Fire & Water
Ashe: Book Two
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TBCChapter One
Betany lay back on the bed, watching Ashe sit on the window ledge, looking out into the early dawn. The sun was hardly up but already the room was warm. Caer Arianrhod in midsummer was a place of sweet perfumes and endless days. For weeks Betany had dressed only in the lightest of clothes and life was hardest for the kargs. Gowdie kept changing, only to run off in search of shade. Walking down any street in the main city you would see the line of demarcation: Betany’s kind sat in the sunlight and drank cold drinks and made trips to the lake that lay just outside the city walls. Those members of the Caer Arianrhod population who lived out half their lives as kargs searched out the shady places; when summer came to Caer Arianrhod they camped out in wine cellars, windowed attics and storerooms, anywhere and everywhere that they could find a cool breeze or a relief from the sun. Preferably both. Walking into a quiet cellar and being faced with a dozen kargs sprawled out across the floor or on the shelves was a common experience, one that Ashe was only just coming to terms with.
Ashe wore a linen shirt that came halfway down her thighs. It was the coolest item in her wardrobe, and had been washed so often that it was in parts becoming transparent. Betany would have dressed Ashe in the finest clothes of the finest colours, had she had been allowed to do so. With one notable exception, Ashe was careless about clothes; she dressed because she had to and to stay warm in winter. Whenever they visited the lake, Ashe swam naked. Sitting on the lakeside bank, watching Ashe, Betany wondered if there was a shape-shifting aspect to all the Guardians. Ashe, rising up from the water, hair slicked back against her head, skin warm and dark, looked like an otter rising after a fish.
Betany had been watching Ashe for almost an hour. She had wakened long before Ashe and had lain silently beside her, knowing what was going on in Ashe’s head. She had dreamed of a winter come in midsummer: she’d been cold and frightened and alone. She had seen snow fall from blue skies, and watched the surface of the lake freeze, which it had done only once in Betany’s life. In the dream she had walked out onto the frozen lake and felt – in the frightened start before waking – the sensation of the ice cracking beneath her. The moment she awoke, Betany knew what the dream prophesised: Ashe was going to leave. Betany had been waiting for the day to come, and had deliberately invested each day of Ashe’s company with as many good things as she was able. She had tried to prepare herself, but it was hard to try to frame within herself the response that was most likely to bring Ashe back again. She knew that Ashe loathed histrionics, hated fuss and the sense of duty: Ashe had had too many years of all three. Laure had been a deliberate, rebellious, demanding and often unkind lover and ruler to Ashe; Betany wanted to do the best by Ashe that she could.
She’d never fallen in love with anyone before. There had been flings and there had been affairs; Betany was a happy sensualist, and believed that life was short and unpredictable and that regret was the saddest emotion of them all. When she had dreamed of Ashe, after first hearing of her, she had known without doubt that they would become lovers. She had even imagined the relationship lasting a considerable time. She had not expected to feel as strongly about Ashe: if she had thought Ashe would have accepted, she would have suggested in an instant that the Guardian become her consort, and share the rule of Caer Arianrhod. Each day she hesitated on the threshold of the offer, watching out for clues, looking out for omens. She almost regretted not having accompanied Ashe when she’d gone back to see what was left of Lascar. Then Betany could have met Rhea, the now-even-more-famous-than-before wise-woman of Lascar, and Ashe’s friend. Ashe spoke of Rhea with respect and appreciation. It seemed that Rhea’s powers were real and clear, not like the myriad of fortune tellers currently trailing through the streets of Caer Arianrhod. Some change was in the air, Betany knew that, and she felt uneasy.
The previous day had been unexceptionable and entirely happy. Betany had dealt with various matters of state, including an appraisal of the work going ahead in Lascar, which she had discussed with her ministers. Ashe had opted for a swim in the evening, and Betany and Gowdie had accompanied her. Gowdie transformed as she hit the water, which always made Ashe grin: the irritable, passionate and awkward young Caer Arianrhodian became, in animal form and in the water a riotous, delighted beast, with whom Ashe could swim and wrestle in the shallows. Betany entered the water more carefully: it was not an element in which she had ever felt fully secure, even if it was one which she had to thank for her lover.
Later, back in the castle, the karg had trotted off, shaking water crystals as it went. Betany and Ashe had sat down to a late supper and later still had taken a walk around the streets of the city. Betany, unlike Calypso or Laure, liked to spend time among her people, and there was nothing unexpected or unacceptable in the sight of one of the citizens stopping its leader in order to put a question or frame a concern. Ashe liked this lack of distanced rank; it was one of the many things she liked about Betany. A balance existed within the walls of Caer Arianrhod. That evening the questions put to Betany concerned the changes going on elsewhere: Mercia and Lammor both had been reduced in power and status and were now overseen by a body made up of counsellors from Caer Arianrhod, Rath Bel, and Arkana’s home, as well as Lammor and Mercia. If Betany could achieve it, she wanted home rule to be returned – in time – to both Lammor and Mercia. The issue of Calypso and of Alexis represented one of the few unsettled - and to Betany unsatisfactory – areas left over from the battle that had taken place earlier in the year.
The two of them had returned to the castle and separated for an hour or so. Looking for Ashe, Betany had seen her on the battlements, looking out into the distance. It was then that Betany began to suspect Ashe was suffering from wanderlust.
Fortunately there were other kinds of lust – which was not exactly the right term, Ashe’s affection having nothing barbed about it – flowing around Ashe’s system. When she’d come up to their shared bedroom she had crept up on Betany and locked her arms around her from behind, kissing Betany’s bare throat and shoulders before turning her round so that she could kiss her mouth. The sensation of Ashe’s touch was enough to make Betany’s legs become unsteady, and she was grateful to Ashe for the strength that held her up, and held her tight.
They had moved by slow stages to the bed, what few clothes the two of them wore being stripped off and discarded along the way. And Betany had gotten her own way with Ashe, although at the cost of being touched by her so passionately that for a while she could only focus upon the part of her body that Ashe was at that time caressing. For a while Betany existed only in her mouth and lips, then down the nice curves of her shoulders and breasts, and then for an almost painful time in the uplift of her thighs and her cunt. Ashe’s hands were kindly and somehow inexorable, and her tongue and fingers pressed into Betany’s cunt was almost too much for the leader of Caer Arianrhod. Forget about orgasms: when Ashe touched Betany in that fashion, Betany had to fight back the desire to cry. It wasn’t so much the passion – although there was more than enough of that – but the kindness inherent in Ashe’s touch that moved Betany the most. Ashe never talked about love, never professed any concrete terms, but Betany had no doubts about her. Any doubts she had concerned her ability to make Ashe happy. When their relationship had included Calliope, the water spirit, there was a symmetry that seemed absolute. Now that it was just Betany and Ashe, and had been for months, Betany wondered just how happy Ashe really was. When they had first been together, after Calliope’s return to the river, both had admitted how much they missed her. But as the days went by, Calliope’s presence – or lack of it – became a fully fledged issue, and as definite as if she had still stood – or lain – between them. Until that night, of course: wasn’t that always the case? Just as she had decided what posed a barrier between them, Ashe took the barrier down. And the surprise of that decided Betany: whatever Ashe decided to do, she’d do nothing to stand in her way.
As she lay watching Ashe, Betany became aware of a strange sensation inside. As Ashe leaned out into the early sunlight, Betany breathed in deeply, testing the feeling. Lately she had been possessed of a libido so demanding and sudden that on one occasion she’d almost fucked Ashe in one of the castle stairways. With her back to the wall and Ashe kissing her hard, Betany had been aware of a shift within her own world. She had pushed the thought away, and had almost succeeded in forgetting it until that moment. Oh, Gods, she thought. And at that moment Ashe turned, and saw that she was awake, and came over to her.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Ashe grinned at Betany. And the leader of Caer Arianrhod slid across the mattress so as to curl her body around Ashe. They kissed, and Ashe ran her fingertips lightly over Betany’s shoulders, down across her breasts. “You look very lovely,” she said, and as the words touched the morning air, Betany knew that her suspicions – on both counts – were entirely appropriate. Ashe kissed her, and Betany slid her arms around Ashe’s neck, pulling her closer still.
When they broke apart Betany smiled. Perhaps she had been mistaken. Perhaps… But she looked into Ashe’s morning face and knew that she was not. She hesitated only for a moment before saying, “I think I know that expression, Ashe. I think I know what you’re thinking.”
Ashe smiled again. “You do? If you did, you’d be pulling back the sheets so I could get back in with you.” It took all Betany’s power of control to speak the words.
“You need to get away from here, Ashe. I’ve seen that look: it’s wanderlust.”
The mild pretence that Ashe had been using to cloak her feelings for the best part of a month fell away. She got to her feet as if lifted by strings. Her eyebrows went up and her mouth dropped open. For a moment or two, Betany’s lover didn’t look entirely smart. Then Betany said, “Ashe, you don’t have to worry. It’s alright. I’ve been expecting this.”
Ashe was almost angry. She got up, walked away from the bed and began pacing. “You’ve been expecting this? Gods, Betany, what have I been doing? What clues did I leave? Have I left half-packed bedrolls around the place? Maps?” She paced a little more, and then the irritation left her as quickly and easily as breathing. She came to a halt, ran her hands through her hair and gave Betany a quick, apologetic smile. She sat back down on the edge of the bed. “You’re right. Sorry. I have been thinking about… travelling. About something. I can’t say exactly what. But it’s not because I want to be away from you… I think I want to be…” she scowled. “There wasn’t much time in-between,” she said. “Everything happened so fast.”
“You’ve never had much of a chance to be a person in your own right,” said Betany, getting out of bed, putting on a long silk robe. “First you were the Lammoran consort – in all but name – and now you’re mine. Oh, please don’t get me wrong, Ashe. If I could persuade you, I’d name you as my consort this very minute: get out the trumpeters and have them blaze out the noise. I want you to be my consort. I’ve had other lovers in my time, but until you, there was never one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.” She paused and looked kindly at Ashe. “And you, you poor sod, don’t know what you want, do you?”
There were tears in Ashe’s eyes. She said, “I’m sorry. I want to say, yes, please go ahead. And I can’t! There’s something between me and what you’d like, and I don’t even know what it is. I’d love to stay here with you.”
Betany fought back the urge to say, Then do it! It would be too easy. She thought: I wonder if the other Guardians have it as hard. All that power vested in them that they hardly ever get to see, and which they’re unaware of. She’s forgotten about the fight with Alexis and Calypso at the river’s edge; she doesn’t know what she did or of what she’s capable. I can’t tell her that it was a glorious thing – Gods help me, even an erotic thing – so although she knows she died and came back (twice!), and somehow she’s pushed the knowledge as far from her as it will go. I wonder what fucked-up idea it was for the Guardians to roam the world as ordinary mortals. It isn’t fair. It isn’t explicable and it isn’t fair and while she knows there’s something wrong, she doesn’t know what it is. She looked at Ashe, and saw the confusion there.
“I fancy a bath,” she said, “and it’s going to be another hot day. After that let’s go and get some breakfast. We can talk about this later.” She kissed Ashe lightly on the lips, stepped out of the compass of Ashe’s arms and went to her bath.
Bathing, she meditated. Ashe had travelled about the world before, but she’d had friends to keep her company and to keep her safe. Comparatively safe. As safe as – it seemed – Ashe was ever likely to be. When alone she’d been pursued by cannibals, had fallen off a mountain and died. Being brought back to life once was rare enough: a second time would be pushing one’s luck, and Ashe had already done that. Betany had the sense that a third death might just keep Ashe down forever. Yes, Ashe needed companions. Betany scowled almost as ferociously as Ashe had been doing earlier. But Ashe wouldn’t take too kindly to the idea of someone watching out for her… that would smack of a protective shell she knew Ashe would be unable to tolerate.
Betany slid down under the surface of the cool water. She opened her eyes and stared up through the element and that was when inspiration struck her. Inspiration struck her indeed so forcefully that she sat straight up in the bath and got water all over Ashe, who’d just dressed and had come in to take her down to breakfast. Laughing as Ashe wrung the water out of her shirt and then said that she wouldn’t change: the shirt would warm to room temperature soon enough, Betany thought over her plan a second time and decided that it was good.
Then they went down to breakfast, Ashe dripping gently all the way. Drinking water mixed with mead and eating bread still warm from the ovens, and new cheese rolled in herbs, Betany was making plans.
*******
Ardan had rearranged the main room of Rhea’s tower. She had not meant to inflict a new rule – which is how Rhea saw it – only to bring back order to the mess that Calypso had made of the place. That was one of Calypso’s more childish outbursts: after Alexis had been taken back to the palace, the Mercian leader had had the tower room trashed. It was lucky they hadn’t found the deep drawers in which many of Rhea’s herbs and medicines were stored, together with the clothes that were now making up Ardan’s new wardrobe, otherwise Ardan would never have had her new tunic, decorated all over with the constellations. At night Ardan might stand outside the tower, at the top of the steps, looking down at her tunic and then skywards to find an echo in the shifting black velvet.
Ardan appreciated order. The measurements for the various potions that Rhea continued to produce demanded appallingly accurate treatment. Ardan was happy doing that. And she knew that Rhea would teach her all about magic, provided she was quiet, and enthusiastic, honest and not too ambitious. It was hard to keep within the old woman’s guidelines. Ardan knew that she had the potential to work magic. She understood the ground rules, as it were. She appreciated the risks attached to spells. She was eager and hard-working. Rhea puzzled as to why she stopped there when considering her new apprentice’s attributes. The only thing that Rhea had done to counter Ardan’s new order was to place a spell around the tower. If another Alexis tried to mount those stairs, things would be very different. Ardan suspected that the spell would – if necessary – bring the whole edifice down. That such a moment would possibly kill her and Ardan both worried Rhea very little. The wise-woman had been beaten and weakened, left helpless, blind and dumb. Better death than have anything like that ever happen again.
Had she had any insight into Berrach’s aspirations for Rhea, Ashe and the rest of them, Ardan might have suggested constructing a fence of head-high spikes around the tower.
And even that might not do the trick.
*******
I admit it. It can be a bit of a fucking drag if you don’t get on with your sister’s latest. A drag for you, at least: they’re probably too happy to notice how you feel. It’s worse when you’ve just lost your own lover, or at least, the person who should have been your lover. We came so close. You know how it is: sometimes you meet someone and it’s as if you’ve known them all your life. There’s no need for small talk. It was like that with Sam. She was funny and she was nice, and she was passionate: we had the best times together.
But I knew and she knew – as did everyone else in Caer Arianrhod, it seemed – that sooner or later she’d have to go back to the river. She was a river spirit and although they can leave their natural element, they can do it only once. I didn’t understand that at first: when I went swimming, Sam would stay on the bank. She even looked nervous when I splashed some water at her. That was when she told me: just the one trip out.
It was the same for Ashe, though. She and my sister and Calliope had this thing going. It seemed really good: everyone was happy. Then we had the big fight with Mercia, and Calliope got hurt. Ashe got her back to the river. I wanted to be there but couldn’t be: I was back at base camp getting my arm stitched up. When I’m the karg I don’t notice pain that much. Back in this skin I feel the restrictions all too clearly. Calypso, the mad psycho bitch who led the Mercians, went for Sam. She was about to mash Sam’s brains once and for all when I let the control slip, and the karg sprang out. I had a second of such amazing satisfaction: Calypso nearly wet her tunic. She hadn’t known about the karg, and my change brought on a wave of transformations. It’s something to do with scent glands. I can’t be less than ten yards from a karg without feeling my skin shift.
Sometimes we’re called that, shape-shifters, but that isn’t accurate. For us it’s a half of our lives, always. We don’t change in keeping with the moon or the seasons of the sea. When we changed during the battle it felt ferocious: there was a wave of fur that rippled across the entire Caer Arianrhod army. It felt wonderful: liberating, overwhelming, always good. I used to wonder, if I had the option to choose one form or the other, would I really stay as Gowdie? I think the karg would win out.
How did it all come about? I don’t know. There were always kargs at Caer Arianrhod. In a family of four, two would be kargs, simple and straightforward as that. I used to think that Betany had missed out; now I’m sure she does.
I know she’s really fallen for Ashe not because of what she does, but what she doesn’t do. This trip, for one. Ashe had decided she needed to go walkabout. I don’t know if she had a specific reason for wanting to go: she’d not had the easiest possible time of it. I go walkabout myself nearly all the time. I spend less time at Caer Arianrhod than I do in the great outdoors. Anyway, Ashe was all set to go when Betany found me in the stables, sulking. I’m not denying the fact: I knew that I’d been in a lousy mood since Sam had gone back to the river. There was comfort around, I guess, had I wanted it, but I didn’t want it. I didn’t want consolation; I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want anyone telling me that they knew how I felt, or they’d been there, or that there were other fish – in the sea, not the river – that last pissed me off so much I could feel the karg running round in ever-growing circles inside my brain. All I wanted to do was sit on my own in the stables and sulk. And then Betany came and cornered me. She said that Ashe was going to be travelling for a while. She didn’t know where because Ashe didn’t know. She didn’t want Ashe to go, that was clear, but whereas she’s always tried to charm her lovers into doing what she wanted, she wasn’t doing that with Ashe. I got the feeling that Ashe was for real with her, not a temporary thing. And Gods, there’s yet another fucking cliché… No. It’s so fucking clichéd I can’t even think about saying it, or writing it down.
Ashe was going walkabout and Betany wanted me to go with her. “You’re the best protection Ashe could have,” she said. “And it might be good for you, too. I know that life hasn’t been easy for you since Sam left us.” She paced up and down, clearly not happy. She said, “I don’t want Ashe to go. I never really believed she’d come back from Lascar, last time.”
“But she did come back. On foot, true, but I can understand her preferring to do that.”
“Gowdie, I want you to go with Ashe. I don’t want her to know why you’re going with her. I want her to think that it’s just because of Sam that you want to have a break from everyday life. Do you mind lying? Can you make her believe that?”
I stopped sulking long enough to think about the idea. Then I had a flash of nice bright clean inspiration and I said, “No. Tell her that you want me to get away because of Sam and that you think I’m not entirely safe on my own.”
She said, “Gowdie, no one is ever going to deny that you’re not safe, period.”
I put on an expression of outrage. “Of course I’m safe. But you’re going to have to do a good job of it. Then it’ll seem that I’m going for her sake, and she’s going for mine. And neither of us knows about the other. Alright?”
That seemed to please her. That seemed to settle it, too. And in due course we left Caer Arianrhod, Ashe and I. Betany hugged me and kissed Ashe, and then she hugged Ashe and kissed me. We both said for the umpteenth time that we didn’t want horses: we honestly wanted to walk. As the two of us broke away from the shouts and embraces and all that stuff, and got far enough away to be out of earshot, Ashe turned to me and said, “Betany sold me on going with you because you’re recovering from Sam. Which I can understand entirely. And she sold you on going with me – how? Did she do the Ashe-isn’t-entirely-safe-on-her-own number?” I was about to lie, but then she grinned at me and I grinned back at her, and for a while I forgot about why we didn’t really get on.
Some people are like Ashe in this regard: they prefer the karg to the Gowdie. I find it strange because of course, it’s an essential part of me. It’s like someone not liking your arms but being alright with the rest of your body. Or your body’s fine but they don’t like your hair. Or they take exception and stop loving you at your ankles, not liking your feet. I think you’ll get the idea. Ashe liked the karg because the karg was simple and straightforward, and Ashe had had it up to there with lies and subterfuge. By that time I’d heard a lot about Lascar, the fallen city, and about Laure, Lascar’s fallen queen, and I understood that Ashe might have developed a problem with lies. The karg is as close to innocent, I guess, as the water spirits are, when they are still water spirits. In the battle against Mercia, Sam and Calliope both fought on our side and I wouldn’t have been without either of them. Calliope saved Ashe – and Ashe knew it – and I guess I sort of saved Sam by changing when I did. But it was as much the expression on Calypso’s face as the injury she did Sam that brought out the karg. I still don’t understand why Ashe didn’t kill Calypso and Alexis, both. Betany told me that it was a kind of compassion on Ashe’s part. I think it was a major mistake.
I liked fighting with Ashe as a companion. Ashe seems to let go a part of herself when she’s fighting. It’s something I can relate to. And she never makes a fuss about getting hurt, and gods, she keeps getting hurt. I didn’t see it when Alexis killed her, but I heard all about it. She’s never going to be thought of as wildly attractive, because among other things, she’s got a kind of pattern of scars that runs all over. She got that by being healed by the water spirits after she fell into a ravine. Of course, if it hadn’t been for that, I would never have met Sam. So even though she and I don’t get on brilliantly well, I owe her.
Apart from the fighting, the only thing that Ashe and I had in common, apart from Betany, of course, was that we’d both loved water spirits. I don’t remember everything that the karg does because it has a different sort of consciousness, but I do remember fighting with Ashe and against a common foe, and the connection working. Ashe was good with her weapons. I liked Cairo, too, who had a lot in common with me because she’d spent some time sharing a shape with the cat belonging to Lascar’s wise woman. I think that she was good for Ashe: she was a likeable, reasonably smart, straightforward, passionate sort of person. With Cairo what you saw was what you got. Although, of course, it wasn’t. Ah, Gods, you know what I mean. That’s the best that I can do. I think that if I hadn’t met Sam, I might have fallen for Cairo. But I didn’t get that chance: nor did she.
I think that that was the time Betany thought she’d lost Ashe. The day after the battle we honoured all our dead. It’s an essential part of our society and it does those who attend an awful lot of good. But Ashe wanted to see Cairo off in person and in private, and Betany perhaps feared that Ashe would just slip away after that. When she came back from visiting Lascar, when the first steps were being taken to reconstruct or properly demolish the place, she looked better, easier than she had before. But she got restless feet and I guess that’s understandable. After years of nothing much you get months of everything, and going back to stability afterwards can be hard. I feel that way every time I say goodbye to the karg.
Lascar was being rebuilt. At first that didn’t seem like a good idea, the city having so little left, but then the good situation of the place, coupled with the willingness of the wise-woman there, and the good managing skills of her assistant, a kid called Ardan, all came together and Lascar began to grow again. Of course, it didn’t follow the same patterns as before: this time there would be no slavery, the palace would exist but on a smaller scale, and there would be contact maintained with Caer Arianrhod all the time the new city was teething. A lot of the old inhabitants came back, once they knew that the Mercian would no longer be in charge. But none of the slaves returned, and who could blame them? I know that, had it been me, I’d never have gone back.
*******
There were times when Ashe would happily, wilfully, have denied all sensible suggestions and followed a private path of potential destruction. It would have been too easy to stay with Betany. The gods knew, that was where Ashe wanted to be, but since the loss of Calliope, that relationship seemed like a luxury Ashe could not afford. When Betany had approached her over the trip and Gowdie’s involvement, Ashe nearly said, Oh, fuck, why? But then she thought about it and saw that it was reasonable. She knew she’d been manoeuvred into going with Gowdie, but she had to wait until the two of them were alone before she could check that.
Calliope was a word that Ashe tried not to speak or hear, except with Betany. She appreciate the irony: after years of simple monogamy, she had dived into a relationship with Betany and Calliope both, and would have lived out the rest of her life in exactly that manner, if life had only let her.
But life hadn’t.
Calliope had felt like the more tender aspect of Ashe, the kinder, more vulnerable side that hadn’t had much of an airing. Losing Calliope was like losing those characteristics. Ashe felt uncomfortable and trammelled by the life at Caer Arianrhod, much as she admitted how pleasant it was. The people were intelligent and cultured and generally peaceful, although they had their armies and everyone who could fight had learned to. Caer Arianrhod had stood for years longer than Lascar. There seemed to be no points the two had in common, except that Ashe had lived in both.
Ashe’s second immersion in water had been no less traumatic than the first. Of course, the first time she’d more or less died on impact with the water, whereas with the second she’d been dead before she hit the surface and disappeared beneath it. She had seen Calliope for a moment – the shortest of all moments – before Calliope was reabsorbed by the river, and Ashe died. There had been no fond farewell, no chance to say the things she would have liked to say. And here she was, travelling cross-country with her lover’s kid sister.
Gowdie glanced at Ashe and saw in her an unwillingness to talk. In fact, there was an anger inside Ashe that was building to potentially dangerous heights. Most of all there was the tiredness, and the knowledge that she’d run away from Caer Arianrhod and Betany because she felt guilty.
Sitting with Rhea and talking, Ashe had experienced a sense of a world changing for the better. Lascar would grow again, and possibly achieve more than it ever had before. This time the growth would be of a different sort: Ashe had known it, and Laure was now learning (Ashe hoped), that Lascar had begun to stagnate. Not that it had needed a war: any kind of revolution would have done to reach down for the roots that were beginning to moulder; but the mainstays of slave-labour and palace-led domination had needed to be cut right out and burned. Once she’d left Rhea, Ashe had had a short and happy time, crossing back across the valley – she had decided to leave the mountains alone for the moment – and letting her thoughts roam freely. And it had been so good to see Betany again. Good to see Sam. Even good to see Gowdie.
Sam had left them only a few days later. She and Ashe had taken an hour out to sit by the river and talk about things private and special to them both. Neither mentioned that once Sam had re-entered the water, she could never leave it again. To Ashe this finality of departure created a hurt as bad as death. “Sam? When you… When you go back there, will you ever get the chance to talk with Calliope – if not talk, exactly, then communicate in whatever way water spirits do?”
Sam smiled. She looked happy and sad together. “I will take any message you want me to pass on to her, Ashe. But I think I know what you’d say.”
Ashe hesitated. “What would I tell her?”
“That you love her and miss her. That you didn’t have time to say goodbye to her last time. That life without her is never going to be the same, let alone as good as the time you spent with her. That there will be a Calliope-shaped space in your heart forever. Something like that, Ashe? You forget: we’re pretty good at reading thoughts. How else could Calliope have seen how unhappy you were in our last day of wandering? You know, the day of our first fight.” The last sentence was heavy with satisfaction: Sam had proved to be an exceptionally precise warrior.
Ashe looked away from Sam and swallowed the howl of loss and anger that threatened to escape her. At last, unable to speak, she nodded her agreement. She hadn’t realised that Sam could read her quite so easily – or so very well.
The rest of that day Sam had spent with Gowdie, locked away in Gowdie’s room. Ashe wondered if the two of them had ever consummated their relationship. On the one hand she hoped they had; on the other, personal experience had taught her that such a new dimension made parting even more painful. But it was something she was probably never get to find out.