Chapter 3

Several hours later, Van—freshly bathed, hair combed, dressed in his own trousers plus a lightweight flowing shirt Milo had tossed his way, clean and smooth as water to the touch—hovered outside Lorre's tent in honeyed late-afternoon light.

He couldn't just go in. Could he?

He'd been invited. Ordered. Both.

He should go in. Shouldn't he?

The sun hung at just the angle to drench the world in dreamy buttercup gold. Sensual, if one liked. Incongruous, in another sense: here in this army encampment, all the gold and buttercups on the brink of war.

He stared at the tent-flap. His heart thundered in his throat. Storms at sea. Those crashing waves, again. Perilous rocks ahead.

He did not know where Milo had found the shirt. He hadn't asked, bewildered by efficiency and his best friend's newfound desire to make him as presentable as possible. Milo had put something into his hair, a sweet vanilla sort of scent, and had done something to make the waves softer and shinier, rather than freshly-washed and fluffy.

Milo's hands had been gentle, touching him. Milo himself had been quiet, aside from giving occasional orders about holding still for hair assistance or rolling up sleeves just so, because that mattered, evidently. That had all felt lovely, in a way—Milo fussing over him—and also not. Milo had not made jokes, or teased him. Deeply gravely serious, instead.

Van put out a hand. Touched the tent-flap. No sound came from inside.

He had a small bottle of oil, because Milo had put that into his hand, and he had left the bow and quiver but he did have one short knife, because Milo had said, in that newly serious voice, "I know you think he won't hurt you, but we don't know him, Van; we don't know anything about him and what he's like."

"If I bring weapons he'll think I'm there to murder him—"

"I'm not saying conceal it. You're in Her Majesty's army. He'll expect it. And…" Milo had hesitated, hands halfway through unlacing Van's shirt partway. "And I want you to be safe."

"I—"

"If you don't feel safe, if he hurts you, if he asks you for anything you don't want, you get out of there. And you come find me. Promise me you will."

"Wouldn't that be some sort of treason? If the Queen wants him happy."

"I don't care if it is. I mean it, Van."

Van looked at him, at those sky-blue eyes, at the set of that familiar square jaw. Milo needed a shave, he thought suddenly: hints of stubble had appeared. And those eyes held tiny lines like crumpled music-notes, at the corners.

He had said, putting a hand over Milo's, on his sleeve, "I promise."

He looked at his arm, his hand, now: reaching out to a magician's tent.

A skitter of fear, desire, anticipation, ran down his spine. Magic. Lorre. Himself. Whatever that meant.

He pictured long shining hair, and Lorre's big golden-lashed eyes, and that glittering grace. He felt his body react, wanting.

He drew a breath, shaky. He let it out. He went inside.

And discovered, an anticlimax, that the magician was not present.

No shimmering hair. No lapidary prettiness. No twinkling fire-flowers. Disappointment sagged into his chest, his gut. Other places too.

But of course Lorre wasn't there. He'd said Van should wait for him. And possibly make tea.

Given that, Van had a look around. He'd never been in a magician's tent. Never would be again. After tonight.

The tent wasn't as large as he would've guessed, but it held wonders. Plush rugs that doubtless felt fantastic under bare toes. A marvelous heap of bed, strewn with velvet and brocade and satin and furs. A dark blue coat embroidered with gold lay flung across that bed. A small folding table held a map of the Middle Lands and three different types of ink and what looked like vials of sand, water, and something purple Van couldn't identify. He was afraid to pick anything up.

The kettle sat on another table, this one inlaid with onyx and pink marble. Van did not know how Lorre had got it here, and chalked that up to magic.

He discovered water in a copper pot, but not hot water; he considered this and the act of tea-making. Lorre had left two small canisters out, plus a plate containing fresh strawberries, delicately iced cakes that had definitely not come from the Army supplies, and miniature spinach-and-cheese tarts. He'd also left at least four mugs and cups of various types scattered around: two on the table, one beside the bed, one inexplicably balanced on a fold of tent that was helpfully serving as a shelf.

Van collected the mugs and cups—one was pewter, two porcelain, but another one appeared to be made of solid ruby, and he hoped desperately that it wasn't, in case he dropped it—and concluded that magicians, at least this one, were as human as anyone else when it came to absentmindedly setting down cups of tea and wandering away.

He put the collection next to the kettle, and wondered whether he should wash them. Did Lorre have some sort of cleaning system?

He opened both canisters of tea, figured out which was mint and which was strawberry-lemongrass, and eyed the kettle, and thought about hot water. The tent was in fact decently warm; a bit more exploration uncovered a glowing brazier, on a low shelf with three books and a bundle of what looked like twigs and sticks. Lorre evidently liked warmth. And possibly sticks.

All right, then: hot water, tea, preparations. What else?

The vial of oil was heavy in his pocket. He tried to imagine what would come next. He couldn't. Couldn't even begin to guess what a magician would like.

The kettle was real and ordinary. He could deal with that.

He'd just finished with the tea when a ripple of fabric—tent-canvas, and then silk and lace—rustled into existence. Van froze, standing absurdly by the table, too tall and too clumsy and too afraid and too excited to turn.

"Good evening to you." The Sorcerer of Averene strolled around into Van's eyeline. So close, so tempting: Van could see every golden eyelash, every tiny arch of an eyebrow, the single stray wisp of hair floating along a cheekbone. He was wearing green and blue, oceanic and shifting, color layered with iridescent depth. His face was the face poets and historians had written about. His eyes were blue and infamous and utterly unreadable, mysterious as gemstone labyrinths. They gave nothing away.

Van felt the heat, the ache, in his body, rising in reply. He knew Lorre was—something more than human, something else. The eyes proclaimed as much. But everything else was so seductive, so luscious…

He managed, "I made tea?"

Lorre laughed. And took a step away. Some pressure eased. "So you did. And you found cups. Were any of them clean?"

"Um…"

"Oh, never mind, I can do that." A wave of one hand made drinkware sparkle; Lorre wandered over to the bed, sat down, and then flopped dramatically onto it in a swirl of seascape patterns. He stretched both arms over his head, too, and pointed his toes, like a kitten.

Van poured tea, hastily, and started to come over; Lorre said, not moving, "Honey," and Van did that as fast as possible.

He perched gingerly on the side of the bed. "Are you…all right?"

"Oh, fine." Lorre pushed himself up on an elbow, then sat up to take the mug. "I was explaining relocation to rocks. They think like granite. I feel like granite, at the moment. Heavy. I'll want you in a minute."

"Um. Yes."

"Very sweet. Such a nice boy." Lorre vanished into tea, downed half of it, resurfaced. "Sugar, wild strawberries…food…oh, you didn't eat."

"Was I…supposed to?"

"Well, if you wanted. Or not." Lorre was looking at the spinach tarts; Van had a feeling this was an order, and hopped up to bring the plate over. Lorre grinned at him, and ate four strawberries and three tarts and two iced cakes in quick succession. He was even pretty while eating, neat and slim and elegant. "You should have something."

That was, if not a command, unquestionably a suggestion. Van picked up a spinach tart. Nibbled. His stomach was full of nerves and hunger, not so much for the tarts.

Lorre stayed quiet while Van finished the tart and the smallest cake, perhaps thinking. His gaze was distant; his fingertips pulled fire out of the air again and turned it into tiny animals: a rabbit, a frog, a leaping fawn, a gamboling hedgehog.

Maybe Lorre wanted him to talk. To ask questions. Van tried, shyly, "I like that one. The hedgehog."

"Hmm? Oh. Yes." The animals twinkled and faded into disappearing amber dust. "Have you finished?"

"I think so?"

"Good." Lorre slid off the bed, came to stand in front of him. Van, still sitting in place, abruptly had a summer-eyed magician poised above him; a wave of Lorre's hand sent the plate and cups and kettle off to the pink and black marble table.

Lorre put out a hand. Touched Van's hair, ran fingers through dark waves. "Vanilla?"

"Um. I wanted to…we thought…"

"Ah. You wanted to impress me, or something along those lines. People do try that, on occasion." Lorre's fingers curled, not quite a tug. "You needn't have bothered. But I suppose I appreciate the effort. I like touching. And I want your hands on me. Sensation. Skin. Is that acceptable?"

Oh yes. So much yes. The arousal from earlier had come roaring back; it hammered in his pulse, between his thighs, in his cock. "Yes, please."

"So polite," Lorre said, amused; and then Van's clothing, borrowed shirt and all, had gone, and he found himself being shoved back into the bed, magician's hands running along his biceps, chest, stomach, lower.

Lorre was beautiful and infinite and commanding. Van got lost in feelings, glimpses, shattering star-soaked moments. Lorre's hair brushing his skin. Lorre's fingers wandering everyplace, as if trying to memorize him. Lorre's slim waist and tight body and smooth skin.

The heat of the brazier. The tastes of strawberries and tea and sugar. The scents of vanilla, honey, some sort of flower Van didn't know, a hint of sea-salt and water. One of the rumors suggested, he recalled hazily, that Lorre's mother was a water-spirit, one of the old elemental powers. Maybe that explained the oceans.

He did not know where his own oil had gone, but they did not need it; Lorre conjured slickness out of the air, and his fingers were warm, and he clearly knew how to touch a man's body. Van moaned and begged and made desperate noises, and generally forgot about coherence and sense and rationality. Those fingers, those cool blue eyes, pinning him in place. Yes, yes, please.

Lorre took him there on the bed, sliding into him; Van remembered that the magician had asked for touch, and tried to do as requested, reaching up, holding on. Lorre said nothing, only moved, and it was good, so very good, so shimmering and wild—

Lorre looked at him, but did not, precisely, see him. Van, on his back, and later on hands and knees, realized that.

Lorre was considerate about mutual pleasure, and took care with him, and paid attention to his reactions, assiduously so, until Van couldn't tell which way was up or how many hours it'd been or how many times he'd spilled himself; that was all true and ecstatic.

But a remoteness lingered. Lorre did not talk much, and did not kiss him, not really; some exploration of lips, mouths, tongue, but Van thought that was about sensation, not intimacy. About Lorre wanting to feel, to drink the feelings in. Skin to skin. Touching.

The labyrinthine blue of those eyes did not light up, not fully. Desire, yes—Lorre certainly found release, breathless, hips moving, climax flooding Van's body with heat. He knew Lorre was enjoying the night.

But he thought, again, about gemstones. Sapphires. Walls. A hardness. Never fracturing, letting nothing escape.

And then Lorre wrapped coils of golden firelight around his cock and his wrists, and traced fingertips like feathers along his inner thigh, and Van forgot to think, shuddering with exquisite sensitivity.

After some uncountable time, perhaps noticing that Van was wrung out and trembling with too much pleasure, Lorre kissed his shoulder and stopped teasing his cock and slid out of him, gently.

Van moaned helplessly. Everything ached in glorious ways. His hair stuck to his face, damp with sweat. Lorre liked some uses of magic in bed, and had been playing with multiple conjured-up fingers along with his prick in Van's body, plus some heat, cold, invisible ropes tugging Van's legs into the air.

Lorre sighed. "Are you quite all right?"

Van couldn't form words. He might've whimpered. Lorre's cock was magical too, thick and heavy; Lorre's release was dripping out of him, as he lay there sprawled atop the bed.

Lorre sighed again. "One moment." A little gesture, a sensation like hot water, a cloth—

He was clean. Entirely. He moved a hand, touched his own stomach.

"I'm useful on occasion," Lorre said, getting up from the bed. He'd also cleaned himself up, and—despite unselfconscious nakedness—resembled precisely the sorcerer he was, powerful and unassailable and remote.

His hair was curling from exertion, though, no longer straight and unruffled. And that'd been a hint of wryness in his tone. No: more than a hint. Proper self-deprecation.

Van managed to sit up. His muscles protested. Lorre had handled the messy bits, but it'd been a while, and he'd never felt anything like this. "Was that…I mean, if you…want more…"

"You look exhausted, so no."

"Was it…good?"

"Yes. Thank you. I do want more tea; would you like some?"

"Tea…I mean. Yes?"

Lorre poured, and brought two cups, and handed Van the ruby one. Van clutched it, and tried not to leave fingerprint-smudges on priceless stone.

Lorre went back to being quiet, sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed, staring into tea as if searching for an answer, a revelation, a secret he hadn't found. The tent held the scents of sex, honey, vanilla, washed in firelight.

Lorre got up, after a while, and went to stare at the map instead. He put the tea down mid-air without looking. Van almost scrambled off the bed to try to catch it, but the air supported porcelain calmly. Van stared at it. Transferred the stare to the Sorcerer, who was naked and lovely and drumming fingers over the map, across the winding blue line of the Argent.

He ventured, "Sorcerer?"

Lorre swung around. "You're still here?" His eyebrows held genuine astonishment.

"Ah…yes?"

"Oh."

"Do you want me to go?"

Big blue eyes got more perplexed. "Would you prefer to stay?"

Van got up. He wasn't sure why, only that it felt the thing to do. He had no clothes, so he wrapped the topmost blanket, a thick blue velvet expanse, around himself. "Do you want me to stay?"

"I don't mind either way." Lorre poked the map again. "If I split this, here, and we send a tributary down…"

"Is that what you were talking about, with the Queen?" He was taller than Lorre; he'd known that, but somehow he knew it again, just now. Standing nearer.

It was something about Lorre's quietness, or his startlement about Van wanting to be here. Something that made the magician, for all his maybe-eighty years, younger. With sex-rumpled hair, falling all down his back.

"Yes. It's perfectly possible—I'm good with water—but apparently political implications exist." Lorre scowled at the map. "I hate thinking about implications."

"Isn't that why you're here, though?"

Lorre sent the scowl his way, but not, Van thought, seriously. "I'm good at what I do. Doing what needs to be done. Maybe I should leave Averene. Kings and queens and rulers and politics and humans…"

"But—" Van put out a hand, shocked; then made a grab for his blanket. He couldn't be the one responsible for the Sorcerer leaving the kingdom. No. Fuck. As it were. "But you live here. You're here to help us. You're one of us."

"I am not, and I resent you saying so." Lorre kicked the marble table with bare toes. And then, with mild surprise, said, "Ouch."

"Fucking hell," Van said, and winced at his own mouth. "Come here. Sit down. Did you break those toes?"

"No. Well, not anymore." Lorre, back to sitting on the bed while Van picked up his foot, shrugged with both eyebrows. "It's fine."

It was now. Van had seen the straightening, heard the sounds. Hands on Lorre's ankle, holding on so he could check, he asked, "Does that hurt? I mean the healing of it."

"No. What're you doing?"

"Foot-rub."

"Oh, go away and be nice someplace else."

"Really?"

"No. Tell me something about you. Not about you. About…the land. Where you're from. Something you hold onto, when you're here."

Something to hold onto, Van thought. When Lorre himself had said, I'm not one of you. And then managed to injure himself.

He said, hands kneading the fine-boned shape of the magician's foot, "I grew up in Baylight. Tiny village, mostly fisherfolk, you wouldn't know it. A good stop for trading boats, though, and a good trade in boat-building. My parents run the local inn."

Lorre made a sound, which might've meant anything or nothing; but he put his other foot in Van's lap too.

"I always liked going down to the shore, in the morning. Early morning, with the sun coming up, and light all across the water like a giant looking-glass, catching the colors of it. Peaceful, and bright."

"Perhaps you should've been a lighthouse keeper."

"Maybe. I'll take over the inn someday. But the Queen needed volunteers. I'm here now." He ran a hand along Lorre's calf. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Do you have to?" Lorre summoned tea with one lazy finger. "I don't know you. You don't need to know me. It doesn't matter."

"You said you weren't from Averene. Is that true? It's just, in the stories I know, you're part of our history."

Lorre snorted. And took the feet away, getting up. He collected and threw on a loose indigo robe, with ties at the waist, along the way. It had impractical beribboned sleeves. "And that's a very stupid question you've chosen."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's complicated."

"I'm sorry, I said."

"If you know the stories you know the answer." Lorre went back to the map. "Those mountains…but I can handle that…if you want the short version, the barony of Valpres is still independent, and my mother was a river, so no, I'm not one of you, on both counts. If Penth needs fresh water, the Argent's the best option, but I could play with the ocean, also…"

"A whole ocean?" Van was pretty sure he'd said the wrong thing; those lapidary doors had slammed shut. "You can do that?"

"And I don't like waiting for permission. I think I'll go ahead and do the river, actually. I can do it from here, and it'll make for interesting negotiations tomorrow."

Interesting would be one word for it. "Do you need…anything? More tea?"

"I can make tea if I want it."

A hush landed, for a few implacable minutes. Van tried not to fidget. Himself, in the magician's bed. Himself well-fucked and evidently not needed for anything else. Lorre hadn't brought back his clothes.

The fire, in its gleaming bowl, crackled and popped. The bed was more luxurious than any in Van's parents' inn. He stuck his toes under a fold of brocade. "I think I remember you were born in Valpres. From that story." And then he remembered what else happened in that story, and very nearly buried himself in the luxurious bed to scream a bit.

"You think you remember that." Lorre tapped the river, on the map. "And what does that story tell you about me?"

He couldn't say that. He couldn't.

"Go on. What does the world think, about me?"

The world. The world was upside-down and inside-out. Van didn't know how to draw his own map for this.

He was sitting naked in Lorre's bed. A simple bowman, not even an officer, only a twenty-eight-year-old volunteer from a fishing village. While the magician, wearing indigo ribbons and silk, leaned over a fanciful marble table and considered a map of kingdoms and boundaries. With war, or an avoidance of war, at stake. The night couldn't get stranger.

On that thought, he gathered up all his courage. Lorre had asked, and it'd been practically a dare. "They say you killed your own father. Or wanted him dead, at least."

"Is that what they're saying about us?" Lorre drew a line across the map with a fingertip; ink followed, formed a new experimental boundary.

Van, unsure of the correct reply, stayed silent.

A spike of sapphire glanced his way. "Do you believe it? Also, how much does the average person in Averene care about these canyons?"

"Where? Oh. I don't think anyone lives there. Is it good for farmland?"

"No, but it's pretty. Colorful. Friendly, if you know how to speak sandstone. That river's a problem, of course. It's changed course since this map was made. So I'll have to drop in and say hello."

"Are you…redrawing the map of the Middle Lands?"

"Yes. Literally. You'll see it tomorrow. You didn't answer me."

"Ah. No, I…don't think you did?" It came out more a question than he'd meant it to be.

Lorre laughed. "But you don't know."

"You wouldn't."

"You don't know me."

"I just think…you wouldn't. It'd be like—how could someone even think—I mean, your own father."

Lorre laughed again, not out of amusement. The ink flattened into a blotch under his fingertip, a crushed star, a stain over parchment. "You have such faith in people. Touching."

"You don't?"

"As it happens, I didn't kill him. I was a porpoise at the time. I had no idea he was even ill. His heart, was what I heard when I surfaced. I hadn't known he had one." Lorre blinked at the map, lifted his finger, blew a kiss at ink-stains. The ink, including the smudge on his skin, scampered back to its previous position. "Don't bother contradicting anyone. I don't mind the story."

Van caught himself about to ask, you don't? a second time, and instead tried, "Why would you want people to think—"

"He wasn't very likeable," Lorre said, "and neither am I. And stories are power. You can either leave or go to sleep; I'll be working on the new river for a while."

"You disappeared my clothes."

"Oh. Do you want them?"

"Yes!"

"Oh. One second." Lorre got a tiny line of concentration between portrait-frame eyebrows. "I'm not sure where I sent them. All right, here you are." The heap of fabric—including the oil-vial, and Van's sheathed knife—hit him in the chest.

"I'm sorry," Van tried, clinging to shirt and trousers. The night had spun into an abyss. An arrow gone wide of its target. Wild uncontrolled flight. He knew he'd done something wrong; he didn't know how to fix it. "I didn't mean—I'll stay, if you want company—"

"I told you, I don't mind either way. But be quiet."

He almost got up and left. Sitting there with the bundle of clothing, loneliness a vicious spike through his chest even though Lorre remained present, awareness that he'd been dismissed—

If he went back now, he'd wake up Milo. And Milo would fuss over him, and worry about him, and hold him, if he asked for that.

He wanted that, abruptly; he wanted that so badly he thought it must be visible beneath his skin. He wanted to see those blue eyes, lighter and kinder than Lorre's. He wanted Milo to put a hand on his arm again, so he could feel warmth, not magical, purely human.

Milo would fuss over him, and care for him.

Because they were friends. Because Milo cared about him, as a friend. Had said so, those exact words. While helping Van get ready to be a magician's plaything for the night.

He put down the shirt and trousers. He curled up into the extravagant bed. It was richly comfortable, a miracle of bed, a perfection of bed. His body hurt; his heart hurt, confused.

He wasn't sure he could sleep. He wanted to, and needed to, for the morning; but his head buzzed with emotions. He shut his eyes, though, and after a while knew that he was drifting, in and out.

Eventually, after some time, he heard an almost inaudible sigh. Felt a shift in the air, a presence.

Lorre said nothing, only tugged a thick blanket more closely up over him, and tucked him in, and patted his shoulder, once. Then moved away.

It was too big and too complicated and Van couldn't think about it. The blanket was heavy, and the bed was sympathetic. He let that be all that mattered, for now, and slid into dreamless sleep.