Ashes Of Memory

by Aiden Bates

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh. Good. Well, that’s one more thing I know about it.” I looked over the door he’d come through. “Where’s that go?”

  He took a quick step to the door and closed it. “No place you can go,” he said. “Not yet, anyway. I brought everything I need with me. Once you’re ready, we’ll go through together.”

  That seemed suspicious, which was a point in the ‘night creature’ column for him, but I knew that if I ever did come face to face with the creature, I would be afraid. Tam didn’t scare me. If anything, I felt safer now that he was here.

  The day tilted, fell, and night rushed up to take its place. I looked up at the sky, and grimaced. “We should go inside,” I said.

  “Lead the way,” Tam agreed.

  I held his hand as I led him back to the house. There was a door at the moment, so we went through it. “I’d offer you something to eat,” I said, “but all I have are plates and a couple of rugs. I haven’t tried them, but they look stale. So... what brings you to my neck of the woods?”

  Tam let my hand free when I took it away, and stared around at my house. “Uh...” he shook his head, seemed to recover from something, “I came to meet you. To remind you of something. Can we sit?”

  I nodded, and gestured at the couch—currently a big gray sectional, which would have been nice the last time I lay down, but I didn’t think it was the couch’s fault and didn’t hold that against it. “Sure.”

  Tam looked up at a wall where the couch was and frowned, but that expression turned to one of curiosity and confusion when I stepped onto the wall and went to take a spot at the end near the armrest. “What...?”

  “Come on,” I said. “It’s comfy. Right now. That might not last long.”

  He gave a slow nod, and I smiled with amusement as he tentatively pressed a foot to the bottom of the wall and took a lurching step onto it. He paused once he was standing firmly again, and looked behind him at the floor, then up to the opposite wall. “The fuck is happening here?”

  “It was like this when I found it,” I told him as he came to the couch to sit. “I wouldn’t have put my couch on the wall, but I tried moving it and it just falls back down. You get used to it after a while. What did you want to tell me?”

  He rubbed his hands on his thighs. “Not tell you,” he said. “Not exactly, anyway. Remind. Here, just—can you take my hand?”

  He held a big hand out. There were a few light calluses along his palm where it turned into fingers, but when I rested my fingers there, the skin was soft and warm. I slid my hand against his, and when his fingers closed around mine, I smiled. “That’s nice. I haven’t seen anyone else in a long time now. It’s good to have someone to talk to.”

  “How long?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Weeks? Maybe longer. It’s hard to tell.”

  He swallowed, and I thought his eyes grew a little misty. “Weeks? Gods... Vance, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, it’s only been...”

  When he trailed off, I tried to follow the ellipses, to see what he was going to say, but they flitted off into the night and got lost in the darkness out there. Probably swallowed up by the night creature. I could have told them it was dangerous. Stupid.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, recovering. “I’m going to show you something. When you see it, you have to go to it, okay? That’s how this works, I guess. I can’t take you anywhere, you have to take me. It’s your... uh, house. You make the rules, which means you’ll be safe no matter where we go. And I’ll be with you, I won’t let you go. I promise. I won’t let you go again, all right?”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. I’d only let his hand go long enough to get to the couch. How long had it been since he saw someone? Still, I didn’t have anything else to do. “Sure,” I said, mystified, “I believe you. I won’t let go either, if you want.”

  He smiled, but it looked sad, or like he couldn’t decide which he was. “I’d like that.”

  I looked around the house. “Where are we going, exactly?”

  Tam nodded, and took a deep breath as he closed his eyes. His brow pinched, and his lips thinned, and he held my hand just a bit tighter. A moment later, I heard something outside, and looked to the window to see that the landscape had changed again. Also, it was daytime. There was a street now that had people on it, although their faces were mostly a blur.

  I got to my feet, laughing. I tugged Tam with me, and pointed at them. “Look! People. Sort of.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “And there’s more. Will you take me?”

  I nodded, and looked for the door. Gone again. “We’ll have to go through the window this time. Damn door.”

  Tam didn’t seem to mind, and I held tight to his hand like I promised I would as we went to the window and climbed through it one at a time. The air changed as we did, to something I hadn’t felt here before. It was lighter, and there was no harsh wind, and it smelled like things. A lot of things. I breathed it all in, a smile spreading wider across my lips. “Fuck me, that’s a lot of stuff in the air. I like your place better than mine.”

  He chuckled, and pressed his lips to the back of my hand. It sent a thrill of excitement through me, but it wasn’t my excitement. Not exactly. It came from somewhere far away, almost lost in translation before it arrived.

  I gave him a bewildered sort of look as he lowered my hand. “What... was that?”

  “You’ll see,” he said. “Come over here.”

  I let him walk me along the street a little building. The only one with legible words over it. “Callahan’s,” I read, and looked at the others on the street. They had signs, but the letters were fuzzy, or jumbled, or smeared. This place, though, stood out in sharp detail, like it was the only place on the street the artist who’d painted it all really cared about.

  And beneath the sign, among a handful of fuzzy-faced people sitting at tables, I saw something impossible, and pointed, incredulous. “That... is that me?”

  The other-me was the only person on the street or at the tables that had any definition. And it was sharp, every hair, every pore, every faded freckle on my face standing out in perfect detail even from the middle of the street. Other-me practically glowed, as if the sunlight here somehow bent toward that person, making them brighter than everything else.

  “Yeah,” Tam breathed. “Yeah, Vance. That’s you. And that’s me with you but... uh, well, you can’t see yourself, I guess, so...”

  Other-me was seated at a table, talking animatedly with a total blur, barely recognizable as a person. Fire seemed to flicker inside the blur, but it wasn’t burning; it was just part of it.

  “Can’t see yourself?” I wondered. “What, like... where are we, exactly?”

  “A memory,” he said softly, and urged me forward. “One of my memories, from after, ah—well, just come and see. Sit there, where you are.”

  It felt incredibly rude to just sit on another person, but as we crept closer, I realized that other-me couldn’t see me, didn’t react to me, didn’t seem to react to anyone. I could just barely hear me talking. Holding Tam’s hand, I followed him around the tables to get to the back corner and reached out to touch the other-me. My hand passed through me, insubstantial. Well, maybe I wouldn’t know if I sat on me, then.

  I gave Tam a questioning look, and he responded with an encouraging nod as he moved to sit where the fiery blur was. I slipped into the chair where other-me was.

  And then I knew where we were. Callahan’s. It was one of my favorite places, like most of the places Tam had taken me. This one was owned by a cousin of his from the weyr, and made the kind of tiramisu that you could overdose on and die happy.

  Tam’s mind sparkled with interest as I tasted something different this time. Creme brûlée, an experimental pumpkin flavor. I lifted the spoon to my lips and gave it a try, letting it rest on my tongue before I swallowed. “All right,” I admitted, “it’s good. Better than I expected. Not as good as the tiramisu, though.
”

  “There’s an order coming,” Tam chuckled. “I’ll give your feedback to the chef.”

  I caught a flash of what he would actually say as he automatically rehearsed it in his head. Yeah, Vance loved it. Said it was the best thing he’s had here.

  With a snort, I nudged his foot with mine under the table. “Liar.”

  He winced. “All right, well—it’s early, he needs the encouragement.”

  I waited, but didn’t get what I expected from him. No mental note of reprimand, no sudden paranoia about what else I might have been listening to. I bit my lip as he met my eyes, sensing what I was feeling; what I was looking for.

  “I’m getting used to it,” he said.

  I didn’t need to be skeptical—I could tell he was being truthful. Still, I had to ask. “You sure? Because, you know, you can call it all off anytime you like. I won’t be offended, I know it’s weird, having someone else in your head all the time, I wouldn’t—”

  He quieted me by putting his hand on mine and squeezing. “Do I sound like I’m not sure?”

  It wasn’t words he meant. It was the swell of certainty, the rock-solid mountain of trust and comfort in his heart and mind, that he meant.

  My stomach fluttered, and his smile grew wider, which made me smile more, which made his eyes crinkle as he pulled my fingers to his lips and kissed them one at a time, each one sending little electric sparks of joy racing along my nerves.

  “Can you feel what it means to me?” I asked.

  Tam met my eyes, and for a moment we spoke wordlessly, feelings pouring from me to him and back. All the years of isolation, of self-control, of frustration at having to hold myself back and never really connect with a person the way I knew I could. The loneliness of having access to every mind within a thousand feet, but having to be blind and deaf to them on purpose. Of lying with a lover and having to devote half my attention to keeping us separate from one another. The strain, the stress, the anger.

  The relief, at being able to feel him, to let him feel me, unreserved.

  He nodded. “Yeah. I can feel it, baby.”

  “I trust you,” I said, even though he didn’t need me to. I needed to say it.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I trust you, too.”

  A surge of sudden attraction filled me as his eyes looked me over. “Maybe we should get that tiramisu to go...”

  I grinned, unable to help myself as thoughts of what he wanted to do filled his head and echoed in mine. “You’re gonna embarrass me in public,” I muttered as my cock stirred and swelled in response, and thoughts of what I wanted to do filled my own mind.

  “Then we'd better get somewhere private,” he growled. “Fast.”

  I stepped back. Tam still had my hand in his. I was on the verge of tears. “What is... I...”

  He pulled me close and put his free hand on my shoulder, then on my face as he sought out my eyes. “You’re okay,” he said urgently. “Hey, I’m here. You’re okay. Do you remember?”

  I blinked away the tears, and looked up at him, momentarily confused as something inside me shifted and twisted and searched desperately for the place where it belonged. The memory squirmed around, out of place but certain that this was where it belonged.

  When it did finally find a place that made sense, it settled, and I did remember.

  I held his gaze. “I forgot,” I breathed. “I... Tam, I forgot. I didn’t mean to, I promise, I—”

  “It’s okay,” he gasped, and pulled me into a tight hug. I put my free arm around him in return, and tried to pull us even closer together. “You remember now. That’s what’s important.”

  “I do,” I told him. “I remember. What... what are you doing here?”

  He swallowed, and took a half step back, still close but able to explain himself. “Like I said, Master Nkendi sent me.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t—I’m sorry, who?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, smoothing my hair as he searched my face. “You’ll remember. It’s because of what we had before—that, what you just saw. She sent me here, because... shit, I’m not good at explaining it. All that time we spent connected like we were there, at Callahan’s, it... it’s like you left parts of your memories with me. A foundation, I guess? Something you can use to rebuild your mind.”

  I frowned, uncomprehending. “Rebuild my...? What are you talking about?”

  I started to pull my hand away but he held it tight, and pressed our clasped hands to his chest. “I know it doesn’t make sense,” he said, “but she told me two things, and you have to trust me like you did back then when I tell them to you. It’s important, Vance—life or death important. You have to hold onto me from here on out. You can’t let go, not even once, not for any reason. If I get lost in here, I... this will be a one-way trip. I can’t travel this place like you can.”

  What he meant by one way, I didn’t know, but I could tell how serious he was. I gave a shaky nod. “Okay. What’s the second thing?”

  “You have to trust me.”

  I thought I did. Or at least that I could. I had once, right? But something held me back from saying it out loud. “What if I can’t?”

  You’d have thought I slapped him, but he only flinched a little. He licked his lips. “I’ll help you remember. You will, if you let me show you.”

  It seemed fair enough. I glanced at the tables, where other-me and the blur were getting up and leaving. “What happened after this?”

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and a bit of mischief came to his eyes. “About what you’d expect. But I have a different memory to show you. I came with a plan.”

  I bit my lip, curious and intrigued both by whatever he might have planned and by where our memory-selves were going.

  Trust I wasn’t sure about—all of this could be made up, after all, just another trick of the night creature. On the other hand...

  “Is it a good one?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Yeah. It’s a good one.”

  I took a breath and held tight to his hand. “Okay. Then... let’s go.”

  15

  Tam

  “And I guess... I mean, it’s not that I hold it against her or anything,” Vance said. “She did what she knew to do, and... there are all the laws about us, so she didn’t have a choice. But I guess I just wish she had tried, you know?”

  Hearing about Vance’s mother was heartbreaking. He was the only mage I knew, and I was sure they all had a story like that about their parents. Once a mage was identified, they were sent to a Cabal, and that life was so cloistered that by the time they were old enough to live out in the world, their power controlled... well, reconnecting probably just wasn’t the same. “I didn’t know.”

  He shrugged, curled up against the armrest of my couch, his knees to his chest, his arms hugging his middle. “I know. Why would you?”

  “No,” I said, “I mean... that it was that rough for mages.”

  “Others have it rougher,” he said, and shook his head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to throw a pity party or anything like that. The cabal isn’t luxurious or anything, but it’s regular meals, training we need, masters who care about us usually. Master Nkendi... I mean, she’s like my mother, at this point. I love her, I know she loves me. And she understands me. Mom never would have been able to. Not really. It’s just how it is.”

  “Still makes me sad,” I told him.

  He smiled in a way that made me think it made him sad, too. But he pushed whatever that was away as he sat up and reached for his wine glass to take another sip. “Well, I think I have successfully crushed the mood here. Mission accomplished. I... should probably... go?”

  I glanced at the clock. Well past midnight, and it was a drive back to Custodes Lunae. Plus he’d had a few drinks, though they were spaced out enough that I doubted he was really drunk. “If you really want to,” I said.

  He bit his lip, and wouldn’t look at me. “And, um... if I didn’t want to?”

  V
ance was beautiful, his skin soft, his lips full, his eyes always lit with some kind of secret—like he knew things that made life more amusing than it could possibly be to the rest of us. We’d been on my couch talking for hours, and I’d barely noticed. To say that I wanted to fuck him didn’t cover it.

  But even as I had that thought, I realized that what I didn’t want was to fuck this. Whatever it was that seemed to be rapidly forming between us. Did he want me like I wanted him? Did he want to wait? If I told him, or if he saw it in my mind—he was an esper, after all—would it run him off?

  I was so paralyzed by it all that he started to stand. “Yeah,” he said, “I should go. Sorry, I’ve had a few, I—”

  “You can stay,” I said quickly as I stood with him. It just seemed like the right thing. “I mean, I have a guest room. Bed’s comfortable. I don’t mean you have to—I’m not saying if you stay, you need to do anything. With me. Ah—”

  He laughed, and I didn’t think I’d actually heard anyone laugh quite like it before. It was a sound that melted parts of me and made other parts decidedly unmelted.

  “Mr. Blackstone,” he said, grinning, “are you not propositioning me?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, shut it, tried to form words. “I’m not... not propositioning you?”

  He cocked his head a little to one side, peering up at me like a curious bird. “You know, I always heard you shifters were all so... aggressive.”

  “We are,” I admitted. “Usually. You make me nervous, for some reason.”

  One eyebrow quirked up. “I make you nervous? Wow. Mind if I tell people that? I feel like it makes me seem way more badass than I am. Am I scary or something?”

  I chuckled a little. “No,” I said, “no, you’re not scary. Not threatening or anything. I just feel... like this could be something... shit. I don’t know, I’ve known you two days, I know how it sounds, I’m just—”

  “It’s okay,” he said softly, and bit his lip again. He did it often, and every time he did, I imagined my lip between his teeth. “I get it. I feel it, too.”