the wall, pressing into it almost, fading in the ice. And here you are, wasting your life and money and talent because you're running away from the real world. By the look of it, you've been running away from it ever since you could afford to pay for this drinking habit of yours.' Randur stood up. 'I'm going back to bed. Company's better up there.'
SEVENTEEN
'It's as if you're composed from a different fabric than before. I don't know what to make of your mannerisms any more, your tentative gestures and insecurities. Could you even be the same person as you were some years ago?'
How could she answer that?
Physically things were good, they always had been. Opening up was something she would never consider with Malum, and slowly, slowly she was beginning to remember. To learn again.
'Where's your confidence gone? Where're your nuances for mocking me, like I loved so long ago?'
He mellows me… 'I need time. Sometimes I feel stressed thinking about such things.'
Again they came to that world with no name. Earlier in the day, they had discovered a beach, and in his eagerness he declared it for himself.
'Lupus Beach is a suitable name for a beautiful place,' he laughed, then changed the subject, as if aware of her sudden unease.
There came an urge, later, to map this place, this other realm, and maybe it was his soldier's mind demanding to analyse everything, to apply a systematic logic to her world. She discouraged him at first, explaining that the place seemed to change slightly with time. No matter how much of this world she saw, each new visit would bring variants – different species of trees, or water carving fractionally different paths for the rivers.
'You just can't apply logic,' she insisted, watching him frown, 'to a place that doesn't obey any logic.'
His explorations didn't stop there: he moved onwards to the curves and blemishes of her body, tasting her skin, which perspired in this heat. The tide came in to drench their half-discarded clothing, her dark hair was left wet, and sand clung to their damp and sweaty bodies.
*
A stove-hot meadow now, the two of them lying in the grass, bright orchids, a flock of some bird species she had never seen before cutting through the sky in a V-formation, their calls utterly alien. Something that had a hexagonal spine and six legs rotated peculiarly along the grassland to drink from the river, and it seemed impossible to Lupus that such a creature could exist.
Because he didn't know where or what this place was, it presented itself as artificial. It was a world without context. A world frozen, ironically and practically, in time. Beami wondered what would happen if they remained here permanently, but there was very little around for her to measure herself against. It was simply a world to escape into, a world in which they could conduct their affair without being discovered.
Lupus noticed a cluster of bruises across Beami's back, and the narrow scoring across her shoulder. Shuddering gently, she let him run his fingers along them. Softly.
'I can do something, you know,' he offered. 'Have a word or two with the lads.'
'You can do nothing, Lupus.'
'Makes me angry.'
'And you think I'm not angry, too? Leave it alone. I give as good as I get.'
'I'm sorry. I'm just a fool who thinks he can solve all your problems.'
Mellowing, she realized he only meant well. This conversation was almost impossible to start on. 'He gets angry, but I'm not some meek woman. He's hit me, yes, but once I even used a relic to stop him, and he didn't even notice.'
A garuda came in, one of the local, feral ones, with different colouring from those found in the Boreal Archipelago, their plumages brighter and, of course, with no armour at all. It swooped in about forty paces from them, skimmed the tip of the grasses, its head craning in their direction, then banked away towards the deep blue.
She said, 'It's all because he hasn't been able to have sex for some time.'
'How do you mean?'
'He…' she searched for the right words. 'He's impotent, and he hates to talk about it. For us women, that's acceptable, isn't it? We can talk openly about how we feel – well, most of us can. But all he can say is that he doesn't feel like a man any more – the rest of it he says with his rage. Maybe that's why he leads such a dark life. I don't know half of what he gets up to any more. I used to be attracted to the element of danger – you know what I'm like – but I know it's not me. I'm not some dumb, weak-willed heiress who can't even wipe her own rear. It isn't me. It's only important to him to be able to… fuck. Let's say it – that's what it is, isn't it?' After dwelling on this thought for a moment, she faced him again. 'I've craved you for so long, you know.'
'Merely glad to be of assistance,' Lupus replied. His smile diffused the tension. 'And my rates are very reasonable these days.'
'You became a man-whore while you were in the army, did you? All those lonely soldiers away from home…'
'You'd love it there, all those men…'
'Hell, yes,' she said.
'Pervert.'
'Dickhead,' she said.
They kissed.
The first signs of dusk, a change in temperature, a shift in wind and the smells of vegetation gaining in intensity. The wolf came again, delighting Lupus. He leapt up as soon as he saw its face peering from within a cluster of sedges – two curious eyes.
'Hey,' he called out gently. He walked towards it wearing only the trousers of his uniform, carrying some of the meat they'd brought earlier. He crouched, offered the meat, while the animal cautiously approached. At first it just sniffed, twisting its head this way and that. Then with a quick nip, it plucked the meat from his grasp and withdrew into the sedges.
Lupus merely laughed, then returned to Beami.
'You two are a bit like each other,' she observed.
'How d'you mean?'
'A brief appearance, take the good stuff, then disappear again.'
'That's not fair. I need to get back to the barracks for training and strategy. I'd take you with me, if you wanted. You only have to say the word… but you're married.'
'It's just not easy,' Beami sighed. 'He works so hard and provides us with that magnificent home, amazing food. I can't say he doesn't love me exactly. He just gets angry, but sometimes I think he'll change, that I can help him change. This was what I was like, Lupus, until you came along. You've ruined everything.'
Beami began to cry into his shoulder, a gentle relief so it seemed, letting out the pressure of her situation, of her lack of control.
*
Later in this otherworld, night fell – and it seemed even more sudden with that fantastical yellow sun.
They lay on long grass throughout the balmy evening, staring up at the skies, while a warm wind came from the coast, and the trees had begun releasing perfume into the evening, smells he had never before known. Beami lay with her head on Lupus's chest, and his compound bow and quiver lay just to his right side, within easy reach. They watched the stars for some time, and it felt to her as if there was only the one moon here, the larger and brighter one. Sure it might look a bit out of alignment, but still…
'We should probably sleep here, tonight,' Beami suggested. 'If we return to the same moment in time in Villiren, then we'd need to appear fresh and not tired else people might suspect there was something up with us both.'
For a moment he thought a comet flashed at the periphery of his vision.
