Lutha scrambled across the sand toward Saluez’s recumbent form, feeling frantically along her blanket-covered body. Leely wasn’t there. Saluez hadn’t moved. Only her covers had been shoved aside to gain access to her pocket. Leely had been lying there when Lutha and the ex-king had gone out!
“Your boy,” said the ex-king. “He did it?”
Lutha nodded, rigid and cold with tension. She hadn’t thought of his using a knife. Why hadn’t she thought of that! Now what? The Ularians were out there, and Leely was wandering around in this warren, or outside it. Maybe out in the open. What could she do? What dared she do?
Jiacare Lostre put his hand on her shoulder, forced her down, sat before her, taking her hands in his. “Be still,” he said.
“Got to—”
“Don’t. Don’t do anything. If he’s inside, he’s as likely to come back here as we are to find him. If he’s outside, anything you do might endanger him more.”
“I could go to the entrance and call to him!”
“If you did, would you want those creatures to hear you? Listen to me, Lutha. The best thing you can do is nothing. Just wait. Besides, the others are looking out. If they see him outside, they’ll come back and tell us so.”
She thought that Leelson wouldn’t. Leelson wouldn’t give it a second thought. She shivered. Jiacare put a blanket around her, then his arms around that, and they sat so for a long time.
Time went by. The patches of sunlight shifted nearer the stone, crawling amoebalike on the sand. The taste went away, but Leely hadn’t returned.
“What?” demanded Leelson from the edge of the cavern.
“Leely,” said the ex-king. “He’s gone.”
“Oh, tsssss.” Leelson hissed, grimacing at Lutha, at the world. “How long?”
Jiacare said, “He was gone when you left. We just didn’t notice until afterward.”
Lutha put her face in her hands. He meant that she hadn’t noticed. She would have, if it hadn’t been for that horrible taste….
Leelson was suddenly beside her in the ex-king’s place, his arms tight around her. “Oh, damn it, Lutha,” he whispered. “Why did you have to come out here. Why.”
He wasn’t asking for information. She gave him none.
“I have to find him.”
“No. Not until it’s safe. Snark says they haven’t really gone. I came back to tell you to be careful.”
“Leely could have gone out there!”
“He could have. But likely he didn’t.”
Saluez moaned. They looked up. She had lifted one hand to her forehead as she made whining, hurt noises. Leelson got up and went to her.
“Saluez?” Leelson raised her up.
Jiacare had already filled a cup, and Leelson put it to her lips. She drank, only a little.
“Hurt,” she said, putting her hand on her chest. “Hurt.”
Leelson laid her down once more. She breathed deeply, experimentally, her expression unchanging. “Not broken,” she whispered. “Don’t think it’s broken.”
It was not clear what she had decided wasn’t broken. A rib, perhaps. Her collarbone. Her heart.
“Maybe you got a bump on the head,” Lutha said, forcing herself not to scream. It wasn’t Saluez’s fault that Leely had stolen her knife.
“Not in heaven?” Saluez asked, one side of her mouth twisting in a pathetic attempt at a smile.
“Not noticeably, no,” Lutha agreed, tucking the blanket back around her shoulders. “Are you cold?”
She ignored the question. “Who’s here?”
“You and me and Leelson. And the former King of Kamir, Jiacare Lostre.”
“Your servant, ma’am,” said Jiacare, with a bow.
Saluez tried the smile again. “Where’s Trompe?”
“Gone,” Lutha said flatly, tears starting in her eyes. She had been trying not to think about Trompe.
“The other one who’s here,” Saluez said faintly. “That warrior. He killed Trompe.”
“Mitigan,” said Leelson. “Yes, he’s here, too.”
“Leely?” she asked.
Lutha tried desperately for calm. “He seems to have gotten himself lost.”
“No, no,” Saluez murmured, squeezing her hand. “Can’t get hurt. Can’t get sick. Can’t get lost.” Her eyes fell shut. She was gone again.
“Why?” Lutha demanded. “Why does Leely keep doing this?”
“Doing what?” asked Mitigan, emerging from the shadows with Snark close behind him.
“He’s disappeared,” said Leelson.
“He’s gone exploring. Kids do that,” Mitigan said offhandedly.
“I’ve suggested we not draw attention to ourselves,” the ex-king offered.
“If we go looking, we’ll have to be careful,” Snark said, nudging Lutha, not unsympathetically. “It’d be dangerous to go running around out there. Sometimes they come out right on top of you.”
“Stupid to go out at all,” said Mitigan, with a warning glare at Lutha.
She felt a scream welling up! They were full of what they could or must do, which was everything but go out and find her son!
Leelson picked up on her panic. He tightened his hold on her and said, “We’re not at all certain he is outside. Let’s search the rock pile first. I’ll stay with Lutha and Saluez. If he isn’t found in a reasonable amount of time, we’ll decide what to do next.”
Lutha knew he was staying to keep an eye on her so she wouldn’t do anything motherly! She was so angry the blood hammered in her ears.
“We’re being sensible,” said Leelson, his forehead wrinkled in apparent concern. “We really are, Lutha.”
“I know you think you are!” she cried at him, hating him. “Stop feeling at me!”
He only held her closer. “I can’t stop feeling you. I do feel you, Lutha. I’ve felt you since the moment I first saw you. I was high up in that library, all by myself, quite contented, and I … heard a summons. I tried not to answer it. And when I’d met you, that first time, I went away, fully intending never to see you again.”
She laughed shortly, wrenching herself away from him. “You did? I did too. When I told Yma about you, we both decided you were like a case of the plague, better avoided and very hard to cure!”
“More or less what my mother said.”
She flushed angrily. “Damn your mother.”
“She’s a product of her heritage. If you damn her, you’ll have to go
