5.Death of Chaos
CXII
THE DOOR OPENED, and Krystal stood there with Dayala. Her eyes were bleak, like the rocks on the shore in a storm. Mine didn't look much better, I was sure.
“Hello,” I said. I could hear the unsteadiness in my voice.
“Hello.” Her voice trembled.
My commander's competent voice trembled.
After a moment, I couldn't see her because my eyes burned so much, or maybe because the ground was shaking, but I did manage to stammer out her name. I still couldn't see much beyond her blurred figure in blue, but she was shaking, too, I think, and I took a step toward her. She must have taken one, too, because we did manage to hang on to one another. That was about all we did.
“Holding on is harder than finding each other. I think you're beginning to find that out,” Justen said after a time.
By then we'd stopped shaking, but Krystal's fingers were as tightly wound around mine as mine were around hers. “I take it that you two are willing to do this.” I nodded. I was afraid to speak. Krystal nodded. Maybe she was, too.
“Just sit on the stools, next to each other.” We looked at each other, and then sat down. The physical procedure didn't seem terribly mystical or powerful-a slight cut, some mixing of blood-but Dayala put what I could only call an order-chaos lock and twist on the blood, and with my senses, I could feel immediately the thin line of order between us.
No thoughts, no feelings, just order. “Like anything living, it takes a while to grow, for which you should both be thankful.” Justen's voice was rough, almost gruff. “Be kind to each other.”
Be kind to each other. Just a simple statement, yet one that made all others secondary.
“Remember,” Dayala said softly, almost like the whispering of the Great Forest from which she had come and which I doubted we'd ever see, “you have chosen each other twice.”
“Now, get out of here, and leave us ancients in peace,” added Justen.
Krystal and I walked out of the room slowly and stopped in the narrow corridor. We looked at each other. She didn't look any different-the same black eyes, the same short silver-tinged black hair. Neither did I. “Let's take a walk,” I said. “Where?”
“Down to the old fort on the breakwater.”
“That would be nice.”
I still hadn't let go of her hand, and I wasn't about to, not then, even if our hands were getting sticky.
“Lerris... ?”
“Yes?”
“Could we change hands? I won't go away.”
So I let go, crossed behind her, and took her right hand in my left. We both were sweating by the time we reached the breakwater, and we probably looked like the demons' hell, but I didn't care.
Only the corner of the one tower remained. The rest was rocks, little gray rocks, big gray stones, fragments of bricks, and gray dust.
I spied a flat chunk of stone in the shade of the tower. “We could sit there.” My feet hurt, m fact, I ached all over. “Do you ache all over?” I asked.
“Not all over. My hair doesn't hurt.”
We laughed for a moment, and hugged, and then sat down.
From across the bay came the sound of rebuilding-hammers, saws, and the clinking of stonemasons' tools-not to mention the voices. Nothing in Kyphros ever got done quietly, or without a lot of conversation.
A puff of warm air, still bearing a hint of death and decay, wafted past us. The harbor waters lapped the stones like a murmur from a distant corridor.
“Why did we do this?” she asked.
I squeezed her hand. “Because we're desperate. Because we don't want to lose what we think we're losing, and we're willing to risk our lives to keep it.”
She looked out at the flat waters.
“Do you want children?”
I swallowed. I hadn't thought about it.
“I hadn't really thought about it, except that someday we would.”
“When will someday be?”
When will someday be? Just a simple question, but I held her, and we both cried... because... because someday might never come, and we both knew it.
The harbor waters murmured, and the hammers hammered, and we held on.
The next morning, we woke with a cool breeze coming in through the open window, and I reached for the coverlet.
I didn't quite make it because my arms were full.
“Don't... we can't lose each other... not again...” Krystal's words were in my ears. But she shivered; so I did pull up the coverlet, but only with one hand.
In time, we got up, but I kept reaching out to touch her, perhaps a few times too often.
“I'm not going anywhere,” she finally grumped, possibly because I had startled her as she was washing, and she had to blot water off her trousers. So I refrained while she dressed. Instead, I straightened up the room.
“You do good work.”
“Thank you.”
“But don't let it go to your head again.” She smiled, and it was warm, not edged, and I smiled back.
When we left the room for breakfast in the dining hall, Herreld was outside.
“Good morning,” I said.
Krystal nodded to him.
“Take care,” said Herreld. “Both of you.” He looked down at the stones before we could answer.
Krystal squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back, but I didn't say anything until we were down one flight of stairs and around the corner. “Herreld's getting soft.”
“He always was. He just didn't want to show it.”
Like most people, I figured, even Tamra.