Desert World Allegiances (21 page)

Chapter 16

T
EMAR
didn’t have long to wait before Naite came back out, but he walked around to the side of the house. Temar ducked down lower, fear crawling through his belly. He hadn’t always been afraid all the time, but now he couldn’t control his own emotions. After a few seconds, Naite returned, pushing a wheelbarrow.

He walked over to a circle in the yard. It was a stone circle, no more than six or eight inches high, with a metal cover about two feet in diameter. Naite pulled the cover off and then dumped the contents of the wheelbarrow down into what was obviously some sort of well. After he put the cover back on, Naite started pushing the wheelbarrow toward Temar.

He moved silently in the dark, and when he came around the corner, he stopped and flipped back a canvas cover Temar could see attached to the metal frame of the wheelbarrow.

“Get in,” Naite said.

“But—”

“It’s not that unusual for me to help Tom out if things get busy around here. But a small, blond man is going to stand out. Just get in.” Naite’s voice grew gentler for a moment. “It’s okay, Temar. We’re only going as far as the house.”

Temar looked at the wind-worn house and the large yard that separated his hiding place from the front door. With a nod, he crawled up into the wheelbarrow and curled himself into a tight ball. Naite flicked the canvas over his head, and then Temar felt the world tip and tilt as Naite pushed him toward the house.

The darkness, the silence, the sense of the world swaying, all combined to make the bile rise in Temar’s throat, but before he could throw up, the wheelbarrow thumped down onto the ground, and Naite pulled back the canvas cover. “Go,” he whispered, nodding toward an open door.

Temar swallowed as he looked at that black doorway against the gray night. Run into it. Run into the unknown. His heart pounded so fast that Temar could feel the pulse in his skin, feel the pressure building behind his eyes.

“Go. I’ll go get Shan.”

They needed to get Shan inside—he was in even more danger than Temar. Ben liked his games too much to give up a playtoy, but Shan… if Ben or Ista Songwind found out he was alive, they’d kill him. Temar gave one quick nod before he climbed out of the wheelbarrow and dashed for that door.

“Temar?” a voice whispered the moment he crossed the threshold. Temar nearly turned around and fled back out into the night. “I’m Tom. Naite told you about me, right?” A very small light turned on, and now Temar could see the shape of a man sitting on the bottom step of the stairs. He was a large man, and his gray hair shone in the dim light. Tom Sulli. Temar vaguely recognized him from the season-end festival.

“You held his slave papers… after his father hurt him,” Temar answered. In the dim light, he could see Tom nod.

“I did. Naite says you need help.” When Temar didn’t answer, Tom continued. “Naite’s going to bring Shan in the same way, but we may need some help with him. From the way Naite described him, he’s good and drunk. The last thing we need is a drunk priest, waking all the field hands.”

“He had to drink pipe to walk out of the desert.”

Tom leaned forward. “Naite said something about that. What the hell happened?”

“Tom?” a woman called from upstairs.

“Naite’s here, Hannal. I’ll be up in a bit,” Tom answered.

There was a pause. “If you two want breakfast, let me know.” There was a definite click as the door closed upstairs.

Temar frowned. “Naite still comes here?”

The clock ticked in the silence as Tom seemed to think about his answer. “Some wounds, they don’t heal fast, and they don’t heal clean. I suppose most men would go to the priest, but that’s not easy when the priest is your brother and you’re angry at God.” Tom pushed himself up to his feet. “There’s a room through there. We’ll probably need to burn the clothes, if they’re as bad as Naite says. I’ll get the incinerator going. You get some water run into the slosh stall,” he said with a nod toward an open door that led to a bedroom. Tom had to pass close to Temar to get past, and Temar held his breath. “My father built this for my grandparents, so it has its own bathroom attached.” Then Tom headed into the mechanics room to start the incinerator, leaving Temar to get the bathroom ready.

He quickly found the door to the bathroom on the other side of the first floor bedroom, and Temar filled the slosh bucket with warm water. When he’d been in Ben’s house, Ben always claimed he didn’t trust Temar with water. He’d make Temar stand with his hands flat against the chilly metal wall while Ben poured cups of water over him, soaping him down. The sight of the slosh stall made Temar shiver now. He wasn’t naked, though. He wasn’t powerless. True, he had very little power, compared to Ben Gratu, who had his mysterious friends and his plans and his schemes. However, he didn’t have to fear a bathroom.

The fact that the tall stall with the stark, metal walls, designed to guide every drop of water into a reclamation drain, inspired fear… that made a wave of anger crash into Temar. He wasn’t a helpless child. He wouldn’t be afraid of blessed bathroom. He wasn’t weak.

Forcing his legs to work despite the mingling of fear and anger, Temar moved into the bathroom.

“I’m fine,” a voice quietly snapped.

“You’re drunk,” a second voice answered, so quiet that Temar couldn’t identify the speaker, although a good guess would be Naite.

“I know that. You should have seen how drunk I was yesterday. Or the day before. Mary and Joseph, I don’t even know how long I’ve been drunk. You were there. How long was it?”

Temar went through the bedroom to stand in the door while Naite tried to get Shan to cross the kitchen, one foot at a time.

“I wasn’t there. You did this on your own.”

Tom came to the entry to the mechanics room, his eyes going to the stairs. “Maybe we should get Hannal.”

“The fewer people who know, the less the danger,” Naite disagreed. “Hannal is a wonderful woman, but every thought she has goes across her face.”

“And if she saw what Ben has done, she’d gut him with a meat knife,” Tom agreed.

“Funny, I thought she’d use a dull knife, to make it last longer,” Naite said. “Shan, just walk,” he snapped, his voice quiet, even if the tone took on a sharper edge.

“Shan, you need to come this way,” Temar said. Shan’s steps had been uncoordinated, and he’d staggered most of the day, but in here, there were tables and walls and rugs to navigate. He wasn’t doing all that well. Temar had noticed that his father’s body always recovered slower than his mind. It meant that his father’s body rarely recovered at all, because by the time his father had sobered up enough to have a conversation, he stumbled out to get more pipe juice.

Shan looked up and made a bleary sort of eye contact before he started moving more intentionally toward Temar. “I’m really not that drunk. I just can’t get my feet to work,” he apologized in a whisper. Shan and Naite struggled through the doorway to the bedroom, and Tom followed before closing the door behind him.

“You are that drunk, Shan. I’ve never seen anyone as drunk as you.”

“You should have seen dad at the end. He was really drunk,” Shan said in an exaggerated whisper. “When he lay down in the sand, he didn’t even twitch.”

“Shan,” Naite said in a disgusted voice, “you weren’t there. You don’t know.”

“I watched him do it. Before I left home. He’d wander up to the Cygnus gate to watch the sunset and sit on the rock out there.”

“That’s not the same.” Naite shoved Shan at a wall and sort of wedged him into a corner formed by a dresser before he started pulling at Shan’s dirty shirt.

“It is,” Shan protested. “I used to tell him he should lie down in the sand.”

“I told him that all the time.” Naite struggled to get Shan’s arm out of the shirt.

“I’m a priest, Naite. I’m supposed to be morally better than that. But I basically told him to go kill himself, and I want to kill Ben Gratu with my own two hands.” Shan kept gesturing with his hands, which made getting the shirt off hard.

“That’s normal enough. So do I.”

“Would someone like to explain why we’re not killing Ben? Right now, I’d be fine with that plan,” Tom interrupted. Temar could feel his guts twist in fear, but he backed up toward the far wall. There were too many people in the room, too much anger and too many emotions that he couldn’t understand.

“He’s having Ista Songwind hold Cyla hostage,” Naite said.

“Which I just about blew everything by going over to Red Plain,” Shan said, his voice muffled as Naite pulled his shirt over his head.

“Holy stars, Shan. You look like a stick figure,” Naite complained. Temar had to agree. Shan’s ribs stuck out so much that it looked like someone had carved the flesh out from between them.

“That’s nothing. You should see my leg,” Shan said with a shrug.

“I think I need to get the medicine kit. And I’m telling Hannal about the murder attempt and the desert journey the priest took.”

“Tom,” Naite growled. He turned around, and Shan reached out a hand to catch at Naite’s arm, like he could really keep Naite back.

Holding up a hand, Tom continued. “I won’t tell her about Temar, and a murder attempt is reason enough that she’ll understand that we cannot tell anyone he’s here, but she trained with a doctor for a year. She’ll be able to check him better than either of us, Naite.”

“What about me?” Temar asked. He suddenly found himself afraid to leave Shan. It was almost as if the fantasy rescue would vanish with Shan.

Tom frowned. “Would it bother you to hide in the closet?” he asked, nodding toward a tall closet chest that stood on the other side of the bed. It was large enough for Temar to stretch out and sleep on the bottom. The early settlers had owned more personal belongings than Temar could really understand one person owning. However, when he’d been at Ben’s, he would have enjoyed a chance to curl up in a small, private place like a closet.

“The slosh stall scared me. The closet would actually be cozy,” Temar said, the words slipping out before he could really think about how crazy they made him sound. He was tired, exhausted even. He hadn’t really slept much lately, and he hadn’t slept at all for two nights now. All three men were silent, and Temar could feel the heat rise to his face.

“If you can face your fears already, you’re a stronger man than I was at your age,” Naite said with a sympathetic look, and Temar wasn’t sure how to take that.

Tom changed the topic back to practical matters. “You smell a bit like Shan here. If you’re in the closet, Hannal might smell you, and you’re certainly going to be stuck smelling yourself. Do you want to clean up?”

“You don’t have to use the slosh stall,” Naite added.

“It’s the fastest way to clean up,” Temar said. “I’ll be quick so you can get Shan some help.” Ignoring his own dry fear, Temar hurried into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. For a second, the echo of the closing door against the smooth metal of the slosh stall made Temar cold, as he thought of Ben’s smile and his hands on Temar’s skin. But Ben wasn’t here.

Clenching his teeth, Temar stripped out of his dirty shirt, and for the first time, he noticed that he did smell bad. It’s just that Shan smelled so much worse that he hadn’t noticed. The sharp stench of fear clung to him, along with his own musky sweat smell and enough of Shan’s pipe-juice smell to tickle his nose.

He cleaned up as fast as he could, the water from the cup running over his smooth skin reminded him too much of those mornings when Ben would spend time in the stall, pouring water over Temar’s welts and then running a rough thumb over the bruises. He’d enjoyed Temar’s bruises the way another man might appreciate the beauty in a piece of glass. It was as if he’d demoted Temar from human to an object, and that had been harder than the beatings, harder than the sex, and the sex was hard because Temar had had very few lovers before Ben… not that Ben had been a lover. Temar knew what Ben had done, even if his mind skittered away from the word. He didn’t have time to panic, not now.

When Temar used the cup to rinse the last of the soap and dirt off his body, he realized he had only one nightshirt, which smelled as bad as Shan. Carefully inching the door open, he looked into the bedroom, hiding behind the door. Tom and Naite stood near the bed, and Shan’s one bare leg was visible between them.

“Unholy stars, how the hell did you walk with that?”

“I was drunk.”

“Clearly, you were very drunk,” Naite said.

“I could have told you that. Wait. I did tell you that. Your memory is worse than mine, and I’m still half drunk.”

“You’re still completely drunk, and you’re a shitty drunk, Shan,” Naite disagreed. He shifted, and Temar had a view of Shan’s leg. The whole side of it was torn open and weeping blood and pus. Temar’s stomach revolted, and he gave a loud dry heave before he could slam the door shut and stagger to the toilet.

Temar’s throat and mouth burned as he threw up yellow bile. How could he have missed the fact that Shan had a serious injury?

There was a soft knock on the door. “Temar?” It sounded like Tom.

“I don’t have any clothes,” Temar said, even though that didn’t seem like a very big worry now. Shan could lose his leg with an injury like that.