Page 35 of The Summer Pass

Lill didn’t remind Arsha that a short while ago he’d been pretending he had property back in Torakand and could afford to hire Lill. He put a couple of coins down on the table to pay for their tea and the writing materials, and he left the inn.

He found someone to take Arsha’s confession up the mountain and see that it got to Vanu, with a suitable delay so that no one could trace him, even supposing Vanu realized he’d been involved in sending it. Then he left Radush, not by the Torakand road but on a trail heading east, and put as much distance between himself and the town as he could before he stopped for the night.

He’d lied to Arsha. He wanted another mission—needed another mission, like a plant needed the rain, like a wolf needed meat. It had been so hard to refuse Arsha’s offer, even though he’d known he had to. Arsha was a lunatic, and Lill wanted nothing more to do with him. Also, it did seem obvious to Lill that if Arsha were to have any hope of a normal life, he needed to forget all about who betrayed whom when he was a child. For Lill to take on another mission to determine whether Darma was really dead—how would he go about doing that, anyway?—wouldn’t do Arsha any good.

Lill lay awake under the stars in the field where he stopped for the night, and for the first time in what seemed like ages he felt that awful sense of the world arrayed in judgement against him, whispering condemnation. He was no longer following orders; he had no mission, not even one he’d given himself, now that he had sent the confession to Vanu.

What will you do now? He didn’t know.

When he finally slept, he dreamt about the caves under Umtúshta. He woke with the rude mnemonic song for finding your way through them stuck in his head.

If he went back now, he could overtake Arsha’s confession and deliver it himself. He could sneak into Vanu’s house and slip into bed beside Vanu and pretend that had been his plan all along.

But that hadn’t been his plan. He had left Vanu’s ring and intended never to go back. He’d had the idea of hunting down Arsha after he’d already left, and the idea of making Arsha write to Vanu later still. He’d left because he didn’t deserve to lie in bed beside Vanu, and Vanu didn’t deserve to have a snake for a bride. He could feel the truth of that now more clearly than ever.

If he couldn’t go back to where Vanu was now, maybe there would be some comfort or use in going someplace Vanu had been in the past. The track he had been following, at random, led west, so he was already on his way. He got up and brushed the grass off his clothes and set off for the Summer Pass.

Lill let his half-drawn sword drop back into its sheath. In the dark he couldn’t make out much about Zaraz’s appearance, but he could see that her hair was loose and wild and her eyes wide with fear.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “When did you leave Tagra Degra?”

“Last night.”

She swung the door the rest of the way open and came out. She sat down on the edge of the bench under the window. She was wearing man’s clothes, trousers and a shirt that were both too loose on her and too short in the arms and legs.

“Is Shan with you?” Lill ventured. He was afraid he knew the answer.

She shook her head. “He couldn’t get away. It’s terrible in there, Lill. I wish with all my heart we’d listened to you when you told us not to go.”

“Oh. I didn’t tell you—I just … ”

He didn’t know what to say. Maybe he should have told them, should have insisted, explained why he knew better than they did. He felt much worse, having been right, than if he’d been wrong.

Zaraz patted the bench next to her, a little more like her normal self, and Lill obediently sat beside her.

“What … happened?” he prompted awkwardly.

She took a deep breath. “We were shut in a cell under the lord’s house when we arrived. They treated us … horribly. The lord is obsessed with betrayal—he thinks anyone from the lowlands is a spy. Enu managed to convince him to let us out after a few days, but he had a hard time doing it. Then they started talking about how they would kill the women and children if they were besieged. The lord and his retainers were saying this. Enu told us about it—he wanted me to borrow some of his clothes.” She plucked at the shirt she was wearing. “It was very kind of him, but by then Shan and I had made up our minds to leave. We tried to sneak out a back gate, but he was caught, and only I got away.”

“Shan was taken back inside, or … ”

“He pretended he wasn’t trying to leave, but I don’t know if they believed him.”

Lill nodded and restrained himself from asking for more detail. At least she hadn’t seen Shan killed before her eyes; they couldn’t be sure he was still alive, but he might be.

“We should have stayed there,” Zaraz said, wiping her eyes. “It was just Shan, being worried about me. I shouldn’t have let him … But he was in as much danger as me, because the lord of the castle has some hatred of your people in particular—he uses all the insulting names and everything. Shan said a Chiddang lady must have broken his heart at some point.” She laughed weakly.

“You met him, then. The Boar of Hawakhurta. Who is he?”

“Oh. Well, you remember Enu thought he was Vanu Urártu.”

“No, it’s not him, I know that. He wouldn’t do any of this.”

“It’s not him, no. Enu was very upset when he found out. I can’t remember the man’s name … Dana or … ”

“Darma?” Lill said, with a feeling like a rock settling in the pit of his stomach.

“Yes, that’s right. Darma. How did you know?”