The Children of the Sun

by Christopher Buecheler

  “If they would just embrace the council, we could help them,” Naomi muttered.

  “We have treated them very poorly for centuries,” Theroen said. “Not just this council, but the entire vampire world. It will take them some time, I think, to embrace us.”

  Naomi sighed. “I know, Theroen.”

  “You have seemed tense lately, Naomi. Are you unwell?” Theroen asked. Two gave a slight shake of her head, but Naomi opted to answer the question.

  “I’m fine, though I could use a drink,” she said. “I think I’ll take my leave.”

  “Going to L’Obscurité?” Theroen asked, and Naomi gave him a grim smile.

  “No,” she said. “Not tonight. I think it may be time to find a new bar.”

  * * *

  “We are coming toward a dangerous time,” Theroen said, and Two glanced over at him, trying to identify the tone she was hearing in is voice.

  “Story of my life,” she said. “At least we had a couple of years to relax.”

  Theroen did not immediately respond to this, and Two let the conversation drop. They were walking down Seventh Avenue, returning from the cathedral on 53rd Street where the American council met. It was a long walk, but Two didn’t mind; neither she nor Theroen would have any trouble with the exertion. It was early June and the nights had grown warm, but Two found she barely noticed the weather anymore. Her internal temperature was much more affected by how recently she had fed than by any exterior conditions.

  They had just passed 22nd Street when Theroen spoke again. “If I thought there was even the slightest possibility you would acquiesce, I would strongly consider asking you to come with me to Europe.”

  So that’s what I was hearing, Two thought. Out loud, she said, “No … not a chance. Sorry.”

  “We are too enmeshed in the council at this point.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not why. It’s Tori, Theroen. We can’t just turn our backs on her. It’s my fault that this is happening.”

  “I don’t agree with that.”

  “I know, but—”

  “When you left Tori, she was safe at home with her parents and happy to be there. You had no way of knowing that she was in any danger, let alone that a deranged cult of vampire killers were going to find her, kidnap her, and brainwash her.”

  “No, but I knew – both of us knew – that there might come a time when someone tracked one of us down. We thought it would be someone who was pissed about what we did to Abraham, but it doesn’t really matter. We knew someone might come. I knew it, and I left her alone anyway because I was desperate to get back to New York and start looking for vampires.”

  They crossed 16th Street, moving effortlessly through the crowd, a pair of sharks among schools of fish. Theroen looked up at the moon.

  “I understand,” he said. “I don’t agree, but … nonetheless, the council had ample opportunity to shield her from this, and they chose not to act. They sat by and did nothing even after her parents were murdered. They could have contacted her, explained that they were not dangerous, offered protection. Instead they voted to sit and wait. Now they are reaping what they’ve sown.”

  “So you think they deserve this? When Tori comes to kill Naomi or Jakob, you’re just going to sit back and watch?”

  “No, of course n—”

  “What about that guy Matthias? What did he do to deserve this?”

  “It is because of Matthias that I would take you away if you would let me. I have no desire to watch Tori decapitate you.”

  Two made a noise of derision. “There is no way she would do something like that to me.”

  “You do not know what she has become. None of us do. Matthias spoke of a ruthless soldier who did not hesitate for a moment to kill two Eresh vampires and order the murder of two human beings.”

  “I was there … I heard the story. She’s confused and angry, maybe, and they’ve convinced her to direct that anger at us, but I don’t believe that she would kill me. I’m probably the best shot she has at staying alive now. Who else is going to argue for her against the council?”

  “I doubt she cares,” Theroen said, and Two came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the sidewalk, earning a disapproving squawk from a woman who had been walking behind her. She ignored this and turned to Theroen, who had stopped as well and was regarding her with calm curiosity.

  “I don’t give a shit if she cares or not,” Two said. “I care about her, and there’s no way you’re convincing me to just … fuck off to Europe while she’s running around with the Children, OK?”

  “Very well, Two—”

  “If we leave and the council catches her, they’re going to put her down like some kind of rabid dog. She’s not a dog. She never was, and she deserves better than that. After everything she’s been through she sure as fuck deserves better, and I’m going to make sure she gets the chance. I’m not abandoning her again. I’m not leaving!”

  “I was not asking you to leave.”

  “Yes, you were. You were doing it in a roundabout way, testing the waters, but that’s exactly what you were doing. I know you’ve got about four hundred years on me, but I’m not a kid. Don’t treat me like one.”

  Theroen paused for a moment, looking taken aback. Then he smiled, chuckled, and shook his head.

  “What?” Two asked.

  “Caught red handed. You’re correct, and I am sorry, Two.”

  “It’s OK. I understand you’re worried. Sorry for yelling.”

  They began to walk again, heading toward their home in SoHo. After a few blocks, Two spoke again.

  “No more, though, all right? We had to have this fight, and now it’s done. No more talk about going to Europe. We’re staying here, and we’re going to find Tori, and we’re going to talk her out of this shit. If the council tries to kill her, then we’re going to fight for her. That’s how it’s going to be. OK?”

  Theroen sighed, took her hand, and nodded. “Yes, Two.”

  Two looked up at him, saw that his eyes were dark and far away, and frowned. “Do you still love me?”

  “Very much.”

  “Even when I’m a pain in the ass?”

  Theroen smiled at this, and he seemed to return somewhat from wherever it was that he had gone. He looked down at her, met her gaze, and smiled.

  “You’re always a pain in the ass.”

  * * *

  Two lay on her belly against her soft sheets, warm and relaxed, head turned to the side and resting on her crossed arms, eyes closed. Theroen lay above her, atop her, carrying half of his weight on his elbows, the rest of it pressing down on her. He was biting gently at her neck, teasing with his teeth, sending shivers of pleasure through her body. She could feel the hard part of him pressing between her legs, seeking entry, and she smiled.

  “Slow,” she said, and Theroen made a noise of acquiescence. She felt his lips tug at her earlobe, and when he pressed again she shifted, opened her legs just slightly, and felt him enter her. She made a low noise of enjoyment as he put a hand in her hair, gripping tight, and began to thrust. Slow, like she had asked.

  Of the many ways that she and Theroen made love, Two thought that this might be her favorite. Lying on her stomach, the sex soft, the weight of him making her feel protected and secure. Two felt the skin of Theroen’s chest moving against her back, the warmth of his breath at her ear. He snaked his free left hand around and underneath her, cupping her mons and holding her against him as he pushed into her, deliberately gradual. His right hand remained tangled in her hair.

  Two pushed up with her knees, bracing against the bed, gasping, the soft fabric now twisted tight in her hands. It felt as if there was nothing left in the world but her, and Theroen, and this thing they were building together inside of her. At some point she became aware of her own gasps, her voice bent and twisted so that it seemed almost to come from someone else, begging for release from the excruciating pleasure.

  Theroen was losing himself in her, no longer moving slowly.
He pulled her hair, pressed against her clitoris, and Two felt her body clench. She took in air to cry out, but before she could, she felt Theroen strain against her. He made a snarling, groaning noise and bit her as her climax rolled through her, the force of it locking her limbs tight, freezing the breath in her throat.

  Just as it became too much, more than she could possibly bear, the feeling began to subside. Her lungs began to work again, and Two let that trapped air out in a long sigh. Theroen drank for some time more. Two lay with her head on her arms, breathing, enjoying the waves of pleasure that accompanied the gentle draining sensation.

  What if she tries to take him from me? she thought.

  She knew the answer, of course – knew it in the very depths of her soul. If that happened, she would kill Tori and anyone else who stood between her and this man she loved. If it became necessary, Two would burn the whole world and everyone in it to keep from losing him again.

  They lay like that, still pressed against each other and joined at the hips, not speaking. Theroen’s fingers moved gently in her hair, and he brought his other hand up away from her waist. Two took it in hers and held it against herself. Lying like that, together, they slept.

  Part II

  Chapter 5

  Amun Sa and the Girl from the Desert

  The girl knelt over the grinding wheel, preparing the flour that would become the morning’s bread, and stared out over the vast floodplain that lay between her and the great river to the east. Her hands moved unconsciously, trained by years of repetition, and this allowed her mind to wander free. She contemplated the ecstasies of the previous evening and those that might come that night. The sun had not yet come up over the hills beyond the river and already she was anxious for it to set.

  She was not from this place, though she had lived here now for more than ten years, ever since Nubian warriors from the south had come to her tribe to loot and rape and murder. If there had been any other survivors they had been scattered to the winds, and so she had begun the journey north alone. A girl of only nine years, she had by guile and luck and effort survived where most others would have perished, avoiding the teeth and claws of beasts, the swords of man, and the shackles of the slave caravans. She had left her home in the desert and traveled along the great river until she came to the outskirts of the capital city Ineb-Hedg, the seat of power where Kings had dwelt for centuries.

  She arrived there with only the name her mother had given her, Ashayt, and the skills needed to make the firm, brown bread that everyone ate with every meal and fermented to make their beer. She was of a proud people and the hardships she had so far borne had not stripped her of this pride, and so she refused to join the legions of beggars that could be found throughout the city. She instead went door to door, first inside the city’s walls and then out of them, until at last she found a family who could make use of her skills and would agree to take her in.

  A childless couple with a meager few acres of land and only a handful of slaves, her benefactors would never be wealthy, but they were free and owed nothing to any man. They traded their grain and, soon, her bread at the markets, and while Ashayt knew they would never be able to provide her with a suitable dowry for marriage, she was nonetheless happy to become something like their daughter. She was from the desert, marked by her dark skin and many tattoos, and no man from this civilized world would want her anyway. Or so, at least, she had thought.

  The flour milled, Ashayt set out to mix it with water in several large clay bowls. After this, she would leave the mixture in the fresh air for a time, so that the spirits would bless it and allow it to finish its transformation into dough. She would build up the fire under their stone oven and, when it was good and hot, she would take the dough, and knead it, and form it into loaves. This she did every morning, and when the bread had cooked and cooled, she would put aside loaves for her family and for the slaves, and put the rest into her basket, and take the bread to market.

  Ashayt could hear the slaves calling to each other in the fields and knew that soon the rest of her family would arise. They would wonder why she had been so anxious to go walking after dinner and why she had again been out so late. She smiled to herself, thinking of how thin her excuses were wearing. Did her foster mother suspect why it was that Ashayt was away so long and so late at night? Had she noticed the change in Ashayt’s mood, the constant smiling, the humming of gentle tunes? Ashayt thought the woman did indeed suspect but had yet kept her peace about it.

  Her foster father, on the other hand, seemed completely oblivious. He was a good man and he loved her in his fashion, but he cared mostly for the fields and the crops. The droughts of the past few years had brought these worries to the fore. They consumed his every waking moment, and Ashayt thought it likely that they occupied a good deal of his sleep as well. She pitied him. Most of what they could grow in this climate with their small amount of manpower was used immediately. There was little to trade. Ashayt often wished she could make the rains come, make the great river return to its annual floods and bring life back to this normally fertile valley, but such a thing was beyond her power, and so she did what she could with what grain they had.

  There had been some rain, though, during this otherwise parched summer. There had been rain the first night she had lain with him, in that little fisherman’s shack atop a bed of woven reeds, when he had shown her what it meant to be a woman and to be with a man. After, lying in his arms, she had listened to the rain falling on the thatched roof, listened to the countless peeping frogs at the river’s edge, and thought to herself that there could be no better thing in the entire world.

  Smiling still, thinking of the things that had been and the things that yet would be, Ashayt set her bowls of dough out to rise and went to stoke the fire.

  * * *

  She had first encountered the man whose face and body and hands would come to occupy her every waking thought in a small alley outside of the city’s market square. He had been chasing a pickpocket and was unable to stop in time when Ashayt stepped out from behind a wall, carrying her basket of bread and daydreaming. The thief had narrowly avoided her, and the man chasing him had shouted in surprise and warning, but too late. He collided with the dark-skinned girl, knocking her to the ground and scattering her bread around the alley.

  After taking a moment to ascertain that she was not badly hurt, Ashayt opened her eyes and saw standing above her a beautiful man, young and well built, with sun-bronzed skin the color of the sunset on a field of wheat and eyes like deep, dark pools. He was wearing an obviously expensive wig of human hair, the locks of which reached to his shoulders and were decorated with many beads. Her breath caught in her lungs, and for a moment she was unable to do anything more than stare at him.

  “You should have been more careful,” the man told her, and he extended his hand to help her up. “Now you’ve lost your bread, and I’ve lost my thief so I won’t be able to pay you for it.”

  He smiled at her, and for Ashayt that was the end. All of her life before that moment seemed as if it belonged to someone else, some other girl. Now she was someone new, a woman whose only desire was to possess this man standing above her, and to be possessed by him. She reached out and took his outstretched hand, let him help her to her feet, stood staring at him.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, and Ashayt shook her head. No, she was not hurt. She was as far from hurt, it seemed, as it was possible to be. Every part of her body seemed to be singing in excitement and joy and desire.

  The man took her basket from the ground and, squatting, began to collect those loaves of bread that seemed like they might be salvaged. After a moment, Ashayt joined him. This alley was little used, and that was a good thing. Some of the bread was broken and a few loaves more had landed in a puddle of what she thought was camel urine, but most were merely dusty and could still be sold.

  “Can you speak?” he asked after a time, and she nodded but no words seemed to come to her lips, and so she continued to
collect bread in silence. The man stopped and watched her, amused.

  “Do you speak?”

  Ashayt made an effort to find her voice and managed a single word. “Yes.”

  “You are not from here.”

  “No.”

  “What is your name? Where are you from?”

  “I am called Ashayt. I come from the south. From the deserts outside of Tjenu.”

  “Well, I cannot say it is good to meet you, my lady Ashayt, for it has cost me a sack of turquoise worth fifty deben, but neither can I say I am entirely unhappy with this event. I am called Amun Sa, son of Hêtshepsu, son of Nifé-en-Ankh. I am third-cousin by marriage to King Pepi, Lord of all the Earth and descendant of Ptah the Maker, may he rule forever.”

  Ashayt, confronted so suddenly with the knowledge that the man who stood before her was nobility, of a social standing so far above her own that it was inconceivable that he was even speaking with her, found herself again at a loss for words. She went immediately to her knees, bowing before him and putting her forehead to the sand. When at last she was able to speak, she began pouring forth a litany of apology, begging for forgiveness for her running into him.

  “Please, girl … Ashayt, stop. Enough. I beg you, I … Ptah have mercy upon me, in the name of the King, I command you to stop!”

  This last was delivered in such a tone that Ashayt understood she was not to argue – she was only to obey. It was a tone that only a man of royal upbringing would have even known how to use, and she followed his command instinctively. She stopped apologizing, snapping her mouth shut, but continued to lie prostrate before him.