CHAPTER SEVEN
THE HUNT!
About eight hours later, looking like a color-blind babushka in my clashing blanket and wrap, I stared out from the branches of a purple tree at the ritzy country house of the guy Lhan and I had stayed with the night the priests had grabbed me and sent me back to Earth.
My first instinct had been to go to the Aldhanan’s palace and ask Sai for help, or maybe even the Aldhanan himself. I mean, Lhan and I had saved his country for him, right? Couldn’t he do us a solid and get the church off our backs? But then I remembered how many priests I’d seen in there, and how paranoid Lhan and Sai had been about them knowing what we were up to. They had ears everywhere, Sai had said, and even the Aldhanan watched his ass around them.
Then I remembered that Lhan and the guy who had put us up on our last night together had looked over a bunch of maps while we were trying to work out where we gonna go to escape the priests. If anybody knew where this Toaga place was, it was that guy. All I had to do was find him. I wish I’d had a map. It took me a while to work out where that was from the middle of Ormolu, but after a long day of sneaking and hiding and dragging my ass all over hell and back, and way too many wrong turns, rewinds and dead ends, I finally got to Lhan’s friend’s house about three hours past sunset. Now I was scouting the place like a spy in a movie. It looked like I remembered it, like a villa on some Greek island, with balconies and porches and wings, only all made out of hexagons the way all the buildings were on Waar, and I half expected to see it full of priests, all waiting to ambush me. Well, if they were, they were wearing some pretty good shrubbery disguises, so I made for the wall.
It isn’t easy being a ninja when you’re big and pink and dressed in red and green. You don’t exactly blend in with the scenery. Fortunately, the big and little moons were down, and the lights were off in the house and probably nobody was watching anyway. I took a running start and jumped the wall long and shallow, then tucked and rolled on the blue lawn inside the compound and came up near the bushes outside the dining room.
Nobody called out. Nobody shot at me. Nobody opened a window. I let out a breath and climbed to a balcony on the second level, then rolled through an open door—and found myself in the bedroom Lhan and I had shared before the priests had grabbed me. I swallowed hard as little movies of that night flashed through my head. There was a lot of porn in those flicks, I admit, a lot of bouncing and grinding and licking and biting, but there was more too—kisses, hugs, stories back and forth, tears—all the stuff that makes a roll in the hay more than just a one-night stand, even if it only lasted one night.
“Don’t be dead, Lhan. Please don’t be dead.”
I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness—and to stop leaking—then crossed the room to the door and out into the hallway. If I remembered the layout right, our host’s room was two down to the left. The hall was darker than the rooms, so I made my way down by feel, and hoped my curses didn’t wake anybody as I banged my shins and elbows into things.
Finally I found what I hoped was the right door, and opened it. It was the right door. Tubby, our host, was asleep on his bed, snoring softly at the ceiling. His name started coming to me as I looked at him. What was it? Ryan? No. Rian? That was it. Rian-Gi. I slipped in and closed the door behind me.
“Psst! Hey, Rian. Hey, buddy.”
Have you ever seen a bulldog stuck with a cattle prod while napping? Neither have I, but now I don’t have to. Tubby levitated about three feet off the bed and did some kind of spastic ballet move before coming down half-off the bed with one hand to his chest and his eyes as round as ping-pong balls.
“Who-who-who-who—?”
“Relax.” I stepped out of the shadows. “It’s just me.”
He blinked at me for a second, then his eyes went wider than before. I was afraid they were gonna pop out onto his chest. “You! But you’re the worst person it could possibly be! Go away!”
“I need your help to find Lhan.”
He squealed. “By the Seven and the One! Go away! They may be watching the house!”
I looked toward the windows. He was making me paranoid. “Come on, dude. Nobody’s watching. I promise. They all think I went south. Now, will you help me? I need a map to some place called Toaga.”
He clapped his hands over his ears. “Do not tell me! They will ask again! They will put me to the question!”
“They questioned you? About Lhan? They…” A lump of ice slid down into my guts and grew into an iceberg. I clenched my fists. “Wait a minute. You told them. You’re the reason they knew he went with the pirates.”
Rian-Gi buried his face in his hands. “Oh, why did Lhan bring you here? The two of you have brought nothing but misery to this house. I wish they had caught you both before you ever darkened my door!”
That was too much. I grabbed him by the front of his robe and hoisted him off his feet so I could look him right in his fat little face.
“Listen, Madam Butterfly, I’m sorry we inconvenienced you. I’m sorry you’ve had storm troopers keeping you up past your bedtime, but if that’s enough for you to wish your best friend killed by those orange house-coat wearing pricks then you’re a fucking coward, and I oughta—”
He slapped me. It was like being hit with a silk glove full of tapioca, but it still brought me up short. He was red in the face. “Inconvenienced?”
He pushed away from me and tore out of his robe in a flinging frenzy, then stood there panting with his belly hanging out. There were red, half-healed whip cuts all over it.
“You see how inconvenient this has been for me?”
I stared, a hot flush rising in my face. I’d been too easy on Brother Aln. Way too easy. “The priests… The priests did that?”
He turned his head. “I—I was strong even then. Only when they threatened Wae-Fen did I—”
“Wae-Fen?”
He looked hurt. “You do not remember? He served us dinner. He ate with us.”
I thought back to that evening. Everything before me and Lhan had hooked up had kinda ended up on the cutting room floor, but now that I thought about it, I remembered. Rian-Gi had given us dinner in his bedroom—this room—and we’d been waited on by this laughing little pretty boy with slim hips and lavender hair.
“Your, uh, servant?”
“It was I who was servant to… to….”
He started blubbing and slumped on the bed again. I looked down at him, feeling guilty about pressing him, but wanting to hear him say it. “So, to save your lover, you told them where Lhan was.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled out of Rian-Gi’s lips. “To save him from the whip. Yes. I did. They… they gave him the knife instead. As soon as I had betrayed my best friend, they cut Wae-Fen’s throat from ear to ear. A corrupting influence, they said. A noble such as myself should not allow such perversion into my home. I must be a model for the morals of my inferiors.”
His dimpled fists balled up and turned white at the knuckles. He hung his head. “I should have thrown myself at them, killed as many as I could before joining my beloved in death. I am a coward. That I live is proof of it.”
I know it was shitty of me, but for a second, I was kinda inclined to agree with him. Then I felt ashamed of myself. Gay guys had it tough enough on Earth, and we were a supposedly civilized planet. Waar was still in the dark ages, and the church was the fucking Spanish Inquisition. Even a rich guy like Rian-Gi couldn’t stand up for himself here. If you fought back, you got killed. End of story. No laws, no courts, no rights organizations, nobody had your back.
I squatted down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. But… you don’t really want Lhan to die too, do you?”
He raised his head, haughty and hurt, but then his face crumpled. “I fear I may have already killed him.”
I was afraid of that too, but I didn’t want to think about it. “There’s still a chance. At least I hope so. But I need your help to find him, to save him.”
“But he is with the pirates. They might be anywhere.”
“They’re in a place called Toaga. At least that’s what a priest told me. I just need a map to get me there.”
He pursed his lips, then nodded and stood. “This way. To my private chamber.”