I know what I said when I was in that hole in the ground. It was dark and I was cold and I was afraid. I told Bron I didn’t want to die. I know I said it. I had never admitted it to anyone else, but it is true, and it has been since that day so long ago, that day that hovers over my shoulder no matter how fast I run, that day when the Well sucked in my arm, my leg, like wet noodles, savoring the taste. I have always feared death. The fear has lived in my soul and I have kept it in its cage, snarling, licking the wounds it gives.
I don’t want to die, but I don’t know how to live.
“What about Remirion?” I can barely manage the words.
I cannot see Bron, I don’t want to see him, but I can feel him. He says nothing.
“We can go to Remirion,” I repeat. “The well there is in the mountains, secluded, isolated. Protected. It’ll still be there. It has to be.”
I look at the ground. My eyes are still full of tears. I am incapable of feeling anything but inexpressible sorrow. If my mind touches it, even delicately, I begin to unravel. I can’t understand it. I can only express it.
Bron still has not answered.
“We can go north, then,” I say, “to the outskirts of civilization. Surely some of the small wells survive.”
The girl’s hands are on my shoulder. They are warm and strong and gentle. Their motion is small, repetitive. I notice it suddenly. “Get off me!” I fling my crutch around at her. It slips from my hand and flies away.
Bron remains silent. Nyasha says nothing. I dare not look at them. But I force myself to look up, to open my eyes and look.
Thyrion, the Great City. Thryion, the Center of the World. Its Heart ripped out.
And mine.
The gash is enormous. It seems to open into the bowels of the earth. An empty container is so much larger than a full one, an open grave so much darker than a closed one.
“Where do we go, Bron? Where now?”
“Down.”
“And then? Where?”
“It’s gone, Calea. All of it.”
I stiffen at the words.
“That’s impossible,” I say. Because it is. It is impossible. “Magic fuels the world. How will we live? The world is barren except where magic gathers. If magic dies, we die.”
Bron circles around and comes to sit in front of me. He almost blocks the wound that mars the great city with his body. He looks at me with his intense gaze. It burns. Whatever fire has gone out of the world has not yet left him.
He forms his words with agonizing slowness. “We have left one ruined city. We have come to another through hardship. Nothing has changed. Let us rest a while here and discover what news we might find.”
He did not answer the unspoken question. I need him to answer it. “I’ll find magic,” I say.
He nods and stands. “We’ll rest a while longer before starting down.”
He wanders off. Nyasha hovers nearby. “There has to be magic somewhere,” she says. She doesn’t mean it; she only wants it to be true because it sounds comforting.
* * *
I sleep deeply that night. I want to escape. They have seen me weep. They have offered poor comfort. And I am deeply, bone-wearily exhausted.
I wake when roused. I eat as directed. I gather my things and begin to stump my way down, leaning too heavily on my crutch. Bron makes his concerned face at me, which I ignore. Nyasha tries harder as we descend. “If we can find one of my dad’s relatives, I’m sure he can help us. Thyrion’s a big, important city.”
The girl’s optimism is disingenuous. If Jalseion had no preparation for the event that shattered it, I have little faith that Thyrion, run by the brutish and the blunt, will be a better source of information. But I let her chatter on. I hear little. I see little. I am in a fog, and I know it. I have no will to remove myself from its haze. It is a comfort, this numbness. It will pass, and then I will discover what the world has done to me and what I will do to it.
Down, down–new aches in my legs. I fall once and scrape my face and arms. Bron hurries to pick me up. I cannot even muster the energy to snap at him. “Do you need to rest?” he asks.
“No. Let’s keep going.”
Keep going–down, down, back to the world of men. Thyrion is a husk thrown aside by some careless god, and men rush to her and from her like ants. Down and down, sliding and skidding and relearning balance all over again.
We sleep again, and I stare at the sky. I remember, ages ago, a few weeks ago, a blue sky as I woke as if reborn. The sky is dark now and starless as rainless clouds drift in. I am wrapped in darkness. I shut my eyes and try to sleep. The fog in my soul is lifting. Thoughts are beginning to connect. A dull, cold fire burns fitfully in my gut, smouldering.
Bron is awake. I rise. “I’ll take the watch,” I say.
He looks at me. I see the worry in his eyes. I have not been myself, and he is waiting to see what will happen. I know he is afraid I will injure him–and I will. We both know it. It is strange how clear my thoughts are, how inconsequential, how utterly useless.
“Thank you,” he says. He allows me this task in his endless pity. “Wake me in four hours.”
I sit upon the boulder he vacates. I stare down at the city. It is dark, illuminated by faint pinpricks of light here and there, as if the stars had descended and hidden away in the ruined streets. It is a dead city, still fitfully stirring, still twitching though its life has drained out.
It is my destination. How fitting.
I let time roll over me. The wind is still. I can almost imagine I sit unchanging, that the world waits in anticipation for some movement that will direct its course. I wait, too.
I consider leaving. I could stand and walk away into the wilderness. I could head for Remirion or any number of cities, searching. In my mind, I see myself descending into the darkness. I am not sure what holds me back. Bron, pretending to sleep, is one. He would stop me, and I am not quite ready for that confrontation, not yet. But it is more than that.
Yes, it is my apathy that holds me back. It takes will to stand, will to make my own way in the world, and once I begin to want again, once I begin to need again–I am afraid. I had decided once to die, and the well healed me. I found a purpose. I moved on.
And then hope revealed itself as an empty hole in the ground.
I am clinging to my shock, trying to hold out. The wound is deep. I know it is fatal.
And tomorrow, it will begin to hurt.
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