When the talking faded away, Chaiel listened to it all in his head several times again. He made no attempt to draw conclusions; he'd discovered long ago that he only frustrated himself by trying to understand. Only one visual image had come with the speech, just a flicker: six wooden matches and an unlit candle scattered on a rough stone surface. This image was somehow sexual.
He kept coming back to one of the voices. The second to last voice caught in his head more than the others. Something about it frightened him, though the tone hadn't been threatening or angry.
It was maybe more familiar than the others, though by now all voices, all images seemed at least a bit familiar.
Flash. More time gone. Now his genitals hurt. Apparently he'd been trying to masturbate again.
He hated when he did that. It didn't work -- the same suspension that kept him from aging made it impossible for him to shed tears, sweat, void waste, or ejaculate. All the scraps of hair and fingernail he'd swallowed over the decades still lumped in his stomach, and once he'd vomited an accretion of the stuff and found it still sharp-edged, cemented by sticky clots of ancient blood, completely undigested. But his body sometimes did stupid things without his knowlege.
Something nagged at his mind, he'd forgotten something, something important... But then, when had he not? He'd forgotten more than any mortal ever knew.
Sound came again. Another voice, one he heard often, the words too routine to comprehend. This one stayed for a while. It repeated. After a time, he began to understand that the voice was Thelyan's, the familiar word his own name.
He opened his eyes, and discovered that he was upside down relative to the rest of the world.
That was sort of interesting. Arching his back, he reached out toward the litter on the floor, bits of himself that he had dropped. Most of it gone to dust. Bits of his body, and his body was made out of energy, and the energy was pure thought. Knowlege was his food. He put knowlege inside himself; hair and skin and nails and blood came out and fell and decayed, a pile of decayed knowlege on the ground... suddenly he was afraid that Thelyan would eat the dust, and know things.
"Chaiel, give me your attention. Chaiel. Speak so I know you can hear me."
"You never bring me any presents. I want a puppy." Chaiel laughed at his own joke. He had a shadow. He waved at it.
Thelyan's voice behind him. "I don't have time for your wanderings now. Tell me what you know about the atmospheric disturbance over Paiwaar this afternoon."
So Thelyan didn't have time. Good for Thelyan. "It must be nice to be so busy." He twisted until he could see Thelyan's face right side up. The Director -- the Judge -- eater of gods, shitter-out of laws -- looked like a woman, suddenly. A pretty girl. Chaiel smiled. "Sometimes I see naked ladies. Sometimes I see very old ugly naked ladies. Once I heard a girl teaching a parrot to talk."
"Tell me what you know about the --"
"Atmospheric effects are still developing. Yes, sir, I'll have a copy sent up. They're not sure yet.
A storm system of some significant size, at least, possibly a major climatic change. Yes. I'm quite sure. There's absolutely no way this could be natural. High-altitude winds simply don't move like that." Chaiel clamped his hands over his mouth, as he realized he'd inadvertently spoken what he was hearing, possibly told Thelyan something useful. It was almost certain, in fact, because Thelyan was smiling.
"Very good, Chaiel. That's the disturbance I mean. Now tell me who caused it."
"No."
"Come now. There's no one you have any reason to protect."
"No."
Thelyan's smile, though still icy, grew fractionally warmer. "That is, unless the culprit is one of my enemies. You would protect my enemies, wouldn't you?"
Chaiel tried to escape into the stream of images, but it was thin and sporadic even though the bubble was clear. I'm not going to talk, I'm not going to talk, I don't have to talk. I don't know anyway, I didn't see, nobody ever tells me anything, besides he can work it out for himself, what does he need me for? If Ka'an wants to make rain that's his business.
"So Ka'an has gained control of his host."
Realizing that he'd spoken out loud, Chaiel howled. He hid his face, willing himself to blank out, but when he opened his eyes again Thelyan was still there. All white and sparkly and mean-looking. "I hate you. I'm so thirsty. I hate everybody."
"Even Ka'an?"
"I don't care. You go find him and I hope you kill each other. I hope you kill everybody." A thought occurred to him, and he hastily added, "Everybody but Medur. If you find her, can I have her?"
An expression of disgust crossed Thelyan's face. "I'm not looking for her. She's no use to me.
Tell me where Ka'an is."
"No. I don't know." But a flash, shockingly clear, gave him the answer, and he blurted it out before he could stop himself. "Under the acacia tree with the green man, breathing through his elbows, going to get rained on, yes. Ooh, that's against your law now, dog in the manger, bet you wish you ever had that much fun, guess what? I know something about you."
Even more disgusted now, Thelyan said, "I'm not remotely interested in what you know about me. What I want to know is --"
"I know why you hate him," Chaiel interrupted. Before he could go on, though, a deafening clatter of machinery burst through his head, accompanied by a picture of children poking a dead dog with sticks, and when it was finished he woke to silent darkness. Thelyan had blanked the sphere while Chaiel was caught in a fit of seeing.
Frustrated, Chaiel wept with dry eyes. "I know why you hate him," he repeated to the nothingness around him. "Other people get over that, you know. Other people don't have to rule the world just because someone was mean to them once. I know. I know. All the things I know."
He screamed, then whispered. "Let me out."
His voice didn't even echo.
--==*==--
Ash lay propped on his elbow, watching Kieran sleep by candlelight. He was a little cold, and all his muscles ached, and he'd never been so happy before in his life. It seemed impossible that anything so good could happen to anyone, let alone to him. He didn't want to sleep, for fear everything would be different when he woke up.
Kieran was sprawled on his back, taking up most of the blanket. One hand was curled on his chest, the other stretched out palm-up across the dusty floor. His mouth was slightly open, and his hair spread in loops and slow curves along his outflung arm. The light of the candle's steady flame gilded the planes of his face, brought structures of muscle and bone into sharp relief, showed the twitch of dreaming eyes under eyelids that Ash's lips knew were soft as warm wind.
Ash's heart was sore with too much joy; he was tempted to wake Kieran and talk to him some more, just to take some of the pressure off. That would be unkind, though. They were both exhausted. They'd barely had the energy to drag themselves inside the temple when the sun set, laughingly comparing how shaky their legs were, and then despite that they'd lit the candle and made love a third time while full night fell. Ash was surprised he could stay awake. By rights he should be sleeping like a baby. He knew his dreams would be as sweet as Kieran's were right now; he could sense the slow swells of emotion rolling in his lover's sleeping mind, curiosity and amusement and the occasional bright flash of discovery.
Twining coils of shining black hair around his fingers, Ash considered what Kieran had said before everything had gone beautiful. The objections he had raised. He'd been so frightened; though he wouldn't have admitted it, wouldn't have used the word fear, he'd been terribly afraid.
This meant so much to him.
Much as Ash wanted to dismiss those fears as reflexive, he made himself ask: What could go wrong? What are the ways I might hurt him? I need to think of those things to make sure I never do them. Well, the obvious one was leaving, and that, he was sure, he would not do. Eventually the shine would wear off, being together would become routine -- Ash couldn't imagine what it would be like to take Kieran for granted, but he knew
it was human nature. It wasn't about the newness, though. This wasn't a conquest. The things he loved about Kieran would only grow more precious with time. I have to find a way to assure him of that. Ash smoothed stray hairs back from Kieran's brow to make him smile in his sleep. When he wakes. For now what he needs is rest.
Just as he made up his mind to blow out the candle and join the dream, a sighing sound began outside. He looked out past the pillars, but saw only blackness. The candle flame ducked, whirling shadows, and a breath of wind stirred his hair. The wind's sound faded, then rose higher, carrying a scent that made him think of home. Summer. A heat wave; lying in bed sweating in the humid air, and then a wind, and this smell, and a great sense of relief...
"Uh-oh."
He nudged Kieran, but got no response. Well, let Kieran sleep a little longer. Probably there was no danger. He got up and found his pants and shirt and glasses. Another gust blew the candle out, so he got dressed by feel. Flickering light to the west caught his attention. He watched, for a moment, eyes adjusted to the dark now enough to see moonlight dusting a curled shape in the sky; under the towering cloud, dim purple bands rippled.
There was time to grope his way back to the bed -- almost entirely by his Talent's spacial sense --before the mutter of thunder reached his ears. This time he made a more serious effort to wake Kieran, and this time succeeded.
Mumbling and rubbing his eyes, Kieran began an incoherent protest, but a new gust of colder wind brought him fully awake. Lightning just strong enough to limn him in blue caught him beginning a smile. "Oh. Hey." He sounded pleased. "Will you look at that."
"It seems we succeeded after all."
"Guess so. Wanna go up in it? See what it looks like from inside?"
Ash was tempted, but shook his head. "I think we should move the supplies farther in. Could you help?"
"Yep." Kieran didn't seem to feel any sense of urgency, despite the brightening flickers in the cloud and the increasing wind. He scratched and yawned and fumbled with his clothes at great length while Ash gathered the candle and matches and blankets. Well, if Kieran wasn't afraid of the storm, Ash wouldn't be either.
By the time they'd shifted their belongings to the back of the main room, the wind was constant, strong, and cold. Lightning was visible beneath the cloud as well as in it, and thunder cracked rather than rumbling. Ash bundled up the blankets and coats, and began to take them down a side passage.
"Don't you want to watch?" Kieran said.
Ash dropped his bundle. "Why not?" He let Kieran take his hand and lead him out to the temple steps, into the teeth of the wind.
A flash of lightning printed an image on his mind: Kieran standing on the edge of the step, gathering his hair back with one hand as it tried to fly into his face, unbuttoned shirt billowing around his scarred, lean-muscled chest, teeth bared in a feral grin. Then Kieran pulled him close, and they watched with their arms around each other as the storm stalked toward them on long insect-legs of lightning.
The first drops of rain brought a bark of exhilarated laughter from Kieran, which Ash echoed more quietly. It was exciting, the strength and size of the forces at work, though Ash thought he wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much if he were seeing it alone. Rain speckled his glasses, danced along his arms and across his bare feet; then the skies gave a roar and dumped it down in buckets, drenching them. Laughing, they pressed closer for warmth, kissed the rain from each other's faces, burrowed hands into each other's sodden clothes. They were no longer tired; it was as if the thunder's energy was pouring into them through their skin.
"Again? Already?" Ash raised his eyebrows, knowing Kieran could sense that his surprise was feigned, perhaps even sense in echo the interesting texture of wet leather under his hands. But at that moment a blast of rain hit them with enough force to make them stagger, driven by a wind that was rising to a howl.
No discussion was needed. They fled back inside, to the back wall; then, when the cold wind reached them even there, to the side passage with the painted walls. The thunder was sharp and hard now, frighteningly loud.
"Maybe I overdid it." Kieran laughed.
"You think?"
"You're shivering."
"So are you."
Kieran grabbed up a blanket to wrap around them. They sat on the floor, making themselves small, listening to the roar that echoed through the temple. Ash set his useless glasses aside. He lit the candle, setting it on the side of them away from the main room, where it didn't flicker so much.
"I want to go look at it," Kieran said, glancing up to indicate the storm raging overhead. Ash knew he didn't mean physically. He wanted to repeat the wild, high flight of mind he'd performed that afternoon.
Ash remembered what it had been like. The half-glimpsed geometries of force, of life, the mind-wrecking complexity into which Kieran had dived as if born to it. It was frightening, the strength of yearning Kieran emitted when he contemplated that world. Ash feared he'd be lost in it. But it gave him such joy; Ash couldn't deny him. "Be careful. You don't know what it might do."
As before, Kieran's eyes went blank. The wavering light showed him staring past Ash's ear, lips parted, head tilted as if listening. Ash closed his eyes and reached out with his mind, suddenly afraid Kieran's soul would leap entirely free of his body and be lost to the winds.
But what he sensed was no rise -- Kieran's seeking went no farther than the walls around them.
Something there had distracted him, fascinated him, so that the din of wind and water outside was brushed aside as an annoyance.
"Tell me." Ash formed the words gently, thinking them before speaking, hoping not to break Kieran's trance. It succeeded; Kieran answered slowly, absently, still mentally groping along the walls.
"The writing. It shows up in this light. These are just... well, I don't get how... how anyone can not be able to read them."
It seemed safe to open his eyes. Kieran was now staring fixedly at the opposite wall, eyes moving from side to side as if reading. "What do they say?"
Kieran was silent for a while, before speaking in Iavaian. Ash caught scraps of meaning in the words, but couldn't really understand. Whatever Kieran was reading, though, seemed to amuse him quite a bit. At last he switched back to Eskaran. "Can you believe they wrote down things like that?"
Suspecting that a request for translation would wreck Kieran's concentration, Ash played along.
"Why shouldn't they?"
"Because oracles are only true in the moment." His eyes snapped into focus, an expression of shock leaping across his face as he looked at Ash. "So that's where you went." Suddenly a change went through him, an upwelling of unease quickly mounting toward terror.
It was hard not to look, but Ash had to close his eyes to force himself from visual to mental, strengthen his hold on Kieran's -- whatever it was, mind, soul, spirit -- and try to bring him back from whatever was scaring him. Then Ash saw it, and he began to be frightened as well, nearly recoiled but held tighter instead.
Something was surging up through the familiar texture of Kieran's thoughts. Something huge, strange, dark as oil, something so horribly old that to find it there sent icy claws scrabbling at the edges of Ash's sanity. And it knew him. It was aware of him. It was observing him, and it wasn't impressed.
It was inside Kieran, like a parasite. Rage gave Ash strength; he added himself to the force Kieran was already expending in pushing it back, and together they fought to stop its progress.
You can't have him. He's mine. How dare you dirty him with your greasy night!
A wordless reply raked at him: the outrage of an arrogance so immense that it could not recognize any claim but its own. It weakened, though, bit by bit. Finally, all at once, it was gone.
Kieran slumped against him, breathing in hoarse gasps.
Ash was barely able to speak. "What was that?" His voice was half drowned by thunder, but Kieran heard him.
"The same thing I saw when I died. The bigger me. That wanted to eat this me. Oh
god. Oh shit.
Ash, it's going to come back."
Panic made his skin prickle. "It's coming back?"
"Not now. But it will."
"But what is it? Why's it in you? Do you have any idea?"
"I'm afraid I might." Kieran swallowed hard, burrowed his face into Ash's hair, and stayed like that for a long time. Ash just held him until his despair subsided, until his usual confidence began to reassert itself. At last he straightened and shook himself, visibly gathering his courage.
"You know what's stupid? I was warned. Some crazy bum back in Burn River warned me, but I thought he was just, you know, being a crazy bum."
"What did he say?"
"He thought I was a god. He said I was Ka'an."
Incredulity and alarm collided in Ash's mind. He stammered out a few disconnected syllables, then stopped, realizing he wasn't going to be able to make sense.