She still couldn’t relate to the name the demon said was hers, but maybe that, too, would return. Maybe at some point she’d know “Lily” again.
The dust, while kind to her feet, was hard on her nose and throat. It rose in puffs with every step. Her throat tickled, and she coughed.
“Shh,” Gan said without looking back.
The demon led. She stayed a few paces behind, and the wolf roamed. She hadn’t seen him for a while, yet she knew where he was.
That had come as a surprise. The first time he’d roved out of sight, casting around for dangers, she’d felt anxious until she realized she could sense him. Not his thoughts or feelings, nothing so specific, but she knew where he was.
He was on his way back to them now. The valley didn’t offer much real cover, but between the few bushes and the dips and rises in the ground the wolf—Rule— managed to keep out of sight. He was silent, too, uncannily so. Even Gan couldn’t hear him approach.
Rule could probably have survived here on his own, but he wouldn’t desert her. Even though he was angry with her decision—and that had been obvious since they left the ravine—he’d stay with her. She knew that in a way she couldn’t explain.
The demon would have done fine on its own, too. Not her. She wasn’t a liability because of her wounds anymore. She was just useless.
Of course, if not for her the other two might have killed each other by now.
A great, dark shape melted up out of the ground in front of them. Gan yelped and jumped back and then shook its fist at the wolf. “Quit that!”
“Shh,” Lily said.
Gan turned to glare at her.
The wolf—Rule—grinned. At least that’s what his expression looked like to Lily. He rumbled at the demon.
“What did he say?”
Gan cast Rule a disparaging look. “Oh, the big puppy dog is tired and thirsty.”
Rule growled louder.
“Come on, Gan. What did he really say?”
“He found some water,” Gan said grudgingly. “He thinks we should take a break before crossing the Zone.”
“Good.” Yet she wasn’t truly thirsty. She wanted to wash the dust from her throat, but she didn’t actually need a drink. She wasn’t hungry, either, and that was weird, now that she thought about it. A by-product of the ymu?
What else had that stuff done to her that she hadn’t noticed? That maybe she wouldn’t notice because she lacked the reference of memory to tell her something had changed?
Rule gave her a questioning look. She nodded, and he trotted off. She followed.
Gan did, too, grumbling about the detour, but she suspected the demon was ready for a break as well and only objected because it was the wolf’s idea.
The ground here was easier to her feet than the rocks had been. The valley itself was monotonous, but the mountains on her right were rather pretty in their way. Vegetation softened and striated them into bands of color—yellow ochre, rust, and brown in shades from sand to coffee to grape.
Not much like the mountains on the other side of the valley.
She paused and looked back, trying to spot the place where they’d come down out of the rocks into this valley. Somewhere in that confusion of stone lay the ravine that was, in a sense, her birthplace. It held her first memories.
She couldn’t find it.
“What?” Gan whispered. “Do you see something?” The demon had stopped. The wolf had, too, and was looking at her over his shoulder. She shook her head, unable to put words to the feelings knotted up in her gut. It was too late to wonder if they’d be able to find their way back.
Forward was all she had. So she kept going.
TWENTY-TWO
The waterhole was literally that—a hole in the rock where water bubbled up in what was more a large puddle than a pool. It was set in a depression like a small meteor crater. Meteor, she thought, surprised, as the word opened up an image of a starry sky. Space. The moon, and meteorite showers that looked like falling stars.
She paused, savoring space and falling stars. Gan made it to the little pond first and knelt, tipping forward on its short arms to dunk its head underwater. It came up sputtering and then bent and slurped at the water like a… well, a dog. Or a wolf.
She looked at Rule. He would have drunk his fill when he found the waterhole. Now he lay nearby, his eyes open but head drooping.
He’s exhausted, she realized, and that troubled her. Had more time passed than she’d guessed? Or was something else affecting him? “How long have we been walking?” she asked abruptly.
Gan sat back on its haunches, having quenched whatever thirst a demon feels. “According to whose clock? Time’s more erratic here than you’re used to.”
“Time doesn’t change. That just… it doesn’t make sense.”
“It does here. Though…” Its forehead wrinkled. “Around you it might operate more the way you’re used to. I’m not sure how things work around a sensitive.”
A dozen questions tempted her with side roads, but she held to her course. “Take a guess about how long we’ve been walking based on, uh, your own clock.”
“Oh, maybe one of your days. I told you the Zone wasn’t far.”
Then Rule’s exhaustion made sense, she thought, relieved. He’d probably covered twice as much territory as she had, and it had been a long time since he slept. Maybe he’d been awake for a long time before they arrived here, too.
That was a disconcerting thought, stretching as it did into a past she couldn’t claim. She felt jealous, she realized. Jealous of Rule, for possessing what she’d lost. Jealous even of herself… the self who didn’t exist anymore, except in the memories of others.
Of course, if Rule had been awake a long time, so had she. “I’m not sleepy.”
“You’re still charged up with ymu. It lasts a lot longer than the kind of meals you’re used to. Once it runs low, you might get sleepy. Or mean. Or hungry. Or you might just keel over.”
Great. “You don’t know?”
It shrugged. “The only humans I know about who’ve taken ymu were possessed. It’s probably different if you don’t have a demon in you.”
But she was tied to one—the one currently blocking her way. She stepped around it so she could wash the dust from her throat.
Gan shoved her back.
“Hey!”
“You’ve got to look first. See that?”
Now that it was pointed out, she did. A small vine thrust out of a fissure in the stone right where she’d been about to step. Pale and leafless, it looked more like an albino worm than a plant. “So?”
Gan rolled its eyes. “So why do you think we’ve been avoiding those things?”
This was one of the snaky vines? “I don’t know. I asked, but you just hushed me.” She tipped her head, studying it. “The mature ones are a different color.”
“They’ve got a lot of blood in them.”
Oh. She bent to take a good look, wanting to be sure she’d recognize one if she saw it. “I don’t see any kind of mouth, but it’s got fine hairs. Or maybe they’re cilia.”
“Whatever you call them, they’re sticky. Real sticky. And they’re the eating part.”
“How? And why is it dangerous to me? It’s too little to eat anything but bugs.”
“You’d get away, yeah. But you’d have it stuck to you, and the sap would eat away your skin.”
She was very careful about approaching the water-hole after that. When she knelt she saw a number of flying insects skimming the water—pretty things the size of her palm, almost colorless but with iridescent wings. They lit on the surface and took off again, making little ripples.