Mercedes Lackey - The Demon's Den

"I know. Now, listen carefully because this is important. On my way in, I tried to lay the rope so it wouldn't snag, but your Companion will have to drag you clear without stopping — one long smooth motion, no matter what."

"No matter what?" Jors repeated, twisting to peer over his shoulder, the instinctive desire to see her face winning out over the reality. The loose slope he was lying on shifted.

"Hold still!" Ari snapped. "Do you want to bury yourself again?"

Jors froze. "What's going to happen, Ari?"

Behind him, in the darkness, he heard her sigh. "Do you know what a keystone is, Herald?"

"It's the stone that takes the weight of the other stones and holds up the arch."

"Essentially. The rock that fell on your legs fell in such a way as to make it the keystone for this cavern we're in."

"But you didn't move the rock."

"No, but I did move your legs, and they were part of it."

"Then what's supporting the keystone?" He knew before she answered.

"I am."

"No."

"No what, Herald?"

"No. I won't let you sacrifice your life for mine."

"Yet Heralds are often called upon to give then- lives for others."

"That's different."

"Why?" Her voice cracked out of the darkness like a whip. "You're allowed to be noble, but the rest of us aren't? You're so good and pure and perfect and Chosen and the rest of us don't even have lives worth throwing away? Don't you see how stupid that is? Your life is worth infinitely more than mine!" She stopped and caught her breath on the edge of a sob. "There should never have been a mine here. Do you know why I dug it? To prove I was as good as all those others who were Chosen when I wasn't. I was smarter. I wanted it as much. Why not me? And do you know what my pride did, Herald? It killed seventeen people when the mine collapsed. And then my cowardice killed my brother and an uncle and a woman barely out of girlhood because I was afraid to die. My life wasn't worth all those lives. Let my death be worth your life at least."

He braced himself against her pain. "I can't let you die for me."

"And yet if our positions were reversed, you'd expect me to let you die for me." She ground the words out through the shards of broken bones, of broken dreams. "Heralds die for what they believe in all the time. Why can't I?"

"You've got it wrong, Ari," he told her quietly. "Heralds die, I won't deny that. And we all know we may have to sacrifice ourselves someday for the greater good. But we don't die for what we believe in. We live for it."

Ari couldn't stop shaking, but it wasn't from the cold or even from the throbbing pain in her stumps.

"Who else do you want that mine to kill?"

"This, all this, is my responsibility. I won't let it kill anyone else."

Because he couldn't reach her with his hands, Jors put his heart in his voice and wrapped it around her. "Neither will I. What will happen if you grab my legs and Gevris pulls us both free?"

He heard her swallow. "The tunnel will collapse."

"All at once?"

"No ..."

"It'll begin here and follow us?"

"Yes. But not even a Companion could pull us out that quickly."

:Gevris ...: Jors sketched the situation. :Do you think you can beat the collapse?:

:Yes, but do you think you can survive the trip? You'll be dragged on your stomach through a rock tunnel:

:Well, I'm not going to survive much longer down here, that's for certain — I'm numb from my neck to my knees. I'm in leathers. I should be okay.:

:What about your head?:

:Good point.: "Ari, you're wearing a heavy sheepskin coat, can you work part of it up over your head."

"Yes, but ..."

"Do it. And watch for falling rock, I'm going to do the same."

"What about your pack?"

He'd forgotten all about it. Letting the loop of rope under his armpits hold his weight, he managed to secure it like a kind of crude helmet.

"Grab hold of my ankles, Ari."

"Ari, I can't force you to live. I can only ask you not to die."

He felt a tentative touch, and then a firmer hold. :Go, Gevris!:

They stayed at the settlement for nearly a week. Although the Healer assured him that the hours spent trapped in the cold and the damp had done no permanent damage, Jors wore a stitched cut along his jaw as a remembrance of the passage out of the Demon's Den.

Ari was learning to live again. She still carried the weight of the lives lost to her pride, but she'd found the strength to bear the load.

"Don't expect sweetness and light, though," she cautioned the Herald as he and Gevris prepared to leave. "I was irritating and opinionated before the accident." Her mouth crooked slightly, and she added, with just a hint of the old bitterness, "I expect that's why I was never Chosen."

Jors grinned as Gevris pushed his head into her shoulder. "He says you were chosen for something else."

"He said that?" Ari lifted her hand and lightly stroked the Companion's face. She smiled, the expression feeling strange and new. "Then I guess I'd better get on with it."

As they were riding out of the settlement to take up their interrupted circuit again, Jors turned back to wave and saw Ari sketching something wondrous in the air, prodded by the piping questions of young Robin.

:I guess she won't be alone in the dark anymore.:

Gevris tossed his head. :She never had to be.:

:Sometimes it's hard for people to realize that.: They rode in silence for a moment, then Jors sighed, watching his breath plume in the frosty air. :I'm glad they found the body of that cat — I'd hate to have to go back into the Den to look for it: Their route would take them nowhere near the Demon's Den. :That was as close to the Havens as I want to come for a while.: And then he realized.

:Gevris, you knew Ari wanted to die down there!:

:Yes.:

:Then why did you let her go into that mine?:

:Because I believed she could free you.:

:But...:

:And,: the Companion continued, :I believed you could free her.: