Rhylor's debt

After a stop in the cave, they reached the crevasse. It was practicable for a good walker, but not for Sszindi. Orl advanced with small steps, supported by Rhylor, without putting all his weight on his injured leg. A narrow cornice ran along the side of a chasm where the water fell in fine rain. He would not cross it without support. Rhylor stretched Kethra's rope along the cornice and passed a loop under Orl's shoulders, wide enough not to compress his chest. For Sszindi, he made a harness with the straps of his own bag.

"You don't have to keep this rope," he told Zaelyra.

"She holds."

"This is how debts begin."

They crossed one by one. Halfway through, the girl slipped. The rope tensed, and Zaelyra tied against the wall. Rhylor caught up with her before she rocked. When they reached the other side, he put the rope on the ground as if it had offended him.

"Do you hate her because she comes from Kethra? Zaelyra asked.

"I hate what it can cost us."

"Then tell me what you know."

Rhylor sat on a stone, his shoulders bent. For the first time since they left, he looked old.

"My son was called Dhal. He worked at the relays. He disappeared during an expedition eight years ago. The House said he died in a landslide."

"You didn't believe it."

"I believed what allowed me to stay."

He took out of his tunic a copper plate split in half. The open circle was engraved on it. On one edge, three close-to-head notches preceded a space, then a last notch.

"It was his. I found her on the way to Veyr."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Because I didn't know if he had chosen to leave or if someone had sent him. If I had asked the question, the House should have answered. And if she had answered, I should have acted."

Zaelyra looked at the plate. "That's why you recognize the brands."

"Yes."

"And the open circle?"

"It wasn't an official symbol. Dhal and two other guides used it to signal a safe stop. I took it back on my plate, without saying where the brand came from."

He turned the metal between his fingers.

"I let you believe that the sign belonged to an old team. I didn't lie about the team. I lied about why I knew her."

Anger came, but she was not alone. Zaelyra understood the desire he had had to keep part of the story safe, as she had hidden the mark in her sleeve.

"You're telling me that now because we're going to Veyr."

"I'm telling you because I don't want you to move forward on a map of which I deleted half."

"Dhal can be there?"

"He may be dead. He may have fled. He may have chosen not to come back. Rhylor put away the plate. "I want to know which of these things is true. But I will not make his disappearance a reason to put others in danger."

Rhylor was silent for a moment. The drizzle hit the rock around them, strong enough to cover the distant noises.

"The last day I saw him, he asked me if a road could belong to those who travel it. I replied that it belonged to those who kept it."

"He didn't agree?"

"He said that's why he wanted to learn to draw. Rhylor laughed without joy. "I thought he wanted to get out of arms. Above all, he wanted no one to be able to claim that a passage did not exist."

Rhylor took out of his pocket a wooden washer, smooth on one side and covered with marks on the other. Dhal had engraved arches, stairs and doors, too small to serve as a map, too precise to be a game.

"Did he do that during the exercises? Zaelyra asked.

"When I punished him for asking too many questions. I thought he was drawing the positions of his opponents."

"And did you understand?"

"After his disappearance."

He handed her the puck. A series of stitches followed the border, with a space left empty between two groups.

"He marked the places where he was wrong," says Rhylor. "He said that a mistake that you recognize only traps once."

Zaelyra looked at the puck. "You've kept it all these years."

"I didn't know what to do with it."

"You could give it back to him."

"If I find him."

"What if you can't find him?"

Rhylor closed Zaelyra's fingers on the wood. "Then you'll keep it until someone can read it."

She didn't take the puck right away. She knew what he was asking of her: not to look for Dhal at any price, but to let his work survive his absence.

"I will note it as an entrusted object, not as proof that it is alive."

"That's fine with me."

Zaelyra slipped the puck into the inside pocket of her case, separated from the roadmaps.

She thought of the cracked plate he had just put away. "You could have asked him what he meant."

"Yes."

"Do you think he resented you?"

"I think he had better things to do than blame me."

He took the rope back. "This is what is difficult to accept."

She understood that he was not looking for consolation. He tried to name the part of his fault that belonged to him, without inventing the rest.

Zaelyra handed him the rope. "So we keep it until it doesn't last anymore. After that, we will decide what we owe him."

Rhylor took it. "It's a bad way to negotiate."

"I learn from the best."

He had a brief smile, almost surprised.

They took the road again. Zaelyra wrote Dhal's name in the margin of her map, without linking it to a date or destination.

She did not yet have enough information to draw a line.