Storm Crow

by T. A. Creech

  Catli smiled as he placed both of their meals on the low, small table and sat on the floor, legs crossed. Alegan folded himself into a similar position across from him and picked up his spoon. Hot oats was not a favorite, but Catli had added something sweet, the mouthful melting over his tongue.

  “Not at all. I simply like red.” Fingers flicked in the general direction of the vivid stars branded in a circlet across his forehead, same as Alegan’s. “Which isn’t a surprise.”

  A chuckle escaped before Alegan had a chance to stop it. He felt a lance of shame. “I guess not. Red is one of my favorites, too.”

  “My friend Hoalnia has bowls in a startling green color, like the algae blooms in the coves after a hurricane passing by us.” Catli took up his spoon too and with that, Alegan concentrated on his meal.

  Catli had already explained the ruin of his clothes the first time he’d hobbled to take care of his bodily functions, the cloth he’d been draped with wrapped around his waist, so the healer had provided two stacks of clothes for Alegan’s use. The trousers were light as air and came down to the middle of his calves, waist kept closed with laces, and in a variety of natural colors. The tunics were just that, designed to pull over his head. Without sleeves. The lack of some sort of underclothes was strange. Alegan stifled his questions about it. Yes, his cock literally swung in the breeze, but it was freeing, too.

  He dressed fast, sore body growling a protest. It was easy to ignore with the promise of a hot bath to ease the ache in his blood and bones. There weren’t any shoes either to slow Alegan down.

  His host waited for him in the front room, nose buried in the overfull shelves of various ingredients. Fire mages had no need of all the paraphernalia. Alegan guessed the jars and bottles were full of things healers used, the ones without magic or for those who had run low. Once, a lifetime ago, he had seen a healer burn himself out of magic. A market complex collapsed on a great many people in a small town he was visiting. The enormous amount of casualties overwhelmed the healers in minutes, and three of them needed months to return to their full strength.

  Alegan cleared his throat with a discreet noise. Catli glanced up from his perusal of the selves with a smile, like he wasn’t surprised at all. “Ready?”

  “Yes,” Alegan answered. Emphatic, more than he wanted to let on. His skin crawled if he thought about how long he’d gone with even a dip in the sea. Catli led him from the house, set at the very edge of the village, and into the village proper.

  The huts were all sorts of sizes, from the one Catli lived it to very small ones dotting the grassy plain they were clustered on. The view of the sky was spectacular, peeking between the structures. To the south, the horizon seemed to stretch forever, like they sat on a cloud instead of the ground, and Toa bubbled hot on the other end. “How far up are we?”

  “About halfway,” Catli said as they walked. “Maybe a bit higher.”

  How amazing, Alegan thought. The huts were built of wood and rushes, the vertical slats unmistakable, thrust in the ground as though a giant had driven them in the packed earth like toys. And painted in bright colors, oranges and blues and yellows.

  Catli’s wasn’t the biggest, by far. A few were massive, children clustered around the doorways in giggling groups. Homes or did they serve another function? A few adults were present, about their own tasks but gazes always seeming to be on the children.

  The sea boomed in the distance, deep as the giant bells on a palace, air filled with the salty tang of it. There sulfur scent of the mountain added its own notes in complement. However, other more savory scents flooded him. Meat and wood fire and something sweet burned. No central fire pits were seen on their walk toward the southern edge of the village, but the cooking scents were everywhere.

  His host brought Alegan to a secluded stretch of ground, enclosed with an outcrop of black and pitted stone. A few adults were relaxing in a great pool of water sunk right into the ground, fed by a short spill of water coming right out of the stone wall. Right out of the volcano.

  Catli pulled off his tunic as Alegan watched, confused. “Are you sure it is safe to bathe in the water?”

  Catli paused in the middle of pulling the strings apart on his pants and looked at him over his shoulder, squinting at Alegan with an unimpressed expression. “Our people have used these springs for years beyond history without adverse effect. Yes, we are safe to use the water.”

  The other bath users snickered, heads turned away from him and Catli, but heard all the same. Well, fine, he might have been a tad overcautious with his question. How was he to know? He was a stranger to this place, much less the islanders as a people or culture. Alegan resigned himself to the laughter of the villagers. His questions might be just as ridiculous in the future.

  Then his healer let his pants fall to the black ground. Like nudity was nothing to him, when a stranger was in his midst. Alegan averted his eyes to the serene blue sky in an instant, but the sight of corded thighs and a shapely backside burned onto the backs of his eyelids. For all time. Heat rushed to his ears and cheeks.

  Splashing tempted him to bring his gaze back down to the ground, to Catli’s fine frame, but Alegan pushed the temptation back until the sounds of movement settled to almost nothing. When he dropped his gaze, Catli and the other three villagers were ensconced almost to their shoulders, facing away from him.

  Alegan wasted no time stripping off and he hopped right in.

  Gasping as the scalding hot water enveloped everything up to his sternum, Alegan froze in place. He kept his arms raised above the surface, hands spread in shock. “Why is this so hot?”

  “You should have warned him, Catli,” a purring voice teased from the group propped against the side behind him. “You know how these mainlanders are, with their soft skin.”

  “I thought he had figured that out for himself when he noticed the water came from the side of a volcano,” Catli bit back. “Honestly, Jari, I can’t think of everything.”

  His body started to regulate to the heat of the pool, so Alegan turned in a slow, careful circle until he faced the amused people he shared the water with. They were all seated on a natural shelf below the water line, not that Alegan looked down into the crystalline pool to figure it out, arms spread flat on the edge of the rocks above the water. These islanders were similar in some basic way, rose-brown flesh and dark hair, though he had no idea if they shared the same height.

  The one who’d admonished Catli spoke again. “Come here and relax. You become accustomed to the heat if you don’t give mind to it.”

  Alegan did as he was told, coming closer to the group. Jari, who he assumed was the speaker, had startling green eyes and a crooked nose. Broken maybe, at some point? He sunk down onto the shelf in the empty space next to Catli, happy not to be boxed in on all sides by strangers.

  “Make your guest known to us, Catli.” The tone was imperious, but the words ended on a higher note, like Jari was teasing. Was that for Alegan, or his healer?

  “Esteemed friends,” Catli intoned. Alegan grinned at the obvious seriousness. “I present to you, my patient and fellow fire mage, Alegan. He hails from the mainland, though I know not where.”

  The rest of the group chuckled as Catli shifted his attention to Alegan. “Alegan, these are my friends. Jari at my right, Mota to his right, and Kota on the end.”

  Alegan leaned forward until he could see them all and smiled. “Thank you for your welcome.”

  “You are most welcome, among us.” Kota patted Mota on the shoulder with a smile. “Jari and I will speak for my brother, for he cannot.”

  The questions bubbled up and Alegan stuffed them back down. How rude, to ask after such things on a first meeting. He hoped the heat of the water covered up the flush. His father would be mortified if Alegan forgot the manners so carefully instilled in him.

  The peaceful tumble of water took over after the introductions. Bathing seemed to be a quiet ritual with this lot. All of them let the solid rim of the great poo
l take their weight, and more, Alegan let the heat soothe his stiff body. The silent, easy companionship made him feel a little less alone in the world.

  Mota moved first. He reached over the rim of stone and pulled over a few pieces of ivory lumps. He passed a piece to his brother, first, then plopped a few in front of Jari with a smile and a nod toward Catli, and Alegan by default. Jari did some motion with his hands Alegan didn’t understand.

  Jari nudged the ivory lumps toward him and Catli, which Catli plucked out of the water. “Here,” he murmured. “Soap.”

  “Thank you.” Alegan kept his voice down to match Catli as he cupped his hands for his host to drop the slippery lump in. Catli grinned and dunked his head right there.

  Alegan brought his hands up, giving the soap a dubious examination. Slippery was an understatement. Even in dry hands, the momentary dip in the water made it slither around in the cradle of his palms, bubbles birthing across his skin. The smell of it, whatever the soap was made of, was heady. Wood smoke and flowers tickled his nose, lifted up by the faint whiff of sulfur.

  The smell of the soap didn’t matter, in the end. Water cleaned so much on its own and he needed to peel the days of healing from his skin as it was. Alegan filled his lungs to capacity, all the way down to his sternum, and let the water pull him down.

  Air escaped from with his gasp. The water was scalding hot against his face, where the stars burned just days ago. They ached in harmony with his pulse, but he ignored the sensation as best he could. Ten seconds was all Alegan needed, long enough to saturate his hair.

  He moaned as he broke the surface. A hand settled on his bare shoulder, cool on his skin. Alegan cracked an eye open and found Catli giving him a concerned once-over.

  “I was about to warn you to be careful of your burns.” Catli let him go. “The ones on your face are far worse than the ones on your chest. Be gentle with them.”

  Alegan wanted to give the mage a sour glare. For failure of his due diligence, if nothing else. He was too relaxed. Yes, his cheek and brow pulsed in time with his blood, but it wasn’t a crippling pain. “I will remember for next time.”

  The soap was a blessing. A minor miracle of life. A necessity he hadn’t fully appreciated until he ran it over every inch of skin he possessed, three times. The others laughed at his indulgence of the pool and being clean. Alegan grinned at his own ridiculous self, but didn’t stop.

  His heart and soul were a little less dark for their company, after four years of holding himself back.

  Free of his hope to bring back his wife and his girls, there was a hideous scar on his insides, down through the center of everything he was. It ached the same way his physical injuries did, one that might soften and fade into a silvered part of his soul. There was no way to know. He knew, coming to the Fire Stars, he wasn’t going back without his family. Alegan was surprised to survive his attempt at the forbidden magics, but in a way, he hadn’t. The man who came with a chance, inferno bright, in his heart, was left on the slope. Not the price he expected to pay.

  Four years was a long time for him to hold on to that. To sustain the hope. Toa must have burned that out of him.

  When Catli heaved himself out of the water, Alegan averted his eyes again to the wrinkles forming on the tips of his fingers. He wanted to get out and dry off, but how eluded him. Was he supposed to air dry? Or put his dirty clothes back on?

  A corner of beige cloth dropped into his eyes from above his head. He tilted his head back against the pool’s ledge and saw Catli standing over him, a large square in one hand and a sheet held closed at his chest with the other, fabric clinging to wet skin.

  “When you’re ready, dry off with this, and come back to my home.” His host placed the folded sheet at Alegan’s left hand, away from the pool but in easy reach. “I will see you there.”

  As Catli turned away, Alegan panicked and grabbed the trailing edge of the mage’s sheet. “Wait, you won’t wait for me?”

  Catli faced him with a crooked grin, though it was not bright in the way Alegan had seen it until now. “Do you need me to?”

  Alegan frowned. The others were hoisting out of the water, naked like he and Catli were. The water was still too hot for Alegan’s blush to show around the redness of the temperature, but it was there all the same. “Maybe not.”

  “Walk to the other end of the village from here in a straight line and you cannot miss it.” Catli twitched the corner of his drying cloth out of Alegan’s hand. Alegan let him leave without protest again.

  The wait was for the best. Shy was not part of his nature, but the days he cavorted around naked were long behind him. Once the sounds of the two brothers and their friend receded into the distance, Alegan clambered out of the pool and scooped up his sheet, spreading it out with a hard flap.

  It was big enough to cover him shoulders to ankles, thick and coarse. He wrapped it around his body. The material would sponge away most of the moisture as he walked, so why bother blotting it off his skin? He picked up his dirty clothes and rolled them into a ball.

  Alegan turned one more time toward the horizon, just for the feeling he was standing at the end of the world, were nothing but blue existed beyond that point. Endless blue. If he allowed it, he could trick his mind into thinking the sky and ocean were the same blue, upholding the whole world, which was this one little island. No past to mourn. No empty future to dread.

  Something soft scrapped pebbles against the rocks. Alegan turned fast, startled. Four people stood behind him, where the stone broke through the sandy black soil, three women and a man. Their faces wore a twisted expression Alegan almost thought was disgust.

  “Can I help you?” He ventured with a slow smile.

  The woman in the lead, short with dark and hard eyes, wore a thunderous expression. She didn’t seem to like him at all. “We don’t want an outlander here. You need to leave before Toa makes Its wrath at your presence known.”

  Her scowl was taken up by the others as she turned away from him and stomped back toward the village. The man was last to leave, with a slow look from head to toe. Alegan shivered. Most of the time, that slow crawl of the eyes was supposed to be made with lust. This man was sizing up an opponent.

  Alegan waited for them to disappear between the huts before he bolted toward Catli’s home, entering at another point on the edge of the village. He slowed his steps from a flat run to a quick step. He’d be damned if he looked like he was trying to escape in fear. Besides, the good work of the bath was already coming undone from the tension.

  Alegan wasn’t surprised, though. Who wanted a stranger in their midst, especially if the villagers were as close knit as he’d seen so far? Was meeting four, and judging by their interactions, a good way to measure the people on the island? It didn’t matter. He had come to resolve his problem or die trying. Neither ending happened, and while this place was far from his old life, if he wasn’t welcome here, he wouldn’t stay.

  A hiccup blocked his throat as he stumbled along. The stupid sheet tried to trip him, weaving between his ankles. He had nowhere else to go. But he would. Catli was kind and did his best to heal Alegan. He wouldn’t place his host in a position where the village would turn on him for keeping Alegan past propriety.

  Catli’s home stood in front of him in another minute. Alegan dithered on the doorstep, pacing in a tight circle, thoughts chasing themselves even tighter. He had nothing left to go home to. Nothing left to get home with. Gods witness it, he didn’t even have the clothes he’d come with. The meager belongings he arrived with two weeks ago were already gone, back on the ship and too far across the Vensalin to recall. When the ship docked at Rethkrul and he didn’t claim his luggage, the captain would sell the lot.

  The door opened. Catli filled the entry, dressed and looking at him with confusion. “Why haven’t you come in yet?”

  Alegan stopped so fast, he stumbled. “I can just come in?”

  “This is your home for the time you choose to stay here.” Catli smile
d and stepped back. “Are you coming?”

  Chapter 5

  Kota tugged on the sheet where it covered the curve of his shoulder. “We need to talk.”

  Catli frowned, but nodded, feet knowing the path from the pool to his home without him. “Where?”

  “I’ll meet you at your home.” Kota patted his shoulder, still serious, and walked toward a smaller hut he shared with Mota and his husband, near the center of the village.

  For a moment, Catli thought about going back to retrieve Alegan. He dismissed it. If Alegan was lost, someone would guide him back to Catli’s. He needed to be ready for Kota.

  Kota wasn’t usually so serious. They had been friends for a long time, before Catli started his mage training. If he wanted to talk to Catli, well, Catli was going to take heed.

  By the time Catli had returned home, dressed and laid out fruit drinks, Kota was at his door. Mota hadn’t followed him. A warning tingle shot through the nape of his neck.

  “Thank you,” Kota said as Catli held the door open for his guest.

  “What’s this about?” Catli guided his friend into the little kitchen and poured juice for them both in his little red cups. “And I’m surprised you are by yourself.”

  Kota grinned at that. It was an ongoing joke Mota accompanied his brother everywhere to protect Kota’s honor. The truth was a little more complicated. Kota was his brother’s translator when Jari was out fishing. Not all who lived in the village had learned the hand language the brothers invented for communication. Catli had, because he monitored Mota for changes to his hearing, and some things were too personal for a translator to know.

  “My brother sleeps, at the moment. It seems Jari decided to wear him out before he joined the rest of the fishers to pull in the day’s catch.” There was a wry smile on Kota’s face. “I changed and left as fast as I could.”