Then there was a shock, but to her feet or her skull or only her mind she did not know; whatever part of her was struck staggered, and she shook herself, and discovered that it was her head she was shaking, and then she blinked her eyes and looked up, and realized that she saw sunlight leaking through cracks as though through the ruined wails of an ancient building. At the same time that her confused eyes and brain figured out the sunlight she also realized that her feet were standing on something, that she hadn’t chopped herself in two by landing on Gonturan, and that she was no longer falling.
She took a hesitant step, for she could see very little, and small pieces of rubble crunched and scattered under her feet. The pile of fragments teetered and threatened to spill her into the bottomless blackness again. There is no sense in taking my luck for granted, she told herself sternly, and resheathed Gonturan, gave an absent rub at her chest, and then stood still, blinking, till her eyes began to readjust to simple things like daylight, and stone walls with cracks in them.
Chapter 20
SHE WAS ON THE FLAT TOP of a small mountain of rubble; and off to her right, at its foot, was a break in the surrounding circular wall wide enough that she thought she could probably squeeze herself through it. She made her way slowly and cautiously down the slope toward the broken place in the wall, but the stuff underfoot shifted and slithered, and she came to the bottom sitting back on her heels, with the unwounded hand holding Gonturan up by the scabbard so she wouldn’t drag. She stood up and went toward the crack and, indeed, she could push through, although it was a tight fit; and then the sunlight dazzled her, and her abused legs turned abruptly to jelly, and she sat down quickly and put her head between her knees. Staring at the ground, she thought, I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. Food might help. The mundane thought made her feel better at once, and hungry as well. She raised her head. She still felt shaky, and when she had clambered back to her feet—ungracefully using Gonturan as a prop—her knees were inclined to tremble, but she almost cheerfully put it down to lack of food.
She looked around. Where was she? The black tower had risen from a plain where nothing grew; now all around her she saw jungle, trees with vast climbing vines (though none of surka that she could see), and heavy brush between the trees. The sunlight fell on the ruined tower and the little bramble-covered clearing it made for itself, but the light could not make much headway through the thick leaves. Ugh. It would not be a pleasant journey out. And where might she find Talat? She set out to walk around what remained of the tower.
Nothing but tumbled rock and encroaching forest. Nothing else. No sign of anything else ever having been here either—but where was she? Was the ruined tower she was stumbling around now the same that she and Talat and her wild beasts had faced? She tipped her head back to look up at the remaining walls. They didn’t look nearly big enough; the fallen rock was not enough to have been built into such vastness as she remembered. She sighed, and rubbed a hand over her face—and pulled it away again as she remembered that it was the wrong hand. But the cut had already healed; there was nothing on her palm but a narrow white scar. She stared at it, puzzled; but there were more important things to be puzzled about.
So what now? She was alone—somewhere—she was hungry, and the sun was getting low. She did not look forward to a night alone in this place—although it certainly didn’t look as if anything big enough to trouble her much could get through that forest, there were always, well, spiders, for example. As she thought of spiders it occurred to her that her chest was only barely itching, almost idly, as if once it had gotten the way of it it didn’t particularly want to stop, even though it didn’t have much reason left. That’s something, I guess, she thought; and glanced again at her scarred palm.
She sat down, closed her eyes, organized one or two of the simpler things Luthe had taught her, and thought about the air. She followed invisible eddies and tiny currents as they strayed over her and back among the trees again; and eventually she found one that felt damp, and she followed that until it sank to the ground, and there she found a spring. It looked all right; it felt like water.
She opened her eyes and stood up. The spring, when she reached it, still looked like water and smelled tike water; and she sighed, because she had no choice. She ducked her head, and then threw her wet hair back, and then drank deep. She sat back on her heels and scowled into the underbrush. The tiny spring was only a few paces from the edge of the clearing, and yet it had taken her some expense of time and energy to hew her way even this far. How was she going to get out?
One thing at a time. Remembering something else Luthe had taught her, she gathered a few dry twigs and a heap of dead leaves together, and set them on fire by glaring at them—though the effort gave her a fierce headache and she couldn’t focus her eyes for a long time afterward, and the fire was sullen and inclined to smoke. She wandered around gathering more twigs, and saw at least two for each, and two hands reaching for them, and generally misjudged which hand and which twig were the real ones; but still she gathered enough at last to keep the fire going all night. She hoped. And the fire was beginning to burn a little better.
She had hot water for supper, by filling the pouch that had held the dragon stone with water and hanging it over the fire; it leaked very little. She’d try to figure out food tomorrow; she was weary enough with hunger, but weary too with everything else, and the sun had set, and twilight would soon be darkness. She lay down, making an uncomfortable pillow of a rock, with a piece of her tunic pulled up to protect her ear. She lay as still as the stones she rested against, without even the energy to try to scrabble for a more easy spot; but still her thoughts prowled at the ruin of the black mountain, picking at the rubble. Some of it, perhaps, Luthe could explain to her—but she shied away from the thought of seeing him again, of asking him. The forest troubled her, for she needed to find a way through it; its existence was far more than a philosophical dilemma—as was her solitude. Where was Talat? She could believe that her other allies had melted away as they had come; she had never understood why they joined her in the first place. But Talat would not have left. At least not of his own free will.
Then the worst thought of all hit her: Agsded is gone, or at least he seems to be gone; but I have yet failed, for the Hero’s Crown is gone also.
She rolled over and stared at the sky. There was no moon, but the stars shone fiercely down on her. She realized suddenly that Agsded himself had never been quite real to her; her terror had been real enough, and her sick horror at the face he wore; and she had known that she went to a battle she had less chance of winning than she had had even when she faced Maur, But the thing that had held her, the dream that had drawn her on, was the Hero’s Crown. It had nothing to do with her own blood and birthright as her mother’s daughter, nothing of personal vengeance; it was the idea of bringing the Crown back to her City, of presenting it to Arlbeth and Tor. She had been sure, for all that she had never consciously thought of it, that as Damar’s doom lay with Agsded, so must the missing Crown. No one knew of Agsded; no one would believe her even if she told the story, and she could not tell it, for what could she say of the prophecy, of the kinship that made her the only possible champion? What would she say of her uncle?