The Hour of My Distress
There are spaces and ages when the island lies empty but for the pair. This is when the banyan and the bamboo grows the deepest, scattering wild; and the vines wrap thickest around old relics, nature's caress; and the loam coats untouched earth, soft blankets. The green of the earth and the silent blue of the sky and the sunlight blazes white against Jacob's handmade linen clothes.
He walks alone as much as he can, bare feet leaving trails on the beach, bare fingers tracing the stone of the statue; the rules and the bargain set keep him safe enough, safest when he's in solitude. Thou shalt not kill – well, at least not each other. There's more to it, of course, but that's the base. The heart of the rule. So they remain separate, and in sporadic company with his enemy, his friend, he blesses destiny for the rule that the other remains out of reach of his vital self.
As he walks and lives and waits, Jacob prefers the company of life, mortal pacing, the bustle and the sound, but it brings no peace. The other stays too close, marking faces and leaving soft laughter where they go. A game to the other, and in darker hours it's much the same to Jacob himself, but the stakes are Vegas high and more than one faction's bones rest under the stones and ground and loam. Sometimes the other comes by wearing faces, jostling memory and reminding him of mistakes.
And sometimes, just sometimes, once a century or less or occasionally more, the other idles up the beach with some found treasure, a bottle of wine or forgotten spirit, and they talk of nothing and of everything. The other remains distant during these visits, but the hawklike stare never leaves Jacob's face.
You'll try anything, Jacob told the other once. I know you.
An easy grin filled the other's face. It was a boy that day, some dead shipwreck with full lips and green eyes and pale bare feet that'd never walk the lands of home again. You don't know me near as well as you think. I'll come see you again sometime in between the wars. We'll talk about what we're willing to try. Threat or promise or prophecy, Jacob watched them go. He slept for a time, unsettled.
*
More come to the island and leave again, feet first, spirit first, bones and meat forgotten. Another era with no change. It's marked a draw in the eternal battle, though this never stopped the other from their little gloating. The shadows whispered along the tree line, mocking and muttering at Jacob and then drew away to let him rest. Jacob waited instead, waiting for another attempt, some new form of attack. Days drew into nights and long, silent passages of time, and eventually he fell asleep in the heart of dark jungle, safe enough and alone enough to forget for a little while.
When he awoke again, he was not alone, and he stared up into the fine-figured face for a long while. He said nothing, reacted in no way. He recalled the person who had been, some tangle-haired beauty who had arrived on a trihemiolia no longer destined for Egyptian merchant ports. She had been one of the few survivors, a regal force to replace her father's authority among the others, and she had held the faction together against the other's predations well enough. Not well enough to survive the island and its rules, but they had thrived for some months. Better than many, and Jacob had admired her even as she was the last to fall. From a distance, to be certain. He was human enough, and he didn't need the temptation.
Now temptation perched over him, inches from touch and the tanned, sharp-cheeked face gave him a wry smile. Still too human, a little taste of want and lonely thrilled through Jacob and he pushed the thought and feeling away as best he could. He rose a little, slid himself away along grass and moss and gave the other a disapproving look. "When I said I knew you'd try anything, damn, this was not the first thing to cross my mind."
The other – she – tossed her dark hair back over bare shoulders and crossed tan arms along the black tunic that clothed the lithe figure. "I'm bored. I thought I'd try a new game."
"Cute." Jacob rose, turned away, and brushed dirt from his pants. "Try it on the next to arrive. Leave me out of it."
"Oh, but they're so transient and they don't react nearly as well." The voice drifted close, just behind the shell of his ear.
"I wasn't aware I was reacting."
A soft laugh, and a hand drifted along his thigh. "I know you better than that, old friend." The voice drew away. "Maybe later. Or now. I can't decide. It's not as if I can kill you." The voice was languid and the hand still lingered. Jacob did his best to ignore it. "Although I'd be a liar if I didn't admit I hope for a heart attack."
Some muscle began to twitch in Jacob's jaw. "I'm not interested. Back off."
"Oh, but little Jacob... you are." Soft hiss and hot breath in his ear and the hand had cupped upwards to mark the lie. "I saw you watch her, every night, even as she slept, but oh, you just wouldn't touch her. Shall you lie more to me and tell me how chaste and pure you are? You can touch me.
"It's lonely in the jungle, old friend. Old enemy. If I can't go home, I'm going to torture you every chance I can. This counts, even as it cuts the solitude a little. I can still bring you pain, if not death, and if you enjoy it a little, well, it just means you're still as fallen a bastard as I."
"Back. Off."
"You'll want it later. I'll look for you then." A shadow spread behind him and then fell away.
Jacob said nothing, not even to himself, and went to plunge himself into the cold sea to wash all of his thoughts away.
*
Another war came and went, paler figures who fought with Viking vigor and iron and chipped stone. Crude and brief that war, lasted through one thrall-frenzied funeral and then fell forever. The longboats were pushed away into the sea, and not even a week after the last hot-blooded warrior died did the other come to haunt the beaches in the naked and mad-eyed form of the funeral guide.
"Not as tempting, considering the fate of their kind." Jacob's voice was mild and he kept his arms crossed against the nymph figure.
"I got bored of the Roman girl. Thought I'd try a new fashion." The other spun, displaying slender hips and pale thighs. "No? Oh, well. Off to the dressing room again." A wink and a vanish.
*
Jacob's sleep grew lighter and more restless. More nights than not he'd awake to find some figure seated on the other side of ritual fire. Female, male, all with the same predatory smile. The same hunger. The smile would widen, and the other would slip away into darkness. Paranoia began to set in – am I touched in my sleep? How close do they come? - and the fear that sooner or later loneliness would mark this battle's loss for him.
One night, he woke alone, blinking at nothing and smelling the carbon crackle of the fire. He sat for a while, his weight on his arms wondering what had awakened him, wondering why something in his belly trembled.
"If you need a name to whisper when I'm with you, you can always go with Legion," came the sibilant, throaty hiss in his ear. Close enough for the smell of rich musk and straw and smoke. Jacob turned his head very slightly, saw androgyne features and blue eyes that flickered with firelight. "It's better than all my other ones, especially for this." Full lips drifted closer to his throat. Jacob pulled away, a thought of escape leaving the flesh of his neck further exposed to the teeth that nipped very carefully. The sensation drifted down to his shoulders, his clavicle, a hint of tongue leaving wet heat. "I can't kill you, but I can make it hurt, and come on, old enemy. Old friend. Let me win just one little war. Maybe you'll take the next."
Jacob's lips parted as if to protest, and the other, its figure mixed male and female and bound in place by hate, pressed its own against them. When he had a chance to gasp for breath or call for a stop, he inhaled, but said nothing. Maybe the next war.
*
It passed the time for a while, for more than a while, nights and days gone in some frenetic blur. The other would show up, female, the Roman, the thrall, the Egyptian oracle, the tangled jungle woman, and Jacob would pour himself into her, allowing the lost figures and dreams of the past to have purchase against his hungry form. In other hours were men, young and old even the more familiar, greying face. Jacob permitted the taking, tasting pain and pleasure. It was too late to renege the terms of strife.
It broke the silence of the eternal island, hungry cries and messages of hate and temptation and threat.
They took no mistake of it for love, just another war within a war while waiting for more wars, but the sleep the battle brought was heavy and deep and Jacob relished waking afterward even as he hated himself for allowing the sensation of his enemy's mouth against all his body.
Maybe the next war, he told himself every night before falling into the other's seduction.
In the dark, old enemy, you'll warn me of all your loopholes.