A Knot Better Tied
Episode 1 of Staring Into the Abyss
A Story of the Second Realm
By R.J. Davnall
Copyright 2012 R. J. Davnall
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The Second Realm
Van Raighan's Last Stand:
Episode 1: I Can See Clearly Now
Episode 2: You Can't Go Home Again
Episode 3: A Hole In Her Mind
Episode 4: Touching the Void
Falling With Style:
Episode 1: Wild Hawk Down
Episode 2: She Stoops to Conquer
Episode 3: Falling Off the Face of the Earth
https://itsthefuturestupid.blogspot.com/
Contents
A Knot Better Tied
About the Author
Staring Into the Abyss
1. A Knot Better Tied
Dora found it easier to be around Rel while he slept. He lay on the hard pallet in the cell Keshnu had carved out of the bedrock, neither arguing nor recriminating. The red haze she saw around him all the time now had dimmed until she could almost pretend it was just a shadow on his blanket. Asleep, he couldn't embarrass her any further, or undercut her attempts to defend him.
Or insult her anymore. Stop pretending you're still my Four Knot, he'd shouted at her last time she'd taken up his case with Keshnu. The Wilder had rolled his eyes in response, a trick Taslin had apparently shared with him after learning it - somehow - from Dora. She didn't think she rolled her eyes all that often, but if a Wilder could work out the pattern behind the gesture she had to be overdoing it.
She put her hand up to rub her eyes, trying not to watch the patterns of spots on the inside of her eyelids. When she opened them again, the room fuzzed and split apart into dancing blotches of colour. The image refocused before it reassembled, leaving her staring blankly at a net of jagged-edged sparks, thrown over a jumble of crates.
Blinking furiously, she focussed on the web of light; not a separate object, but the distribution of the light from the candles across the cell and Rel's sleeping form. Thinking of Rel was a mistake. While the image settled back into something more normal for the First Realm, Rel's body seemed to come alive with swarming insects of Dora's own doubts and fears. A handful noticed her, buzzed across to fly at her face. She buried her head in her arms.
There was no way to pretend the visions weren't getting worse. With her eyes closed, Dora was safe from it, but she found tears escaping her anyway. She slid down the uneven stone wall, letting it tug her dress out of shape, until she sat with her arms curled on her knees. Curled up, it was easier to keep her sobs silent, and she didn't want to wake Rel.
Even if she hadn't been trying to avoid talking to him, it wouldn't have been fair to wake the Clearseer. She might still be in tune with daylight, but the Wildren had insisted on keeping Rel underground. Without the sun to shape his time into days, he'd started sleeping as and when the fancy took him. Dora suspected he was also being perverse, making it difficult for her and Keshnu to speak with him, but she sympathised.
The feel of the room changed, subtly, as Taslin started down the passage that led into the cell. Like the shiver that comes from drinking cold water on an empty stomach, the cell seemed both refreshed and shocked. Rel stirred. Dora blotted her cheeks on her sleeve and stood. She put her finger to her lips as Taslin stepped into the room, the Gift-Giver's thick-soled books rasping slightly on the rock floor.
Taslin nodded and went back the way she'd come. Dora got to her feet as quietly as she could and followed, leaving Rel to stir again as she left. The passage walls, shaped so recently by wild power, were too smooth for their age, every lump rounded and glistening in the torchlight. The contrast was most obvious when they emerged into the natural cavern beyond, the rock becoming a more natural yellow-brown.
"Keshnu asked for you." Taslin actually managed to sound not only kindly, but sympathetic, her eyes soft, the normal harshness gone from her tone. Regular contact with her own kind had only strengthened her resolve to master human manners and mannerisms. Sometimes, Dora could almost believe Taslin was frustrated with Rel too. It was such a human way to feel, but Taslin's grasp of First-Realm emotion bettered even Keshnu's.
Which brought Dora's attention neatly back to the matter in hand. "Did he say why?" She tried not to sound too weary. The senior Gift-Giver among the Wildren in Vessit, Keshnu had given her nothing but pressure for the week since they'd arrived. About the only thing she could agree with him on was that she wasn't a Four Knot anymore, and then only because he was the only Wilder her reputation didn't intimidate.
"No." Taslin frowned. "All he said was that I should return with you."
Dora rolled her eyes. "We'd better go, then. Where is he?"
"He's at the Abyss." Taslin's face shifted, her cheeks lifting and tightening in a wince. "I'm sorry, I know you don't like going down there."
"It's fine. Come on." Dora started down the tunnel toward the Abyss, giving Taslin as broad a smile as she could. "That was a very good 'regret'. Well done."
"Thank you." The Gift-Giver smiled back, but her face fell too quickly. The frown that followed might have been puzzlement, or just the expression she normally pulled when stymied. "You're aware... you know I really care, don't you? I'm not just pretending."
Dora tried to marshal her face flat and expressionless past her surprise. The polite thing to do was phrase her answer as a question, make it neutral. "Can you care? The way we understand it, I mean?" She frowned, "I know you have a practical concern for our well-being, but I don't think that's quite the same thing."
"It isn't." Taslin's voice flattened back to the crisp, brisk tones of a Wilder struggling with First-Realm logic. Despite understanding that, Dora still felt the first shiver through her gut of a worry that she'd caused offence. Taslin went on, "Your language agrees with our communications on that much. I wish you well, as I wish all humankind well, but I also feel a special loyalty in your case."
"Loyalty?"
Taslin looked down, then back up to meet Dora's eyes. "It's one of the few things our ways of thinking have in common. Loyalty to one's own. I never expected to be able to extend such loyalty to a human, but I have managed it. At least, I think I have."
Dora blinked, trying to settle the weight of Taslin's announcement more comfortably about her shoulders. Her voice came out despicably weedy and breathless as she said, "Thank you. I- I hope I can respond in kind."
Taslin nodded her satisfaction with a thin, flat smile. They walked in silence down through the twisting, jagged tunnel. Dora wished her boot-soles weren't so worn-out; every ridge in the floor stood out as if she walked on broken glass. Once they got to the caves proper, the ground alternated between more comfortable, on the washed-smooth shoulders of each ridge, and outright painful where she had to scramble down between ridges. Taslin had enough tact - and familiarity with Dora's moods - to keep quiet when she cursed.
They were climbing down into the third cave when a wave of disorientation broke over Dora. She let out a mortifying squeak and clung to the rock, an angular protrusion jabbing into her belly. Eyes closed, she wished the sensation away. It passed quickly, but not before Taslin had given her a reassuring pat on the back.
Well, the damage was done. Dora clung on a moment longer, making absolutely sure she was steady before lowering her foot to the stone below. She'd just got to her feet when the world reeled, sending her staggering into Taslin's arms. The Gift-Giver held tight, pinning Dora to her shoulder. Though Taslin's skin was warm, Dora found herself shivering.
She would not cry again. Not ov
er this. She pressed her tight-shut eyes into Taslin's collar-bone, focussed on the tickling of the Gift-Giver's immaculate hair by her ear. Her mind filled with that same dark-cherry hair looping over and around and through itself. Taslin never had to deal with such tangles, even on the windiest days. The hair looped over-under-over itself into a perfect, floating knot.
The ends stretched out, began their own loops. Dora caught on with another shiver. Her first thought was But Rel was just in his cell, how can he be in trouble? Then the part of her that remembered being a Four Knot took over. She let the fourth knot of the distress call tie itself together in her mind, pushing away awareness of Taslin's urgent, whispered enquiry. The Gift-Giver would just have to trust her for once.
Dora reached out an imagined hand through the centre of the knot. Taslin's doubts dropped away, leaving only her own. No time for those now, with one of Vessit's Gifted in trouble. The time for doubts had gone when she accepted the Second Gift, even if she didn't remember it. She tried to fold herself through the knot, found it squeezing her too tight.
That wasn't right. How was she to do her job if the four knot itself rejected her? Was it the Second Gift, taking away more of her life? How was she to do her job with a Second Gift, then? She flexed her grip around the knot again, felt something shift, just slightly. Was
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