"You won't," Atreus said. His sour mood of a few minutes earlier had vanished, vanquished by the giddy astonishment Seema's kiss had stirred within his breast. "And even if you do, I don't particularly care what the Sannyasi thinks."
Seema's jaw started to drop in shock, then she smiled. "I do." She wagged a finger at Atreus and drew her chair closer, adding, "There will be plenty of time later for Devotions."
"Devotions?"
Now it was Seema who blushed. "You know…"
But Atreus did not know, having learned as a young man that any sort of amorous advance would send a woman scurrying for the safety of her father's counting room.
Seema took his hand, drawing Atreus's thoughts back to the balcony. "Perhaps it is better to wait anyway. It seems a lifetime since Tarch pulled you onto the slave barge, but it has been less than a ten-day. In truth, I hardly know you."
"What do you want to know?"
Seema thought for a moment, then said, "Why you are so angry with yourself."
"Angry? I don't believe I am."
Seema nodded and said, "You are. I see it in this 'ugliness' you talk about. Why would you call yourself such names if you were not angry with yourself?"
Atreus scowled. "Perhaps because that is what I learned from others."
"Ah… so you are angry because you do not look the way they think you should, and so you cross the world, hoping that this penance will put you at peace with yourself."
"Not exactly," Atreus said, unsure as to whether or not she was mocking him. "I came to find Langdarma."
"Because someone told you it would make you handsome." Seema smiled, faced him, and tapped his chest. "And it will, if you let it."
"I know, I know… beauty comes from within," Atreus said. "But to tell you the truth, I'm hoping for something more external."
He gazed directly into Seema's brown eyes, quietly praying that she would say something about the Fountain of Infinite Grace. Instead, she only touched her fingers to his cheek.
"I am afraid you will have to look inside first. Until you change the way you look at yourself, nothing in Langdarma will change how others see you."
"Really?" Atreus started to ask her about the Fountain, then recalled how she had deceived him about Langdarma's existence and felt his eyes grow hard. Not wanting her to see that he knew she was lying, he withdrew his hand from hers and looked away. "Then I have just crossed half the world for nothing."
"No, not for nothing," said Seema. "Inside every ugliness lies a greater beauty. Before you leave, I will make you understand this. I promise."
Not trusting himself to make a civil answer, Atreus merely grunted.
"Perhaps I should prepare you something to eat," Seema said, standing. "Your hunger is making you cross."
As she turned to go, the door downstairs banged open. "Atreus!" Yago's deep voice reverberated up through the house.
"Out here," Atreus called, his heart jumping at the ogre's excitement "On the balcony… with Seema."
He emphasized these last two words as a warning. The last thing he wanted was for Yago to burst through the door and blurt out that they had finally found the Fountain of Infinite Grace. If Seema was not willing to tell him about it, he suspected the Sannyasi would take a dim view of them knowing its location.
Yago came pounding up the stairs so hard that he shook the entire hut, stomping across Atreus's room toward the balcony. Seema met him at the door, her eyes wide with alarm, her hand raised to stop him.
"Stay inside," she warned, "or you will tear my poor balcony off my house."
Yago dropped to his hands and knees, then thrust his head and shoulders out through the door.
Before the ogre could speak, Atreus said, "Yago, calm down. I'm sure your news can wait until you gather your thoughts."
"A moment, yes, but perhaps not longer," panted Rishi. The Mar squeezed past the ogre. "We have just come from Phari, where there is most disturbing news."
"Phari?" Atreus asked.
"A hamlet on the other side of the basin," explained Seema. "What is wrong in Phari?"
"Tarch!" boomed Yago.
Seema's face paled to sickly yellow. "That is not possible!" she said. "He could not follow us through the Passing."
"He did," insisted Yago. "A man's daughter is missing."
Seema frowned. "You saw Tarch take her?" she asked.
"No, thank the Forgotten Ones," answered Rishi. "She did not come home last night. They were searching for her when we arrived."
Seema took a moment to gather her wits, then asked, "What did you tell them?"
"Tell them?" echoed Rishi. That we had not seen the girl. Then we left. They kept looking at Yago and his big teeth and saying absurd things about the yeti, and I could see at once there was no use trying to reason with them."
"You said nothing about Tarch?" Seema asked.
Yago shook his head. They were edgy enough without us starting rumors about scaly devils," he explained.
Seema closed her eyes in relief. "You were right to hold your tongues," she said. "I am sure this has nothing to do with Tarch."
"How?" Atreus asked, perched on the edge of his chair. "How do you know that?"
Seema said, "Even if he could have tracked us into the mountain-which he could not do-he does not know the Passing magic. He would be trapped inside forever."
"All the same, Tarch has a nasty way of surprising us," said Atreus. He stood, biting back a hiss of pain as his mending leg objected. "We'd better go have a look."
"There is no need." Seema pushed Atreus into his chair and added, "Even if there was, you are in no condition to go anywhere."
"But Tarch-"
"Could not have followed us," Seema insisted. There was just enough doubt in her voice to make Atreus wonder whom she was trying to convince. "Even in Langdarma, we have the normal sorts of tragedy. Children drown or hit their heads or get lost just like anyplace else, and you will only add to the family's anguish with senseless talk of devils."
CHAPTER 14
Atreus sat alone at the rough-hewn table, sipping buttered tea from a wooden mug while Seema cleaned the iron breakfast pot He would have helped, but her cooking area was more an apothecary than a kitchen, and no one was permitted to invade that spicy-smelling realm of earthenware jars and stoppered vials. Yago and Rishi were clumping around upstairs, gathering bedrolls and extra cloaks in preparation for an overnight foray. Having found no sign of the Fountain of Infinite Grace in the basin, Atreus had prevailed upon them to begin exploring the main valley.
"There is no need to be envious," said Seema. "We will be joining your friends soon. Your leg is growing stronger every day."
Atreus nodded slowly. "That's just what I was thinking," he said, "and soon after that I'll be well enough to leave."
"Perhaps not so soon. The Sannyasi will not ask you to go until you are strong enough to cross the High Yehimals without help, and by then the weather may well have turned." Seema feigned a look of pity and added, "I am sorry to tell you this, but it is possible you will still be here next spring."
"I can think of worse fates," Atreus said, half grinning. This place has a way of growing on you."
Seema pouted and asked, "And what of the company?"
"I liked the company from the start. The company is what I'll miss most when I go." Atreus paused, then asked, "I will have to go, won't I?"
"I am afraid Yago has nothing to worry about," Seema said, referring to the ogre's obvious eagerness to be on his way home. Any place that frowned on head-bashing and banned hunting was hardly a Shield-breaker's idea of paradise. "The Sannyasi has never allowed an outsider to remain in Langdarma. When it is safe for you to leave, he will insist that you do."
Atreus could only nod. Having fallen under the spell of what little of Langdarma he had seen, he would gladly have traded all his wealth back in Erlkazar for a simple stone hut on the Sisters' verdant slopes.