by Nathan Long
“Stand down, all! Stand down, Ku-Rho! These are friends. I’d recognize those tits anywhere. Come ahead, Mistress Jae-En!”
I breathed a sigh of relief and glided in easy, and saw Shal-Hau and Sei-Sien waiting for us at the rail in the middle of the crew. Well, Shal-Hau was waiting for us. Sei-Sien was staring past us at the burning tower with his face hanging out.
Shal-Hau spread his arms. “Welcome, pupil! Welcome, Mistress! I am overjoyed to see you alive. We thought the worst.”
Lhan bowed, but was so wiped out he nearly fell off the bike. “Th-thank you, master. It is a joy to see you as well.”
I bumped the rail beside them and reached out to hold steady. The crew stared at the boat-bike and edged back, but Burly whipped them into action.
“Don’t stand there with yer gobs hangin’ open. Bring our friends aboard. Can you not see they are hurt?”
The sailors were too weirded out to actually step out on the boat-bike, but they reached out to us and hauled us over the rail, then laid us down on the deck.
Shal-Hau stepped through them, and called for bandages so he could see to our wounds, but Sei-Sien kept staring out at the Temple of Ormolu, which was now bent at the top like a stubbed-out cigarette and still burning like a torch. Amazingly, it was also still shooting its stream of water up into the sky, but with the tip at an angle, it looked even more like a pissing dick.
Sei-Sien mumbled like a street crazy as he watched it burn. “They did it. ’Tis impossible, but they did it. The church is done.”
I hadn’t realized until then just how much I needed to stop moving, but as soon as I was on my back and Shal-Hau stuck a canteen in my hand, all I wanted to do was sleep. But not yet. I looked around for Kai-La, who was telling her crew to tie the boat-bike to the rail.
“You gotta get out of here, Kai-La. The navy—”
She smiled down at me. “Aye, we saw ’em. And we’re away already. Not to worry. The she-skelsha can outrun anything in the sky, except maybe that little toy you brought with you.”
She looked out at the temple, and the orange of the fire showed up the bones in her face. “I suppose that’s your doing?”
“We didn’t mean to set it on fire.”
“A happy accident then.”
Lhan lifted his head. “But the water has been freed. And not only here. All seven temples have given back what they stole.”
Burly looked skeptical. “To the sky? It was the ground that needed it.”
I was going to explain, but all of a sudden my head was drooping and I had to lay back again.
“Answered prayer,” I mumbled. “Answered prayer.”
Shal-Hau shook his head. “The poor thing is babbling. She must rest.”
Kai-La gave me a sad smile, then waved to her crew. “Take them below and put them to bed, they’re cluttering up my deck.” She started back to the aft deck. “More sail, friends! Helmsman! Another point to the south!”
The last thing I saw as we were carried into the underdeck was the sailors scrambling up into the rigging and the sails on either side of the canopy creaking out to catch more wind.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
RENEWED!
I woke up to trumpets blowing and for a second thought I was back in boot camp, with those asshole buglers blasting me out of my cot at oh-my-god thirty. Then I looked up at the curved wooden ceiling and remembered where I was. I groaned. It felt like my arms and legs had been tied in knots, then set in concrete. The real pain came when I moved, and every cut and scrape and burn I’d got from fighting naked for sixty or so floors started itching like I was covered in fire ants.
I looked over at Lhan and laughed. He looked like I felt, hissing and grimacing as he lifted his head at the horns.
“You find my pain amusing?”
“I’m just laughing to keep my mind off my own.”
We were in Kai-La’s cabin, set up on two little cots on the floor behind her dinner table. There was a lantern glowing on a hook above us, and the windows at the stern end of the cabin were dark. I was confused.
“Is it still night? Or is it night again?”
“I know not. I feel I have slept a full year.”
The horns came again and we looked up.
“That is the call to battle.”
“Ugh. I’ve always hated that tune.”
We picked ourselves up and limped and groaned our way over to the window bench to push open the back windows. It wasn’t night, just dark. The light was a weird grayish green, and as dim as a twenty-watt bulb, but it was still enough to see that the sky behind Kai-La’s galleon was wall to wall airships. My heart sank. It looked like she hadn’t outrun the Oran navy after all. They were right on our tail, less than two miles back.
I sighed. “Well, we won’t be getting away from that.”
“At least we will die knowing that our efforts have borne fruit after all.”
I looked at him. “How do you mean?”
He pointed above the Oran ships. I looked up, then gaped. The sky was all clouds, heavy and gray and bulging down like the underside of a mattress with a fat guy sleeping on it.
“Holy shit. Did we do that?”
“I can think of no other explanation.”
“Well, goddamn.”
Kai-La’s voice came from above, shouting orders, and I pushed to my feet.
“Come on, we better go up and help.”
Lhan nodded, but didn’t get up. He just kept looking out the window.
“Mistress.”
“Yeah?”
“Mistress, I would not fight again beside you before we have resolved what lies between us.”
I sighed. “Lhan, I thought we went through this. I thought you were okay with what happened.”
He turned away from the window, as grim as a hanging judge. “With your actions, I have no complaint. It is my behavior, from the moment of your return, with which I am not, as you say, ‘okay.’”
I blinked as I worked that one through. “Huh? What are you saying?”
“I say that I have been a fool, and have made a fool’s error. I have mistaken pride for honor, and it has divided me from she who I truly love.”
I took a step toward him. “Lhan, don’t—”
He held up a hand. “Let me finish, Mistress. Please.”
I stopped and waited, though all I wanted to do was fold him up in my arms and squeeze him.
“In the tower, nay, in every place and every battle, you have shown me that honor has nothing to do with pride, but everything to do with defending the weak against the strong and protecting one’s friends against one’s enemies. I, by contrast, have named my vanities honor and demanded you give them the respect of law.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable. “Forget it, Lhan. People stick to what they grow up with. You grew up in Ora, you’re gonna have Oran values. You can’t help it.”
“Can I not?” He laughed. “Have I not flouted them in all else? Have I not spurned the path chosen for me by my father? Have I not slept on both sides of the bed? Am I not branded heretic? Have I not killed the priests and paladins of the Seven? Why then have I clung so fiercely to that particular part of Oran law which states that a dhan is sworn to defend his dhanshai’s honor and protect her person against all dangers? Because I believed in it? I—”
He cut off in mid-flow, then frowned. “Well, in all fact, I do believe in it. That has not changed. What has changed, what you have changed in me, is that I now believe a dhanshai need not abandon her strength and valor in order to abide by her part of the sacred vow, or for her dhan to abide by his. Indeed, be their prowess equal, it should be right and proper that both defend and protect the other.”
I stared at him. “Wait. So you believe we’re equals now?”
Lhan laughed. “Equals? Hardly. You are so much my better in all the chivalric virtues that I would not allow myself to be mentioned in the same breath as—”
“Aw, can it, Lhan. Now you’re just kissing my ass.”
“I
speak only truth, Mistress. You are stronger, braver, more noble—”
“Not to mention dumber, clumsier, uglier, and you can still kick my ass in a straight-up fight.”
Lhan waved that away. “Do not make mock of yourself. You are a hero in every way that I am not—in the most important way. You do not permit your fears to turn you from doing what should be done.”
I sat down next to him. “Lhan. I know you fucked up once. I know you let that boy be taken. But how many times have you made up for it?”
“Not enough.”
“Okay, fine. Not enough. The point is, have you ever let fear stop you since?”
“I could not live were I to allow that again.”
“Right. Exactly. You’re handling it. You fucked up, and then you fixed it. You’re never gonna do that again. I—” I stopped as a drawerful of Polaroids spilled across my brain. “I’m here because I can’t handle my shit. I get mad and… and bad things happen. I go to jail. I kill some poor bastard. I… You know, I should be in the army right now. I should be off in Afghanistan being a real hero—I sure as hell trained hard enough to get there—but then I went and lost my temper and broke my CO’s nose on my first week of deployment. Never saw action. Not once. Instead, I got sent home and dishonorably discharged, and ended up riding around on a Harley and gettin’ into bar fights with other losers—all because I got no control. How fucking heroic is that? You tell me!”
He didn’t get much of that last bit, so I put it another way. “Nobody’s perfect, Lhan. You gotta fight your fears. I gotta fight my rage. And the thing is, when I’m with you, I can. I start to get my mad on and then I think, Lhan’s gonna die if I go off like a rocket. I gotta keep it together.” I shifted around and looked him in the eye. “Maybe that’s the real secret of this Dhan and Dhanshai stuff. It’s not just that we defend and protect each other, it’s that we make each other stronger too.”
Lhan held my gaze for a long moment, like he was thinking it all through, the suddenly he stood up from the window bench and bowed and crossed his wrists to me.
“Mistress Jae-En, I would pledge myself to you as a dhan of Ora should—heart, soul and arm. From this day forth, you will be my dhanshai and I will be your dhan. Your safety and well-being will be my only concern. Your love will be my only goal.”
Just like the last time he’d done it, my first reaction was to laugh. My second was to say yes and pull him into my arms, but it needed more than that. I stood up too, then crossed my arms and bowed to him.
“And I would pledge myself to you as a woman of Earth—with my heart, soul and arm. From this day on, Lhan-Lar of Herva, you will be my dhan and I will be your dhanshai. Your safety and well-being will be my only concern. Your love will be my only goal.”
Lhan looked a little shocked as I finished up, but then he smiled. “Ora may not find it proper or correct, but for you and I, it is as it should be. I accept your pledge.”
“And I accept yours.”
I spread my arms, but he stayed where he was. “May-may I have my balurrah back now?”
I laughed, then took it off my neck and held it out. “Come get it.”
He reached for it, but I caught his hand instead and pulled him to me. We kissed. There was another horn blast above us, but neither of us looked up. It was a damn good kiss, and it was making up for a lot of lost time. It was also making me weak in the knees—and hot and slippery a little further up. Lhan seemed to be getting kinda excited too. We were still as naked as we had been when we’d escaped the temple, and I could feel him getting hard between us, and climbing up my leg.
I checked out the window. The Oran navy was about a mile away and closing fast. I looked into Lhan’s eyes.
“If we’re gonna die here, I wanna chance to make good on this vow of ours first. Whaddaya say?”
He tied his ballurah around his waist, smirking. “I say, I have never been propositioned with such poetry or romantic fervor. You take my breath away, beloved.”
And then he pushed me back on the bench and buried his head between my thighs.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
TORRENT!
You know, I hope the Oran navy has binoculars, ’cause I really wanted the fuckers to see me leaning out that window ten minutes later, flipping ’em the bird as Lhan bent me over that bench and pounded the living hell out of me from behind. I wish they’d been close enough to hear me moaning and gasping. I wish they’d been close enough that I coulda told ’em I didn’t care how many ships they had, or how many swords, or how many wands of blue fire, or that I was gonna die. None of that shit mattered, not one goddamn bit of it, because after being thrown around to Waar and Earth and back, and after all the fights and the fighting, I was with Lhan again, and this time it was right.
Five minutes after that, though, I completely forgot the Oran navy even existed. By then, Lhan was lying back on the bench and I was riding him like a pony on a merry-go-round, with molten honey bubbling and boiling inside me so strong I couldn’t think thoughts or say words, just bounced harder and faster and harder and faster until, with Lhan bucking beneath me, I came like a steam hammer, jerking and grabbing the sill so I wouldn’t fall out the window.
After a minute of just lying there, panting and half-out the window, I slumped down beside Lhan and we held and kissed each other and caught our breaths, sweat dripping off our bodies. But then I noticed it wasn’t all sweat. Something was splashing on my face.
“Lhan, what are you—?” I opened my eyes, then squinted as wind and water blew through the open window. I stared, stunned.
“Lhan. Lhan, look!”
Lhan moaned and raised his head, still groggy. Then he stared too.
“Rain! Mistress, it worked. You’ve done it!”
And we weren’t the only ones who noticed. A big cheer came from above us, and I could hear a lot of whooping and hollering.
“We did it, Lhan.”
I gave him a kiss on the cheek, then pulled away from him and stood up, feeling better than I had since… since before the priests had sent me back to Earth.
“Come on, let’s find some clothes and join the celebration. It’ll be our last bash before we die.”
***
But by the time we got up there, it was too wet for much of a celebration. The wind was picking up and the rain was blasting in under the canopy like a shower head, and the pirates were done whooping it up. Kai-La had half of ’em climbing up the shrouds to secure the sails, while the others were still at battle stations. Shal-Hau and Sei-Sien were huddled in the lee of the foredeck, staring out at the slashing rain. Sei still had the same look of dumb shock on his fine-boned face that he’d had when he’d been staring at the burning temple, but Shal-Hau beamed at us as we splashed out onto the deck.
“A miracle, friends! A miracle!”
I grinned. “Didn’t we tell you? We freed the water!”
“Aye, but I did not believe it would bring the rain so quickly. You have saved all the farms in Ora.”
Kai-La laughed and turned to us, water flying from her hair. “And us as well. Look!”
She pointed over the aft rail. Lhan and I looked, but there was nothing to see. In the few minutes it had taken us to pull on some clothes and make our way up to the deck, the rain had become a shimmering gray wall, so thick I couldn’t see more than fifty feet out from the deck. The Oran navy had completely disappeared. Hell, it was hard to see the other ships in Kai-La’s fleet, and they were right beside us. Even Ku-Rho’s massive man-o-war was nothing but a smudgy ghost off to our left.
I shook my head, amazed. “Well, fuck me sideways. Visibility zero.”
Kai-La clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You and your rain have saved our skins, lass. The navy will never find us in all this.”
She turned to Burly, grinning through the rain. “Halan. Tell the signalers no horns. We wouldn’t want the navy following our tune. Break out the flash lanterns, and give order to rise. We will take to the clouds!”
; “Aye, Captain!” He turned to the crew, clapping his big hands and striding across the deck. “Haul out those lamps, lads and lasses. Lively now! And make ready to drop ballast!”
As the pirates hurried to follow Burly’s orders behind us, Lhan and I stepped away from Shal-Hau and Sei-Sien and stood at the rail, letting the heavy rain wash over us. We stared out at the torrent for a long time, mesmerized, then Lhan looked down. I followed his gaze.
It was impossible to see the ground, just a gray vertigo of rain, dropping away from us, but I could imagine it—dry earth turning to mud, withered roots soaking up water, thirsty animals coming out of their holes and lapping at new puddles, farmers stepping out of their houses and staring up at the sky like we were staring down, little kids opening their mouths to catch the drops.
Lhan squeezed my hand. “You were right, beloved. One woman can change the world.”
I squirmed, embarrassed, though I gotta admit I was pretty much saying the same thing to myself.
“I just hope it’s changed for the better.”
“Of course it is. How could it be otherwise?”
I got a sick feeling in my stomach, like he shouldn’ta said that, but then he wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed me full on, and my worries washed away. I kissed him back, folding him up in a big pink hug, and we just stood there, melting into each other, as the ship rose up into the clouds and the deck and the crew and the rigging disappeared one by one into a thick white nothing, until Lhan and I were the only things left in the world.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my darling Lili for her patience and encouragement, to Howard, Sue, Grey, and Molly for early reads and showing me the way forward, to Ross for his understanding and insight, and to Bob for his perseverance and good cheer. Without all of you I’d still be rewriting the second act—again.
about the author
Nathan Long is a screen and prose writer, with two movies, one Saturday-morning adventure series, and a handful of live-action and animated TV episodes to his name, as well as ten fantasy novels and several award-winning short stories.