by Jean Johnson
Ban came through that opening, his hair hanging in damp locks down over his shoulders and back, clad in nothing but one of his favorite black kilts and a pair of slip-on sandals that clung via tight-woven straps that sprung up between his toes and arched back halfway toward the heel before attaching to the leather of the sole. The sa-lap sa-lap of the strange footwear amused her every time she heard it, particularly since Ban had once told her salap was one of the nicknames for the sandals his long-lost people wore in their homeland’s summer months.
“Do you feel better after your bath?” Jintaya asked him.
He nodded. “Rua fetched me food. I feel quite good. When do you want me to go out again?”
“Tomorrow is soon enough,” she allowed. “Tonight, you should rest.”
“We will be getting several new members of the pantean,” Éfan told him. “A Guardian, an educator, a law-sayer, a negotiator, a craftsman, and perhaps a few more.”
“At least one more,” Jintaya reminded him. “Muan, my niece, is a bit of a negotiator and a historian. She’ll be coming with her brother, who is the craftsman of the family.”
“I doubt he could repair your slip-discs,” Éfan said, “but then I doubt anyone could. At the very least, he’ll be able to recycle the faeshiin of the case and components.”
Ban nodded, joining them by seating himself at the foot of the chaise lounge next to Jintaya’s chair. “I picked up every piece of the Fae metal I could find in the rockslide. I know you don’t like leaving it behind.”
“There have been dimensions where faeshiin has been considered poisonous to the ways of that world,” Éfan said. “It is not to this world, thankfully, but your diligence is appreciated.”
“We also don’t like leaving traces of ourselves if and when we do leave a universe,” Jintaya added. “Things that can be explained by, ‘oh, the natives were just inventive about architecture,’are fine, but otherworldly goods like our chief metal, those things are inexplicable to future generations. It causes angst and distrust in future generations if they have forgotten we once visited in peace. The Fae have been accused of horrible things in the past, most of which were false.”
“Most?” Ban challenged, arching a brow, stretching the pale blue tattoo around that eye.
“There have been some pantean members who were a little too ruthlessly protective, in the past,” she admitted. “And some cases where we honestly did not realize that space and time were stretched awkwardly between our universe and other realms. We can now stabilize such things, but . . . one of the reasons why it was rare for anyone to be allowed to visit Faelan was that temporal dilation sometimes meant a single night on our world spanned a hundred nights on theirs.”
“It was all very messy,” Éfan agreed. “Since you had no intention of returning to where we found you, you were free to come with us without discussing those ramifications.”
A snort escaped the Shae human. “If I ever did return, it would be to destroy half that realm. But I have better things to do with my time.” He slanted a look at Jintaya. “I am content to stay here.”
Feeling warm at that look, at those words, Jintaya glanced at Éfan. He rose and bowed. “I have business elsewhere. Enjoy the comforts of the grotto.”
Within moments, they were alone. Ban eyed her, and asked bluntly, “You are not with child?”
“Not this time. I wished to take a break from pregnancy. The local men are still sensually appealing, but . . . I am interested in someone else . . . and I think he is finally interested in me.” There. A bit of boldness on her part. She held his gaze steadily.
Ban tipped his head without breaking her gaze. “. . . I think he has always been interested in you. Pain and memory simply warped it out of reach for a long while.”
“But, not anymore . . . ?” she asked, probing for more.
“Time can distance and dull such things. Time gives a chance for other sensations to creep back in. Time . . . has given space for healing,” he confessed. “And room for other things.”
“How do you feel about physical closeness?” Jintaya asked, not quite holding her breath.
“I think I am ready.”
Blinking, she eyed him, then rose. He started to stand as well. Holding up her hand, Jintaya gestured for him to settle back down on the chaise. Turning, she eased down next to him, sitting close enough that their thighs and shoulders brushed. When she peeked up at him, he closed his eyes and dipped his head, nuzzling her shoulder, her hair, and the point of her ear. She shivered.
“. . . Is this bothering you?” Ban asked.
Jintaya shook her head slightly, smiling. “No. It just tickles. I like it.”
“May I hold you?” he asked.
“Always,” she told him.
“Don’t promise anything you cannot keep,” he warned her. “I will outlast you.”
“For as long as we both exist, then,” Jintaya compromised. She waited until his arms carefully wrapped around her, giving her the chance to lean against his warmth, his strength. Then said, “Éfan and I agree, I have not aged more than a few months since coming to this place. At year at most . . . and not at all over the last forty years. If I stayed here . . . if I continued to sup on this world’s magic . . . it is possible I could live as long as you. If we both stayed here.”
His arms tightened slightly, a sign of startlement, perhaps even shock.
“You hadn’t realized that?” she asked.
“No. But . . . I would not wish to limit you to a single world,” he told her after a moment of thought. “Life is not about how long you live. It is all about the quality of your life.”
“I would give you the best in quality, whatever that requires,” Jintaya told him.
“I would like that,” he confessed.
She shifted a little, carefully tucking her arm around his ribs. When he did not object, but instead held her a little closer, she relaxed in relief. Ban had been abused horribly on a number of the worlds he had visited, generations’ worth of abuse and torture. Trusting someone to embrace him was a huge step forward. “I like this,” she told him. “I like holding you. I could spend a year holding you, if you liked, too.”
“We don’t have a year. The Efrijt must be dealt with,” he reminded her. But he nuzzled his painted face into her golden locks. “We have tonight . . . and tonight . . . I want to hold you, too.”
“Then we shall hold each other, as much as you like. I have plenty of time for you,” Jintaya reassured him. “Whatever you like.”
“I like this,” he told her, and hugged her a little closer. “We cannot do it forever—muscles will cramp, biology will protest—but I like this, for now.”
“As do I,” Jintaya agreed. Closing her eyes, she rested her cheek against his chest, and listened to the beating of his heart, the sighing of his breath, louder and more important to her than the trickling of water in the fountain a short distance away. Unfortunately, the Veilway chimed. Sighing, she sat up. “I have to answer that. It’s probably a request for a list of exact supplies needed.”
“I know,” he agreed, and touched her back. “Do you want me to go ask the others for updates on their lists?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said, and watched him rise and leave, sandals making their slapping sounds like dry, clapping heartbeats. Her heart, beating for him. She hadn’t made the suggestion to stay on this world lightly. It was not quite an offer, not yet, but . . . it was a possibility.
Chapter Four
Taro Anzak Urudo knew his arrival in the heat of fading summer would cause a stir of interest. However, he expected far more hostility, or at least wariness, in the primitive humans he approached. Instead, the children who spotted him while tending their herds in the golden fields of the valley stared, yelled, and waved. Some were dark like him, deeply tanned or brown skinned with hair equally brown or black. Others had deeply tanned s
kin paired with pale blond hair and pale eyes that stood out on their sun-kissed faces.
After waving to each other, a pair of them ran deeper into the valleys and canyons here in the rocky heart of this sand-wrapped desert. Two, no, three more approached, lifting what looked like waterskins from their shoulders as they called out to him. They babbled over one another, excited to greet their visitor.
“Hello!” “Welcome!” “Have some water!” “You come here in peace, yes?” “You have such interesting clothes!” “Are you a friend of the Fae?” “You look like they dress, only you’re very brown and red, not gold.” “Come drink, it’s good and fresh!”
Trusting idiots. Two girls and a boy, slings tucked into their leather belts and pouches that looked like they held round stones, but they wielded their thin staves like sticks, not like weapons. Still, he accepted one of the skins, sniffed at the contents, then drank to quell his thirst. He had only a few mouthfuls left in his current container, and had no compunction against draining the child’s offered skin.
His magic moved sluggishly in this realm, barely enough to fill his canteen at the dew point of each night, and that damned painted human had moved unnaturally fast, without stopping to rest. Like some sort of construct, escaping the range of his detection amulet twice, save that the man had moved in a straight line. That allowed Anzak to follow in a straight line and catch up via the anashak currently rolled up and slung across his back. He had decided to roll it up and approach on foot when he had seen this valley from a cliff off to the northwest, seen the movement of herdbeasts, the hedges outlining farming fields, and the glimmer of water in irrigation canals.
He lowered the skin and looked across the valley, counting even more herdbeasts. Not just asses and goats, but camels, antelopes, even a flock of sheep similar to the ones in the northern mountains where the medjant had set up its business.
The eldest girl, with curly, almost frizzy blond chair and beige eyes, startlingly pale in her nut brown face, tilted her head as she peered up at him. “You have very orange eyes. And long bottom teeth. Are you Dai-Fae? You don’t look like us.”
There were old stories and legends on how to respond to those first two comments. Anzak did not say he could see her better with his orange eyes, or eat her better with his tusklike teeth. Threats were reserved for use on threatening natives. Children were rarely that threatening. Her actual question, though, he could answer.
“I am nothing like the Fae. I am superior.” Even being the taro of the medjant, lowest-ranked if through no fault of his own, he knew he was superior to any pointy-eared, short-toothed, pale-bodied outworlder. “I am here to see your settlement. How long has it been here?”
“Oh. Forty . . . um . . .” The blond child looked at the others; the boy, brown-skinned and brown-haired, tried counting on his fingers, then gave up and shrugged, so she shrugged as well. “Forty-plus years?”
“Forty-five!” the younger girl announced, counting on her own fingers. She grinned. “Plus a year!”
“Right! Zero-year,” the boy added, then laughed. “Zero is a number!”
Children. When Anzak had been this boy’s age, he had been in school all day long, learning far more than just “zero is a number.” He eyed the children, frowning in annoyance, and asked, “Which way is your city center?”
“Our sih-tee?” the younger, brown-haired girl asked, squinting up at him.
“Settlement. Village. Tribe.” This was a definite punishment for being the taro of the medjant. “Where does everyone gather?”
“Oh! Ijesh! Uhh . . . that would be the main valley? Where the gathering hall is, and the animadjet’s hall?” the blond girl asked. “Bargo, you take him there. We’ll keep an eye on your asses.”
The boy, Bargo, squinted at the western horizon, shading his eyes. “We have a little over half a fist before we’d head back anyway. Why not just head in early? Or wait a little bit?” He eyed Anzak. “You can wait, yes? It’s not much longer, and the animals are not done grazing. They should eat.”
Anzak did not wish to wait. He also did not wish to talk with children, who should not be seen or heard in adult spaces. But he was in their space, and they were less likely to guard their words than an adult would. Breathing deep, he nodded. “I will wait. You will answer my questions.”
“Only some of them,” the younger girl countered, staff tucked behind her back and body swaying side to side a little. “Taje Djin-taje-ul says we aren’t to answer everything a stranger asks.”
Strangling children for being frustrating was not allowed. “How many Fae live among you?”
“A few—” the boy started to say.
“—Enough,” the blond girl cut him off. She slanted the youth a look, then fixed Anzak with a hard look. “They are very powerful animadjet. Numbers do not matter when powers are that strong.”
“And we have Death to protect us,” the younger girl added, nodding sagely. She even smiled. “Death makes everyone safe.”
Anzak blinked. “You are a very strange child.”
She tilted her head and blinked her brown eyes. “Why am I strange?”
“You praise the idea of Death, as if it is a good thing,” he pointed out.
She blinked at him in confusion, frowning, then comprehension dawned in her dark gaze.
“No, silly! Not death as in dead. The painted man, Death! That is his name. He is nicer than his name sounds,” she explained with all the assurance of someone who thought she was at least three times her tender age of nine or so.
“He doesn’t talk much, compared to the others,” the boy countered, wrinkling his nose.
“Grandmother Siffu says he talks more now than when he first arrived,” the eldest girl pointed out.
“Death is talkative, that’s funny!” the boy laughed.
Anzak breathed slow and deep, counseling patience. They were children, and thus naturally lacked discipline. Or a refined sense of humor, or . . . Wait. Anzak had heard of the man named Death. Or rather, Ban. Like all the Efrijt in the Medjant Kumon, he wore a tiny gemstone earring that allowed him to understand the local language, but it worked a little too well. If a name-sound shared meaning with another word in a native speaker’s tongue, that word came through first. In Frijsh, the word-sound of ban meant prickle or sting, not death, and he had heard it first from the Sejo’s lips, with the associated translation. This time around, he had been paying attention to the local language, not to his own.
“Bargo, your animals are wandering,” the blond girl warned the boy. Sighing, he rolled his eyes and trudged off, swinging his staff to smack at some of the tufts of sun-dried plants that had not been eaten by the animals. The blond watched him go, then peered up at Anzak. “Are you sure you’re not related to Ban and the Fae? You’re very tall.”
“He’s too big in the shoulders to be like Ban,” the brunette countered. “Ban is like a stick, and this man is like a tree trunk.” She eyed him, adding bluntly, “You must be very strong. Can you pick up an ass? Or even a camel?”
“Even Ban can pick up a camel,” the older girl argued.
“Ban has to use anima to pick up a camel! Mother said that he said so!” the younger argued back. She reached up and patted Anzak on the arm, startling him at the casual touch. “I think this man can do it without the anima!”
“Maybe a baby camel!” the blond scoffed.
Yes. Definitely a punishment for being taro. Before they could delve further into their nonsense argument, Anzak asserted firmly, “Your animals are wandering. Tend to them.”
Reflexively, the two girls moved away. Their animals hadn’t spread out quite as much as the boy’s had, but they did need a little nudging. Relieved to be somewhat alone, Anzak eyed the distance where the two youths had run off, and decided to start walking that way. He wanted to pull out his anashak, unroll it, and sit on the square rune-woven tapestry, allowing it t
o float and carry him comfortably, but there were rules about flaunting too much magic in front of primitive natives.
Not that he could sink lower than taro in rank, but Anzak did not want to anger the Fae and make negotiations worse for Medjant Kumon. A taro in a prosperous House that dealt in precious mercury was still superior to a daro in most other houses, perhaps even superior to a kuro of a herding medjant. But only if Medjant Kumon stayed prosperous, and that meant retaining their mineral rights on this world.
A short while after he started walking, he noticed the children had taken note, and were responding. Chivvied by little yelps and light smacks of their staves on the grass, or on recalcitrant rumps, the animals started moving in the same general direction, too. The little brunette hurried up to his side, skipping along, nudging her flock of a couple dozen goats. They tried to nip at her from time to time, but she pinched a floppy ear here and there, discouraging them.
Anzak, they avoided. To the Efrijt’s relief. They eyed him with their slits for pupils, bleated, but whenever one got close, it snorted and swerved away. Good. It would not be proper to smite an animal for trying to bite him when the animal was not his and he had not negotiated any contract for his right to act freely in these lands.
Soon, though, there would be plenty of contracts, with plenty of loopholes for all sorts of behavior. Sometimes, if a taro was clever enough, he could rise to daro in rank by finding ways to exploit a system. If it brought benefit to the medjant, of course.
***
“That is an Efrijt?” Parren asked Ban, peering through the illusion hiding the pantean stronghold from the grand fountain a short distance away. Sunset tinted everything in shades of orange light and blue shadow outside the sheltered roof, while flames flickered in the alabaster trough under the outer ring, shedding a dancing golden glow on the people gathering below. “He looks like a human, from here.”
The stranger in their midst stood taller and broader shouldered than most of the humans, but he had the same dusky brown skin and near-black hair, if more wavy than curly. His clothes had been woven in tightly patterned scrolls from what looked like shades of brown and red silk; their quality stood out against the somewhat finespun linens and wools and the smoke-cured leathers of the locals. The heavy roll of fabric on his back, too rugged to be anything but a floor covering, intrigued Ban.