Aris leaned back against the stone wall, noticing how its chill came through his shirt. Soon time to change to winter garb, he thought. He munched thoughtfully, carefully not thinking about how Seri looked, which was harder than it should have been. He found he was thinking of how everyone looked; how old or young everyone looked. Babies born the first few years had grown to adulthood . . . men and women who had been much older now looked it, white haired and wrinkled. Men and women his own age—he did not pay that much attention to, outside of sickness, and they were rarely sick. He frowned, trying to count the years and see the progress of time on some familiar face. Luap? But Luap had not aged at all. Had he?
Seri’s warm shoulder butted against his. “You’re worrying again. Tell me.”
He put down his bowl of stew, still nearly full, and saw that Seri had finished hers. Her hands, wiping the bowl with a crust of bread, were brown, weathered, the skin on the backs of them rougher than he remembered. When he looked at her face, the threads of gray in her hair were still there, really there. “You’re older,” he blurted. Seri grinned, the same old mocking grin.
“Older? Of course I am, and so are you. Did you think this magical place would hold us young forever?”
“But you—you never had children!” He had not thought of it before, but now it seemed so obvious, with all the others having children, with all the children growing up around them.
“Did you want children?” Seri asked, eyes wide.
“I never thought about it,” Aris admitted. “Not until now. I just wanted to heal people. . . .”
“That’s what I thought,” said Seri. She nudged him again. “You had other things to do, and so did I.”
“But—” He could not say more. He knew what “other things” she had had to do; she had had him to look after, to care for when he pushed his healing trance too far. And she had shared in the same tasks as all the adults not busy with children: planting, harvesting, taking her turn at guard duty, drilling the younglings, working on whatever needed doing. She had many skills; she used all of them.
“Aris.” Her strong hands took his face and turned it toward hers. “Aris, you are not like other men, and I am not like other women. We were never meant to be lovers and have a family like everyone else. We are partners; we are working on the same thing, and it’s not a family.”
“I suppose.” A cold sorrow pierced him, from whence he could not say. Was he an adult? Could an adult have gone on, heedless of time, year after year, pursuing his own interests and ignoring the changes around him? Was that not a child’s way?
“Think of Arranha,” Seri went on. “He gave his life to his service of Esea. He could never have been a father. Think of the Marshal-General.” He knew she meant Gird by that. “Did he marry and have another family? No. Or his daughter Raheli?”
Aris stirred uneasily. He had always wished Rahi would let him try to heal her, and had always been afraid to ask. Now it was too late; she had died without children, and he knew she had wanted them.
“Besides,” Seri said, chuckling. “If everyone had children, as many as they could, with your healing powers, the world would be overrun with people. Would the elves like that, or the dwarves? And where would the horsefolk wander, if farmers moved out onto the grasslands? No, Ari: it’s better as it is. You didn’t think of fatherhood; I didn’t care that much. If it makes you feel better, think that I took you as my child.”
Aris felt his ears go hot; it did not make him feel better. He cleared his throat and said the first thing that came into his head. “But Luap hasn’t aged.”
The quality of Seri’s silence made him look at her again. Eyes slitted almost shut, mouth tight, she stared past him into the wall. Then her eyes opened wide. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought. He’s older than we are; we thought he looked old when we first saw him. And he hasn’t changed. The Rosemage—”
“Some, not much.” A few strands of white in her hair, a few more lines on her face . . . but that wasn’t something he looked at, or thought about, much of the time.
“He’s using magery.” Seri’s tone left no doubt which “he” she meant, or that she disapproved. “I didn’t know he could do that. Will he be immortal, like the elves?”
“I . . . don’t know.” Aris had never considered that use of magery; he could not imagine its limitations or methods. “He must get the power somewhere—for something like that—”
“But you know I’m right,” Seri said, her eyes snapping. “You know he’s doing it—it’s the only explanation.”
“I suppose.” Other possibilities flickered through his mind, to vanish as he realized they could not be true. Long lives bred long lives, yes: but not this long with no trace of aging. The royal magery itself? No, for the tales told of kings aging normally, concerned that their heirs were too young as they grew feeble. Could he be doing it without realizing it? Hardly. Aris knew Luap to be sensitive to subtleties in those around him; he must have noticed the changes, the graying hair and wrinkling skin, and known his own did not change. “I must talk to him,” he said. “He must tell me what he’s doing, and why.”
“The why is clear enough,” Seri said. “He doesn’t want to die, that’s all.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s more than that. You know he always has two plans nested in a third; for something like this he must have more than one reason.”
“He won’t thank you for noticing,” Seri said, taking the last bite of her bread. “Not now.”
Aris knew she was right, but felt less awe of Luap than he had for some years, now that he knew whence that unchanging calm had come. “I’ll be back,” he said, “to tell you what his reasons are.”
“If he’ll give them.” She handed him the empty pot and cloth; Aris took them and fought the wind back to the entrance shaft.
Usually he met Luap several times in an afternoon, without looking for him, as they both moved about their tasks. Now he could not find him. Aris looked in his office—empty—and in the archives—also empty. He carried the pot back to the kitchen, where Luap sometimes stopped to chat with the cooks. They took the pot without interest; Luap was not there. They didn’t know where he was . . . and why should they? they said, busily scraping redroots to boil. Aris looked in his own domain, where he found the others busily labeling pots of the salve they’d made that morning: the task he had given them. No Luap, and he had not stopped by while Aris was gone. Back down to the lower level, where the doorward at the lower entrance said yes, Luap had gone out some time before. He often took short, casual walks; he would be back soon, the doorward was sure.
Aris took the downward slope toward the main canyon without really thinking about it. Luap might have gone across to visit any of those who had hollowed out private homes in the fin of rock across from the entrance. He might have gone for a dip in the stream, though it was a cool day for that. But he walked most often out to the main canyon and across the arched bridge, so Aris took that route.
The main canyon, under the blowing clouds, looked as strange as it had from above. Aris paused on the arch of the bridge, and looked upstream and down. The wheat and oats had been harvested; the stubble in some terraces had already been dug under, while others looked like carding combs, all the teeth upright. Around the edges of the terraces, the redroots and onions made a green fringe against the yellow stubble. Down the canyon, he could see the tops of the cottonwoods turning yellow. Up canyon, a few of the berry-bushes had turned dull crimson. For a moment he thought he saw a wolf slinking among them, but it was only a cloudshadow, that slid on up the canyon wall like a vast hand.