by Gregory Ashe
Chapter 62
The babe let out a sleepy cry, then tucked his head back between Ly’s full breasts. Ilahe pulled her eyes back to watch the road, stepping to avoid a pile of horse dung while keeping the handcart even. The slightest shift in attention could send the cart flying back. Ilahe gripped the crossbar tighter, picturing the babe’s frazzled hair and over-wide eyes. A smile crept onto her face in spite of the knot between her shoulders.
The sun was too bright, and Ilahe’s mouth tasted bitter—her sleepless night had left her almost as wrecked as a hangover. Even with the dull throb behind her eyelids, Ilahe felt like color had suddenly returned to the world. As though this city of eternal summer had been wrapped in winter just for her, and now, for the first time, she was seeing it for the first time—groves of apple trees, some in blossom, some with the last of their colored leaves barely hanging to the branches, as spring and autumn became sides of the same coin. A circle of life to life, without death. Life, kicking and screaming, in the child behind her.
When they reached the shrine, Ilahe kicked at the door until a woman appeared, her unbuttoned blouse held closed with one hand. Ilahe did not know her, but when the woman saw Ly and the babe, she gave a squeal of delight and disappeared back inside the shrine. Within heartbeats, women poured out of the building to surround the cart, screaming and laughing with delight. Their voices lifted Ilahe up—she was part of that community. Gyune and Esmer both hugged her, their embraces impeded by the crossbar, but still full of warmth. Cu, tears in her pale green eyes, kissed Ilahe on the cheek as she cradled the newborn in one arm. Then they were helping Ly out of the cart, and Ilahe let the crossbar free. Ly disappeared inside, but Esmer and Gyune, remained, laughing and chatting. Ilahe’s friends. The thought was sweeter and stronger than wine.
“Tair around us,” Naja said, standing in the doorway, one hand holding the frame to keep her feet. “Let the poor girl breathe.”
Gyune laughed and then, her voice lowering, said, “Naja, I swear, I should get Asger or Behl to give you a good spanking. What are you doing out of bed?”
“She’d like it too much,” Esmer said. “Tair bless me, if Hash spanked her, you’d never get the girl back into bed until she died.”
Beneath the mottled bruises, Naja flushed, but her smile told the truth. “I wanted to see our heroine,” Naja said, her swollen eyes flickering to Ilahe.
Ilahe stepped toward her, and before she realized what was happening, Naja had staggered forward and wrapped her arms around Ilahe’s thick, muscled waist.
“Thank you,” Naja said. The slender woman trembled like a leaf—whether from emotion or pain, Ilahe did not know.
There was no crossbar to interfere with this embrace, and for a moment Ilahe let herself relax—the aches in her shoulders fading, the stress evaporating at a friendly touch. “It was nothing,” she said, but the words came out half-choked.
When Naja stepped back, Gyune and Esmer each took her by an arm. “To bed,” Esmer said.
“And you too,” Gyune added with a look at Ilahe.
Ilahe nodded, and Gyune and Esmer helped Naja back inside. Ilahe wanted nothing more than a bed right now, but a part of her mind raced, still soaking up the fresh friendliness, the feeling of familiarity. After stowing the cart behind the shrine, she made her way up the stairs and toward her room. Bed for now; she could see the babe again later. A part of her wondered if her babe would have looked like Ly’s. Darker skin, of course, and eyes like caramel, but those tiny fingers, and plump cheeks. To Ilahe’s surprise, although the thought had some sorrow, it was also soothing somehow. As though a part of that pain had been put to rest.
When she reached the second floor, she started down the hallway toward her temporary room. As she passed Hash’s door, she stopped. She felt drunk, and the edges of the hallway, softened and shaded, slid around her. Hash had not come out to see the babe; he had not come out to see her. Perhaps he was still asleep. With a smile on her face, she knocked on the door. She could already picture the smile that would stretch across his face, the way the muscles would shift under that pale skin.
Long moments passed. Smile growing, Ilahe turned the latch; she would surprise him. A part of her wondered what she was doing, where the caution of long months of hardship, where the reserve of being betrayed, had gone. She silenced that part; Ilahe felt good again, young again. A woman again. The way she had felt before the priests had taken her.
The door opened quietly. Dampened sunlight, still weak this early in the day, made its way through a grimy swath of linen that had been pulled across the window. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but then she saw him. Hash sat, knees pulled up to his chest, at the base of the far wall. He leaned against the boards, shoulders tensed in concentration, and Ilahe could hear the rasp of charcoal against the wood.
“Hash,” she said. Something did not feel right, but she was so tired, and felt so good, that she did not pay attention.
He sat there, only his arm moving as he scribbled on the wall.
Ilahe entered the room and closed the door behind her. With unsteady steps she crossed the floor and set one hand on his shoulder.
“Hash,” she said.
He shook her hand off.
Ilahe knelt next to him. His face was twisted in concentration, deep blue eyes fixed on the wall. In his hand, Hash held a nub of charcoal that had stained his fingers black. Back and forth across the wood, the murmur of charcoal growing softer and softer, until Ilahe realized that, more than anything, he was rubbing his fingers raw against the wood. The charcoal had been used up, but he did not stop.
“Hash, stop,” Ilahe said. “That’s enough.” Whatever happiness she had felt had been doused by this sight. He was a different person—or rather, not a person at all. Something empty of everything but focus.
He did not stop, but continued to brush his hand back and forth along the wall. Ilahe reached out and grabbed his wrist.
Hash spun, one arm flashing out toward Ilahe’s face. She caught it, barely, and held him by both wrists.
“Blackness,” Ilahe said through gritted teeth. “What’s wrong with you?”
For a long moment he stared at her, eyes as deep and empty as the sea. Then recognition kindled. He relaxed and pulled his arms back.
“Please leave,” Hash said. “I need to be alone.”
“What is this?” Ilahe asked, gesturing at the drawing. “Why are you drawing this?”
For a moment, she thought he would try to strike her again. He coiled up, rage evident on his face, but in a heartbeat everything shifted, and he settled back.
“This,” he said, “is why I’ve not worked since Cu took me in.”
“Why?” Ilahe said. “What is it?”
She looked at the drawing. The charcoal served him well, it seemed, for she could make out two massive shapes—pillars, or stones—framing the a narrow path. Sharp lines of darkness marked the edges of the drawing, and much of the center as well. In the middle, though, carefully done, was a man’s face. Not quite handsome—certainly nothing like Hash—but with a certain strength that made it attractive. The mouth was open, as though shouting. She glanced around the room and saw more faces, some half-lit, others barely discernable. Some were of the same men, but there were others as well. So much darkness.
“It’s him,” Hash shouted, slamming his hand over the face he had drawn. “And them, and there. I can’t get it out of me. When I close my eyes, I see his face, just before I left him, and I hear him shouting for me, and I know the darkness is closing in over him and all I do is run. Or I taste that bread again, against the back of my throat, so hard that to swallow it is to choke, but I want to save the water because I have so little. And I know I’d kill the others for their share, if I have to—”
His voice was getting higher and higher, and his eyes so wide that Ilahe doubted he even saw her. She could see the pulse in the smooth paleness of his neck, could feel the pain in his body. Ilahe reached out to take his ha
nd and said, “It’s alright.”
Hash jerked his hand free. “And I killed him! I drove the knife into his chest, and I had to do it, or he would have ruined everything. Tair help me, do you know what that feels like? In the dark, where the only sign of death is that last brush of air on your cheek, and even though it’s dark, you know it’s stained with blood—”
“Who?” Ilahe asked, speaking over him. Anything to stop the flow of words. “Whom did you kill? This man?” She pointed at the face he had been working on.
“Yes,” Hash sobbed. “No. I don’t know. All of them. I killed them all.” He continued to ramble, his voice rising higher and higher, and tore his hands free to claw the walls.
Panic rose in Ilahe. She had not trained in the healing arts, but this seemed like madness to her. He could hurt himself, or one of the women. Not knowing what to do, Ilahe grabbed his hands, his black fingers meshing easily with hers. He did not fight her this time. She crawled forward until their faces were inches apart and, with her free hand, took him by the chin.
“Sh,” she said, brushing his hair back, the way her mother had once brushed her hair.
Hash’s voice quieted, but his lips continued to move—silent recriminations that did not break the air. With a rush of desire, Ilahe suddenly realized how close they were—she straddled one of his legs, felt the heat from his body, the grit of charcoal rubbing between their hands. Her heart pounded until it beat in time with his, her breathing became shallow.
Without thinking about what she did, Ilahe leaned forward and kissed him. He tasted of old sweat and tears, of pain hidden from daylight and allowed to fester. Fear and shadow and suffering. And underneath it all, something sweet and warm, like fiery honey that scalded Ilahe’s lips, filled her lungs, and burned a line down her spine. As though she had pressed her lips to that foreign sun overhead and drawn it inside of her.
When she finally pulled back, Hash had become perfectly still, and he watched her with those deep, unreadable eyes. Shame and confusion washed over Ilahe. She remembered, with that look, what she was—a weapon, not a woman. Shoulders and arms bigger than most men’s, scarred and broken. Nothing someone like Hash would want.
Blood heating her cheeks, Ilahe scrambled off of Hash and stumbled to the door. Tears pooled in her eyes.
Hash’s hand caught hers as she reached the door. As she turned, he stepped in, pressing his body against her—hot as fire, muscled and soft at the same time—and kissed her. The room spun around Ilahe. This time she tasted the charcoal and darkness that surrounded him, but the fire was there as well, burning through it all, like the rising sun.
Ilahe’s fears of quickening fled before that fire. She no longer cared about the godling inside her, no longer cared about the pain she carried within. Still kissing Hash, she guided him toward the bed. Desire, kindled by the heat of Hash’s body, flared to life, fanned by need and loneliness, until it raged within her. An inferno to burn away the black, blind chains that tied her to the dead.
Fire and charcoal. Light and dark. White skin against dark in the drowning rays of the sun.
Life and death, and at the end of it all, rebirth. A new world.