Page 18 of Chained Knight

“No need.” Sarle shook his hand, hissing a little as if it stung. “And in any case we should not risk injury to a lady. We are still knights enough for that.”

Ari took one step, then another. “Try what?” The reflection on the pond’s surface was almost warm, the light far nicer than reddish sunshine or the vicious reflected darts from bright yellow robot-things. “The water’s bad?”

“The Golden seemed to be after her, but…” Jazarl hesitated. “My lady Ari, do not. There is one who could purify such things, and thenaryinwill in time. No need to risk a burn or griping.”

She stopped next to Sarle, and took a deep experimental breath. It smelled just like the other pond—a mix of mimosa cabbage-flowers plus a trace of minerals, as if from a well. The water’s surface ruffled again, expectant or simply brushed by a stray breeze.

Well, no time like the present to find out. Ari’s knees were none too steady anyway, so it was no trouble to kneel. She reached out, ignoring Jazarl’s short exclamation.

Her fingertips met coolness. She pulled back, expecting something like a chemical burn, but there was just a bit of damp on her skin. Ripples intensified, overlapping, and oddly, the reflection on the water brightened. A faint breeze rustled the pearl-cabbages; she found she liked their word for the plants.Naryin, pretty and fluidly accented. It was certainly more musical thancabbage.

She sniffed at her fingers. Nothing but the faint unscent of water—no chlorine, no other chemical tang.

“Should it hurt?” She craned to look up at Sarle; the stocky man was tense, peering down at her. “Did it burn you?”

He knelt beside her, and she caught a hint of leather from his clothing, a breath of male-smell oily and slightly acrid with hard exertion, though clean enough. He turned his head, his dark gaze locked with hers, and plunged his entire hand into the pond once more.

“Fool.” Jazarl strode toward them, halted as Sarle raised his arm.

The dripping was very loud, and the stocky man shook his fingers. “Moon guide us,” he said, quietly.

Then he bent and, quick as a wink, carried a palmful to his mouth. He drank, and Ari was suddenly afraid she’d just tricked him without meaning to, and into doing something awful.

So she bent and cupped her hands, drinking as well. The water was cool and fresh as before, sliding down her throat and warming as it settled behind her breastbone. A strange haze of well-being spread in her chest, and now she suspected the stocky man been playing a prank onherinstead.

“No.” Jazarl descended on them, reaching down to grip Sarle’s shoulder and squeezing. “Are you crazed, or worse? Stop!”

“Sweet,” the man beside her said. “By silver, Jazarl, she… Fill your flasks, my lords. There is nothing unhealthful here, now.”

A slight sound echoed the words. The pearl-cabbagenaryinbrightened. Ari blinked, reflected silver light filling her head like the glare of headlights on a rainy night.

The fear fled for a single glorious instant. It would return, certainly… but for a moment, she was without its weight, and the relief was intense enough to make the crashing disappointment when it flooded back seem small by comparison.

For once, she’d guessed correctly and nobody was hurt. It was enough.

They took turns filling oddly shaped leather waterskins and drinking like parched camels. Alzarien dabbed at his arm with the wet bandage, his cut sleeve flopping heavily as it soaked up excess, and let out a sigh. “Finally,” he breathed, and Ari almost gave a guilty start.

He sounded a little like the chained man.

“Perhaps Darjeth and Naithor have met with some success as well.” Sarle kept stealing little glances at Ari, and she wasn’t sure she liked the renewed interest. “Do you thinkhewill…”

“Best not to wonder.” Jazarl took a long drink from his canteen and sighed, a satisfied sound. There was a bubbling noise as he refilled, and a faint squeaking as he capped the waterskin once more. “They might find the remnants of battle, and track us. Or meet us in Gesthel.”

“The Fox will be glad of this. His lady may speak again.” Majan grinned, looking at Ari like she should share the joke. “Even in strange raiment, the gift will delight her.”

Gesthel, Fox, Bright Prince, Grey Lady. She recited the names inwardly—a place and three people, or ceremonial titles. She was a slow student, but a thorough one; Ari just wished she could take notes. Her backpack was probably lying under half a hillside, buried in mud, but she’d been thrown somewhere else, a place obeying fairytale rules. Nobody was offering her poisoned apples or glass shoes, so maybe she could simply continue being quiet and watchful, gathering every bit of context and inference possible, avoiding any truly horrendous mistakes.

It was a good goal, perhaps even an achievable one.

Ari’s hands glimmered, pale in the moonlight. Maybe it was just the water; she rubbed at her forehead and touched the back of her head gingerly, glad that the chained man had done… whatever he’d done, to remove the landslide filth. All in all, things were going far better—though weirder—than she could have dreamed while jamming clothes into her backpack and trying not to think about the crumpled shape on the bedroom floor that had once been…

“My lady?” Jazarl, tentatively. “What ails you?”

She was shaking, Ari noted with almost clinical detachment. The trembling passed through her in a wave, and her lungs threatened to seize up.Oh, a panic attack.

Her heart thundered, but no sweat greased her skin. “Nothing,” she said, dreamily, in the cramped little voice that was all she could manage when Wanda asked,again, who she thought she was.“I’m sorry.” The words were English, sounding harsh and unhelpful after their lovely rolling tongue.

“What does she say?” Sarle sounded anxious. “Is it the water? But?—”

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