[page back]
The sea was calm and the moonlight struck deep into the water, bright enough for him to see the drowned streets and courtyards. He might dive, tomorrow, and look for what might be salvaged. People had left in a hurry, and in their haste to get out would have forgotten valuables. The city seemed to sleep, haunted by dreams.
He was still quivering inside as he waded into the still water and let the sudden cold revive him. He invited the ocean to bathe any trace of Soran, and Vayal, and self-indulgence from him; and he mourned.
One night, he had said to Galen, just one night; and he would hold to the pledge. A single night to remember in the long years of exile. He would never forget that Soranchele Izamal-xiu Ulkan was a tender lover.
And he was very beautiful, Faunos allowed as he swam out around a cluster of empty barrels which still marked the position of someone’s abandoned crabpots. Shafts of moonlight slanted into the water, illuminating the shoals of tiny silver fish. They darted in and out, around the columns of the temple of Nepte, which had graced the waterfront. Four columns still stood erect; the rest were tumbled like lumber. He followed the fish, playing tag until his lungs drove him back to the surface.
His eyes streamed tears which were lost in the salt of the ocean. The sense of loss was overwhelming, and he blamed no one but himself. Soran was everything he had dreamed of, through nights when the old eunuch slept and he watched the stars for hours, sleepless with longing.
He had made the promise to himself as well as Galen, and one night, it would be. It could never happen again, for the danger was incalculable. This time he had been incredibly lucky. Soran was so immersed in the act, he had not noticed when the Power began to scintillate in Faunos’s limbs, when his skin shimmered, his body seemed to float, and phantom scents wreathed him. Next time?
Only the wild excitement of the first time had saved Faunos, and he was wise enough to know it. If ever they lay together again, Soran would see, and know. There could be no next time, and Faunos was consumed by a ridiculous sense of loss. How could he lose what he had never owned? He castigated himself more harshly than Galen ever would.
He dove again, among the columns of the temple where fish flew now where swallows and parrots would have flown a single day before. His lungs burned but he stayed down, deep, and turned over on his back to look up at the distorted, wavering face of Selene.
It was cool silver-blue, filled with peace. He could remain here, he thought. All he had to do was breathe deeply of the water, fill his lungs with the stuff that was air to Peseden and Nepti, and the struggle would be over. Life would unravel like a worn-out sleeve. He felt so tired, he could have slept for a year, a century. The weariness was beyond his years, and he almost took that breath.
And then youth, the pure animal instinct that had taken him to the wanderers’ camp in the first place, sent him back to the surface. He whooped for air and pulled a long, aching breath to the bottom of spasming lungs. His eyes cleared as he breathed, coughed, breathed again. He had swum further out than he had realized. The shore was distant, the flickers of the gypsy campfires no more than fireflies in the night.
Somewhere among those fires, Soran would be waking by now, and he would reach out for the companion who was not there. He would demand of the camp master, where did the young Zeheftiman go? But no one had bothered to watch Faunos leave, and even if they had, once he left the ring of the firelight he had vanished.
Tired even now, careworn, Faunos struck out for the shore. The tide had turned and it was more difficult swimming back in, but he had always been a strong swimmer. His body still throbbed with the memory of Soran’s possession. He had made it good, Faunos admitted – even the first time, it was good. First time, and last time.
The night wind on wet skin felt very cold. He waded out, sat on a tumble of brickwork to dry off and get warm, and surveyed the stars. True dawn was two hours away, but the first glow of the false dawn was in the sky already, and he must get back to the shepherd’s hut before Galen woke.
He was still damp, skin still prickling and cold, when he tied the wrap about his hips and swung on the cloak, but he felt fresh, revived. Able to face Galen, who would glance once at him, and know what he had done. It was advice Faunos needed, the benefit of age and wisdom, not a lecture. At times Galen could be supremely sensitive -- and at others, utterly dense.
The Power disturbed Faunos deeply. It had troubled him since he was nine or ten years old, on the brink of leaving behind childhood, beginning the long, hard road to manhood. One night he dreamed of swimming in a warm lagoon with a beautiful sea sprite – it could have been boy or girl; he had never been sure. His passion stirred for the first time, and the Power woke him with a start. His skin was glowing, the air smelt of jasmine and bergamot, and he knew what it was. Galen had been teaching him for years, in preparation for the day.
Lately he carried the Power like a burden, and he wanted no more than to set it down. Would he never be allowed the simple pleasure of lovemaking, which any common man enjoyed? He must be celibate as a novitiate in the temple of Volcos, because he would always betray himself?
The night had been sheer stupidity, and this morning he could barely believe what he had done. How close to betrayal he had come! If Soranchele Izamal-xiu Ulkan had been one Iota less consumed by the act of taking virginity from the flesh he had chosen out from all others, the secret would have been loose, the manacles would have been on.
Vayal’s witchfinder had earned a degree of fame for being adept in his work. Only a week before, Pahrys had been arrested on the road outside Zeheft, and those who saw the capture swore it was Soran who took the young halfwit over his saddle, shrouded in a cloak, bound and silenced with a gag.
The ill-fated Pahrys was only a distant cousin to Faunos, and only a tiny glimmer of the Power was born in him. He was tall and handsome, with something of the look of the Zehefti kings, but he was much more like the Keltoi, with their wide blue-green eyes. The Power in him allowed no more than tricks.
He would earn coins in the marketplace, performing what the delighted audience assumed was gifted sleight of hand, and no matter how Galen scolded and warned, Pahrys would not be persuaded to stop. It was too easy to make fire sprites dance in the palms of his hands, to make a faded rose seem to bloom again, so the air was heavy with its perfume. Idiots from Vayal, out slumming in Zeheft looking for cheap entertainment, would assume he was a conjurer, and showered his feet with bits of silver.
It took the witchfinder to know the difference between sleight of hand, trickery, and the true gift of the witchboy. Pahrys was most certainly a scion of the House of Diomedas, but he was no seventh son, no heir to the real Power. By chance, he had inherited a knack for tricks. And he died for it.
With a sigh, Faunos clambered back up the cliff path, through the coarse sea grasses. He paused for a moment above the fallen tavern, and looked back along the cliff toward the mouth of the sea cave, the hermitage. It appeared as an ink-dark stain in the false dawn light. He would dive again in a few hours, to retrieve the books, and as he frowned at the cave mouth he whispered to Peseden and Nepti. Please gods, let the the books be dry and safe. Their loss would plunge him into a chasm of ignorance that would consume his whole life.
The walk back to the hut cleared his head as much as the swim, and he was calling himself a bigger fool than Pahrys when he heard Galen’s voice. The light was bright enough by now for him to see his teacher’s pale, seamed face.
The old man stood in the doorway, cradling a hot mug. “I’ve been waiting,” he said in a croaking voice, and coughed hard as he stepped aside to allow Faunos to trudge past him, into the cottage. “You’re still at liberty.”
Turn page to the conclusion of Chapter Ten...
Return to Chapter Nine...
Looking for the NARC Books? The DreamCraft editions are all at Amazon.com now ... where you can combine shipping! Stay on this page and scroll down...
