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I was relieved to stop explaining myself to Rhodin, but that left me circling back to something he’d said previously. “You have been taking good care of Cliopher for me, I can see. But what did you mean, when you said that he must remember what the physician said? Nothing of great moment, I hope?”
Clearly it could not be too bad, as they had traveled here; but I was still concerned about what had happened that there were any physician’s restrictions involved. Rhodin was looking past me at Kip.
Who said, “I am, as you can see, quite recovered. It was not all that serious, really.”
As reassurances went, that one was weak, and it didn’t answer my question.
Before I could complain, Rhodin said easily, “Certainly not, if you consider causing the entire government to go into the protocol for the unexpected death of its acting head of state not all that serious.”
I admit I only sort-of heard the end of his sentence through the roaring in my ears. “I beg your pardon?” I felt far away from my words themselves. I spun to stare at Kip, and the air in the room spun with me, setting papers flying everywhere. Another time I would have worried about upsetting him, and possibly others since I had no idea if the effect was limited to this room.
Right now, what mattered was that I could see him again. He was standing there, he was clearly alive, he was breathing. Even with that reassurance, my throat was tight and the world - everything but him - was at a remove.
I did not remember all the details of that protocol; it was not one I would have ever had to carry out. I had been involved in its creation before I left on my quest, though. And I very well remembered that there were separate protocols for the incapacity or unavailability of the acting head of state. For this protocol to be enacted, they had been confident Kip was dead. Clearly they had been wrong, but by exactly how much?
Because while I could see he was breathing, I could also see that he was not entirely himself. Of course, he would tidy his papers regardless, but he dropped his eyes as he did so, not meeting mine. Focusing on and fussing with the papers. His hands were shaking, very slightly, so that the receipts fluttered.
I could run back over our previous conversation and see all the signs I had missed. Was it fond familiarity and habit that had led him to answer me, unsurprised by my presence? Or was it a sign that he wasn’t thinking with his normal clarity? His terrible deflection of the question before Rhodin stepped in certainly suggested that whatever had happened was bad; if it had been small enough to become a funny joke, he would have said it, and reassured himself and me at once.
I turned back to listen to Rhodin, waiting for him to get to the point, but shifted so I could keep Kip in my peripheral vision. Eventually Rhodin spoke of his friends visiting, and said they thought he ought to take a proper holiday.
“And so you came here?” I looked over at Kip again. But even I knew that was inane. Perhaps something had happened on the way, or perhaps it was overwork…? No, that was not it at all, for Kip turned his face away from me, looking uneasy. Worse, he was unsteady, wavering slightly where he stood.
Rhodin was describing the trip to the Liaau, one of Kip’s favorite paths, and a stop for lunch just on the far side of a tunnel. Apparently the view was very fine, but he glanced at my face and cut his descriptions of it short. “And then Cliopher went ahead down the trail a bit with Pikabe, and was waiting below us, when a third of the mountain came loose and slid down at them.”
I was completely still then without being at all serene; I was simply frozen in useless panic. I actually thought I might throw up.
“We went as quickly as we could after the rocks stopped falling. Cliopher and Pikabe had been caught against a tree. When we got to them, they were both unconscious. Pikabe lost his arm, but Falbert got a tourniquet on it while I was still confirming that Cliopher was alive and breathing. Which he was. Between us, magic and the emergency kit, we were able to keep both of them alive.
“The slide had blocked the tunnel we’d come through and also the river. The rains started early, later that day, and we took shelter in a cave. There were no skyships that first day - I found out after that the magical disturbance from the landslide had interfered with them. The second day, Cliopher woke up, but his memory extended only to the night of the Fall.”
Rhodin continued talking, explaining how it had taken a week to get out and had involved a local child and a handmade canoe. I had been glancing between him and Kip with growing horror throughout. It was not reassuring that Kip was avoiding my eyes, nor that his movements seemed a little off, less precise, as he tucked things into his writing kit. I wasn’t sure if that was real or my imagination, but his increasing winces were definitely real, and his expression was pinched.
When they reached Solaara, they had found the city in mourning - and the idea of that appalled me even though the entire discussion had started by making it clear that they had taken Kip for dead. It was a relief to hear that he’d been under Domina Audry’s care after that, and Pikabe had had proper care also, but it had been three weeks after the accident before Cliopher’s memories returned. When they had, he and Aioru had agreed not to go through the Protocol for his unexpected return, as Aoiru had things well enough in hand. Instead, Kip had spent a further time recovering. And then they had come to see if Basil was alive, him and Rhodin.
I turned fully toward Cliopher this time, not just a glance or a head-turn.
Before I could find words, he looked up, and swallowed visibly. “I’m fine. Truly.”
My mind was replaying the disaster - given the spare description, inventing large parts of it. He could have been the one with a limb ripped off. He could have died, and I had not been there with him, to protect him or to share the danger. (How had it happened, actually, with the protections I had wrapped about him? What would have happened without them?) I knew there was no pretense of calm in my expression, in my voice. “Cliopher. Kip. You were caught in a landslide.”
“Pikabe lost his arm,” he said, sounding more concerned about that.
“Pikabe isn’t here. Nor is he you.” I was not sure that I would have been any kinder if he had been present, but while I certainly hoped Pikabe would recover and I didn’t wish him ill, that was about the extent of my concern.
Kip was still for a moment and then looked down at his writing case as he tugged a piece of newsprint, crisply folded, from it. He shoved it across the table, not saying anything, and as I picked it up his shoulders relaxed a little.
I read the eulogy there quickly. Of course Prince Rufus had taken the chance to speak to the people and the paper. He spent some time lauding Kip’s achievements in government reform; at least two were actually things Rufus had not opposed at the time. And of course he had ignored the Vangavaye-ve entirely. Instead he wrote how much Kip had loved the Liaau - which was true - and how pleased he would be to have been buried among its beauty - which I was rather more doubtful of. Clunky though his wording was, he did manage to leave me with the image of Kip under tons of rock, so it was with a fair amount of spite that I quietly muttered that my eulogy would have been far better.
It was one of those thin inserts, and I flipped it open, expecting to find more about Kip’s purported (near!) death. Instead I found myself staring at the headline on the article there: Lord Mdang’s Last Wishes to Declare Fitzroy Angursell Poet Laureate!
I had to catch my breath a moment, stricken by “last wishes” and simultaneously wondering how news declaring me poet laureate had reached Sardeet without accompanying news of his death. “Kip….”
He met my eyes again and said, hoarsely, “Read it.” His eyes weren’t dancing with amusement; instead they were earnest and just a touch uncertain, a state I only rarely saw him in. This time I didn’t think it had anything to do with his injury.
I looked back at the paper, reading the two-page essay - remarkably brief for something Kip proposed, but then, it was fairly straightforward. Compliments to the breadth of my body of work, analysis of some key points, and then the effect it had had on his government reforms. I had known he was using some source I hadn’t been familiar with initially - that was the Lays. But I also knew, over time, that he was addressing all of my deep concerns with the Empire and its excesses. I’d thought it deliberate, given his choice of songs to hum made it clear he knew them. But here it was confirmed, in just as many words.
I know very well how I feel, and I was still deeply touched to see him say how deeply my poems had affected and influenced him. And as he had used my name, I didn’t have to wonder any longer if he knew. I could see how this would be taken publicly, and it would not be how I read it, but I was reading a love-letter to my self. Aimed at my poetry, yes, but the changes he had made to free me were in here also. I wasn’t sure whether I was looking like a moon-struck calf as I looked up at him for a long moment. Then I returned to it, rereading the essay and committing certain phrases to memory. I couldn’t resist reading one of them aloud, though it was only a whisper.
Kip said “My lord” - but the tone in which he said it was too intimate for the reflexive address to hurt. It was a very speaking tone, as this was a very speaking article.
Most of my attention was on the article and Kip, but long practice at noticing things in my peripheral vision meant that I saw Rhodin slowly leaving the room. He was moving very quietly, almost sneaking. As I wanted the privacy, I appreciated it too much to permit myself to laugh at it.
“Kip,” I said, and beckoned him closer. He came - not quite as close as I’d intended, but too close for the formal distances, so that he was clearly not putting space between us, just hesitating as if unsure what I wanted. I solved that by stepping forward to hug him tightly to me.
He was here. He knew my name. He knew me. He was alive. I wasn’t happy that last had been in doubt, but that only made me tighten my arms more. I found myself whispering, “Thank you, Kip. Thank you.” I was talking about the essay. And about so many other things. That he had been there for me over hundreds of years; that he had seen me; that he had come here; that he was alive.