Law

The one who was going away for a while was packing his things
methodically so that the lighter ones went on top and the heavier ones
went at the bottom. It was common sense. He was afraid that he was
losing hold of his common sense, and so was delighted to discover he
still possessed some. Behind him she watched him pack as though she did
not care.

"I will have a horse ready for you."

"It is not necessary. I am taking the snake."

"The snake is under repairs. The Mechanic has said it is not
safe."

"Then I wil take the horse," he said, "and thank you."

She was sitting at a table where a flat, blank mirror that reflected
only the outlines of images stood, one hand with the fingers long and
steady on a slab of faintly marbled stone. In the mirror, he saw, her
hair was white and her skin was white and her eyes had no colour at
all. When he looked at her she was still like that, all white, and
nothing in her eyes, not even reflected light, because of the way she
held her head.

"The light is broken," he said, watching it flicker.

"It is not needed."

"I like it."

"I don't."

"It should be fixed," he said.

"You will fix it when you return."

"Yes," he said, "I shall, then."

Outside, far away, they could hear a shrill yelp break the silence. It
was very loud, here, underground. It came from where the snake should
be, where you waited for it and stood out of its way as it hummed into
view, and when you heard the yelp you felt a twinge of compassion for
the small, purple-haired elf who was doubtless kicking the side of the
snake's control mechanism in a fury to try and make it behave.

"The Mechanic is nearby," he said, "shall I ask him to see to
it?"

"No." She tapped her fingers on the stone. "He is always busy. I would
not have him disturbed for such a triviality."

"Anyway," he said, "you do not like the light."

"Yes..."

The bag was small and compact and closed easily because he was only
taking a change of clothes for three days. If he did not pass the Bar
he would die and not need anything like clothes any more; if he passed,
he would only be staying there three days at the most and more things
would only bulge the bag at the corners and make it difficult to close
and carry.

"If you are ready I will send a boy for the horse," she said.

"Yes... No... I am not sure of that."

"Not sure?"

Her white face, pearl-coloured and pearl-tinged, the eyes still without
colour, regarding him. In flickers the light came and went, and each
time her face disappeared from sight it seemed all the more unfamiliar
the next time it reappeared.

"I thought I would like to sit a while here with you," he said.

"Why would you want to do a thing like that?"

He shrugged, sitting down on the long couch that had always smelled
faintly of decaying flowers and rose-water. Against the
telepathically-carved stone legs of the couch his left heel absently
scraped left and right, deepening a depression that he had started long
ago with this unconscious habit of his.

She did not look at him, she moved a finger in a particular way across
the stone and the mirror shifted, failing to reflect, blurring and
unblurring into some other scene, another reflection, where horses
breathed warm air and the air shifted in a thousand small draughts from
the irate fanning of leathery wings. A dark, lanky boy in overalls,
whose pointed ears stuck out from under a short mat of white hair at
unbelievable angles to his head, looked up as the command slipped from
his elder's colourless mind, into the stone, through the mirror, into
his thoughts. He clicked his tongue in a soft staccato rhythm, brief
and quick, and jumped up to the saddle room.

"The horse will be ready in five minutes," she said, still looking at
the mirror and the rows of black and chestnut flanks lining the stalls.
"I have told him to saddle the one you are used to. He says it will be
good today. You will enjoy the ride."

"The last ride I will enjoy," he said, smiling at her. It was very
rarely that he smiled, and even more rarely still when she smiled back.
It had become like that only in the past few months, he realised. She
did not smile back now. "No, I did not mean to say it like that.
Vyshun. I am sorry."

"It is what you want, isn't it?"

"It is what I have always wanted."

"Then why apologise? I have never apologised to you."

"I am sorry. Vyshun. I do not know what exactly I mean to you, not now,
but you have come to mean a lot to me. I know what I will be when I
come back - because I know I will come back, Vyshun, I was born to pass
the Bar, born to be the Scirrims' Lawyer - I know that I will not be
able to speak like this, to feel like this. I will not be able to feel
at all. And I do not care. But it is the things I do not know, that
make me feel I should not go."

"You have been working for this all your life," she said. "It is only
right that you should go."

"Is that what you say, then?"

"Yes. Go."

He looked at her. The colourless eyes had nothing to say to him. He had
thought they would. And finding out the truth, he was almost giddy with
relief.

"Then I will go," he said, rising, the bag in his hand. "I am sorry
that you did not love me - I loved you, honestly, I still do - but if
you do not, then, I am glad. You will not feel any pain..."

She had turned her head back to the mirror. Now he could only see her
reflection, the outlines and the whiteness, and the emptiness in her
eyes.

"Vyshun?"

"You know what your horse is like when he is kept waiting," she said,
"he starts biting the others. I want my stableboy to keep all ten
fingers intact. Go!"

The light boots clicked as he walked out. On the threshold he paused,
because the light had just then shuddered tremendously, like a candle
being blown out by the wind. She had been looking at the image of him
that the mirror had caught, and, watching the light go out as it washed
across his face, it seemed that all of him that mattered was being
blown out, too. He would not go away entirely; like a candle going out,
the light would be replaced by darkness. It only mattered how you felt
about darkness. Because the light from a candle flame could burn
something warm into your heart, but the darkness would only be
there...

"I really must fix that light when I come back," he said. "Remind me,
Vyshun."

He shut the door. The mirror reflected a face so white and eyes so full
of nothing that you could not see the tears.