Fires of Azeroth

"What you know. And what do you know of Gates. Has she given you knowledge enough to be dangerous?"

He thought over the hazard of truth with Roh. Nothing would focus.

"Have you such knowledge?'' Roh asked.

"Yes."

"And what did you tell them?"

"Nothing. I told them nothing. You came."

"I heard that they had brought you in. I guessed as much as you have told me."

'They will cut your throat when they can."

Roh laughed. "Aye, that they will. And yours, sooner, without my protection. What do you know that you did not tell them?"

Panic flashed through him, muddled with the akil. He shook his head desperately, not trusting to speak.

"I will tell you what I suspect," Roh said. "That Morgaine has had help staying out of sight. She has been in a certain village; I have learned that much: Hetharu knows it too. Men live here, elusive as they are, and there are others too, are there not?"

He said nothing.

'There are. I know that. And I think that there are qhal- are there not, cousin? And you have friends. Perhaps that is who rode off with her, when she fled. Allies. Native allies. And she thought to go to the high place and seize control of the Gate and destroy me. Well, is that not her purpose? It is the only sane course for her. But I am less worried about what Morgaine will and will not, in the state she must be in now, than I am worried for who has his hands on that weapon of hers. A qhal and a Man are with her. So Fwar reports. And who are they, and what would either of them do with such a weapon as that sword in his hands?"

The thoughts tumbled chaotically about him: Merir, he thought. Merir would use it well. But then he doubted, and recalled that he and Morgaine held purposes at odds with the arrhendim.

"Fwar brought me something," Roh said. "Oh, he did not want to give it, but Fwar has a great respect for my anger, and he most readily gave it up for his health's sake." He drew from his belt a silver circlet on a chain… Merir's gift. "You wore this. I find it very strange workmanship, nothing like home, nor even like Shiuan. See, it is written over with qhalur runes. Friendship is the inscription. Whose friend are you, Nhi Vanye?"

He shook his head and his eyes hazed. He was exhausted. Of a sudden the fear that had stayed remote began to trouble him, nearer and nearer, stalking him.

"Hardly honorable… to worry at you when you are full of that foul stuff-is it? You are easy as a new-written page. Well, I shall not, any more. But I do tell you this that you may think on when you are sober again… that what I have asked of you I have not asked with purpose to harm you. And you must stay awake, Vanye. Come, keep your eyes clear. Look at me with sense."

He tried. Roh hit him, enough to sting, but not with malice. "Stay awake. I will make you angry with me if that is what it takes. Your eyes are still hazed with that drug, and until that goes, you will stay awake, whatever I have to do to keep you that way. I have seen men die of it in this camp. They sleep to death. And I want you alive."

"Why?"

"Because I have put my neck on the block for you tonight and I want reward of it."

"What do you want?"

Roh laughed. "Your company, cousin."

"I warned you-warned you that you would not find your companions grateful when you joined them. You are a Man, and they hate you for it."

"Am I?" Roh laughed again. "You admit it then, that I am your cousin."

"A qhal…" -told me, he almost said, what it was like for you. But he was not quite hazed enough to let it slip, and stopped himself in time. Roh looked at him strangely, and then shrugged and let it pass, begi

"I ca

Roh was indeed careful, and skilled; he cleaned the wounds and dressed them with hot oil, and tended those that were fevered. He put hot compresses on the knee, changing them often. In time Vanye let his head fall. Roh disturbed him to look at his eyes, and finally let him sleep, rousing him only when he changed the compresses. It was far into the night, Vanye judged at one of these wakings, and yet Roh disturbed him again, putting heat on the knee. "Roh?" he asked, perplexed by this.

"I would not have you lame."

"Someone else might see to it."

"Who? Fwar? I am scant of servants in this grand hall. Go to sleep, cousin."

He did so, a quiet sleep, for the first time since Carrhend. This last and better effect the akil left on him, that its passing exhausted him and he was able to rest.