'... analysis!' She came back into herself, barely hearing the dry rattle of the end sign inside her head. She smelled the pungent reek of half a dozen strange herbs on her hands and clothing as she crumpled forward. Mind fog hal oed her view of Blodwed's peering face and the inert blanket-bundle of the sick off worlder turning them to a holy vision. Reassured, she found her hands and knees I and crawled toward the heater in the room's center. When the cloud of energy became so intense that her body could not endure more, she let herself down at last, and slept.
Moon came awake with the urgency of terror, stared at the unexpected walls that closed her in. Stone walls — not the endless desolation of sky above a lifeless, stony beach, where an executioner in black wore a medal as familiar as the face of her only love... She hid from the phantom behind a wall of fingers, pressing the swollen soreness of her face. No, it isn't true!
A soft trilling intruded on her, expanding her awareness, pulling her back into the stone-walled chamber. She lowered her hands, seeing the cluster of cages across the room, and felt time's flood sweep her into the present. Someone had moved her to a pad of blankets. The animal stench had cleared, as though someone had cleaned the cages out as well, and the air was strong with the smell of herbs. No sounds reached her from beyond the locked gate; she guessed that it must be far into the night. The animals stirred and rustled, tending to their own lives, watching her with only half an eye now. 'You know I'm just another pet.' She climbed uncertainly to her feet, swayed a moment, seeing stars, before she could cross the room.
The off worlder lay under a half-tent of blanket, wrapped like a swaddled infant in more covers. A pot of pungent herb-brew steamed on a hot plate by his head. She kneeled down by the cot, put her hand against his face. Cooler, not really sure that he was. 'Please come back...' Prove I have a right to be alive, and be a sibyl. She bowed her head, pressed her forehead against the hard frame of the cot.
'Have you ... back for me come, then?'
She looked up, saw the off worlder struggling to open his eyes. 'I — I never left you.' He frowned, shook his head as though it didn't make sense. 'I've never away gone.' She repeated it in Sandhi.
'Ah.' He watched her through slitted eyes. 'Then I'm not afraid. When ... when will we go?'
'When? Soon.' She smoothed his wiry hair, and saw him smile. Not knowing what he was asking, she said, 'When thou art stronger.' She used the familiar form unthinkingly.
'I didn't think you so fair would be. Stay by me ... until then?'
'I will.' Glancing down, she saw the untouched mug of thick medicine broth on the floor by her knee. She picked it up. 'Thou must this drink.' She put her arm under his shoulders, rolled him onto his side. He worked a hand free obediently, but it could not hold the cup; she saw the livid scars along the inside of his wrist again. She held the cup for him, helped him drink it down. Coughing took him as he finished it, rattling in his chest like stones. The plastic mug slipped from her hand and rolled under the cot. She held him tightly in her arms, sharing her own strength with him, until the attack passed; and then a little longer.
'Thou feel ... so real.' He sighed against her shoulder. 'So kind ...'
She let him slip back onto the cot, already asleep. She sat for a long moment watching him, before she settled against the cot frame, resting her head on her arm, and closed her eyes again.
'You are real.'
The words greeted her like old friends as she woke again, slowly raised her head from her sleep-deadened arm. She sat back, disconcerted, blinking.
The off worlder slumped against the wall, propped into place by a knot of blankets. 'Did I it dream, or ... did you to me in Sandhi speak?'
'I did,' in Sandhi. Moon worked her fingers, felt the needles starting as circulation stirred in her arm. 'I — cannot it believe. You were so sick.' She felt a shining warmth fill her. But the power came through me, and I healed you.
'I thought you the Child Stealer were. When I was young, my nurse said she as pale as aurora-glow is...' He leaned more heavily on the heaped blankets. 'But you're no ghost. Are you — ?' As though he still half doubted his senses.
'No.' She massaged her twisted neck muscles with her other hand, wincing. 'Or I wouldn't so much hurt!'
'You're a prisoner too, then.' He leaned forward slightly, squinting his eyes were still inflamed. She nodded. 'Your face. They didn't you ... molest?'
She shook her head. 'No. They haven't me hurt. They — fear me; so far.'
'Fear you?' He glanced toward the gate, and what lay beyond it. The distant sounds of a new day out in the camp reached them like an echo of another world.
She lifted her chin, saw him grimace at the wound on her throat, before his face went slack: 'Sibyl?'
She lowered her head again.
'Gods, this moves too fast.' He lay down again, resting on his side through another attack of coughing.
Something out of place caught the corner of her eye. She twisted, found a pile of blue-black cloth trimmed with braid behind her, a jug, and a bowl of dried meat. 'Someone brought us food.' Her hands were reaching for it even as she spoke. 'Food—' not even knowing how long it had been since she had eaten anything.
'Blodwed. Hours back. I pretended to sleep.'
Moon took a long drink from the pitcher, a creamy blue-white liquid that slid down her parched throat into her shriveled stomach like ambrosia, 'Oh—' Suddenly ashamed, she lowered the pitcher, pushed up onto her knees. 'Here.' She filled the plastic mug, held it up to him.
'No.' He put an arm across his eyes. 'I don't it want.'
'You must. To heal, you need strength.'
'No. I don't—' The arm came down from his eyes, he lifted his head to look at her. 'Yes ... I guess I do.' He took the drink in his good hand; she saw scars on that wrist, too. He caught her looking at him, raised the mug to his mouth without comment and sipped slowly.
Moon chewed a mouthful from a strip of dried meat, swallowed it whole before she asked, 'Who are you? How did you here get?'
'Who am I...' He looked down at his uniform coat, touched it; his face changed with a kind of wonder, like a man coming out of a coma. 'Gundhalinu, sibyl. Police Inspector BZ Gundhalinu—' he grimaced, 'from Kharemough. They shot down my patroller, and took me.'
'How long have you here been?'
'Forever.' He opened his eyes again. 'And you? Did they you from the star port kidnap? Where are you from — Big Blue, or Samathe?'
'No, Tiamat.'
'Here? But you're a sibyl.' He lowered the cup from his lips. 'The Winters don't—'
'I'm a Summer. Moon Dawntreader Summer.'
'Where did you Sandhi learn?' Something darker than curiosity shadowed it.
Moon frowned uncertainly. 'On Kharemough.'
'You're proscribed, then! How did you back here get?' His voice broke, too feeble to support the weight of an authoritarian demand.
'The same way I left — with tech runners She slipped into her own speech without realizing it; taken by surprise, indignant at his indignation. 'What are you going to do about it, Blue? Arrest me? Deport me?' She put her hands on her hips, clenched with resentment.
'I'd do both ... if I were in any position to.' He followed her doggedly from language to language. But the righteousness drained out of him and left him limp on the cot. He laughed, a hoarse, hating sound. 'But don't worry. Flat on my face ... with the cosmic crud, and living in a kennel ... I'm not in any position.' He finished the liquid hi the mug, let it hang empty from a finger over the cot's edge.
Moon refilled the mug and put it into his hand again.
'A smuggling sibyl.' He sipped carefully, watching her. 'I thought you were supposed to be serving humanity, not yourself. Or did you have that tattoo ... put on purely for business reasons?'
Moon flushed with fresh anger. 'That isn't allowed!'
'Neither is smuggling. But it's done.' He sneezed violently, spilling his drink on himself, on her.
