Swords of Waar (22 page)

Still it was kinda tough lying there in the dark with my feet hanging a foot off the end of the bed and all my bruises and cuts and scrapes screaming at me, wishing I had someone to hold me and kiss me and make it all go away—particularly when the someone I wanted was right under me, not wanting to be with me. That was the thing that was gnawing at me like a sack full of rats. I could deal with the pain, but this was really the first quiet minute I’d had since Lhan had told me to pack my bags, and thinking about that fucking hurt worse than all the rest of it.

Why had I come back to Waar? Why hadn’t I realized how little I knew about Lhan? Because I’d been thinking with my cunt, is why. My brain had been scrambled by that romance novel night we’d had together before the priests had sent me back to Earth, and I’d jumped right back across the whole fucking universe to try to have it again. How was I supposed to guess he’d be a stupid, stiff-necked caveman who wanted me to play Snow White to his Prince Charming? How was I supposed to know he’d have a stick so far up his ass that he’d rather die than let a woman save him—even a woman who could bench press him for reps.

I’d fucked up. I’d made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come back. I should have stayed on Earth and taken Eli up on his trip to Mexico. I coulda been alone there just as easy as here, and at least there I coulda drowned my sorrows in beers and Marlboros. At least there I wouldn’t be rubbing elbows with Lhan every five minutes without bein’ allowed to jump his bones.

Thinking about not being able to touch him flipped the switch, and all of a sudden all the pain and loneliness and anger I’d been tryin’ to hold down just filled me up like a balloon and I started crying into my pillow. I tried to keep quiet about it, but it just kept getting worse, and after a minute of clenching and wiping my nose, a sob got away from me and I heard Lhan shift on the bottom bunk.

“Mistress? Is all well?”

“It’s f-f-fine.”

I heard him sit up. “Mistress, you are weeping.”

“What if I am? Whadda you care!”

There was a pause from below, then, “Mistress, if it is I who have caused this unhappiness, then I apologize. If it is any consolation, the decision has hurt me as well. More than you can know.”

“Oh yeah? I don’t see you cryin’.”

“Nevertheless. I assure you I am in pain.”

“Whatever, dude.”

This time the pause was even longer, but after a minute he spoke again.

“Mistress. Jae-En. I—I hope… I hope you do not intend to help the Aldhanan in his fight against the church—if indeed he chooses to fight.”

I frowned, confused. Why were we talking about that all of a sudden? “Huh? I thought you hated those guys.”

“With ever fiber of my being. They are a cancer in the breast of Ora. But… but it need not be your fight.”

I frowned, then rolled over and looked down at him over the edge of the top bunk. “Of course it’s my fight! After all they’ve done to me, and you, and Sai and Wen-Jhai, I owe the whole fucking temple a swift kick up the—”

“What they did to you is precisely what gives me cause for concern, Mistress. You came close to death today, more times than I could count, and, just as often, I failed to protect you.”

I gave him a look. “You don’t have to protect me anymore. You broke up with me. Or don’t you remember—”

I stopped as I noticed a little leather cord around his waist that disappeared into his loincloth. He twitched as he saw where I was looking, and tried to stop me as I reached down to him and pulled it out. It was the balurrah he’d made for me—the pink pebble with the crappy sketch of my sword scratched into it. I stared at it, heart hammering.

“Wh-what the hell, Lhan?”

He looked away. “Forgive me, Mistress. That our love is impossible does not make it easier to deny. I—I….”

I clamped my hand around the thing, choking up. “Goddamn it, Lhan. You are tearing me in half!”

He touched my hand. “And myself as well, which is why I ask that you not participate in the conflict before us. I—I could not bear it if you were to fall in the fighting because of my failings. Indeed… Indeed…” He got stuck there, skipping like a broken record, then he jumped the groove and went on. “Indeed, I believe it would be for the best if… if you were to go home.”

I blinked. “Go home? Whaddaya mean, go home? You mean go back to Earth?”

“Back to your lands. Yes.”

I switched my grip to his throat, pinning him to his cot.

“First off, you dipstick, I don’t have any more clue how to get back to Earth this time than I did last time. Second, why the fuck would I go back when you’re still wearing my ballurah?”

There were tears in his eyes. “Because you cannot have me, and I cannot have you, and I would spare us both the torture of proximity.”

Funny, I’d just been thinking the same thing, but coming out of his mouth I didn’t like it. “You idiot! The only thing keeping you from having me is your goddamn Oran code. Look, you said before we were better suited as companions. Okay fine. Let’s be companions—companions who fuck.”

He stiffened up like I’d slapped him. “This is not a youthful fling. This is not the crude rutting of beasts. This is a grand passion, a noble meeting of hearts, a pure and—”

“And because of that we can’t touch each other?” I let go of him and grabbed the balurrah again. The cord snapped. I held onto it and rolled back onto my bunk to face the wall. “Get out of here, Lhan. Go sleep in the hall. If you’re gonna leave me alone, I’d rather be by myself.”

He stood from his cot and looked at me. I could hear him breathing at my shoulder. “Mistress, you have my balurrah. You must return it to me.”

“Why? We can’t be together, right? So what’s the point of you wearing it?”

“It speaks what my heart may not.”

“Yeah, well, I think I’ll just keep it. It’ll make a nice little memento of that cute Lhan guy who couldn’t make up his mind whether he loved me or not.”

“I do love you, Mistress. You know that I do.”

“Okay, then.” I rolled over to face him, then slipped the thing into my loincloth and spread my legs. “So come get it.”

He stared at me, quivering, for a long minute, then stepped back with as much dignity as a guy pitching a tent in his banana hammock can muster, and drew himself up. “You are cruel, Mistress, and I will take my leave, but not before you answer my question.”

I closed my legs. “What question is that?”

“Will you keep out of the coming fight?”

He must have seen how I was going to answer, ’cause his cool broke and he stepped forward again. “Come, Jae-En. Did you not say you would only fight until Sai and Wen-Jhai were rescued? Well, you have done so. They are safe, and you have no personal stake in the conflict to come. Why risk your life?”

Well, he had me there. As mad as I was at the church for everything they’d done, I was also fed up with being stabbed at and shot at and running for my life every other second. But the original plan had been for me and Lhan to head out on the open road together once we’d saved the kids, and that didn’t look like it was going to happen. What was I supposed to do by myself? Sit around in Ormolu and twiddle my thumbs while Lhan and everybody else went off and saved the world? Yeah, right. And what if they screwed up and the priests won?

I must have been staring off into space for a while, because Lhan cleared his throat. “Er, has my speech offended, Mistress?”

“Huh? No, no. It’s not that. I’m sick of fighting, believe me.”

“And yet?”

Yeah, there was an “and yet.” I wished there wasn’t, but there was. “I don’t know, Lhan. If we were back on Earth, I’d be wishing you good luck and heading off to the bar, but….” I shook my head. “Back there, one person can’t change anything. Not even the President of the United States. Nothing anybody does makes one damn bit of difference. The government, the corporations, poverty, hunger, they’re like clouds. They’re so big and so murky and so
everywhere
, you can’t fight ’em. There’s no one bad guy you can punch in the face to save the world. But here…”

I swept a hand at the porthole. “Things aren’t so set on Waar, the way they are back home. Here, one person
can
make a difference. I already have, and so have you.” I pointed to my sword, which was leaning against the bulkhead nearby. “You and me and that sword, we brought down Kedac-Zir, who was gonna kill the Aldhanan and take over the country. Just now we saved Sai and Wen-Jhai and the Aldhanan from a bunch of evil priests.”

“We
did
have help, Mistress.”

“Sure, but would they have won if we hadn’t helped? And that’s what I’m saying. This fight with the church? I could be the difference between the Aldhanan winning and losing. How can I turn my back and walk away when I know that?”

Lhan hung his head. “You shame me, Mistress, with your nobility. My thoughts have been only for my frustrations and fears, while you think of the good of the world.”

“It ain’t nobility, Lhan. It’s guilt.”

He gave me a sideways smile. “It is rare indeed when the two are not one and the same.”

I looked up at him. “So, you’re okay with it, then? Me coming along?”

His smile died. “You would not demur were I not, so it matters not.” He bowed, then turned for the door. “Good night, Mistress.”

He looked so forlorn that, even after everything he’d said, I wanted to pull him onto the bunk and comfort him, but I didn’t. He would have brought his pride with him, and there wasn’t enough room. The fucking thing was bigger than the both of us combined.

“Good night, Lhan.”

When he was gone, I pulled the balurrah out of my loincloth, then wondered what I was gonna do with it. It felt a little weird to wear it. Who wears their own love-token, right? I stuffed it in my pack. I’d have to give it some more thought.

Whatever I did with it, I wanted to make sure it was something that would really piss off Lhan.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

WAR!

T
hree days later, just after sunset, the whole gang walked down the airship’s gangplank right onto the balcony of the Aldhanan’s private apartments on the top floor of the palace—door-to-door service, just like rockstars—only Lhan and I were dressed up like guards so no church spies could see who we were.

And it was a good thing too, ’cause the church was waiting on us. Before the Aldhanan even had time to take off his cloak, one of his servants scurried up to him and bowed.

“My Aldhanan. The High Priest Duru-Vau wishes to speak with you on a matter of great urgency. He awaits without.”

The Aldhanan glared at the guy like he was gonna kill him, then waved him away. “Have him wait. I will receive him in my bed chamber.”

The servant bowed himself out and the Aldhanan turned to us. “It seems the battle is joined already.”

Lhan stepped forward, his hand on his sword. “And we are ready, my Aldhanan.”

The Aldhanan chuckled. “It will not come to blows yet. The first skirmish will be one of words, and I believe I have a way to win it.” He grinned. “If you wish to listen, there is a screen in my room, behind which you will not be seen. Wen-Jhai knows the way.”

He headed out one door with Captain Anan and his guards and Wen-Jhai led the rest of us out another, and brought us to a little room like a walk-in closet, except it had some benches in it and one wall was a fancy wooden lattice with black fabric tacked to the back of it. With the lamps lit in the room beyond we could see everything that went on, and with the no lights on our side, nobody could see us—at least I hoped not. There was a tiny door in the left-hand wall of the closet, but I didn’t know what it was for. Maybe it was an actual closet.

Wen-Jhai motioned us all to sit down on the benches and be quiet while on the other side of the screen, the Aldhanan entered and his maids helped him into his bed clothes, then tucked him into the bed. The old fox lay back and did his best to look more wounded than he was, then motioned for them to go.

“Just like wide screen TV.”

“Shhh!”

“Sorry.”

After a second, a door opened and the servant bowed in a guard and a young, bookish-looking poindexter who woulda been kinda pretty except for his lack of chin. I looked behind him, expecting to see an older, scarier looking priest come in after him, but he was it. I was surprised. He looked too young to run the choir, let alone the whole temple.

But any doubts I had about whether he was the guy behind everything disappeared when I saw him look at the Aldhanan. He was truly surprised to see him, and blinked like he thought the bed would be empty if he looked again. After that, an angry look flashed across his face, but he managed to turn it into a look of concern as he approached the bed.

“Aldhanan. I grieve to see you so hurt. May the Seven grant that you recover quickly.”

“My thanks, Duru-Vau. And I thank you for seeking me out so promptly. You are no doubt anxious to hear what occurred in Durgallah.”

Duru-Vau bowed, but didn’t cross his wrists. “Most anxious indeed, my Aldhanan. I… I feared when you left that the, the danger was too much, and am greatly relieved to see you safely returned.”

The Aldhanan smiled. “No doubt. No doubt.” He sighed like he was in pain and sank back into his pillows, holding his bandaged shoulder. “Well, your Reverence, it was precisely as you said. The outcast Dhan and his outland giantess were holding my daughter and her consort in the heathen temple, lying in wait for us with an army of black-robed heretics at their backs.”

Duru-Vau pretended to be surprised. “It must have been terrifying. Er, did… did all survive?”

The Aldhanan grinned. “The outcast and his giantess did not, that is for certain, nor did their followers. Despite the ambush, we killed them to a man.”

Duru-Vau was starting to look a little sick. “And your daughter? Her consort? You rescued them?”

“Indeed. They had been starved and grievously abused, and were about to be sacrificed by the heretics in some unholy ceremony, but through luck and swiftness, we saved them from the heathen blade.” He put on a sad face, though I could see him struggling to hold it. “We did lose some, however. Many good men fell in that battle, and your brother, his reverence Ru-Manan, as well. One of the heretics kicked him into the pit and he broke his neck. I beg your forgiveness that I was not able to protect him.”