by Lucia Ashta
She brought a hand to mine and pressed until my palm flattened between her breasts. “I do,” she said coyly, but I could see that she’d relaxed and placed confidence in her knowing the way. She’d have to if we were to have any chance at getting out of here alive.
“Good,” I said. “Then go figure out which way we should go while Dolpheus and I sit in the shade of the transport machine. Hopefully, it’ll shield us from any wind that kicks up so we can focus.”
But Ilara’s hand still pressed mine against her chest. The steady thumping of her heart made me again long for her. After all that time searching for her, here she was, the woman I’d craved. Whether she was the true princess or not, she was everything I could ever ask for in a woman. And more. Ilara was so much more than any other woman.
When she stepped in and kissed me, I was tempted to think I could die right then and be happy, in the middle of this sandy kiss. But the truth was that I wouldn’t be. I wanted to live, mostly because I wanted so much more of this woman than I could have in the middle of the Sahara Desert. But if it became clear that we wouldn’t survive this journey, then I’d take all I could get in the time I could still get it.
But until such time, I intended to fight for my right to more, to everything, to all this saucy, tasty woman would give me.
“Good luck,” she said with a mischievous grin. Then she treated me to a view of the back of her body as she gathered Kai and Lila and walked far enough away that their conversation wouldn’t disrupt what Dolpheus and I needed to do.
I followed every one of her sultry steps. Damn. Even in a life and death situation, Ilara could turn my thoughts overwhelmingly to one thing, and how to achieve that one thing the fastest.
If I had any chance at luck it would be now, after that kiss, with the woman I’d looked for now found.
Dolpheus and I would need luck, and a lot of it, if we were going to do what I’d never even heard of anyone attempting. But by the time I joined Dolpheus, I’d reined my focus in to where it needed to be, and his expression equaled my determination.
If anyone could do this, it was us.
10
“We can do this,” Dolpheus said to me once we were seated against curved edges of vunter metal, bags at our feet, collecting sand quickly. He sounded as if he was saying it as much for his own benefit as mine.
“I know we can,” I told him, willing myself to believe it. Because faithum, if that’s what we were going to do, was truly impossible—and there were few of those things in life—without belief. If I didn’t really believe we could do this, then I would have failed even before trying. We might as well traipse out into the Sahara Desert and hope for the best, accepting that our transport back to Origins might become inaccessible to us. Of course, we might be able to transport back to Origins the way Ilara accidentally had, but even if we managed it, Kai wouldn’t be able to do it, and there was no way I was leaving him behind.
“We just imagine it disappearing,” Dolpheus said.
“Right. Blending into the surroundings. And remember that we have to leave some way for us to be able to find it again on our return.”
“Okay. I hadn’t thought of that yet. Good thing you mentioned it.”
“See you on the other side,” I said, even though this time we wouldn’t be transporting anywhere. I closed my eyes, but even behind closed eyelids the sun found me. My inner world glowed yellow and orange as I concentrated on leaving the alien cause of the tinting behind.
Before I could extend myself outward to deal with the transport machine, I had to settle myself first. I understood that fretting over things that couldn’t be changed now did nothing to help and often caused harm. But I couldn’t help but feel a bit foolish for following Aletox the madman across space and especially for allowing the others to come with me.
And as much as I tried not to think of how tenuous our immediate future was, I still did. We’d landed in a shitstorm, with no easy or even apparent way out of it.
But none of this really mattered in the space of stillness I’d soon arrive at, and I knew it. Things were rarely as they seemed. Even death, if we arrived at it today, wasn’t the end many believed it to be. Energy never ceased to exist. It might dissipate, spread across the entire universe, but it didn’t stop existing. So how could a human being stop existing? At the very least, the eternality would spread to the far corners of existence, making what was once a person part of everything.
That was better. My thoughts better served me here, with reminders that everything is energy. Even the bulky vunter machine was energy coalesced into material parts.
My breathing slowed and deepened. I became at peace with the oppressive heat that had overwhelmed my breathing and simply accepted it. My breaths instantly became easier, and I could taste Ilara’s kiss on my cracked lips.
I pushed crisscrossed knees into the sand and straightened my back. The wind against my face softened into a caressing breeze and my shirt billowed rhythmically in it.
In this space I’d spent countless hours in, I was content. It didn’t matter where my body was, my consciousness could access the same stillness.
I remained here long enough that everyone became my friend, everything worked with me to orchestrate the unimaginably complex paths of life. I was a part of everything and nothing was truly outside of me. Everything is composed of the same essence, the same energetic threads that, when woven together, create different patterns and manifestations of this energy.
But in the end, the transport machine and Aletox inside it were as much a part of all creation as I was. I could easily reach into the transport machine because it and I were the same. I could extend the energy that made up the man that I was, toward the transport capsule, where I could mingle with it, where it and I could entwine, where I could give it new shape.
I stayed where I was for a while longer. How long, I had no idea. Time too, lost its identity apart from me in this place where I was, a place that had no more definition than anything else in and around me.
Eventually, almost lazily, I extended energetic tentacles from my being toward the capsule, as if I were curious and I wanted to do no more than touch and prod and experience what it was like to take shape as hard metal instead of hard man.
I touched the edge of the capsule, and even in the undefined space of my mind, I experienced its edges as hard and hot. But my tentacles slid through them easily.
I experienced the energetic field of the ship much as I experienced mine, only its signature was different. But its signature would be receptive to my suggestions. All it would take would be whispered thoughts and imaginings, and the capsule’s edges would soften. The energetic makeup of the ship’s exterior would take on the physical imprints of what surrounded it.
Instead of appearing as metal the color of blood, the capsule would manifest as sand, sky, and sun.
That’s it, I hummed, as soothing as a gentle lover coaxing himself between a woman’s legs. Just a little more, I urged, feeling as the energy around me softened, shifted, and opened at my request.
Then a subtle tremble in the support I leaned on, subtle enough that it was easy to ignore. Then a slammed door, loud and abrupt. The sound jarred me, but not enough to pull me from where I was. I liked it where I was, where everything worked with me to achieve the harmonious coalescence of energy everywhere.
In life, there was ultimately always balance, even if it wasn’t readily discernable. And right then I was part of that balance. I was a pebble at the bottom of a deep lake, from which water ran off into a tributary that fed all the world’s waters, where the cycle connected to an endless loop.
When Lila’s urgent whispers crossed the space somewhere off behind and to the side of me, I tried to recognize them as something outside of me that I should ignore. But there was nothing truly outside of me just then. I registered their timbre and vibration. Regrettably, their meaning also began to coalesce into something I could understand. In that part of my brain where words st
ill meant little, I heard, “Shhh. Not so loud. Be careful not to disturb them. They’ve almost done it.”
Excitement tingled in Lila’s voice and I experienced it nearly as my own.
Until my support was yanked out from behind me.
I lay flat on my back, the air expelled from my lungs, wondering if Dolpheus had done it.
11
My consciousness didn’t want to return to where Ilara’s words were pushing it. It was better where it was, in a place where everything was in harmony, where everything worked together to achieve balance.
“What did you do?” Ilara asked of the one man I most didn’t want to remember, the man who most denied me balance in this world, where I’d barely begun experiencing life. Of all people, why was it Aletox that was here on this journey with us to Planet Sand, to ruin the peace I’d discovered within myself, reaching toward a transport machine, no more than a manifestation of energy?
Aletox’s harsh voice cut through my lingering haze as the breath returned to my body in a hot and dense whoosh. The breath seemed to burn my lungs as I hungrily pulled in the parched air of the Sahara Desert. The sun beat above my prostrate body like a glowing ball of fire, and I didn’t even bother trying to open my eyes. Even with them closed, they burned against the stark light. Oranges swirled furiously behind closed eyelids, and everything about me smarted. I realized I’d have to get up from the ground, but a sudden fall onto my back reenergized all the aches and weakness that remained from our jump across space.
I willed myself to focus on what Aletox was saying. Was he amazed that Dolpheus had managed to shift the energy of the transport machine so fully that it disappeared entirely? It wasn’t what Dolpheus and I’d discussed. We’d only intended to make it invisible to the eye, not to make it actually vanish. But however Dolpheus had managed it, he’d not only beaten me to it, but he’d achieved something incredible, a feat possibly never achieved on Origins. Aletox would have every reason to be in awe of my friend’s accomplishment and maybe he’d finally begin treating Dolpheus with the respect he deserved.
Aletox said, “I made the transport machine disappear. Isn’t that obvious, your majesty?”
He did what? I said as much to myself as to Dolpheus, because I couldn’t tell if I’d formed the words in my mind so that he’d be able to understand them. It was perilous to pull out of that place so abruptly. Just as with transporting, once we began to pull apart the components of our bodies so we could coalesce them into a whole somewhere else, if we were interrupted, we could lose the ability to hold onto all the pieces of our physical bodies. With such a sudden disruption of the projection of our mental impressions of ourselves, we were at risk of suffering a similar fate.
And Aletox knew that. As one of the other few Oers capable of transporting, he’d understood the risks. I struggled to return to myself, making sure to gather all of my parts. Much like when one is woken suddenly when in the midst of a deep dream, I was struggling to put all the pieces of the puzzle exactly where they belonged.
From the sound of things, Lila wasn’t. “What exactly did you do? Because it looks to me like you just pulled some kind of stunt that endangered the well being of the two men you’re most relying on to protect you. I wouldn’t blame them if they left you out here in the desert for the mowabs to find you, and if the Sahara Desert doesn’t have mowabs—then in this case, it’s a shame.”
“I saved us all some time and put an end to their little show. They weren’t going to be able to make the capsule disappear, so I did it for them.”
“Actually, they were making it disappear,” Ilara said, none of Lila’s anger in her voice. If anything, she sounded sad, as if Aletox had inflicted a great loss upon us all.
“Of course they weren’t,” Aletox snapped. “No one can do that. No one can make a transport machine disappear. That’s ridiculous.”
Ilara said, “You’re mistaken. The edges of your precious transport machine were already blurring and fading from sight when you slammed the door and then did whatever you did.”
Ilara’s words silenced Aletox. I would’ve enjoyed that if I weren’t still lying on the hot sand, struggling to catch up.
Tan, Dolpheus said, are you all right? Did all of you make it out in time?
It was an unusual way to ask the question, as if my body were inside the transport machine when Aletox did whatever he did to make it disappear entirely. But Dolpheus’ words made a great deal of sense to me. It was very much as if I’d physically been inside the machine when it vanished. The part of me responsible for the image I had of myself was in there, and without it, one couldn’t properly occupy the physical body.
Aye, I said. I’m groggy and still returning to myself, but I think I’ll piece back together as usual. And you?
I’ll live. No thanks to the greatest fucker of the century.
Instead of replying, hurling another insult or two at the man who fully deserved it and had deserved that title a thousand times over, I willed my eyes to stop burning at the brightness of the sun. I’d already grown tired of insulting Aletox, and I suspected he planned to give us plenty of additional reasons to do so before we managed to survive the day. If we survived it.
“Let it be, guys.” My words were slurred and not nearly loud enough for all of them to hear me from the other side of where the transport machine had just been. “We’ve more important things to deal with.” My tongue was thick and unwieldy, adding to the rest of my body parts that weren’t cooperating.
I didn’t dare open my eyes yet, but I sensed Dolpheus struggling to his elbows to help me. Don’t get up, Olph. I’m okay, or I’ll be okay. Make sure you’re all the way back.
Nothing was worth endangering Dolpheus. I just needed to lay here for a while, a long while, actually. If I’d struggled to get my body to function before, I suspected I’d have to double my efforts to walk across the sand, which spread without end in every direction.
Then something blocked the sun above my head. I’d been squinting, even with my eyes closed, but now the swirling bright light behind my eyelids eased. I blinked my eyes open, tentatively, carefully, already overwhelmed by the assault against them since Aletox first opened the door to this alien planet.
It was her, the woman that would make everything better. I smiled, parched skin straining.
“Are you all right, Tanus?” Ilara asked, hands on either side of my face.
Even upside down she looked like a dream. “Aye. I made it out all in one piece.” I hoped it was the truth, it felt like it might be.
A flurry of unsteady movement from the corner of my left eye caught my attention. Lila hovered over Dolpheus, suggesting herself his lover, or at least a caring friend. I didn’t think she was either.
“I’m okay,” Dolpheus said, even though he collapsed back from his elbows onto the sand.
“You—” Kai started.
“Kai,” I interrupted. “No. Let it be.” My words were clearer. Encouraged, I propped myself on my elbows and turned to look at the lanky man, still in the clothing of a Royal Guard. “It’s not worth it. Nothing we say will change how he is.” I didn’t care to look at Aletox, even though he moved closer to Kai, toward my center of vision. “Let’s just get out of here. Save our energy for where it’ll make a difference.”
Kai opened his mouth to protest then shut it.
I looked at Dolpheus. You okay for sure?
Aye, man. I’ll live long enough to kill whoever needs to be killed.
There could be only one man Dolpheus was thinking of killing at the moment.
Dolpheus struggled to his elbows first and Lila’s hands hovered above his face, searching for something helpful to do. Then Dolpheus composed himself and sat on his own, and she withdrew her hands. The look on her face was curious and I debated whether she was uncomfortable, embarrassed, or about to lunge at my friend. In the end, Dolpheus moved to stand, and the mood passed, but I wondered. Did she really think she had a chance at him? Was the ladies’ man just
that irresistible no matter what planet he was on?
I smiled, and Ilara followed my gaze. Following her lips, I tilted my head back. She kissed me upside down, her breasts brushing the top of my head, cocooning me in an intoxicating wave.
When she pulled away, I wasn’t ready to disconnect—would I ever be ready to disconnect from her? Now that I didn’t feel her inside my mind as I used to, I needed to experience that physical connection as much as possible. Like the hakusha plant, or the other plants that caused a headier intoxication, I needed her.
She smiled. She knew. “Later, soldier. Let’s go kick some Sahara Desert butt.”
I did my best to dismiss the feeling that the Sahara Desert might do a better job of kicking our butts as I allowed Ilara to help me up. I threw the bag back across my shoulder and patted my sword and knives, a comforting habit, though weapons could do little to fight against the dangers we’d encounter today.
I turned to help Dolpheus, but he was already up, Lila right beside him, looking less like the damsel in distress she had earlier in his arms and more like a she-dragon looking for the opportunity to swoop in for the kill. I would’ve warned Dolpheus, but he’d survived the affections of scarier women.
Ilara took my hand. “Dolpheus will be fine,” she said softly. “Lila’s bark is worse than her bite.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Even if I’m not, he’s a big boy, and we have more important things to do.”
“Right,” I said. “Which way are we going?”
“This way.” She nodded in the direction she was facing.
“Let’s do it.” I set off straight ahead, pulling her along by the hand.
“You’re not even going to ask if I’m sure?”