Desert World Allegiances (17 page)

The night was a long series of half dreams and shadows and the sound of Shan snoring heavily in the deepest corner of the crack, and morning came with vivid streaks of red and orange that stained the sky. In the distance, a worker walked the rows, sinking a probe in every five or six feet, checking buried irrigation lines, and his long shadow followed him. Temar’s wrists itched from being tied together, the sweat gathering between them, but he just sat on the loose gravel and watched the distant worker.

As the morning sky brightened to blue, Shan groaned and shifted. Temar watched as he pushed himself up on shaking arms until he had his back to the wall of the cramped cave. He peered through narrowed eyes, and Temar was guessing he had a headache big enough to make his head fall off. Maybe his time with Ben had brought out his own meanness, but Temar was a little amused at Shan’s misery. If the man was going to drag him out of his familiar despair, at least he got to hurt as much as Temar.

“Great,” Shan said with tremendous disgust. “I’m brain damaged. I’m at least half sobered up, and I’m still seeing things.”

“No, you aren’t. Not unless you’re still seeing ghost Naite.” Temar shifted around awkwardly. His bound hands were trapped near his stomach, so he used his heel to push himself up a little straighter.

Shan frowned. “Temar?”

“Yes?”

He watched as Shan’s eyes scanned him, and his eyebrows drew down with worry or confusion. It was hard to tell, but his color looked better, and his face didn’t have that odd wrinkling and puckering that suggested imminent death. “But….” Shan stopped and then inched forward. “I imagined those.”

Temar looked down to where Shan was staring. His short nightshirt couldn’t hide the vivid, purple bruises with a rim of green where the skin had started to heal. He could feel the heat gathering in his face. Logically he knew it hadn’t been his fault, but a little part of him wanted to hide the marks and hide the fact that he hadn’t been smart enough to find a way out of Ben’s trap on his own.

“No, you hallucinated a lot, but these are mine.”

“I kept imagining you and Erqu on that isolated farm—”

“My father never touched me!” Temar froze, horrified at his own shout. Looking out through the curling branches of the wind tree, he watched the worker continue to walk the rows.

“Is someone out there?” Shan moved forward but grunted with each step he crawled.

“A worker. He didn’t hear.”

“Thank the Lord.” Shan sagged against the rock, but he’d moved forward far enough that their legs touched, even though Shan pulled his knees up under him. “We have to go to someone on the council.”

Temar’s stomach rolled with panic, but he set his heels into the dust of the cave floor and pushed himself back. “No.”

Shan jerked back in surprise. “Temar, he hurt you.”

“Gods and stars… don’t you think I know that? Do you think I’m stupid?” Temar pulled at his bound hands. Ben had done more than Shan would ever know because he had no intention of telling anyone. His suffering was his own.

Shan blinked his eyes a little more open. “Of course you do. I never suggested you didn’t.” Shan closed his eyes and let his head come down to rest on his knees. He was the picture of misery, and Temar felt wisps of guilt for verbally striking out at the man who had tried to save him. True, it was a disorganized and clumsy rescue, but it had worked… maybe. Temar still wasn’t sure what they were supposed to do from here. If Ben didn’t find him soon, he’d have his friend kill Cyla, and then he’d tell the council that Temar had run away, so that an exile order would go out. Three valleys and five towns. That was not a lot of room to hide. Shan moaned and tangled his fingers through his hair.

“You’re recovering from pipe poison. You shouldn’t be talking,” Temar pointed out. His father always complained that his own voice echoed in his head, the morning after a particularly bad round of drinking. Before all this happened, Temar had wondered how his father could ever drink, but now he understood. If he had to face a life in Ben’s bed, he would have happily lost himself in the madness of pipe juice. Ben wouldn’t have liked that much, but that would have been a bonus. Temar just never thought Shan would be one to drink. Temar wondered if the attempt on his life had driven him to drinking. Actually, now that he thought about it, Temar had no idea how Shan had survived at all. Ben said his friends had killed Shan outside Red Plain, and Temar hadn’t heard of any rescues.

Shan sighed heavily and then spoke in a whisper. “I need to untie you.”

“Hand me a knife and I’ll manage,” Temar suggested.

“If I had a knife, I would.” Shan held up his empty hands. “The Lord provides, but he didn’t provide a knife.” Shan tried to laugh, but he strangled on the sound and cradled his head in his hands. “God, my head hurts.”

“You need more water and food,” Temar said. If he had a choice, he’d rather just stay tied up than lift his nightshirt and let Shan see more of the damage Ben had done.

Shan nodded and pulled up the leg of his pants. He had a canteen strapped to his leg, but it was yellowed with pipe juice, and when Shan opened the top, Temar could smell the sour.

“You’re going to drink pipe juice?” he demanded.

“God almighty, no. I rinsed the container the best I could, but I carried pure pipe juice in here, so this was the best I could do.” Shan took a deep drink. Temar frowned at the implication. Sure, when he was a kid, his favorite vid character had walked off the desert by drinking water evaporated out of pipe juice, but no one would be stupid enough to try that in real life. No one would survive if they tried doing that long enough to walk from Red Plain to the Valley. That was too far, and the desert was too full of sandrats to survive something like that.

“You drank water evaporated out of pipe juice?” Temar’s voice squeaked with incredulity.

“It worked,” Shan said with a shrug as he bit off part of a rhubarb stalk. He made a terrible face, but he kept chewing until he swallowed. “There weren’t a lot of choices.” He held out a stalk to Temar, but Temar turned it down with a shake of his head. He wasn’t that hungry.

“You could have killed yourself,” Temar pointed out.

Shan laughed again, but this time, it was a weak, thin laugh. “I just about died more times than I can count. I now understand why the people of Israel thought Moses was insane for wanting to cross the desert. I’m not sure I would follow him after this experience.”

“But… why didn’t you use the emergency beacon?”

Shan looked up with bloodshot eyes. “Because someone was shooting at me. I had to crash the cycle into a canyon, and I lost the equipment. Given a choice between walking off the desert or lying down and dying, I decided that even a stupid plan was better than nothing.”

Temar couldn’t even come up with an answer to that. Fear curled around his stomach, fear that Shan would blame him, fear that Ben’s friends would put Cyla in that situation, fear that he was going to end up walking the desert when he got exiled because, right now, he was technically a runaway slave. “I’m sorry,” Temar whispered.

Shan lifted his head off his knees so fast that he hissed with pain. “Why should you be sorry?”

“I made that comment about water. I sent you over to Red Plain. I just….” Temar stopped. His mouth had gotten too dry for him to confess that he wanted to be rescued so much that he put other people right into Ben Gratu’s path.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Ben Gratu is going to pay for what he did, but you aren’t to blame for anything,” Shan hurried to say.

“I’m not blaming myself for the abuse. I’m blaming myself for giving you enough information to get you involved without telling you the whole truth.”

“Then tell me the truth now.”

Temar frowned. He’d been willing to share everything with Ben… right before Ben had burned all the evidence, but now Temar could feel the fear, like a sandrat he’d swallowed alive. The men and women on the farm looked at him with pity, and he knew they’d never believe him, even if he tried to convince them the sky was blue. While he thought Shan would give him a little more respect, he wasn’t totally sure.

“Please,” Shan said. He reached out and rested his palm on Temar’s ankle.

Looking at that dark, sun-roughened hand resting against his ankle, Temar blinked to clear his blurring vision. Ben had ordered him to shy away from any touch other than Ben’s own, and the weight and warmth of a comforting hand wasn’t familiar anymore. “It was Ben who was stealing water,” Temar said, expecting to be interrupted. Instead, Shan watched him. “I had taken readings, and when Ben and I got to the valley that first day, I told him I had evidence.”

“Why not bring it to the council?” Shan asked. At least he didn’t openly doubt the story.

Temar shrugged. Looking back, that had been where the problem had started. “Cyla asked Naite for an emergency meeting of the council, and when he told her to wait for season-end….” He stopped and shrugged again, unwilling to blame his sister for their problem, not when Ben was the person behind it. “I told Ben I had months of daily moisture readings. I thought he’d help me with a case against George Young. Instead, he looked at them and then he….” Temar stopped again, his arms tingling with the memory of Ben’s hands on him, holding him down on the bed Temar had slept in as a child. With Ben looking down at him, with Ben’s heavy weight holding him down, he’d felt as helpless as a child again. A dark laugh slipped out before Temar could stop it. “I used to be better at telling stories.”

“I’m a priest,” Shan said, “I hear stories from people overwhelmed by their own emotions for a living. You’re doing fine.”

“He tied me up and called some friend in Red Plain—told them to come and get Cyla’s contract and that if I did anything to speak out against them, they would kill her.”

“His farm never showed signs of having extra water. If anything—”

“He was short of water,” Temar interrupted. “I know. He mentioned that he was shorting his own water too, and then he was blaming it on my father. But all the missing water from my place and from his and from who knows who else’s… it’s Ben.”

Shan pressed his lips tightly together and reared back. Even though Temar missed the warm touch on his ankle, he used the chance to pull his legs closer. “I’m going to kill him. I know that’s not a priestly thing to say, but I really am going to kill him. He used that water theft to get his hands on you and…. What he did….” Shan stood up in the narrow cave and turned his back to Temar. With his hands braced on the gray rock, he looked like he was trying to hold up the cliff. His fingers curled, the tips pressed to the stone, and his back arched. Shan might be a priest, but he was a strong man. Temar had watched him climb roofs and carry heavy parts as often as he’d seen him at the front of the church. Now that strength frightened him.

Temar scooted back toward the mouth of the small cave, uncomfortable around the gathering emotion. For the first time since the “rescue,” Temar was aware of just how much taller and stronger Shan was. However, when Shan spoke, his voice was small.

“Ista Songwind didn’t like me. I thought it was because I had interrupted her work, but she was trying to keep me away from her hostage.” Shan slapped a hand against the rock, hard enough that Temar flinched. “She’s in on this, and I’m willing to bet that Ben is the man the two shooters mentioned. They said their contact here would find out if I turned up alive, and Ben is the center of gossip for the whole valley.”

“Everyone trusts him,” Temar agreed.

“We’ll go to the council, and then Ben is going to regret all of this. He’ll regret ever touching you. I promise you that.”

The laughter that slipped out of Temar was wild and dark.

Shan turned around to look at him. Whatever he saw worried him enough that he crouched down. “Temar?”

“We can’t go to them.”

“I won’t let Ben get away with—”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Temar demanded, cutting Shan off. “Are you going to tell me what to do? Maybe you like having me tied up so I can’t disagree with you.”

Shan flinched back, and Temar froze, all his anger draining as he watched Shan rear back like he’d reached for heated glass and had only now noticed he wasn’t wearing a glove. The look on his face… Temar could see the horror, but he ignored the other emotions. He couldn’t deal with Shan’s feelings, not now. Cyla was in danger, and Ben…. Temar took a deep breath and tried to push the panic away.

“I should go.” Temar kept his voice calm, even though the thought of going back to Ben made him want to throw himself off the nearest cliff. Actually, if he could get up high enough, that might be a solution.

“Go?”

“I should get out there before Ben has to look too hard. You have to get to Cyla. Ben is….” Temar had no words to describe how everyone looked at Ben like they wished he was their father, their brother, their son. They loved him. Temar started edging toward the opening of the cave, but Shan reached out and caught his arm. Shying away from the touch, Temar slammed his head into the side of the cave and then recoiled, nearly into Shan. Temar flinched away, half blinded by the pain as his head throbbed. He wanted to curl up and not think at all, and he couldn’t even reach up to hold his own throbbing head.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not touching you.” Shan was on his knees, his hands held up in surrender. “I’m not touching you, and I won’t touch you. I promise I won’t.”

“Promise.” Temar snorted his disgust at that word.

“I just… Temar, I’m a priest, so whatever you tell me, I promise that it will remain between us. I won’t even tell the council, if you order me not to. That’s what the confessional means, that’s what it means when you trust a priest and ask for spiritual help. I just don’t understand. You have to help me understand, because right now, I don’t understand why you have to go back to him.”

Temar got one leg under him and pushed himself back up to his knees. His head pounded in time with his heart, but he ignored that. “You’d hide information from the council?”

Shan answered slowly. “I wouldn’t like it, but as a priest, it’s my job to listen to confession and to offer advice to people who need it. What happens between a person and the priest can’t go anywhere else. People have confessed all types of crimes, and I’ve never taken them to the council.”