I felt Anyanna's body slide between the sheets and lie down next to me.  All along the length of my body, skin on skin, I felt her weight.  I felt as she rested her breast against my chest, her taut nipple pressing into my skin.  She brought one leg up over my thighs and rested it over my cock, moving her thigh back and forth, stroking me with her leg and pressing in so that I could feel the hairs of her pussy grinding on my hips.  I brought my hands down over the small of her back and over the curve of her butt, then sent my fingers beyond, allowing my middle finger to slip between her wet folds.  In the still darkness, I kissed her, and she pinched my nipple.  The weight of her leg pressing down on my cock grinding back and forth was sending me into a frenzy.  I wrapped my elbow firmly around the back of her neck and kissed her with desperation in my heart, and she lifted herself up to straddle me.  She planted her hands on my chest while I caressed her hips with mine, wrapping my fingers around her thighs and over her butt and I felt her body lift up slowly, allowing the skin of my cock to glide across the inside of her thigh and along her mound.

Then I woke up, and I was alone with a throbbing erection.

If by some miracle Dune survived, I’d be seeing a lot of her.

I wanted her to bathe me again.

I wanted to return the favor.

And how would that go?  With Sarina?

Sarina thought she was broken; I told her she was whole.  The scariest moment of my life was when we were climbing The Punisher’s sheer, thousand-foot face together.  I was first, and got up onto a small ledge.  She was still on the cliff.

“It’s happening again,” Sarina had cried out.  “Oh God, it’s happening again!  Caleb, it’s happening again, it’s happening again!  I can feel it; it’s happening again!”

“Take the rope!” I’d yelled.

In her waning moments of lucidity, I'd been able to pull her up and onto the ledge.  No sooner than I’d gotten her up, she started to tremble.  Her hands shook, her feet shook, her head shook, her whole body seized up and trembled violently.  I wrapped my arms around her so tight.  I’d decided in that moment I would do anything, anything at all to hold on to her.  Soon she would start rolling back and forth, and if I hadn’t held on tight, she'd have rolled right off the edge.  I held onto her.  While she was moaning and grumbling, tossing, shaking, and frothing at the mouth, I was crying and I was praying.  But I held onto her.  If it cost me my life and she ended up taking us both, I would hold on to her.

Sarina needed me to love her, and I failed.  Again and again, I failed.

When I’d gotten back from the apothecary, Oasis had on a white, simple cotton robe with the hotel’s logo on the breast that came down to the middle of her muscular thighs.  I tried to watch the gebu’i as tiny white circles began to form on the surface of the water, but then Oasis crouched down and bent over to talk to Dune.  Davod did not lie—she had truly, truly magnificent legs.

I’d struggled to rip my eyes from her; fucking sublime.

What a loathsome creature I was!  With what she was going through, the last thing she needed was for me to drool over her like that.  The last thing Sarina needed was for me to involve myself with even more girls.  I had to behave myself.

There was also that girl in the tapestry shop.  I held her waist in my mind, tracing the outline of her curves, resting my hands on her round hips, felt her firm arse in mine, basked in the sultry way she turned round to glance at me, smiling through plush lips.  I had to try and find her again.

Why did she react that way?

With that thought the feeling had slipped from me completely and, unable to finish, my erection began to abate—not that I had anywhere to put the mess anyway.

Why did she react that way?  No sooner than I’d told her about being called to Carthia it was as though a light had burned out.  One minute flirtatious and friendly, then in the blink of an eye cold and disconnected.

I sat up to check the sky.  The night’s air was freezing, but I’d 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 check on Dune first thing in the morning, else it would be too late.

Too late for what?  She was good as dead whether I checked on her or not.

No less, I got up and 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 went out into the hall and 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.  My tongue found a stray chunk of nice-pepper, and by 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.

I was in the middle of trying to cool my mouth off when I heard her.

“Is it true that you’ll be staying with us if Dune survives?”

Anyanna’s voice cut through my thoughts, and I turned to look.  The light from my oil lamp cast her in an orange hue as she stood beside the door.  She was wearing a thick, black woolen shawl that she held tight to her body with both hands, brown leather boots, and a fur hat.  Her eyes had settled on the low flame from my lamp.

I sniffled and my eyes watered, and I answered her.  “In a word, yes.  Father Gerson believes…”

“When are you leaving to check on her?”

I shrugged.  “As soon as morning comes, I suppose.”

“We should go now.  The streets get crowded once the sun rises.”

We.  I hadn’t made room in my mind for that word.  What it meant was clear enough, though.  And so, we set out.

She walked quickly, and I struggled to make her out in the cold darkness.  Then, rather than turn left at the end of the noxious goat farm, she kept straight on the road leading us downhill into the dark silhouette of the city.  Stars had begun to slip from the sky’s grasp as the world shifted from black to blue.  To the east, jagged peaks looked black against the shifting sky.  To the west, billowing clouds reached high above the dark haze to be painted with orange and purple highlights.

The streets of Ulum were dark, with cold towers hosting the occasional window lit by the faint glow of an oil lamp somewhere within.  Up ahead, Anyanna stopped at an intersection and turned around to wait for me.  A wisp of white breath puffed out before her skinny face.

When I caught up to her, she slowed a bit 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 nodded, unsure 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 whenever I said something along those lines.  Anyanna didn’t react at all, but rather continued the conversation on her own terms.  “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.  “So I take it you’ve read Zayueshawani.”

She smiled effusively, glancing her eyes in my direction as we walked past a press that was still shuttered from the evening.  Apparently, the emperor’s youngest son rejected yet another courtier.  I think.  We walked fast and it was still dusk, but I think that was what it said.

Anyanna got quiet, but as I glanced at her, 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 strong puff of air that misted before her face, lit by a candle outside a shop up ahead, and disappeared.  “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 just 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 come back to me.

“Down there,” she pointed down a dark alley.  Up above, the black shadow of buildings carved a river of dark blue with amber lines of cloud bridging the sky.  On the street were piles of rubbish strewn about with some defiant plants growing in the cracks of stone.  I saw one fat rat bully the other rats around, and they all basically followed him.

She continued.  “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’m surprised you can even get maple here.  It’s very expensive, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s soooooooooo good!”

That made me laugh.  We kept walking.  The sky above us was turning daylight-blue.  Behind us, the black silhouette of mountains was set against a yellow sky.

After a while, she stopped and stared down an alleyway.  In the morning’s dusk, I could see the movement of small rodents scurrying in the corners of the street 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.  “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, an ox pulled a cart laden with goods beneath a large canvas tied up at the corners.  I couldn’t make out the driver beneath layers of woolen rags, but they paid us no mind.  I took hold of Anyanna’s arm, hoping to stop her at that moment.  Instead she shook her arm free and kept walking.

“Killed who?”

“It was a long time ago.  I understand now.”

“What do you understand?”  As the words left me, 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 six or seven men waiting outside wearing rough rags that smelt sharp of the unbathed.

“Anyanna wait!  What do you understand?”

She turned to face me.  “You’ll have to walk faster.  Once the sun rises, the streets get crowded.”

She told me nothing further.  Rather, she moved quickly down the street as the sky turned to amber, and people began to fill in the space.  By the time we reached the Falcon, the streets were packed with people elbowing their way about in every direction at once.

Anyanna reached her hand beneath the stream of frigid water pouring out from the massive, brown-stone Falcon’s beak and took a drink.  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 from here.”  She turned and pointed to the west, just beyond a tall totem headed by the Turtle spirit.  “It’s just down that way.”

“Maybe,” I said.  “We’ll see.”

She smiled lightly and relaxed her shoulder.

“It’s this hotel,” I said.  Outside the front entrance, a canvas awning was stretched over a wrought-iron frame that hosted a small candle that gave the whole assembly a glow.  That was beside a pair of iron sconces buried into the stone, each hosting an oil lamp that gave off extra light for passersby in the night.

Inside, the clerk didn’t bother to look up from his papers as we entered.  The lobby was still dim but for a paper lantern beside the front desk that flickered from the candle within.  The plush, green chairs offered a nice respite from the walk.

I leaned in to whisper, “who did you kill?”  

Anyanna lowered her face and turned away from me completely.

“Do you not want to tell me?”

She sat still and took in a deep breath before forcing her gaze out through the front of the hotel, an array of double-doors held open.  There, her eyes followed the people as they passed by 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 with nine small panes of distorted glass, but at this hour in the morning the interior was still relatively dark.  I ran, unsure what I would find once I got to the top floor, hoping it wasn’t already too late.

I knocked.

I waited, panting for breath for a minute or so before I heard footfalls beyond the door.  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 that same 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 that stood beside a plate with stray crumbs and a yellow smear of egg yolk left behind while I knelt to get a good look at the wound.

Up on the open penthouse, the sunrise brought more light than it had on the shaded streets below.  On Dune’s arm I could see 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 still raged hotter than the floor, and she lay still with her mouth fixed in an eerie grin beneath a thick layer of blankets with only a pulse to indicate she still lived. 

“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 came over and 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.  I turned to Oasis, who’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.”

I knew it was wrong.  Her best friend’s life hung in the balance, and the last thing she needed was for me to look at her in that way.  I wanted to look away, truly, but the way the hem of that robe crept up the back of her thighs as she crouched on her knees, bending over to tap Dune’s cheek had hooked my eyes and would not release me.

“Pa-ish!  Gowa to-usyi me!  Wake up for taking medicine!”

Oasis shook her, slapped her, stuck a finger in her ear, and more or less did as best she could to make her friend uncomfortable.  Dune didn’t respond.  I looked away, then leered at her some more, then looked away again.  I succumbed to the curvature of her back, then 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.

I heard Dune slur something, which gave me a pretext to turn my gaze back in Oasis’s direction once more.

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 then 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, my heart couldn't break free from the shame of having ogled her like that.  She surely saw me.

That was not how I wanted this to go.

I heard the click of a lock, followed by the low rumble of a door sliding open.

Adjacent to where I sat, a young Goloagi man with his hair in a curly mass at the top of his head stepped out into the hallway.  He was dressed in a fine, black woolen coat and tunic, and he walked past me without a word.

My eyes glanced at 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. 

A moment later, Oasis’s door opened and she stepped out.  Her face was sunk, 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.”  Then she wiped her tears away and sobbed as she spoke, “she is fighting everything!  Why she needs doing this?”

I tried to think of something to reassure her, but deep down I knew what would soon come to pass.  I had to find a way to prepare her for that eventuality.  “What about you?  How are you doing?”

Oasis looked up at me 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 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, I saw Anyanna sitting on one of the plush chairs, perfectly still with her hands clasped together over her knees and her back straight, following people with her eyes as they passed by on the street outside while 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 turned to face me as I came down only to look back down at his papers.  He gave no hint of awareness to 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 face me and stood with her eyes fixed at my feet.  She said nothing, and I came down and sat 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, get a chance to relax.  So… what if we take her to Turtle Plaza?”