"Insane like what?" Now she did look up, to seethat his eyes were burning dark gold and his fangswere gone. His mouth simply looked scornful and aristocratic.
"Trusting people," he said, as if it should havebeen obvious. "Taking care of people. Don't youknow that only the strong ones make it? Weak people are deadweightand if you try to help them, they'll drag you down with them."
Maggie had an answer for that. "Cady isn'tweak," she said flatly. "She's sickShe'll get betterif she gets the chance. And if we don't take care ofeach other, what's going to happen to all of us?"
He looked exasperated, and for a few minutesthey stared at each other in mutual frustration.
Then Maggie bent and picked up the bag again."I'd better give it to her now. I'll bring your can teen back."
"Wait." His voice was abrupt and cold, unfriendly. But this time he didn't grab her."What?"
"Follow me." He gave the order briefly andturned without pausing to see if she obeyed. It wasclear that he expectedpeople to obey him, withoutquestions. "Bring the bag," he said, without lookingover his shoulder.
Maggie hesitated an instant, glancing down atCady. But the hollow was protected by the overhanging boulders; Cady would be all right there for a few minutes.
She followed the boy. The narrow path that wound around the mountain was rough and primitive, interrupted by bands of broken, razor-sharpslate. She had to pick her way carefully aroundthem.
In front of her, the boy turned toward the rocksuddenly and disappeared. When Maggie caught up, she saw the cave.
The entrance was small, hardly more than acrack, and even Maggie had to stoop and go in sideways. But inside it opened into a snug littleenclosure that smelled of dampness and cool rock.
Almost no light filtered in from the outsideworld. Maggie blinked, trying to adjust to the neardarkness, when there was a sound like a match strike and a smell of sulphur. A tiny flame was born, and Maggie saw the boy lighting some kindof crude stone lamp that had been carved out ofthe cave wall itself. He glanced back at her and his eyes flashed gold.
But Maggie was gasping, looking around her.The light of the little flame threw a mass of shifting, confusing shadows everywhere, but it alsopicked out threads of sparkling quartz in the rock.The small cave had become a place of enchantment.
Andatthe boy's feet was something that glitteredsilver. In the hush of the still air, Maggie couldhear the liquid, bell-like sound of water dripping.
"It'sa pool," the boy said. "Spring fed. The watees cold, but it's good. Water .Something like pure lust overcame Maggie. She took three steps forward, ignoring the boy completely, and then her legs collapsed.Shecupped a hand in the pool, felt the coolness encompass it to the wrist, and brought it out asif shewere holding liquid diamond in her palm.
She'd never tasted anything asgood as that water. No Coke she'd drunk on the hottest day of summer could compare with it. It ran through herdry mouth and down her parched throatand then it seemed to spread all through her, sparklingthrough her body, soothing and reviving her. A sort of crystal clearness entered her brain. She drankand drank in a state of pure bliss.
And then, when she was in the even more blissfulstate of being not thirsty anymore, she plunged the leather bag under the surface to fill it.
"What's that for?" But there was a certain resignation in the boy's voice.
"Cady. I have to get back to her." Maggie sat backon her heels and looked at him. The light dancedand flickered around him, glinting bronze off hisdark hair, casting half his face in shadow.
"Thank you," she said, quietly, but in a voice thatshook slightly. "I think you probably saved mylife again."
"You were really thirsty."
"Yeah." She stood up.
"But when you thought there wasn't enoughwater, you were going to give it to her." He couldn'tseem to get over the concept.
"Yeah"
"Even if it meant you dying?"
"I didn't die," Maggie pointed out. "And I wasn'tplanning to. Butyeah, I guess, if there wasn't anyother choice." She saw him staring at her in utterbewilderment. "I took responsibility for her," shesaid, trying to explain. "It's like when you take ina cat, or-or it's like being a queen or something.If you say you're going to be responsible for your subjects, you are. You owe them afterward."
Something glimmered in his golden eyes, just fora moment. It could have been a dagger point ofanger or just a spark of astonishment. There wasa silence.
"It's not thatweird, people taking care of each other," Maggie said, looking at his shadowed face.
"Doesn't anybody do it here?"
He gave a short laugh. "Hardly," he said dryly."The nobles know how to take care of themselves.And the slaves have to fight each other to survive." He added abruptly, "All of which you should know.But of course you're not from here. You're fromOutside."
"I didn't know if you knew about Outside," Mag gie said.
"There isn't supposed to be any contact. Therewasn't for about five hundred years. But whenmy-when the old king died, they opened the pass,again and started bringing in slaves from the outside world. New blood." He said it simply andmatter-of-factly.
Mountain men, Maggie thought. For years there had been rumors about the Cascades, about menwho lived in hidden places among the glaciers andpreyed on climbers. Men or monsters. There were always hikers who claimed to have seen Bigfoot.
And maybe they had-or maybe they'd seen ashapeshifter like Bern.
"And you think that's okay," she said out loud."Grabbing people from the outside world and dragging them in here to be slaves."