by Nathan Long
I breathed a sigh of relief, then pointed to the door again. “That wasn’t what I wanted to show you. It’s out on the deck. I can prove to you that the priests are stealing water.”
The Aldhanan looked skeptical. “Mistress Jae-En, as much as I value your generosity and your prowess in battle, you are new to this land, and know little of the church or our—”
“Yeah yeah, but who else here has been inside the Temple of Ormolu? Anybody? Right, well, I saw something in there that—”
“You have not been in the temple.” Aldhanan stood up, which made his surgeons babble and ease him back down again. “Beside the priests, only the Aldhanan is permitted to enter, and only for the blessing of the high priest. The way is barred for all others.”
“So you’ve been there! You know! Well, I got there by popping in on one of their ‘living stone’ thingies. And that’s when I saw—”
“Describe it.”
Geez. What was he getting his panties in a bunch for? He was keeping me from getting to the good part. “Uh, okay. Um, white walls, everything all smooth and round, automatic doors that slide open when you get near ’em, and a big tank with glass walls in the middle of it all, as big as your palace, filled with water they stole from you!”
“You… you have been inside.” The Aldhanan blinked, then looked to the surgeons. They were just tying off his bandage. He nodded to them, then rose and stepped around the table. “Lead on. I will see what you have found.”
“Finally! Come on.”
We went out on deck with Lhan, Sai, Wen-Jhai and Captain Anan following, and I squatted down next to the moisture gatherer as they gathered around it. “Okay, lookit.” I pressed the spigot and water spilled out on the deck. “If I let all the water out of this thing, a while later it would be full again ’cause it pulls water out of the air.”
Wen-Jhai scowled. “There is no water in air!”
I gave her a look. “Sure there is. You know when you have a cold glass? And water beads on it? Where do you think that comes from?”
“Oh.”
“So this machine does the same thing, only faster. Those fans blow air on those curly-cue things and water forms on ’em, then drips down and fills up the tank. Simple, right?”
The Aldhanan squinted through the glass. “Ingenious, but what has it to do with the priests?”
I groaned. “Don’t you get it? The Temple of Ormolu isn’t a temple. It’s one of these things, only as big as a skyscraper! Uh, okay. Not a skyscraper. A mountain! Anyway, the only thing it does is steal water out of the air and store it in that huge tank in the middle. Why do you think it never rains around here?”
The Aldhanan didn’t look convinced. “I saw no such fans.”
“Then maybe you heard ’em then. They make the whole place hum like a bee hive.”
“I know not what a bee hive is, but… but….” The Aldhanan frowned. “There was a tale my father told, of when he was Aldhanan. Once, on his yearly visit to the Temple, there was an accident, or an attack of some kind, a maddened slave, perhaps. In any event, his escort left him for a moment, and he opened a door into a….” He closed his eyes like he was trying to remember. “‘A dark void of frigid air and howling winds,’ he called it.”
“That’s it! That’s where the fans are!” I pointed through the moisture gatherer’s glass panels again. “See!”
The Aldhanan stared. “Can it be true? It cannot be true.”
Wen-Jhai looked like she was going to cry. “But the priests say our land was a desert until the Seven brought to us the water of life, and the Seven withhold it when we sin. Do you say that is all a lie?”
Lhan stroked his chin beard. “Less a lie than an admission of blackmail and bribery I would say.”
Captain Anan glared at him. “That is blasphemy.”
“Perhaps, but I have read old texts which tell of a time before the war between the Seven and the One when Ora was a paradise, a lush land of plenty. Not until the towers were built did the droughts begin to come.”
The Aldhanan was as grim as a prison door. “I still cannot believe it. Surely the church has not always been so self-serving. Surely they have not always been thieves.”
I shrugged. “Hey, maybe there was a good reason for collecting the water back in the day. Holding some back for the lean times or whatever. But, Christ, how much leaner does it gotta get?”
The Aldhanan kept staring at the moisture gatherer like he still wasn’t sure. I stood up and looked down at him.
“Bro, come on. You wanna help your people? There’s a real simple way to make Ora a land of plenty again. Stand up to these assholes and shut their shit down. You turn off those fans, the rains will come. I guarantee it.”
He still didn’t look up, but Sai did.
“Mistress Jae-En, do you truly suggest open war? If you think the people suffer now, imagine the suffering when the armies march. There will be death on a grand scale.”
Anan nodded. “Aye. We might never recover.”
“So you’d rather just lie there and take it?” I thought back to all the dead fields and abandoned farms I’d seen between here and Ormolu. All the lives ruined by lack of water. “Fighting the church might suck in the short term, but it’s gotta be better than taking it up the ass for eternity. These clowns gotta be stopped.”
“And if the war cannot be won?” The Aldhanan lifted his head at last. “The palace has risen against the church before. Even the Wargod fought them, but the church still remains, while he is gone. Even were I certain you speak the truth, I know not if I would venture the fight. Blood and death in the short term may lead to nothing but defeat.”
I blinked at him. Politicians didn’t usually admit stuff like that. The rest were looking at him too.
He sighed, then smiled. “A father may choose to rescue his daughter on the spur of the moment, but an Aldhanan cannot decide to rescue his country in the same manner. I must think on this. Please, take your ease.”
And with that, he headed back to his cabin with Captain Anan following, and left the rest of us staring after him. At least I was. Lhan was looking at me with a funny little smile on his face.
I met his eye. “What?”
“You are a wonder, mistress. A thousand years of theology, gone with a snap of your fingers.”
I squirmed, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to rock any boats. I just—”
“Do not apologize. We of Ora have too long breathed the stultifying staleness of myth. The cold wind of truth is bracing, and welcome. Even if it makes us shiver.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were all about tradition. Or have you changed your mind again about…?” I glanced at Sai and Wen-Jhai, and changed what I was gonna say. “Uh, about, you know?”
“That is an entirely different matter.” He sniffed, cold again, then motioned toward the front of the ship, where the cook house was. “Come, there is food.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
HEARTACHE!
The Aldhanan put us up in his officers’ quarters—Sai and Wen-Jhai in one cabin, and me and Lhan in another, which was nice and open-minded of him, but kinda awkward too, since we didn’t actually want to share a cabin, but also didn’t wanna go into details about how we were broken up and all. So once again the two of us were crammed into a cramped closet without enough room to turn around in without elbowing each other in the face. At least this one had two cots, one over the other, bunk bed style.
Still it was kinda tough lying there in the dark with my feet hanging a foot off the end of the bed and all my bruises and cuts and scrapes screaming at me, wishing I had someone to hold me and kiss me and make it all go away—particularly when the someone I wanted was right under me, not wanting to be with me. That was the thing that was gnawing at me like a sack full of rats. I could deal with the pain, but this was really the first quiet minute I’d had since Lhan had told me to pack my bags, and thinking about that fucking hurt worse than all the rest of it.
Why had I come back to W
aar? Why hadn’t I realized how little I knew about Lhan? Because I’d been thinking with my cunt, is why. My brain had been scrambled by that romance novel night we’d had together before the priests had sent me back to Earth, and I’d jumped right back across the whole fucking universe to try to have it again. How was I supposed to guess he’d be a stupid, stiff-necked caveman who wanted me to play Snow White to his Prince Charming? How was I supposed to know he’d have a stick so far up his ass that he’d rather die than let a woman save him—even a woman who could bench press him for reps.
I’d fucked up. I’d made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come back. I should have stayed on Earth and taken Eli up on his trip to Mexico. I coulda been alone there just as easy as here, and at least there I coulda drowned my sorrows in beers and Marlboros. At least there I wouldn’t be rubbing elbows with Lhan every five minutes without bein’ allowed to jump his bones.
Thinking about not being able to touch him flipped the switch, and all of a sudden all the pain and loneliness and anger I’d been tryin’ to hold down just filled me up like a balloon and I started crying into my pillow. I tried to keep quiet about it, but it just kept getting worse, and after a minute of clenching and wiping my nose, a sob got away from me and I heard Lhan shift on the bottom bunk.
“Mistress? Is all well?”
“It’s f-f-fine.”
I heard him sit up. “Mistress, you are weeping.”
“What if I am? Whadda you care!”
There was a pause from below, then, “Mistress, if it is I who have caused this unhappiness, then I apologize. If it is any consolation, the decision has hurt me as well. More than you can know.”
“Oh yeah? I don’t see you cryin’.”
“Nevertheless. I assure you I am in pain.”
“Whatever, dude.”
This time the pause was even longer, but after a minute he spoke again.
“Mistress. Jae-En. I—I hope… I hope you do not intend to help the Aldhanan in his fight against the church—if indeed he chooses to fight.”
I frowned, confused. Why were we talking about that all of a sudden? “Huh? I thought you hated those guys.”
“With ever fiber of my being. They are a cancer in the breast of Ora. But… but it need not be your fight.”
I frowned, then rolled over and looked down at him over the edge of the top bunk. “Of course it’s my fight! After all they’ve done to me, and you, and Sai and Wen-Jhai, I owe the whole fucking temple a swift kick up the—”
“What they did to you is precisely what gives me cause for concern, Mistress. You came close to death today, more times than I could count, and, just as often, I failed to protect you.”
I gave him a look. “You don’t have to protect me anymore. You broke up with me. Or don’t you remember—”
I stopped as I noticed a little leather cord around his waist that disappeared into his loincloth. He twitched as he saw where I was looking, and tried to stop me as I reached down to him and pulled it out. It was the balurrah he’d made for me—the pink pebble with the crappy sketch of my sword scratched into it. I stared at it, heart hammering.
“Wh-what the hell, Lhan?”
He looked away. “Forgive me, Mistress. That our love is impossible does not make it easier to deny. I—I….”
I clamped my hand around the thing, choking up. “Goddamn it, Lhan. You are tearing me in half!”
He touched my hand. “And myself as well, which is why I ask that you not participate in the conflict before us. I—I could not bear it if you were to fall in the fighting because of my failings. Indeed… Indeed…” He got stuck there, skipping like a broken record, then he jumped the groove and went on. “Indeed, I believe it would be for the best if… if you were to go home.”
I blinked. “Go home? Whaddaya mean, go home? You mean go back to Earth?”
“Back to your lands. Yes.”
I switched my grip to his throat, pinning him to his cot.
“First off, you dipstick, I don’t have any more clue how to get back to Earth this time than I did last time. Second, why the fuck would I go back when you’re still wearing my ballurah?”
There were tears in his eyes. “Because you cannot have me, and I cannot have you, and I would spare us both the torture of proximity.”
Funny, I’d just been thinking the same thing, but coming out of his mouth I didn’t like it. “You idiot! The only thing keeping you from having me is your goddamn Oran code. Look, you said before we were better suited as companions. Okay fine. Let’s be companions—companions who fuck.”
He stiffened up like I’d slapped him. “This is not a youthful fling. This is not the crude rutting of beasts. This is a grand passion, a noble meeting of hearts, a pure and—”
“And because of that we can’t touch each other?” I let go of him and grabbed the balurrah again. The cord snapped. I held onto it and rolled back onto my bunk to face the wall. “Get out of here, Lhan. Go sleep in the hall. If you’re gonna leave me alone, I’d rather be by myself.”
He stood from his cot and looked at me. I could hear him breathing at my shoulder. “Mistress, you have my balurrah. You must return it to me.”
“Why? We can’t be together, right? So what’s the point of you wearing it?”
“It speaks what my heart may not.”
“Yeah, well, I think I’ll just keep it. It’ll make a nice little memento of that cute Lhan guy who couldn’t make up his mind whether he loved me or not.”
“I do love you, Mistress. You know that I do.”
“Okay, then.” I rolled over to face him, then slipped the thing into my loincloth and spread my legs. “So come get it.”
He stared at me, quivering, for a long minute, then stepped back with as much dignity as a guy pitching a tent in his banana hammock can muster, and drew himself up. “You are cruel, Mistress, and I will take my leave, but not before you answer my question.”
I closed my legs. “What question is that?”
“Will you keep out of the coming fight?”
He must have seen how I was going to answer, ’cause his cool broke and he stepped forward again. “Come, Jae-En. Did you not say you would only fight until Sai and Wen-Jhai were rescued? Well, you have done so. They are safe, and you have no personal stake in the conflict to come. Why risk your life?”
Well, he had me there. As mad as I was at the church for everything they’d done, I was also fed up with being stabbed at and shot at and running for my life every other second. But the original plan had been for me and Lhan to head out on the open road together once we’d saved the kids, and that didn’t look like it was going to happen. What was I supposed to do by myself? Sit around in Ormolu and twiddle my thumbs while Lhan and everybody else went off and saved the world? Yeah, right. And what if they screwed up and the priests won?
I must have been staring off into space for a while, because Lhan cleared his throat. “Er, has my speech offended, Mistress?”
“Huh? No, no. It’s not that. I’m sick of fighting, believe me.”
“And yet?”
Yeah, there was an “and yet.” I wished there wasn’t, but there was. “I don’t know, Lhan. If we were back on Earth, I’d be wishing you good luck and heading off to the bar, but….” I shook my head. “Back there, one person can’t change anything. Not even the President of the United States. Nothing anybody does makes one damn bit of difference. The government, the corporations, poverty, hunger, they’re like clouds. They’re so big and so murky and so everywhere, you can’t fight ’em. There’s no one bad guy you can punch in the face to save the world. But here…”
I swept a hand at the porthole. “Things aren’t so set on Waar, the way they are back home. Here, one person can make a difference. I already have, and so have you.” I pointed to my sword, which was leaning against the bulkhead nearby. “You and me and that sword, we brought down Kedac-Zir, who was gonna kill the Aldhanan and take over the country. Just now we saved Sai and Wen-Jhai and the Aldhan
an from a bunch of evil priests.”
“We did have help, Mistress.”
“Sure, but would they have won if we hadn’t helped? And that’s what I’m saying. This fight with the church? I could be the difference between the Aldhanan winning and losing. How can I turn my back and walk away when I know that?”
Lhan hung his head. “You shame me, Mistress, with your nobility. My thoughts have been only for my frustrations and fears, while you think of the good of the world.”
“It ain’t nobility, Lhan. It’s guilt.”
He gave me a sideways smile. “It is rare indeed when the two are not one and the same.”
I looked up at him. “So, you’re okay with it, then? Me coming along?”
His smile died. “You would not demur were I not, so it matters not.” He bowed, then turned for the door. “Good night, Mistress.”
He looked so forlorn that, even after everything he’d said, I wanted to pull him onto the bunk and comfort him, but I didn’t. He would have brought his pride with him, and there wasn’t enough room. The fucking thing was bigger than the both of us combined.
“Good night, Lhan.”
When he was gone, I pulled the balurrah out of my loincloth, then wondered what I was gonna do with it. It felt a little weird to wear it. Who wears their own love-token, right? I stuffed it in my pack. I’d have to give it some more thought.
Whatever I did with it, I wanted to make sure it was something that would really piss off Lhan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
WAR!
Three days later, just after sunset, the whole gang walked down the airship’s gangplank right onto the balcony of the Aldhanan’s private apartments on the top floor of the palace—door-to-door service, just like rockstars—only Lhan and I were dressed up like guards so no church spies could see who we were.
And it was a good thing too, ’cause the church was waiting on us. Before the Aldhanan even had time to take off his cloak, one of his servants scurried up to him and bowed.
“My Aldhanan. The High Priest Duru-Vau wishes to speak with you on a matter of great urgency. He awaits without.”
