I woke up with a throbbing erection.
There was a girl in my dreams. She was… she was… she was gone.
What remained was the gnawing choice I had before me—an opportunity to save my own life. To stay at the church in Ulum and become a priest. To build a community.
Somehow.
It occurred to me that I talked big but I had no idea how to lead a church.
What would I even say to my friends? What would they say? Could I betray them? Abandon them while they went to die in Carthia?
What if this was God creating another chance with Sarina? A chance to be the man she needed?
The night's air was freezing, but I had enough blankets to keep warm. I opened the bottom corner of the flap over the window and pushed the shutters open, and that bitter cold nipped hard. The world outside was black but for the stars that outlined the jagged peaks of the Terbulin ridge.
I had no idea what time it was, but my body was done sleeping. I needed to know if Dune was still alive.
I got dressed, brushed my teeth and washed my face with ice-cold water from the well in the courtyard, packed my things, and headed out. I guessed my way through the dark corridor to the kitchen where I found some of the stew—I refuse to call it halvystra—we'd had the night before.
Someone needs to show them how to make it properly.
A miracle. That was an understatement. If Dune was still alive, there was no way she'd survive the day. I wanted to be there. I needed to hurry, else Oasis would have to go through that alone.
My tongue found a stray chunk of nice-pepper, and by the time I realized what I'd bitten into, it was far too late. I went about in a frenzy looking for water, a chunk of dried bread, something, anything to mitigate the burn.
Anyanna's voice cut through the night. "Is it true that you'll be staying with us if Dune survives?"
The light from my oil lamp cast her in an orange hue. She stood beside the door wearing a thick, black woolen shawl, leather boots, and a fur hat. Her eyes settled on the flame, which gave enough light to make out her underbite and locks of smooth, dark hair cascading over her shoulders on each side of her face.
I sniffled and my eyes watered. My tongue burned still, and I answered her. "In a word, yes. Father Gerson believes…"
"When are you leaving to check on her?"
"As soon as possible."
"We should go now. The streets get crowded once the sun rises."
We. I hadn't made room in my mind for that word, though the meaning was clear enough. And so, we set out.
She walked quickly, and I struggled to make her out in the cold darkness. Rather than turn left at the end of the noxious goat farm, she kept straight and led us downhill. To the east, jagged peaks looked like a field of black against the bluing sky while stars were being snuffed out. To the west, clouds billowing high above the dark haze were painted with orange and purple highlights.
The streets of Ulum were dark, lined with cold towers where, high above, the occasional window flickered with the faint glow of an oil lamp. Up ahead, Anyanna stopped at an intersection and turned around to wait for me. White breath puffed out before her skinny face.
When I caught up to her, she slowed so that we could walk together.
"We make a lot of tar," she said. "In Ulum. Here, I mean. In Ulum, they make a lot of tar."
"Uh… OK?"
She continued. "So, everyone knows about diamond-tree stones, and of course that's huge, but most people don't know that in terms of raw industrial output, Ulum makes a lot of tar."
I wasn't sure how to engage. "I lived in Kyoen for two years; we bought a lot of tar. They used it to waterproof ships. Some people think that's a useful quality for ships to have, I guess."
I'd grown accustomed to understatements like that eliciting amusement from girls. A giggle, a sigh, Mebibi used to rest her hand on my arm and gaze into my eyes with a smirk whenever I said something along those lines. Anyanna ignored the comment. "That's an example of intra-provincial commerce. Since Kyoen and Ulum are both in the Duchy of Heralia, trade-barriers are low."
That made me smile. "I take it you've read Zayueshawani."
She smiled effusively, flitting her eyes in my direction as we walked past a press. The storefront was still shuttered, but clattering sounds of work came from within. There was a paper from the day before peeking out from beneath the door. I could barely make out the headline in the morning's dusk.
TWELVE MORE MEN KILLED IN CARTHIA. MARQUIS SUMMONED FOR INQUIRY
A smaller headline said something about the Emperor's son or something; I was a bit distracted by the first one.
Anyanna got quiet, but she was still smiling and still darting her eyes in my direction every now and then.
"What's up?"
"Mmm?"
"You're smiling. What's on your mind?"
"Uh…" she let out a puff of air that misted before her face. "I was just thinking, hypothetically, of course. Not that this is even the same situation, because it isn't. Obviously it's not. It's not that at all. So, uh… you understand that, right?"
"I'm not sure what I understand, but go on?"
"OK, so… hypothetically… uh… if you were to court someone, and this is nothing like that at all, because obviously there are things going on. So it can't be that. So that's why I say hypothetically, if you were to court someone, you know… then an early morning walk through the city as it's waking up would be, I think… romantic. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe," and she looked away; her smile had faded.
That brought a smile to my face. Anyanna was different. She would take some getting used to, but I thought, perhaps, I could get used to her. "You know what I think? I think that could be very romantic. I could definitely use my imagination. Like maybe take a break under a bridge where it's quiet and still too dark for anyone else to see. Hypothetically, of course!"
She laughed. "Right!"
I loved seeing her smile return.
"Down there," she pointed down a dark alley with defiant plants growing in the cracks of stone. "Third door on the left. They make apple tarts. They won't be open for hours, but if you go to the back door in maybe thirty minutes, they'll have the first batch fresh out of the oven."
"OK, so this is why I'm very happy to have you as my guide. Tell me more."
She laughed again. "They also have a maple-cream cake that's the best in Ulum—and I know because I've tried them all—but they won't have that until late afternoon. I could take you there if… uh… if you stay, I mean."
After a while, she stopped beside an alleyway. Small rodents scurried amid piles of rubbish and broken ceramics. The door to one shop had half-broken off and hung precariously off its remaining hinge, and high up between the towers, clothes hung from drying lines. Anyanna stared blankly. "I used to live down there with my mother."
"What happened to her?"
She turned and continued along her way, leading me down a narrow corridor with scattered pedestrians to greet the coming sunrise. "She's probably still there."
She suddenly started walking fast. I spoke between breaths and struggled to keep up with her. "How did you end up at the church?"
"I walked there."
Beside us, a cafe's door had been left open, and the inviting smell of bread being proofed carried out onto the street. We kept walking, nearly running. "What I mean is, if your mother was still there, why did you leave?"
She turned to face me for a brief moment. "I was afraid she'd find out."
"Find out what?"
"That I killed him."
"Killed who?"
Before us, a bison pulled a cart laden with goods beneath a canvas tied at the corners; the driver wore layers of woolen rags and paid us no mind. I took hold of Anyanna's arm, hoping to stop her. Instead she shook her arm free and kept walking.
"Killed who?"
"It was a long time ago. I understand now."
"What do you understand?"
She'd already moved on. Without warning, she turned right and floated down a narrow alleyway. On the left was a heavy, oaken door closed shut with several men waiting outside wearing rough rags that smelt sharp of the unbathed.
"Anyanna wait! What do you understand?"
She faced me. "You'll have to walk faster. Once the sun rises, the streets get crowded."
She quickly turned down another street as the sky shifted to amber, and people began to fill in the space. I raced through the crowd to keep up with the girl who'd just confessed a murder. By the time we reached the plaza, the streets were packed with people elbowing their way about in every direction at once.
Anyanna reached beneath the stream of water pouring out from the Falcon's beak and drank. I did as well. We stood face-to-face—I peered down at her while she lowered her eyes and looked off to her right. Her smile was gone.
"Who did you…"
"We should go to Turtle plaza!" she said effusively. "I mean… if, uh… if there's time. I mean, maybe when you're done. If you have nothing to do. I don't know what you have to do. So maybe. I don't know."
"Uh… OK?"
"It's not far." She pointed to the west, beyond a tall totem headed by the Turtle spirit. "It's down that way." She smiled nervously through that pronounced underbite and flitted her eyes about.
I couldn't find a word for her. With a deep breath, I glanced at the canvas awning stretched over that wrought-iron frame and iron sconces buried in the stone walls, and pointed with my thumb. "It's this hotel."
Inside, the clerk didn't look up. The lobby was still dim but for a paper lantern beside the front desk that flickered from the candle within. I sat down beside her on some plush, green chairs and angled towards her while she gazed out the three open double-doors at the entrance.
I whispered, "who did you kill?"
Anyanna lowered her face and turned away from me.
"Do you not want to tell me?"
She sat still and took in a deep breath before forcing her gaze to follow the people in the street.
"Alright. If you don't feel comfortable sharing that with me, perhaps later on when you're ready. OK?"
She angled her face slightly in my direction and nodded with an "mm-hmm" before turning her attention back outside.
"I'm going upstairs to check on Dune. Will you be alright down here?"
"Yes."
With that, I darted up the spiral staircase. Each floor hosted a generous window of distorted glass, but at this hour in the morning the interior was still relatively dark. I ran, unsure what I would find, hoping it wasn't already too late.
I knocked.
I waited, panting for breath for a minute or so before footfalls padded across the floor. The door slid open, and Oasis's round face greeted me with the morning sun casting a shine in her bronze curls. She was barefoot and had on a white cotton robe with the hotel's logo.
"I was thinking that you did abandoning us. Please you come in."
"How is she?"
"She not was bettering."
We walked in together. Oasis took up a tea cup while I knelt to study the wound.
Up on the open penthouse, the sunrise brought more light than it had on the shaded streets below. On Dune's arm were bits of pink flesh where the maggots had cleared away small scraps of rotting tissue, but most of it was still covered up by the squiggly mass. Her fever raged hotter than the floor, and she lay still with her mouth fixed in an eerie grin beneath a thick layer of blankets. Only a pulse hinted at life.
"She needs to take her medicine," I said. "It has to be every day, first thing in the morning, even if I'm not here. Come, let me show you how to make it."
Oasis watched as I mixed the hot water from a tea kettle with cold water until it felt right. Then I added one spoonful of the gebu'i powder and stirred. She'd bundled her arms close to her body and shivered from the frigid air coming off the mountains.
"We wait about ten minutes."
"Let us waking her," she said, and turned back towards Dune. "She was being difficult for wake up."
Oasis knelt beside her friend and slapped her foot. "Dune, wake up."
Davod did not lie. I knew it was wrong, but the hem of that robe crept up the back of her legs as she crouched on her knees, and God damn!
I wanted to look away, truly. I knew I should have.
She bent over to tap Dune's cheek. "Pa-ish! Gowa to-usyi me! Wake up for taking medicine!"
Oasis shook her, slapped her, stuck a finger in her ear, anything to make her friend uncomfortable. Dune didn't respond. I looked away, then leered at her some more, then looked away again. I forced myself to look at the gebu'i. Tiny, gossamer threads had begun to stretch across the water beneath the surface, with small, fuzzy patches of green clinging to anything that would host them.
Dune slurred something. I couldn't hear.
Her voice sang sweetly, "Pa-iiiiiish," from the side of the bed. She'd rested her fingers at the center of Dune's chest and held her face inches away, fixing her gaze on Dune's scarcely cracked eyelids. She then purred out, "gayiwi ta-a sok'anaga jayin?"
Dune's eyes cracked open for a fleeting moment.
Oasis turned to me. "Caleb, please you will waiting outside?"
"Uh, OK."
"She needs drinking all of it, yes?"
"Yes."
"OK. Please you will waiting outside?"
I did. Outside in the hallway, I had to reset my mind. Ogling a girl with what she was going through. And with Anyanna waiting downstairs.
She probably saw me.
A lock clicked, followed by the low rumble of a door sliding open. A young Goloagi man with his hair in a curly mass at the top of his head stepped out into the hallway. He'd dressed in a fine, black woolen coat and tunic and walked past me without a word.
My eyes found the book, undisturbed on the sill beside the window, and allowed my mind to linger on what Anyanna had said to me on the way over—I'd convinced Sarina to read a whole page until she got bored with it.
A moment later, Oasis's door opened and she stepped out. Her face was sunken, her mouth turned down, and tears lingered on her cheeks. She sniffled when she saw me.
"What's wrong?" I said.
"She did drinking the medicine and now is sleeping." She wiped her tears away and sobbed, "she is fighting everything! Why she needs doing this?"
Death had come for Dune. Oasis clung to her, tugging her back, but it ripped her slowly, torturously from her friend's grasp. Miracle herbs notwithstanding, Dune survived by the grace of God alone. And Oasis was exhausted. "What about you? How are you doing?"
Oasis looked up and passed her light-green eyes back and forth between mine.
"When was the last time you had a chance to relax?"
She shook her head and looked away. "I cannot."
"She's sleeping. That's the best thing she can do right now. There's nothing you can do for her, but you need a break."
She shook her head vigorously. "I not will leaving her."
"Oasis, I can see it in your eyes; you're at your end. She needs you, and she needs you to be OK. I think, and this is just me being honest here, I think you could use a chance to unwind, just for a little bit. You'll come back, and hopefully you'll have more strength to be patient with her."
She fixed her eyes on mine for a brief moment before turning her gaze to the window. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"Let's go explore the city for a bit. Give it an hour, try and relax, and then we'll come back and check on her."
At first she shrugged. Then, she squinted her eyes and looked at me sideways.
"Trust me, you need a break. You'll feel better, I promise."
"I am not having money," she shook her head.
"You don't need money to enjoy a place like this, just a little creativity."
Finally, she closed her eyes and shrugged. "I need dressing to myself. You will waiting for me down the stairs?"
"Of course."
Downstairs, Anyanna sat on one of the plush chairs, perfectly still with her hands clasped over her knees and her back straight, following people with her eyes as they walked by on the street outside. The chill air brought with it the call of apples baked in butter and cloves. The concierge stood behind his desk, an old man with regality etched into his wrinkled face who glanced at me as I came down only to look back down at his papers. He gave no hint that he was aware of Anyanna's presence, and neither did a pair of Goloagi children with curly hair, a girl and a boy, sitting down at the water organ together plinking a song of complete chaos.
I'd made it halfway down the spiral staircase when Anyanna turned to me and stood with her eyes fixed at my feet. She said nothing.
I took a seat beside her. She sat down with me and kept her eyes at my neck, my mouth, my ears, everywhere except my eyes she looked at me. "Is she healed of her injury?"
I leaned back in the chair and rested one leg over my knee, stretching my arms out across the ridge so that my hand would touch her shoulder if only she leaned back. "No. Not yet. Not likely, either. It doesn't look good."
"Oh."
"If God has a miracle in mind for her, he'd better hurry."
"Oh." She turned away and allowed her eyes to settle on the corner of the room.
"Did you meet them when they came to the church?" I said.
"No, I wasn't there."
I nodded. "Dune's best friend is named Oasis. She's not taking this well. I thought it would be good for her to get out, explore the city for an hour or so, and get a chance to relax. So… what if we take her to Turtle Plaza?"