The Consort of Shadows backed up the wall, its philia waving. The green woman raced up to the cavern wall, screamed in frustration. She threw down her staff, leapt up to a little ridge, began climbing after the monster, seeking toeholds in the stone. The walls of the cave were covered in calcite, and tickle fern grew on it like moss. Some of the stone was as white and frothy as cream, while other parts were as mellow gold as honeycomb. Over the ages, deposits had built up on the wall, little knobs, like half-formed stalagmites. The green woman climbed swiftly, and the Consort of Shadows moved back up the cave, until he was clinging to the roof like a vast, obese spider.
The wylde mewled pitifully, “Blood, blood!” She reached the roof and floundered about, seeking to follow her prey.
The Consort of Shadows lunged. He leapt sixty feet in a blinding flash and clung to the ceiling with his feet. He grabbed the wylde in one paw, reared back, and smashed her against the rock. Averan thought that she heard bones snap, and the wylde screamed in rage.
Then the reaver flung her back into the pool. For a moment, there was no sound at all but that of water lapping against rock.
Warily, the Consort of Shadows studied them, clinging to the cavern roof, his philia waving in a frenzy.
Suddenly the wylde surfaced, splashing about, screaming in rage.
The Consort of Shadows backed away and retreated up the shaft.
He’s gone, Averan thought in relief. But she knew that it was only for the moment. He was studying them.
“Averan, Binnesman,” Gaborn called.
Binnesman can’t be dead, Averan thought. He’s supposed to be my teacher.
But Averan knew what a reaver’s blade could do. The huge hunk of steel weighed hundreds of pounds. It wasn’t honed as sharp as a sword, but if a blow didn’t slice a man in two, it would still shatter every bone in his body.
She’d seen men killed by reavers—corpses hacked into gruesome pieces—a head here, and a hand there, blood spattered about as if by the bucketful, innards draped over tree limbs like sausages hanging from the rafters of an inn.
The wylde was going mad. The green woman keened like an animal in pain, splashed to shore. Averan wondered that it had survived at all.
Averan shakily struggled to her feet. She didn’t want to look at Binnesman, for she knew what she’d find. She imagined his blank eyes staring into space, the guts knocked out of him.
“Binnesman?” Gaborn called as he rushed toward them.
Averan had to look. There was still a possibility that he might be alive.
Binnesman lay on the cave floor, sprawled on his back. His face was pale, drained of blood, and his hands quivered as if in death throes. Flecks of blood issued from his nose and mouth. Miraculously, he was all in one piece, though the reaver’s blow had struck him in the chest.
“You’re alive?” Averan asked.
“Glad to hear it,” Binnesman said, but the labor he had to put into speaking the jest belied the tone, and his eyes were full of fear.
He’s not alive, Averan decided. But not dead yet either. He’s dying. She knelt, took his hand, and squeezed hard. Binnesman gasped, struggling for breath. He didn’t squeeze in return. He had no comfort to give her.
Gaborn rushed up to Averan’s back.
She glanced up to see his face, pale with shock. Iome came slower.
“Why didn’t you run?” Gaborn asked.
“For a hundred years,” Binnesman said, struggling for breath, “I’ve been the wisest person I know.” A coughing fit took him, and flecks of blood flew from his mouth. “It’s hard to take advice.”
Iome was at Gaborn’s back now, and she just stared at Binnesman with pain-filled eyes.
Binnesman’s hands fluttered and Averan looked back to his face. He was gazing at her now, imploringly. “Not much time,” he said. “Get my staff.”
“It’s broken,” Averan said. But suddenly she had a wild hope that even broken, the staff would be able to heal him. She rushed to it. The wood had not merely cracked; it had splintered in pieces, sending shards in half a dozen directions. Averan wanted every piece. Earth Power was stored in every splinter, and runes of healing and protection had been carved all around the base of the staff. She wanted all of it. When she had all the pieces, she rushed back to Binnesman.
“I’m sorry,” he was telling Gaborn. “I failed you all.” His breath was weak, and more blood came gushing from his mouth with every word he choked out.
“Don’t try to speak,” Iome said. She knelt by his side and held his hand.
“Things must be said,” Binnesman told Iome. “Foul Deliverer, Fair Destroyer,” he whispered. “I unbind you.”
The green woman howled with glee like an animal. Averan glanced up. The wylde was peering up toward the ceiling at the shaft, as if seeking a path to the reavers.
“Averan?” Binnesman called. He gazed about, but his eyes were no longer focusing.
“I’m here,” she said. “I have your staff.”
As proof she began laying the broken shards on his chest, as if they were bits of kindling. He fumbled about, grasped a piece.
“Averan, I must leave you. You must guide them. Listen to the Earth. It will be your only teacher now.”
He gasped for breath, and then could not speak at all.
Averan felt as if the world were reeling out of control beneath her. She couldn’t believe that Binnesman was dying. Old wizards like him were supposed to be indestructible. Averan found herself trembling.
“Bury him!” Gaborn shouted. “Quickly.”
“What?” Iome asked.
“Beneath the soil!” Gaborn raised his left hand and whispered desperately, “Binnesman: may the Earth heal you; may the Earth hide you; may the Earth make you its own.”
Of course! Averan had slept beneath the earth three nights past, relieved of the need to breathe, to think. She’d never slept so soundly in her life. Nor had she ever felt as invigorated afterward.
None of them could save Binnesman, but while there was still life in him, perhaps the Earth could do it.
The cave floor was almost solid rock, with only a few pebbles here and there.
Averan grabbed her staff, struck the ground, and whispered, “Cover him.”
From all around, detritus converged in a rush, pebbles and dust rolling across the cave floor, covering Binnesman, so that he lay beneath a quilt of gray sand, flecks of stone, and cave pearls.
What a pretty grave, Averan thought.
Grief welled up in her. She feared that Binnesman was gone forever, that nothing that they did could help. After all was said and done, he’d be lying here in a pretty grave.
Gaborn glanced up at the dark shaft above. He placed a hand on Averan’s shoulder, as if to offer comfort. “We’d best be on our way,” he said warily.
Iome knelt beside the grave for a moment and pressed her hand into the fresh soil, leaving her imprint, as was sometimes done at peasants’ funerals. She brushed back a tear and picked up Binnesman’s pack.
The green woman kept pacing the shore of the lake, seeking a route to the reavers. There was a scrape on her face, where the Consort of Shadows had bashed her into the stone wall. Other than that, Averan could see no sign of damage.
It was frightening to see the wylde’s inhumanity laid bare. It was more than the green woman’s indestructible nature that bothered Averan. Her total lack of concern for her fallen master was chilling. Averan kept hoping to find some sign of human sentiment in the wylde, but the green woman could offer no affection, no compassion, no grief, no love.
She paced the shore, howled in frustration at not being able to reach the reavers.
“Spring,” Averan called to the wylde, using her private name. “We’re leaving.”