The Other Warmth

Year 0, late winter, the second afternoon after the chapter house. The eastern road and the Sunward chambers, Valdris.

The young paladin's name was Darris.

He had been on the eastern road with Captain Moren's small patrol when an arrow had taken him at the lower-left ribs and the second arrow had taken him at the throat. Brother Aldwen's reading found no Cult mark on the arrows. The arrows had been the arrows of a man who had been, perhaps until that morning, a small footpad living in the foothills who had been hired by someone he had not, in his short life, asked enough questions about. The footpad was, by the time Captain Moren reached him, dead. The patrol had brought Darris and the footpad's body back to Valdris together. The patrol had brought Darris in, by the small old protocol of Captain Moren's company, while he was still warm.

Captain Moren came through the Sunward chamber doorway at the second bell of the afternoon.

"My lord. The young paladin from Nyra's chapter house, the one she sent on the road this morning. Brother Aldwen says the arrow at the throat will, by the count of the next half-bell, take him. He is, this hour, still drawing breath. He has been bound for the long minutes between the road and the central pavilion. He is at the small chapel-side room where Lord Darrenth was laid. Brother Aldwen has, by the protocol of the Order, asked whether the Sunward seat will, this hour, attempt the reach."

Kaelith was at the long table. The third Crown piece was at the chapter house chapel. The stack of papers Captain Moren had left him at noon was, this hour, half-read.

He stood up.

He had not, for the last week, used Light of Unity. The warmth in his sternum had been, in the week, the steady low heat of a man who was carrying. He had been, in the week, deciding when to use the warmth and when to hold it. The deciding had been, by the working of the previous chapters, a thing he had been learning. He had not yet learned it well. He suspected he would, in the season to come, learn it better. The learning, this afternoon, had not been finished.

"I will come."

"My lord."

The walk to the central pavilion was, by Captain Moren's pace, perhaps four minutes. Kaelith walked it in three. He did not, in the walking, run. The running, by the protocol of the Order, would have been a small old indignity to the dying paladin. The walking, however, was the walking of a man who had decided that this was the one to use the reach for.

The chapel-side room was small. Brother Aldwen was at the door. Sister Mara was at the foot of the small cot. Darris was on the cot. He was, by Brother Aldwen's quiet reading, perhaps four minutes from death. His eyes were open. He was, this afternoon, looking up at the chapel-side room's small high window where a strip of late winter sky was the color of old slate.

Kaelith knelt at the cot.

"Paladin."

"My lord." Darris's voice was the voice of a man who had been trained, at the chapter house, to speak even when speaking was not, by the body's measure, easy. "Brother Aldwen has told me. The Order's protocol has been read. I am, this afternoon, willing."

"You do not have to be willing for the Order's protocol, paladin. You have to be willing only for yourself."

"I am willing for myself, my lord."

Kaelith laid his palm flat on Darris's chest, above the wound at the throat.

The reach started.

He had, for the past week, been holding the warmth in his sternum at the temperature he had set it to. He let, this afternoon, the temperature go.

The warmth went out of him.

It went into Darris at the throat first. It went into the wound and held the particular geometry of the wound the way a hand held a piece of fabric being folded. The fabric was, in this case, the particular tear in the windpipe that would, by the body's count, finish Darris before the fifth bell. The warmth held the fabric. The warmth, in the holding, also reached past the wound and into the wound at the lower-left ribs, which had not, by Brother Aldwen's reading, been the killing wound but had been, by the same reading, the wound the dying body had stopped tending because the body had given up on it.

The warmth tended the second wound also.

Then the warmth went past Darris.

Kaelith felt the warmth go past Darris.

He had not, in any prior reach, felt the warmth go past. The warmth had always been, in his prior uses, bounded by the body it was reaching for. This afternoon the warmth went through. It did not, by the long telling, leave Darris. It only, somehow, also left Darris while leaving Darris. The warmth was bigger than Darris. The warmth, in the afternoon, was reaching for something it was not, by any plain reading, reaching for. The warmth was finding something on the way.

The thing it was finding was very far away.

The thing it was finding was another warmth.

Kaelith felt, in the second the reach completed for Darris, the second warmth on the other end of the reach. The second warmth was, by every measure, not in this world. The second warmth was at a place his Codex's grief had no map to. The second warmth was, by his sternum's reading, the same temperature as his own. The second warmth was, by some smaller reading he did not have a name for, the temperature of a young woman who was, at this exact afternoon, working at something she was holding still in her hands.

He could not see her.

He could feel that she was holding still.

He could feel that she had, in the morning, been threading something she was, in the afternoon, still threading. He could feel that her own warmth was not, by the moment he reached, only her warmth. He could feel that her warmth had a substrate, a thing she was always running while everything else was running. He could feel that the substrate was a name she had, in some long-ago morning, lost and not got back.

He could feel that she was, in this afternoon, not alone in the way he was, in this afternoon, not alone.

The reach finished.

Kaelith's palm, on Darris's chest, had been there for perhaps thirty seconds.

Darris drew a breath.

The breath was the breath of a man whose throat was not, this minute, finishing him. Brother Aldwen, at the door, drew breath with him. Sister Mara, at the foot of the cot, did not, in the breath, speak. The chapel-side room held the small quiet that came after the working.

Kaelith took his palm off.

He sat back on his heels.

The warmth in his sternum was, this afternoon, full. It was full not in the way it had been after Darrenth. After Darrenth the fullness had been the weight of a man at twenty-three on a road. This afternoon the fullness was also something else. The something else was the second warmth, though Kaelith had no name for the sensing. The second warmth had, in the reaching, brushed his. The brushing was the brushing of two warm places that had, for some time, been looking for each other and had, this afternoon, in the second of the working, touched.

The second warmth withdrew.

Kaelith sat for a still moment not moving.

After the count, Darris's eyes met his. Darris said, very small: Thank you, my lord.

Kaelith said, also small: Thank you, paladin.

The protocol, under the Order's reading, did not require either thanks. The two of them said them anyway.

Kaelith stood up.

The walk back to the Sunward chambers was longer than the walk to the central pavilion had been. He did not, in the walking, hurry. Captain Moren walked behind him at three paces, the way Captain Moren had been walking behind him since the morning of the council. They did not, in the walking, speak.

In the Sunward chambers, Kaelith laid his palm flat on the long table. He did not lay it on the small wooden horse. He did not lay it on the third Crown piece (which was at the chapter house). He laid his palm on the wood of the table.

The warmth in his sternum was, this afternoon, very full.

He sat.

He thought about the second warmth.

The second warmth had been, by every measure he had, on a different world. The thinking did not, at first, frighten him. The grief in his sternum had been, in the past months, a thing he had begun to understand was larger than any one place he was standing in. He had begun to feel that the grief was not only for the Greenwood-now-Ashwood. He had begun to feel that the grief was also for Lyralei, and for things he had no name for, and for places he had not, in his life, been told the names of. He had not, in the prior months, felt anyone else carrying part of it. He had, this afternoon, felt one.

He thought about who she was.

He could not, in the thinking, name her.

He could only hold the particular impression of her: a young woman with hands working still at something she was holding, with a substrate running, with another name that was, in some long-ago morning, the substrate's substrate. The young woman was, by the temperature of her warmth, carrying as much grief as he was. The young woman was, by the cadence of her threading, threading something she was very good at. The young woman was, by the brushing, not, in this afternoon, alone in the way he was, in this afternoon, not alone.

He set his palm on the wood of the table for a long count.

Then he stood up. He did not, in the standing, plan to do anything. He had, in the past hours, used Light of Unity at a stretch he had not used before, and the using had cost him what the using cost. The cost was the memory it had taken to tend him. Darris looking up at the strip of late winter sky the color of old slate, in the last minute of the dying. The cost was the second warmth. The cost was the recognition. The cost was that the warmth in his sternum was, this afternoon, also someone else's.

He thought, briefly, that perhaps he would, in the season to come, hear her humming.

He did not know whether he would.

He went to bed.

He slept for the third time in two months without dreaming.

He did, however, in the small span of half-sleep before the sleeping took, hum. He did not know he was humming. The humming was the lullaby's first verse. He had never, in his waking life, hummed it without knowing. He hummed it, this evening, without knowing.

The fragment in his sternum hummed it back.

Very far away, in a small unmarked archive on a different world, a young woman with asymmetrical black hair stood at a haptic interface that was not there.

The haptic was a habit. It had been a habit since she was eighteen. The haptic she imagined under her hands was the haptic of the Antivale Underground's old data substrate, and the substrate had been her substrate for nine years, and the substrate was, even when she was not at it, always running.

The substrate, this morning, had been threading the Schism Wars data signature, which had not, this morning, broken yet. The substrate had also been threading Mira's name, which was the third thread she always had open even when she was running only two visible. The substrate had also been threading a fourth thread, this morning, which was a careful signal she had picked up at the third bell from a Covenant signal tower that should not, by every Antivale Underground reading, exist.

The fourth thread, this morning, had had a temperature.

She had not, at first, known how to name the temperature. The substrate had, in her reading, been threading data; data did not have temperatures. This morning the substrate had been threading a thing that was not data, and the not-data-thing had been, by the cadence of the threading, warm.

The warm had brushed her sternum.

She had, in the brushing, paused.

She had not, in nine years, paused mid-thread.

The pause was, by her own measure, perhaps three seconds.

In the three seconds, she had felt: a man, very far away, with a hand on someone's chest, holding something open that the body wanted to close. She had felt: the man's warmth was not, in this morning, only his. She had felt: the man's warmth had reached past whoever he was holding open, had reached out into the world, had found her substrate, had brushed.

She had thought, very small, the steady thought she had not, in nine years, thought:

I am threading something. Help me hold it.

The thought had been, by her careful measure, addressed to no one in particular.

The brushing, in her sternum, had quieted.

She had, after the three seconds, returned to the threading.

She had, however, in the returning, filed the moment in the way she filed everything. She had filed it as: the morning the threading was, briefly, not alone.

She did not, in the filing, name the man.

She did not, in the filing, expect to ever name him.

She did, however, after the filing, make a small note in her private substrate, in the small private channel she did not share with the Antivale Underground or with any of her cell or with any of her own past selves. The note read: There is, perhaps, a partner I have not yet met. The partner has, this morning, brushed.

She closed the substrate.

She went to make tea.

The tea was the small flat tea the Underground's small kitchen kept in the old steel canister. She drank it standing. She did not, this morning, sit. The substrate had been, by every measure, busy enough this morning that the sitting would have felt, by her careful measure, like a vacating of post. She drank standing.

She did not, this morning, hum.

She did, however, in the span before the next thread came in, place her palm flat on the small steel countertop and feel the cold of the steel against her skin. The cold was the cold she had known for nine years. The cold was, this morning, bordered by a small unfamiliar warmth at the inside of her own sternum, where the brushing had been. The warmth was very small. The warmth was, by her measure, perhaps the warmth of a man's hand on a stranger's chest, very far away, holding something open.

She filed the warmth.

She got back to work.

In the Sunward chambers, in the late winter night, Kaelith slept.

Two warm places had, by the long telling, brushed and gone back to their separate work.

The fragment hummed the first verse very softly.

Kaelith, in his sleep, hummed it back.

Outside the chambers, in the Lower Sward, the bakers were beginning the steady smoke of the morning's loaves at perhaps eight bells before the morning. The lamps at the alleys burned low.