by Amy Lane
Together they collapsed onto the cloak, still joined, and the laughter shaking against Eljean’s back was sweet, reassuring, amazing.
“How was that?” Torrant asked through his glee.
“Ah, that was amazing!” Eljean panted. “I didn’t know what I was missing.”
Torrant’s laughter calmed a little. “You will have to tell Zhane,” he whispered against Eljean’s ear. Eljean whimpered a little. They weren’t supposed to think of other lovers, not today.
“Who am I, Eljean?” Torrant whispered in his ear, the return of his earlier tenderness reassuring.
“Ell…” Oh. Oh gods. “Torrant Shadow.”
But there was no hurt in Torrant’s voice as he lay Eljean down. “See… Zhane’s name, you’d remember.”
“Mmm.” There was really nothing he could say that wouldn’t make that accident worse. But abruptly it didn’t matter. A sudden lassitude assaulted Eljean, and he thought about going for a swim before he fell asleep. But even though Torrant’s skin was sticking to his back, he didn’t want to lose this sudden kindness, this tender moment of afterward.
Torrant had led, and Eljean let him.
In the end, there had been a little pain, enough, but then there was only the giving and the taking and the sweetness of the day.
TORRANT SAT cross-legged on the edge of the beach, dressed in his breeches alone. He had scraped a pile of pebbles to his side, like a child, and was pensively pitching them into the still river, seeing how many times he could skip the stones across the stilled eddies of water.
He looked over his shoulder and saw Eljean sleeping, parts of him draped strategically under the folds of the cloak, his head resting on an outflung arm. He was facing the blackberry bushes, and the curly darkness of his hair seemed to take over his sleeping form.
Who am I?
Torrant had asked the question again, his arms locked around Eljean’s chest, as the laughter from the frantic climax of their lovemaking still hung in the air.
Who am I?
Elly…. Torrant.
Elly….
Ellyot.
It was to be expected, Torrant mused darkly. His brother’s name practically dripped from the trees, liked the rotting remains of the rope swing hanging from a branch upstream.
Torrant could see the shadows of his family as they had played every warm summer evening, and even some chilly fall ones, bathing and chatting and loving each other in the coolness of this little spot.
The game with the rope swing had been a rite of passage of sorts. Moon would watch the child swim upstream while he was waiting downstream, to make sure the swimmer could fight the current and win, and then he would gravely give the all-clear. The boys—Yarri had been the only girl—would swing the rope up stream, let go at the highest arc, catch the current downstream, and swim until they caught the eddy that took them into the family swimming cove, safe on the sandbar along the blackberry bushes.
That last summer, Yarri, who could safely paddle from adult to adult in deeper water, defied her father. Defiance didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was Yarri who did it—and this time she snuck on the swing while the rest of the family was playing.
Torrant and Ellyot had ploughed through the water as Yarri had bobbed down past the cove, swimming furiously but refusing to panic.
Torrant panicked enough for all of them. His body was burly with muscle, and he swam strongly but not quickly, plowing through the water like a draft horse. He fought the current and watched helplessly as she was swept beyond them all.
Ellyot could swim like a dolphin, even though he hadn’t lived to see what one was. He cut sleekly through the water as Torrant charged against it, and when Ellyot caught her, they all washed up against the sharp and rocky shore that lay downstream, clinging to each other and sobbing for breath.
When they could finally stand and speak, Ellyot had been disgusted enough with his foolhardy little sister to stand up and wash his hands of her.
Next time you try to kill yourself, Littlest, make sure you do it where Torrant can catch you. It’s what he does best, after all.
And now Torrant was two hard weeks of riding away from seeing her at all, and he could only hope she could swim through the rocky waters of a world Rath was forging out of his own hatred.
And he was treading water, trying to keep his face above the flood.
He looked back over his shoulder, saw Eljean’s narrow, pale body covered by a dusty cloak, a trickle of damp down the back of his thigh.
Failing, he thought hollowly. He was failing. He was drowning. That sleeping figure was really the rushing river, closing over his head.
Elly….
In the distance he could hear Aylan clumping through the blackberry bushes, swearing loudly enough to change the river’s course. Torrant smiled. Aylan was being loud on purpose—all the better to let two lovers know they were about to be interrupted. With effortless weariness, he sent a course of will toward Eljean, that he sleep as, in truth, Eljean needed to.
Torrant so badly needed to talk to Aylan.
Aylan looked a little worse for the wear as he sat down on the hill and pulled off his gloves, boots, and shirt. His gloves looked as though he’d had his own fight with semirotted wood, and the leather cloak in his arms looked as though he and the blackberry bushes had exchanged more than words. He looked over at Eljean, still sleeping, and frowned. He pointed to Torrant and Torrant nodded.
“I spelled him,” he confessed, choosing another pebble and skipping it nearly halfway across the river before the current took it. “Thanks for wearing the cloak,” he said dryly as Aylan moved barefooted across the sand and crouched down next to him.
“My sweaty, chafing pleasure. Are we not swimming naked? Because frankly, my breeches will rub me raw if I get them wet.” He nodded at Torrant in his underthings, just above the water’s reach.
“I didn’t want to swim. I wanted to sit,” Torrant said mildly. “There are places you don’t want sand, right?”
“Absolutely.” Aylan nodded. “Now do you mind if I swim before we talk, or does that git’s nap have an expiration time?”
“I’ll swim with you if you stop calling him a git.”
They both stood and stripped off their breeches, and Torrant didn’t miss Aylan’s surreptitious look to count the scars since the last time he’d been able to sneak a peek.
“Did you do enough damage with that glass, mate?” Aylan snapped at last. “Was there another nick you could have given yourself? Inscribed Yarri’s initials on the back of your thigh or something?”
“Well, I was trying for a love poem to you, but your charming temper managed to bugger it up,” Torrant shot back amiably. He himself was open in his admiration of Aylan’s flawless body. His chest and back were tanned from working in the sun, but his backside and legs were pale. Every line of him was refined, marble perfection, masculine and lovely.
Aylan caught him looking and gave him a sly glance. “Taking notes?” he asked with a nod at Eljean’s sleeping form. “Comparing?”
Torrant didn’t need to flush. “There is no comparison. There never has been.”
And now Aylan looked away and flushed. Without answering, he grinned shyly and dove into the water, followed by Torrant.
Instinctively, Torrant swam upstream, heaving his body through the weaker current near the shore, kicking off from the larger stones at the river’s bottom, then working, exerting, enjoying the push, until he got to the place they used to land from the rope swing, where he pushed out into the center of the river. He whooped as the current took him and carried his weight with exhilarating swiftness until he caught the back eddy into the pool.
He came back laughing, exultant, and smiling like a little boy. Aylan, who had watched him with bemusement, laughed back for a moment, and then he could no longer mask the pang of sadness that clenched his chest.
“What?” Torrant asked.
“Nothing.” Aylan shook his head, spattering water
from his curly hair.
“No, what? We don’t get to do that, not here. Not when we’re the only two people in the world we can talk to.” Torrant grinned and positioned his hands for maximum splashing effect. “Talk or you’ll be snorting water out your nose for a week!”
Aylan grinned back and got ready to duck. “I just miss that damned smile, you pretty wank. I used to love it when you’d flash it when things seemed their worst….”
Torrant refused to sober and grinned instead. “Well, things are looking pretty dire for you, mate. I’m betting you’ve forgotten how to defend yourself!”
Their skirmish was swift and furious and ended with Aylan using his height shamelessly, anchoring his feet on the bottom where Torrant couldn’t touch and wrapping his arms around his friend to haul him down for a sound ducking. They came back up from the bottom laughing, Aylan’s arms still wrapped unselfconsciously around Torrant’s shoulders. Torrant leaned against him and floated, for this particular sunlit, sparkling moment, very content to let someone else bear his weight.
“Mmmm… nice,” Aylan hushed against his ear. They stayed that way, absorbing the peace, and then they both sighed in tandem. The sun was slanting westward, and it wouldn’t be fair to let Eljean sleep past time to swim comfortably.
“It was bad, then, in the common room?” Torrant asked lowly, leaning his head back against Aylan’s shoulder.
“It was bad, brother. I imagine it was worse when it just happened.”
“Mmm….” Torrant snuggled unconsciously into his friend’s embrace. “I remember the night Starry was born. I’d helped, you know, with those children, when they were born. I’d held all of them, when they first came into the world, and there was Starren, red and wriggling—and surprisingly peaceful for a newborn, if you can believe that.”
“I can,” Aylan said mildly, pleased to hear it anyway.
“And all I saw in my heart were those six children I’d helped bring into life, and then the only one who was still alive—”
“Was Yarri.”
“Was Yarri. And I made this vow, you know, to keep Starren safe, to keep this family safe, like I couldn’t keep my family safe here.”
Aylan tilted his face back to the sun for an excuse to close his eyes. “Ah, brother, you break my heart.”
“Well, you save mine,” Torrant told him. And then, almost brokenly, “Why couldn’t we, again?”
“Wha’?”
“Why couldn’t we be lovers?” Oh, his voice was so hurt. “You spent eight years chasing me. I know you realized we’d be better off as friends, and believe me, I was relieved. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you every time you saw me and Yarri together, but just—just here. Where the world is upside down. Why couldn’t it be us?”
Aylan closed his eyes against the glare from the water and nuzzled Torrant’s temple, wondering if his brother realized he had let his white streak of magic show. “I had a reason,” he said. “When we got here, and I saw that terrible gift you’d made me. I had a reason. It was supposed to protect me, right? To keep me from always worrying, from being consumed by you—but now?”
“What now?” The hurt was lifting a little.
“Now, I’m still consumed. I’d become drunk on the Moon family, secure in our numbers. You’re my only family here, and I’m terrified for you, all the time. I wish we could spend our nights together, just so I know you are safe. And it has nothing to do with the love I feel for Starry and very little to do with what I felt for you in school. I just, I want to keep you safe, that’s all.”
Torrant laughed a little, humorlessly. “Oh, brother, I wish you’d have let me know before last week.”
“What happened today?” Aylan asked soberly.
“He called me ‘Ellyot,’” Torrant muttered, embarrassed.
“The wanking git,” Aylan comforted, and his heart eased, just a little, when Torrant laughed.
“Is it time to wake him up?” Torrant said reluctantly, and he knew the answer anyway and turned in Aylan’s arms, surprising him with a kiss, an embrace, twined legs warm under the cool water. Aylan’s mouth opened, and Torrant tasted river water, coolness, and the strength that had always been a part of Aylan. He groaned, wanting more, taking everything his friend could give, his family, the one person he loved whom he could touch, could protect, could claim.
Aylan gasped as Torrant pulled away, and both of them knew what their bodies were doing where the water was touching them.
“What was that for?” he asked, strained.
“That was for making me see this through.” Torrant looked up to shore and released his will.
“Oy, Eljean!” he called. “Are you going to sleep all day, or did you want to rinse off a little?”
Eljean shook his head and began to push himself awake like a surprised puppy, and Torrant and Aylan moved away from each other, careful not to touch like that again where Eljean could see.
Terrorism
THE REST of the trip home was even more sobering than the visit to Torrant’s past.
The journey itself had been pleasant. The heat and the scorching sun hadn’t abated, but Torrant and Aylan chatted, entertaining Eljean with their talk of school, family, Trieste and their time at Triannon. Eljean had never heard them speak of Trieste—but the affection in their voice sounded almost brotherly, and he enjoyed the idea of them, running around school, being young, carefree, and interested in things that didn’t hurt.
But then they rode to the hills to the west of the city, and even as they stretched their legs for the walk around the base of the very new building, Eljean could tell that Torrant and Aylan saw something that truly disturbed them.
“I don’t understand this plan at all,” Eljean said, standing in the middle of the construction. “It looks like a waiting room and a suite,” he muttered, toeing the middle of the foundation and looking at what was planned to be an enormous building, with differences in foundation and materials from the outside to the inside.
“But the waiting room has concrete for a foundation, and the suite….”
Torrant and Aylan kicked around the granite that had been carved out of a local quarry. It was cut and set seamlessly, spaced apart from the concrete by several starting rows of cinderblocks also set seamlessly.
At the “back” of the interior room was the beginning of a giant chimney.
Eljean squinted at Torrant and Aylan. “It looks like a kiln, doesn’t it?”
He watched as both of them swallowed, hard enough to work their throats.
“Don’t do it, brother,” Aylan said hollowly. “Don’t do it. You haven’t eaten enough in the last two days to sustain a mouse.”
“Don’t do what?” Eljean asked, nonplussed.
“Oh Goddess,” Torrant whispered, white-faced and drawn. “Sweet Triane’s tears, he’s right, it is a kiln.”
“Don’t do it,” Aylan begged, knowing that if Torrant lost his breakfast, he would follow.
“Why build a kiln this far out of the city—and build it this big? What are they going to cook in it?” Eljean asked, still completely puzzled.
But Aylan looked away, unable to meet his eyes.
“Torrant?” he asked, looking at the size of the building up in the pleasant green foothills. He couldn’t see what his two companions thought was so awful.
“What are they going to cook in it?” Torrant echoed, as though from far away.
“Yes, what would you cook in something this big?”
“People. Lots and lots of people.” And with that, Torrant ran to the grass outside the building and bent over, retching and hurling. As Eljean looked at Aylan to beg him to deny it, Aylan ran over to join his brother, getting sick in the long deep grass beyond the abomination that was Rath’s new project for the Goddess’s chosen people.
“What are we going to do about that?” Aylan asked later, as the buckboard jounced along the uneven path that went from the city gates to the “reeducation camp.”
It was the
first thing any of them had said after all three of them had sicked up in the tall grass. They rinsed their mouths and spat, and then mounted up and rode away as quickly as possible.
“You know,” Torrant said after considering a moment, “three years after Yarri and I came over Hammer Pass, Rath blew the switchback trail that led up to the mountain with sulfur and saltpeter.”
“I remember that,” Eljean said in surprise. “He blamed the Goddess’s people.”
“Well, the survivors saw Rath’s livery, so I’m assuming he was lying,” Torrant told him sardonically. “But I’m also thinking that we may take a page from his book.”
“That’s a lot of explosive,” Aylan cautioned, clucking to the horses to slow down. They were too close to the city to shout this conversation over the squeaks of the cart. “It may take a week or two to gather that much. We’d have to do it from different places, have maybe Torrell or some of the others with that sort of gift put it together.”
“Let’s make it an even month, brother. From what I could see, they won’t finish that—” He spat. “—that thing before the snows fall. But I don’t want to give them time to rebuild before the snows, if you know what I mean.”
“I do,” Aylan agreed. They’d had a year to either change Clough or kill Rath—that had been the promise they’d made. By next spring, the remainder of the Goddess’s people in Clough needed to be out of Rath’s clutches, and Rath needed to be either dead or deposed. They needed to destroy that thing when there was no potential to have it sprout up again like a diseased mushroom, grown in gore.
