“…Five.” Elayeen finished. Then she turned away from the corner to face into the room. Her head swivelled slowly, her wide-eyed gaze sweeping the entire room, and then to Gawain’s astonishment and delight, she lifted her right arm, and pointed towards him.
“Yes!” he called, “But you were a bit to the right!”
“Just ‘yes’ G’wain! Hush! Dwarfspit, please!”
“Sorry.” Gawain whispered as Elayeen turned to face into the corner again.
“One…” she began, and Gawain happily tip-toed back across the room to stand in the corner opposite Elayeen. But the sword strapped across his back scraped the stonework of the fireplace as he turned to look at his lady and she cried out in frustration.
“Vayen vakin Denthas! Can you not do this one simple thing!”
Gawain could hear the frustration and anguish in her voice and hurried to her, hastily unslinging the sword and casting it on to the bed before gently grasping her shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Elayeen, miheth, it was the sword, I’ve taken it off, look, there, it’s on the bed…”
But that, of course helped not a jot, and she let out a sob, turning to pound on his chest with both fists. He drew her close and held her until her anger and frustration slowly waned. A little.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “Truly.”
“Then you’ll play the game properly now?” she sniffed.
“Game?”
“I don’t know what else to call it.”
“Yes, I’ll do it properly, I swear by my love for you.”
Elayeen sniffed again and wiped her eyes, drew back and then turned to face the corner once more.
“One…” she sighed, and at once, as silently as he could, Gawain crept away from her.
Five times Elayeen turned and five times raised her finger, and five times Gawain uttered an astonished ‘Yes’. Then, on the sixth occasion, with hope pounding in his heart, a sudden doubt made him stop before he reached the corner of the room to Elayeen’s right, and he crouched, as silent as if he were back at the farak gorin with black riders pursuing him. Then he lay down, almost at Elayeen’s feet.
“…Five.” She announced, turning as before, and as before, swung her head from side to side. She swivelled her hips slightly and started to raise her hand towards the window, the evening sunshine beaming through it, but then she stopped, and cocked her head this way and that.
Finally, after scanning the room once more, she smiled, and looked down, and pointing at Gawain said quietly, “Dwarfspit and Elve’s Blood, my King is a sneaky cheat.”
Gawain leapt to his feet with a joyous call of ‘Yes!’ and swept her into his arms. “Oh miheth is it true? Your sight is returning! Allazar said we should wait…”
But Elayeen simply smiled sadly up at him, and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“What? What is it?” Gawain mumbled, confusion rushing over him again.
“I do not think my sight is returning, miheth,” Elayeen sighed. “Something is happening, though. I began to wonder earlier, each time you were near and I thought the world a little brighter. Then later, when I was measuring the distance from the bed to the fireplace and you came in, I felt sure of it. I cannot see, G’wain, all is darkness, but you, you are a brightness to my eyes. I see it now, this close to you it’s everywhere, like facing the sun and closing your eyes. I did not see you, miheth, in our game, but I saw your brightness, and that is something.”
“Yes, my love, that is something indeed.”
Gawain kissed her, led her to the chair in front of the window, and sat, drawing her into his lap, and while he caressed her hair he told her of Allazar, and of the notebook.
“Adjectives?” she asked softly, her eyes closed and her head on his shoulder.
“Yes.”
“Then we should wait.”
“Yes.” Gawain agreed in the gathering gloom, wondering how it was possible that such a slender form could contain so much courage. And wondering if he could bear it half so well were it his vision the circle had taken.
12. Gingerbread
And so they waited, there at the outpost at the foot of the Downland Pass. For Gawain, the waiting was bitter-sweet. Bitter, for the guilt he still felt, sweet for the long hours alone with Elayeen, holding her close in the night, and in the day as they walked the cobbled road, he describing their surroundings and she tilting her head this way and that as he did so. Allazar was content to rest quietly in his room, occasionally and furtively studying the notes he’d made in the Keep, but mostly dozing quietly and mumbling. Captain Tyrane and the Callodon guards were quietly efficient in their watch, and also the epitome of gallantry whenever Elayeen was near.
On the third afternoon, sitting by the wells after a refreshing drink, Elayeen glanced around and announced to Gawain:
“We are alone, miheth.”
“Yes.”
She nodded, and then pointed. “Are those the wells?”
“Yes!”
“I think I am beginning to discern shapes, G’wain. They seem featureless, but shapes nevertheless. And people. I see your shape so brightly now, you’re like a man made from sunlight. And over there,” she nodded towards the bend in the road where it curved away to the north, “I believe that is the shape of Captain Tyrane moving towards us?”
“Yes!” Gawain gasped, “By the Teeth, it is!”
“He is bright, too.”
“Really?”
Elayeen smiled. “He shines, miheth, is what I mean. Though not as brightly as you do.”
“I don’t think I understand. But I don’t mind. If it means you can see something, I don’t mind at all.”
“Perhaps you were right, G’wain, perhaps my sight is returning. Or perhaps not. There are patterns of light and dark, shapes in the gloom, and people seem bright to a greater or lesser degree. You blaze like the sun, the Captain… well he shimmers more than burns.”
“He shimmers.”
“Yes. But you blaze, so don’t complain.”
“Do I keep you awake at night?”
“Yes, miheth, but that has nothing to do with your brightness or my eyes.” Elayeen smiled, and for the first time since Raheen, the smile lit her up as if she herself glowed with some inner light.
Allazar was allowed out of bed that same afternoon when a brief exchange of notes with the whitesleeves seemed to convince the healer that the wizard was suffering not from a serious injury to the brain, but some rather more mystic injury inflicted by the dark magic of Salaman Goth. But he was not permitted to venture beyond the boardwalk in front of the inn, at least for now. The wizard continued to be ‘distracted’ from time to time, and though more and more words of the common tongue were slowly creeping back into his speech, he was still assailed by ‘ghosts’, as everyone was beginning to call the voices only Allazar could hear.
And yet, later that afternoon, Gawain and Turlock manhandled a table and chairs out from the inn and set them up on the deck facing the wells, and there, as the shadow of the mountain swept over them, the three who had stood in the circle together above, now sat around a circle of wood here below.
“Meleeah Elayeen,” Allazar sighed, joy etching his features, “Eyem hatak to see you at last!”
“Oh G’wain,” Elayeen gasped, “Allazar shines as bright as you! And there, that is the staff?”
“Yes, the two are practically glued to each other.”
“It sparkles,” she smiled, tilting her head, “As though it were filled with stars, all swimming in moonlight.”
Allazar nodded, as if a suspicion had been confirmed, and Gawain quietly explained that Elayeen could now discern faint shapes, and that people ‘glowed’.
“It is more than this, though,” Elayeen said softly. “The world for me is all shades of grey, but if I look closely, I can discern shapes and other things. The ground by the wells has a sheen of lighter grey upon it, like a sprinkling of dust, and so too the ground at the stables, and around the inns, and occasionally, here and there, on the cobbles of the road. I think the dusty sheen is grass.”