“Something wrong—this weather,” said her Guardian; Tamia shrugged. She was more interested in gently flexing her Guardian’s ankle. “Water-garden?”
Tamia frowned a little at the foot she was holding. The seven stones meant that the rest of the garden felt so different, she had not dared touch anything else; but she was determined that her Guardian should know nothing that might trouble her, if it could be done by Tamia not telling her about it. She had been sure that her seven stones would be noticed by some other Guardian. Well; apparently she had guessed wrong. It had been almost a fortnight. Perhaps she should remove them; the bruise feeling was growing stronger, and every time she walked across the stepping-stones now, she got a headache as well.
Perhaps the weather was so savage outside their meadow that no one could come to them. Tamia’s eyes strayed to the larder. They were already running low on lamp oil but they had some weeks’ food left; and then a trader must come. . . .
The last thing she expected was the apparition that burst through the door late that night, in the middle of the worst storm yet. It was a tall male apparition, wringing wet, and it found Tamia with its eyes and roared at her.
She had been sitting, as she sat every evening, by her Guardian’s bed, holding her hand. It was nearly time for her to go to her own bed, dragged out from her own little room to the other side of the hearth, so that she could hear her Guardian easily in the night. The bellow of the storm tonight was curiously soporific; and she had been thinking about nothing in particular for some time when the door was flung open, and a wave of water hurled the tall figure in upon them. The water, as it fell on the floor, arranged itself into seven small pools like seven stones in a water-garden.
“What have you done, girl, are you trying to drown the world?”
Tamia sat where she was, open-mouthed in shock; barely she felt her Guardian stir herself for a great effort, and sit up, leaning on her good arm. The force of the man’s gaze held Tamia motionless; she felt it burning through her, and she thought, When it reaches my heart, I will die.
But her Guardian said, “Water Gate! You let my apprentice go, or I will fry your entrails for my supper!” It was the longest sentence she had spoken since she had fallen ill.
Tamia was released so suddenly, she fell off her low stool and onto the floor. Dimly she heard the conversation over her head, her Guardian’s exhausted voice, speaking in broken phrases now, and the slurring, which Tamia had grown accustomed to, so strong, she could hardly make out the words; and the man her Guardian had called Water Gate, his voice dropping down in sorrow and grief as he understood what had happened. And then they talked of other things, but Tamia did not listen, drifting in and out of some cold grey place where the wind howled.
At last Tamia felt Water Gate’s hard strong hands, under her arms, pulling her gently but irresistably upright. He did not put her on her backless stool, but leant her against the edge of the Guardian’s mattress; and he brought her a cup of her own broth, and wrapped her hands round it, and held them so while she drank. And then he said to her: “I beg your pardon most humbly, and I am ashamed, as Western Mouth has told me clearly I should be. It is true that I should have known that what Western Mouth’s apprentice has done was through desperate need.
“But you see, apprentice of Western Mouth, you have torn a hole in the close-woven fabric that divides the earth of our world from the water of the next; and through that rent the water is pouring through. And you, apprentice of Western Mouth, are the only person who can stitch it up again—if it can be stitched.”
Her Guardian, looking grey and weak, said, “I am sorry, my dear, but what he says is true. He would tell me that I chose an apprentice too late; I would say to him that you were born too late, and what has happened has happened.”
She paused, but Tamia was still too shaken by Water Gate’s greeting to stir or speak. Rest, rest, she wanted to say to her Guardian, I know it cannot be good for you to talk so much. But she looked at her Guardian, and saw Water Gate move to sit next to her, one arm round her shoulders, holding her good hand in his other hand, and realised that he was giving her his strength somehow; and a little, feeble hope stirred in her, and she thought: I will not care that I have drowned the world, if he will help my Guardian.
“Listen, my dear,” whispered her Guardian. “It is almost dawn. There will be a lull soon—Water Gate has arranged that. And when there is, you will take the bowl on the top shelf, the one at the back behind all the other bowls, and fill it with water from the well; and you will bring it to me here. Fill it as full as you can carry it; and then do not spill it. Not a drop.” And then Water Gate let her lie down, but still he sat beside her, where Tamia had sat for over a fortnight, and looked into her face, and held her hand. Tamia told herself that he was doing for her what she could not do, but still a lonely and hurt little voice inside her said, He is a Guardian, a real Guardian, not a five-years’ apprentice, why cannot he do it, and leave me with my Guardian? It is not he who should sit there. But her Guardian had given the order, and so she did not say it aloud.
She heard the storm die away, and she opened one shutter cautiously and saw dawn struggling to penetrate the clouds. She took down the bowl—she had never seen this bowl before, though she thought she knew every bowl on the shelf, for the Guardians often used bowls in their work—this one tingled against her skin like the stones in the water-garden. She went outdoors to the well. The ground of their meadow was an ocean of mud; tufts of broken grass crowned the crests of the waves. She tried to pick her way carefully, but there was nowhere to put her feet that was any better than any other. She was muddy to mid-shin by the time she returned to the house, and she was so anxious not to spill a drop that she did not dare kick off her shoes before she went indoors.
“The storm will not return today,” said Water Gate. “Go outdoors, and remove your seven stones. Take them out of the water-garden entirely, take them away. And then spend time setting the water-garden to rights; it will tell you how, for Western Mouth has told me you are a good pupil. I will finish the work for you later—if this world is still above water—but for now Western Mouth and I have other work.”
Tamia listened to him, expressionless and unblinking; and then she looked at her Guardian for confirmation before she did his bidding. And she looked back at him, after she had looked at her Guardian, to be sure that he understood that she did what he said only because her Guardian told her to.
Tamia gathered the seven stones from the water-garden, and while she had put them in uncertainly, she picked them up now knowing that they had done what she asked, and that there was no fault in them, only in her not knowing how and what to do. She fondled them gently, as she had used to stroke Columbine, telling them thank-you, telling them that they were her friends. She thought about Water Gate telling her to take them away; and she piled six of them together in a little heap in the heart of the old yew. The seventh, which was slightly kidney-shaped while the others were round, she slipped into her pocket.
She spent the rest of the morning doing what she could with the water-garden. She found that she could do more than she had expected, for now suddenly she began to see the ribbons of energy that ran between the stones. Like ribbons, they were different colours and different sizes, and some of them were taut and some were slack and some were tangled, and it was her work to make them all smooth, and woven equally together. When she put her fingers in the water, the shining flecks of gold swam to her till her hands gleamed like candle-flames; and yet, as she worked, the golden flashes were small and gentle, and seemed to ride briefly on the surface of the water like sweet oil before they dissolved and disappeared. Tamia almost thought they had a faint tranquil smell, like salve on a bruise, and in some wonder she understood that the ache of the bruise-feeling she had had since she placed her message-stones was the source of her new understanding, and she began to think that she would mind if she had drowned the world, even if Water Gate could save her Guardian.