The Nemisin Star (20 page)

“You tell me.”
She pushed her hands into her jeans to hide their shaking. Her chin
jutted stubbornly.

“I find I am
more attracted to you now that Saska is back.”
Goddess help
me.

She breathed
out. “Oh, crap.”

“Indeed. A
very complicated dilemma for me. Your turn.”

“What else is
there?” Backing down, wary.

“You tell me,”
said Torrullin.

“I want you in
my life,” she whispered after a time, and jammed her hands further
down.

“A very
complicated dilemma for you.”

“It’s not all
my fault, you know.”

“The blame is
mine,” he said.

“How noble!
So, what now? Are there other revelations you would share?”

He studied her
a good few moments. “Saska and I are too entwined to ever fully
part. I cannot begin to describe what we had …” He groaned,
realising he spoke in the past tense. “That is right, though, isn’t
it, fool? Had. Past. Gone. The old balances are gone.”

“Do you love
her?”

“Yes.”

She closed her
eyes. “Do you desire her?”

“More than
ever.”
When I am away from her.

“Then why are
you talking to me? Why not leave it in the past and move on?” she
demanded, taking a step towards him.

“I hate her
also,” he admitted, his face pale. “I do not hate you.”

“Lord
Almighty.”

“I have not
made love to my wife since she returned. I am afraid of what demon
will be loosed if I get too close to her again. Sometimes I want to
hold her, comfort her, apologise and be tender, and other times the
exact opposite. What will she see first? In intimacy? I dare not
permit myself to touch her.” He stared into Cat’s eyes and now his
hands were in his pockets to prevent himself reaching for her. “My
naked soul, Cat. Do you like it? I dare not touch you either, for
that will make everything worse.”

She swallowed.
“The other night …”

“I said it
would mean nothing. I lied.”

“I would have
accepted that.”

“Why?” he
asked, his eyes silvery. “You deserve more than what I am. I can
give you nothing. You should run now, find your happiness
elsewhere.”

She took her
hands from her pockets and smoothed her hair. “You cannot
understand. I’m thirty years old and I have only the present left.
I want it Torrullin, for in a few short years I can no longer match
you in age or youth. I grow old while you remain forever young, I
begin to comprehend why there is no future and thus I cannot let
the present slip away.”

“I am not
young, Cat. I am very old. There is someone out there who will grow
old with you, share your joys. Do you not see that your lifespan is
a gift unparalleled?”

“Oh
crap
!”

“You have no
idea how it feels to watch those you care about grow old and die!
You cannot possibly know how difficult it becomes to allow a mortal
close. In the last twenty tears I let it happen, and who is left?
Only immortals. The same faces, the same arguments, the same
everything
, into eternity, because they are who I am able to
rely on to be there as time speeds on. Do not talk to me about the
present, Cat, for the present is ephemeral, an illusion of time.
Immortality is the unfair master.”

She reached up
and pulled him to her, kissed him. With a snarled oath, he
disengaged. She laughed hysterically. “Tit for tat, Torrullin!
Unfair is a crappy life under a hostile plastic dome where you
don’t know if you will be alive the next morning, and it’s got
bugger all to do with the criminal element. You don’t know whether
the air will last the night, whether the over-worked filters will
hold out. Unfair is a bunch of insipid men who grope in the dark
because that is all there is, and unfair is waking up in the
morning, breathing that first aware breath, to first know relief
that you are still alive, then railing against your fate, knowing
you grow older every day, every moment, and you have not tasted
life, will never taste life, never mind love! Unfair is losing your
virginity at age thirteen because he promised to take you offworld
to a place where the sun shone on a land without domes, and unfair
is that the idiot
lied
!”

Torrullin drew
her roughly into his arms and when she struggled, he entangled a
hand into her hair to pull her head back. They both froze, staring.
Gently Torrullin lowered his mouth and she met him halfway. It was
a long exploratory kiss and when it was over he stroked her hair
from her face, drew her to him and held her.

No
wonder,
he thought,
I am the man who kept my promise. I gave
her the sun.

He hardened
himself, stepping back. “I cared for another once, Cat, and nearly
lost Saska. The other woman was the mother of my sons and it almost
tore all of us apart. I cannot lose Saska despite the problems we
face, and I will not hurt you the way I hurt Lycea.”

“Too late,
Torrullin. The first time was instinct, the second deliberate, and
we are beyond beginnings. You warned me then, but now I want you
any way I can get you. Hurt? Does that truly figure? Either way
will hurt. Go back to your Keep and make love to your beautiful
wife. Perhaps once you have overcome that obstacle you will know
where you are.”

He stared at
her and then vanished.

The Keep

He found Saska
in the bathroom viciously brushing her teeth.

“We need to
talk,” he said unceremoniously.

She gave him a
dark stare and spat into the basin. After rinsing her mouth she
went past him into the bedroom.

“I can smell
her perfume on you. Did you screw her?”

“It was a near
thing.” Torrullin stepped from his boots and bent to remove his
socks.

“What are you
doing?” When he straightened to lift his tunic over his head, she
snarled, “Oh no, you don’t!”

“Do you know
what she suggested, wife? She said I should come back here and make
love to my wife, and then I may know where I am.” He dropped his
tunic to the floor and began to unbutton his fly. “She understood
that better than you, and she is right. I have this … lack …
hanging over me, and I intend to end it now.”

Saska ran for
the door, managed to get it open, and he was there slamming it
closed. He swung her around and pulled her against him.

“Am I that
distasteful to you, Saska?”

“Not like
this.”

He released
her. “Your choice, my dear. I will not force myself on you.”

She stepped
away, breathing with some difficulty. “Then what is this?”

“I am merely
making my intentions clear, so there is no confusion.”

Saska
retreated into the room. “Everything has changed for us, has it
not? We are not the people we were a year ago and now there is this
in the way.”

“You mean
the Lady
.” Torrullin headed to the bed. There was no sign
that she welcomed his touch, but being at odds had never stopped
them before. Perhaps she had changed more than he realised. He
stared at their bed a moment as if he despised it, and sprawled on
the covers to stare at the ceiling.

“And Cat,” she
murmured. “You put her in, too.” She watched as he deliberately
redid the buttons of his breeches before sitting up. An expression
of regret crossed her face, but he did not see it.

“Cat is but a
symptom of our situation.”

“You are not
entirely truthful. I have seen how you purposefully avoid her. You
only do that when your emotions are hot.”

He levered to
the edge and stretched out a leg to grab his boot with his toes.
With an imprecation she took both boots and tossed them. One fell
behind him on the bed and the other slammed into his chest. She
retrieved his socks and slapped them into his lap. He thanked her
with dripping sarcasm and commenced putting them on.

“Goddess, you
are hateful.”

“Not as much
as you are right now,” he accused in turn.

“Torrullin,
for pity’s sake, I left because –”

“I know why
you left.”

“Can you not
forgive me?”

He rose. “You
misunderstand, Saska. You did the only thing you could, to live,
and there is nothing for you to be ashamed of. The problem is that
I cannot forgive myself. I cannot forget the whiplashes on your
body …”

She chose
silence.

“I resolved to
find you once I had dealt with Tymall, but this other nonsense got
in the way. You should have waited for me to find you, for I would
have dealt better with the changes in you. It is more than your
offer. I spent time once with one of your predecessors, for I was
intrigued by the legend of the Lady. I know what you can do, I saw
it. It is indeed a legendary calling to restore life, to nurture
life, to aid and to revere it; it is admirable, wonderful and
necessary.

“The Lady
showed me how she brought a dormant world to awakening, telling me
there were desperate folk who needed to be led there and I stayed
while she did that. Starving, diseased people without hope, and she
brought them to a new world, remaining to help. They did not thank
her in the end; they turned on her and her suffering was
frightening. She had already given so much of her life force, then
to know it denied?

“Do you not
see, Saska? She did not expect praise and gifts and adulation, or
even words of formal thanks, but she hoped for that inner
gratefulness that someone feels intrinsically within. She was not
seeking reward, only what would have restored her strength, and she
did not receive it. The lines on her face deepened daily and she
weakened. She told me it was time for her to pass the stewardship
on, she was spent, and yet she had no regrets. An admirable
calling, but not one I would wish on my worst enemy.”

She watched
his face as he spoke; understanding she whispered, “You are afraid
for me.”

“I am afraid
you will become that disillusioned woman. You? Full of fire,
optimistic, brave, stubborn, irrational, impulsive. You are a
bundle of contradictions. You make me happy, furious; you make me
laugh, you astound me. I learn from you because you are you, and
already the stewardship rests heavy on your shoulders and your
vitality has dimmed. How much worse will it get? How soon? I could
have accepted it had I come to you in my own time armed with
foreknowledge, but this whole mess is foisted on me, and I find I
am unable to deal with fears and doubts like a rational man.”

He had never
been this open with her. Never in their relationship had he given
this much depth to his innermost feelings. His words sounded death
knells in her mind, but, contrarily, a glow warmed her as well; he
trusted her enough, despite all, to reveal in this way.

“I shall
abdicate the stewardship, as you call it, my love, as soon as I
find the one who is able to take it over.”

“For me? Does
that not negate who you are? Surely no one person’s feelings should
take precedence? I ask not that of you, for then we are truly lost
to each other. If you ever turn from the Lady, the choice must be
yours, not for love of a misguided husband.”

“Torrullin. I
could not bear to lose you.”

“You will not
lose me. Despite my fears you cannot lose me. I shall be there, in
some way, perhaps angry, perhaps equally sad, always. Even if I
hide in the opposite end of the universe you will not have lost
me.” He was wry as he retrieved his tunic from the floor. “I am
more afraid I shall lose you. I love you, my wife, nothing will
ever stop that.”

“I love you,
too, Torrullin.” She closed the gap between them and laid her hands
on his arms as he lifted the tunic to go over his head. “Don’t
go.”

“Forgive me,
but I no longer desire to make love to you.”

She retreated
from him, wordless. He stared at her a moment longer and lifted his
tunic over and tucked it in. It hurt her, he knew, but it was also
true. He admitted he was afraid of losing her, yet in the next
breath he ensured it; he
was
losing his mind.

His sword and
scabbard stood in the corner unworn since Kismet retrieved it from
the battlements, but now he gripped it. Holding it in one hand, he
said, “We shall talk more when I return from Cèlaver.”

She closed her
eyes. “What of Cat?”

A pause in his
stride towards the door. “What do you want me to say?”

“That you
won’t go near her, that you won’t deliberately push me away in
doing so.”

“I cannot make
that promise.”

She was ashen.
“You are a man with needs, right?”

“Does it
matter?”

She was
speechless for a second. “Of course it matters!” She tore the front
of her robe open. “Here, husband, sate your goddamned needs!” A
ragged breath. “Just go.”

He went.

Lifesource
Temple

“Enchanter.
Good, you are here,” Quilla murmured as Torrullin strode into the
Temple.

“Not now,
Quilla,” he said, and went on past holding his sword and scabbard
in a vice-like grip.

Quilla was
astonished as Torrullin strode with purpose towards a set
destination. He followed and knew the Temple had no effect on the
Enchanter. He made to speak, but Torrullin halted.

“Quilla do not
fuss over me, not now. There is someone waiting for me up ahead and
I need to deal with that first. I shall come to you in a
while.”

The birdman
inclined his head and retreated, but sent his thoughts out,
questing - ah, the Xenian woman.
Enchanter, are you about to
complicate your life further?

Torrullin was
on a narrow line, but Torrullin was at his ultimate best when in
turmoil. What a contradiction that was, and how terrible for the
man.

The more the
Enchanter came into his own, the more the man stepped back.