The Tales of Two Seers

by R. Cooper

  “I am here for each age,” Kaz scolded, muffled and slow. “All I do is wait for you.”

  Jacob took a deep breath. He licked his lips again, found them once again dry and cold, his spit like metal. “I am supposed to be the drunk one,” he answered despite that, “Did you drink before you came to bed?”

  Kazimir was utterly still one moment, then unfurling like a new butterfly the next. He straightened his legs and arched his back in a stretch before emerging from his pillow. His hair fell over his partly shut eyes. His cheeks were flushed and darker than the rest of him.

  “Yasha,” he said, surprised or displeased. He narrowed his eyes in sweeping judgment.

  Jacob set his jaw and took it, although machine guns were kinder.

  Then a hand settled on his cheek. “You did not shave today,” Kaz fussed gently. “And did not eat? Must I draw the water for your baths myself?”

  He enjoyed doing exactly that, and perching on the edge of the tub with hot eyes and roving hands. It was the solitary facet of Jacob’s life now that did make him feel kept, although Jacob couldn’t make himself mind too much.

  “If you like,” Jacob replied at last, pleased his voice didn’t break like a young boy’s. He cleared his throat. “You should go back to sleep.”

  Kaz ignored this, although he undoubtedly had a headache. “You wrote today. That was not editing work.” He petted Jacob’s cheek and the bow of his lip. “Will you share it with me?”

  The shudder tore through Jacob despite himself, made him close his eyes. Kaz bussed kisses across his eyelashes, the unkempt curls at his forehead.

  “It’s nothing,” Jacob tried, as he always did. “A poor excuse for a story. A mess.” Kaz would take it anyway. It was his nature. He took everything he inspired. But for Jacob, there were kisses in return, warm at his eyelids. Jacob opened his eyes with a sigh. “Tomorrow. I’ll put it on your tea tray.”

  Kaz dropped his head to the pillow to stare at him. He snuck a hand under the covers and left it over Jacob’s chest. “I’m sorry.” He always said it. Tonight, he added, “I am your curse.”

  Jacob put his icy fingers on Kaz’s arm, focused on the bumps he raised. “You’re not my curse, muse.”

  “But I will not let you hide,” Kaz argued mournfully, “I can’t.”

  That was the truth. Nonetheless, Jacob leaned in to kiss that sulky mouth and got tremors in his stomach for the hunger in how Kaz kissed back. Kaz reeled him in by his undershirt, stronger than he looked. He was less gentle, possessive and fiercely so. Jacob was kept here, too, trembling and weak despite all his big words in public, silent and eager at a moment’s notice when Kaz kissed him like this.

  Kaz’s strength had to be in his magic because he weighed almost nothing, had no muscle to speak of. He rolled Jacob onto his back and climbed over him and Jacob spread his legs and let himself be undressed. Kaz was allowed anything and knew it, pressing kisses down Jacob’s throat and across his chest before reaching impatiently for the jar of Blue Seal.

  Jacob wished to be taken. He loved soft mornings and the seductions Kazimir was capable of. He also loved belonging to the firebird, loved Kaz stringing pearls around his neck to make him pretty, and hiking Jacob’s knees up to leave him open. He loved Kaz taking him without regard for anything but his own pleasure and then afterward, more kisses, and his hot mouth, and Jacob slowly returning to his mind while Kazimir drew a bath for him.

  But tonight, or this morning, perhaps, if it was late enough, Kazimir could not stay away from Jacob’s mouth for long, and continued to kiss him, although his kisses slowed. He was more tired than he seemed, but kept Jacob beneath him while he stroked him with a slick hand, and was not inclined to move even after Jacob had finished. He bit Jacob’s collarbone, obviously pleased with himself. His hair was light between Jacob’s fingers, impossible to hold, and, as if he knew whenever Jacob had almost recovered his words, he would rise up to kiss him into silence.

  Kaz’s cock was half-hard. Jacob was greedy for it. He was Kaz’s mistress, yes, his kept boy and his lover and his happiness, he was spoiled and allowed to touch that cock at last, and fed pearls from it until Kazimir was satisfied that he was cared for.

  By then, Jacob was running his hands along the slender back, the knobs of Kaz’s spine, and pulling the silken robe back into place to keep smooth skin protected.

  Kazimir weighed nothing, and yet was heavy when he finally fell against Jacob’s side and buried his face in his shoulder. He tugged Jacob’s undershirt out from the blankets to dab ineffectually at the mess they’d created, and Jacob snorted in rude amusement before taking over the task and finally throwing the shirt to the floor.

  Some people had never cleaned a single thing in their entire lives, and with Kaz, it showed. But he did try.

  Jacob got a few more kisses for it, each one softer and slower than the last, until they finally stopped. He ran a light touch over Kaz’s temple, then down the back of his neck, trying to soothe the ache.

  The beautiful creature sighed for him.

  “Yasha.” Kaz’s voice was already clouded with sleep again.

  “Rest,” Jacob commanded, although he should do the same and knew he wouldn’t, not yet. A few swallows of bourbon and Kaz’s touch had banished the visions for a time, but that was all. A more selfish man might have kept Kaz awake, grasping for whatever he could have as long as he could have it. He’d had four years already and it was not enough. Jacob was, tragically, not as selfish he ought to be. It was a truth about himself that he had faced in too many futures, and it was one of the things Kazimir loved about him, which meant Jacob could not change it because he was just selfish enough not to give Kazimir up.

  “Foolish bird,” Jacob whispered when Kazimir’s breathing was even once again, “you are not my curse. I am yours.” Kaz’s breath did not stutter; his eyelids did not flicker. Jacob stared at his slightly parted lips and his flushed cheeks and smiled at the faintest hint of a snore. “The signifier of the age. The firebird here to shine light on what we’ve done, and to mourn it. A phoenix forced to witness our human horrors, the worst of what we are capable of. So much darkness you have already seen, and then there is still what is to come.”

  Jacob’s voice broke at last, with no one else to hear it. He was in bed next to Kaz but he was cold, and clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering or a scream from escaping. It could not be true but also very much would be. He breathed in and wished for whiskey, more kisses, time. He should have had more time.

  “A satchel will not be much comfort,” he said when he could speak again. He had often tried to find these words but they only ever emerged when he would not have to see Kaz’s reaction. He rested his hand against a soft cheek. “I know what it is to see gray in all directions. To look down because you are scared to look up. But that’s why I was spared, why I’m here, your flower in the field.”

  He couldn’t stop himself now. “You are going to be that for others, and you don’t even know it. But it’s always true. That voice of yours has love and heartbreak and hope enough to make fairies weep.” That was new, but felt true, as if fairies who might know Kaz now would still know him decades after this night. Jacob did not expect to be remembered, but Kazimir the Great would be.

  “Are you telling bedtime stories again?” Kaz startled him with the sleepy question, humming thoughtfully before Jacob could summon a reply. “Little tales to please a little imp?”

  He wondered if Kaz could feel how fast his heart was beating. “You are not an imp any more than you are a wolf.”

  “Who said I was a wolf?” Kaz complained without opening his eyes. “Do you have a story for me?”

  “Demanding creature,” Jacob chided despite his tight throat. “Does your head hurt?” He closed his eyes to brush a kiss over Kaz’s temple. Kaz exhaled sweetly, which Jacob took to mean his head was splitting. “And only a story can cure it? And a child’s story at that?” Jacob clucked his tongue. “What if it’s not a worthy tale?�
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  “Fool.” Kazimir snuck an arm beneath Jacob and wrapped a leg over him and muttered insistently until Jacob was half on top of him. Then he relaxed again. “Mine.”

  Not an imp or a wolf, but perhaps part dragon.

  “For whatever I am worth, I am yours,” Jacob agreed.

  “Then you will eat tomorrow,” Kaz decreed, only slightly less imperious for the way he snuffled into Jacob’s neck. “You are lighter than one of my tailfeathers.”

  “My stories are not,” Jacob said suddenly, not certain why, except that Kaz never told him what he thought of them. Jacob had insisted on it.

  “They do not start that way, but they end that way,” Kaz argued, his lips on Jacob’s skin.

  “And you want another?” Jacob asked in disbelief.

  Kaz raised his head, eyes slits of displeasure and haughty impatience. “I am waiting.”

  “I am sorry for it,” Jacob answered gravely and gallantly, and dropped his head the pillow while he rifled through the collection of fairy tales he made up for Rennet, although there were many details he left out of Rennet’s stories. Rennet was, imp or no, still a child. “Once upon a time,” Jacob began a moment later, and delighted in the small shock of Kazimir’s laughter.

  “Once upon a time…” Kaz prompted when he’d controlled himself, and his fingers were in Jacob’s hair.

  Jacob surrendered his heart for the hundredth time and felt not a single twinge. “Once upon a time, there was a dancer….”

  Aphrodite’s Favorite

  WHEN THE INVENTOR was brought to court, Kazimir thought of him only to pity him. A well enough looking man, if small, with muscular legs that spoke of skill at wrestling or in battle, with olive skin and shining curls, and arms as strong as the rest of him. The genius Jacob, or so it was said, who had been blessed by Hephaestus himself, who could breathe life into automatons.

  It was not always easy to be honored by a god. Others were also favored, sometimes by gods louder or more powerful. Beauty could not protect a man from lightning, or lustful greed, or tyranny.

  Neither could invention.

  Despite his brilliance, the inventor was still marched before the King with soldiers at his back. Perhaps because of his brilliance, the inventor glared when he should have smiled, but though Kazimir held his breath, the King was too distracted to notice the disrespect.

  “I have brought you here to build for me, to please my pet with their likeness. For my dancer, wood and marble will not do. You will make me a figure to equal his gods-bestowed beauty. Do this, and I will let you go and praise your skill to all the world.”

  The inventor Jacob made a sound like a furious horse and tossed his head before turning to follow the King’s gesture, and his warm eyes widened for a moment as they landed on Kazimir.

  Kazimir held his head high, as was expected of him, the most beautiful, the most beloved by the gods and so the most tormented by them. He said nothing, because that was not expected, and he did not want to be punished. Not ever, and not now, in front of the sharp gaze of a man who must be not unlike a god himself if he created life as he was said to.

  Jacob studied Kazimir, the long, leanly muscled lines of his bare arms and legs, the burnished gold of his hair, the smooth jaw and soft lips, before meeting Kazimir’s stare. For only a heartbeat and no more. Then he turned away and Kazimir was left to frown in the cold.

  “He cannot be equaled,” Jacob announced directly to the King. “Certainly not by my meager talents. But I will make you something else, horses to ride or soldiers to guard your palace. A cat to twist around your ankles, perhaps?”

  “My dancer,” replied the King, impatient as ever, “or your life.”

  An answer that startled no one in the throne room after suffering years of the tyrant’s whims. Execution by hemlock or being thrown from one of the cliffs was the usual result of defiance.

  The pronouncement did not appear to startle Jacob, either, as though tales of the King’s cruelties had reached whatever country he had been taken from. The inventor did not react except to incline his head. “I did not expect to convince you. Only those who want to see the truth will see it.”

  Kazimir did not make a sound and Jacob did not turn to him again. The King sent the inventor to the workshop that had been built for this purpose when the idea of an automaton had struck him months before. Then he called for music, and Kazimir was grateful, though he could not have said why, that the inventor would not be there to witness him dancing for the King.

  SHAME AND ANGER had burned from Kazimir long ago when his offerings and prayers had gone unanswered but the King remained in power, protected by whichever god favored him. This was where the gods let Kazimir stay, this was Kazimir’s supposed gift, the beauty and skill that had caught the King’s eye. Kazimir would not feel shame when this was not his choice.

  But he did not want to face the inventor again.

  He had no choice in that, either, though he gave wine and fruit to any god who might hear him. The automaton in his likeness would be built, and for that, Kazimir would need to be touched, studied, watched, by eyes that saw more than the King’s ever would.

  The workshop was at the foot of the mountain, below the palace. It was constructed of stone to allow for a forge, and guarded by soldiers.

  Kazimir’s stomach quivered as he entered the first room, where fires raged although the forge itself was empty. In the next room, full of benches and tools and one small cot, Jacob sat in front of chunks of ore, his shoulders low with despair until he saw Kazimir and rose to his feet.

  “I am here to be measured.” Kazimir kept his voice even. He did not want hands on him, although he was not foolish enough to say so.

  Jacob nodded, but slowly. “As is necessary for such an undertaking, though it seems easier to execute me and be done with it.”

  Kazimir’s chest was tight. “You are beloved of Hephaestus. Will he not help you succeed, and live?”

  “My mind will be inspired, my hands guided.” Jacob looked at Kazimir’s sandals instead of his face. “I will craft your likeness, but it cannot be your equal. For that, another god would need to intervene. Though I am often a fool, even I can tell that. So you will be the death of me, one way or the other, and I am sorry for it, if only because it pains you.”

  “You know nothing of me,” Kazimir insisted, drawing his shoulders back.

  Jacob’s gaze returned to Kazimir’s face at last. “As you say, Terpsichore-in-gold.”

  “I could have asked for this,” Kazimir hissed. “I could have made this demand knowing he would do anything for me. I could have…” He stopped for the look in the inventor’s eyes, knowledge and pity where Kazimir was used to seeing desire. Kazimir inhaled and calmed himself before holding out his arms and closing his eyes.

  Jacob stepped closer. He made a sound, soft, and his breath barely stirred Kazimir’s hair. Then he moved away. “Some other day, beautiful one.” His voice was blank. “I am not the sort of fool to think Aphrodite’s work is mine to lay my hands on however I please.”

  He called the King a fool, and not for the first time.

  Kazimir opened his eyes to find Jacob returning to the piles of ore. “I have given permission.”

  Jacob turned to him only to quirk an eyebrow. “Have you?” His tone became gentler than Kazimir had thought it ever could.

  Kazimir lowered his arms. “It does not matter.”

  “It does to you. Therefore, it does to me.” Jacob smiled, a bitter thing. “The arrow was as sudden and painful as they say. But I wouldn’t have you spare me a thought. The likeness will be made and the King will be pleased. I will measure you when the time comes that you can suffer through it without fear, and not before. In the meantime, do as you wish in here. I will need to watch you dance, eventually, but I have other work, and it will keep me occupied.”

  “You…” Kazimir stopped from habit, and did not say another word about anything that had flown from Jacob’s mouth. He also did not
turn to begin his long walk back up to the palace. He stood for several moments more to watch the inventor work, and thought that he was being permitted to see, when no one else, not even an apprentice, stood nearby.

  KAZIMIR did not know what to make of it, then did not want to make anything of it. He had no use for wondering that would lead nowhere. Jacob’s words of love, such as they were, he pushed from his mind. Others had said them, or something close enough. Even the King had, once, although Kazimir had known not to believe him. Eros may have done his work on the King, on the others, on Jacob, but none had ever cared to know if that work had been done on Kazimir as well.

  That Jacob had instructed Kazimir to ignore his desires was unusual, but nothing to disturb him. Kazimir should welcome it if it meant he would be left alone for some reason other than fear of the King.

  All the same, he was unsettled at the thought of returning to the inventor’s workshop. He waited a day, then two, and told himself it was to give Jacob time to work with his metals. But the King was not known for his patience, and so Kazimir went back down the mountain, to the workshop, to Jacob marking on a wax tablet.

  “You return to me,” Jacob said lightly, after they had stared at each other without uttering any greetings, or indeed anything at all. While Kazimir had avoided him, Jacob’s hair had not been combed. His fingers were dark with soot or dirt, as was his chiton. The heat from the next room had brought a sheen of sweat to his skin, which he did not seem to notice, perhaps used to it.

  Kazimir was freshly bathed, perfumed as the King wanted. He wanted to pluck at his tunic, to apologize for the ornaments in his hair that he had not asked for. But all he allowed himself to say was, “I can dance for you, if you like.”