The Sheltered City

by John Tristan

  “Lift yourself a little—there—” He licked his fingers and slid them beneath the curve of Caedian’s rear, pressing into him.

  Caedian sucked a breath between his teeth and rocked himself deeper onto Amon’s hand. “Amon, yes, there, please.”

  Hearing Caedian’s voice make those soft, pleading cries was making his head spin. He played between Caedian’s legs with both hands, one inside him and one wrapped around his hardness.

  “Please.” Caedian keened the word now. “Need you.”

  Amon took his hand away and lifted Caedian up with easy strength, then lowered him until they were locked together. Caedian arched his back and then collapsed forward, arms wrapped tight around Amon’s neck, his hot mouth nipping and tasting him. “I’m here,” Amon whispered into his ear. “I’m here.”

  Caedian made a sound that could have been a sob. He raised himself onto his knees then came back down again hard. His voice had gone low and murmuring, a litany or a prayer, and a flash of memory came to Amon of the first time they had been together in Esper—the time just before that terrifying blankness in Caedian’s eyes.

  A shiver of fear went through Amon, cold as ice, but Caedian kissed it away and held his face in his hands and rode him, breath rapid and halting. Then he stiffened and shivered all over, coming soundlessly, and rested his forehead in the hollow of Amon’s throat.

  Amon breathed slow and thrust the final movement of his long, languorous pleasure into Caedian, holding him close, rocking against him. Their breaths synchronized, and with the blankets fallen away from them, their skin blazed so warm in the cool air that steam seemed to rise off of them. As if we were dragons, Amon thought, burning together in the air.

  For a while they said nothing, made no movement. Then they came apart with a kind of mutual sigh, sliding below the blankets. Caedian pillowed his head on Amon’s chest, idly stroking his fingers through the chest hair.

  “It’ll be morning soon,” Amon said.

  “Yes.”

  “Still, there’s time to rest yet.”

  “Yes.”

  Amon shifted and sighed. “I don’t have to go. On patrol with Karenna, I mean. I could stay here. There’s no rush.”

  “Shh,” Caedian said, and he put a single finger on Amon’s mouth. “It’s still dark. Close your eyes.”

  He did. They fluttered shut and the world winked out. Caedian’s hand was warm on his mouth, then on his shoulder, his weight a comfort against his chest.

  “Amon?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You know how—” He felt Caedian swallow. “You know what is in my heart, don’t you?”

  He stroked the back of Caedian’s neck. “I hope I do.”

  Caedian scooted up to kiss him on his lower lip. “Remember that,” he murmured, so close that Amon could feel the movement of his mouth.

  It was the last thing winding through his mind as sleep reclaimed him—that murmuring kiss and the weight of Caedian’s head resting on his chest. When he woke in the morning the bed was cold, and he knew that Caedian was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  He came into Emil’s house without preamble, throwing the door open. “What did you tell him?”

  She looked up from her books with a mild, unsurprised expression. “Amon. Come in, have a seat. May I get you anything?”

  He remained in the doorway, his bulk blocking the light from the square. He was only half dressed, trousers and a thin sleeveless shirt; the stone of Esper was cold as ice on his bare feet. “He came to see you last night, didn’t he? Now he’s gone. What did you tell him?”

  “If you are talking about Caedian, which I assume you are, how are you so sure he’s gone?” she asked. “He’s been known to roam about the place, hasn’t he?” She kept her voice mild as her face, but there was a flicker of doubt in her eyes—a wordless tell that signified a lie.

  He only stared at her. He thought he would feel the swell of rage within him, looking at her mild, dissembling face—but when he sought for it there was nothing except a howling emptiness.

  She got to her feet, slowly, supporting herself on the back of her chair. “Amon—”

  “What did you tell him?” There was no power in his voice now. It was like an echo of itself.

  “He came to me,” she said after a while. “We talked of Esper and the Tree, and we talked of you.” She shuffled over to him, close enough to touch, but did not extend her hand. “Please, won’t you come and sit down?”

  He shook his head. “Tell me.”

  “At least come inside, Amon.”

  “Do you really want to be alone with me?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to hurt me. Are you?”

  He stepped inside her house, almost stumbling, and closed the door behind him. He leaned against it, head thudding against the stone. “No. No, I’m not.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She took her place on her chair again. “You have a future here, Amon. You could be a warrior, a father—an elder, in time. Soon enough all of us who knew the City and the Tree will be dead, but you have many more years of life in you.”

  “What does that—” His voice cracked, and he clenched his fists, regaining control. “I don’t understand what any of that has to do with Caedian.”

  “He understood.” She crossed and uncrossed her legs, trying to find a comfortable position. “He told me that he could never know peace here while his brother is trapped in that abominable half life. He knew that your love for him would mean you shared that restlessness, as well—that you would never feel quite at home while he was beside you. Never enough to truly make your life here.”

  “So you told him to go?”

  She shook her head. “No, Amon. I did not tell him anything. I listened to him, and when he was done I gave him what he needed. Maps, weapons. Supplies. The chance to leave.” She raised a shoulder in a half shrug. “The chance to take his revenge.”

  He thought he knew then what had passed between them—what Caedian had done. “He made a deal with you. And you sent him out to die.”

  “I gave him what he wanted.”

  He turned around and pushed the door open. “I’m going after him.”

  “Amon, wait.” She’d gotten to her feet and put a careful hand on his back. “I have lived for many years and known elves and men and dragonblooded. I would like to think that’s given me a little wisdom. So humor me for a moment and listen.”

  He closed his eyes, took a breath and turned around. “Then speak.”

  “Caedian didn’t abandon you, if that’s what you’re thinking. He didn’t trade you for his freedom.”

  He was shaking his head, tears prickling his eyes. “How can I think anything else?”

  “I made my offer to him,” she said, “because I knew he was in pain. When you see a man with a wound you help to stitch and bandage it. The only bandage for Caedian’s wound is to do what he must do in the City.”

  “It will gain him nothing.”

  “It will gain him the peace of knowing his brother will not suffer for uncounted centuries. Do not dismiss that.”

  “And then he will die. If he even makes it to the City.”

  “It was his choice, Amon. As it was his choice that you remain here.” She reached to cup his chin in her crabbed hand. “A lifetime without family, without the chance of leaving a legacy...all of that you can leave behind now. The bandage for your wound is Esper, Amon. Not to walk into death by his side.”

  He took her hand in his, not ungently, and lifted it away. “When you walked out of the Last City, weren’t you walking into death? Weren’t you doing it beside the people you loved?”

  She drew back. For a moment he saw the shadowy echo of the dragonhunter she had once been beneath her mask of wrinkles—a woman of h
is age, full of the same dark rages. “That was different,” she snapped. “We didn’t think we had any hope.”

  “Caedian thinks he has no hope either. But he does. He has me.”

  “I can’t let you go after him.”

  “Are you going to keep me a prisoner then?” He bared his teeth. “You had best get out your weapons, dragonhunter.”

  She shook her head. “Nobody here will keep you locked up, Amon. But no one will help you throw your life away, either. We need you too much. No one will give you armor or food or directions out of the mountains and toward the City. If you leave Esper, you leave it with nothing save the clothes you wear—if you leave, you won’t be going to save your elf, but to commit suicide.” There was a rising, panicked note in her voice, as if she was approaching some inevitable precipice, coming closer and closer to the nearing edge.

  “You don’t understand, do you?” Amon turned away, hand on the doorjamb. “You said this could never be my home as long as Caedian was beside me, but you had it all backward. I would have stayed for him, restless or not, wounded or not. I would have stayed because he is my home.”

  “He’s just an elf, Amon! We—” she pounded her chest, “—we here in Esper are your family. Your history.”

  He shook his head. “Without Caedian here, you can never be my future.”

  With that he left her sputtering uselessly in the doorway and made his way up to Taman’s workshop. The door was locked; he went down to the forges. He was working in the fires there, hammering out a piece of adamantine.

  When he looked up from his work, Amon saw on his face that he knew. When Emil had found the time to tell him, Amon didn’t know—how long had this conspiracy been brewing beneath the surface, he wondered? “Where is my armor, Taman?”

  “Safe,” he said. “Safe for when you will need it.”

  “You said it was ready for me.”

  He shrugged. “You surely won’t need it today. Will you?”

  They will make me hurt them. He ran through the counting song in his head, for the first time in many days. They will make me hurt them to get what I need. Emil was right—going into the dragonlands without weapons or supplies meant his chances dwindled from small to suicidal. How much had they given Caedian? Just enough to convince him that he could make it?

  “Do you really think,” he said slowly, “this will make me at home in Esper?”

  “Men and elves aren’t meant to mingle thus,” Taman said. “You’ll know it yourself after a while. I just thank the Great Mother that he was wise enough to see it.”

  Amon drew back and slapped the hammer out of Taman’s hand. It clattered across the stone floor, still throwing up sparks from where it had touched the hot metal.

  Taman raised his eyebrows, impassive. “Is that meant to scare me, sprat? Me, who has raised two generations of dragonblooded?”

  “I thought this place was different,” Amon said. “I thought this could have been home.”

  “It will be home,” Taman said, face softening. “But home must be defended.”

  “At any cost? That’s what the Last City does, isn’t it?”

  “Not at any cost,” he said. “Just that what we reckon worth paying.”

  He left the forges, shaking and sweating. Damn you, Caedian. He’d shackled him here, as sure as clamping irons on his wrists and ankles. He could only break them by main force, and that would bring the whole careful edifice around him down, all the trust and first steps to friendship he had built here in this little peaceful enclave. He could only break them by breaking his own honor.

  Moving like a sleepwalker through the halls of Esper, he managed to make it back to his room. He noticed now that Caedian had never left his mark on it. There was no sign of his choices in the arrangement of the furniture, the hang of the old embroidered blankets—makeshift tapestries—on the walls. It had been Amon who had made the little room into a home for them. A home that had not been enough for Caedian in the end.

  He slid to the floor and put his head on the edge of the bed. His hand played over the empty blankets, the cracks in the cold stone. You know what is in my heart, don’t you? Caedian had told him to remember it—had left it for him like a trinket. It was just as cold as the stone of their bed.

  “Are you going after him?”

  He looked up. Karenna was standing in the doorway. Outlined in the mirror light of Esper she seemed rimmed in fire. He dragged himself to his feet—he didn’t want to face her on his knees. “So you’ve heard.”

  “We’ve all heard.”

  “And you left me the last to know. All of you. Damn you.”

  “It wasn’t my choice.” She cleared her throat. “What I asked—”

  “Even if I could find him,” he said, “and even if I thought I could drag him back, your—your wise leaders have decreed I do it naked and alone.”

  She took a hesitant step into his room. She had never been inside it before; none of the Esperites had. She glanced around, eyes passing over the ragged tapestries, the mess of blankets on the bed. “Emil is afraid. We are so fragile here, Amon. You have to see that. We have to go out under the sun to hunt, to gather food. Who knows if it wasn’t our movements that led the dragon here, and all its drakelings with it? Never mind that—one misplaced step from one of the elder dragons and we’re shattered. It frightens her, after she gave her life to build it.”

  “And that’s why she wants me chained to the place?” He laughed tonelessly. “Like a hound from an old story?”

  “She wants you here to make up for losing Semon.” She looked down at her hand; it was a white-knuckled fist. “As if anything could.”

  From somewhere in the echoing hallways of Esper came the sound of a toddler crying. Karenna glanced up automatically, then looked back at Amon once the jagged tones of the crying smoothed out into tired hiccups.

  “For a while I hated your elf,” she said. “I thought he had taken away my chance to avenge Semon. That he had taken away my death by his side.”

  “And now?”

  She shrugged. “Now I feel nothing for him. To tell the truth, I don’t give a drakeling’s shit if he lives or dies. But...but I owe him nonetheless. And I owe myself.” She grabbed Amon by the wrist, pulling him close as if she was going to kiss him, and forced something hard and cold into his palm.

  She stepped back. He looked down and opened his hand. It was a key.

  “That will let you into Taman’s workshop. Your armor and weapons are there. I am on watch tonight, in the outer cavern past the waterfall. I’ll have food and drink ready for you. Don’t get caught before you make it there.”

  He looked up at her, uncomprehending. “Why?”

  “Because I have seen the way you looked at each other. Because nothing short of death should sever that.” An odd, sideways smile twisted her mouth like a scar. “If you told me Semon was still out there in the wastes somewhere, heading to his death, do you think I would stay here one second more?”

  He swallowed a hard lump in his throat; he was not sure how to thank her, or if she would want him to. “You know that I may not return.”

  She ran a hand through her hair, grimacing; she seemed to be struggling toward her next words. “I know. And you will be missed, I can’t argue against that. But Esper will live on without you. After all, we managed it before.”

  He dared to smile at that. “If I do come back—”

  “If you do come back, with your elf in tow or not, you’ll be welcomed. I’m pretty damned sure of that, at least, even if Emil will need to rage a little. It’d be good to get her blood up, in any case. It’s not healthy to always keep yourself so calm.” She grinned at him, a smile with the promise of teeth in it. “Is that what you wanted to know, brother?”

  He closed his fist around the key, feeling the bite of its cunning li
ttle tines. “Yes. Thank you.”

  She watched him a moment. “You know you’ll be doing this alone.”

  “I know.” It was his turn to show his teeth now. “I’m used to that much.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The stars were clear and diamond-bright above him, the air startlingly cold. He had almost forgotten, in his time in Esper, how cold the world outside could be. He breathed it in deeply, filling his lungs with its chill. The moon was dark, and he wondered how many dragons were sleeping in its shadow. There were none he could see in the empty sky.

  The wind was a constant slap in his face; he’d had to tie his hair back to keep it from whipping into his eyes. Karenna’s pack was slung over one shoulder, his broadsword’s scabbard over the other. It should really have been worn at the hip, but it had banged against the side of the cliff on his climb up out of Esper’s valley. He had moved it so it wouldn’t knock him off the path and onto the rocks below.

  He was back near the top of the mountains now, by the petrified trees where Karenna and Semon had first found them. Something fluttered in the wind there; Amon squatted down to take a look. Someone had tied a ribbon around one of those trees. In the starlight he could not tell what color it was, only that it had been torn from some soft fabric. It must have been tied there recently; the fabric itself seemed old, but it had not been weathered by the rain and wind of the dragonlands.

  Was it a strip of one of Esper’s makeshift tapestries? He cut a piece from the ribbon with the spikes of his single gauntlet and rubbed it between his fingers. Had Caedian left it there, as a marker or memorial? He tucked it in the pocket of his trousers and stood up.

  There was a glow of rust-colored light on the horizon, the first hint of sunrise. One thing that Karenna had not been able to give him was maps, but she had shown him a way down out of the mountains, into the pale forest below. After that he thought he would try to backtrack his way to the wide and dry plain where, somewhere, the Last City stood veiled under its canopy.

  “I’m on the way,” he said, not sure if he was speaking to himself or to the ghost of Caedian that lived in his heart, and he started the climb down out of the mountains.