“And what of Likari?” she burst out when he paused for breath. “What of your promise to save him? I believed you! Not once, but several times you said you would find a way to save him. What about that promise?”
He looked down and spoke reluctantly but clearly. “I must break it. Not because I want to, but because I do not know how to keep it.”
For a long moment she was silent. Then an expression of disgust formed on her face. “Oh, yes,” she said bitterly. “Now I believe you. It is not the way of the People to break promises, but for the intruders, it is their constant custom.” She pursed her lips and then expelled air loudly in an exaggerated expression of denial. “You are definitely not a Great One to say such a thing. You are right. You are not even of the People, and yes, I will leave you now. I will go to my kin-clan and tell them what you have said. They will think me foolish and faithless. But I will not care what they think. Because now I must go and do for myself what I so foolishly hoped and waited for you to do for me. Oh, I am a faithless and heartless mother! The very first day he was summoned, I should have run after him, rather than having faith in your magic. I myself will go to Kinrove. I do not know how I will get Likari back, but I will. I will not stop trying until Likari is free again. That is the promise I make to myself.”
She stooped and picked up the pack she had dropped. As she walked toward the door, she was slinging it over her shoulders. By the time she reached the door she had it on and she walked away from the lodge without another backward glance. He was alone. He heard faint voices lifted in a query and a brief response from Olikea. The conversation went on, but it dwindled in the distance as they walked away from him, out of sight of Lisana’s old lodge, and out of earshot as well. He sat on the bed, his blankets muddled around him. On the hearth fire, the forgotten kettle with his breakfast in it muttered to itself beneath its tight lid. He heard a squirrel chatter outside, and then the warning cry of a jay asserting his territorial right. The birds would already be investigating the quiet lodges to see what had been left behind. It was a good indicator that no one else remained in the village.
Slowly he got out of bed. He walked to the hearth and took the simmering kettle off it. He looked inside. An overcooked stew of vegetables, squirrel meat, and a few greens was in the bottom. He found a long-handled cooking spoon and ate directly from the pot, blowing on each bite to keep from scalding himself. It was good. Despite all else, the food was very good and he let himself enjoy it, knowing that it was the last meal that someone else would prepare for him.
Belly full, he went back to his bed and cast himself down on it. As if it were a great relief to be alone, he relaxed and found sleep almost immediately. Hours passed. I was suspended inside him, wondering what his intentions were. It was late afternoon before he stirred again.
He finished the squirrel stew and made tea. He drank one cup of it, then refilled his mug and carried it outside. Neither Soldier’s Boy nor I was surprised when we heard a heavy bird settle into the branches overhead. He sipped his tea and looked around at the deserted village. After a time, the big croaker bird dropped down to the ground and regarded us with shining eyes. He waddled over to inspect a discarded rag, turned and tossed it to be sure nothing edible was there, and then preened his wing pinions. When he was finished, he turned his gaze back to me. “Well?” Orandula asked. “Did you forget to migrate?”
“Leave me alone,” Soldier’s Boy warned him.
“Everyone already did that,” the bird-god pointed out. “I can’t see that it solved anything for you.”
“What do you care?” Soldier’s Boy asked harshly.
“I care that debts to me be paid. You owe me. A life or a death. Remember?”
“You took Likari already,” Soldier’s Boy accused him.
“I took Likari? Not I. Besides, if I had taken him, then I would have ‘taken’ him. Not at all the same as you giving him to me to pay your debt. No, you still owe me.”
“That isn’t my debt,” he said fiercely.
The croaker bird turned his head and regarded him strangely for a moment. Then he cawed out a harsh laugh. “Perhaps not. But as you are both encased in the same flesh, I do not see how that matters to me. And I wish to be paid.”
“Then kill him and take his life as payment. Or his death, however you want to speak of it. It’s all the same to me. If he were gone, perhaps I could think clearly.” Soldier’s Boy drank the last of his tea. “Perhaps if you killed him, I could truly be one of the People, even if I could not save them from the intruders.”