“I don’t know. They come with and they come back. It’s a great mystery. Or maybe not. Shifting is through the moonstone, the moon is female and females think of everything.”
“They do.”
Belmiro’s hand slid casually beneath his laces. “Are we going to talk philosophy or are we going to get naked?”
“We’re going to get naked and talk philosophy.”
Belmiro grabbed him with his free arm. “Come here, wharf rat.”
“Crow bait.”
“Fuck you.”
“Oh fine…”
Sex with Belmiro reminded Trueblood of the surf down at the beach, rolling and crashing and relentless within a steady rhythm. But unlike the ocean, the tide of Belmiro’s attention only moved one way. It constantly came into Trueblood. It almost never went out to Belmiro. They passed long horizontal hours talking and laughing, but about things, not each other. The kheiron indulged Trueblood’s curiosity on any topic, but when the subject turned to himself, Belmiro subtly and gracefully tacked into the wind of conversation and brought the ship around.
We’re at hand, Trueblood thought. But we don’t belong. It’s definitely more connected than it was with Naria, but he’s no more interested in being a gelangos than she was.
He’s just a little nicer about it.
Belmiro’s fivehand raised and his palm dropped flat on Trueblood’s face. “I can hear you thinking, you know.”
“Oh?”
“Your deep thoughts make all the little muscles in your face twitch. And your eyebrows? They give everything away.”
Trueblood smiled and moved Belmiro’s hand, examining the silver rings.
“Ah, see,” the kheiron said. “That’s your ‘I have five thousand questions’ face.”
“Do you always wear certain rings on certain fingers?”
Belmiro nodded. “They only fit certain fingers.”
“Each one symbolizes a branch of Nydirsil?”
“Eight for the lesser gods and one for Os. Who is One.”
Trueblood pushed the pillows into a stack so he could sit up better. “Which is which?”
Belmiro wiggled the last finger on his fourhand. “Ringosol. The ring of Solos, the sun God.” He held up his fivehand pinky. “Here’s the ringolun. Can you guess?”
“Lunos.”
“This is my ringovel. Ringomer. So on and so on.” He closed his eyes and pretended to snore. “The names aren’t too imaginative. Barely anyone refers to them that way anymore. You’re actually considered obnoxious if you do.”
“So the individual rings don’t actually do anything.”
“No. This one is kind of special, though.” Belmiro held up the thumb on his fivehand. Its ring was carved in the shape of two wings that wrapped around his finger. Between the feathers was the front view of a horse’s head. “This is the ringos. The ninth. All the rings of the lesser gods can vary by design but the ringos is the same for every kheiron. The wings and the horse. Always worn on the fivehand thumb, because it’s the center digit. And the only one we actually refer to by name.”
“Can I see?”
“No, I don’t take this one off.”
“So it does do something.”
Belmiro smiled. “It definitely has the most emotional weight. It’s the ring of Os. The circle of life and one-ness. The ring of the soul. A lot of kheirons engrave it on the inside. With their name or a credo. Something meaningful.”
“What’s engraved on yours?”
Belmiro leaned and put the bridge of his nose against Trueblood’s. “That’s personal,” he whispered.
“Oh. So I can come in your mouth but the inside of your ringos is too personal. Thanks for clearing that up.”
He was joking, but he wasn’t. When Belmiro howled laughing and whacked him with a pillow, Trueblood laughed along and whacked him back. Still, the kheiron didn’t answer the question. Or rather, he answered by not answering.
We’re friends, but not gelangos, Trueblood thought. And to be brutally honest, we’re not even that close friends.
An idea loitered at the edge of his mind. Tantalizing and elusive. He held out a hand to it, the way Lejo beckoned shy animals.
Maybe it felt different with Lejo because we were friends for fifteen years before we went to bed. Our friendship was the bed. We didn’t stay lovers, but the foundation remained.
If you fall into bed with someone you don’t know all that well, you really don’t have much to lie down on.
“You’re beautiful when you’re thinking out loud,” Belmiro said, moving closer, hard and intent. “In case no one ever told you before.”
“You’re the first,” Trueblood said.
I kind of wish you weren’t. It’s something a gelangos should say.
Confusion and revelation filled him with his own intentions and that night, he rolled Belmiro down beneath him. Taking control of the wheel and the sails. Beating and tacking this ship where he wanted it to go. Further out to sea, where the waves undulated gentle and quiet. Someplace where the kheiron might show him what was on the inside of his rings. A haven where he could talk about himself.
“Gods, you are something,” Belmiro said. The silver marks on his back fluttered under Trueblood’s touch. His profile against the pillow seemed fragile and his four fingers small within Trueblood’s five.
“Stay with me tonight?” Trueblood said. He held Bel’s wrists pinned to the mattress, as if no choice were truly being offered.
A long exhale. “I’m afraid you’re irresistible, Pé.”
Trueblood moved deeper, relishing the little moan he squeezed from Bel’s chest. “You’re so good.”
“So are you.”
“I’m sorry the ones you loved hurt you.” Trueblood held still within the pulsing moment and tentatively pushed at the kheiron’s vulnerability.
Bel smiled and his one eye glanced up. “Someday, Pé, you’re going to be someone’s gelangos. And that’s a lucky someone, whoever he or she is.”
“Not you?”
Bel easily freed his wrists and pulled at Trueblood’s arms, drawing him to lie flat against the silvery etchings.
“I’m not your one,” he said softly. “I’m just your right now.”
“I like right now.”
“Then let it be whatever you want. Or whoever you want.”
Trueblood drew back. Bel turned his head and they stared a long moment at each other.
“Go on,” the kheiron whispered, as if he not only knew all Trueblood’s secrets, but was asking permission to see them.
The full moon poured through the window, turning his thick, gray hair pure white. Which made it easy for Trueblood to pretend it was Fen beneath his body. All that power trembling and vulnerable as he put his trust in Trueblood. Letting him touch the walls built around his past. Then scale them. Reverently touch the broken pieces within and hold them carefully. So carefully.
I’m sorry the ones you loved hurt you, he imagined saying.
In the vision, a mouth trembled before whispering back, It’s why liking you so much scares me.
Trueblood ran a hand across the white head and down along the silvery back. Fingers tracing muscle and bone, lingering on the crossed wingtips in the small of Fen’s back. Beneath his touch, the kheiron’s skin quivered, damp with an anxious desire.
Don’t be afraid, Trueblood thought. I won’t let anything hurt you, gelangos. Not on my ship.
He imagined that Fen took off his ringos and showed what was written within.
Now that you found me, he said, I don’t ever want to lose you again.
The mariner saw his own name engraved in the smooth silver. Pelippé Trueblood Cay copied from his especial beautiful penmanship and set permanently in the underside of Fen’s soul.
It was so arousing, it almost scared h
im.
The morning brought loud, excited voices in the sitting room and a bump of fists on Trueblood’s bedroom door.
“Pé. Pé, wake up.”
The naked mariner stirred, reaching for a handful of covers. “Just a—” The door burst open. “Minute. Gods, Raj, do you mind?”
“Sorry. Salu, Belmiro.”
A hand raised from beneath the blanket. “Sal’.”
Lejo bustled in now. “Pé, get up. They need you down at the wharf.”
“What’s going on?” Noticing a handful of people crowded the doorway behind Raj, Trueblood sat up carefully, keeping the sheets swathed around his parts.
“Calvo says he’s solved the ballast problem,” Lejo said. “Something’s hidden in the floor of the central hold.”
“Something big,” Raj said.
“How big?”
“Abrakam fainted when he saw it,” Fen il-Kheir said.
Trueblood stopped mid-yawn and blinked at the kheiron’s presence. Fen’s brilliant blue eyes stared past him, over his shoulder at Belmiro, who was sitting up now.
“All right, everyone out,” Trueblood said. “Give me five minutes to…” He took the breeches Lejo handed him. “Get dressed. Thank you. Out.”
The door closed.
“Gods, that was awkward,” Belmiro said. In the pale sunlight coming in the window, he looked his age and then some. Eyes shadowed and bloodshot. His pallor could’ve used some calves liver for breakfast.
“Feel all right?” Trueblood asked.
“I told you I suck in the mornings.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“Nah, I’ll clear out. Got one or two things to do in town.”
“You say that frequently, you know.”
“What?”
“One or two things to do in town. Is that an all-purpose expression in Valtourel? Like going to see a man about a horse?”
“Funny.” Bel leaned and snagged his breeches from the floor.
“Well, I’m going to see a kvartermastisto about some ballast.”
“Lucky you.”
They hadn’t been drinking last night, yet Belmiro was the portrait of a hangover. His tone was surly and his hands trembled as they dealt with his laces. With only a quick, rubbed circle between Trueblood’s shoulder blades, he slipped away.
“Where did Fen go?” Trueblood asked, stamping a foot into a boot.
“He’s off sulking,” Raj said.
Lejo whacked his hand against his brother’s arm. “Don’t be a bitch, Raj.”
“What?” Trueblood said.
“Nothing. Fen just remembered something he had to do.”
Raj chuckled. “Sulk.”
“What are you talking about?” Trueblood said, stamping the other foot.
Lejo handed him his coat. “Let’s go.”
In the Kaleuche’s cavernous central hold, planks had been ripped up from the floor, revealing a monolith of stone.
“I knew something was wrong about the dimensions in here,” Calvo kept saying. “The inside doesn’t fit the outside. I knew it.”
“Are you all right?” Trueblood said, crouching beside Abrakam, who had all four legs curled beneath him and his head practically within the hole in the floor.
“It’s a miracle,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Never in my life did I think I’d see this day.”
Two stones lay between the floor studs. One about six feet long, the other perhaps a third the size. Both were inscribed all over, in language Trueblood didn’t recognize but felt he’d seen before.
“Abe, what are these?”
The centaur raised his head, eyes dilated to black pearls. “They’re a miracle.”
A book lay by Abrakam’s knee. A copy of the Truviad, the epic of Truvos. Transcribed from the words the bereft sea god chiseled into three stones eons ago. Two of the stones preserved at the great library—one of them broken off in the middle of a sentence, the story left forever unfinished.
“Oh, Pé,” the centaur said softly. “Pé, my one. What a time to be alive.”
My legantos, to say the intellectual world went crazy at the discovery would be an understatement. Heads exploded. Within weeks, Valtourel swelled with scholars and archeologists and philosophers, all coming to get a look at the stones. Pandemonium ensued within the Printers’ Guild as each tried to be first to produce a complete version of the Truviad. The find of the century monopolized conversation in every home, office, inn, tavern and brothel. Much argument and debate, with differences of opinion that led to cold shoulders in marital beds, friends not speaking, rude words between strangers and more than a few brawls. The uniting force echoed Abrakam’s sentiments, a mix of What a time to be alive and Did you ever think you’d live to see?
But I’m getting ahead. Let’s return to the more immediate aftermath, when the stones were loaded onto rollers, covered in canvas and brought up to old shipyards, which had the square footage to lay the monoliths side by side.
A council was convened so every land and every race could witness the unveiling. Queen Naria and her four vicreĝos. One of the Council of Mothers from Sanpago. Sevri il-Kheir. An ambassador from Emperor Xuan-Gavriel. Abrakam for the centaurs. Even Zornin came from Altynai, which shocked everyone. Only the pegasos were without representation, which shocked no one. It was a common joke the pegasos wouldn’t bother to show up for the end of the world.
A committee from all schools of thought was also assembled. These established experts on ancient linguistics, antiquities, theology and literature circled the stones on hands and knees, peering, hemming and hawing. Consulting and conferring.
Il-Kheir leaned toward Trueblood and said quietly, “Is it me, or do they keep looking over at us?”
“One just did it again,” Trueblood said.
“Odd.”
“Maybe they think I forged them.”
“Did you?”
Trueblood glanced at the Horselord, who gazed back deadpan for five seconds, then they both looked away chuckling.
Trueblood felt a bit more at ease in the formidable kheiron’s presence, still he hesitated. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Fen’s gone back to Minosaros.”
Trueblood smiled at his boots. “That wasn’t the question.”
“I beg your pardon, it’s just what everyone’s asking today so I assumed. If you have a new question, ask away.”
“Did you take my father’s soul home?”
The ice blue eyes softened. Years fell away from the Horselord’s face as he answered, “I promised.”
“Did he…say anything?”
Il-Kheir had his arms crossed all this time, his thumb and forefinger fiddling with the moonstone hanging around his neck. Now the big hand reached and the backs of his fingers pressed the center of Trueblood’s chest. “That he’s with you. Always.” His touch thumped once, twice, then the hand retreated.
“Thank you,” Trueblood said, disappointed. The answer felt forged. Generic. He wanted a private joke. Something only he and Ikharus would understand. He said to stay away from his Altynian plonk. Or, Remember excellence needs no announcement. Or, better yet, Don’t leave the nyellem door open or he’ll rise from the dead to thrash you.
“Ladies,” Naria called, “and gentlemen. Maybe we could have a rough idea what the stones say? At least the parts you agree on. Then we can leave you to debate the fine points.”
The dean of linguistics from the University of Lak Thennes was asked to lead the tour around the plinths, starting with the broken fragment.
“As we all know,” she said, “the second stone of the Truviad ends in the middle of a sentence. He must begin his journey where…” She pointed to the first inscribed line on the fragment. “It finishes here, Khe began: as a man bound to earth.”
The hair on Trueblood’s ne
ck stood up as the interrupted narrative was allowed to continue. What a time to be alive, he thought as the dean read the fragment’s inscription in its entirety:
He must begin his journey where Khe began: as a man bound to earth.
This son of Khe must begin as Khe
Before he ends in the stars.
The air tasted expectant. A little unsatisfied. Glances were exchanged among the leaders, each confirming with the other that the finished fragment didn’t sound terribly significant.
“I came all the way for this?” Zornin mumbled from behind Trueblood’s shoulder.
“The third stone,” the dean said, “reads like a prayer. An entreaty to a future savior, if you will. It’s prophetic in tone.” Her gaze found Trueblood’s, then moved to the Horselord. “And eerily specific.”
Os who is One, take this abandoned son into your merciful heart.
Born in sadness.
Born beneath a dam’s wings, deaf to her death rattle, his first steps in her blood.
The Horselord’s hooves clattered on the stone floor as he took four steps back, eyes bulging.
“Mysire?” Trueblood said, reaching for the kheiron’s arm.
Sevri pulled away and pointed a finger at the dean. “Read it again.”
“Born beneath a dam’s wings,” she said. “Deaf to her death rattle, his first steps in her blood.”
Abrakam said, “Sevri, it’s Fen,” just as the Horselord said, “Abe, it’s talking about Fen’s birth,” at the same time Zornin said, “What in the name of fuck?”
Borne broken from the treetops.
Spirit crushed in the darkest root-pits beneath Nydirsil.
Leaving only a heart willing to give all.
A son of Khe willing to give back his gifts to a son of mariners—
a scion of Nyland who looks with giantsblood eyes.
Abrakam put a hand on Trueblood’s shoulder. “A scion of Nyland who looks with giantsblood eyes,” he murmured.
Now Trueblood stumbled in his boots. “Abe, is that me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Abe, what’s it mean?”
“Shh.”
A son of Khe to bind his power to the truest blood of I and my sister.
The Voyages of Trueblood Cay Page 19