Song of Ashes

45: An Old Friend

He paused, looking her up and down, and shook his head with a smile. "Sarka. You made it. I made it, too. By the Mother's frigid womb, I still don't know how you did it. I barely survived."

"You were followed."

"Yes. You know better than anyone. But it wasn't what I expected. The first night and the second, I lay awake for hours with this-this crushing pain in my head. It was torture. I thought my skull would split open. On the third night, it appeared. He appeared."

"Did he attack you?"

"He did. It frightened me clean out of my wits. I did not comport myself as bravely as I might have hoped." Ro smiled with rueful humor. "All right, all right-I panicked. Prattled like a fool. Somewhere in there, I told him I was coming for you. That's...when he let me go."

Sarka put her hands over her face. "Ro, no. What did you promise him?"

"Nothing! I said I was coming for you, that's all. And he-Karsa was his name-he said Tayo had told him about you. Do you know that name?"

"You should have stayed in Kogoren."

Ro did not challenge her evasion. He changed subjects just as quickly. "Have you seen the trees? The plants? It's almost like Kogoren was before the Cataclysm. I had a sweet roll off a baker's cart yesterday and I thought I would die. Sarka-"

She took her hands away from her face. "Ro! Shut up! You should never have come." He opened his mouth to interject, but she cut him off. "Etza is dead. She and her whole crew. They're dead for bringing me across the ocean. The Beloved gave chase and drove them to their deaths. Now-"

"What?"

"-the ship you came in on, where is it? Still at harbor?"

"No," he said. His words were slow as what she'd told him sank in. "I've been here for two days. I didn't expect to find you at all. It's a huge city...but Karsa told me where you were..."

"Ro, they're going to die. All of them. They're probably already dead. There's no way to save them if they're out at sea."

Ro stared at her for a moment. What she said seemed to have taken the wind out of him. He backed up a few paces, set his back against the wall, and slid down to sit on the floor.

"Tayo tried to drive me mad. I convinced him to let me go if I'd free him. He did. He let me go, and I came ashore, and not long after that I was looking at dozens of the Annari lying dead on the beach. Driven mad and drowned. Ro, the same is going to happen to the Annari who brought you to Galdren. They're going to die."

"They can't do that. The Annari are not under Kogoren's dominion."

Sarka did not reply; a thought had struck her, a desperate thought. She dropped the door bar, flung the door open, and rushed out into the rainy night. As an afterthought, she pulled up the hood of her robe over her hair as she sloshed barefooted across the cobbles. "Tayo!"

"Sarka!" Ro called.

"Tayo!"

He appeared before her, difficult to see through the rain that fell right through his form; his pale hair floated around his face, unaffected by the downpour. Then, another ghostly form appeared behind him. Sarka shrank back, but it wasn't Caol; this one was younger, a Beloved she had not seen before.

"Who is that?" she asked.

Ro had come up behind her. He answered her question when he said, "Karsa? You came back."

Sarka did not have time to focus on Karsa-it was enough to know that he was not an immediate danger. She said, "Tayo, please. I need your help."

"The God-Song is beyond my reach," Tayo said. He had guessed what she planned to ask him.

"No. Not that. Something else. This idiot-" and she elbowed Ro in the ribs- "chased me across the sea, and that idiot-" and she pointed at Karsa, who cocked his head- "allowed him to, and now the Annari are in danger."

Tayo blinked at her, not seeming to understand what this had to do with him.

"Please," she said. The image of the Crescent God's figurehead, the only face she had for the stranger, flashed through her mind. The image of Etza's corpse was not far behind it. "You have to help them. You have to go to the ship and help them. Somehow. They'll die."

"I will not leave you," Tayo said. "I must keep watch."

"I don't care. You have to go and protect them. I'll stay in the temple. None of you can enter there, can you?"

"Atai is not our god; we cannot pass into his sanctuary."

"Then go! Go, and I'll stay inside-but please, Tayo, you must help them."

Tayo narrowed his eyes at her. "I do not care about the Annari."

"I do."

The two Beloved stared at the two humans for a few seconds, and then they exchanged a glance. A second later, Tayo flickered and disappeared, followed by the younger Beloved. In an instant, Sarka and Ro stood alone on the street.

Ro took her elbow. "Alright-I don't understand what's going on, but I understand this much: if your otherworldly strong-man is leaving, you need to get back inside."