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18
Jory worked harder than ever. He came to accept the detente between Malinu and Nolani, but he did not sleep with her again. That kept Malinu cordial, and put Nolani at ease, because she had tired of Jory and did not want to juggle more than one relationship. Jory guessed she'd gone through a similar gyration with Kinkidai, but didn't ask.
Jory was now almost as good as Kinkidai, who was still a journeyman. The three of them fed off the experience and enormous talent of Malinu. Malinu, however, predicted that in ten kjirs, nobody would be able to match Jory.
Landfall came and went. Josenda and her husband disappeared. Kinkidai left the crew for another ship, and was replaced by a quiet, hard, dark-skinned man with narrow eyes, named Kawlin. Kawlin was thoroughly professional, but kept to himself otherwise, and Malinu said he missed Kinkidai's youthful company. Jory took up visits to the bars with Malinu to console him.
Jory began to have dreams of Oba.
He would wake up in the middle of the night and pace the ship's corridors. He had to force himself to be attentive at work. He quarreled with Malinu and Nolani, then with the new astropath.
And he dreamed of Ramy.
After Lord Dumonhi had struck her, and stormed out of her bedroom days ago, Jory happened to meet Dumonhi and his drunken retainers in the corridors. These were strangers who were not so tolerant of a castle human, and two drew their swords to part Jory with his head. Their senior man restrained them, saying: "We must not shed blood in the Lord Ramyon's house, even if it is a monkey." So they strode off, and Jory, who had been waiting on the roof, and had not expected the confrontation, breathed a sigh of relief.
Hearing the clatter of shod hooves galloping away into the night, Jory crept quiet as a melting candle up the familiar stairs, and, from the middle landing, heard her sobs. She cried continuously and heartbrokenly, each attack followed immediately by the next.
Pure instinct based on a lifetime of intimacy, trust, and affection made Jory knock on her door. He'd had many human girls, but they always soon left him because of the disfiguring horn plates inset in his temples. Ramy was the one female who'd been in his life since childhood, whom he could almost say he loved in a pure manner.
Ramy sat on the hard floor and cried bitterly. The door was ajar, and Jory let himself in, then slipped the lock shut.
She sat on the floor, where Dumonhi had left her. Her mouth and nose bled slightly, and she hardly gave Jory any notice as he went to wet a cloth. Returning to her, he gently brushed the drying blood from her chin, her lips, her nostrils. She sniffled residually, with an occasional hiccup. Then she embraced him, as one would a stuffed animal. He was her comfort. He still held the wet cloth, which he dropped on the floor as he embraced her in turn. They held each other, enjoying the gentle pleasure. He helped her up and walked her to her bed. It was a large bed, with four posts and an overhanging cloth. They had slept together many kjirs ago as child and pet. He helped her up and, as she lay back sighing, with one forearm draped over her forehead, he pulled the coverlet up over her fully clad form. She took his hand and pulled him to a seated position beside her. He sat on the bed for a long time, holding her hand, neither saying anything until he was sure she had fallen asleep. He admired the beauty of her features; in the half-light, she seemed more human than many women of Jory's kind. The reddish hair floated above the lovely mask of her face. When he grew tired and cramped, Jory sought to rise. As he began to gently disengage her hand from hers, she tightened her grip and pulled. She was not as strong as he, but he felt tender toward her. She opened the coverlet for him, as she might have ten kjirs earlier, and he slipped in beside her, still fully clothed.
They lay together, basking in one another's warmth. They nuzzled cheek to cheek, nose against neck, the arm of one around the chest of the other, and prepared to fall asleep. Yet the warmth and the scent of her hair and the feeling of her firm thighs caused something else. He heard the hard, deep breaths that signaled arousal. The whole world fell away—what the humans might say, what the Shurians might say—and they were two souls contained in a world of their own. They were on the brink of the unthinkable, even in their own thoughts—but those thoughts were gone now, in the throes of ardor.
To better touch each other, they stripped their clothes off, one stroke of the hand at a time, wriggling and breathing deeply. Pretty soon, their mouths met. From his life at the castle, Jory knew what would happen next. The Shurians' tongues were not only organs of taste, but of sexuality far greater than among humans, and of self-expression. First, Jory kissed her lips, which grew moist. Like a Shurian male, he lightly licked her lips, and their moistness grew. Soon, the tip of her blue tongue appeared. She lay on her back, eyes closed, breath splashing in and out of her extended nostrils. Jory licked her tongue and felt it gradually extend out, one finger's thickness at a time. He was aroused himself, and he was happy to please her, so he continued. He put his mouth on her tongue, containing what he could of it (it would not all fit into his mouth), and sucked gently, moving his head up and down. She began to moan. She pulled at him until he swung on top of her. He was afraid to put his weight on her, but she pulled him down with surprisingly strong arms. All the while, he continued to suck on her tongue, which grew as stiff as it was slippery. The Shurians' single excretory organ was where the humans had their anus. The Shurians' male/female reproductive organs were midway on their bellies. Jory's member was erect and hard. He let her little fumbling fingers guide her to the indentation in her belly that was already soaked with her lubricants. He slipped inside easily. Her hands fell away to lie on the bed—she was on her way to climax, and outwardly helpless. As he continued to suck up and down on her tongue, her gasps and moans increased in frequency. Her entire body was a field of tiny quivers. He did not need to move much in his awkward position, for she had muscles inside that acted like strong massaging hands around his member. At the height of her fervor, her limbs jerked slightly, and her entire body quivered. Jory rose toward climax about the same time, and they cried out together, squeezed each other, thrashed, and finally collapsed in a spent tangle of limbs.
"What have we done?" she whispered thickly, the bluish tip of her tongue still visible.
"We've done something we shouldn't," Jory whispered. He kissed her lips, and she thrust the tip of her still firm tongue between his lips. "But I truly love you," he added.
"And I love you, my darling. You are the only one who really loves me, and I love you."
"We can't do it again," Jory said, wanting to make love a thousand times that night for there must not be a second time.
"No, we cannot. But the laws are wrong. You are no more a—" (she couldn't say the word to his face) "—than I am. You have a soul, don't you? When you die, don't you go to Mount Oba and stand in the glowing fog?"
"Yes, my lady, my love. And we will stand together."
"You suggest—duello?" She asked the question with feigned casualness.
He laughed despite the grimness of their situation. "No, you silly one. I mean when we are old and die, we will be able to love each other forever where nobody can reach us."
"Maybe we'll run away," she thought, and immediately contradicted that thought. "No, because I would die without my baba."
It was true, Jory thought. That was the part of her culture he could never understand, not even after living with them for kjirs. The female and her birth sister, or baba, shared an entirely separate sexual liaison through which the male's seed was mixed with the female's, gestated inside the baba, and borne by her. The female was the child's seed mother, while the baba was its birth mother. Female and baba actually shared entirely different sex organs than those with which the female and the male communed. Without the love of her sister, Ramy would whither and die. He could not take her from here—the mere thought was ludicrous. So was the thought of maintaining this affair.
Jory and Ramy spent the next several days in a delirious half-life, much like the trance-like existence under the blanket. Each night, he stole to her bed and they passionately made love—real love, they both believed, not like the proprietary and violent seed-scattering performed by her husband before he returned to his skilled and inexhaustible concubines at Castle Dumonhi, or to his battles.
They were the most passionate nights of Jory's life. He would always carry with him his memories of lost treasure—the pleasure of entering her, the pleasure of taking her tongue in his mouth and feeling the quivers fly through her body while he pressed his weight on her and she held him tightly down, welcoming the pressure. When he did it push-up style, with his legs stretched straight behind, she would wrap her pale, smooth legs around his and squeeze. Her inner wet, smooth gripping muscles would massage him wildly, while her legs imprisoned him. It was a courtly love, full of tiny battles, conquests, taking of prisoners, sharing of captivity—but the baba saw them one night.
They were finished in bed, and walked to the window to look over the night. The Obayyo glowed far away. It was a clear night, and the oaty, musky, sweet tywix was in full bloom so that the hills around the castle not only were fragrant, but glowed faintly.
Ramy had a bottle of last kjir's tywix wine, and she poured them each half a glassful. The glasses were round, open on top, and lay in the palm like a ball. In each glass she had dropped a candle wick that burned for a few minutes before going out. They each held a flickering ball of light representing the true love they felt for one another. For a seeming eternity they walked slowly, nakedly, arms around each other, to the window, while holding their glowing tywix balls close.
The spell was shattered when axes and swords ripped through the door. Shurian warriors poured in yelling and pointing. Right behind them were buzzing, angry babas with biolume torches pointing at the couple. No use trying to cover their nakedness. In her shame, Ramy tore from Jory's grasp and ran for the bed, to cover herself with a sheet. There, already, Jory glimpsed Ramy's baba holding the damp, love-soiled sheet up with a look of crazed triumph. Ramy regarded her sister with a dull shocked look of betrayal. She would have given her life for her sister. Jory tried to pull Ramy with him, but she screamed and ran to tear her baba's hair.
Jory grabbed what clothing he could and dove out the window. He ran as fast as he could, and several retainers after him. They had better night vision, but they appeared to be drunk. He knew the hidden paths and nooks better than anyone in the palace. He made his way to the Obayyo with only the clothes on his back. A million times, he would curse himself for not making a stand and dying with her. He could not imagine ever loving another person as much as he loved her, even though his love had cost her life.
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