20.
I know that you're in there
I can see you
You're saying you're ok
I don't believe you
And now that the gig is off These days that you were waiting for
The spell is broken
The fat lady sung
The president has spoken
Will come and go
Like any day
Just another day
There's never gonna be a moment of truth for you
While the world is watching
All you need is the thing you forgotten
And that's to learn to live with what you are
- Ben Folds Five, "Learn To Live With What You Are"
I sat in one corner of J'Nah's study, my head between my knees.
Xanos was rooting through her bookcases, giddy as a schoolboy. He exclaimed loudly every time he found something he liked, which was often.
I tuned him out and concentrated on not throwing up. Again. My eyes were wide open. I blinked only when I absolutely had to. I kept seeing J'Nah's corpse whenever I closed my eyes, painted on the insides of my eyelids like a scream.
Eventually, the half-orc returned, his arms overflowing with books and scrolls. "The elven wench was sitting on a veritable treasure trove of knowledge," he announced happily. "Look at this! I think it is Netherese, like these ruins. Look at the script! She must have found it when she excavated these tunnels. Xanos must translate it when he has leisure."
I didn't look up. I nodded wordlessly into my arms. My face felt hot and sticky. My eyes felt swollen.
Xanos went silent. Parchment rustled. "What-" he began. Then he stopped. He tried again. "Are you-" He bit his words off with a noise of frustration. "Why-" He made a strangled sound. "Oh, bloody buggering Hells!" he shouted. Then I heard the crinkle of papers being stuffed unceremoniously into a sack. I heard the half-orc's heavy footsteps approach. "You will come with Xanos now," the half-orc announced imperiously.
I ventured a peek at him, grateful for the hair that had come loose from my ponytail. It obscured my face. I was sure I must have been a sight, and it wasn't one I wanted the self-righteous whoreson to see. "Don't you have studying to do?" I asked, my voice muffled by my arm.
"No. There is nothing else of interest here," he said curtly. His yellow eyes studied me. "Can you walk?"
I sniffled and turned my head away, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. "Yeah," I said thickly. "Gimme a minute."
When I tried to stand, I realized that my estimate might have been a little optimistic. Agony shot through my calf. My knees buckled.
Xanos knelt beside me as I sat very still on the floor, panting and cursing through the tears that were running down my face. I wasn't really creative about the swearing – I just repeated the same word, over and over again, really really loudly. It didn't help much, but at least it gave me something to do. "Can you keep down a healing potion?" he asked.
My stomach was roiling. "Don't think so," I mumbled.
I heard him bite off a sigh. "Very well," he snarled. "But if you ever dare to tell anyone about this…"
I blinked dumbly. "About wh-" I started to ask.
Then I found myself being picked up like a sack of potatoes.
The experience startled the words right out of my mouth.
Xanos held me with one arm securely behind my knees and one behind my shoulders. His grip was stiff and he held me as far from his chest as he possibly could, but I noticed that he took some care not to jostle my leg.
He spared me a brief glower before looking back up, his eyes straight ahead. "You will speak of this to no one," he ordered, in tones that brooked no argument.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times. "No one would believe me," I said at last, weakly.
The sorcerer carried me back the way we had come. We passed J'Nah's corpse. I averted my eyes and clenched my jaw, willing myself not to cry where Xanos could see it. I couldn't keep myself from shivering, though. If Xanos noticed, he showed no sign of it.
Xanos climbed up the rope into the gnoll caverns above the ruins and then instructed me to hold on to the rope while he hauled me up behind him, grunting with the effort. Then he picked me up again, businesslike, and carried me back through the winding, filthy caverns of the gnolls.
He stepped over the stiffening bodies of the gnolls we'd killed. The bears we'd freed from the gnollish pens were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they'd gone back to their forests, after relieving the world of Gishnak. I hoped so. I hoped that the human captives the gnolls had taken from Blumberg had made it back to Hilltop, too. We'd done what we could for the refugees, but the way was long, and we'd had no time and only had a few healing potions to spare.
Eventually, I felt cooler air. We stepped out into moonlight. Shadowy boughs rustled, and owls hooted.
Xanos carried me wordlessly through the woods until we reached a clearing. Then, still without a word, he set me down against a tree and busied himself with building a fire.
I didn't say much, myself. I didn't know what to say.
I wondered how you could tell if someone had been replaced with a doppelganger. There were probably spells, but I sure as hell didn't know them.
When the sorcerer spoke, it was after such a long silence that I almost leapt straight into the air and conked my head on a low-hanging branch.
"You should rejoice in your victory," he said. He poked the fire with a stick. He didn't look at me. "The elf-witch was made to rue the day that she crossed you."
Oh, fuck. My throat was swelling shut again, and my eyes were burning. I huddled further into my cloak and turned my face away. "I don't want to talk about it," I said curtly.
"Why not? Your opponent is dead, and you are alive. We have even claimed the dragon tooth and all of her other treasures as our prize." Xanos's tone was full of forced joviality. "What is there to lament?"
I couldn't take it any more. If he didn't shut up, I was going to start sniveling, and I didn't want to break down in front of Mr. 'Ha-ha, I Mock Your Displays of Womanish Emotion!' himself. "I don't want to talk about it," I repeated from between clenched teeth.
He fell silent. The fire crackled. I bit down on my leather-clad wrist and choked back sobs so that he wouldn't hear them. Big girls don't cry, I told myself. Get a hold of yourself, woman. Big girls don't cry. A sick and creeping horror filled me, though, and made it impossible for me to take my own advice.
After a while, though, I finally ran out of tears – more from dehydration than anything else – and curled up against the tree, trying to sniffle quietly. If he asked, I figured I'd pass it off as allergies.
I jumped when I heard him move. "Gods damn it!" he snapped. Something rustled. He stomped over to me. "Take this," he commanded.
I lifted my head and squinted at him cautiously. He was holding out a square of white cloth. "What-" I started.
His face turned purple. "Just shut up and take it, you idiot woman!" he roared.
I took the thing, just to keep him from having a fit.
Cool, damp cloth lay across my palms. It was a linen towel – soaked in snowmelt, from the smell of it. Snow had a smell that was different than rain, or than potable water from a well. It was a discovery I'd made only after spending so much time in the mountains.
Hesitantly, I dabbed my face. The cloth was refreshing, and it soothed the skin around my eyes and nose, which was hot and swollen and was probably quite a sight by now.
Then I folded the cloth carefully and drank a healing potion for my leg. It was cold and viscous, and slid down my gullet in a way that made it a challenge not to gag it back up again – but it was either that or stay in pain, and my leg really fucking hurt.
I leaned back against my tree when I thought I was okay to move again.
I watched Xanos for a while. He stared broodingly into the fire. I couldn't blame him. I felt pretty broody, myself.
"Thank you," I said eventually, my voice quiet.
He grunted in reply. He still didn't look my way. "Xanos killed a man when he was thirteen," he said distantly. "It was his first. It happened not longer after his mother died of fever, and Xanos discovered that the other villagers were no longer so willing to tolerate his presence - not once his mother was gone, and the poor, mad woman's inexplicable attachment to her ill-born son no longer needed to be indulged." His eyes flickered orange in the firelight. "He did not mean to do what he did. His power was raw, unrefined, and the man had threatened to drown Xanos - like a mongrel puppy, he said. Xanos was not yet come into his full strength. The man was much stronger, and would not let go. Of course, the others did not believe Xanos when he said it was an accident. It was. But that does not matter now."
Xanos did this, Xanos did that, I thought. I wondered if it hurt too much to say 'I', with the kind of life Xanos had apparently led before coming to Drogan's. Hell, there were parts of my own life that I'd have liked to pretend had happened to someone else. So what if Xanos had taken it that extra step? He'd already had people threatening to drown him before he'd even hit puberty. A little craziness was only rational. "I'm sorry," I said, and though it felt pitifully inadequate, I couldn't think of anything better to say.
The half-orc gave a one-shouldered shrug. "It does not matter now," he repeated. He paused. "The eyes were the worst," he said. "The rest was not so bad. The eyes…"
I knew exactly what he meant. "Yeah," I said. My voice cracked.
Xanos looked over at me briefly. "Try to sleep," he said curtly. "I will take first watch."
I nodded mutely and curled up on my side, huddled in on myself like a child.
Then the healing potion began to take hold, and I drifted off into a fitful sleep, my dreams full of blank, accusing eyes.