by Marie Brown
actually saw him.
What a funny-looking man, she thought, with enough time to wonder why he suddenly seemed so different and unattractive. Surely his eyes hadn't always been that close-set, or his skin so sallow, or-
Thoughts of appearance vanished abruptly under a wave of white-hot fury.
"Derfek, you bastard! You cheated on me!"
Lorrine looked back at the line of charging desert warriors, kicked her uncle's horse to the side, and pulled the boom-rod out of her waistband. She'd heard of these things before. Simple enough to use, just point and push the button. The spell on it worked just like a lightstick, or any other magical convenience, quiescent until needed. A boom-rod was just that, a rod that produced a non-lethal, but thoroughly terrifying, boom.
She pointed it at Derfek. She took in the fact that he knew she'd been freed of his damned spell. It was written all over him, in the panic on his face, in the way he stretched a hand out towards her.
She pushed the button.
A ball of fire burst out of the end of the rod, engulfing him instantly. Lorrine rocked back in horror as Derfek tumbled from the horse, burning.
Burning.
He screamed.
The horses screamed, too. So did Lorrine. Her horse, freed of Derfek, bolted away from the fire far faster than it had run before, while carrying the man. The horse she rode, her uncle's horse, bucked her off and bolted.
Lorrine hit the sand in a limp ball, wind knocked out of her, magical weapon lost, sent sprawling by her momentum.
Then the others reached her, as Lorrine tried desperately to get a breath into her lungs. Hands grabbed at her, tugging, pulling her across the sand, away from the screaming fireball. She finally got a breath. Then she gasped and coughed the breath right back out, because it smelled like burning flesh and hair.
"What happened?"
Her uncle's voice, Lorrine thought. She reached blindly for him, unable to see anything but the unnaturally fierce fire already burning itself out. Ranam caught her hand.
"He told me it was a boom-rod," she whispered. "I didn't want to kill him!"
"I did," her uncle replied grimly. "He forced my wife into bed with him."
"That. . . bastard!" Lorrine coughed, forcing her eyes away from the fire. "He did what?"
"She tried to resist him, but he held some sort of power over her. It was that amulet, I am certain."
"As soon as it fell away from him, my head cleared, and I knew what a horrible thing he'd done to me. But. . . I didn't want to kill him."
"A fortuitous accident," Ranam said. Through the afterglow of flames, his eyes held a cold satisfaction. "Do not blame yourself. If he had not lied and told you the weapon was something it is not, you would not have used it, but he would still be dead. I would not have left that man among the living, nor would any other man here. Relax, niece. Because your hand delivered his fate, Derfek died a far swifter and easier death than he would have at our hands."
"I suppose I'll try to take comfort in that," Lorrine said, and allowed Ranam to help her up. "He told me it was a boom-rod. It wasn't supposed to kill him."
"Yes, niece. You have said that already. Angloban is returning with the horses now. Let us go back home, to Karr'at, where it is safe."
Safe.
Safe, and lonely, without her man.
Lorrine shook herself and accepted her uncle's assistance to get back on her horse. Someone had chased it down, caught it, brought it back, all while Derfek burned. She had better figure this out fast. Derfek may have been her constant companion for. . . she had no idea how long. But he'd also been an asshole. He'd screwed every woman he'd come across, even her aunt. And he'd treated her like a fermented heap of dreckel. So while it was okay to miss companionship, she damned well better get over missing that asshole man right now. His death, horrible though it was, had been pure accident. Maybe she'd even forgive herself for it someday.
Hell, maybe she'd forgive herself today. After all, he'd lied to her about the magical weapon. And he'd seduced her aunt. What a reeking asshole!
She rode meekly back to Karr'at with her uncle, trying to sort out her thoughts. She wondered what would have happened to her had she accidentally killed Kama, and nearly started crying. The loss of Derfek paled in comparison with even the thought of Kama's death. What was wrong with her? Why could an imaginary threat to a friend outweigh the real death of her lover?
The answer to her question quietly presented itself, and she pushed it away, although not as fiercely as she might have done. Maybe it was true, maybe all the notions about proper behavior she'd been raised with were not based in reality, but she just wasn't ready yet to face the possibility that she truly loved Kama.
Another Adventure
Lorrine staggered through the pouring rain, wet clean down to the skin. How disgusting. So wet. Even after such a short time in the Dargasi lands, mere weeks, her desert blood had taken hold of her and dried out her worldview, to the extent that now rain had no place in her life. Particularly not this kind of rain, with the wind whipping the wet stuff into streamers of misery that stung her with cold viciousness.
"Great," she muttered. "Just great. Now I'm talking like one of those damned poets."
They'd spoken beautiful words, those court poets, elaborate, flowery, and empty of meaning. They'd provided entertainment for equally hollow evenings, when intrigues and secret smiles swirled beneath the surface of civility and custom.
She strained her eyes, trying to see something hopeful through the storm and the gloom of dusk. If she didn't find shelter soon, she probably wouldn't die, but she sure would spend a miserable night.
Nothing.
Of course not. How wrong could her life go, anyway? She probably deserved all this misery for letting a manipulating bastard take over her life, her body, all her will. Stupid.
Then she spotted something, a kind of dip in the ground, off to the side of the faint trace that passed for a road out here. She made her way towards it, hardly daring to hope for anything good.
A small dimple in the ground dropped abruptly into a V-shaped crevice, the kind that stayed hidden unless you came at it dead on. Lorrine felt the stirrings of hope as she descended into the crevice and the wind eased up a bit. She moved faster. Shadows engulfed her, but she saw something even more promising ahead: a door. A door, set into the point of the V. Whoever had put that thing there seemed a lot more welcoming than spending the night out in this miserable rain.
The door seemed really old, Lorrine thought, based on how rusty its latch and hinges were, but she managed to break it loose by pounding on the latch with the butt of her dagger. When she opened it, the door let loose a massive, grinding groan, that echoed away into the depths of. . . wherever the hell this was. She flinched at the mild profanity, then shook her head. No need to worry about her language anymore, not here. Where was she, anyway?
Truly, at this moment, Lorrine didn't care. The door could lead straight into the Nether Hells of Kaida for all she cared. It closed solidly behind her, leaving her alone in the dry darkness.
She wrung a small lake's worth of water out of her hair, then groped in her meager pack for her new lightstick. By its steady, cheerful glow, she stripped down to her skin and wrung out her clothes, spreading them out on the paved stone floor to dry. As she did so, she wondered at the lack of dust. She saw some, of course, but only a thin layer, nothing like she'd expected from the state of the door outside.
Wind blew from somewhere, drying her bare skin as she dug through her pack. Everything in there felt damp. Out it all came, every one of her worldly possessions. She put on the red gauze robe she'd brought out of Karr'at and grimaced at its dampness. But it was a whole lot dryer than her leather pants and woolen tunic, so on it went. No matter how silly it felt wearing a filmy night robe here in the middle of an ancient tunnel.
Her bedroll, of course, was soggy. Lorrine grumbled as she wrung it out. Now there was one advantage to the Dargasi way of doing things. A real fire prod
uced real heat, and would therefore dry a wet blanket in short order. But lightsticks made no heat at all, just light.
No use thinking about fire, she had no idea how to make one anyway. Even assuming she could find wood that wasn't drenched. She'd just have to make do with body warmth, and hope the wet thing dried out overnight. Too bad her family was just so. . . unliveably weird. And smothering. To the point where she'd had to get away or go mad. She certainly wouldn't have this problem back in the desert, not unless someone'd dunked her in a water wall. The heat, the dry, she could really go for both of those right about now.
Perhaps if she whined loud enough, her possessions would dry. Lorrine grimaced at herself. More likely she'd attract the attention of a ghost or something. Best just shut up, deal with the wet, and be grateful she'd found shelter. Because, unfortunately, she couldn't stand life as a Dargasi, and that left life as a drifter, until she fetched up somewhere worth staying. Like Eirian. With her old job back, and a mended friendship with Kama, and a chance to redeem herself by kissing that beautiful woman and not running away. . .
She gave herself a shake, then picked two strips of jerky out of her pack, glad she kept food in a waterproof pouch. Just never think of what it used to be. (A cow's stomach. Ugh.) Whatever it had been in life, right now it made an excellent waterproof pouch, keeping her jerky dry and her biscuits crunchy. Well, sort of. Her hard trail biscuits had gotten