by Lucia Ashta
“Here we are. This is the end,” he said, just minutes later. “I can see light filtering in up ahead.” A few more crawled paces, then “Oh.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, the way out of the tunnel leads us into water.”
“I didn’t know there was a body of water around the palace.”
“Neither did I. Should I continue?” he asked.
“We can’t stop now.”
He looked over his shoulder at me a second time, nodded, and crawled to the edge of the tunnel. Then he half-crawled, half-flung himself out of it.
A loud splash and an “Ow” followed. Then I reached the end of the tunnel. I looked down at him, making his way to the shore of a small, winding stream.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. “The stream is shallower than it looks. Watch yourself.”
The fall looked to be about the height of a grown man, the water shallow enough to reveal the stones at its bottom. It would be unwise to attempt the fall with a sword in my shirt, and I’d been relieved of the sheath I usually wore at my belt.
I pulled Kai’s sword out of my shirt. “Careful,” I called. “I’m going to toss your sword onto the shore.”
Kai nodded, perhaps surprised that I would trust him this much under the circumstances. He could of course grab the sword long before I was able to reach it. I knew that wouldn’t matter. I could take a man like Kai with or without a sword. But I didn’t think he realized it. In the end, what really mattered was that I did trust him, even if it seemed a bit unexpected.
I landed in the water with a loud splash, on my hands and feet, like an outstretched bear, but much less awkwardly than Kai had. Within moments, I was standing, my feet shoulder width apart, my stance strong and steady in the stream’s weak current. My eyes took in Kai and the sword. I might trust him, but I’d long ago learned it was better to trust with caution. Perhaps it was because my parents, the people I should have been able to depend upon the most, had betrayed me. I trusted, but I didn’t do so blindly.
Kai hadn’t moved to retrieve the sword from where I’d tossed it. I walked to it, sloshing through water, its cold refreshing after the eternal day I seemed to be surviving. I bent to pick up the sword and hooked it back to my shirt. I thought Kai had earned at least that measure of respect from me; I didn’t need to point the sword at him any longer.
“Thank you for getting me out, Kai.”
He nodded and smiled a charged half-smile that I didn’t fully understand until I said what I said next. “Would you like to join me?”
I hadn’t known I would say it, but when I saw Kai’s face split into a grin, I knew I’d made the right choice. “I’d like that very much.”
And that was how I gained an ally in the least expected of ways.
Twelve
I didn’t know what to do with Kai now that I’d secured him as a willing companion. I refused to examine his common sense, or potential lack of it, for appearing excited to join up with me, a fugitive of the King’s justice. I had barely any memory of my grandmother, my mother’s mother. But I did remember one peculiar thing she would say: Don’t shake a present to discover what’s inside it. As a young child, I’d ignored the old woman that smelled funny whenever she said this. As an adult, I did my best not to question blessings as that was the quickest way to destroy them. Some things were best accepted without close examination. And now whenever I smelled the pungent scent of herbal concoctions boiling on stovetops, I remembered my grandmother with fondness, an easy thing to do once enough time passed to wear away all but the good.
Kai was old enough to make his own choices and to live with their consequences. I just hoped he wouldn’t regret this particular choice.
He was looking at me now like an eager pet, anticipating an upcoming adventure with his owner. I would have to disabuse him of this optimism. Still, perhaps I didn’t have to do so yet. I no longer knew what it felt like not to have been stripped of the idealistic notion that the world is a good place where things work out in good ways for good people. If he could still be hopeful after having been born into a life of effective servitude, with a mother murdered for her service, then that was nice, I supposed. I refused to see it as stupid or foolhardy. Not today. Not after the day I’d endured thus far. Not when the priorities of life had distilled themselves into incoherence.
I considered that perhaps a part of me envied his possession of naïveté. Whether I was jealous of his hopefulness or not, I was certain that I didn’t want to destroy it, this rare gem in a world filled with things of diminished intrinsic value. After centuries of life upon Planet Origins, I could spot genuineness as if it were a bright, pulsing beacon blasting its signal to the far reaches of the universe.
I would take Grandma Nona’s long-dead advice and give it new life: I wouldn’t shake and rattle the present of this day to see what made it tick. I would unwrap the present with care. Afterward, I’d admire it for all its newness and potential for joy, even if the joy would only come from its novelty.
I was tall. Still, Kai was nearly as tall as I was, though lankier, as if he were twenty pounds too thin for his frame. I could help him build muscle to fill out, to harness his capacity for strength. His eyes were sharp and ready, waiting for my direction. At some point, I would have to define the expectations of our relationship. But like many things, expectations were dangerous. I didn’t need a melted, hazy memory of an ancestor to remind me of this. If I delayed defining the situation moving forward long enough, I might never need to, and that would be one less trap threatening to snap shut around my leg someday, severing whatever artery or situation I wouldn’t want severed.
My plan consisted only of my next step. So I started there. “Can you transport, Kai?”
For a second, before he caught himself, he looked crestfallen. I knew that chances of him knowing how to transport were incredibly slim, and I didn’t know why I’d bothered asking. Who did I imagine would have taught a kitchen boy to transport, anyway?
“I don’t. I’ve never known anyone who could transport before. If I’m going to be a bother and hold you up, you can go on ahead. I won’t mind. I’ll be fine.” He said it all too flippantly and too quickly.
“I’m not going to leave without you, Kai.” He hid his relief so well that I almost didn’t catch it as it swished by. “I just wanted to know what our options are.”
“Where are you—we—going then?”
“I need to get to my friend.”
“To Dolpheus,” Kai interrupted.
“That’s right,” I said, studying him.
Pink crept across his cheeks to meld with the reddish-orange hair that framed his face. “I’ve heard the stories of your feats, Sir. Dolpheus is always there with you.”
I looked at him, this young man that was all too ready to offer me respect I wasn’t sure I’d earned. “You don’t need to call me sir. Tanus will work plenty well.”
Kai’s smile was wide. “All right, Tanus. So where’s Dolpheus?”
“I suspect he’s in the southern wilds, in a small fishing cabin along the Gorgeene River.”
“We’re going to the wilds?” Kai was incredulous and making no effort to hide the fact.
“Look,” I said, “when you agreed to come with me, you had no idea what it would entail. You have no obligation to continue with me if it doesn’t sound like something you want to do.”
“I’ll go to the wilds.” His resolve made me want to smile, but I didn’t. I had no interest in swaying his decision at this juncture. I wanted the decision to be fully his own.
“All right. If you’re certain, and as long as you know that you can change your mind at any time. Just let me know and you can go your separate way, no hard feelings. We don’t go looking for it, but we often end up in danger.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“But if you do, it’s okay. Life with Dolpheus and me might be a bit different t
han what you imagine. Less glamor. More risk and danger.”
“I won’t change my mind,” he said again, so I backed off. I had to allow him to be a man and make his own choice. Once more, I hoped he wouldn’t regret having joined me. Kai was a good guy. I was only trying to become one.
“Ordinarily, I would just transport to the cabin in the southern wilds. But since you can’t transport, we’ll have to find another way.” I waved away his apologetic look. “It’s no big deal,” I said, even though it was. “There are plenty of other ways we can get there,” even though there weren’t, at least not that kept us safe and out of sight. I didn’t bother to ask myself why I was complicating a situation that was already unpleasantly complicated because I knew the answer: Everyone needed good people he could call friends in his life. That was one thing that made life worth living.
“I’ll teach you to transport if you’d like, once we have the time for it.” He nodded his enthusiasm before I retreated within myself to figure out how in the fuck we were going to get to the southern wilds without transporting. The southern wilds were almost as far away from the palace as they could be while still being in the region.
After I dismissed travel by foot and horseback and reluctantly began to consider transport by flying machine (of which each one was registered with the royal government and capable of being monitored and tracked), I began to hope that Dolpheus might be able to meet us somewhere much closer than the southern wilds. If he was with Lila, which I assumed he was since the last thing he told me was that he was heading back to her, his ability to transport would be limited by her inability to transport. Why were people so willing to accept that they couldn’t do something, just because they were told it? I wondered for at least the thousandth time. Because Kai and Lila had accepted limitations force fed to them by a monarchy or some other sinister faction that wanted to keep them down, Dolpheus and I were stuck with our hands tied behind our backs and knots that would hold.
“I’m going to see if I can speak with Dolpheus. We might be able to work out a simple solution.” I wasn’t as hopeful as I tried to sound, but it was definitely worth the attempt. Kai nodded his understanding, eyes wide, as if he were watching a Devoted preparing to perform faithum. I imagined I’d have plenty of opportunity to explain that what I did wasn’t faithum but rather something of which he was fully capable as well. I didn’t bother with it now.
I went over to an adolescent tree solid enough to hold my weight and offer me shade. I leaned into it, feeling the cold of the sword’s blade against my bare skin, and crossed my arms over my chest. I could feel Kai staring at me, even with my eyes shut; I pushed his curiosity away. Just as with the process of transporting itself, I would need to find that stillness that took me apart from everyone else and allowed me, simultaneously, to feel a part of everything; it was a contradictory process, but one that worked for me. I would need to focus, without rigidity, to locate Dolpheus’ mind.
Communicating with Ilara in this way was easier than it was with Dolpheus. Even though Dolpheus and I had shared a far greater portion of our lives, I imagined that Ilara could hear me as easily as she could because she and I had been able to share something that Dolpheus and I never would. There was something about the ability of a man to be inside a woman, in that way that made life seem so much bigger than it had just the moment before, when the man filled the woman in the way she’d always needed, and the woman enveloped the man just as he’d always longed for.
Ilara and I had sex, but we also shared far more than the physical putting in of this into that. We made love. I’d stared into those eyes that contained more of the cosmos than seemed possible while filling her vessel, my throbbing cock pulsing against wet, firm walls that swallowed everything I could give her. As connected as Dolpheus and I might be, this was one thing we’d never share.
I hoped he would hear me. He had before, some of the times when we hadn’t been together and I needed to reach him. Unfortunately he didn’t hear me every time. The odds of him receiving my message now were good. He would know that I’d try to reach him once I escaped.
I approached that space that neared the stillness necessary for transport and stopped short of it. To deliver a message, my brain would need to engage far more than it did during transport, when all it needed to do was hold the feel of one singular location.
Settled into myself so deeply that I lost sight of what I looked like when I filled this human body, I began to allow a bit of myself—my energy, my signature—to extend beyond me. A beacon calling my friend to me, my brain emitted pings into the surrounding space. I imagined that my call rang out for him to hear, just as the communications Oers made did.
I released wave after wave of my intention to reach Dolpheus. After far too long, I sensed a response. It was faint at first. Soon, it grew strong. He was there. I squelched my enthusiasm.
Finally, I heard it. His response reached me as if it were a thought within my own mind. “Tan, is that you?”
“Who the fuck else would it be?” I smiled, certain he’d know I was smiling.
“Tan, I’m so fucking relieved. Where are you? Are you still in the palace?”
“No. I got out.”
Dolpheus didn’t relay a response right away over the space that distanced us, but I could feel his relief. It was palpable, even separated as we were by much of a planet. “Where are you?”
“Near the palace. Where are you?”
“Near the palace.”
“You left the fishing cabin?”
“I never went.”
“And what of Lila?”
“She’s here with me.” Dolpheus would have a lot of explaining to do once we met in person. “We were about to enter the palace. I can see the gate guards from where I stand.”
“You were going to enter out in the open? They’d recognize and seize you if only because of our friendship.”
“They would have. If I looked anything like myself.”
“You don’t?” I asked, a bit perplexed. Disguises were difficult to pull off. Ours had never been good enough to be a viable option for concealment. Besides, the palm scanners made disguise an impossible option for entry into the palace.
“You’ll see when we meet. Putting up with Lila has been worth it. She has more talents than we suspected.”
“All right,” I said, not fully understanding. “Where should we meet?”
“Give me directions to you.” I did. “We’ll be there as soon as we can,” he said. I felt him drift away as tangibly as if he’d disconnected a call I’d placed to him with one of the communications devices most Oers had attached to their heads during all their waking hours.
When I opened my eyes, I found Kai still staring at me. I pretended that the thought of him watching me the whole time didn’t make me uncomfortable. I stepped away from the tree.
“You talk to each other without a comm device?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How do you do that?”
“When we’re out of danger and have the chance, I’ll teach you all about what you can do.”
“Are you implying that I can communicate without a comm too?”
“I’m not implying it. I’m saying it.”
He nodded noncommittally, although he wasn’t successful at hiding the excitement that sprang across his face, most evident in his eyes and the twitching curve of his mouth. “Are we still going out to the wilds?”
“No. Dolpheus is here already.”
“Looking for you?”
“I assume so. They’re coming to meet us.”
“They?”
I sighed and walked abstractedly along the stream. I stooped to dip my hands in the cold water. “Dolpheus and a woman named Lila.”
“Okay,” Kai said, clear that Lila wasn’t a part of the stories of me he’d heard. I hoped she’d never become part of them.
“Lila’s involvement is a bit complicated. Actually, there are quite a few bits that are complicated. But I’ll
fill you in as we go along. There’s too much to tell you now if I were to bring you up to speed.” I trusted Kai, but I hadn’t decided how much I was going to tell this young man who wasn’t that far removed from being a complete stranger. I’d already been forced to reveal more of my private life and motivations than I thought wise during the lengths of this never-ending day. It was difficult to consider doing it again in the same day, even if I liked Kai a thousand times better than the unpredictable she-dragon that was Lila.
Kai nodded his acceptance. He moved toward the stream as well though he didn’t come any closer to me. It must have been apparent that I wanted my space. He lowered himself to a squat, pushed up his sleeves, and dunked his hands in too.
I allowed myself to drift away as far as I could on the water’s current. At some point, I sat down on the bank of the stream, but I didn’t remove my hands from it until Dolpheus and Lila arrived.
Thirteen
It was one of the strangest things of an already strange day to recognize my best friend only from the company he kept. Lila looked the same as she had when I last saw her: shoulder-length brown hair pulled back into a practical ponytail, unremarkable brown eyes that revealed some of her intelligence, a pleasant enough body, even if it lacked the ample curves that most appealed to me, and a determined look on a plain but pretty enough face. My friend, however, looked as he never had in all the time I’d known him.
At least his voice was the same, although it was highly bizarre to hear Dolpheus’ soothing, low voice pass through thin lips that seemed to be stuck in a scowl of disapproval. He was short and plump; balding, the thin hair on top obviously dyed black; with a wide mustache meant to compensate for his lack of hair elsewhere, trimmed and primped so much that it had no choice but to accept its forced perfection. I stared into beady little eyes and couldn’t believe that this body could house the usual elegance and composure of my longtime friend.
“Tan,” the odd little man with Dolpheus’ deep voice said, “I’m so relieved to see you, man.” He advanced on me for an embrace. Even though I understood that this was Dolpheus—it must be, somehow—I hesitated for a second. When I stepped into his arms, I couldn’t prevent the fascination at how squishy and squat the body I gripped was. His stomach, round as a ball, extended intrusively into mine. His arms, flaccid and slimy-feeling as the bodies of sleeping eels, even in their puffed sleeves, slung around me. I stepped away from the embrace quickly.