by Ginn Hale
Ravishan’s teeth lightly grazed the thick muscle of John’s shoulder. He bowed his head and darted his tongue over John’s nipples, sending a shiver of pleasure down John’s loins. At the same time, Ravishan’s warm hands teased the tense flesh of John’s groin. Then Ravishan knelt and took John in his mouth.
John’s knees almost buckled. He braced his arms against the wall to steady himself. Intense pleasure surged through him. He ran his hands through Ravishan’s short black hair, fighting the need to pull Ravishan closer. He strained for control as the rhythm of Ravishan’s flicking tongue and hot mouth rocked through him. His muscles trembled with a mounting urgency.
John wanted to tell Ravishan how much he loved this, how much he loved him. He would do anything for Ravishan. How he would die without him. Inarticulate ecstasy built through John and then at last burst free. He heard his own hoarse voice and realized that he had whispered his every thought.
John knelt down next to Ravishan. Ravishan’s lips were red. His cheeks were flushed. John kissed him.
“Tell me that you love me,” Ravishan whispered.
John knew he had already said as much. He had said much more. “I love you. I always will.”
Ravishan touched John’s cheek, tracing the line of his jaw. “It’s hard to watch you from the Gray Space when I can’t touch you or protect you.”
“I know. I’ll try to talk to Ji about you as soon as I can.”
“Be careful when you do.” Ravishan stroked John’s smooth jaw. John slipped his hand under Ravishan’s shirt and stroked the delicate skin of his stomach. Slowly, he moved his hand down to Ravishan’s belt. Ravishan caught his hand and pulled it up to his face. He kissed John’s red, chapped knuckles.
“It’s done already,” Ravishan said. He looked a little embarrassed. “When you were in my mouth—”
Ravishan’s words were cut short by a gentle knock on the door.
“Jahn?” Saimura called. “I’ve got some clothes for you.”
“Thanks,” John replied quickly. “I’ll just be a few more minutes here.”
Ravishan said nothing. He hugged John fiercely, then stood and disappeared back into the Gray Space. John straightened and poured a last bucket of water over his body. He toweled himself dry and opened the door for Saimura.
Chapter Eighty-One
John woke up on a narrow cot with his face pressed against a stone wall. His head throbbed from the fathi and a sickly sweetness hung in his mouth. He rolled away from the wall to survey his surroundings.
Several other cots filled the small room. They were arranged like the beds in a sickroom. On the cot next to John, Saimura and a young girl sat playing cards. The girl looked about fifteen. She wore her black hair short, just as Gin’yu had. Saimura studied his cards with a pleased expression. John’s gaze slid off of Saimura and drifted to the floor. He was slightly disturbed by the sight of several white rib bones on the dull green rag rug.
“Jahn. You’re awake.” Saimura folded his hand of cards. The girl immediately picked them up but then appeared vexed by what she saw.
“I knew you were bluffing,” the girl told Saimura.
Saimura’s indulgent expression assured John that the girl had known no such thing.
“This is Tanash.” Saimura indicated the girl. She offered John a slightly bucktoothed grin.
“Welcome to the Warren,” Tanash said.
“Thank you.” John started to sit up and then realized that he was naked under the heavy blankets.
“I’ve got your clothes.” Saimura tossed John a knitted pullover shirt and a pair of thick cotton pants.
“Tanash,” Saimura turned to the young girl, “will you fetch John’s coat and boots?”
“Sure, but don’t try any pranks with my cards while I’m gone.” She stood and walked to the door, then turned back to Saimura. “I’ll know if you do anything.”
“I won’t,” Saimura assured her. When Tanash left the room, Saimura said, “Almost makes me want to mark the deck.”
John dressed quickly. The pants were big enough, though the legs were a little short. The loosely knit shirt stretched tight across John’s shoulders and chest, creating a fishnet effect.
“I couldn’t find anything quite your size,” Saimura said. “Larran is working on some clothes, but they won’t be finished for a few days.”
“After those rags I was wearing I couldn’t possibly complain,” John said. “At least these are clean.”
“Your boots didn’t look too bad,” Saimura commented. He leaned down and picked up the two white rib bones.
John just nodded. His boots and coat had not been scavenged from the dead. Ravishan had found them in Nurjima.
Saimura ran his hand over one of the rib bones thoughtfully. He drew a small belt knife out and scratched a line into the bone.
“What are you doing?” John asked.
“Helping Tanash with her studies,” Saimura replied. He glanced up at John. “She’s one of Ji’s students. Right now they’re learning to charm bones. Tanash always has a terrible time getting started.”
John watched Saimura graze the surface of the bone with his knife blade. This was the sort of thing he’d be learning from Ji, he supposed.
“It always makes me a little nostalgic to do this,” Saimura commented.
“Oh?” John asked.
“When I was still studying with Ji, she had me carving bones all the time. It used to bore me out of my mind.” Saimura smiled to himself.
“You’re not still studying with her?”
“No, now I work witchcraft for Lafi’shir’s elite unit.” Saimura turned the bone over in his hands. “I’m done with practice.”
Tanash shoved the door open and strode in. John’s large gray coat was draped over her shoulder. The cuff of one sleeve trailed on the floor. She dropped John’s boots beside his bed and then flopped the coat onto the blankets. She frowned at the bone in Saimura’s hands.
“Ji’s going to know you started carving that for—” Tanash suddenly stopped, turned back to John, and gaped at him. “God’s bones, your shirt is tight.”
John had no idea how to respond to being ogled by a teenage girl. Her eyes moved up and down his body with an almost hungry fascination. John felt his face flushing.
Saimura stood and lightly hit Tanash on the head with the rib he had been carving. “Stop acting like you grew up in an alley.”
“I just…that shirt is really tight.” Tanash turned to Saimura.
“At least Jahn looks good wearing it,” Saimura said. He picked up his own dark green coat from the bed. “He certainly looks better wearing it than you would.”
“At least it would fit me.” Tanash scowled at Saimura. Saimura tossed the rib bone to Tanash. She caught it, then glanced to John.
“I’ll ask Larran for some other clothes for you,” Tanash told him.
Saimura rolled his eyes. “You really think I haven’t already done that?”
Tanash started to say something, then seemed to think better of it. She frowned down at the rib bone.
“Come on, Jahn,” Saimura said. “I’ll get you something to eat and take you to Ji. She’ll want to see you.”
John grabbed his boots and found that a pair of clean socks had been stuffed into one of them. He pulled on the socks and his boots, then picked up his coat and followed Saimura out the door.
Once they were a few feet down the narrow tunnel, Saimura glanced back to John.
“She’s my half sister,” Saimura commented.
“Tanash?” John asked.
Saimura nodded. “She’s a little bit of a loudmouth, but she always means well. I hope you weren’t offended.”
“No,” John assured him. “Why would I be?”
Saimura shrugged. “Some of the men complain. They want girls to be quiet and shy. She’s not like that. I think Sabir sent her here to study with Ji to keep her from offending his southern men. You know how they are.”
John didn’t. Th
e only southern men he knew were Alidas and Hann’yu. They had both been soft spoken and interested in poetry. They’d seemed more cultured than most northern men.
“Do you mind if we just have cold meats?” Saimura asked. “Ji will be expecting you soon.”
“Anything is fine with me. I’ll just be glad for a meal.”
“Well, you’re easy to please, aren’t you?” Saimura grinned at John.
“I try to be.” John followed Saimura through the narrow tunnel. Dozens of brightly painted wooden doors lined the walls on either side of them. Each of the doors was marked with a simple black line drawing of a dog and a number. From time to time John noticed a shift in the stale warm air. Faint cool breezes drifted down from latticed slits high in the walls.
Walking single file through the narrow tunnel, they only passed one young woman. She exchanged a brief hand sign with Saimura but said nothing.
A few minutes later the tunnel opened into a long cavernous thoroughfare. Large groups of men and women were out. Some of them led animals on ropes or carried baskets of grain. The heat of so many bodies warmed the air noticeably. Despite the dense crowds, the street remained strangely silent. John watched people’s hands flicker through constant signs.
John remembered this big tunnel from the night before. Its far west end lay directly under the Payshmura chapel. John was pleased that he had managed to remember that much. Though, he had failed to notice the markings on the doors and walls. Simple designs of flowers decorated some doors. Others displayed icons of tahldi, sheep or plump milk goats. All the doors were numbered.
Most the walls of the tunnels were rough. Here and there, John noticed latticed windows had been carved out or designs had been scratched into the stone above a door. Some were painted with animals and fruiting plants. John wondered what the paintings looked like under sunlight instead of the greenish illumination of the moon water lamps.
“Here,” Saimura said softly. He caught John’s elbow and pulled him past two stocky men with rifles. Saimura led John into a new tunnel. The strong smell of taye bread rolled over them.
Saimura stopped at a set of big double doors. An inlaid copper pattern of taye leaves decorated the heavy wooden beams. Saimura pushed one door open. Humid, pungent heat rolled out. For a moment John couldn’t help but think of Samsango. He followed Saimura into the big kitchen.
Twenty or more women looked up from their cutting boards and massive pots as John and Saimura came through the doors. Most of the women wore their sleeves tied up at the shoulders and their skirts belted up. Huge oven doors loomed open and withering heat poured out. The bare skin of the women’s arms and faces gleamed with sweat.
Ovens and fire pits lined the far wall. The golden glow of the flames easily overpowered the cool cast of the moon water lamps. Between the fires and the doors were dozens of tables. Heaps of dried meats spilled over cutting boards. Cooling racks, spice chests, nested towers of mixing bowls and racks of pans and pots cluttered every surface. Even the walls had been put to use. Countless sacks of grain and other dried goods lined the carved stone shelves of the walls. Rolling ladders led up to the shelves. Two girls hauled a basket of onions down from the shelves high above John’s head.
Saimura waved to a plump older woman. She stared past Saimura to John.
“It’s your shirt,” Saimura whispered and he grinned.
Saimura and the plump older woman exchanged hand signs. This time John had the presence of mind to watch their hands closely. Several of the gestures resembled Payshmura signs.
John recognized the signs for food, daru’sira, honey, thanks, and his own name. The rest of the silent exchange was lost to him.
“Pel’dir says we can have something to eat,” Saimura whispered to John. “Oh, and she asked if you were married.”
“I—” John began but Saimura cut him off.
“I told her that I thought you were already spoken for.” Saimura grinned broadly. Suddenly John remembered something else about the previous night. He’d told them about him and Ravishan. Dread welled up in his chest.
John wondered if Saimura was teasing him. His sly smile seemed to imply that he was and he seemed to be without malice.
The plump woman brought a warm roll stuffed with sausage to John, as well as a clay mug full of steaming daru’sira. John signed his thanks to her.
“You picked that up quick enough,” Saimura commented. He led John from the kitchen through a series of narrow tunnels. John guessed that they were traveling east.
“The Payshmura use some of the same hand signs,” John said.
Saimura nodded. “Ours were adapted from theirs. We expanded on them, of course. Most of the Payshmura signs only deal with holy matters. Blessings, things like that. You can’t run an entire city with just blessings and curses.”
“Why doesn’t anyone down here speak?” John asked.
“Some do,” Saimura replied. “People like you and Tanash who haven’t learned the signs yet are allowed to talk. You just have to keep your voices down. Sounds echo in these big caverns. Anything too loud will boom through the tunnels and then roll up the ventilation shafts where anyone could hear.”
“So everyone down here has to be quiet?” John asked.
“As quiet as they can be.” Saimura opened a blue door with the number 12 painted on it. Behind it was a steep staircase. The air was frigid and smelled strongly of straw. John followed Saimura up the stairs into a large stable. The stalls were empty. John guessed that the animals had been taken down into the warmth of the Warren below. Bales of straw filled the vast space. Several had been stacked together so that they resembled benches and a table.
“You can finish your meal here.” Saimura gestured to one of the bales of straw. “Ji should arrive in a few minutes.”
Saimura turned back to the stairs.
“Where are you going?” John asked.
“I have to report to Lafi’shir for my duties. I’ll see you tonight at your initiation. I’m the one who will be sponsoring you in.”
John nodded. He recalled that some agreement like that been reached the previous night.
“Is there anything I should bring or do?” John asked.
“For the initiation? No. It will be very simple. You swear loyalty to the Fai’daum and receive your tattoo.”
“Tattoo?” John asked.
“Everyone gets one. You’ll be fine.” Saimura started down the steps.
“Saimura?”
The other man paused to look back up at him expectantly. John didn’t know how to phrase his question but knew it had to be asked.
“What I said last night, about Ravishan…”
“That he’s your lover?” Saimura clarified.
“Yes.” Words failed John. Years of silence had made even the vocabulary necessary for this conversation inaccessible to him. He didn’t even know the word for ‘gay’ in Basawar. Maybe there wasn’t one. Or if there was, it might not be a term he would care to use to describe himself or anyone he loved.
Saimura seemed to perceive both the reason for his reticence and his unasked question. “Fai’daum law doesn’t forbid such things.”
“It doesn’t?” John said. “From Giryyn’s reaction I wasn’t sure.”
“Fai’daum or not, Giryyn is still a priest. In the Witches District, we’re not too religious.” As he left, Saimura pulled the door in the stable floor shut. The dark-stained planks lined up seamlessly with the rest of the floor.
John sat on a straw bale and ate the last of his stuffed roll. He drank the honey-sweetened daru’sira slowly. Heat radiated through the clay mug and warmed John’s fingers.
Outside snow fell in a steady stream. Cold wind poured through fine cracks in the stable walls. John buttoned his coat closed and pulled the hood up over his head.
He gazed into the open, empty stalls where tahldi, sheep, and goats would normally have been kept. He noticed the gleam of ice in the water troughs. He wondered what shepherds were doing in other vi
llages where there were no underground caverns to shelter the livestock. The animals were probably dying. People too, John supposed.
He had to stop this storm.
He closed his eyes and let his senses reach up into the turbulent winds. The winds churned and howled. The air crackled as electric fury split through it. Cold force surged through him and he felt his anger and sorrow awaken. The storm embraced him and enveloped him like a dark memory. It grew around him, feeding from his feeling and pouring more pain back into him.
Directly above him, John heard a deafening crash of thunder. Snow and sleet pelted down from the sky. Lightning burst through the air so bright and close that it shone radiant white through every crack and seam of the stable.
John pulled himself back from the growing storm. He focused his attention on the confines of his body. He gripped the mug in his hands tightly, feeling the thin clay lip bite into his palm. Another crash of thunder pounded the sky. Lightning flashed, but it was farther up.
John sagged back against the bale of straw. He stared up at the dark shadows of the hayloft. Frost colored the wooden beams. Thin icicles studded the timbers directly above John.
“What were you doing?”
John turned to see Ji coming through a low door in one of the stalls. After Ji stepped through, the wooden door swung back down into place the way a dog door would have. As the thought occurred to him, John realized that it was, in fact, a dog door.
“It’s coming down like a cold hell out there.” Ji shook the heavy flakes of snow from her coat. She leaped nimbly up onto the bale of straw and seated herself next to John.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things worse,” John said.
“So what were you trying to do?”
“I was trying to stop the storm,” John admitted.
“How?” Ji asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not much of an answer,” Ji said. “What actions did you take?”
“I just thought about the storm. I sort of imagined that I was reaching up into it.”