Osidian frowned, considering it. For a moment Carnelian was certain he had pushed him too hard, but then the boy in Osidian looked him in the eyes and nodded.
Carnelian was rolling some djada to take with them. 'Are you sure I won't need to ask your mother for permission?'
Fern shook his head. There's no escape up there.'
Carnelian packed the djada. 'Will you tell Poppy and keep her with you? If I tell her she'll hate it; perhaps even follow me.'
Fern nodded, frowning. 'Are you sure you want to go, alone, with him?'
'We need to talk and down here he'll not open up.'
Carnelian saw the depths of Fern's feelings. 'He'd never harm me.'
The answer seemed to confuse Fern. He reached for a waterskin. 'I'll fetch you some water.'
'That would weigh us down too much,' said Carnelian. He looked at Fern, trying to work him out. Could it be jealousy? 'We'll take what we need from the stream. We'll not be away more than a day or two.'
He hoisted the pack and went off to meet Osidian. When he glanced back, he saw Fern watching him. There was a part of Carnelian that took pleasure at seeing Fern annoyed.
Carnelian ignored the look of indolence on Osidian's painted face. Part of him was already regretting the expedition. 'Come, my Lord,' he said in Quya and made off along the bank.
The stream filled the air with its babble. Birds screamed as they knifed through the air. The valley funnelled up into a twilit gorge where the stream quickened, its deeper voice vibrating the air. Their path narrowed so that they had to go one behind the other, their skin dampened by the spray. Light began filtering brighter through the ferns and soon they were coming up into cool, open land. They drew the pure wind into their lungs. Seeing how alive Osidian's eyes had become, how lustily he climbed, Carnelian allowed himself to believe he was seeing the boy he had loved.
There is something in this of the climb we made back up to the Halls of Thunder.'
Carnelian knew immediately he had made a mistake. Osidian grew morose. 'My dear mother and her son will be up there now ruling in my place.'
It was nearing the middle of the day when, already high up a shoulder of the mountains, they came to where the stream foamed in steps into a deep, clear pool. Small trees grew around it, and arching ferns. Carnelian unrolled a blanket he had brought upon a narrow shelf of rock and they sat on it, lowering their feet into the spray, listening to the gurgle of the stream.
Carnelian saw Osidian was blind to the place; deaf to it. He followed the drop of his forehead, the jutting of his nose, the paler lips set in the black face.
'Here I might even forget Osrakum,' he tried, tentatively.
'Never,' said Osidian without turning.
His bitterness made Carnelian angry. 'Can you not even here allow yourself some peace?'
Osidian turned to look at him. 'Have you truly found peace?'
Carnelian gazed up at the mountains and then back into Osidian's eyes, greener than the sun through the ferns. 'It is beautiful and we are alone together as we have not been since the Yden.'
'An abyss has opened between us.'
'Ravan?'
Osidian laughed. 'You believe I could love such a creature?'
Carnelian looked away to hide his vexation.
'I used him to meet my needs; to wound you.'
Carnelian met his gaze. 'Fern, then?'
The pupils of Osidian's eyes contracted. 'Your tastes afflict me but deeper betrayals have dug the ground from under my feet.'
When the sybling Hanuses had told Carnelian that without him they would have been unable to capture Osidian, that accusation had lodged its barb in Carnelian's heart. Now it gave a twist that brought tears to his eyes.
Osidian reached up and stole a tear. Things can never again be as once they were.' He tasted the wetness on his finger. 'I have no more tears.'
Carnelian took hold of him by his shoulders. 'Where are you?'
Osidian broke his grip and turned back to watch the flow. 'Alone, standing on a pinnacle from which there leads only a single, precarious path.'
Carnelian saw the pain on Osidian's face and yearned to kiss it but had lost his way to him.
'Would you not feel better if you washed the blackness from your face?'
'Would it wash the blackness from my heart?'
Carnelian remembered the razors he had thought to bring. 'Surely you would enjoy once more to have your head smooth?'
Osidian looked at him, then shrugged, but Carnelian could see he was intrigued. He opened the pack and on a corner of the blanket laid out the things he had packed.
There was a small pot and a handful of flint razors. He was pleased when he saw Osidian showing interest in these preparations. Osidian allowed him to unwind the uba from his head. Carnelian saw the rope scar. Osidian's hair was thick and Carnelian liked the feel of it, but he began to shear it off. He sensed Osidian examining him as he worked. The flints yanked at the hair but Osidian did not seem to feel any pain. After a while, Carnelian sat back. Osidian's head was covered with a thick uneven stubble. Carnelian smiled. 'You look somewhat bizarre.'
He went to scoop some water from the pool. It was ice in his hands but Osidian did not flinch when Carnelian trickled it over his head. He thumbed some of the paste from the pot and rubbed it between the palms of his hands. Seeing Osidian's raised eyebrows, he said: 'It is a kind of soap they make from ochre, ashes and fat which the women use. It will make the blades gbde.'
He lathered the red stuff over Osidian's head, disliking its look of blood. With care he began to scrape the stubble off with a flint, making sure he turned to a new edge before the previous one became blunt.
When he was done, he urged Osidian to go and wash. Osidian surprised him. He threw off his robe and slid naked into the pool. Carnelian cried out with joy as he watched him submerge.
When Osidian broke the surface, his face was white. He clambered out, dripping, and Carnelian got up and welcomed him into the blanket, wrapping it round him, kissing his reddened scalp.
Osidian embraced him hard through the blanket. 'Surely you don't imagine I'm prepared to suffer all this alone?'
Carnelian melted into the comfort of his arms, his Vulgate, his boyish smile. He shivered with delight as he allowed Osidian to shave him. His black hair fell around him onto the rock as Osidian's arms crossed and recrossed his line of sight. Carnelian had plenty of time to decide he liked the new honeyed tones of Osidian's skin.
When it was done, Osidian stood up and with mock imperiousness pointed at the pool. 'In there.'
Carnelian did as he was told, disrobing and leaping into the pool before Osidian could push him. He gasped as the iciness engulfed him. But then Osidian was there beside him and the smallness of the pool forced their bodies close. The touching of their skin led to passion. Lust took Carnelian by surprise. Its heat was almost violence. The release when it came left them both gasping. They enjoyed each other again, at first fiercely but then with increasing tenderness until they were left with hardly enough energy to creep into the blanket. They huddled together, getting warm. They grew quiet as a melancholy settled over the glade. The water rushed and foamed. The goose-pimples stood out on their skin as they used its sound to send shivers up and down their backs; ripple upon ripple sheathing them in the ecstasy that was the Chosen sacrament of the feeling from the sound of rain.
Carnelian felt tension returning to Osidian's body. He needed to talk to him before he retreated back into remoteness. He forced Osidian to turn his head and held it while he looked deep into his eyes.
'We've enough here for happiness.'
Osidian tried to shake his head from side to side.
'Let Osrakum go,' Carnelian pleaded. 'Let it all go. Only when you do will your heart begin to heal.'