Shadows Return

CHAPTER 20 The Price of Loneliness

ALEC WAS ALWAYS left to himself the day after a visit to Yhakobin, so he was as much surprised as pleased when Khenir appeared at his door that afternoon.

“Would you like to take another walk?” he asked, grinning.

Alec was so glad to get outside again that he hardly minded when one of the waiting guards fastened the chain to his collar.

Once again, four guards were there to watch them. Making a break for it in daylight probably wasn’t going to be an option, Alec decided. That was not a cheering thought, but he couldn’t help enjoying being out of that cell again. It was a bit warmer today and he relished the warmth of the sun on his face as they strolled around the garden, enjoying the splash of the fountain and the cries of the gulls overhead.

After a while Khenir took Alec’s hand in his as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Alec blushed guiltily as the warmth of the other man’s palm against his own sent a rather pleasurable tingle up his arm.

What’s wrong with me? Am I really that lonely?

He tried to pull free without insulting the man, but Khenir gave him such a sad look and said, “Humor me, won’t you, little brother? It’s so lonely here.”

Alec was too kind to refuse him that, and Khenir gave him a grateful look.

They walked on like that for a while, then the other man sighed. “Your frown tells me there’s someone you’re faithful to, yes? Is she very pretty?”

Alec gave a noncommittal shrug.

“No?” Khenir smiled knowingly. “Or maybe not a ‘she’?”

“I’d rather not talk about that.”

Khenir seemed to shrink in on himself as he turned away. “Keep your secrets, then,” he said softly. “What am I in your eyes, after all, but filth and spoiled goods?”

“No, that’s not it at all!” Alec laid a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “I appreciate your friendship, Khenir, more than you know!” He paused, wanting to undo the hurt but knowing better than to give away that kind of information, even to a fellow slave.

Khenir still refused to face him. “No, I shouldn’t have presumed. It’s just-well, as I said, I’ve been lonely here…Please, say we’re friends?”

He turned around and held out his hand. There were tears on his cheeks. Alec took his hand again. “Of course we are. It’s just…” What could he possibly say? “It’s just that my heart is broken, losing him, and I can’t think of anyone else. Not yet.”

Khenir touched Alec’s cheek. “I…That is…” He glanced back at the guards. They seemed to be engrossed in their own conversation. He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “I’m not asking for your heart, Alec. But if we could just find a little comfort together…”

And Khenir kissed him.

Alec tried to pull away but Khenir got an arm around his waist and gripped the back of Alec’s head, whimpering a little as he prolonged the kiss.

Alec twisted out of his grip and shoved him away. “Stop it!”

Khenir stumbled back against the edge of the basin and sank down on it, covering his face with his hand.

Alec wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Damn it, Khenir!”

The man was weeping in earnest now, shoulders shaking under his cloak. The guards were on their way over to them, but Khenir quickly said something that sent them back to their post by the gate. Looking up at Alec, he drew a shaky breath. “Forgive me. You see what I’m reduced to, shaming myself and my clan in front of you? What must you think?”

Alec kept his distance as much as the chain allowed, but his outrage slowly gave way to pity. He could only imagine what it must be like, lost in an enemy land for so long, stripped of every shred of dignity. “It’s all right. I understand,” he said at last, then regretted his choice of words when he saw renewed hope flicker in Khenir’s reddened eyes.

“Then perhaps-?”

“I’m sorry. No.” Then, to show there were no hard feelings, he took Khenir by the hand and pulled him up. “Let’s walk some more before they make us go in.”

Khenir tried to pull his hand away, and Alec knew he should probably let him, but he wanted to make it clear that he held no grudge. And even now, he had to admit that the simple clasping of hands was a comfort to him, too.

It’s just because he’s the only one here who’s been kind to me, he thought, but he still felt torn.

Khenir was very quiet for a while as he collected himself, then slowly he told Alec a little about his lost home. His eyes misted again as he haltingly named friends, family, and a lover long missed. In return, Alec found himself telling him of his father and the free life they’d lived in the northlands. That seemed like a safe topic since it had nothing to do with Seregil or their profession.

“How did you come to Skala?” asked Khenir, calmer now.

“I went to Rhíminee after my father died, looking for work.” That was close enough to the truth.

The weight of the chain pulled his thin metal collar uncomfortably against the side of his neck, and he reached absently to shift it. His fingers strayed to the amulet and he traced the marking on it. “Did you ever have to wear these things?”

“No. It must be part of the special purification.”

“Because of my impure blood.”

“Most likely.”

“Do you see the change in me?”

“Of course, but I didn’t know if he’d shown you.” Khenir gave him a shy, sidelong look. “You’re very handsome. You were before, but now you look more like a full-blooded ’faie than a…Oh, no. I don’t mean anything by it! I’m not…”

“It’s all right.” Alec gave his hand a reassuring squeeze and chuckled. “I’ve been called a lot worse.”

Khenir fell in step beside him again, but the silence that followed felt rather strained. “I saw your name,” Alec told him.

“You did? Where?”

“On the door,” Alec whispered.

Khenir looked honestly perplexed. “What door?”

“In my cell.” Perhaps it had been another man of that name. Whatever the case, Khenir seemed to have no idea what he was talking about.

But after a moment Khenir nodded sadly. “Oh yes, down at the bottom. I’d forgotten. That was a dark time.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think-”

Khenir patted his hand. “You apologize far too often, and for things that are not any fault of yours. It’s enough for me that I have someone I can talk to. You see, I was half-dead when Ilban brought me here, and I wasn’t kept down there very long. As soon as I could speak again, I pledged my life to him. I’ve kept that promise.”

Alec couldn’t really fault Khenir for that; he had been pretty damn grateful, himself, the night a stranger who’d turned out to be Seregil had gotten him out of that north country dungeon the night before Alec was to be sold to Plenimaran slavers. It was ironic, really. Everything that he’d done and become since then had landed him here anyway, with a collar around his neck.

“There were more names. What happened to all those people?”

Khenir shrugged. “Who knows? It’s a very old house and they could have belonged to Ilban’s family.”

Just then they were interrupted by shrill, childish laughter. A small boy dashed into the garden, clutching a toy horse to his chest and looking back over his shoulder with a challenging grin. Somewhere behind him, another child wailed angrily. Alec didn’t need to understand the language to guess that the boy was teasing his sister.

A woman called out sharply, and the child stuck out his tongue. He turned and made for the fountain, but halted as he caught sight of Alec and Khenir in the shadow of the portico. The child’s mischievous expression changed to open disdain. He snapped something at them, and Khenir hastily bowed and put on his veil.

“Cover your face!” he whispered to Alec.

Alec pulled his up, but not quickly enough to suit the little tyrant. The child stamped his foot and shouted at them.

Khenir replied with a deeper bow, but that only made the boy angrier. He snatched up a stone from beside the pathway and cocked his arm back, ready to throw. Khenir just stood there, hands at his side.

Alec stepped between them, glaring at the child to make him stop.

The boy’s eyes widened and the hand holding the stone lowered a bit. But there was no mistaking the malice in his eyes.

“Buko!” he cried angrily, and it sounded like either a threat or an insult.

The veiled nursemaid appeared before things could get any worse and hurried to catch the boy. Forgetting about Alec and Khenir, he dropped the stone and darted out of reach, laughing again as he disappeared the way he’d come.

Rhania paused a moment, looking at them, and Alec saw the unmistakable tracery of Khatme clan tattoos on her face above the veil. More surprising still was the naked animosity in her dark eyes as she looked past him to Khenir.

He spoke sharply to her and she flinched as if he’d struck her, then hurried away, hissing something back at him under her breath.

“What was that about?” asked Alec, wishing he’d had a chance to speak with her.

“She hates me,” Khenir explained. “I took her place in the master’s esteem, and now she’s just the nursemaid.”

“She’s a Khatme.”

“Yes, and no one holds a grudge more deeply. You’d do well to watch out for her. She’s a spiteful, ill-tempered one, that woman.”

“What did the boy say, before she came out?”

“Oh, he was just playing the little master, upbraiding us for having our faces bare. The whole household spoils young Master Osri, and his father worst of all. I hope I didn’t get you in trouble, letting you go without your veil again. If Ilban says anything, just put the blame on me. It was my fault anyway, and he’s less likely to punish you that way. Now come, let’s walk a little more before they make you go back.”

That evening Alec stared down at his supper tray in surprise, thinking, Yhakobin must be really pleased with me! First the unexpected walk in the garden with Khenir, and now this; in addition to the usual bread, soup, and apple, there was a thick wedge of white cheese.

His mouth watered painfully as he sniffed it, but he resisted the urge to wolf it down. Instead, he ate the bread and soup first, then savored the cheese a nibble at a time, between bites of the apple. If the alchemist had visited him then, he might have thanked him outright, not for his kindness, but for food that would give him that much more strength when he finally escaped.

That thought carried a twinge of guilt. Once again, he might have been able to pull free from Khenir and make for the walls before the guards could catch up with him. And of course, there was that business with the kiss.

With Khenir or without him, I’ve got to get out of here, and soon! He kissed his palm and pressed it to his heart. Soon, talí. I swear I’ll find a way…

He woke at Micum Cavish’s house to the familiar smell of sweat and woodsmoke, and the wail of the high wind off the mountains. It moaned through the tall pines outside and drove rain against the shuttered windows and down the chimney. Droplets glittered a moment in the smoky red light, then died, hissing on the smoldering embers.

For the first time, he and Seregil had shared this guest room at Watermead as lovers rather than friends. Already drained by the emotion of Seregil’s near escape, and hampered by his own inept and embarrassed awkwardness, Alec had thought to wait a little longer, but Seregil had conquered his fears with kisses and caresses, and treated him tenderly, showing Alec the first ways of pleasure rather than taking his own.

Now, snug and happily dazed under a pile of furs and blankets, with Seregil curled warm against his back, Alec lay there lost in awe of the experience. What was it the Oracle at Rhíminee had told Seregil, soon after they first met? “Father, brother, friend, and lover.”

Seregil had truly been all four to him now.

Lover. Talimenios. He couldn’t even think the words yet without blushing hotly, but there was no shame, and no regret. Just wonder.

And he couldn’t get back to sleep. When he finally pushed up on one elbow to see if daylight was showing through the shutters yet, Seregil made a sleepy sound of protest at the sudden draft sucked under the covers by Alec’s movement and snuggled closer, tightening his arm around Alec’s waist…

Only now they weren’t at Watermead at all, but in the winter-locked cabin in the mountains. That wasn’t rain hissing on the embers and filtering down through the loose shingles but sparkling white snow. And Alec hadn’t been a blushing innocent for a very long time.

“Go back to sleep. It’s early, talí,” Alec whispered. He lay down and pulled the blankets up over both of them, trying to remember what they’d put by for breakfast.

The hunting had been poor for days. A half-frozen venison haunch and a brace of stiff grouse hung from the rafters overhead, the last of their meat. The little root cellar under the floor was empty, too. It had snowed hard for the past week, stopping at last the night before, and they were out of bread, cheese, and sausage. Both of them had more bones showing than they had in the fall.

“We’re going to have to make it into town today somehow,” Alec muttered, not relishing the idea of such a long trek on snowshoes over the unpacked expanse of powder, or the same trek back with the weight of supplies on their backs.

“Mmmmm. Later,” Seregil mumbled sleepily, running a hand down Alec’s chest, then lower.

Suddenly the food situation didn’t seem so pressing. With a happy sigh, Alec turned over to face him and return the caresses of his lover, his friend.

This lonely cabin was their haven, their refuge against memory and sadness. Seregil had vowed never to set foot in Rhíminee again, and at moments like these, Alec didn’t regret it. Seregil hadn’t dreamed of Nysander for nearly a week. In fact, he’d slept well for days, and was content and even more passionate than usual.

So it was now as they made love, and soon the heat of their bodies warmed the room more than the meager fire. Before they were done they’d kicked the blankets back, sweating in the red glow.

When it was over Alec fell back against the musty pillows, spent and happy. He reached for Seregil, but he wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there…

The cabin, the bed, the sound of the wind and the smell of the damp embers-it all faded away, melting like the snow had melted soon after that long-ago morning.

Instead, he was shivering in a dimly lit room, caught in the grip of Yhakobin’s guards as Ahmol carefully cleaned the cooling white spendings from Alec’s belly with a wooden scraper into a metal bowl.

Oh hell. The cheese. When will I stop being a fool?

Alec instinctively tried to jerk free and cover himself, but the men held him fast until Ahmol was finished.

“Why?” Alec snarled, still struggling. “Why are you doing this?”

Ahmol gave him a disgusted look. “Ilban say. Need your bura.”

Bura?

Ahmol moved hastily back as Alec began to retch. Nothing came up, but the others released him, letting him curl into a miserable ball. As he did so, he suddenly noticed that the door of his cell stood open.

He uncoiled and shot up from the pallet, shoving his startled gaolers aside as he broke for freedom.

In retrospect, it wasn’t a particularly well thought out escape. He didn’t quite make it to the door before one of them caught his braid and yanked him backward off his feet.

I’ve really got to cut that off, he thought as he fell awkwardly, scraping a hip and the heel of one hand painfully on the bricks.

A guard pinned him to the floor with a boot on his chest while the others went out.

“Ilban not be so good, you run,” Ahmol warned over his shoulder.

“Ilban not good anyway!” he spat back, but held his hands out at his sides to show the guard that he was done fighting. It was pointless now.

The guard took his foot away, collected the lantern by the door, and went out, securing the door firmly behind him.

Alec scrambled to his feet, shuddering with indignity and the cold. He found his discarded robe and pulled it on, ignoring the lingering stickiness on his belly. There was a strange bitterness at the back of his tongue that wasn’t bile.

He gave me something to make that kind of dream! How else would he have known when to send his men?

Back on his pallet with the quilts pulled up to his chin, Alec swallowed hard to keep from being sick again. Ilban would probably want to save some of that, too, the pervert!

Another shudder ran up Alec’s back as he thought of the way Yhakobin had collected his tears in a little bottle.

Nothing wasted.

He couldn’t even enjoy the memory of the dream, knowing those bastards had been watching. That thought was too much for him. Throwing back the quilts, he barely made it to the bucket in time.

Alec sat awake the rest of the night, waiting for the nauseous effects of the drug to wear off. The night passed slowly, and he watched the tiny window brighten from black to blue to pink, then to yellow as the sun came over the courtyard wall outside. It was easier to think now that he could see, easier to marshal his careening thoughts away from the shame of the night. One thing he was quite certain of: Yhakobin was mad. It was disconcerting to think that about someone who seemed so rational, but what other explanation could there be for a man who kept the tears and blood and spendings of another?

Ahmol brought his breakfast at the usual time the following morning, and Alec left it untouched. When the guards came to collect him, he did his best to ignore their knowing smirks.

“I trust you slept well?” Yhakobin said, pouring Alec a cup of tea.

Alec gave him a sullen shrug, waiting until Yhakobin poured himself a cup and had taken several sips before he dared taste his own. It was the same good, strong Aurënen brew as before; it cut the bad taste in his mouth and soothed his aching stomach.

“You’re angry with me, I think.”

Aware of the whip lying ready on a nearby table, Alec kept his gaze on his tea. “No, Ilban.”

“Indeed. But perhaps a little shocked, yes? I don’t blame you, but it was the only way. It’s not as if you’d have given up such vital fluids willingly. Really, now, it did you no harm, except perhaps to your pride. You shouldn’t even have awakened.”

Alec’s fingers tightened around the cup. “Why do such a thing, Ilban?”

“Each of the body’s vital essences contain valuable elements, no different than metals and minerals, and each has its use.”

Alec’s eyes widened. “You mean, you make something from…from that?”

Yhakobin smiled. “Oh yes, something very precious. I’m almost ready to begin. But not quite yet.” He rose and took a flask down from the tincture shelf. “We come to the final draught, at last. Come here. We must change the amulet.”

Alec shuddered at the touch of the man’s cold fingers as Yhakobin removed the silver amulet. He tossed it into the forge, as always, then held up a heavy lozenge of gold for Alec to see. It had more symbols on it than the others.

“You are most favored, Alec. I told you that rich men would pay dearly for the Tincture of Lead; they would give more than money for this Tincture of Gold, the highest of the natural elements.” He fixed the pendant in place and patted Alec’s cheek.

It was only with an effort that Alec kept himself from knocking that hand away.

Yhakobin saw and cast a meaningful glance in the direction of the whip. “This is a very special day for you. Don’t spoil the moment with one of your pointless tantrums.”

Alec hastily dropped his gaze again, tensing. Something was going to happen now. He needed his wits about him to take advantage of any opening.

He swallowed the tincture without a fight. It tasted like pure spring water, and had no immediate effect.

“What are you going to use me for, Ilban?” he asked, weary, scared, and pleading. It was only halfway an act.

Yhakobin just patted his shoulder. “You will see soon enough. And don’t worry. It’s not your life I need. Sleep well, with my promise that no more indignities will be visited upon you.”

Alec held his tongue. Yhakobin’s promises didn’t count for much.