No Return (24 page)

Though he would not voice it to Churls, he found himself wishing for the exact opposite. A vexing wrath blossomed within him, spreading rapidly outward from his central components, causing his body to vibrate from head to toe. He pictured himself knocking the inn’s customers aside as if they were ragdolls, pulping skulls between his palms.

The spheres of his knuckles spun, and a new sensation struck him:

Pounding. Fists beating on an immense door within himself. Ortur Omali, struggling to be free, to assert his will once more—to disprove Berun’s recent victory over him. The reverberations shook Berun, rattling him to the core. For several seconds he feared he might fly apart, and then two voices spoke at once:

Berun
, his father said, speaking with the sound of a thousand trees being ripped from the earth, tugging his creation away from the real world. Black spots—shadow moths, flakes of ash—swam before his eyes, obscuring his vision.

“Berun,” Churls said, tugging in the opposite direction. Away from madness.

She spoke his name a second time.

It was enough, barely, another near-defeat. The hex dissolved inside him, and the smoky interior of the inn snapped into focus around him. His joints sagged. He gripped the back of a chair to steady himself, and the wood shattered in his fingers.

Sound ceased in the room. The man at the table before Berun showed teeth, put a hand to the hilt of the dagger strapped horizontally on his stomach. His companion’s fist tightened around the handle of a heavy mug. The bartender ducked behind his counter briefly, and rose with two cocked crossbows. Instead of arrowheads, both bolts were tipped with ampoules: magic enough to hurt a constructed man, perhaps.

“Sorry,” Berun said, brass voice loud in the crowded room. He straightened slowly, careful not to bump his head on the low ceiling. Talk started up again. The drummer and tambourine player resumed their soft rhythm, and the bartender put his weapons away.

Churls clapped a hand to Berun’s broad back. “Congratulations on not attracting attention to yourself.” She spoke loudly enough for him alone to hear. “And so much for a month of peace. What the hell happened there?”

Berun navigated the tables and chairs slowly, glad for a moment to think. He had not told Churls of his father’s appearances, of course—but now that Vedas was out of earshot, he seriously considered doing so. He searched for resistance, and found none. Perhaps Omali could not rouse the energy after another failure.

What could be the harm? Churls might have something to say.

A server, clothed in a single fold of carmine cloth clasped at the neck, waited for them at a free table in the back corner. She swayed in time to the hypnotic beat, alternately exposing and covering her nakedness. Berun peered around and realized that, but for the servers, Churls was the only woman present. The men stared at her hungrily, causing the anger to flare inside him again. He clamped down on the emotion, suspecting now that his father could use it as a doorway.

He pulled a chair out and knelt on the floor. Still, he loomed over the table.

“Coffee and hash,” Churls said to the server, who sashayed away.

Anticipating her question again, Berun held his hands up, palms forward. “I don’t know.” He reconsidered the lie. He trusted Churls. “That’s not true. My father speaks to me in dreams. Sometimes, I’m fully awake. I think he wants me to kill Vedas, but I don’t know if he’s sure about this. He spoke to me, just a moment ago.”

Her eyebrows rose fractionally. “Isn’t Omali dead? No, that’s not important. Are you going to kill Vedas?”

He admired the way she asked the question, as though she were asking about a cut of meat, no tiptoeing around the issue. “No,” he answered. “I’m not going to kill him. I like him. Since his decision to rewrite the speech, I like him even more. The world already has enough killing in the name of Adrash. Besides, a riot would delay the real tournament.”

The corners of Churls’s mouth turned down. Not for the first time, Berun wondered if they would end up fighting in the same bracket. Would she drop out if this were the case? He hoped so, for he could not imagine taking her life.

“You like him, too?” he asked.

“Shit.” She groaned and leaned onto her forearms. “What the hell’s wrong with him? What the hell’s wrong with me? I’d like to chalk it up to old age, but I don’t feel that old. Sure, I like him. I have goddamn dreams about him. The kind I haven’t had for two decades. And what do I get for my obsession? Next to nothing. He ignores me and I’m nervous as a fucking newborn deer around him.”

The way she spoke of herself awed Berun. Despite her uneasy interactions with Vedas, he had not expected it from her. Of all the people he had ever met, she possessed the keenest, most self-assured mind.

Surely, the Black Suit was to blame for the awkwardness between them.

“He looks at you often. You don’t see that?”

She grimaced. “Of course I do. So what if he looks at my ass? A man staring at your ass means nothing. He doesn’t talk to me like a man talks to a woman. Outside of our sparring sessions, he flinches at the slightest touch. And even if he didn’t, how would I respond? He’s a religious fanatic sealed in a suit he probably hasn’t removed in years. Beyond the logistical problems, that fact means something. I don’t like fanatics. My parents were fanatics. My sister’s a fanatic.”

“And what about the speech? He wants to change it. He asked for help. This means nothing to you?”

“Orrus Dabil Alachum,” she swore. “You’ve thought things through, haven’t you, Berun? In truth, I don’t know how to account for any of this. Until the night he tussled with the Baleshuuk slave, I thought he was one person. Now I think he might be another. You told me I see something in him, but the truth is I don’t know what I see. Most of the time I wish I’d never met him. Then I just wish he’d—”

The server returned, and Churls made her expression blank. She tapped the server’s wrist with her index fingertip, and said in a low voice, “There’s a gram extra if you can give me some information. We need a boat to Ynon. Doesn’t matter what size, but it has to be reputable, and it has to leave soon.”

“Reputable?” the server asked slowly. Her green eyes, which had appeared glassy and unfocused a moment before, darted from Churls to Berun. “I do not know what you mean by this word.”

“Flags,” Churls said. “It must sail under flags. No mongrels.”

The server nodded. “How soon is soon?”

“A day, two at most.”

Churls’s eyes followed the woman through the crowd. She stared at her mug, at the ceiling, anywhere but at Berun. She picked at her food and he kept quiet, respecting her mood, and eventually a man approached the table with an offer.

‡

They exited the inn. Churls squinted into the sun. “I don’t want to go back yet.”

Berun nodded, and they walked along the shore, away from the docks. He admired the way the sunlight glinted off the waves, the sound of gulls screaming. He imagined what it might be like to smell things. Men always commented upon the smell of water. He considered asking Churls if she would mind if he took a stroll under the glass clear shallows, but rejected the thought. At that moment, she possessed a fragility incomprehensible to him.

She loves Vedas
, he thought. Love, too, was unfathomable.

“Even with flags, it’s not always safe,” she said after some time. “Pirates sail these waters. Maybe our luck will run out on the lake.” She squinted into the sun. “Sometimes I think that’s what Vedas wants. A big fist to come out of the sky and smash him. A confirmation that fate’s aligned against him.”

“Maybe.” Berun sensed she had more to say, and waited for it.

“I’ve read the speech,” she eventually said.

“I know.” He found a flat stone and pitched it hard enough that it was lost to sight long before it stopped skipping. He came upon two large rocks halfsubmerged in the sand, and picked them up. He turned in a circle, and then laughed his brass laugh. “Look around us, Churls. In an ocean of sand and small stones, these two rocks. Rough around the edges, ready to be turned into weapons.” He began spinning them in his hands, grinding them down.

They resumed walking. “What does it say?” he asked.

“It’s a call to arms,” she answered. “A declaration of war.”

THE 24
^th
TO THE 26
^th
OF THE MONTH OF PILOTS, 12499 MD
LAKE TEN TO TAN-TEN ISLAND,
THE FOUR NATIONS NEUTRAL REGION

S
he had resisted the temptation to masturbate for almost two months. The last time she did so was in Casta, the night Vedas complimented her swordsmanship. With the wind howling over them, she rose to orgasm three times, just thinking of his body so close. She had not known him then, not really: he had been an idealized version of himself, a dream creature.

Now, of course, she held no such delusions. Vedas Tezul was only a man, albeit unlike any in her experience. A confoundingly constant presence in her thoughts, at any moment she could summon him to her mind’s eye. Hear his voice as though he stood next to her. Feel his warmth. She could close her eyes and recall every detail of his body.

He had changed a great deal during their journey. As a result of constant walking and lean meals, what little fat he possessed had burned away. His waist and thighs were thinner, not so much that a casual observer would notice, but Churls certainly did. Like a mage studying a book of alchemical diagrams, she catalogued every sinuous line of his physique.

His face, too, had been transformed. During their first days on the Steps, he had lost his razor. A thick, wiry black beard had come in, yet it could not hide the leanness of his cheeks. His hair, just a black shadow clinging to his scalp when she had first met him, grew in as a thick, helmetlike nap sparsely flecked with grey. The wrinkles around his eyes had become pronounced, and the eyes themselves, a deep brown, almost black, seemed somehow more observant.

He had possessed the appearance and bearing of a young man when they left Nbena. He was beautiful then, definitely. He was gorgeous now—a singular creature that moved with the grace of a stag, unrushed and fluid. He held himself with a natural poise, as though the world fit him perfectly, conforming to his will as surely as his suit conformed to his body.

She pictured this man, an older and perhaps wiser man, as she touched herself under stained sailcloth blankets. Her hammock swayed to the violent listing of the ship, but she was determined, matching strokes of her labia with the violent movement, now and then pushing a fingertip deeper, brushing her clitoris lightly. She flexed her buttocks in time, imagining Vedas turning her sideways in the hammock, fingers prying her legs apart, an obsessive fantasy of being exposed by him again and again.

His beard rough against her inner thighs, ticklish against her anus as he lapped at her.

Probing her fingertip deeper, she pressed against her clitoris, rotating over the small, firm organ with increasing vigor. Imagining a tongue, a mouth. The occasional rasp of teeth, shocking and almost painful.

Sailors called to one another on the deck above, sounds muted by wood and rain pounding on wood. The brass bell of Berun’s voice, calling encouragement. The constructed man loved being aboard the ship.

She sensed that Vedas was awake too, listening. Sailing did not agree with him. He worried about pirates and sinking, and his body had yet to acclimate to the motions of water. He fought every wave, attempting to right himself instead of moving with the motion. Time would undoubtedly prove his facility with this mode of travel, but in her fantasy he already moved with the confidence of a man born on the lake.

After finishing with his tongue, he wrapped hard arms around her lower back and pulled her from the fishnet—tightly hugging her so that she could not fall any lower, could not kiss his mouth or neck. She gripped his scalp, running nails through his short, thick hair. She tried to link her feet together behind his back, but it was too broad. His fingertips tightened into her skin, and he crushed her stomach into his face.

She breathed faster in the hammock, fingertip moving in rapid circles over her clitoris.

He held her down against the rough floor, hands tight around her wrists. They kissed roughly, tongues flicking, teeth occasionally clicking together. His mouth tasted like almonds, and she swallowed his saliva. She thrust her pelvis upward, trying for contact, but he held his body above her, hips high off the floor.

“Please,” she said, and he knew what the request meant. He lowered himself slowly until his weight rested fully on her. He let go of her wrist, and both of their hands descended. She pulled her skirt high around her waist, and he formed an opening in the suit material, allowing his rigid cock to spring free.

She reached for it. He batted her hand away.

The ship rocked from side to side. The sailors’ voices grew louder overhead. Churls bit her lip until it hurt, a sharp counterpoint to the waves of pleasure radiating into her stomach and legs.

He slid his length into her slowly, and she tightened immediately around him, willing him deeper. The smooth, slightly cold material of his suit slid along her thighs, an alien and unbelievably arousing sensation. As the head of his cock pressed against her cervix, she gasped. He began thrusting, not quickly or slowly, but inexorably. She wrapped her legs around his lower back and rocked into his motions, angling so that his weight fell upon her, forcing his erection to a greater depth.

He gasped. Already, he was close.

In this respect, she suspected her fantasy held truth. She had wondered many times if Vedas was an experienced lover. She thought not. He certainly did not act like one, though he possessed extraordinary control over his body. No doubt, given enough time and attention he would become a very talented lover. But the first time his rise to orgasm would be quick and ungraceful.

Sometimes, she loved quick and ungraceful.

The swells of pleasure crested and broke. Her fantasy faded to nothing as she rode her orgasm through its surges. Her back arched and collapsed in the hammock, and her legs twitched. She bit her forearm, moaning into flesh. Her fingertip twitched on and off the hypersensitive skin of her clitoris as if it were a hot coal. As the spasms wound down, she slid her hand lower and pressed the fingertip against her anus, the merest suggestion of entry.