'So you left your harness upon the road, and left your horse to stray where he would.'
Hollyika nodded. For the first time Ki noted how her softly furred hide hung from her arms and paunched emptily upon her body. She had never heard of a Brurjan eating anything but meat, or grain cakes moistened with blood. She did not look as if she were adapting well to her new diet. She looked pathetic, or as close to pathetic as a Brurjan could look. 'Why have you left your clothes behind as well?'
'Shall I wear leather, the hide of another creature ripped from its bleeding body? Besides, the cloaking of my body was a false modesty. I shall no longer hide what I am. On the other side of the Gate, my body was a stranger to me, for it is neither Brurjan nor Human, and clothing myself was a denial of myself as both. But with the help of the Limbreth, I have accepted myself, and so should you. Be rid of thedisguises you wear, cast them aside as you cast aside the harnesses that enslaved those poor beasts. Can't you feel the truth of what I speak?'
Ki could not meet Hollyika's eyes; she shook her head slowly, feeling vaguely ashamed that she didn't wish to comply. Like cool water rising around her, she began to feel the righteousness of Hollyika's words flood through her body and mind. She had been wrong to bind animals to her will. She must stop. And it was also time to shed all clothing and weapons, to cast aside the outer shell she had accumulated in the stained world beyond the Gate. She was coming home now, to peace and fulfillment. Would she come as a dirty, willful child? Did she want the Limbreth to find her unworthy? Ki pulled her blouse over her head and shook her hair free down her back. She stepped out of her long road skirt, kicking her boots after it. She stretched, warm and glowing in the night's caress. Hollyika beamed on her.
'I have been here longer than you, so the river has taught me more. But don't be discouraged, for I will help you. I learned that from the river already; that we must help one another if we are to reach the goal. The stretch of road ahead of us is the final test of our worthiness.'
'But ... I thought you were coming back. I did not pass you on the road.'
Hollyika shook her head. 'The road leaves the river here. It goes a long dry way, and I carried no water with me. I walked and slept and walked again. But no water did I find, only a dried-up streambed. Without the waters of this world, I couldn't go on. I had to come back to the river. We must carry our own water if we are to go on. We can't do without it, for a dryness assails one that is more than the thirst of throat and tongue. It is a very shriveling of the spirit.'
'The water casks on the wagon are full,' ventured Ki. 'If we took the wagon and team ...'
Hollyika's hand flew up in a forbidding gesture. 'The water cask we can take, rolling it on before us.'
There was something wrong with that idea, a fatal silliness, if only Ki could pinpoint it. But the logical and rational parts of her mind had abdicated. Lacking other ideas, she followed Hollyika to the wagon. Ki began to unfasten the heavy straps and buckles that held the cask in place, and Hollyika stooped at her side, ready to assist in lowering the gurgling weight. Her nostrils flared wide and pink-rimmed in the darkness. She drew back from Ki and the wagon, her hands drooping in disgust. Ki glanced over at her in puzzlement. Then her lesser nose caught it, a cold stench like the reek of night mist off a poorly drained graveyard, or the noisome damp that rises at night from black-flowing city gutters. Hollyika spoke in a strangled voice. 'It's the water cask. The water's gone stagnant, or was bad when you took it on.'
Ki opened the tap a trifle. No more than a mugful escaped before she shut it, but the putrid smell of it as it stained the river gravel made Ki gag. She backed away from the wagon, flapping a hand in front of her face.
'We will have to dump the cask, scrub it clean with river sand and refill it,' Hollyika said. Ki shook her head.
'Water that bad can't be scrubbed away. It soaks into the wood. The cask will only spoil whatever we put in it.'
'Then what will we do?' Ki heard the soft rattle as her plume rose and fell in agitation.
'We carry water in something else. In a waterskin or a jug or something.' Ki felt unreasonably pleased with herself for thinking of this. Not only would it be easier than rolling the cask along, it was ... it was ...She had lost the end of her thought. No matter. Her thoughts had a way of floating away from her lately, of beginning in strange places and ending in the middle. But even so, she knew that the thoughts she managed to hang onto were better thoughts than she had ever had before. Her ideas were changing, becoming tuned and perfected to harmonize with the better world she traveled through, and Hollyika was experiencing the same purification.
Ki scrabbled about in the darkness of the cuddy, seeking for a container for water. The waterskin she usually kept on a hook by the cuddy door was gone, and she could not remember where. Most of her food stores were of the dried variety, kept in boxes and clothes and paper wrappings. The two crocks she kept were wide- mouthed awkward things, fine for balancing in a rattling wagon but too wide to carry comfortably.
She gazed again around the cuddy interior. If only her mind would focus. She let her eyes roam, hoping for inspiration. She glanced over the sleeping skins wrenched from living creatures, at the dried smoked carcasses she had once fed upon, at the sheathed rapier for the shedding of blood, at Vandien's soft leather shirt ...
Vandien. There was something about Vandien, something she had to remember. She fumbled and found it. She was so fond of him. He had taught her to follow her heart, and she would ever cherish his memory because of that. Something else?
Ki sprang forward with a cry. She had bought him a second gift before she left Jojorum. She fished a jug of brandy from under the pillows. She had hidden it for a surprise, for it was not the usual cheap sour wine they kept to clear the road dust from their throats at the end of a day. This was potent stuff, the heady spirits of ... somewhere. Ki found her memories about the brandy fading. What had she been thinking, to put it under the pillows? Ridiculous storage place. As Ki picked up the jug, it gave a questioning gurgle. She tucked it firmly under her arm.
Hollyika loomed over her, watching impassively as Ki carefully worked the stopper free of the narrow neck. Ki gave an appreciative sniff. Hollyika's nostrils flared as she caught the scent. The flames of righteousness dimmed in her eyes as she licked her lips.
'It seems a shame to pour it out,' Ki observed to her.
Hollyika seized the jug in her stubby fingers and raised it; her brow wrinkled and her plumes clattered as she inhaled. She started to hand the jug back to Ki. But then, as if doubting her first judgment, she took a second cautious sniff, gave Ki a quick look, and took a short nip from the jug. She blinked her eyes slowly; Ki watched fascinated as her lower eyelids rose to meet the falling upper lids over her large and shining eyes.
'It does seem a shame,' Hollyika agreed with her after a deep breath. 'Yet we must have a vessel to carry the water in. This one seems to be our only choice.' She began to tip the jug, but Ki caught her hand and righted it before any sloshed out.
'Would you profane the grounds of this world by pouring onto it the product of that world beyond the Gate? Even as I did not leave your saddle and clothes upon the road on my way here, lest these traces of our evil origins offend others, so too we should not infect this pure earth with this drink.'
Ki took the jug from Hollyika's clutch to tip a little of the brandy into her own mouth. She tasted the warm sunny day in some far orchard where the stuff had been born. A tiny warmth kindled in her belly, a memory of the sun on the trees. Ki felt oddly divided. The sun-warmth of the brandy in her throat andbelly contrasted strangely with the cool but urgent desires of this night-wrapped land and its swiftly flowing waters. Ki took another mouthful, both to savor the moment of division inside her and to be scared by it. She closed her eyes, feeling the elements battle within her body, scarcely aware of Hollyika taking the jug from her hand.
When she opened her eyes a moment later, it was to see Hollyika lowering the jug from the delicately pursed lips of her impressive mouth. Ki took the jug back. She noticed how comfortable Hollyika looked, seated with her back against the yellow spokes of a wheel. Joining her, Ki tipped up the jug again, and then set it carefully in the gravel between them. Had drink ever been so stimulating in such a curious way? Ki knew she hadn't the great capacity for it that some of her Romni companions did, but she was accustomed to drinking with dignity and control. Whether the brandy was more potent than she knew, or because it battled with the river coolness inside her, Ki felt the world tilting around her, gently swinging in a manner at once delightful and alarming.
She felt Hollyika's hand on the jug and relinquished it to her. 'I did not think that Brurjans drank, other than water, milk, and blood,' she observed genially. 'But then I thought them totally carnivorous as well. Goes to show you should never believe rumors about another species until you actually get to know one.'
'True.' Hollyika spoke after a longish interval.
'What's true?' Ki had lost the string of conversation. She took up the jug that was leaning against her hip.
