32. Annani
ANNANI
The machines arrived shortly after nine, wheeled in through the double doors by two Guardians, with Julian walking ahead of them.
There were five in all.
Two had come down from the village, where they had done their work on Ell-rom and Morelle and then idled in a storage room.
One had been brought from the keep's clinic, where it had spent recent months rehabilitating Navuh's legs.
The last two were brand new and had arrived at the keep last night.
The Guardians delivered them to the village this morning.
They still smelled of their packing materials.
"Continuous passive motion," Julian said, wheeling the first to the foot of the nearest bed. "They'll do the work the muscles can't yet do on their own. Bend the knee, straighten it, over and over, until the tissue remembers what it's meant to do."
Annani rose from the rocking chair and leaned over Khiann, who had woken up from all the commotion, and took his hand. "They are going to put a special device on your leg to help it regain function faster."
He squeezed her hand once, letting her know he'd understood.
"I am going to move so they have room to work." She leaned over him and kissed his forehead.
Annani moved to the front of the ward, where four plastic chairs lined the wall.
She had learned during her vigil that when the staff was performing their duties, she needed to make room.
Usually, she left the ward to use the bathroom upstairs, not because she needed to, but because the five males deserved their dignity.
The medical staff was necessary, but she did not need to be there to watch.
This time, though, she only moved to the chairs at the front, unwilling to miss a moment of this new stage of healing.
Besides, there was nothing intimate about leg braces.
They began with Khiann, and she was glad Julian planned to use one of the new devices on him.
Julian folded back the blanket, and Gertrude fitted the padded cradle to Khiann's leg and buckled the straps.
She was gentle with a limb that three weeks ago had been little more than bone.
When the machine started, Khiann's knee rose, bent, and lowered, driven by the motor, and his eyes grew wide.
"The machine is helping your leg do what it cannot yet do by itself," Annani said in the old tongue.
He looked at his own knee traveling up and down without his permission, and then he looked up at Gertrude, and the corner of his mouth pulled into the crooked half-smile that she loved.
Annani realized he could not see her where she sat, so she rose and stepped closer. "It is a marvelous invention. Is it not?"
"Here you go, Clan Mother." Julian pushed the rocking chair back into place. "You can sit down."
She sat and took Khiann's hand. "Your friends are getting the same treatment. Fates willing, the five of you will walk out of here together." She chuckled. "That might have been a bit optimistic. You will most likely leave in wheelchairs."
Down the row, the staff moved from bed to bed, fitting the guards one by one. The machines came on in sequence until all five were running, and the ward filled with the soft mechanical hum of five devices exercising five pairs of atrophied legs.
The male in the last bed, the one who had been making incoherent sounds for over a week, was at it again.
He had stopped for a couple of days, and Bridget had worried he was regressing, so it was good to hear him mumble once more, even though it was somewhat irritating, mainly because Khiann was not making any sounds at all.
"Ab, Da, ab, da, da, da…Ab…"
He was definitely struggling to say something, and the sounds were more deliberate than before.
"I am going to check on your friend," she told Khiann. "It will only take a moment."
She let go of his hand, rose to her feet, and walked over to the last bed, stopping where he could see her without turning his head.
"Good morning," she said. "I think you are trying to say something. Can I help you find the words?"
He looked at her, his throat working, and the sound came again. "Ab."
Ab meant water in the old tongue, but it was also a starting syllable in many other words.
"Do you mean water?"
"Ab." He said it a third time, and this time it was clear that it stood on its own and was not the beginning of a word.
He wanted water. He had said it because he was thirsty.
"Water," Annani repeated in his language. "You want water."
His eyes stayed on her mouth, and he did not say it again, but he did not have to.
"Julian." She kept her voice level. "He asked for water. Can he have some?"
Julian came over, checked the man, and nodded. "Small sips. Nothing more, and only if he can manage the swallow. I'll watch."
"Can we give water to all of them?" she asked.
"Of course."
Gertrude brought cups with straws, and Annani took one to the far bed first. She held the straw to the man's lips, and as he drew on it and swallowed, the relief on his face was priceless.
She did the same down the row, one guard after another, each taking a swallow, then came back to Khiann.
"One of your men asked for water and got it. Would you like some too?"
She held the cup to his mouth and guided the straw between his lips.
He drank. One swallow, his throat moving with the whole effort of his body. When she drew the straw away, his lips parted, and he pushed air through them, and a sound came out.
"Ab."
It was slurred, but it was the first sound that meant something, and Annani's throat tightened around a sob she refused to let out.
She had waited three weeks for that sound. She had waited five thousand years for him, and here it was, one wrecked syllable pushed through a throat that had not spoken for five thousand years, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard.
Her glow brightened so that Gertrude turned to look and smiled. "You are happy, Clan Mother."
"Yes," Annani said, to Gertrude and to Khiann. "Water. That is the word. You said it. Can you say it again, my love?"
"Ab," he repeated, clearly this time.
"This is wonderful." She leaned over him and kissed one cheek, then the other. "I am so happy." She leaned away. "I have waited so long to hear the sound of your voice."
His brow furrowed, his throat moved, but his next attempt produced no sound. It was only a breath. She kept his hand, neither rushing him nor letting her hope show, to avoid pressuring him.
"Na…An…Nnnani."
It was slurred, almost unrecognizable, but he had said her name, and he was looking straight at her when he did.
Annani lost the fight against her tears and let them come.
"You said my name, Khiann, for the first time in five thousand years." She lifted their joined hands and pressed his to her cheek. "Thank you. Thank you for coming back to me."
From the far bed, the male who had spoken first was making syllables again.
"Ada…Ad…Ada…luh."
Julian looked up from his chart. Gertrude froze with a cup in her hand.
"Adaluh," he said it clearly now.
Annani smiled through tears at Khiann. "I think one of your friends found his name. Adaluh. Is it okay if I go to congratulate him?"
He squeezed her hand once.
Annani rose and went to the guard.
"Adaluh," she said. "That is your name. Esag was right." She took the guard's hand. "Welcome back, Adaluh, son of whoever you are. We will learn the rest together."
The guard did not seem to understand what she had said. But he had given her his name, and that was wonderful progress.
The Fates were merciful.
She had traded Khiann's memories of her for his return, and she did not expect that debt to be forgiven. But the guards had been swept into the bargain through no fault of their own, and the Fates seemed to be giving them back their words, their names.
Piece by piece, the Fates were returning what stasis had taken. If they were merciful to the four guards, perhaps somewhere in their vast weaving they would find some mercy left over for Khiann.
She did not say it aloud because it was greedy to hope for more when she had already been given so much.
The doors swung open, and Alena came through, balancing two cardboard trays of coffee cups.
"I brought coffee for everyone," she announced. "Mother, I got you the tea you—" She stopped, noticing her mother's tear-streaked face. "What happened? What did I miss?"
Annani took the tea from the tray. "Khiann said my name."