Seema started to nod, but this was more than Atreus could bear.
'You're not being fair,' he said. 'Seema isn't to blame. I forced her-'
'That is not so,' interrupted Seema. She grasped Atreus's arm. 'My reasons for bringing you here were as selfish as yours for wanting to come. To claim otherwise is to cheapen what there was between us.'
The word 'was' hit Atreus like a hammer. Though he had already guessed the price of his betrayal, this was the first time Seema had confirmed the loss.
The Sannyasi studied Atreus for a moment and said, 'I am sorry. This pain I cannot bear for you.'
'And what of his wounds?' Seema gestured at Atreus's mangled side. 'Will you heal them?'
The Sannyasi glanced down at Atreus's knife, still brown and crusted with the Dweller's blood. 'The wounds will heal in time, but for now it is better to let pain temper his violent heart.'
'Temper my violent heart?' Atreus's anger returned in a flood. 'You don't know violence until you've traveled with Rishi Saubhari. He's a murdering thief who won't hesitate to kill everyone you send after him. Help me catch him, and you'll save a dozen lives.'
'And take one.' The Sannyasi's eyes grew stern and he continued, 'You are as much a killer as your friend, and I will not help in your wickedness. To slay a man over the shining waters would be an evil beyond redemption. It would draw a cloak of darkness over Langdarma so black that the Serene Ones would never find us again.'
The Sannyasi paused to calm himself, then spread his wings and turned toward the edge of the meadow.
'You will not defy me in this.'
He stepped off the cliff and dropped into the valley. A moment later his silver wake was curving around the Turquoise Cliffs into the basin where Seema lived.
As soon as the gleaming trail had faded from the sky, Atreus turned to Seema and said, 'I have no right to ask you for anything, and I'm not asking for myself, but your Sannyasi doesn't know Rishi.'
'He knows you.'
Seema's eyes dropped to the knife in Atreus's hand.
Atreus thrust the weapon into his belt. 'You must understand what I'm saying. Rishi has a plan… just like he did when he tricked the Dweller into attacking Yago. He wouldn't have risked that without knowing that he could escape me. If he can escape me, no one from Langdarma is going to stop him. He'll kill anyone who tries.'
Seema remained silent for several moments, then looked away. 'I can't defy the Sannyasi,' she said. 'Not in this.'
'You'd rather let Rishi steal the cup?'
'Than let you kill him over it? Yes.'
Seema stepped back, met Atreus's gaze, and shook her head.
'You are a good man, Atreus, but a weak one,' she said
'You are no match for your passions, and if I help you again, you will only end up killing Rishi or stealing the cup for yourself… or both, which would be as bad for you as for Langdarma.'
'I am also a man of my word,' said Atreus. 'I swear on my life-no, on Yago's memory-I swear to return the cup.'
Seema glanced out over the browning valley and considered his words for a long time, then finally pointed to the knife in his belt. 'What of Rishi?'
Atreus closed his eyes and slowly exhaled, letting go of his anger, or trying to. Certainly, Yago would have expected a fellow Shield-breaker to avenge his death, and in his heart Atreus longed to do his friend this honor. But he could see for himself the harm that killing had already brought to Langdarma, and he knew that the Sannyasi had not been exaggerating when he claimed that Rishi's death would destroy it forever. For now, at least, Atreus would have to put aside the ogre part of his nature.
'I doubt I can ever forgive what Rishi has done.' Atreus opened his eyes again and held out the knife. 'But,' he continued, 'I think I can find the strength not kill him.'
'Good. You will be a happier man for it.' Seema took the knife, then said, 'I remember Rishi talking about the ways to leave Langdarma. If he and Yago investigated this as carefully as he claimed, he will know he can escape only by the Roaring Way.' 'The Roaring Way?'
'The great gorge at the end of Langdarma,' Seema said as she turned and pointed toward the haze- shrouded cliffs at the far end of the valley. 'It is the only route the Sannyasi will not block. There is no return, and no one knows where it goes, so no man has ever been brave enough to enter it' 'Then that's exactly what Rishi will try,' Atreus agreed.
Seema glanced up at the afternoon's graying sky. 'Let us go.' She started across the meadow, then added, 'Even Rishi will not run the gorge in the dark. If we hurry, we can be there waiting at dawn.'
Seema led the way back along the ledge and through the cave, then they spent the rest of the day descending a long, steep trail into the main valley below. By the time they reached a tiny hamlet on the river, dusk was already falling over the little shanties perched on the shore. Even at this late hour, the townspeople were gathered in the village circle, murmuring in their strange language and lamenting the brown tide sweeping their valley.
As soon as Seema heard their angry voices, she took Atreus's hand and circled around the outskirts of the village. On the other side, they found a dozen flat-bottomed boats beached on the muddy shore, half hidden beneath a copse of drooping willow trees. She selected a pair of huge oars from an assortment leaning against a low-hanging limb, slipped the nearest boat into the water, and quietly guided them into the current.
The river was one of those flat giants that swept along spinning off huge eddies and churning up water- heads the size of elephants, and it was not long before the swift current had carried Seema and Atreus hundreds of paces downstream.
Once they were safely beyond earshot of the village, Atreus asked, 'Isn't stealing frowned on in Langdarma?'
Seema shrugged. 'Our need is great,' she said, 'and I do not think the villagers would have been very kind to you had we asked.'
'I wouldn't have expected them to be.'
Atreus glanced around at the deepening gloom. Already the light had grown so dim that the trees along shore were mere silhouettes. With no moon to brighten the sky, night would bring darkness as black as a cave. 'How are we going to see?'
'With our ears,' Seema answered. 'But now you must tend your wounds and rest. Whatever tomorrow brings, you will need all the strength you can gather.'
Atreus washed his mangled flank, pitching the gems from his wounds into the water, but rest proved difficult. As quiet as the river was, it produced an alarming array of gurgles and bubbles. He spent the entire night staring into the inky darkness, expecting to be overturned at any moment by some unseen log or sandbar. Once they actually struck the shore, but the broad-beamed boat was as steady as a barge and simply spun off, then hung idle in an eddy until Seema could collect her bearings. The few rocks they encountered came almost as a relief, as the stones caused such a loud rushing that it was easy to steer around them.
After many hours of tense darkness, the river seemed to grow slow and quiet Atreus began to feel a soft, almost imperceptible thunder in the pit of his stomach, and Seema started to row. When he offered to take her place, she only laughed and said she would rather trust her life to her own ears.
The subtle rumbling built to an audible roar, and soon the roar started to reverberate inside Atreus's chest. A series of rhythmic booms echoed up the river, the sound of huge waves hurling themselves one after another against the granite walls of the Roaring Gorge. He could almost feel the river gathering itself beneath him, filling him with the water's mad energy. He imagined being drawn down the canyon and sucked into the crashing cataracts in utter darkness, being hurled against an unseen cliff and splashing into the black water amidst the splinters of their boat, being swept to a watery grave in the unexplored vastness beyond.
Oblivious to Atreus's growing concern, Seema merely continued to row. When the current finally began to draw them onward again, she abruptly changed directions and worked madly to maneuver upstream into the still shelter of a shore eddy.
'Now we wait,' she said. 'Sleep, and I will watch for the dawn.'
'Sleep may be difficult,' Atreus said, settling down in the bow of the boat. 'This isn't the quietest place in Langdarma, and I've got a lot on my mind.'
