pain. It was too much. Too much, she was breaking apart, they were torturing her, she was screaming as she had heard screams from Jalak’s torture chamber…

  Don’t cry, mother. I’ll wait for you. I’ll come back again, when you want me. Such a trusting voice, a child. The little girl, in a blue dress, her golden hair curling like the golden pollen on the bell of the kireseth flower. Jaelle could see her walk away, into a gray world, gray silence, and it seemed to her that the little girl who could have been her daughter walked away into gray cloud like the Lake of Mali, farther and farther, and only when she could not see the little girl any more, but only the pale blue shimmer of her gown, did it strike her that this was a true parting. Another death.

  “No! No! Come back,” she cried over and over, but it was too late. The little girl was gone, and she was crying, crying because she hurt so much, so much… like the first time she had discovered herself bleeding and was afraid to tell…

  “Jaelle!” Magda, very pale, was bending over her. “You were crying in your sleep… what’s the matter… ?”

  “Oh, Magda, she’s gone, she’s dead, I couldn’t call her back, I told her I didn’t want her and she just went away—”

  “Who, Jaelle? You had another nightmare, love. Tell me.”

  “My mother. No, it was my baby. And she just went away…” Jaelle sobbed. “I wanted to name her for you, Margali… oh, I hurt all over, I hurt so—”

  Magda held and soothed her, believing that she had only had a nightmare, but as she held Jaelle in her arms, she realized that it was more than this. She could feel the pain knifing through the younger woman, and in a clu
tching terror, she realized what was happening.

  I was afraid of this. She has been so sick, and under so much strain. She is miscarrying. And it is so much too early, not more than four months. Not even with the Terrans and their birth-support machines could this one live. And she, Magda, did not have the slightest idea what to do; alone, without even hot water or simple sanitation, in a filthy cave, marooned by flood-water—

  Jaelle was twisting and crying out again in pain, and Magda took her hands. “Darling,” she said. “Jaelle, darling, you have got to be brave, you have got to stop crying and do what you can to get hold of yourself.”

  I don’t want you to die. And this is no place to have a miscarriage. And I don’t know what to do for her. Oh, Goddess, I need help. I need Marisela or someone like that. And I am all alone with her. And I can’t even let her know how frightened I am. She is frightened enough already.

  Well, she would simply have to do the best she could. Jaelle’s sobs had subsided to a soft whimpering. I’ll try to be brave. Like the time I fell and dislocated my shoulder riding, and Kindra was proud of me because I was so brave. I can be brave for Magda too. Poor Magda, she’s been so good to me.

  My poor baby. My poor little girl. I wonder if it hurt her to die.

  Magda tried to block out as much awareness of Jaelle as she could. It wouldn’t help Jaelle a bit for her to suffer too. She dragged together all the dry wood they had left, and built up the fire as much as she dared. Then she put water to boil—Jaelle would need hot drinks and afterward she would need some strengthening food. She rummaged in her saddlebags and found, among the trail clothing, a couple of clean flannel nightgowns. She did not even remember packing them, but she would put one of them on Jaelle afterward. She laid the other one on top of the cleanest side of the blanket. At least it was clean. Women had been having babies, and miscarrying them, under primitive conditions without Terran-style sanitation, for centuries, she reminded herself.

  Yes, and dying of it, too. She told that thought to go away and be quiet, and braced herself to reassure Jaelle, even though she was not quite sure what to do. She was sure there would be a lot of blood. She had picked that up from too many nightmares Jaelle had been having.

  “The first thing you have to do,” she said, kneeling down to get Jaelle’s dirty and blood-soaked travel clothing off her, “is to relax and try to breathe deeply. Come on, Jaelle, you’ve heard more midwives’ lectures than I have. One of us ought to remember enough of them so that I don’t botch this up too badly.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHT

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  Most of the firewood was gone. Magda, dead weary, dragged herself to the mouth of the cave and looked down into the valley. The water had receded still farther during the day. We could have gotten out today, she thought, if Jaelle had been able to travel. If she had held off one more day…

  It wasn’t Jaelle’s fault. She looked over her shoulder, tenderly, at the dark hump of bedclothes that was Jaelle. At least she was asleep now and it was over… at least she thought it was over. She had done her best, but she wasn’t a Medic or even a midwife, and her best probably wasn’t good enough.

  And now she did not know how long it would be before Jaelle was able to travel. That was one extremely sick girl there. I did the best I could, but there was no way to make sure everything was properly sterilized. She needed proper food, and a warm bed, and good nursing. Magda put her head in her hands and cried.

  And even as she wept she was conscious of rationalizing it to herself. I’m just overtired, the strain of all this, knowing that Jaelle could still die. I love her, I’d do anything to take care of her, and I may have killed her. This whole thing is my fault. I introduced her to Peter in the first place. If I hadn’t been such a rotten person back then, if I’d been able to give Peter a child, if I hadn’t been so arrogant and competitive with him… now he is dead and Jaelle may die… she cried and cried, unable to stop herself, and even while the sobs continued to rack her, she remembered Marisela saying that one day she too would be able to weep…

  This is supposed to be good for me? Who’s crazy?

  It’s a good thing I learned more than that from Marisela, isn’t it? After the night past, she could have giggled; and she wiped her nose on her sleeve—there wasn’t even a clean rag! and drew a deep breath, trying to assess their situation without hysteria.

  Jaelle was sleeping; but she was very weak. Magda thought she had lost altogether too much blood. She needed medical attention, to be sure Magda had not botched handling the miscarriage and everything was clean. At a very minimum she needed dry clean clothes, nourishing food, and warmth. Magda could provide that, foraging for resin-branches which would burn when wet, provided she got them now before the fire was dead out.

  Otherwise, she realized soberly, they could both die here.

  If Jaelie’s fever went down within the next few hours, perhaps she should simply bundle the girl on her horse, even if she had to tie her in her saddle, and pack her out to civilization, where she could organize search parties for Aleki, and Jaelle could get nursing. On the other hand, suppose they encountered some isolated farm where the woman of the place reacted like the woman who had cursed Magda on the fire-lines? That one might have been capable of turning them out to die.

  If they stayed here, there was nothing ahead but starvation and cold, but she was still strong. Could she possibly leave Jaelle alone and go for help? Behind her in the cave she heard Jaelle whimper in her sleep, as if the very thought terrified her.

  Jaelle, who was so strong. Yet I have always protected her. My child. My love.

  She would stay with Jaelle, no matter what. Either she would risk taking her out to civilization, now or when Jaelle was stronger, or they would await rescue here.

  The weather knowledge of years told her that there was another storm on the way, but it was not yet imminent. Still, she should get in as much fuel as she could.

  She bent over Jaelle, intending to whisper to her that she must not be frightened, she was not going far away; but for the moment the woman was sleeping peacefully and Magda hated to disturb her. Could she possibly reach her mind? During the aftermath of the kireseth storm they had spent much time in contact, and had even shared their dreams. Before the miscarriage, however, knowing she could not care for Jaelle adequately if she must also suffer all Jaelie’s pain and fear, she had done something, she still did not know what, and blocked her mind from Jaelie’s. Could she now reverse this process?

  She tried to sink into the sleeping woman’s mind; she did not know how well she had succeeded, but she tried to shape her thoughts without disturbing Jaelie’s sleep; after that nightmare of pain and fumbling midwifery, Jaelle needed sleep. But she needed reassurance too.

  Darling, I have to leave you just for a little while, I have to get wood, or something we can burn. If you wake up and I’m gone, don’t be frightened. She repeated it mentally several times, but Jaelle did not stir and Magda wondered if she had reached her at all. Well, with luck she would be back before Jaelle woke, and could have some tea for her, and perhaps some hot porridge. It wasn’t what Magda would have chosen but Jaelle had presumably lived on it before this and the stuff supposedly had all the nutritious elements needed—it was the staple travel food of the Amazons, anyhow. The fact that it tasted like stale hot cereal didn’t really matter.

  She pulled her hooded riding-cloak over her head, thinking that she would have felt more comfortable in Jaelle’s Terran style down jacket. But Jaelle was smaller than she was and the jacket would not fit, so it was the riding-cloak or nothing. At least it was warm. She checked on the horses to be sure they had not strayed too far, patted them, gave them the last few bites of grain. Then she began dragging branches of damp resin trees up the slope. It was heavy, hard work and her arms ached, and she broke her nails on the wood. Damn, if I could only reach an intercom somewhere. Primitive planets are wonderful, I love this one, but damn it, in an emergency like thi
s one, what do you do? Sit marooned and die?

  She could have sent out an alarm and had Terran helicopters out looking for Jaelle before she got over the pass! She could have had a full-scale search and rescue out for Aleki before he was two hours ride out of Thendara! If Jaelle had had half a brain, that was what she would have done, instead of going racing off at night into a storm after him!

  But Jaelle had killed Peter—or thought she had, Magda thought, sobered. It was an accident. But she’d have to convince the Terrans of that. And she couldn’t have helped Aleki very much if she had been locked up in the hospital, or held for questioning.

  She dragged an armload of wood to the cave mouth and went down for another one. Halfway up the slope she saw flakes of snow drifting down on to the folds of her cloak; the thick wet flakes, clumped together into little snowballs, almost, which meant it would soon be coming down hard. Some of it would melt when it hit the remaining water in the canyon, but enough would pile up on the slopes to make the trail dangerous.

  That settled it. They could not be walled in here; they dared not stay. Somehow she must get Jaelle on her horse and they must make a fight to get to civilization.

  The hell with all that stuff about waiting here to be rescued. A Renunciate has to rescue herself! Grimly, she dumped the wood and started getting her things together, what was left of the food. She built up the fire with the last of the dry wood and put their dried meat to boil; she would get them a good hot nourishing meal so they would be better able to travel. She packed what she could, ruthlessly discarding everything but food and blankets. She loaded them into her own saddlebags. She would put Jaelle on the horse, with her saddlebags, and ride Jaelle’s pony herself. It was going to be a rough trip enough without extra weight.

  If they made it out she would send a search party to seek for Aleki, or his body, in the higher caves.