Fallen

by Tim Lebbon

  “He's burned his arm,” Beko said. “We'll need to treat that so it doesn't become infected.”

  “What's he likely to be like when he wakes?” Rhiana asked.

  Beko shrugged. “He wasn't violent. Just angry. I've never heard of anyone having a bad sway from this place, have you?”

  Rhiana shook her head. “Everything still feels good and fine to me.” She took a small roll from her jacket pocket. It contained herbs and pastes; she had come prepared.

  While Rhiana went to work on Ramus's wound, Beko stood and came to Nomi. He touched her shoulder, hesitated, then pulled her close, pressing his cheek against hers. “Perhaps it was a mistake,” he said.

  “No!” Nomi said.

  “You young lovers piss off and take it somewhere else,” Rhiana said. “Whatever happened here, I don't want him waking back into it. It's a light faint. He'll come around soon.”

  Nomi half expected Beko to berate Rhiana for talking to him like that, but he grabbed Nomi by the arm and guided her away.

  They emerged back into the camp, to find the other Serians sitting around the fire, brewing red root tea and obviously doing their best to come around.

  “There's no problem,” Beko said. “But that tea's a good idea.” None of them asked any questions, and for that Nomi was glad.

  “Beko . . .” she said. Can we talk? she wanted to ask. And she wanted to tell him about her and Ramus, how their friendship was fraught with complications, how there had never been anything more serious between them. Not physically, and not in her mind. What went on in Ramus's head had always been a mystery to her, and now rather than being enlightened, she was more confused than ever.

  But Beko looked at her and shook his head slightly, then went back to his saddle. He sat and stared into the fire, accepting a mug of red root tea from Noon, and by the time Rhiana helped Ramus back into the camp they had been sitting in silence for some time.

  RAMUS, COWED AND in pain, still uncertain on his feet, still trying to shake the sway from his system, allowed Rhiana to help him settle beside his saddle. He leaned against the smooth leather and rested his wounded arm across his lap. The burn scorched a path of pain all through his arm and seemingly down to the bone, but the Serian had told him it would heal well. The paste she had chewed and then smeared against the wound was dark in the moonlight, but better that than the sight of his own blackened skin. He was grateful to her, and he told her so.

  “Just rest,” she said. “I'll redress it in the morning.”

  Ramus nodded and looked down at his arm. If he looked up he'd be with everyone else; at least if he could not see them he could pretend he was on his own. Hiding, he thought, and the shame warmed his skin as well as the fire did. Someone had piled more wood and firestones into the blaze, and now it threw sparks skyward and lit the entire camp. Sway rapidly fading, it seemed that events had brought an end to sleep.

  What was I thinking? The memory came back to him, Beko and Nomi entangled in the moonlight, skin pale with a silvery sheen, gasps like wraiths in the night. What a fool, he thought. That's what they'll think of me. A fool who gets swayed and loses control.

  He glanced across at Nomi. She was sitting on her saddle, elbows on knees, leaning forward and staring into the flames. Over the years, the more he considered they could be together as more than friends, the less likely that scenario seemed. And they were good friends, the best. If only he could have been content with that.

  Ramus rose, standing still for a moment to make sure he had his balance. Then he walked a dozen steps to where Nomi sat, knelt down and waited for her to look at him.

  She knew he was there, but her gaze never left the flames.

  “Nomi,” Ramus began, but he got no further.

  “You've always been jealous of me,” Nomi said. Her voice was low but filled with bitterness. Still she stared into the flames. “My money, my lovers, my friends. They always make you feel low and sad, and pathetic.”

  “No,” Ramus said, shaking his head.

  “Yes. And my voyages.”

  “Your voyages?” He laughed, and it sounded more mocking than he'd intended. “Why would I be jealous of them? You've been out twice, and you came back with nothing but meaningless maps and fruit.”

  “And what's wrong with that?” She had turned from the flames to stare at him now, and fire still seemed to dance in her eyes.

  “It's hardly pushing the boundaries of discovery,” Ramus said. He was aware of heads turning as he and Nomi raised their voices.

  “And that's another reason you resent me,” she said. “You go out and strive to be famous—discover things, write books, bring back news of places and people and things never seen or known before. But what do you have? Piss all. You walk around a mountain range for a year and return with news of rock and snow.”

  “I don't resent you for being a wine trader,” he said.

  “And why shouldn't I benefit from my voyages? You have this belief, Ramus, that true explorers need to suffer for their calling.”

  “Not suffer. It's about purity of purpose.”

  “My purposes are pure. I go out and discover, and if something I find can make me some money, I see nothing wrong in that.”

  Ramus stood and turned away. “I only came to apologize.”

  “Then say it. Say you're sorry.”

  The Serians were watching them, and to Ramus their faces all suddenly seemed the same.

  “Tell me you're sorry for interrupting me and Beko while we humped, Ramus!”

  He shook his head. “Not when you're like this.”

  “Like what? Angry because you act like some spurned lover? If you think like that sometimes, then I'm sorry, but it's only you. We're friends, that's all. And sometimes barely that.”

  “Maybe you're right,” he said.

  “Of course I am.” But he heard hesitation in Nomi's voice, and that allowed him to defeat his self-doubt.

  Ramus turned back to face Nomi. “But maybe not. Because I think the truth is, it's you who are jealous of me.”

  ME, JEALOUS OF him? Does he really mean that? Does he really believe . . . ? Nomi laughed and shook her head, but the uncertainty lingered. There was his illness, after all.

  “Don't be a fool,” she said.

  “It's you!” Ramus said, voice louder now. “I came here to apologize, because I was wrong. Who you fuck is up to you, not me, and you're right, it really is none of my business. But don't accuse me of being jealous of you . . . your safe little voyages . . . your fancy wine and nice home and mindless friends. What could I possibly want with any of that, Nomi? Your life is a blank, and you're barely a shade across it.”

  “I like my life,” she said, and she told the truth. She did like her life. What was there to not like?

  “But I'm a real Voyager,” Ramus said. “And you're jealous of that. You covet my knowledge, my intelligence, my ability to read, the places I've been and the things I've seen.”

  “And your humility?” But this was ice that could not be broken.

  Ramus shook his head sadly. “I'm just saying what I see, and what I know you feel. You want to be a Voyager who'll be remembered, but I've given more back to the Guild than you'll ever attain.”

  “And now we're out here without the Guild,” she said. “Explain that.”

  “We both know this is beyond even them. We talked about it, and agreed. And you wouldn't have a clue about where we're going if it weren't for me.”

  “Ha! Don't give yourself all the credit, Voyager. Ten brought the pages to me, not you, so—”

  “And you still don't have a clue. Not an inkling. This is just another little adventure for you, and you'll be looking with money eyes. The importance of what we may find is nothing to you, so long as you can still have your wine, and your humps, and as long as your safe rich friends are ready to congratulate you if we ever get home.”

  “Of course we'll get home,” she said, nervous at where this was going. Two days out from Long Marraka
sh and already Ramus was announcing their possible doom. Surely he could not mean that. He was angry and confused, and probably embarrassed.

  “Maybe,” he said, and looked into the fire. She did not like his expression when he did that. He looked like a man with secrets.

  Nomi stood and approached Ramus, and though she felt Serian eyes upon her, this was about the two of them. “Ramus? Don't you dare go quiet on me now, not with what you've said.” She reached out—to shove or to touch, she was not sure—but he looked at her hand with contempt.

  “Admit it,” he said.

  “Admit what?” Through the flames she saw Beko watching them, his face quivering and melting in the heat. She wished she could see his eyes properly, take strength from them.

  “Admit you want to be a little like me.”

  Nomi smiled. Grinned. Laughed out loud. And with every heartbeat she saw the bitterness in Ramus's expression increasing. If I keep laughing, she thought, it won't be long until he hates me. The idea was ridiculous and absurd, and it made her laugh some more.

  “I know about Marquella of the Guild,” Ramus said.

  His voice, so quiet that the crackle of flames almost swallowed it, cut into her laughter and killed it at the source.

  “Marquella?” she said. But there was no way she could deny her treachery. Not with Ramus, because he was too sharp for her to win such an argument. And not in front of these Serians—and Beko—because to do so would make it all seem worse.

  “Marquella!” Ramus said, turning to the Serians and acknowledging their attention for the first time. “Very high up in the Guild echelons. He was a Voyager himself, many years ago, and a great one too.”

  “Ramus, don't do this,” Nomi said, trying to remain as dignified as she could. “Please?”

  “Please?” he repeated, glancing at her only once. “Piss on you, Nomi. Piss on you and your pathetic jealousy. You can't undo your wrongs with ‘please.’ ”

  “Can we at least talk about this?”

  Ramus nodded. “We are! We're talking about Marquella, and how you persuaded him to refuse a voyage plan I had submitted. It would have been my greatest! Once I heard whispers of what had happened, I tried to find out exactly how you persuaded him, but it wasn't as if I could ask Marquella himself. By then he would barely acknowledge me in the Guild buildings. Looked at me as though I was something he stepped in at the markets.”

  “It wasn't like that,” Nomi said.

  “Then what was it like? Tell me the reason you had to destroy my plans.”

  Nomi shook her head, and she realized that she could not tell. Because there was no reason.

  “Envy?” Ramus said. “I told you I was planning a voyage to the Poison Forests, and over the weeks you got wind of the fact that the Guild was about to sanction it, with a full complement of Serian guards and porters. And that was more than they ever gave you, so . . . ?”

  “I was worried for you,” Nomi said, and every time she had thought of her betrayal since it happened, that was what she tried to tell herself. The Poison Forests were a dangerous place, barely traveled and mysterious. Of the people who had gone in there, more had gone missing than returned.

  But it was also one of the great prizes of voyaging. And Ramus's take on such a journey—a mapping of the outskirts, classification of plants and animals into differing poison strengths, the collection of samples that could allow potential cures to be created—had won the Guild over.

  Her reaction to that, thought but never spoken, had been, It should have been me.

  “I thank you for your concern, friend,” Ramus said, and never had that word been spoken with such venom. “So how did you persuade Marquella to embargo the plan? A word in his ear, a promise of a lifetime's supply of Ventgorian wine? Or did you just suck his cock?”

  Nomi lashed out. She missed, her hand skimming Ramus's shoulder, and it was only then that she realized she was crying. The tears caught light from the fire and fractured her vision, and she turned away from Ramus and faced out into the night.

  “How pissing dare you even suggest that,” she said. “I never laid a finger on Marquella, and he never touched me.” She wiped the tears from her face and spun around to face Ramus again. Her voice was low, and it came from somewhere deeper and darker than normal. “You piece of shit, Ramus. How fuckingdare you?”

  “How dare I?” His face changed a little when he saw her tears, and she was certain there was a hint of regret. But regret can only go so far. And once some things are said, there is no unsaying them.

  “You're right,” Nomi said. “I didn't want you to go on that voyage. What we're doing here, now, is what I've wanted for a long time. To share in discovery. Why do you think I came to you with Ten's parchment, and not the Guild? I know I can learn from you, and I was hoping . . . hoping that you could learn from me.”

  “What could I ever learn from you?”

  “I know I don't read books or understand the old languages, but at least I live a little.”

  “Live a little?”

  “Yes! And there's nothing wrong with that, either. I don't bury myself away in Long Marrakash between voyages, sulking in my rooms, wishing I were greater than I really am. I enjoy myself, Ramus. You should try it one day. You're pathetic!”

  Ramus smiled. “Well, so you live a little. But that's not the end of it. Marquella was only the beginning.”

  Nomi went cold. A chill passed through her, resistant to the fire and the flames burning in her chest, anger and shame and . . . fear. Ramus had her scared. And a large part of that fear was because of things she had yet to tell.

  I never can, she thought. Some things die as secrets, and that's only right.

  But then Ramus's smile stretched into a grin, and she thought that perhaps this was a time for all dead secrets to be given life one more time.

  “ I KNEW ABOUT Marquella soon after my voyage plan was rejected,” Ramus said. “I knew you were somehow involved. And I never thought I was one for revenge. Such a clumsy, wasteful endeavor. But sometimes opportunities present themselves to you, and a few glasses of root wine . . . a few bad days . . .”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” Nomi said.

  “That's because I was always content keeping it a private vengeance. Keeping things even. But now, after this . . .” Though smiling, inside Ramus was nervous, like a boy dipping his cock for the first time. Perhaps his perceptions were still tinged with whatever had been in their meal, but this night seemed one of potential, and change, and he already knew that things between him and Nomi could never be the same again. Remember the voyage, he kept thinking, and don't destroy it. But perhaps events had already gone too far. Nomi's cavalier attitude toward her betrayal . . . her and Beko . . .

  Inside, far from where the heat of the campfire could ever hope to reach, Ramus was on fire.

  “Timal was no fool,” he said.

  “Timal?” Nomi's face fell, going from defiant to vulnerable in a beat.

  “He was good for you, Nomi.”

  “Yes.”

  “Appreciated the fine things, but he was also a wise young man. He can read, you know that?”

  “Of course I know.”

  “He's a future-seer. You know that too?”

  “He told me he wrote stories.”

  Ramus shook his head. “Not stories at all. Stories are tales from the past, twisted through the telling. Timal wrote projections.”

  “Why are you talking about Timal?” she asked.

  Ramus grinned at her, and he could see in her eyes that she already knew. How could she not? Because in reality, Nomi was also no fool. “He came to me,” Ramus said. “The night he left you, he came to me to talk.”

  Nomi closed her eyes and lowered her head. Ramus looked around at the Serians, and they were all blank-faced. Not judgmental. Not yet. But everything was going to change. That frightened Ramus, but he also knew that it was now inevitable. It shamed him—the Great Divide and what may be sleeping up there
meant so much more than him and Nomi—but he could not help being human.

  “I was in the Bay Lee Tavern, and he found me sitting in the corner. I'd had a bottle of root wine by then, and the tavern owner had just started brewing his own golden ale. It tasted like sheebok piss but it was cheaper than wine, and it helped me travel in my mind. You know where I was dreaming of traveling right then, exactly when Timal came to see me?”

  “My guess would be the Poison Forests,” Nomi said.

  “Good guess. Care to guess more?”

  “I'd rather hear it from your mouth, Ramus.” Nomi's voice was level and neutral, but there was something about her stare and expression that he found threatening. He had never seen Nomi violent, but suddenly the potential was there. He could see it, feel it. Drinking in the sorts of places he favored, it was something he had come to recognize.

  “Then from my mouth, Nomi. Timal disturbed me from my drunken dreams of the Poison Forests, and he asked me what there was between you and me.”

  Nomi blinked slowly, extinguishing and relighting the fire reflected in her eyes.

  One of the Serians shifted, betraying their curiosity.

  The fire burst a sap bubble and spat.

  “He was suspicious. You and I spend a lot of time together, and perhaps your confidence and brashness made him . . . insecure. So I put his mind at rest. I told him we were humping. Every morning, I said, when he left your home to go to his studies, you came to my rooms and we humped until lunchtime. I told him how we did it, and what I liked. I even told him what you liked, Nomi, because I know you so well. And that's what convinced him I wasn't lying.”

  “You bastard.”

  “Really?”

  “You bastard, Ramus!”

  “You really think so? No. I think that just about makes us even.”

  Nomi's calm exterior was melting. She had started to shake, her hands were fisting, she blinked quickly and unevenly. She'll either come at me now, Ramus thought, or run. Either possibility filled him with dread.

  “I messed up a voyage,” she said. “And a lot of the reason is because I wanted us to travel together, learn from each other, and—”