Chapter Twenty-Six
Kall-Su had plunged into the tumultuous flood he had created like a spent bird exhausted from too long a flight. Amir had fished him out the first time, distracted himself by the channeling of his own powers -- the urging of the ocean to rage with all her might through the narrow path the ice wizard had made for her. And she had. Oh, most righteously she had roared into the desert and created a gulf where no gulf had before existed.
The second time Kall-Su had attempted flight, he was reeling from the aftereffects of the over-extension of the massive splitting of earth that he had accomplished. No small task. Amir quite honestly, had doubted his ability to do it. How mistaken he had been. His estimation of the ice wizard had gone up several dozen notches with that stellar display of power and determination. But it had drained him and hurt him, that was clear enough. He was hardly coherent when he insisted on flying inland in search of the other wizard. Hardly capable of carrying out that plan. Simple flight was beyond him at the moment and again the sea claimed him and again Amir saved him from the mother ocean's sweet caress.
He made a promise to go after the other one himself. The noisy one. The one who had made the whole of the world it seemed, ring with the echoes of the magics he had unleashed. He and Ramlah. Amir's head hurt from the residue signature of so much powerful magic unleashed in such a short period of time. He'd never experienced the like. He shivered to imagine what that battle had been like close up. He had felt the vibrations miles and miles away. The destruction.
If the ice wizard had been concise and particular in his method of magic - - the fire one was sheer destruction. Frightening to recall that Amir himself had attempted to shanghai the two of them. He could only have faith that the luck of the sea had saved him and his from suffering their wrath.
The ocean was devastating in her unleashed fury. The Nile was flooded with salt water, her fertile fields drowned under the harsh bite of the sea. Villages for forty miles in either direction had been simply washed away. Many of them had already been abandoned in fear of the March. Others pre-warned. Some - - had not been so lucky. There was a new bay where before there had only been bone dry desert. It was still fed by the sea. A hundred new tributaries and rivers had been created, but the majority would soon trickle away, absorbed by the sands. It would take years, Amir predicted for the Nile to rid itself fully of the brackish mixture of salt and fresh waters. It would make for hard times for those people who relied upon the pure waters of the mother river to support them.
Of Ramlah's army there was no sign, other than the occasional floating corpse that drifted to the surface. Of the Black March nothing.
Perhaps the power of the sea had overwhelmed them. For a day Amir searched the new gulf for life and found nothing. No scent of magic, no essence of power that hinted that something more than human had survived the flooding.
Almost he had prepared himself to give up the search, jubilant on the one hand that their desperate ploy seemed to have worked, that there was no trace of the desert born March under the lapping waves. Reluctant to go back on the other and tell the ice wizard that his search had been futile. That the water had taken friend and foe. Perhaps not even the water. Perhaps the power of the March had been the culprit, but he doubted it, recalling the stinging flavor of two magics vibrating from that valley up till the very last.
Then without warning, the waters at the center of the new gulf became choppy with turbulence. Amir called men of his in their small craft away from it in a panic. Afraid very much of an enemy resurgence. He himself prepared to call up the power of the ocean one more time to do what he might against what might prove to be an unbeatable foe.
A bubble pierced the water's surface. Small and dripping and hovering over the waves in what seemed wary anticipation. Hardly threatening. Hardly exuding much in the way of power at all. It seemed somewhat neutral in its posture. Amir approached, cautiously and felt the buzz of strong shields as his little boat drifted underneath. Hard to see within at all so thick that barrier. Then rather suddenly, it wavered and failed, disappearing entirely and a body plunged wordlessly back into the waters.
Amir thought he glimpsed pale skin and hair within a tangle of dark robes, but the water ate it up too fast to tell. He called for Her to bring the body back up, but She didn't respond -- too overwhelmed perhaps by the residue magic here to even hear his plea. He swore, shed his outer robes and dove into the water's cool embrace. Unerringly down through the murk, as at home here as he was on the deck of his ship. His fingers found material and he hauled his catch back towards the surface - - handed it up to the men waiting at the side of the little boat and dragged himself up over the edge afterwards.
Is he alive? He seems dead. How could a man have survived such? The whispers of his men carried in the breeze. Amir did not have an answer for them, uncertain himself. It was hard to tell if breath stirred at all, but the skin was almost warm and outwardly whole, save for mighty rents in the robes.
An odd breed - - wizards. Quite miraculously durable, as Amir well knew from his own experiences. He could only hope that the enemy still below the waves did not have the same resilience.
*
Dreams of tides battling with biting sands pelted Dark Schneider's subconscious mind. Of screaming - - not his own - - and death and wholesale destruction. Of pain. Some his and some inflicted by him. It was saved from being a nightscare by the simple fact that in his own indomitable way, he knew he wasn't the victim of the tale. He knew rather unerringly that he was the monster that laughed at the deaths and reveled in the destruction. He was pleased with that knowledge. The tides made him uneasy though. He couldn't escape the rocking motion of them, couldn't escape the slightly queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that warned of an enemy that had proven his superior. Seasickness.
Even in the depths of his healing slumber, it nagged at him. Better to stave it off with wakefulness than suffer through it asleep.
He opened his eyes to darkness. To the constant creaking of wood, and the subtle lapping of water against the hull of a ship. Ship smells, ship sounds. Wizard sight adjusted quickly to the moonlight enhanced dark. A rough ceiling above his head. A vaguely familiar cabin, with vaguely familiar furniture. His thoughts were still muzzy from his days long hibernation. Piecing together how he'd gotten here was a task not really worth the effort it would take.
There was a body next to him, nestled between himself and the wall, so deeply saturated by that healing coma that sorcerer's who had spent too much of themselves plunged into, that there was no singular trace of his essence for Schneider to pick up on. Still as death, but warm and whole.
Good boy, to have done what he had. Impeccable timing. As always. Schneider folded an arm behind his head and grinned up into the shadows of the ceiling. When that tidal monstrosity had crashed down upon them all, it had been he who'd held the upper hand. He who'd been ready - - well at least more ready that Ramlah - - to get up and finish the fight. The Black March might have made a difference - - would have, brutal honesty, forced him to admit - - but Ramlah, he had gotten the better of.
He laughed. Lay there grinning as he took stock of himself. Body healed for the most part. He felt the strain of the magics. Impossible not to when so much power had been channeled through his physical form. He hadn't bothered much with elementals to carry out that fight - had just gone headlong into it, relying on his own energies. Rash action, but it hadn't failed him. He was frankly surprised he was awake. He still felt the drain. Still felt the great empty chasm where his energies usually resided. They would replenish themselves with a little time. A day ago, he would have been as weak as a backwoods hedge witch. Today, he might give a first rate wizard for hire a run for his money. Tomorrow - - tomorrow would be better. He doubted Kall-Su would be up to casting a spell for many days. Kall never had regenerated energies quite as rapidly as Schneider.
It occurred to him that he was owed a boon for surviving the battle with Ramlah. That itch in his loins that always nagged him after a great victory - - or a minor one - - reminded him of what had been promised and of whom. He rolled to his side, sliding a hand under the silken sheets that covered them to the warmth that lay a hands breadth away.
Ah. Smooth, bare flesh. He felt a fondness for Amir - - he assumed it was Amir who'd put them here in his own cabin - - welling. Considerate to let him wake to a naked bedmate, even a most seriously exhausted naked one. He was in much the same state, but he did seem to recall hazily being very, very wet the last time he was aware. Thoughts of the brother of the sea were fleeting. He was more intrigued by the texture of Kall-Su's skin. The feel of ribs under their veneer of muscle, the hard angles and firm curves sheathed in soft skin. So very different than the plush roundness of a woman - - yet alluring in their own right. He found a flat nipple and leisurely brushed his fingertips across it until the little nub hardened and the flesh around it pimpled in agitation. When he tired of that, he ran his hand down the hollow of Kall-Su's ribcage to the flat planes of his stomach, shied away from the sleeping flesh between his legs, not entirely content with the notion of handling another man, even though he dearly wanted to fuck him. Those few occasions when he'd sated his lusts with men instead of women, he'd never been interested in anything other than his own immediate satisfaction. He'd never used them as anything other than a handy substitute for what he really wanted. Never cared to pay heed to what was dangling between their legs, if what was between their buttocks offered a tight, hot answer to his need.
He'd taken a boy once, when he was out to conquer the world for the sheer challenge of it, who'd looked like Kall-Su. At the time, it hadn't properly occurred to him why that simpering little page had held more allure than the pampered ladies of the vanquished court. Blonde and blue-eyed and pretty - - but not as pretty as the wizardling under his tutelage. But certainly more attainable. Certainly less guilt to fuck. He'd held enough guilt those first few months when Arshes Nei had become bed partner instead of adopted daughter to ever consciously contemplate buggering the other lost soul he'd taken under his wing. He'd gotten over it, of course. She'd helped. He still remembered how nice a ride that little blonde page had provided.
Down one well-shaped, lean thigh, back up, pressing his fingers into the soft skin of inner leg, back to the juncture of Kall's legs again. Hesitation. Dark Schneider was nothing if not a bold lover, an overly aggressive one, quite honestly, but still - - it was a woman's place to fondle a man's jewels and the rod that lay between them - - not another man's. He mulled that over, thumb-stroking the indent of Kall-Su's navel - - thinking that perhaps that was a somewhat of a rash rule. Good oral sex, was good oral sex, whether from a boy or a girl. Granted, it wasn't as if he'd let a man that looked like Gara near his crotch - - but it was a rather warming thought of Kall-Su down there. He spent a moment visualizing it and hardened immediately from the mental pictures.
All right, so he was a hypocrite. He'd never particularly denied it. He decided to change his view of things. Great hairy, oafish men were in no way allowed access to his private parts. Nor small, plain ones, or medium sized-leather-faced ones. The occasional pretty one was allowed. This particular one he might even make an exception with, and venture to touch himself.
If it was going to be attempted, it might as well be while Kall was comatose and not likely to witness Schneider's ineptitude. That would be unforgivable. He took a breath and slipped his hand lower down Kall-Su's belly, fingers plunging into the soft thatch of hair at the juncture of his thighs. Lower still to the warm, pliant tube of flesh nestled within it. Ah, velvety soft and warmer than the rest of Kall's body. Hardly impressive in its flacidity, hardly repulsive. Rather nice, actually, the weight of the scrotum, the way the flesh shifted inside it when he handled it, all of it soft and sleepy and - - Kall-Su.
A bit of life sprang into it at his handling. Blood flowed and Kall-Su murmured, disturbed out of his hibernation by the most primal of sensations. Schneider kept his hand in place, enjoying the power. Wanting to see that first bewildered expression in the younger wizard's eyes when he opened them. Wanting to see the realization dawn of who had him in hand and what it meant.
Other than the slight stirring, Kall-Su didn't wake. Schneider frowned, denied and moved his body closer, skin to skin, pressing the heated length of his own erection hard against Kall's thigh. Taking him while he was out didn't present any particular moral problem for Schneider - - certainly not if it relieved the growing discomfort between his legs - - and Kall-Su had made a promise - - it was just a matter of not enjoying it as much. He wanted to see Kall's face and he wanted to hear what sounds he'd make during the act. No fair if Kall-Su missed the experience the first time.
He sulked over Kall's unresponsiveness; amused himself with the casual tasting of skin, the feel of a hard little nipple under his tongue, a more thorough investigation of the area between Kall-Su's legs. Found the point of entry with a forefinger and grazed the tight ring of muscle that guarded it. Shifted, lifting Kall-Su's leg to better explore, having second thoughts even as he did about waiting for actual consciousness.
Wake up! He drove that mental command past protective barriers. He really shouldn't have. A body went into this state out of need, not casual want. Never wise to interrupt it before it was healed enough to waken on its own. But he didn't sense any particularly nasty rupture. Nothing really beyond over-extension. The same as him. Wakeupwakeupwakeupdamnit!
Kall-Su's eyes snapped open in a panic. Dazed. Fogged with sleep and looking for an enemy. It took him a few precious moments to register that there were hands on his body. A few desperate more to realize who they belonged to.
"DS?" he tried to shrug out from under the casual caress. Tried to wriggle up to the head of the bed. Schneider wasn't about to allow escape. He wrapped an arm about Kall's waist and pinned him in place. Used his weight to concrete the effort and looked down with amusement at Kall-Su's bewildered expression.
"Yes. Me. Alive. Victorious. You owe me."
"I owe - -? oh. But - - God, what time is it? What happened?"
"I don't know. Night time. I beat Ramlah. Your water drowned all his minions. Time for celebration."
"No -- Ds, wait. Are we on the ship?"
"On a ship, yes."
Kall was breathing hard beneath him. As distraught by his lack of cohesive memory of what had happened at the end as he was of Schneider's body on his.
"I need a moment to think." Kall asked - - pleaded almost. It sounded rather pitiful regardless. Maybe it was the rocking of the ship. He removed one hand from trying to push Schneider away and rubbed at a temple.
"Head hurt?"
"Yes."
"You pushed it too hard. You weren't healed enough, yet."
"I had a choice?"
Schneider shrugged, sliding a hand back down. "I'll take your mind from it."
"DS - -oh." Kall's eyes rolled up. He squirmed, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "I - - don't think - - this is the time -- we should see what - - what's happened."
"Nonsense. This is the perfect time. You owe me, remember?"
Kall blinked up, wide eyed, frightened of that rash promise he'd made now that it was lying naked upon his form. He knew better than to deny it.
"I remember."
Schneider grinned. "Ah, I thought you might. Now be a good boy and spread your legs - -"
Oh, but he was nice. He smelled a bit of salt water, a bit of the spices that permeated Amir's cabin - - but mostly of that unique essence that was simply Kall-Su. And shy. Like a 14 year old virgin on her wedding night - - only he wasn't 14 and he wasn't a virgin - - though Schneider supposed he might as well be, never having had willing sex with a man. God knew what that girl had taught him. Something useful, one hoped. Only reasonable to assume she'd managed to thaw some of that frigidity under the sheets. How to kiss maybe, because as far as he knew Kall-Su hadn't learned it anywhere else and under the duress of Schneider's assault he gave a little and his lips softened under Schneider's and his tongue flicked here and there like a hesitant, wild thing.
A little overwhelmed, a little frightened - - neither of which displeased Schneider. He softened his approach, like he might for a girl he was out to woo into willing cooperation instead of ravishment. A gentler nibbling of lips, a less forceful intrusion of tongue, a sort of leisurely exploration of taste and texture and sensation. Kall-Su went a little loose under him, a little less resistant. Not much choice, backed into the pillows of the corner, Schneider's hands pressing his wrists into the mattress, a gentle but firm reminder of who was in charge of who here. He ran his hands up from Kall-Su's wrists to the inside of his elbows and back again, enough pressure to keep hold of arms that still wanted to reflexively push him away, not enough to hurt.
The foreplay was an annoyance to him, in his present state of arousal. His flesh demanded something other than the weight of his body pressing it into Kall-Su's belly. He wanted to flip Kall onto his belly, pull his hips up to his groin and ram himself home fast and hard - - relieve the initial pressure and then get on with the more casual entertainment of exploration and tactile pleasures. If it had been some inconsequential bedmate, he would have, regardless of any comfort but his own. He felt - - grudgingly - - that he owed this one a bit more consideration. At the very least Kall-Su had earned some bit of regard by pulling off the feat that he had. So foreplay it was.
A slow coaxing out of nervousness - - or at least outright fear. The gratifying spread of the heat that infused him as Kall-Su's flacidity began to dissipate and warm, hard flesh pressed into Schneider's. Oh, interesting sensation that. It made him draw back a bit and look down into Kall-Su's half lidded eyes. Large pupiled and hazy. Rosy lips, swollen from Schneider's attentions parted, giving glimpses of white teeth and pink tongue. That pale, pale skin flushed with what Schneider liked to think as arrousement and not shame.
He had to know. His ego wouldn't allow otherwise. He pressed his lips against the hollow of Kall's throat. Worked his way leisurely up to the soft lobe of his ear and whispered.
"Does it feel good? Do I feel good?"
Ragged breath was his answer. A slight helpless nod of the head. It wasn't quite what he'd wanted. He found Kall's hand and pulled it down, lifted himself up enough to allow space between them. Guided Kall's long, slim fingers to the engorged shaft sprouting from Schneider's loin's, pressing them around it, Schneider's own hand encircling Kall-Su's.
"Ask for it." He whispered into Kall's mouth, catching a soft lip in his teeth, letting it go and slipping his tongue inside to test the slickness of the inside of those lush lips. He propelled the movement of both their hands up and down his shaft, groaning at the way Kall-Su's fingers tightened of their own accord.
"You want me?" he asked, slipping his own fingers away, finding the heat of Kall's erection. Kall-Su made a muffled sound, bit his lip and arched his body up against Schneider's.
"Say it." Schneider demanded. "Ask for it."
"Yes." A whispered admission.
"Yes what?"
Kall's eyes fluttered open, pupils shrinking in sudden sharp irritation. "You know - - what. Stop being - - a bastard - - and just do it."
Schneider grinned, needing little other encouragement. He pushed himself up, caught hold of one of Kall-Su's knees and drew it up and against him. Pushed the other one forward and lay the throbbing length of himself against the enticing rear that had been pulled up close to his body. He took a moment to appreciate the body laid out before him, all slim, lean muscled lines, concave sweep of the belly under heaving ribs, tousled sun-gold hair, uptilted black rimmed eyes half shut, lips pressed tight, hands digging into the bedsheets as if the boy were expecting the most excruciating assault.
"It won't hurt." He said.
"Yes it will." Kall hissed without quite looking up at Schneider.
"Maybe a little." Schneider agreed. "But only if I want it too."
Kall's eyes blinked open at that, focusing on him in startlement. Schneider slid back a bit, forced himself between taught white buttocks and unerringly found the mark he was hungry for. The defending muscle was no match for him. The glistening tip of his erection disappeared from sight and startled flesh stretched thin around it. Tearing, bleeding. And he healed it as he entered, taking the biting pain away and leaving nothing but the sensation of himself, huge and burning with fever inside Kall-Su's smothering flesh.
Kall-Su let out a stifled sound. Shock, dismay, maybe a little aborted pain - - disorientation at the intrusion. The full and biting awareness of having Schneider inside him up to the hilt. And for a moment Schneider merely stayed still, fingers biting into Kall's flesh, hips tight against Kall's firm ass, glorying in the feel of all that tight flesh encasing his penis. So tight it almost hurt, so accommodating that it took him all the way to the balls. It felt like home. It felt like the most blissful welcome and so long overdue. What a fool not to have taken advantage of this most valued possession long ago.
He pulled back and rocked his hips forward again, beginning a rhythm, aware of the sound of Kall-Su's moans in the background, aware of the sound of flesh slapping against flesh, of his balls hitting Kall's rear each time he drove back home, of Kall's hand sliding to cover his own erection, and his cries growing harsher and harsher as Schneider found the right angle and the right spot to graze.
Of course, Kall-Su came first, in no way possessing the stamina that Schneider did. Practice, after all, made perfect. Schneider kept on for a while, enjoying the control almost as much as the sensation. Regretfully he finished and leaned there afterwards with one hand on the back of Kall's thigh, the other one flat on his stomach below his ribs, feeling each shuddery breath as it passed Kall-Su's lungs.
As satisfying a fuck as he'd ever had. The hard won one's always were. He sighed finally, letting himself slide out, flopping down on his back on the outside edge of the bunk with a sly, satisfied smile on his face.
"You may thank me properly later."
Kall-Su shifted, pushing himself up on an elbow, trying to push the hazy expression of the well serviced away in favor of icy indignity.
"Thank you- -? You arrogant ass - - thank you - -?" Was the extent of his vocal poise at the moment.
"Yes." Schneider drawled, as pleased with himself as he could easily recall being. So many victories in so short a time. "For showing you a shining example of a proper fuck. You've had such sorry experiences up to now."
Kall-Su gagged. Something that sounded vaguely like a hasty incantation, but might have been a string of garbled comminations issued from his mouth. He exited the bed via the unguarded foot, grabbing one of the tasseled silk throws on his way.
"I'm not finished with you yet." Schneider admonished.
"You are." Kall hissed, offended. "I never promised more than once."
"The doors open." Schneider said reasonably. "Blown off its hinges, quite honestly. No keeping me out now."
"I told you, I'll not betray - - -"
"Lily. I remember." Schneider rose, not bothering with a cover, half hard again by now and padding across the floor with a decided swagger to his step. "How can you betray her when you were mine before she was ever an itch in her papa's pants. In her Grandpapa's? It's me you betray. You wanted me before you ever wanted her, didn't you?"
Kall backed away warily, clutching the throw, trying to regather dignity when he was plainly intimidated by all of Schneider's impressive glory. One could hardly blame the boy. He smiled and Kall-Su narrowed his eyes, lifting his gaze to Schneider's eyes from his crotch where it had involuntarily dropped.
"I love her."
"You love me."
"You love Yoko."
"Undeniably."
"You betray her."
"No. She made the rules."
"Rules? Rules?!!" Kall-Su threw out one hand in frustration. "You've never followed a rule in your life. You do what you want to and everyone else be damned. Look what you've made me do already. How will I face her?"
"God, you're afraid of that little baggage? Face her and smile and know that by all rights she ought to be groveling at your feet."
"Is that what you think of Yoko?"
Schneider took a quick step in, caught the edge of the throw and jerked it and Kall-Su close. "Yoko doesn't grovel. I don't like it when she does. You - - it wouldn't bother me so much. But only to me."
Kall-Su opened his mouth. Shut it. Looked away, eyes clouded with skepticism. Close enough that Schneider's breath stirred his hair. "I won't betray her - - hurt her."
"But you'll hurt me?"
"You're not that fragile." Kall half smiled, a soft twitch of his lips.
Schneider shrugged, tired of the melodramatics. "Fine. When - - or if you see the twit again - - you may continue with your misbegotten monogamy. Until then - - you are mine."
There was sunlight this time, when Kall-Su blinked back to awareness and a certain lack of disorientation that understandably led to a more peaceful heralding of the day. He was tired. The dull throbbing behind his eyes was a poignant reminder of what had passed. He had yet to discover the extent of it. Had yet to discover the ramifications of his spell crafting. He supposed though, since the day light pouring in from the port was not strife with flashes of wizard light, nor the balmy air filled with sounds of death and destruction, that things had worked out rather to their benefit. The rocking of the boat was not pleasant. It sent little fingers of unease up his spine - - a crafty, malicious warning of the misery he would suffer when the ship began to cross the deep waters of true ocean. Now, they must have been close to shore. He could tolerate shipboard life with the land close enough to give him its strength. He dreaded the notion of sailing back home. Cringed at it, actually, curling his fingers in light silken coverlets and throwing an arm across his eyes to shield the bright sunlight.
Schneider had mentioned something about home last night. Something about missing Yoko and decent food and his villa by the sea. Casual bits of conversation between his more serious undertakings.
Oh, god, but there had been very little of the former and a great deal of the latter. Kall-Su still felt the imprints of it upon his skin. The taste of it on his tongue - - the scent of it everywhere.
Guilt surged up, a bitter bile. Guilt that for a while there, he'd not thought about Lily at all. That for a while, there had been nothing but Schneider and what Schneider was doing - - the magic he wove without even an incantation spoken. And he was terrible for taking gratification out of it. Unforgivable that even the occasional pain of it blinded him to all his other loyalties. Maybe it wasn't even the sex - - though god knew it was blatantly better than his previous experiences with men - - maybe it was just the fact that it was Dark Schneider wanting him; focusing solely and intently upon him all the attention he'd withheld throughout a lifetime. Silly notion. A childish and inherently dangerous one. But when Schneider had coaxed him back into that bunk - - he'd felt vaguely like a cat purring under the caress of its favorite human.
Fool. Fool. Fool! He curled onto his side, slamming a fist down upon the vacant cushions next to him. Fool to be seduced by it. Fool to be led into it. There was only hurt to be had from any affair with Schneider, be it short or eternal. Ask Arshes Nei. Ask any number of lovers cast aside or forgotten or betrayed. Ask Yoko. And still, he'd wager a kingdom that any of those wronged lovers would forgive him at an instant. Yoko had. Arshes had on too many occasions for Kall to recount.
Why did he agree to this when he had a love of his own? How much of a fool had he become? He'd weathered Schneider's persistence before - - well, he hadn't always crumbled under it at any rate. God knew he had no taste for men's hands upon his body, having suffered nothing but violence and pain from them.
He wouldn't tell Lily. He abhorred the thought of lying to her, but there were some thing's better left unspoken. For her own good, as well as his. She wouldn't berate him for it, he thought. But no reason to feed her dislike of Schneider. No reason to give her cause to let slip a slur against him. Her distaste would start and end with words. Schneider's - - he trusted Dark Schneider's reactions not at all. His words were the least dangerous thing about him. His jealousies were frightening.
If there was a Lily to protect from such things. He wasn't so sure. He wasn't so sure he could even contemplate home and green valleys and snow capped mountains without her safely in hand. Amir and Abu had made promises. Of contacts and favors owed and information gleaned. He didn't believe a word of it - - not until she was before him in the flesh. Asking Schneider if any word had come since the flooding of the valley seemed - - risky at best.
So best to be up, despite the lethargy his body still was plagued with, and dressed and up on deck to find a more reliable source of information. Where Schneider was, he hadn't a notion. He'd rather at the moment he be far away, his presence of late too distracting a thing to sit comfortably on a mind taxed with other worries. It was Amir Kall-Su searched out.
Amir's answer was as blithe as it had been a week ago. I told you I have favors owed me, Sahir bil-Jaleed, I've arranged for your woman to returned. Patience. Patience.
Kall had been patient too long. The annoyance hardly showed. Just a narrowing of his eyes and a sharp glance towards the not too distant shore. He thought they were at anchor off the mouth of the new channel.
"Where is Schneider?"
Amir smiled at him, the none too subtle insinuation in his dark eyes that he knew exactly what Kall-Su had been doing of late and with whom. He waved a hand towards the shore.
"To see the damage we wrought. Perhaps to seek traces of the survival of our enemy."
Kall-Su frowned, leaning on the port rail and squinting through the mid-day brightness towards land. "And have there been?"
"Not to my knowledge." Amir admitted with a shrug. "The ocean is thorough in her carnage. He won't find anything. He wants to set sail tomorrow for your homeland."
Kall-Su's nails bit into the hard wood of the rail. "Not without Lily."
"You have no faith, do you, Sahir-bil-Jaheed? My brother will bring her. We'll find each other on the open seas."
"How can you? Ships are specks upon the ocean." Kall had no trust for the sea. No liking for her impenetrable depths and her vast reaches.
"We know." Amir smiled that secretive knowing smile again. "We brother's of the sea are as intimate with her as we are with lovers. Faith. You'll have a more pleasant journey this time since we are allies now."
Kall cast him a dubious look, not able to conceive how such a thing might be possible.
"You trust me now, yes? He does." Amir spread his hands wide. "The bliss of the red flower will make the sea sickness fade away as if it were nothing. The voyage will be as a dream."
"How comforting." Kall-Su scowled, not believing it, nor easy with the notion of drugging himself the whole of the way home.
Dark Schneider hovered over the calm, dark waters that filled the great valley where an army had once camped. They stilled poured in through Kall's channel. Still flooded the river as far as the eye could see, even from the height he maintained. He searched for a sense of power under all that water and found none. Found nothing in fact but the overwhelming stench of bloated bodies that littered the shoreline. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Men, horses, camels - - various other domesticated animals that traveled with the desert nomads. Freshwater fish killed by the onslaught of salt. Salt water ones washed in from the sea that could not tolerate the weak brine that the Nile made of this new lake.
He burned them. Called down a pair of fire elementals and sent them about the rim of the water to eat up the sodden flesh that bobbed in the current. They went about their task gleefully, eager at destruction as ever fire was.
The destruction was total, the water filling the valley from peak to peak and still, he left with a vague sense of unease. Back to the ship then and her creaking decks and furled sails. Kall-Su was topside, standing with his back to the forward mast, face masked with cool indifference. A ruse to hide his discomfort and his uncertainty. Amir was there, talking to one of his mates. The sea captain looked up and greeted him with a great deal of false deference. Schneider ignored him in favor of Kall-Su.
"Have you eaten?"
Kall looked at him blankly, as if the notion of food were a foreign thing.
"You should. You won't want it once we're out to sea."
"I don't want it now." Kall said, hesitated as if he wanted to say more, then closed his mouth on the impulse "Will you come with me?" he asked instead and led the way to the deck house and the ladder leading below.
Schneider caught him inside the door to Amir's cabin before he could voice whatever grievance irked him. Pressed him up against the wall and let his hands roam under the robes, down that sensuous curve of lower back to the firm globes of his buttocks.
"DS - - Will you - - stop - - please?" Obviously their purposes for retreating here were not the same.
"Why?' he asked, not ceasing at all.
"I needed to - - talk."
"So talk. It doesn't bother me." He lowered his mouth to the juncture of Kall-Su's neck and shoulder, soft skin ripe for the marks of his teeth. His fingers happily slipped inside the band of Kall's loose native trousers and kneaded his rear.
Kall-Su hissed in frustration, having little choice in the matter save to wrap his arms about Schneider's neck as Schneider used his hold on Kall's buttocks to lift him off his feet and maneuver the both of them towards the bunk.
Kall's back hit the cushions and Schneider went down to one knee at the edge of the bed, busily working at the sash to Kall's outer robe while Kall-Su was trying to gather his wits enough to voice whatever grievance was on his mind.
"I don't - - trust Amir." Kall got out. "I can't leave here on his word alone that Lily is safe."
Schneider sniffed, annoyed to have the girl's name brought up while he was attempting to scratch the itch his morning's exertions had brought to the surface. "We leave tomorrow."
"I can't."
"You will. Or you can stay and when the ship carrying her meets this one, I'll send her your regards and tell Amir's fellow captain that we've no longer a need for her and to take her back to whatever slave market he rescued her from. Little matter to me."
Kall glared and pushed Schneider's hand off his stomach. "Unconscionable bastard." He hissed, icy-eyed and wanting out from under Schneider's touch.
"Have you just noticed?" Schneider grinned, more than willing for a little wrestling. Of course he triumphed. Ended up in the most accessible of positions with Kall-Su on his stomach half over the edge of the bunk and himself pressed firm against his rear.
"Do you trust his word?" Kall had given up the fight, and lay placidly under Schneider's weight, weary and sad over the lack of reasonable choices left him.
Schneider shrugged, using a knee to nudge Kall's thighs apart. It was just a matter of loosening his own belt and reaching out for the small glass jar of scented oil so kindly provided by their host. He could do without, but it was so much less effort this way, so much more pleasurable with himself all slippery and slick, and no healing required during and after the act. Kall squirmed a bit when he slipped an oil covered finger into him, pressed his face into the covers and moaned. More vocal than he'd have ever imagined, his ice wizard. Almost he'd have thought him as silent and implacable in bed as he was in court. A pleasant misconception to correct.
"He won't betray me." Schneider finally deigned to answer. "He values his life and his ship too much. And he owes us. I believe this. And its not a matter of you trusting him - - its a matter of you trusting me. Do you?"
He replaced his finger with something much larger, sliding in with enough languor to prolong the sensation. He didn't expect an answer immediately. Didn't expect much more than throaty gasps and incoherent blasphemies.
"Do you?" he asked again, when he'd finished. Kall pulled himself onto the bunk fully, lay there breathing hard, the glassyness slowly fading from his eyes.
"I think - -" Kall-Su said carefully. "That your own interests outshine everyone else's."
"That isn't an answer."
" - - - yes."
"All right then. We sail for home tomorrow."
When the other ship came within easy view twenty days later, Kall-Su cried. Truth be told, he'd become so miserable with sea sickness that tears were a involuntary and oft experienced thing. The opium didn't make them any easier to keep at bay. The opium made him sluggish and hazy, and the nights and days blurred into a long, fever dream that fluctuated between lazy sex - - himself generally a limp, helpless recipient - - and prolonged bouts of nausea.
He staggered up to deck and leaned against the rail, as a good number of Amir's sailors did, waving and calling out to the dusky men across the rolling waves. He leaned over the rail, off balance and weak-kneed, until someone put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from toppling over the side. It might have been Schneider. He couldn't make himself take his eyes off the other ship to find out. He scanned the line of distant sailors for a familiar pale face. He heard Amir hailing the other captain. Heard garbled, unintelligible words that he was too doped to comprehend the meaning off.
And there, at the rail, he saw a flash of pale face beneath long dark hair. Saw other pale faces behind her. A great cacophony of welcome rose up, accompanied by waving arms and smiling faces. Minstrels were ever a noisy lot.
God. God. He needed to see her up close. Needed to see that she was whole and healthy. Needed to hear what horrors she'd survived. But doubted his ability to cross even that small distance without crashing into the sea. He turned back to Schneider, desperation forcing away some of the sickness and the drug.
"I need to go to her."
Schneider shrugged. "Bad luck, then, Ba-Co spells can be tricky."
He didn't' condemn him for that pettiness Just turned back to the rail and stayed there till darkness began to fall and his legs would no longer support his weight. Schneider came and fetched him when it was full dark, supported his weight back below deck, stood over him while he dry wretched into a bucket, then fed him opium smoke and wine till he could no longer keep his eyes open. Vaguely he felt Schneider lay down beside him. Vaguely felt arms pull him close and a hand idly stroke his hair. He sank down into sleep, engulfed in a mixture of relief and regret.
When he woke a hand grazed his brow, bathing his skin with a cool, damp cloth. Soft lips grazed his, feather light and gentle. He blinked up through shadowed light and focused on a pale, oval shaped face, shrouded with long black hair.
"Lily?" he asked, bemused. He reached out a hand and she caught it in her own small one.
"Yes, love?"
"Are you here - - or have I had too much opium?"
Her lips curved in a smile. "Maybe a little of both. He brought you over this morning."
"DS?"
"Yes."
"Oh. And he went back?"
"Yes. He said he liked his quarters on the other ship too much to stay on this one."
"Oh." He couldn't get past the feel of her callused fingers on his palm. "You're here."
"Yes." She agreed again.
He lay there a moment, trying to gather his thoughts and his fears. Pushed himself up with a queasy effort and gazed at her critically. "Are you - - all right?"
She tilted her head, giving the answer some thought. "I've found a spark of power in myself that I never truly knew the depth of - - they wanted to make a slave of me again - - but it was I who captivated them."
He didn't understand. She leaned close against him, wrapping him in her sweet essence. "I sang for my freedom and the freedom of my friends. I sang for my virtue and found that the men who wanted to take it were more enchanted by the magic of my song than the lure of my body. I had a coin and I used it. Selephio was right."
Almost he told her the old minstrel was dead. He chose not to. That news could wait. Now he wanted very little else but to bask in her presence and think of nothing dire and nothing complicated. He cold worry about Schneider later. About the truth later. For the moment - - the first moment in a very long time - - he felt free of worry and doubt. The gods willing, all the other problems might work themselves out.
A month and the flooding began to recede a little. The sands began to dry leaving brittle salt in their wake. The great new salt lake remained. The people survived, as they always had, through lean times and fat.
Something stirred under the murk and the sands, under the weight and the power of the ocean water. Slowly, inch by painful inch, a migration began towards the bone dry earth outside the salt lake. Weakened by the sea, made somnolent by her power, but still fed by the fuel of - - vengeance.
There was betrayal to be punished. Honor to be regained. And somewhere along the way a dark prophesy to be fulfilled . . . . . . .