He lay on the ground panting, not able to reconcile the scent of damp earth with the darkness of the tower. Beside him Dale groaned. He rolled over and found her sitting up, gingerly reaching for her singed shoulder.
“Water!” he screamed at Estral.
The minstrel, who had listened to him and kept playing and singing no matter what, now set her lute aside, grabbed a waterskin and ran it over to him. She asked no questions, just thrust the waterskin at him. He liked that.
He crawled over to Dale. Her shoulder was an angry red.
“I’m all right,” Dale said. The dazed look in her eyes suggested otherwise.
Alton poured water on the burn. Dale screamed and fell back, but did not resist. Alton kept pouring.
Dale gasped. “Don’t get all of me wet.”
“Well, hold still then!” To Estral he said, “We need to get her back.”
“It stings like all five hells,” Dale said, “but I’ll live.”
“Good,” Alton replied, “but we’re still going back so Leese can have a look.”
Dale groaned.
“Plus,” he added, “Merdigen will want to hear about the tower.”
“There was something in there,” Dale whispered.
“Yes. Yes, there was.”
To Estral’s credit, as soon as Alton said they needed to go back, she’d set about collecting their things and packing them, no small effort considering they’d brought camping supplies so they could spend the night at the wall if necessary. She then started bridling the horses and tightening girths. Dale’s Plover almost dragged Estral away in an effort to reach her injured Rider. And still Estral did not question them about what happened.
By the time Alton had finished pouring out the contents of the waterskin over Dale’s burn, she was shivering in the cold air. He removed his own greatcoat and gently placed it over her good shoulder and wrapped it around her in a way that would keep most of her warm but not aggravate her burn. He then helped her to mount.
“I’m all right, really,” she said, but there was an edge to her voice that wasn’t entirely convincing.
He lifted her waterskin from the saddle horn and thrust it into her hands, then knotted Plover’s reins over the mare’s neck so they would not drag. Before Dale could protest, he said, “Drink as we go. Plover knows the way.”
Dale rolled her eyes, but she did not argue. Alton was glad. He wanted to get her going before shock set in. Even if it did not, the burn was obviously painful, and the sooner it was treated, the better. They had a long ride ahead of them, but he’d use all his Green Rider training to get them home faster than they’d arrived at Tower of the Earth.
It was not until they were well under way, taking a break at a walk from the ground-eating trot he’d paced them at, when Estral started asking questions.
“What happened back there?” Her eyes were large, her forehead crinkled.
“Hard to say,” Alton replied.
There was an amused snort from Dale up ahead. Alton made her ride lead so he could keep an eye on her. Not that Plover would allow her Rider to fall, but he wanted to make sure. The way was easy to follow anyway, with the immensity of the wall to their immediate right.
“You just drink,” he ordered her. He remembered hearing from Leese that it was important for injured people to drink water. He wasn’t sure why, or even if she meant all injured people, but at the very least it gave Dale something to think about other than the pain of her burn.
“I’m getting waterlogged,” she complained.
“Good. Keep it up.”
Dale grumbled something he couldn’t quite make out, and probably didn’t want to hear, but at least she complied and took a swig from her waterskin.
“The beginning,” Estral reminded him. “Begin with the music.”
When he explained where the melody he’d requested her to play had come from, she gazed at him in amazement.
“The guardians resonated with your music and allowed us to enter the tower. That begets a lot of new questions, one being how and why they are responding like that to your playing, and another being why they were stubborn about letting us through in the first place.”
“I don’t know about the latter,” Estral mused, “but as to the former, music is powerful. It can make you laugh and sing along, or move you to tears. It has started wars, and brought peace. If the wall’s strength is really the harmony of the guardians’ song, then it makes perfect sense to me they should respond to my music. I am, after all, descended from Gerlrand Fiori, and one certainly gets the impression from the stories that there was magic in his music.”
Alton just didn’t know, but her explanation made as much sense, if not more, than anything else he could think of. He was also impressed by how casually she discussed such ideas. He was so used to the antagonism expressed toward magic by those other than Riders that her acceptance of it surprised him.
“So you got into the tower,” Estral said. “Then what?”
Alton removed his feet from his stirrups and rotated his ankles to stretch his legs. He kept Night Hawk on a very long rein, but the messenger horses appeared to understand the need to make time, so kept to a fast walk.
“There was ... there was lightning,” Alton said. “It struck at anything that moved. Not regular lightning, but magic.”
“That’s what got Dale?”
“I did not get got!” Dale protested. “I was grazed. If I’d been gotten, I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”