Another day passed, and another. Tamia had to leave her Guardian’s bedside to brew more broth, to dip up more water from the well; even to sleep, and eat, and wash herself, and to do the laundry, that the Guardian might always have clean sheets to lie on. But Tamia was not without hope, for while the Guardian had still not opened her eyes and recognised her, sometimes her right hand moved towards the cup that Tamia was holding, and sometimes, while she drank, she was almost sitting on her own.
On the fourth morning, Tamia went outside, down the house-steps to the water-garden, and paused there, for the first time since she had found her Guardian stretched out at its edge. The last few days she had crossed the stepping-stones quickly, intent on some errand. The water-garden had had to look after itself in the much greater need to look after her Guardian; Tamia had barely remembered to wish the yew tree good-day and good-evening. But the water-garden could not look after itself; and besides, Tamia had thought of something she might try—a message she might be able to send.
This was much harder than that first solitary magic she had done—lifetimes ago, it seemed now. But that had not been truly solitary, any more than any of the other magics she had done since had been, because her Guardian had been there. Even if she was indoors or on the other side of the meadow and could not see what Tamia was doing, she was always there if Tamia needed help. And what Tamia was doing now was something new, something she had not been trained to do.
She walked three times round the house before she felt the presence of any stones that might do for her purpose. When she knelt beside them, their presence seemed to waver, like the reflection of a disturbed pool; she had to wait till everything—including her anxious breath—had calmed. Yes, these would do. She chose one, two, three—oh dear—four, five, six and seven—this was too many. She sat with her stones in her lap and looked at them; the gold flecks blinked at her hopefully. Well, it was the best she could do. A real Guardian could do new things with her water-garden, things she hadn’t been trained for, because she felt its water like a part of the tidal rhythm in her own body, the individual stones as thoughts she had thought or might one day think. But Tamia was only an apprentice. An apprentice’s standard service to a Guardian was twenty years—and Four Doors, who liked to talk, had told Tamia stories of apprenticeships that had been thirty or fifty years. Tamia had had only five years. She would have to create a rough, clumsy magic because she could not create a subtle one.
The golden flash, when it came, was blinding. When her vision cleared, her seven stones lay in a sandy-grey bed, and the golden glitter even on the far side of the water-garden seemed muted. She swallowed with a suddenly dry mouth; but it was done, and she had done it.
She was so exhausted, she could barely drag herself up the house-steps again, and into the front room where her Guardian lay. There she dropped down beside her, clasping her Guardian’s right hand, her head on the edge of the mattress, and fell asleep.
It was her first deep sleep in days, and she was woken out of it by a sense of uneasiness. It seemed to her that she heard her name being called, very softly, but over and over again, and that she should recognise the voice that spoke it, but she did not; and that there was something wrong with her name as it was spoken. . . .
She woke up, and found that her Guardian was holding her hand firmly enough to be giving her tiny squeezes as she repeated her name—“Tamia, Tamia”—but why did it sound so strange? Tamia said, or half-groaned, “Oh, I am so glad you are awake!” and bent towards her and kissed her, and then as she turned away from her to look for the tinder-box and kindle the lamp, she saw the rain streaming in through the open shutters on the far side of the Guardian’s bed.
She lit the lamp first, and saw the pools of water the rain had left, and had a nasty, sick feeling in her stomach that the pools were too regularly shaped, and looked rather too much like the shape her seven stones made in the water-garden. She closed the shutters and then flung all the rags she could find in the pools of rain-water, just to disturb their shape, till she had time to go round them one by one and mop them up properly. She blew on the red heart of the drowsy fire, and stirred it, and fed the tiny flame that wavered into being (rain stung her face like embers, hissing down the chimney); and then she went to the water-ewer, and was glad to find that it was still half-full, because it was now quite dark out, and drawing water in darkness and heavy rain would have been unpleasant.
She brought the lamp nearer the bed, so she could see her Guardian’s face; and reassured herself with the warmth of her hand that the Guardian had taken no chill from Tamia having let the fire almost go out. “Guardian, you’re better!”—and a little joy and relief slipped out in her words; but she knew there was still something badly wrong. “Guardian—”
“Tamia,” her Guardian said again, and now, in the lamplight, Tamia saw that her mouth was not working the way it should, and that one whole side of her face looked slack and limp. The Guardian saw the shock register in Tamia’s face, and patted her hand with her own good hand; for the weakness extended all down one side of her body. Trying to speak very carefully, she said, “I know—a little—about what has happened. Something that happens sometimes to old people.”
But Tamia put her hand over her mouth and said, “Don’t talk. You must eat something, now that you’re awake. You must get stronger. And then—then we’ll know better what to do.” She turned away before she could read the expression on her Guardian’s face, and when she sat down again with some hastily reheated porridge, her Guardian allowed herself to be fed like a little child, and Tamia learned quickly to slip the spoon in the side of her mouth where it wouldn’t all helplessly dribble out again.
The rain continued over the next several days. It was early autumn, when the change of weather often comes quickly and strongly, and when storms are common. The winds that caromed around their little meadow seemed wilder and more directionless than usual, even for autumn; but Tamia deliberately did not think about this. She had mopped up the rain-water pools, and while she opened the shutters as often as she could for daylight, however grey, and fresh air, however damp, she kept sentry-watch against the rain spotting the floor. Her Guardian drifted in and out of sleep, but Tamia hoped it was only sleep now. She ate obediently, and tried to help when Tamia washed and turned her, so she would not grow sore from lying in the same position too long; and she regained control over her body functions. And she allowed—because she was given no choice—her apprentice to rub the dead side of her body, and to move that leg and foot, and bend the arm, and curl and uncurl the fingers.
Every time Tamia went near that side of the house, indoors or out, she felt what she had done to the water-garden pulling at her.
As the days passed, the rain fell harder and the wind blew stronger, till Tamia could rarely open the shutters at all, and during the days as well as the nights the world seemed very dark. Even with the shutters closed the house rattled and creaked, and the wind and rain battered the walls like fists, and little draughts crept in and played with the lamplight. The cloud-cover hung low and thick and menacing over their meadow, and Tamia only went outdoors long enough to draw water from the well, and to greet the yew tree, and ran back in again. She began to wonder if she might not be able to collect enough water by setting bowls and basins on the stepping-stones, and then she would not have to linger so long beneath this bleak and accusing sky. When she had lived in the valley she had hated stormy weather, when she could not go outdoors; but now the pressure of the gloomy hostile weather seemed the proper backdrop to her fears. The water-garden throbbed like a bruise.