The Corsairs of Aethalia: A Thalassia novel
Page 21
Anya’s voice seemed to be coming from some deep recess in his mind, and she was laughing.
Chapter 13
Low stunted trees ran along the base of the worn ridgeline, pale green against the splintered dirty white, and the air smelled of baked dust. The sun beat on the four travelers, as it had for the past ten days, with a searing unrelenting fury. Jorse hung on to his horse by pure stubbornness. Dala wilted in her saddle while the two guides, Gorku and Darko, seemed oblivious to the sweltering heat. Mirek, in a sleeveless leather vest was slowly turning the color of a well-tanned hide, and actually seemed to be enjoying the weather.
Gorku held a dark, sun baked hand up to halt the other three. The second scout, Darko, ranged out ahead, searching for faintly marked trails or hidden ambushes. “We stop here.” He waved a hand in the general direction of a small copse of trees. “Water down there. Take horses and not let drink too much.” Jorse glared at the man’s back, but began to unload the horses. He might not like these local guides, but they knew their business. Although he had expected trouble, they just shrugged when they found out that Mirek and Dala would be accompanying the party, just muttering a curt “keep up.”
Now every night seemed the same. They would stop in the late afternoon, at some suitable site, Jorse would unload and water the horses; Dala and Gorku would set up the camp and cook dinner. Mirek, carrying a long stelwood sword, provided security. Before dinner was ready, Darko would generally show up, and report on his day’s findings. For some strange reason it seemed that his and Dala’s sleeping rolls kept drawing closer together each night. They were close enough now so that the two could talk quietly even when the others had taken to their beds. In that way Jorse discovered Dala’s dry wit and sharp mind, while she found out about his love of nature and the deep respect he had for life in general. Anya, for some reason, had been keeping more and more to herself.
After Dala had finally dropped to sleep Jorse stared up at the shining rings above him, a sight that never seemed to grow old.
There was silence for several minutes.
Jorse blinked. They seemed to be sitting on a beach, the shadowy form of Anya next to him. More shadowy than usual, he noted sadly.
“Oh, dear!” A voice from thin air interrupted Jorse and Anya. “I hadn’t realized that there was going to be this big of a problem.” Selene stepped out of nothing, and onto the soft sand of the beach. The Goddess gave Jorse a very pointed look. “Go amuse yourself somewhere, Jorse. I have to talk with Anya for a while.”
“Why can’t I come too?” The young man was frowning.
“I’ve found that men get a bit twitchy, when they are around women who are talking about female feelings and anatomy. Would you like to come anyway?” Selene’s voice was reasonable, but her eyes were sparkling.
“Uhhh, I guess not.” Jorse’s face was beet red, and he turned away in embarrassment. What he didn’t mention was that thanks to their new closeness, what Anya heard and saw, Jorse did also, if he thought about it. Right now he was concentrating very hard.
“I didn’t think so.” Selene turned to the shadowy girl beside her and took her hand. At the touch, Anya’s form seemed to solidify. “We have to talk, Anya. Perhaps someplace more cozy?” They were now standing in a small ornate sitting room, complete with lace doilies adorning walnut tabletops. Several lamps cast a soft yellow glow, and through the paned windows Anya could see trees and a well-kept garden. Two delicate china cups of steaming tea were sitting on a side table, beside a pair of overstuffed chairs with faded Victorian print. There was the scent of lavender in the air.
“Tea, my dear?” Selene sat in one of the chairs, tucking her feet under her.
Anya nodded and sat. The tea, she was surprised to find, was Earl Grey.
“Your problem,” Selene began, setting her tea cup back on the table, “is that you don’t have a frame of reference. Your race is K’ Dreex, and thus you don’t have any physicality of your own. You personally, on the other hand, have chosen to display the form of a human female. There are only so many sensations that you can borrow from your host, Jorse in this case. The sensations of a seventeen year old boy, and a seventeen year old girl are quite different. The way you think is quite different too, as is the way you feel. What you need is your own construct, your own set of feelings and sensations unique to your own physicality.”
“That’s the problem, Selene.” Anya said sadly as she set down her own tea cup. “I have no physicality. I’m just shadows and dust.” She was staring at her hands.
“Nonsense.” Selene’s voice was firm. “Do you want to be Jorse’s partner?”
Anya looked up, her gray eyes serious. “With all my heart.”
“Good. Two people working in concert will make your eventual integration much easier. Now, the first thing we have to do is to get you your own unique construct.” The Goddess looked thoughtful for a moment. “Unlike you, I have access to many constructs, most of them female, not surprisingly.” Selene seemed to be talking to herself.
Anya stood, looking down at her naked body. Similar to her shadowy form, this one had several marked differences. First, it was real. She could feel! The air on her bare skin, the fabric of the pile carpet under her feet. Each sensation was crisp, each feeling new and unexplored. Her hands traveled over her body, and she gasped as they touched her nipples. She found that she was shaking.
“I never knew that I could feel like this.” Her hands continued their downward trek, down the flat belly, abdomen—Anya gasped, and pulled her hands away. “Jorse has memories of being told that touching yourself is a sin.”
“Nonsense!” Selene laughed. “You are hurting no one, and giving yourself a bit of pleasure. Touch away, my dear.”
Unabashed, Anya explored for a few more minutes, before her hands fell to her sides. She was breathing heavily. “Now what, Selene?” She slipped on a thick fluffy white robe that just happened to be draped over the back of her chair.
“It’s up to you, of course.” Selene was smiling, in a warm affectionate way. “This body that you think you feel is really just a collection of memories and feelings that will allow you to act and react better in the ‘real’ world. I’ve made a copy of mine for you. You have the power now to make others both see and feel you in this body. It is still a construct, however; if you are cut you will not bleed, you cannot have human babies, and worst of all, if Jorse dies you will die also. You live in him as a symbiote, for the moment.”
“What do you mean, for the moment?” There was real concern in Anya’s voice.
“I told you this before, when the two of you merged you started to change. Do you know what DNA is?”
Anya thought for a moment, digging back through both Jorse’s memories, and the ancient memories stored by the K’Dreex. “Yes, I know what DNA is.”
“Good, that will make this easier. Your DNA and Jorse’s DNA are combining. Eventually you both will have only one strand of DNA; one that will contain everything that is Anya the K’Dreex, and everything that is Jorse the human. The Jorse/Anya composite will inhabit Jorse’s body, which will now be running much more efficiently than before. Since the average human uses only a small fraction of his brain, there will be plenty of room for both of you up there.”
“But... who will do the driving?” Anya pulled an apt analogy from Jorse’s memory.
Selene laughed. “
Both of you, silly girl. There will be two ghosts in the machine, if you will, but you will think with one mind. You think ‘I love you’ and he will know it instantly. You want to tickle his love-center, he will know that too, instantly.”
“Well, now...” Anya said in a musing voice. “This gives the phrase ‘touchy feely’ a whole new meaning.”
“Oh, and one final thing.” Selene said in a more serious voice. “Tell Tessa and Naween about this. Dala and Tessa haven’t gone through the crisis you and Jorse have, and maybe this knowledge will help them adapt. Mirek and Naween are made of sterner stuff.”
“I’m sure it will. Thank you, Selene.”
“Any time, dear. Just call me if you need to talk.” Selene turned and was gone.
Jorse was staring up at the rings of Thalassia when the soft voice whispered in his ear.
“Come with me, dear one. I have something to show you.” Jorse turned his head and had to suppress a gasp. Anya was kneeling by him, but an Anya he had never seen before; an Anya that was part the shadowy girl that lived within him, and an Anya that looked more like Selene. Gently she touched his face, and in the moonlight he could see the tracks of tears on her cheeks. Jorse rose, all bemused, and together they moved soundlessly into the night. Once clear of the camp and well out of earshot, Anya turned and smiling, dropped the white robe on the ground.
“Up get!” Gorku’s voice was rough and Jorse’s eyes were gritty from lack of sleep. He smiled, however, because he really didn’t mind. Smiled at the memory of Anya with what looked like Selene’s body. His mind went back to her lovely curves and soft skin the night before. Did she know that, in the dark, she glowed; and as she reached her peak it got even brighter? He began packing the camp, aware that deep in the recesses of his mind Anya was humming softly.
“You’re in a good mood this morning.” Dala commented, eying him with disbelief.
“I feel good.” He knew that he was being overly mysterious, but he really didn’t care.
“You look rumpled and your eyes look as if you’d been drinking for a week.” Jorse just shrugged, and Dala glared as he continued to pack the horses. Mirek and Gorku had their heads together as the guide pointed to features in the trail ahead.
“How much further?” Jorse asked their gruff guide as he swung up into his saddle.
“Two, maybe three day. We keep watch tonight. Things moving in woods I don’t like. Darko look. He find bandits. Hades Temple soon.”
Jorse frowned as he sorted through the disjointed phrases.
Jorse muttered under his breath.
Jorse didn’t reply for several minutes, as he negotiated narrow turns in the trail. The mare he rode slipped at one point, and stood shaking on the edge of a thousand foot drop. Soft talking slowly eased her past the danger point, and they both sat trembling in relief.
It was some time later that the trail finally led down and out of the broken mountains. The sun blasted, scrub filled plain, they now found themselves on, was pocked with occasional sheer, steep sided hills, and the very air smelled burnt. It was a wasteland indeed.
Jorse looked up in surprise when Gorku raised his hand to stop them for lunch. The sun stood straight overhead. The rugged sameness of the trail, the same colors and the same smells seemed to blend into one long blur. He sniffed the air and grimaced with distaste: roasted mutton and beans. Every lunch was the same dismal meal, and he wasn’t surprised to find that eating itself was becoming a chore. Anya, for some reason, had wisely disappeared.
“Darko say that you a sailor.” Gorku began abruptly as he puffed on a short thick pipe. Lunch dishes had been picked up and packed. The four were stretched in front of the crackling fire. “You ever see edge of world?”
“No, Gorku. I have never seen the edge of the world.” Mirek and Dala were watching him intently. “I’ve only been to Elandia, and no further west.”
The surly guide nodded, puffing out a cloud of harsh pipe smoke that made Dala cough. “I hear a story once. They tell about a fisherman, long ago, who left from west coast of Elandia to hunt the big sturgeon that swim in western seas. After week he sight three ships far to west, all battered, sails ripped. He sell the men spare sails and what water he had. Pointed them to land, Greater Wassaw I think. Those men have ships like yours, sailor boy. Long lean boats. Wide. Single sail but big.” He stopped to scratch his head. “Round shields on sides and dragon head on front with tail on back. Fierce bearded men.” He looked at Jorse intently. “Had steel swords and axes, they did. Women and children with them. Fierce they were, but frightened. No tell where they came from, just the west. They pay the fisherman in gold! Real gold.” Gorku sounded mesmerized by the story.
“What happened to the fisherman?” Jorse asked with curiosity in his voice.
“Corsairs took him, in sight of his own home.” Gorku laughed. “Corsiars of Aethalia.”
“If the Corsairs took him, then how did the story get out at all?”
Gorku frowned, and it was Jorse’s turn to laugh.
Later, on the trail, Anya commented on the fisherman’s tale.
Clouds began to slip in; high thin clouds at first, and then thickening to a heavy sullen gray as the day wore on. By late afternoon Jorse could see ominous flashes in the distance and muffled thunder seemed to rumble just around the corner.
Darko appeared from around a bend in the trail, his horse lathered. He and Gorku had a quick conference, and then Gorku pointed back the way Darko had come.
“Darko say big storm come. Cave there. We seek shelter. Go Now!” He slapped Dala’s horse and the normally placid mare broke into run. “Go... go.”
The storm broke just as they brought in the last of the dry firewood they could readily find, in that barren landscape. Lightning split the sky and thunder rebounded from the steep wall the cave cowered under. Cold driving rain came down in sheets, and both humans and horses quailed. Finally, its wrath seemingly spent, the storm moved on, leaving the battered landscape dripping under heavy threatening clouds.
Inside the cave the fire crackled cheerfully, and while Gorku and Darko saw to the fire and dinner, Dala and Mirek set up camp while Jorse tended the horses, relocating them to a smaller chamber he found deeper into the hill. It wasn’t the first time he’d been thankful for the enhanced vision his relationship with Anya had given him.
Dinner was dried fish cooked into a spicy stew with a few handfuls of dried vegetables and herbs from Gorku’s prodigious pack.
Jorse sighed as he put away the last of the dinner dishes. “Dala and I need to have a private talk, gentlemen.” He said to the three men, who all sat puffing their pipes in front of the fire. “I’ve found a small dry room off the chamber where we keep the horses. We will be in there
.”
Darko and Gorku looked at each other, and then Gorku burst out laughing. “You good, boy. OK, you go talk to leetle girl.” He laughed some more. “Watch out for beeg cave bears, ha?” Mirek just frowned.
Dala, when he took her hand, had a worried look on her face. “Jorse, what is it?”
“Follow me. There are a few things we have to talk about. Private things.”
“Now?” Dala definitely sounded worried now.
“Yes.” Jorse helped her to her feet and after lighting a smoky torch, led the way back to the far cavern.
He had spread two blankets on the sandy floor of the small cave, and set a skin of wine in the corner. In any other circumstances, this would have looked like a romantic invitation. In this case Jorse was scared to death.
Dala sat on one blanket and turned to face him, her eyes serious. “I think that this is more serious than I expected. Why don’t you just say things right out, and we’ll go from there.”
“You asked for it.” Jorse sat down on the other blanket. “Anya, would you please come in?” The young woman ducked gracefully into the small chamber, gave Dala a tentative smile, and folded herself to the blanket next to Jorse. “Dala, this is Anya; Anya, this is Dala.” Jorse thought Dala’s eyes were about to pop from her head, and then the eyes narrowed dangerously. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. “Anya told me that she has to speak with her twin, Dala. Would you let Anya touch you?” Her eyes narrowed more and he hastily added. “Just your hand, Dala, just your hand. Please, it’s important for you, for you and Tessa.”
Dala slowly extended her hand. Anya took the offered hand with the fingers of her left hand, while she brought up her right hand, palm down, over it and began to make curious circular motions. The motion continued for a few more moments, and then Anya brought the hand down gently, on the top of Dala’s. A second later Anya withdrew both of her hands. Dala frowned.
“That’s it?” She almost sounded disappointed.