The Well of Darkness (15 page)

I crawled through the triangular hollow to the floor opening and lowered myself gingerly to stand on an earthen surface, my shoulders above the room’s brick-laid floor. Carn helped me pull Tarani’s half-conscious form through the “doorway” in the tent of carpet. In stages, Tarani cooperating as best her exhaustion would allow, I lifted her down through the cellar entry and carried her along a short, shallow ramp to a small room that barely allowed us to stand. I had only seconds to look around before Carn started replacing the carpet ends and shutting out what little light had followed us down. The walls were bare earth, like the floor, and one was sweating gently, creating at its base a small stream of water which leaked out of the room through its own fist-size tunnel.

I marked the placement of the lantern, appreciated the provision of a chamberpot and a water jug; then darkness set in. Tarani shivered, and so did I. It was the first time I could remember feeling physically cold in Gandalara, and I supposed it was the dampness and the nearness of the river.

I had glimpsed a pile of bedding in the nearest corner. I left Tarani momentarily, sorted out pallets from blankets by feel, and did the best I could to make us a bed. Sleep and warmth were too paramount for any consideration of propriety or embarrassment. I pulled Tarani close against me under the blankets. She huddled into the warmth, shivered violently once, and fell asleep with her arms tucked into my chest and her head on my shoulder.

I awoke to a vibration in the ground beneath and around me. The blankness and the dank smell of the place kept me disoriented for a second or two, then a pleasant ache in my arm recalled Tarani’s presence and brought the situation into focus.

Must be people up above
, I decided. Confirmation came immediately as voices filtered faintly through the cushion of carpet that enclosed the entrance to this place.

Tarani stirred. I eased away from her, yawning, and felt around for the lamp and the sparker, attached to the lamp base by a length of string. I gripped the scissor-like handles of the sparker and snapped the flint against the tiny piece of steel. The noise seemed unbearably loud in that small area, as did the hiss as the wick of the candle caught. But once the chimney was in place, casting refracted light all around us, some of the cold and fear leeched out of us. We could see one another, and the room.

Tarani reached out to touch the lamp chimney with shaking fingers. “The design—it’s like—could it be that
he
made this?”

“Volitar?” I asked, thinking again that I would have liked to get to know the man who had been a father to Tarani. Once a gemcutter, he had adopted a new trade late in his life, that of glassmaker. “Why not?” I shrugged. “It won’t be the first coincidence we’ve run across.”

Not by a long shot
, I affirmed silently.

Tarani’s hand dropped away from the lamp chimney. “For the first time,” she said, “I am glad Volitar is dead. Glad that he did not live to see what Zefra has become … what she has been always.”

She looked at my face, nodded to herself, and smiled bitterly.

“Yes, I see her clearly, Rikardon. In the days I have spent in Eddarta, she has talked of nothing but my ‘rightful place’ as High Lord. And in her speech I heard years of loneliness, helplessness, imprisonment, frustration. She is mad indeed, mad with a need for the power which has made her its victim.” She sighed. “Nor can I fault her for it. I have shared her cell for only a few weeks, and—” Her voice shook. “And I am no longer confident of my own sanity.”

She huddled into herself, the attitude of her body warning me away.

“You’re thinking of—what happened on the hillside,” I said. It didn’t have to be a question.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice came out choked, awkward. “I am sorry, Rikardon. I cannot tell you why … I mean, I did want … forgive me.”

She
‘
s blaming herself?
I thought, astounded.
After I attacked her, she
‘
s apologizing for not letting herself be raped?

“There is nothing to forgive,” I said. Shame overwhelmed me; I couldn’t go on. Shame—and something else.

Thought of the hillside had brought forth a tactile memory of Tarani’s body beneath me, and with memory came desire. I wanted Tarani again, with the same scary fierceness. I fought to control it, taking deep breaths, clenching my hands until my arms trembled.

Tarani saw my distress, and did exactly the wrong—or the right, depending on viewpoint—thing. She rocked up to her knees, leaned across the distance between us, and put her arms around my neck.

What little control I had, dissolved in that instant.

I kissed her roughly and swung her, beneath me, to the pallet-covered dirt floor. She struggled, pulled her face away, gasped for breath, beat at me with her hands. I pinned her wrists above her head and kissed her again, forcing her legs apart, pressing into the softness between them.

Caught up in need, I started pushing at her rhythmically, the two-layer cloth barrier a torment of frustration. I growled, shifted my grip so that one hand held both Tarani’s wrists, and pulled awkwardly at her clothing.

She twisted her face away from mine and gasped: “Let go. Please. Let go.” It was then I noticed that the rhythm wasn’t mine alone. Her hips rose to meet me, her legs spreading wider with every thrust. “Please let go,” she groaned again, and I released her wrists.

For a frantic few seconds, we struggled with the clothes, reluctant to break the haunting, building, compelling rhythm long enough to clear away the barriers. Then she had one leg free of her trousers, mine were pushed out of the way, and her softness opened to me.

We both cried out as I entered her. Tarani’s hands gripped my neck, and her mouth sought mine as we moved together in sweet and scary excitement, wanting it to be over, wanting it never to end.

At the last, I broke away from her embrace, levered myself up on my arms, and focused every fiber of consciousness on the fused heat that was both of us, throbbing between her legs. Her hands slid down to my buttocks, gripped and relaxed, not so much guiding as amplifying the rhythm of our striking flesh, sending tremors of anticipation up my spine.

The moment came when we knew release was imminent. I moaned in joy and grief. Her pelvis twitched, creating a slightly different angle; her legs spread even wider. And, suddenly, I was pounding into the full, flattened softness, pounding and roaring and not hearing Tarani’s scream of relief, and joy, and despair.

Tarani’s labored breathing brought me back to the world. I heaved myself up on my elbows, and her lungs, relieved of pressure, gulped in air. She opened her eyes, and I knew that she, too, had only now wakened. Afraid to see what lay in her eyes, I kissed her gently.

Her lips were soft, responsive, eager. With a thrill of joy, I felt myself, still joined to her, begin to stiffen. Welcoming it, nurturing it, I let my lips touch her face, her throat. I slipped my hand under the fabric of her tunic and caressed her breast, full and firm. She moved and made a sound—and we took the time, then, to be free of all our clothing.

I kissed her breast and breathed her name: “Tarani”.

She held my head against her and whispered back. “Ricardo. Oh, Rikardon.”

What did she say?
I thought—then lost interest.

We were in the grip of need once again, less urgent for its recent satisfaction, but no less strong. It built more slowly, climbed just as high, and left us, this time, exhausted and at peace. I had strength enough to roll my weight off Tarani. Still joined, we slept.

A stamping sound from above roused us, then we heard Carn’s voice whispering from the opening. Light spilled down from the wide square, wavering and shivering.

Lamp light
, I thought.
Can it be night again, so soon?

“It be time to go,” Carn’s voice was saying in a projected whisper. “I’ve a meal for ye; I’ll leave it here. Did ye hear?”

“Yes,” I said, as Tarani stirred beside me. “We heard, Carn. Thank you.”

“Aye,” was all he said, and I heard his footsteps move away from the opening. He had left the light, which was a good thing. The candle in our lamp had burned itself out while we slept.

Tarani lay in the shadow of my body, so I couldn’t see her face when she came fully awake. Neither could I miss the sudden tension in her body. We moved apart, felt around for our clothes. I pulled a tunic over my head, heard and felt it rip, and pulled it off again.

“I think this is yours,” I said, holding it out toward the shape which was all I could see of her. It was lifted from my hand and another tunic left there. We sorted out our clothes and dressed, neither one of us suggesting that it would be easier with light.

I didn’t know how Tarani was feeling, but I felt clearheaded for the first time in—days? weeks? Light-headed, too—whether from relief or lack of food, I couldn’t say. I was a little shocked, definitely embarrassed by what had happened between us, but not regretful.

No, not at all regretful.

The memory of it stirred me in a distant, unreal way—because, in memory, I could leave behind the feeling, identifiable only now, that the need had been separate from us, an entity all its own, moving us, controlling us, using our bodies to satisfy itself. The force, the savagery of what Tarani and I had shared had been wonderful, exalting … and terrifying. I had no desire to re-create it.

That was a once-only
, I told myself,
the product of all our frustration on many levels, expressing itself in the most basic way possible. I think we both would have preferred something more gentle, but at least, now, the edge is off. Gentleness can come later, provided Tarani can cope with what happened. If we get out of this mess alive, Tarani
, I promised her silently as I watched her silhouette put on a final boot,
I
‘
ll give you all the time you need. Whatever you need. Anything is worth getting there again, both of us willing, both of us reaching for it with our hearts as well as our bodies.

“Ready for dinner?” I asked her.

“Yes, I am hungry,” she said, her voice subdued.

I almost reached for her, then, nearly overcome with tenderness.

You just promised to give her time
, I reminded myself sharply, and threw myself toward the opening in the floor overhead.
She has to find her own answers.

I brought down the lamp and the plate of fruit, meat, and bread, and went back for the pitcher of cool water. We are in silence, awkwardly and separately availed ourselves of the chamberpot, then crept up the ramp and poked our heads out of the floor opening.

“Carn,” I called out in a whisper.

“I be here,” he answered, and stepped in front of the opening in the carpet. He was tall and lanky, with rounded shoulders and long, muscular arms. One eye and one side of his mouth drooped slightly, giving him a permanent, wry expression. “Best be ye hurry a bit,” he said.

We crawled out into the storeroom; he stepped back to let us out, then turned away abruptly and walked toward the back of the room. “Leave the city by the second street,” he said, referring to the system by which the oldest, main street had been supplemented on alternate sides by parallel avenues. “Ye’ll be met at the joining by two who’ll trade clothes wi’ ye, and give ye instructions for where to join up with Tellor’s caravan. Ye’ll need to move quickly, mind.”

We had made our way through the rear door of the room into a smaller room that seemed to serve as an office. Carn stopped by a woven-reed door on the opposite side of the room and turned back to us.

“‘Tis a hurried job I’ve done for ye, but it be the best I could do in shorttime. It be clear ye cannot stay in Eddarta …” His voice trailed off, then he closed his mouth and turned toward the door.

“And?” I prompted him. “You were going to say something else?”

“‘Tis naught,” he said, but I caught his arm.

“I know you understand the risks you’ve taken to help us, Cam,” I said. “And there is little we can do to repay you. Whatever is important to you is also important to us.”

He looked up and shifted from foot to foot. At last he dropped his eyes and said: “Indelicate it be, but hap it needs saying.” He rubbed his hand quickly over his face as if scrubbing it. “The noises ye made,” he said, all in a rush. Tarani caught her breath, and I’m sure my neck began to redden. “And not but me heard them, neither. Folk passing in the street stopped in to ask of it.”

“What—” I had to clear my throat. “What did you tell them?”

Cam had caught the reason for my hesitation. “‘Tis not a jest!” he protested. “Seekers, watchers, might have heard!” Then he flexed his shoulders back, and looked at me with the start of a smile. “I spake that my wife was entertaining a Lord upstairs, and a trick of the building made it seem the sounds were below.”

“Would your wife support that, if the Lords come questioning?” I asked.

Cam shrugged. “They were strangers who asked—why should they care of my wife’s honor? Nor am I wed, in any case.”

I laughed, reached out my right hand, and took his. He responded with a warm grip, even though the gesture was strange to him.

“Vasklar is expecting ye at Stomestad in two seven-days,” he told us. “To hear the desert folk speak of ye, there is little ye cannot do.” He nodded at us, including both of us.

The Fa
‘
aldu would make great publicity agents in Ricardo
‘
s world
, I thought.
They
‘
ve managed to make me a legend while frequently keeping me from becoming a dead one.

“Keep ye well,” Cam said. “Hap I shall hear news of ye now and again.”

We were out the door and down the street before I realized that I had never asked him where he came from, how he had acquired that odd accent.

There are some things I may never know about this world,
I told myself, and was a little surprised that the thought wasn‘t frustrating.
The only thing better than having curiosity satisfied is having more to be curious about
, I thought, not at all sure I believed it.