by James Erich
As it was, two trips had already exhausted him to the point where he could barely stand.
“Take Master Geilin,” Sael said quickly. “I can hide until you get back.”
Geilin frowned at this. “Marik is a very powerful ömem, Sael. You’d be found in short measure.”
“Then I’ll fight them,” Sael retorted. “I’m ready for them this time. I can cast firebolts when I’m prepared.”
“No! Koreh will take you as close to the city as possible. Then, if he is able, he can return for me.”
Sael opened his mouth to argue further, but Geilin raised his hand to silence him. “There is no more to discuss. Go! Now!”
Koreh didn’t wait for Sael to acquiesce. He grabbed the apprentice by the shoulders and pulled him down into the ground. Navigating through the earth was less a matter of trying to move in a particular direction than sensing where you wanted to emerge. Somehow, even though he’d never been to this part of the kingdom, Koreh could sense the Empire Road, the ruins of Old Mat’zovya, and less distinctly, Mat’zovya itself. He concentrated on the gates of the city, struggling to bring them into focus. Suddenly, he and Sael were there, spit up from the ground and falling back down onto it hard.
They lay there a moment, gasping for breath. Koreh felt exhausted, but Sael grabbed him by the shoulders.
“What did you do that for?” Sael’s voice was panicked. “He’s too weak to fend them off! You have to go back for him!”
Koreh shoved him away. “I know that, you ass! Let me catch my breath.”
He sat up and looked around at their surroundings. They were lying on the road just west of the city gates. Fortunately he hadn’t brought them too close, or they might have found themselves explaining their sudden appearance to the city guard before Koreh could retrieve Geilin. But the torches near the gate were comfortingly close.
He took a few slow breaths until the fearful look on Sael’s face became too much for him to keep ignoring. “All right. I’m going. Wait here.”
It was easier to return, since he’d been there before, and traveling alone was less tiring. He emerged from the ground in the midst of a scene of death and destruction. The ground and the surrounding forest were scorched, and several trees were still ablaze. Even the broken cobblestones under Koreh’s feet were blackened and still hot against his bare feet. A pall of smoke hung over everything.
But worse were the corpses. Burnt beyond recognition—more than twenty of them that Koreh could count—and reeking of burned flesh and hair. The scene reminded him of when the plague had been at its worst and there were so many deaths that bodies sometimes lay rotting in the streets. He felt as if he might throw up.
“Geilin!” he shouted, when the wave of nausea had passed.
A voice came to him, so faint he could barely tell where it was coming from at first, “Here….”
He found the old man lying by the side of the road, just outside the circle of destruction. Koreh had to help him sit up, because he was too weak to do so on his own. His breathing was shallow and his skin clammy and cold. The tattoo on his forehead had almost faded to nothingness.
“I had no choice, Koreh,” the wizard said faintly, his voice hoarse. “Not if I’m to get Sael to his father alive.”
He was right, Koreh knew. Sael would fare very badly on his own if Geilin were killed. The wizard had had little choice but to slaughter Marik’s men. But Koreh still felt sickened.
SAEL sat in the darkness, fretting. Geilin could be under attack for all he knew. And now Koreh was with him—wounded, no less. They were both wounded. Sael was not only in better shape to do spellcasting, he was an excellent swordsman.
Yet here he sat, unable to do a thing to help them.
When Koreh and Geilin rose up out of the earth a few feet in front of him, he nearly cried out with relief. Then, almost immediately, his relief turned to fear. Koreh was crouched on the ground, holding Geilin. The vönan appeared to be unconscious—perhaps even dead.
“Master Geilin!”
Koreh looked up at him as if he were about to say something, then let Geilin slide from his arms and fell over onto his back.
Horrified, Sael scrambled over to them. “Koreh! What’s happened?”
Both Geilin and Koreh appeared to still be breathing, but their eyes were closed and their faces pale. Sael knew nothing of healing. For all he knew, they were dying right in front of him!
“It’s all right, my boy,” Geilin croaked, opening one eye to squint up at him. “We should be safe here. We just need to rest a little while.”
Then he sank into unconsciousness.
It was more than a “little while.” Sael sat beside Geilin and Koreh for what seemed like hours, his stomach in knots. He thought about running to the city to fetch an ömem. But would he be able to find one at this time of night? Would he even be able to get inside the city gates? How long would it take? What if some animal, or more of Marik’s men, happened upon his companions while they were unconscious?
At last, Koreh’s eyes fluttered open. He rolled slowly over onto his stomach and raised himself up on all fours. His head hung low for a long time, as if it were too difficult to raise it. Then he sat back on his haunches, eyes closed, taking several deep breaths.
“Are you all right?” Sael asked. He’d checked Koreh’s wound earlier, and it had stopped bleeding, at least. But there was no water to wash it with or anything to bind it. All their belongings had been left behind with Sek.
“Yes.” Koreh opened his eyes and looked around. “I didn’t realize how much that would take out of me.”
“You were….” Sael felt foolish saying it, but after just a slight hesitation, he forced himself. “You were amazing.”
He half expected Koreh to rub his nose in it—to laugh at him for needing rescuing, or grow angry for not showing his appreciation earlier. Instead Koreh gave him a shy smile, and then looked quickly away.
Did I embarrass him? Sael wondered. Is that possible?
Koreh looked over at Geilin. “We should wake him so we can find a proper place to bed down for the night.”
“Wake him?”
Sael had thought his master unconscious. But looking at him now, he realized Koreh was right. Geilin was sound asleep. He was even snoring gently.
Chapter 12
DESPITE all that had happened, it was only slightly after Manduccot when the three entered the city. Geilin had discovered, upon awakening, that one of Marik’s men had pilfered his coin purse at some point during the evening and, seeing that he and his two companions were penniless and dressed in rags, the guards at the gate tower were inclined toward being unpleasant and making them wait outside the city wall until morning. But while Geilin was arguing with them, Koreh nudged him and slipped him a few coins. They proved to be enough to buy them entrance.
Once they were safely out of hearing distance, walking down the main street of Mat’zovya, Geilin asked under his breath, “And the coins came from…?”
“The table in the guard tower,” Koreh replied. “You just gave it back to them.”
He was pleased to see both master and apprentice hiding smiles.
Since they had nothing but a handful of coins—Geilin had chosen not to quibble over the fact that Koreh hadn’t given all the coins back to the guards—they were forced to find an inn near the docks. That was the least expensive part of town.
It was also, of course, the most squalid part of town. Apart from the fact that all the houses had roofs, it wasn’t much different from the shantytown they’d just escaped from. Even the urinating drunkards looked the same.
The inn they stopped at was called “The Horned Ghusat.”
“Ghusat?” Koreh asked, as they entered the smoky common room.
This late at night, the large room served as a sleeping area for most of the patrons, and it was packed with bodies, asleep on benches or curled up under their cloaks on the straw-covered floor. A few die-hards were still awake in the far corner, playin
g a game called gönd, in which small wooden sticks and disks were cast upon the floor and the outcome of the “battle” was tallied up according to complicated rules.
“A ghusat,” Sael replied, keeping his voice low to avoid waking people, “is a giant horned water snake.”
“You made that up.”
Sael looked put out. “Of course I didn’t make it up. It’s right there on the sign!”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“No, but I saw an etching of one in—”
Koreh snorted, unimpressed. “So you’ve just seen a drawing of one. Have you ever seen a ghusat yourself?”
“Well, no….”
Sael saw the twinkle in Koreh’s eye and realized he was being toyed with. Koreh was parroting back Sael’s side of the argument they’d had about demen.
Sael couldn’t resist a slight smile. “You’re a nud.”
“Ghusat are unique to this lake,” Geilin interjected, his good humor returning somewhat at their bickering. “I saw one a very long time ago, when I was a boy. Nasty creatures.”
Koreh left Sael and Geilin to warm themselves near the fire while he went to negotiate a room with the owner at the long wooden bar. In an establishment like this, there were usually rooms upstairs for those who didn’t wish to sleep in the common room, but they could be fairly expensive. Koreh trusted his negotiation skills more than Geilin’s, and the old man seemed to as well.
The innkeeper had only one room available with two beds in it, and he preferred to reserve beds for married couples. Single men could sleep in the common room, he insisted. But Koreh knew he’d have to sleep with one eye open all night if he expected to wake with some coins in his pouch come morning. Geilin was also in need of a more comfortable place to rest than a wooden bench or floor.
A nasty argument ensued.
At last Koreh returned to his companions, smiling triumphantly.
“We’ve got the room upstairs,” he said. “I convinced him that Geilin was too sickly to sleep on a bench or the floor. And Sael and I needed the other bed because we’re zeinimen.”
The look on Sael’s face almost made Koreh laugh out loud. No doubt the snotty little lord would rather sleep in the alley outside than let people believe he’d ever stoop to marrying a peasant.
MARRIED! Sael realized, of course, that Koreh had just said that so they could have a bed to sleep in in a private room, and for that he was grateful. But now he couldn’t get images of him and Koreh sharing the bed—as nimen—out of his mind.
Not that Sael really had any idea what that was like. Some of the girls back in the capital had flirted with him on occasion, but he’d never had any interest in pursuing anything with them. But no doubt Koreh had plenty of experience, and Sael also had no doubt that Koreh reveled in coming up with ways to embarrass him.
Will he try to… do something?
Sael’s stomach was in knots just thinking about it.
The innkeeper had noticed that Koreh was injured, which wasn’t much of a feat—the entire right side of Koreh’s tunic and breeches, from his stomach to his knee, was soaked with blood. He knew of no ömem who would take kindly to being dragged out of bed at this hour of the morning.
“Me wife, though,” the balding, grizzled man told them, “ain’t so bad wi’ a bandage. She kin fix ya up—leastwise ’til mornin’.”
The man’s dialect baffled Sael, but Koreh and Geilin seemed to understand him. His wife came out of the kitchen when he called for her. She then clucked over Koreh’s wound for a few moments before dragging him out to the kitchen, where she could clean it properly.
Koreh returned with the bloody tunic in one hand and a fresh linen wrapping about his middle.
“Goodwife,” Geilin said with a bow, “we are indebted to you.”
The woman smiled warmly and replied, “No’ at all. But I hope ye know better than t’ go near them ruins, now—’specially at night.”
Geilin raised his eyebrow at this, probably wondering just what Koreh had told her. But he smiled and replied, “I think we’ve learned our lesson.”
The woman led the three companions upstairs to a small room with two beds, and left them after lighting the tallow candle on the nightstand.
The beds were small but large enough to accommodate both young men in one, and the blankets looked fairly clean. The single nightstand between the beds had a chamber pot under it, which Sael desperately hoped nobody would use in front of him.
His anxiety at sharing a bed shot up sharply when Koreh shucked his breeches, tossing them onto the floor with his tunic. Since he had no undertunic, that left him stark naked yet again.
“You aren’t sleeping with me like that!” Sael practically shrieked.
Koreh had been about to crawl under the blanket, the night air being a bit on the brisk side. He stopped and glanced over at Sael. “Why not?”
“Don’t you have any modesty at all?”
“No,” Koreh replied, sounding irritated, “and I have no intention of sleeping in those blood-soaked breeches. They’re sticky and they’re already getting stiff.”
Sael turned to Geilin with a pleading expression, but the old wizard merely shrugged. “He does have a point. I suppose you could loan him your undertunic, if his nudity makes you uncomfortable.”
“But then I’d be naked!”
“Well, yes,” Geilin agreed. “I suppose it’s a matter of which makes you more uncomfortable—Koreh being naked, or you being naked.”
Sael wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.
“I suppose,” Geilin went on, “that I could loan him my undertunic.”
The thought of seeing Geilin naked was even more disturbing to Sael than either of the other possibilities, so he grudgingly replied, “Never mind. He’s been running around naked half the time, anyway….”
Koreh slipped under the blanket and gave Sael a cocky grin. “Come to bed, nimen,” he said, patting the mattress beside him. “Help me warm up.”
“Drop dead.”
Geilin stripped down to his undertunic and lifted the covers on his bed. “Sael, it’s very late. And we’re all very tired. Get into bed, please, so I can blow the candle out.”
Sael removed his outer tunic and breeches, glad his linen undertunic went down to his knees.
“He’s probably going to grope me while I’m sleeping,” he muttered as he climbed into the bed. Koreh shook his head and sighed, then rolled away from him.
Geilin said sleepily, “Koreh, keep your hands to yourself.”
Then he blew out the candle.
The room wasn’t completely dark. The rippled glass panes of the solitary window let in a pale gray light from the Eye of Druma outside.
The bed was already warming up from Koreh’s body, and Sael had to admit it felt good. He was exhausted. But just as he settled in, Koreh said quietly, “What? No goodnight kiss?”
Sael groaned.
Chapter 13
KOREH woke while it was still dark, sensing that something wasn’t quite right.
The first thing he noticed was that Sael was pressed up against him. He had curled himself up, hips snugly pressed into Koreh’s naked buttocks and his face pressed into Koreh’s back. Koreh could feel Sael’s breath tickling his skin. Despite his teasing, it was disconcerting being this close to Sael, especially naked. Koreh had had sex with girls before, and he’d been forced to have sexual experiences with men. The girls had been all right, but the men had been awful. So Koreh had always assumed being physically intimate with any man would feel just as unpleasant.
But touching Sael wasn’t awful. It felt good—very good. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.
But sorting all that out would have to wait. Something had awakened him—something about the room that seemed out of place. Moonlight spilled through the dirty windowpanes, casting a bright crisscross pattern on the floor, and beyond that, in the shadows….
There was something there. Something resembling a human figure, yet somehow
not quite solid, as though merely a shadow. It was nearly invisible in the dark corner, but Koreh was certain it was there. He felt the hair prick up on the back of his neck, but he forced himself to remain still.
He debated whether to shout and wake the others. But that would force the stranger’s hand, and Geilin and Sael might not have time to react before it was too late.
If only I hadn’t lost my knife!
Then the shadowy figure spoke quietly. “Do not fear, iinyeh. You will come to no harm.”
Koreh had heard the word in his dreams. It meant “friend” in the language of the Taaweh. It seemed impossible that this man could be one of them. Could he have learned the word in dreams, as Koreh had? “Who are you?”
“Names are easily forgotten.”
What?
“You have been placed under the protection of the Iinu Shavi,” the stranger continued, “and the Taaweh would offer you a gift.”
“Iinu Shavi?” Koreh interrupted. “Iinu Shavi” was a title, Koreh knew, rather than a personal name. It meant something along the lines of Cherished Lady or Adored Lady. Yet it was used to refer to only one woman—the Iinu Shavi of his dreams. The Lady of the Taaweh.
Koreh slipped quietly out of the bed, trying not to awaken Sael. He was conscious of the fact that he was naked in front of this stranger but ignored it. If he didn’t like conversing with naked men, then perhaps he shouldn’t be breaking into people’s bedrooms in the middle of the night uninvited.
“You have seen her in your dreams,” the stranger said.
How could this man know his dreams? Yet Koreh could not claim to be surprised.
“I saw her captured,” he said, not knowing what else to say. “I thought she must have been killed.”
“No. The Iinu Shavi cannot be killed. She sleeps in her prison, and the Taaweh cannot reach her. But she speaks in the world of dreams.”
