The Downs

by Kim Fielding

  He carried the shirt as he entered the lake. The water was cold, but not horribly so, and the smooth pebbles of the lakebed felt good under his soles. He waded until the water reached his shins, then crouched to scrub his shirt. Actually Rig’s shirt, he remembered; Enitan owned nothing at all. He scrubbed at the coarse fabric for a while and then, hoping that was good enough, splashed back to the shore and spread the garment to dry.

  When he glanced at the house, Rig was standing on the balcony. He waved at Enitan, who waved back, unselfconscious about his nudity. He’d never been prudish about his body, and besides, Rig had spent several weeks becoming intimate with every inch of Enitan’s skin. Repairing that skin, in fact, until it was better than new.

  Enitan returned to the lake and sat near the edge, letting the water lap over his legs and waist. He lay back and submerged his head, then scrubbed his fingers through his hair and beard. Later he’d ask Rig about a haircut and a shave. He might look less like a demon that way.

  When he was as clean as he was going to get, he shifted slightly closer to the bank and reclined on his elbows with his eyes closed, almost dozing, enjoying the contrast between the chilly water and the warm air. This was wonderful. In the city, their house had a bathtub the servants could fill with heated water. But even with scented oils and fancy soaps at hand, it wasn’t nearly as nice as a lake under a pewter-lace sky.

  And then pain lanced through his hip.

  Imagining teeth as long as Rig’s big fingers, Enitan yelped and shot to his feet. But of course the pebbles were slippery and his legs were still a bit unreliable, so he crashed down onto his ass with a noisy splash. He tried to regain his footing but mostly ended up flailing spastically as more lances of agony attacked the parts of him that were submerged. He shouted and spluttered and flopped, finally crawling out of the lake and dragging himself slightly up the bank. His feet were still in the water when strong hands grasped him under the armpits and hauled him fully onto dry land.

  “How did you get here so quickly?” Enitan rasped as Rig gently eased him onto his back. It wasn’t the most important issue at the moment perhaps, but it was the one his thick and muddy head grabbed onto.

  “What happened?” Rig demanded.

  “Dragonfish ate me. All gone.” The pain was mostly gone now too, and he felt as if he were floating a hand width above his body.

  “But you’re not bleeding. You’re— Oh, shit. Trancebeetles. I’m so sorry, Enitan.”

  Enitan had no idea what Rig was talking about, and he didn’t really care. “You have trees in your hair,” he said, giggling.

  Rig grimaced and ran an impatient hand across his head, dislodging a few large splinters. Enitan laughed harder at the ones that remained. In fact, everything was very funny. The fact that he was naked and wet, and Rig was clothed and now pretty wet himself. The honey smell of the crushed plants beneath him. The bright yellow butterfly hovering nearby, because it could probably breathe fire or inject toxins. The tickle of Rig’s hands as he inspected Enitan’s bottom half.

  Rig looked at him with a half smile and shook his head. “I’ve never heard of trancebeetles affecting anyone this way. Usually people just… sit in a daze.”

  “I’m special!” Enitan yelled. And that was funny too because he wasn’t special. He was worthless. “Unre… unredee…” His tongue wouldn’t work properly, so he blew a raspberry instead.

  “Enjoy yourself now, Enitan, because you’re going to hurt like a demon in the morning.”

  With an attempt at seriousness, Enitan said, “No demons. Only saviors.” He ruined the solemn effect by reaching for Rig and tickling his unmarred cheek. “Big sexy saviors.”

  “Gods give me strength,” Rig said with a sigh. Then in one smooth movement, he lifted Enitan off the ground and settled him over a shoulder, head hanging and ass up. Enitan didn’t mind— it gave him a nice upside-down view of Rig’s ass, which unfortunately wasn’t as bare as his own.

  After a few steps, Rig bent his knees, and Enitan thought he’d be dumped back onto the ground. Instead, Rig scooped up Enitan’s drying shirt and resumed walking.

  Rig ended up carrying him all the way back to the hut, which was good, because Enitan was fairly certain he wouldn’t get his legs to work properly. Anyway, it was an interesting journey because the entire world was flipped. Trees looked very funny with their crowns reaching toward the ground and the roots burrowing into the sky.

  When watching them made Enitan dizzy, he concentrated instead on Rig’s body. A marvelously wide back and a narrow waist, and beneath that… Enitan placed his palms on Rig’s buttocks.

  “Enitan!” Rig rumbled. He punctuated his complaint with a slap of Enitan’s upraised rump— which did not have the discouraging effect he probably intended.

  “Nice. Strong here too. Very nice.” Enitan could feel each flex of muscle beneath his palms.

  “If you keep that up, I’m going to drop you.”

  “You never would. Never,” Enitan repeated. And then he burst into song because even though he was a terrible singer, the notes would sound better upside down. He watched them drop from his mouth and float through the reversed forest, each a different color and each capable of killing people in a slightly different way.

  Rig didn’t let go of him until they were back in the hut, at which point he settled Enitan on his sleeping mat and then stood with a grunt of relief. “You are heavy.”

  “Your fault. You feed me.” The entire room was slowly spinning with Enitan as its axis. He shut his eyes. “Not blind, just dizzy.”

  For some reason, that made Rig laugh. “Just… hold on a few minutes.”

  Enitan did hold on so he wouldn’t fall off the world. He clutched the edges of his mat. Falling was bad. Burning clouds. Broken bones. Banishment. But at the bottom there was kindness. Redemption. So maybe— No. The Judge had decided, and while Dany and others may have fallen softly, for someone like Enitan that wasn’t possible.

  “I used to fight,” he said when Rig sat beside him. “Now all I have is retribution.”

  Rig touched his fingers to Enitan’s hips and began to chant. Enitan hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Rig’s lullabies since the healing sessions had ended. “Should have hurt myself earlier,” he mumbled. Or maybe he just thought it. He wasn’t sure. The space in his head was blurred into the space outside, and everything was getting increasingly opaque. “Fog.”

  ****

  Chapter Eight

  Enitan felt like vomit smelled. His head throbbed with every heartbeat, and the lower half of his body had apparently been crumbled into pieces and then reassembled wrongly. He moaned piteously.

  “I am so sorry,” Rig repeated for the hundredth time as he helped Enitan drink some water.

  “You’re not the one who did this to me.”

  “But I should have warned you about the trancebeetles. Or checked for them myself.” Rig sighed. “I thought it was too early in the season.”

  “Who looks for beetles in a lake?”

  “Somebody with more sense than me. They float in the shallows for a few weeks every spring. Their stings blister flesh and, uh, affect the mind.”

  Enitan tried to move a leg and groaned. “Trancebeetles in the shallows, dragonfish in the deep, killer clouds above. How do any of you people stay alive?”

  “Some of us don’t,” Rig said unhappily.

  Enitan’s slightly muddled brain remembered Ayo, and he felt guilty. He gave Rig’s arm an awkward pat.

  Rig frowned. “I shouldn’t have let this happen to you.”

  “Gods, Rig. I am a grown man. Give me some credit for my own stupidity. Besides, you’ve done a fine job with the bites. The blisters are nearly gone already.”

  “I can do another session for you.”

  A new thought occurred to Enitan. “What does it cost you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Healing me. It’s… You’ve done so much already. And power like that doesn’t come free.” E
nitan had once been a very good fighter, but he’d earned it with hours of practice and paid for it with endless cuts and bruises. And Minna’s displeasure.

  After a pause, Rig shrugged slightly. “It tires me, that’s all. I can rest afterward.” He started to pull the blanket away from Enitan’s waist.

  Enitan caught his hand. “Will I heal without your help?”

  “Sure, by tomorrow. But—”

  “Then let me be. I’ve taken enough from you already.”

  “I don’t mind. It’s what I do. Please, Eni. Let me help you.”

  The nickname surprised Enitan so much that he released Rig’s hand and momentarily forgot to argue. Nobody had called him that since he was a small boy. Maybe Rig only said it because he was accustomed to shorter names, but still, it was nice. Enitan closed his eyes and listened to Rig sing.

  “Nap,” Rig ordered when he was done. “A little sleep will finish the job.”

  Enitan felt much better. His head had cleared, and the pain from the bites had faded to discomfort. He wasn’t especially tired, but he knew better than to argue with Rig. “Fine. But beginning tomorrow, I’m helping you build your house.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I know. I want to.” Assuming he could learn a few basic construction skills, it would be a good way to repay Rig for his care, room, and board. And the work would have the added benefit of increasing Enitan’s strength. If he was going to climb back to the Reach, he needed to get serious about rebuilding his muscles.

  “All right then. Tomorrow. If you feel up to it.”

  “I will.”

  Enitan ended up dozing after all, more from boredom than anything else. He was so damned tired of inactivity! When he woke up, he carefully stood and stretched. He was a bit achy, but that was all. “Healed,” he announced to Rig, who was working on something at the table.

  Rig blinked at him and looked away. “Good.”

  Enitan didn’t bother trying to cover himself before padding over to pour a cup of water. The hut was warm, and Enitan didn’t see his borrowed shirt anywhere; and besides, at this point Rig was better acquainted with Enitan’s naked body than Enitan was himself. Something nice-smelling was bubbling in a pot over the fire, and the lantern cast warm light over the cabin’s interior. The little room felt homier than the family mansion in the city ever had.

  “What are you doing?” Enitan asked.

  Rig seemed to be struggling with fabric, needle, and thread. He smiled slightly. “It was supposed to be a surprise but you woke up too soon.”

  “A surprise?”

  “Not anymore.” Rig held up the fabric for inspection, and Enitan saw that it was one of Rig’s pairs of trousers. Rough brown fabric, plain but sturdy. One leg was shorter than the other.

  “What in heavens are you doing to your clothes?” Enitan asked.

  “Your clothes now. I’m shortening them. I’ve already taken in the waist.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s dangerous to do construction dressed like that.” Rig flapped his hand in Enitan’s direction.

  Enitan grinned.

  ****

  After weeks of going pantsless, wearing trousers felt odd. Rig had done a passable job tailoring them, but they chafed a bit. Enitan didn’t complain though. He was getting what he wanted: a chance to work.

  When they reached the lake, Enitan glared balefully at the water before enduring a lecture from Rig on the safe handling of tools. He got a tour of the unfinished interior of the house, which was very interesting, and then settled into the main room downstairs to help Rig drill holes in logs.

  “Why?” Enitan asked.

  “For the pegs that will hold everything together. It’s important to get the placement and depth right.”

  That made sense. And even though Enitan was awkward with the drill at first, he soon became accomplished enough to impress. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” Rig asked after a while.

  “Never even seen anyone else drill. But it’s not that hard.”

  “Even Dany had a tough time with it at first, and he has a real talent for this kind of thing.”

  Enitan felt a strange mixture of jealousy and pride, neither of which was called for. “I used to fight. I told you that. It was one of the few things I was good at. And it’s not really all that different from this, when you think about it.” He lifted the U-shaped drill and looked at it. “It’s just using your body correctly. The careful application of strength.”

  “There’s a big difference between a sword and a drill.”

  “Just metal with a handle, either way.” Enitan grinned and resumed work.

  That evening, Enitan’s back and arms were sore. But he accompanied Rig to the lake the next day and the day after that, and the soreness went away. Together they drilled, they cut, they moved wood into place, they hammered. They joked and chatted while they worked, mostly about inconsequential things. Enitan talked about some of his lovers and some of his fights. He described everyday life in the city. Rig catalogued every toxic organism in the Downs and told funny stories about life in the village. If sometimes one of the men found his gaze lingering on the other’s body, neither commented on it.

  At the end of each afternoon, they checked a stretch of lake for trancebeetles before stripping and wading into the shallows to bathe. Often they laughingly splashed each other. As they played, a hand would occasionally brush against a back or shoulder or thigh, or even an ass, but it was only a game, signifying nothing.

  Enitan fell onto his mat each night wonderfully exhausted, Rig’s big body just out of reach.

  But one morning Rig stood at the door and announced they wouldn’t be going anywhere that day.

  “Why not?” asked Enitan, who was still eating breakfast.

  “Fog’s coming. If you have anything to do outdoors, do it now. When the fog comes, we’ll be inside for the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow too.”

  “All right.” Enitan stood, gathered the crumbs from his meal, and wandered outside. He sprinkled the crumbs on the ground, but Rig’s bird didn’t appear, which was unusual. It generally dove into view as soon as it caught sight of Rig— or Enitan, who’d taken to feeding it too. In fact, everything was eerily still. No birds called; no insects buzzed. There was no sign of the small furry creatures that often scurried over tree trunks. And the sky was a uniform dull gray, ugly and heavy-looking.

  Enitan quickly used the outhouse and hurried back. Rig remained at the doorway, arms crossed, brow furrowed. “We have enough water and food to last us, but we’re going to be stuck with the chamber pot for a while. Not very pleasant, I’m afraid.”

  “Maybe the fog won’t come.”

  “It will.”

  He was right. Enitan stood with him at the open door, watching the clouds sink closer and the light grow dim. The thicker the sky became, the harder it was for Enitan to draw breath. He didn’t remember his fall to the Downs, yet his skin seemed to recall searing agony, and his eyes were watery. Not a single sound was audible except for those slight noises made by Enitan and Rig.

  “It’s time,” Rig finally said, goaded by some cue Enitan couldn’t discern. He gently pushed Enitan fully into the house and closed the door.

  “Can the fog open doors?” Enitan asked, horrified, after watching Rig fasten the latch.

  Rig shook his head with a wry chuckle. “No. But the lock makes me feel better.” Then he blocked the very small gap between door and threshold with a folded blanket.

  If it weren’t for the fire and the lantern, the room would have been completely dark. But… the fire. That sparked a question. “Can’t the fog get in through the chimney?”

  “The smoke and rising heat keep it out. And if we were to run out of firewood, we would close the damper. A couple of vents near the floor give us fresh air. They’re lined with filtermoss to neutralize out the fog.”

  Frightened, Enitan ignored the part about filtermoss and looked at the substantial stack o
f chopped wood. “Run out of firewood?”

  “It’s very unlikely. But we have enough food and water and lanternseed oil to last about two weeks, if we’re careful.”

  Enitan shuddered. “Is that—”

  “Probably unnecessary. It almost never lasts more than a day or two. The longest I’ve ever seen it was six days. But there are stories about fogs that remained for longer than that. I won’t have you dying of dehydration or going insane in the darkness just because I was unprepared.”

  An unexpectedly warm feeling pulsed through Enitan’s chest. Rig was looking out for him. “I was in the dark when I first arrived here. I wouldn’t be scared or go crazy as long as you were with me.”

  Rig’s crooked smile made him beautiful.

  At first, passing the time was not difficult. They occupied themselves with small tasks such as cleaning, food preparation, and mending clothes. Sometimes they just sat, each lost in his own thoughts. But shortly before dinnertime, when Enitan was beginning to get bored, Rig rummaged in a wooden chest and, with a triumphant noise, pulled out a small box. He carried it to the table and began taking out small carved figures.

  “What’s that?” Enitan asked, coming close to see better.

  “Mice and burrows. It’s a game. Can I teach you to play?”

  Enitan took the second stool. “All right.”

  The game had complicated rules and he was very bad at it, but that didn’t bother him. Playing kept them busy, and Enitan’s losses were spectacular enough to make Rig laugh. Not cruelly. Just… amused. Enitan couldn’t help laughing with him, but as he looked at the sparkle in Rig’s eyes, it occurred to him that Rig must usually spend fogtimes locked up in solitude.

  By the time Rig doused the lantern, Enitan yearned to touch him. But he didn’t. They lay on their sleeping mats an arm’s width apart.

  A swift look through the peephole in the morning revealed the fog still there. Rig and Enitan ate, they cleaned, they played mice and burrows. They went to sleep early.