Foreigner

*25*

Garios had been counting the days until Novato would return. He did not know what to expect. He’d watched, amazed, as the long waves of the landquake had worked their way up the tower. Had Novato survived that? Even if she had, had some other tragedy befallen her in the twenty days she’d been gone? If nothing else, would having been cooped up in such a small space for that long have driven her mad?

Garios had brought to the base of the tower everything Novato might possibly need: water in case her supply had been exhausted; freshly killed meat in case she was hungry; leather blankets in case she was cold; wooden splints in case she had broken a limb. He’d also tethered a runningbeast outside the entrance so that he could make his escape if Novato had been driven to dagamant by her own pheromones and the tight confines of the lifeboat.

There was no way to know how long Novato had spent outside the lifeboat at the top, so Garios couldn’t be sure when she’d return. The only warning of her impending arrival would be actually sighting the lifeboat coming down. Garios sat on the beach, looking up, and waited.

Garios saw many wingfingers, as well as pale spots behind the clouds that must have been moons, but, as the old saying went, a watched carcass never finishes draining. The sun was setting when at last he saw the lifeboat emerge from the bottom of the cloud layer. Garios was surprised to find his claws sneaking out; he was more apprehensive about Novato’s return than he’d thought.

He hurried down the long blue corridor and arrived at the end of its 140-pace length just in time to see the lifeboat complete its journey, a faint whistle accompanying its reduction in velocity. It came to rest at the bottom of the shaft.

Nothing happened for an interminable time. Garios watched his own worried face being reflected back from the curving metal of the lifeboat. And then, at last, the hull appeared to liquefy and when it regained a solid appearance, a large doorway had appeared in its side.

Novato staggered out, apparently having some difficulty walking. She leaned back on her tail after each step. Almost from head to toe, her skin was the purple-blue of bruises, as if somehow her entire surface area had been subjected to an assault.

“My God!” declared Garios. “What happened to you?”

Novato’s expression was totally serene. “Something wonderful,” she said.

“I’ll summon a healer. We’ll get you fixed up.”

“I’m fine,” said Novato. “Really, I am.” She beamed at Garios. “It’s so good to see you again, my friend.”

“You’re sure you are all right?”

“I’m better than I’ve ever been before, Garios. How is everyone down here?”

“Most of us are fine,” said Garios, “but there is some bad news, I’m afraid. It happened while you were away, during the landquake.”

“I know,” said Novato, an absolutely calm, peaceful look on her face. “Karshirl is dead, isn’t she?”

An even-day passed, and then it was odd-day again. As the time for their appointment approached, Mokleb walked the path to Rockscape with trepidation. Had she gone too far in her last session with Afsan? She was normally not so brutal with her patients, but, by the Eggs of Creation, she’d had to make Afsan see her point.

It was a lackluster day. The gibbous Big One made a dull smudge behind a stack of clouds on the eastern horizon. The sun was a point drilling through other clouds as it slid down the western sky. Wingfingers of every color—every color except purple, that is—flitted across the gray firmament.

The path to Rockscape took a sharp bend to avoid a thick copse of trees just before it rounded out onto the field of carefully arrayed boulders. Mokleb was too far from Capital City to hear the drums from the Hall of Worship, but was sure that she was on time. She rounded the grouping of trees, and Rockscape was visible before her.

It was deserted.

Afsan wasn’t there.

Mokleb felt her heart sink.

She had been too hard on him. He’d curtailed their sessions. The penalty of wasting part of a volume of Saleed’s treatise was hardly enough in the face of what she’d made him go through last time.

She was about to leave when a thought struck her. She’d sat on a couple of the Rockscape boulders over the course of her long association with Afsan, but had never actually touched the one called Afsan’s rock. She made her way across the field, through the ancient geometric patterns, and came to the large, proud boulder. Mokleb reached out with her left hand and lightly patted the stone. It was worthy of Afsan: strong, hard, weather-beaten, but, despite all it had been through, placidly surviving.

Surviving.

She wondered if she’d ever see Afsan again, if he’d ever forgive her for their last session. She had no desire to be near anyone else today. She began to amble on in the same direction, heading through Rockscape toward the lands beyond.

“Wait!”

Mokleb turned. Emerging from the mouth of the path, beside the dense copse of trees, was Pal-Cadool. “Wait!” he shouted again, and ran toward her, his long legs covering the distance quickly. Mokleb stood dumbfounded as Cadool came within eight paces of her. “Don’t go,” said Cadool. “Afsan is coming.”

She looked back toward the mouth of the path. Soon Afsan did indeed appear. He held his walking stick in his left hand, and his right was on Cork’s harness. Mokleb hurried over to Afsan as fast as she could with her bad knee, Cadool loping alongside. Once the distance between them had closed as much as it reasonably could, Mokleb blurted out, “I thought you weren’t coming.”

Afsan’s face was a portrait in joy. “I’m sorry, Mokleb,” he said. And then, with a deep bow, “I overslept.”