In Thy Name

Chapter 0 - Not a vision

It was a toss-up which of them rose first, Teshem with his militia duties or Sareb anxious to get out gathering before the day's heat set in.

Today it was Teshem.

"Wake up!" He shook Sareb's shoulder. "I have to be at the castle early today because the Northern visitors are arriving, so if you want to go swimming we have to go now."

Sareb groaned and put an arm across his eyes. "Go by yourself."

Teshem lifted the arm off his face. "There's no point in going by myself. Besides, you know you want to."

Sareb sighed and sat up, sloughing off the capewrap that doubled as blanket. Teshem was right. He would feel awful if he had to start the day without washing off yesterday's sweat and grime. But even more, this was his only chance to spend time with Teshem today-with the goings-on at the castle, Teshem would probably not be able to return for noontime rest, and Sareb wouldn't see him again until evening, perhaps late, if there was a banquet in the visitors' honor.

"Why are they coming here anyway?" To Sareb, the desert was home, but to the Gladiari it was a hellhole, even after five hundred years of occupation. Gladiari could live so long, they still remembered their grandparents who had come from greener, wetter places, and it was those places they idolized, not the desert.

Though it was pitch dark in the cave, he could practically see Teshem waggle his eyebrows. "Big secret."

"But?"

"Negotiations of some kind, and not trade, from the hush-hush way they're going about it."

"What then?"

Teshem sighed. "If not trade, then what?"

Sareb's insides turned over. War.

Teshem being sent off to battle-

"Don't look like that. The Consul's hankering for a fight, but Old Caran won't want to budge. It's negotiations for negotiations' sake, that's all. Besides, these visitors are from the Far North."

Sareb didn't admit he didn't know where that was. Beyond the mountains, beyond the Forest, for sure. Far.

"I don't know why they'd even want an alliance in the Desert. Probably just posturing."

That didn't make Sareb feel better.

But he wrapped the capewrap around himself and led the way out of the cave, along the ravine to the tiny underground pool they used when they didn't have time to go to one of the oases or bigger cave-pools. Although it was still full dark, he didn't need to light a flare, the glimmer of starlight and one bare hand on the rock wall enough to guide him.

Even in the tiny cave, he didn't light a flare. They didn't need it, not even Teshem, and bathing in the dark had its own joys. Sareb liked to think it made up for all the times he'd bared his skin in the sun, blasphemously, in oases, letting the Sky Master see it.

The water was cold, the air no better. It was always night under the rock, always cold. And without the sun's heat for contrast, the chill water wasn't even a relief. But that was all right-they would make their own heat.

The two of them barely fit in the tiny pool, arms and legs jostling as they washed themselves. As always, it turned into a contest, interfering with each other and pushing each other into the close rock walls. As always, Sareb won, pinned Teshem against the wall. Teshem's breath was loud in the dark, like Sareb's own. It puffed on Sareb's face, close as he was. Any closer, and his chest, heaving, would be pressed to Teshem's-

"Let me go," Teshem whispered, breathless. "I have to get going."

Sareb pushed off so that he ended up against the opposite wall, a hollow inside him.