The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(68)

Eliza nodded. She marvelled at how calm the Sorma seemed, standing so close to the Kwellrahg, their eyes still as stones, their breathing steady.

She went to find her aunt in the camp.

Aunt Ry, her father’s eldest sister, often wandered into the desert by herself, to find little pools of water or tiny oases, returning with herbs, roots and fungi whose purpose she seemed to understand instinctively. When Eliza found her, she was playing with her five-year-old son in the shade. She had kind eyes and a heart-shaped face. Like most of the Sorma women she kept her hair cropped close, which complemented her dramatic eyes and cheekbones. Eliza was very comfortable with Ry, for she saw so much of her father in her.

“Grandmother told me to ask you for some tea,” said Eliza. She felt strangely leaden, as if she too were enclosed in a kind of barrier that kept her at a distance from the world and everyone in it.

Ry looked deeply into her eyes, taking Eliza’s chin between her thumb and forefinger. She nodded and said, “Come with me.”

Eliza followed her to her tent and waited while Ry brewed the tea, watching those strong, supple hands at work. The tea was thick and black and very bitter, but Eliza drank it all. It left her thirstier than before. Ry was talking to her and the words ran together, making no sense. Her aunt’s face was kind and concerned, but Eliza felt she was looking at it from a great distance. There was somewhere else she needed to be.

She heard her own voice as if it was someone else’s thanking Ry thickly, awkwardly, and she stumbled back out into the sun. It was too bright. If only she could drink the sun, bring dark and quiet. The Sorma moving about the camp made her claustrophobic. She couldn’t breathe. She walked away from the tents, into the desert, to put space between herself and the camp, herself and the Kwellrahg, herself and the awful thing required of her. She followed the Kwellrahg’s tracks up the dune and over the edge, and she kept walking, climbing up the steep dunes until she lay panting on their ridges, then staggering down them into hot, sandy valleys. The camp was hidden from view. She could see only the rolling hills of golden sand around her and the sky, a vast blue dome arcing overhead. The sun blazed vengefully. Though she was pouring sweat, she climbed another dune and over the peak of this one she saw something strange. In the valley below was a tree. It had a great big knobbed trunk and powerful branches twisted out every which way, like a strong hand with many muscular fingers reaching for the sky. It was the Lookout Tree from the southern cliffs of Holburg. She ran down the dune towards it, heart in her throat. As she got closer to it she saw there was somebody in the tree, perched on the very branch she and Nell used to sit on to look out over the archipelago.

She stood beneath the tree and looked up. The figure on the upper branch was a small boy, only about four or five years old. He had tight dark curls and liquid eyes and his little legs were swinging. He looked back down at her.

“Hello,” said Eliza.

“I can see everything from up here,” said the little boy in a piping voice. “You can’t see much at all from down there, can you?”

Eliza looked around her. The desert curved up towards the sky and the sky curved down towards it so they formed a perfect sphere and the sun burned a hole at the top of it all.

“No, I cannay see very much,” she answered. “Where am I?”

The little fellow kicked his legs vigorously and said, “This is the edge of things. You’ve got to go back.”

She felt a terrible weariness gathering behind her eyes. “I’m too tired,” she told him. “I need to rest for a while.”

“No rest for the wicked!” piped the little fellow. “You’ve got to go back. You’re allowed to come this far, exactly. This is the farthest. That’s how Magic works.”

Eliza squinted up at him. He was looking at her quite imperiously. “I’m a Sorceress,” she told him. “What do you know about Magic?”

He laughed a ringing little laugh. “I know everything about Magic. I know where it ends.”

“Where?” asked Eliza.

“Here!” he said. “That’s why you’ve got to go back.”

She sat down and leaned against the trunk of the tree. It was so familiar against her back. If only she could see the islands, if only she could run back to town and their little house and have a glass of water. If only she could leap into the sea. The little boy regarded her from above and then asked, “Why are you sad?”

“So many reasons,” said Eliza, but she couldn’t weep. Her body was too parched, too dried up, even to squeeze out a tear or two.

“You’ve got to go back,” said the boy again, more kindly. “But you can take something with you, if you like.”

“What should I take?” asked Eliza, leaning her head back to look up at him.

The boy cackled wildly. “You look funny upside down.”

She pulled a face, and he cackled more.

“You’re funny. I like you.”

“My name is Eliza,” she said.

“I know that,” he said a bit impatiently. “But it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a word your mother and father picked out to call you, but they didn’t know anything about you then and they still don’t.”

“What’s your name?” asked Eliza.

The boy hesitated, then said, “I like you, but you’re a bit stupid. Do you like birds?”