The smoke—scorched sea-root and sandy grains of ground teba flower—kept Arn in a daze between the dreamworld and the real one. When he wasn’t chatting with the critters and gods of the world after, he was being moved about by Jorik in a strange assortment of stretches and exercises to prevent his muscles from wilting completely.
“It’s ironic, don’t you think,” Arn mumbled, one day, “That you’re both my healer and my embalmer?”
Jorik only smiled. “Certain individuals made it clear that my continued breathing hinges on your continued breathing,” he told Arn.
Arn lapsed out of the hut and into the foggy dream hallway once more, and it was not until a few hours—or days—later that he had a follow up thought. Who would be rooting for him?
He asked Thalla about it one day, after she asked Jorik to remove the smoke pan from the Arn’s hut to give him a few minutes to clear his head. She laughed, when he asked if she’d threatened the Embalmer. “Of course not,” she said. “If anyone threatens him, they get the ire of all the band chiefs, and Stone Spear as well.”
“Well Jorik doesn’t care enough to keep me alive,” Arn mumbled.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, looking at his tunic of herbs and clay. He wore more than she did, but the heat barely registered.
Arn nodded. “Jorik told me he drained more blood out of me than his bucket could hold… all pressing on my insides. I can barely move my torso without—I’ll survive.”
Thalla put her hand on Arn’s arm. “You don’t have to be tough with me,” she said. “With all the rest, I understand. But not with me.”
Arn smiled weakly. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?” he asked. His friend shook her head, but Arn continued. “If I survive this sickbed—if!—then one of the others will kill me as soon as I walk out that cursed door.”
“They won’t,” Thalla said. “Shar is in rough shape too and I’ve taken steps to affirm my—our leadership of the hunters. Your sister won’t kill you, and Logern has played his strategies. It’s just a long road back, but you can do it.” Arn wouldn’t put it past Keeya—she was a capable habitant of Razaad.
“I’m not even certain if I will try,” Arn said. “I have no desire to be chief hunter until someone with better reflexes comes along. That is the game, not the victory.”
“And hunting on the Deep is?” Thalla questioned.
Arn tried to sit, but ended up leaning painfully on his elbow. “Don’t doubt me,” he told her. “Doubt any of the others, but not with me.”
“Fine,” she said, and Arn laid down. His fingers were bound up in a bundled bandage, his face covered in bruises that his body didn’t have time to heal while it worked away at rebuilding his innards.
“Keep updating me,” Arn said. “If anyone challenges you, I want to know.”
Thalla nodded. “Nothing so far. Do you need anything? Good, but let me know if you do.” She stood up and crossed to the entrance of the hut. “Do you want the smoke pan back in here?”
Arn nodded. It would numb the pain, but that wasn’t why. Arn felt that he was learning things in the dreamworld, and it sped the time by. Arn was not very good at being injured, defenceless, and vulnerable. He wanted to hurry up the time until he was stronger.
“Listen, Arn,” Thalla said, from the leather-canopied doorway. “I’ll protect your position and your life. I’ll be your eyes and ears. I’d even bear you children if you ever made that move with me. But I will never get on a raft with you. I’m sorry, Arn. Hunting the Deep… that’s the stuff of dreams, not Razaad.”
Arn didn’t bother stopping her when she finally left. Even though she’d offered her secret bits to him in the same phrase, Arn felt more alone than ever when she left. It was probably just his wounded sense of security that got to him, because Arn the hunter had never cared for the company of others. Jorik returned, and Arn drifted off to sleep, to dream of animal instincts and waves that threatened to drown him.