“Men have used the excuse of natural impulse to justify many things they did and wanted to do to me. Make no mistake, Ashe—I swear by whatever is holy in this unholy place that before you or anyone else takes me anywhere or in any way against my will, one of us will be dead. This time I think it would have been you.”
“I think you’re right,” he said, rubbing his chin.
“But it wouldn’t matter even if it is me who dies. I’ll not be taken in any way against my will. Not by you; not by anyone.”
“I understand,” he said, but he didn’t, not fully. The degree to which she was upset flabbergasted him; her face was as red had he had ever seen it, and she was angry to a degree she had never been, even in battle.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Tell me what to do to make amends.”
“Just stay away from me.” Her face began to cool, but still she glared at him as she walked to the water’s edge, looking across. He could tell she was calculating something. Then she sheathed her weapons, turned and left the riverbank and began to walk south again in the direction they had just come. She paused at the edge of the floodplain. “Well, you’ve cost me some valuable gear.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Ashe said. “It hasn’t been injured—you can see for yourself when we get to the other side.”
“I won’t be going on with you. We part company here.”
“Wait—”
“You can sell it when you get back to Bethany, or wherever it is you’re going,” she said, walking away. “Perhaps it will pay for your time serving as guide. Goodbye.”
Ashe was dumbfounded. Surely she was not so offended by this that she would abandon her quest and her musical instruments over it—yet there she was, rapidly disappearing into the forest. He ran after her, struggling to catch up.
“Rhapsody, wait—please, wait.”
She drew her sword again and turned to face him. She no longer looked annoyed, just guarded. And there was a look of resignation on her face that he had never seen before; it twisted his heart, though he had no idea why.
He stopped, leaving a respectable distance between them, and pondered the extremity of her reaction. Men have used the excuse of natural impulse to justify many things they did and wanted to do to me. Dismay knotted his stomach as he began to suspect what she might have meant. He felt sick as he contemplated it.
Never in his life before had he been at such a loss for words, so unsure of what to do. She had a way of unbalancing him, and had from the moment he had first met her in Bethe Corbair. He cursed his own stupidity and tried to think of what he could say to win back her trust.
Ashe got down on one knee on the ground before her. “Rhapsody, please forgive me. What I did was stupid and thoughtless, and you have every right to be angry. If you’ll just come back I swear to you that I will never touch you again against your will. Please. What you are looking for is too important to give up just because you have an idiot for a traveling companion.”
Rhapsody looked at him with no real expression on her face, saying nothing. For the first time Ashe could not read her thoughts by looking into her eyes; they were closed to him. Anxiety was beginning to choke him, and though he displayed no outward sign, he felt that if she were to abandon him and her mission that he might die right there for lack of a good reason to go on. He knew that she had no personal investment in this undertaking, that her motives were altruistic, that walking away would be easy; her obnoxious sovereign back in Ylorc would be thrilled. At the edge of his consciousness the dragon in his blood berated him mercilessly, but it was no worse than what he was saying to himself.
Finally she dropped her eyes and sheathed her sword again. She made no gesture toward him, but located a large stick the size of a quarterstaff and walked directly back to the river. She tested the depth of the first area she had guessed was sheltered by the rocks of the riverbed and the pattern of the current, and found that it was, in fact, shallower. She turned and gave Ashe a measured look.
“Don’t distract me.”
Ashe nodded.
Rhapsody closed her eyes and spoke the river’s name. She began to hum a tune that matched the music of the current. When she finally located the right pitch and note pattern she could see the river in her mind as a tremendous continuous flow of power, racing along the space before her eyes.
She listened for the shallows and could see them as stepping-stones across the rushing flood. She tied her cloak up around her waist and slowly stepped out into the water, eyes still closed, feeling her way along. She sank almost immediately up to her waist and shoulders, but the water did not seem to have the force to unbalance her in the places she forded the river.
When she was a few feet into the river Ashe followed her in slowly. He still believed she was too small to withstand the rush of the current, that her body mass was too slight to keep from being swept away in the torrent. For a moment he considered using his power over water to calm the raging river, but decided it would be ilnwise to reveal even more to her than he already had. He hoped fervently that when she lost her footing he would be able to reach her in time, given that he knew he had to hang back or risk facing her ire again.
He watched in amazement as she stepped from rock to rock along the river bottom seamlessly, with her eyes closed. She seemed to be able to sense the river’s floor and navigate around it, using the intrinsic moraines and dredges to step in places where the water was naturally blocked and the current slower. Somehow she had found a way to determine the underwater topography that was innately clear to him because of his nature and his sword.
Rhapsody had made it two-thirds of the way across the river when she stopped. Ashe knew her dilemma instantly; before her was a large sinkhole, sheltered in a dam of rocks and debris. It was not safe to cross, nor was it easy to get around due to the swiftness of the current that its barricades circumvented. She stood in a swale, puzzling what to do. It seemed the best route might be to climb the dam on its upriver face and then use it to brace herself against the surge of the diverted current. Just as she decided to try it and took the first step, Ashe called out from behind her. “Watch for the hole in—”
Rhapsody’s concentration shattered and the song vanished. With it went the vision of the river’s floor; she toppled into the water and was lost in a raging torrent that threatened to pull her down. She struggled to keep from panicking as the current dragged her off the dam and swept her over the sinkhole. Her hand flailed as she grabbed blindly for the place where she had seen the rock outcropping. The water surged over her head, choking her.
Ashe rushed forward, moving effortlessly through the rapids. He was about to reach out and snag her cloak when she emerged, gasping, anchored to a log wedged in the riverbed. He hung back and watched as she dragged herself up over it, steadied herself, and began to hum again. It took her a moment to find the song, but then she was off again slowly, picking her way across the bottom once more. Ashe stood where he was and waited until she had pulled herself, sodden and dripping, from the river and up onto the shore of the floodplain.
She bent over for a moment. Ashe assumed she was catching her breath, but then saw her pick something up from the ground. He climbed up onto the debris dam and headed for shore himself.
He was almost to the edge of the dam when the sizable rock she hurled at him caught him in the forehead. His dragon senses had registered her movements, her intent, even before it had left her hand, but the action shocked him so greatly that he was unable to react. He tried to duck at the last second and succeeded only in stumbling into the water and losing his balance. It was the first time he remembered anything like that happening. The Kirsdarkenvar, master of the element of water, one of the most agile men in all of Roland, tripped and plunged face-first into the Tar’afel.