“I
… I … that’s done. There’s your kiss.”
“I had my eyes closed.
Was that a seagull’s peck I felt?”
Mark my words
, I did enjoy her fluttering like a frightened bird at my sally, but I too was gripped with an unexpected attack of nerves. I had intended to be masterful; in charge of the situation. How oft had I, as a man of considerable experience with the daughters of Yuthe–more than Janos would ever have warranted–not vaunted my skills as a lover? But a question flashed into my mind: truly told, what did I know about love?
As I twined my fingers
gently into her hair to draw P’dáronï into my embrace, I felt as though I would never stop falling. A thousand poems have the ulules scribed for such a moment; ten thousand songs would the Hakooi minstrels croon. And yet it was not like that.
Though we
were a man and a woman in a boat on a river, we were lost in time and space and wonder.
At some point later, I looked over P’dáronï’s shoulder and saw the river
’s waters swelling. Even as my eyes widened, P’dáronï murmured against the corner of my mouth, “The Wurm’s coming, Arlak–you dratted … my head is spinning … why can’t I talk a word of sense? The Wurm!”
I leaped to my feet, staggered to the bench as we rocked upon the swell pushing ahead of the Wurm, and fumbled with the oars.
As my first stroke broke the water’s surface my gaze lifted above P’dáronï’s head. “Oh no.”
“
Oh no–what? When will you learn to tell me what you’re
seeing?
”
“Twenty anna!” I gasped, thrashing the water with
greater fervour than ability. “Closer to twenty-one, on my honour. I’m not in the habit! And P’dáronï, you’re going to kill me anyway. In Mata’s name, what does it matter what I see?” I shipped the oars to make my point. “It’s simple. If you kill me, the Wurm will vanish–”
“Row! You stupid man, will you–
aah!
”
I did not so much catch P’dáronï as tangle with her
as she tumbled into my arms. The boat pitched wildly on the rising swell. Above us, a huge ledge of grey-black clouds shifted across the sky as though a mountain had taken wing and turned sideways to sail by, shunting the blue aside with irresistible impetus. Below that, the Wurm’s serrated mandibles glinted with metallic menace. I gazed deep into its throat. All within was the intense violet glow of magic, an immeasurable ocean of power; Jyla’s creation that fuelled her madness.
The freshening wind swept a
sharp tang of cinnamon and
lillia
to my nostrils. Lightning skittered and crackled with frantic haste between the river banks, the clouds, and the Wurm, but entirely without the accompanying growl of thunder. What filled our ears was the rushing of water and the low reverberation of the Wurm’s passage.
The sail flapped and filled with the breeze.
I lifted myself and P’dáronï together–again surprised at the slightness of her frame–and seated her firmly beside the tiller. I guided her hand to grasp the worn wood. “Hold this steady. If we are to live, my beloved, then do as I say. A little toward you.”
I trimmed the sail and set us a steady course.
The Wurm paced us like a hound upon the scent, for a time keeping level with our vessel as we were forced to snake to follow the Nugar’s lazy meandering, whereas the Wurm simply travelled straight on and true–water, rock or forest, it mattered nought. But, when the river ceased its contortions, the Wurm gradually began to fall behind. I fell to estimating the flood tide of the Nugar with my eyes, and shook my head. Here in the westerly realms of Hakooi, the towns and villages were built away from the water or upon stilts due to the seasonal flooding. But lower down, after we portaged around the rapids, we would face a different difficulty–the Frenjj enjoyed no such luxury. We would have to depart the river and travel overland, or face drowning many Frenjj. I looked back at the Wurm, fully three-quarters of the breadth of the Nugar in this part, and puffed out a breath of air. Would it retreat underground if we left the river? Or would it tear a swathe of destruction across the land instead?
Two or three makh later, I dared to return to P’dáronï’s side. She
rested her head upon my shoulder. “I fear that creature will reshape the world,” she said. “How many days must we run?”
“Twenty-eight
all told. Less what has already passed.” I made bold to slip my arm about her waist, feeling as uncertain as a young buck with his first girlfriend. “If you choose this path, P’dáronï-
nevsêsh
. But I’m content. I am with you.”
“
And I with you.” She picked chunks of dry brown river mud out of her hair. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this filthy. Do I look bad?”
“
You stink,” I chuckled. “Only a pumphouse will cure the pair of us.”
“A far cry from
the perfumeries of Eldrik civilisation, these Fiefdoms of yours,” she needled me gently. “But riddle me this, Arlak-
nevsê.
Which evil should I choose? That evil which guarantees the Wurm’s power to the Sorceress, leading to the downfall of the Eldrik? Or that which might mean the Banishment is never broken, and the Eldrik never made whole? Even to wait is a choice.”
“Ay.”
But her forefinger smoothed the heaviest of sighs from my lips. Her earlier contrariness was a bubble burst and forgotten. “Do not fret, beloved. Rather, let us spend our makh together wisely. Tell me what Janos squirrelled away in your head–all of it. We must not lose faith. Mata has an answer.”
I patted my breast pocket.
“First, let me read you a letter from Janos, the man whom you saved from Talan’s clutches.”
If coincidence in life is a giggle or a farce,
Irony is a
stinging slap.
Old Roymerian Proverb
Two and a half days
we spent upon the Nugar in the relative comfort of our vessel, and I rode us right through the first cataract on a terrified cascade of prayers. When I had managed to unpeel my fingers from the tiller, I brought us ashore, stepped out of the boat, and said, “I need more sleep.”
“You’re
trembling,” said P’dáronï. “And you’re breaking my fingers.”
“Sorry. Your clothing is becoming indecent.”
Her cheeks developed high spots of colour. “So your thoughts inform me.”
“P’dáronï–
I apologise. I am Dissembling.”
“You are Dissembling very well for a beginner,
Arlak-
nevsê
–but not from me. Especially not when we hold hands. Remember, physical contact makes it more difficult. Our meld is imperfect, and your grasp of the onion will require practice. You require denser layers. The more layers of disguise and subterfuge you can sustain, the better.”
I grumbled, “To learn in days what the Eldrik learn from birth is not easily accomplished. My onion keeps leaking.”
The rich effervescence of P’dáronï’s laughter, which had always enticed me, bubbled forth as a stream tossing itself merrily over boulders. “I love knowing how you feel about me. I’m filled with joy. But for all of our sakes you need to learn to keep private things deep within the onion, hidden beneath many layers.”
“The problem with onions is that they
stink as much as I.”
“We need to
move on.” P’dáronï slipped her slender fingers into mine. “As we decided, let’s run the Wurm through these cataracts and then cut away from the river. I wish we could have flown, like Jyla. She might have a
tollish
ship below the rapids.”
I said through our connection. I had learned to temper my power so that I no longer hurt her.
My communication was laboured and slow; P’dáronï’s in
response was nuanced and fluent, almost too swift for me to follow. To think that all the time I dwelled in Eldoran, people were communicating like this all around me! No wonder they had thought me a boor and a provincial dullard.
<
Reflect: rippling-waterfall-laughter. New: defend-self: me-evil-Sorcerer!>
P’dáronï was as able a teacher as I ever remembered–persistent, creative, and always challenging.
She dismantled my defences in less time than it takes the eyelid to shutter the eye.
<
Pulse: again-with-love>
<
Reflect: mental-contortionist-constipation>
We ran or jumped ahead of the Wurm, slowly working out a way between us of covering the maximum amount of ground with a minimum of effort. We would walk or jog together for long makh, buoyed by my ability to soothe our bodies and repair the aching of muscles, joints
, and ligaments. During these makh we conversed, trained, and threw ideas about with the enthusiasm of Warlocks training with the fizzing firebombs. P’dáronï pummelled my defences or slipped beneath, through, or behind them, as though all my straining produced nothing but gossamer spider web for her to sweep aside with an impatient waft of breath.
But our true enemy was tiredness.
It seeped into our bones like the chill of a stormy Alldark night slithering about the psyche of a superstitious man. What worked for P’dáronï was napping on my back while I carried her through the night. She was able to sleep at the drop of a brass terl while I ran at a healthy trot that ate the leagues. However, I struggled to find any kind of rest. P’dáronï’s transitions, as she termed her teleportation through space, invariably disturbed me–and there was always the spectre of the Wurm lurking at the edge of my consciousness, always imminent, always … slithering was not the right word. Snakes slither. Monsters that carve new channels for rivers? And squash forests for fun? Ay.
* * * *
“A bath together?” asked P’dáronï.
“They think we’re Matabound. It’s quite normal to bathe in the Fiefdoms–”
“You know, Arlak-
nevsê
, there are some few times I wish I could see. This is one of those times.”
My hands moved automatically to cover myself with my drycloth,
and then I chuckled. “You want to see me naked?”
“Isn’t that normal?”
“Why don’t you … oh.” I coughed and immersed myself in the pool of steaming water. According to the common Umarite design, the bath was a tiled depression in the ground a pace and a half deep, fed from below by hot spring water. This one was housed in a small, private room, one of several in the House establishment, with a smooth wooden decking surrounding the pool on all sides.
“Why don’t I use my hands?” I could hear P’dáronï smiling, even if I couldn’t see her. “You Umarite barbarians are most
ill-mannered. Imagine that?”
I jumped slightly as she
trailed her fingertips across the nape of my neck. “P’dáronï, I’m sorry … oh!”
“It’s hardly fair,
not so?”
“Unfair is me relaxing in a gorgeous,
hot, scented bath after working up eleven days of sweat running from an impossible, magical monster while the woman I love, the most splendid and desirable creature in all of Mata’s creation, is standing behind me, fully clothed. I feel unfairly … alone.”
“Who says I’m
clothed?” I jerked in the water, staring fixedly ahead, until I heard her low chuckle and let out an answering hiss of annoyance. “Ah, Arlak-
nevsê.
You’re so gullible. And sweet. We must hurry, though. Close your eyes. And tell me all that ‘oh’ meant–never was a single syllable so laden with import.”
After a whisper of cloth, t
he water lapped at my chin as she stepped in–onto my leg at first, but she corrected that with grace–and slipped downward until she was immersed up to her chin.
P’dáronï gasped. I picked up a
piece of soapstone and passed it to her. Good quality soap, I thought, not the harsh lye soap sometimes palmed off on customers in these places. “Wash. Truly told, P’dáronï-
nishka
, that is exactly what I intend. Essentially, you will be borrowing my eyes.”
“But
… I don’t know how.”
“Nor did I know about onions and Dissembling until you taught me.
I’ve never tried this before, but I think it will work. Did we not share some of Janos’ memories with success?”
“Causing us both an almighty headache.” She flicked water
in my direction. “Arlak, you surprise me. Here I am thinking you simply wanted me unclothed in order to take advantage–”
“That too
, truly told.”
“–and
in reality your mind is rushing to other things.”
Beneath the water, I twined my feet with hers. “See if you can follow me now.”
Together, we concentrated deeply. After a time, P’dáronï murmured, “No, not that.” And soon she breathed, “Oh … a flicker … something. Oh, dear Mata! I see something moving … oh, Arlak-
nevsê!
Is that me? The colours … oh, my head’s exploding with colours!”
Abruptly, she broke off the contact, panting in apparent fright.
“Too much at once,” I said, reaching out for her. “Come here. You need to give your brain time to process the images, P’dáronï-
nishka
. It’s never had that kind of input before. All is new. Sit on this ledge and I’ll wash your hair. Would you like to try again?”
We tried with and without
skin contact, but the best we could manage was for P’dáronï to see vague shapes, shadows, and colours, before she began to feel overwhelmed. She rubbed her temples angrily and denounced her traitorous mind. For only the second time since I had known her, she cried. The first was when I departed Eldoran. After that I received the housemaster briefly at the doorway of the pumphouse, and returned to the poolside with new clothes for P’dáronï.
“Ah, I’
d forgotten the colour of your hair,” I teased.
She retorted,
with a smile that lit her face like a Doublesun dawn, “And I cannot any longer smell you from ten paces. We should hurry. I’m beginning to sense the Wurm again.”
“
The Wurm is leagues distant, P’dáronï,” said I, putting the bundle of clothing aside on a stool so that I could rejoin her in the steaming tub. “I ran relentlessly last night in the hope it would create time, today, to show you a thing or two about how badly we barbarians can behave.”
“
Oh … I tremble,” laughed P’dáronï, doing anything but.
“Barbarians do not take ‘no’ for an answer,” said I, bending to kiss her neck delicately, “my precious louanfire petal.”
P’dáronï breathed in my ear, “Then, Arlak-my-soul’s-song, you need learn the difference between ‘no’ and ‘oh’.”
“So it’s ‘oh’?”
“Oh,” she agreed, supple to my embrace. And later, “
Oh!
”
* * * *
Our passion, we discovered, caused the Wurm to accelerate. Mark my words, P’dáronï and I did not linger in the shadow of every bush in the Hakooi lowlands, but neither could we have enough of each other. We were caught in the flush of love, trapped as surely as insects in a green-backed hornbill’s beak, and it caused the vast leagues of the Hakooi lowlands to fly by beneath our feet. The Wurm burrowed. It blasted through the lowlands aside from the river, and caused no greater turmoil than at one point to cut through a tributary of the Nugar River and turn it to a new path, flooding a low meadow leagues wide and turning that area into a shallow lake. We found ourselves fleeing faster and faster. At some point after our passions cooled–three or four makh, I estimated–the Wurm would slow to its previous pace, but even that was beyond a jog. Had we hired a jatha cart after noon, we would have been overtaken before the orisons were sung.
I observed
with concern that P’dáronï was beginning to wear thin–and she was hardly the plump paragon of a Hakooi ode to begin with. The body requires time to rest and replenish. We discussed and exchanged notes endlessly, trying to discover ways of healing each other beyond merely relieving an aching muscle or a blistered foot, but I own even as El Shashi, sleep is a precious mystery. Good, healthy, undisturbed sleep has a unique healing power which cannot be replaced by ought else. Our every meal was hurried. Every nap was snatched as from the clutch of avaricious hands. And, after one morn when we missed being eaten by a salcat’s whisker, even our lovemaking proceeded as with a weather-eye open to the horizon.
How to stop a wildfire? How to slow passion made immeasurably more
urgent by our precarious situation? By the issues at stake? I had no answers.
One sweltering afternoon, as we rested briefly in the shade of a
towering hardwood tree to fill our hollow bellies with roundel sweetbreads purchased in the last village, I said to her, “Do the Armittalese Matabond according to the Umarite and Eldrik traditions?”
P’dáronï oriented toward the sound of my voice. “I believe it
’s a very similar tradition, Arlak-
nevsê.
Don’t forget how young I was when I left–”
“But surely there are bonds between slaves? Or even between slaves and Eldrik?” At her nod, I pressed, “Why, then, have I never seen a newborn Armittalese babe in Eldoran? Where are all the Armittalese children?”
“The mothers return for the birth.”
“All the way
through the mountains to Armittal?”
She nodded again. But there was a
peculiar, evasive quality in what I sensed of her grephe, something imperfectly hidden. P’dáronï had taught me that the more intimate persons become, the harder it is to keep secrets. For this reason I had told her many of mine on the road, reasoning thus: better now, and willingly, than later in grief and hurt.
She rose. “We should press on.”
Used to our many discussions on medical matters, I asked, “So, did you know that the Frenjj do not allow a baby to touch the ground until its seventh season after birth? Tell me a little about the Armittalese customs around birth. I’m curious.”
“Isn’t this sweetbread delicious, Arlak-
nevsê
?”
My eyes snapped sideways. “
Excuse me?”
“What?”
“I asked you a question.”
“Arlak-
nevsê
, that’s a tygar’s growl. What have I done to so offend you?”
I was about to throw another coal into the furnace when I paused. Something
in this conversation, as the Roymerian saying went, stank like a jatha’s digestion. Taking her hand in mine, I said as casually as I could manage, “So, truly told, when an Armittalese slave returns to Armittal for the birth–”