They lay together after their lovemaking, sated and smiling at each other in the light from the flickering lamp on the wall above the bedside table.
The light was golden on Gilbert’s skin and Temple languidly let his hands travel up his sides, smiling happily.
“You don’t have to say you trust me,” Gilbert smiled. “I know.”
“You don’t have to say you love me,” Temple said.
“What if I want to?”
“What if I want to?” Temple repeated cheekily, and then laughed and rolled his eyes at how inane the conversation was.
Gilbert laughed too. “You have a sassy streak, you know that?” he asked, hand caressing Temple’s backside.
“What would you like me to say when I come, then, if I don’t have to say that I trust you?”
“I don’t know, I suppose we could trade if you are comfortable with that?”
Temple felt a stab of worry, and Gilbert must have seen it because he immediately pressed a kiss to his lips.
“You don’t have to,” Gilbert said swiftly. “You don’t have to.”
“I can say it. Why shouldn’t I?”
Gilbert smiled at him, and the worry melted away almost instantly. Throwing some true words at him wasn’t any more permanent than handing him his life and safety. He could handle it, Temple thought, not nervous.
“When I ran…” Temple began and then stopped. This wasn’t what he had intended to say. This was something completely different. He wrinkled his brows.
Gilbert softly ran a finger down his forehead. “What thought is that?” he asked.
“There’s something I have to tell you. But I don’t even know if I can,” Temple said before he could stop himself, but then the words began forming in his mind. The thought of not having to fight the darkness alone was so alluring. If he could just put words on it all, maybe he could find out how he should fight it.
Then he felt Gilbert’s thumb gently caress his cheek, and realised he had been silent for a while.
“I won’t judge you or get angry at you if that’s what you are worried about,” Gilbert said.
“It isn’t.” The thought hadn’t even occurred to him, and he smiled, which made Gilbert smile back. “I don’t know how to tell it,” he explained.
“Start wherever your thoughts are. We can put it all in order afterwards.”
“The darkness is Rakkos and I know its songs. I knew its songs. As a child…” Temple froze and stared into the murk beyond the lamp. It was too easy, somehow. This wasn’t something he was meant to tell anyone, but he also didn’t want to stop. The floodgates were opened and more words were crowding his mind to be let loose. “I knew so many things about it. I worshipped it. Because… the woman taught me. I think. I don’t think I was the only child there, but I’m not sure. I was still small when it happened. I remember the man who held her down. He had a hand in her hair and said he wouldn’t kill her if I gave in as I was supposed to, and then I did. I gave in and the darkness took me. And it used my hands to kill her. It… it used my hands. And I couldn’t stop it.” Temple stared at Gilbert, shocked.
None of this had been conscious thought that found its way to his lips. He didn’t know he knew this, and he stared into Gilbert’s worried eyes, more surprised than scared at what had just happened.
Gilbert just held him, ran his fingers softly through Temple’s short hair, and didn’t say anything. Feeling his warmth, his solid presence next to him, was calming. “I didn’t know that I knew,” Temple finally said.
“If you want, maybe you should keep talking? I can ask you questions if that helps?” Gilbert asked calmly.
Temple just nodded. He had no idea what exactly was happening in his mind, but having Gilbert as his anchor rather than his customary loneliness and isolation felt like a blessing that held the horror at bay. “It’s all so far away in time. I’m separated from it by so many years of silence,” he said quietly.
“I’ve seen you vanish into the shadows. Is that why? How are you able to do that?” Gilbert asked, voice calm and gentle.
Temple tried to look back, but everything was so blurry. He had trained himself for years to avoid any thoughts of the darkness so it didn’t notice him, but it had lingered with him and imparted its gift to him. The access to the darkworld. “I think… I think I may have stolen it. Or it stayed with me. I think I broke something, and the darkness couldn’t stay. Then I ran. I remember being terrified and in pain when the sun rose. I didn’t know what it was! I didn’t know what the sun was.” He looked imploringly at Gilbert. “That’s mad, isn’t it?”
“No, not if you were a small kid all alone who had never seen sunlight. Then fear would be a perfectly reasonable response, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ve been quiet and alone for so long.” Temple frowned, trying to navigate the maze of his feelings that were all rushing to the surface all at once.
“You aren’t alone anymore,” Gilbert just said and brushed his lips softly against Temple’s.
Temple smiled.
“Do you remember the …painter?” Gilbert asked carefully, obviously scanning Temple’s eyes for any sign of distress. When Temple just nodded, he continued, “He said something like ‘I surrender myself to you’ or something like that when he died. And he seemed to almost recognise you…”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
A myriad of emotions swam to the surface and Temple was about to snap and push Gilbert away, just as always, when it dawned on him that he didn’t have to. He rolled over on his back, staring into the familiar ceiling blankly. Gilbert grabbed some pillows to lean against and then dragged him into a half-sitting position. For a few seconds, he was a ragdoll in the Watcher’s grip, and then he suddenly sputtered to life with a laugh. “What are you doing?”
“I want you close,” Gilbert grinned. “I don’t care that you aren’t making it easy on me.”
“I was just trying to sort my thoughts out.”
“Sort away, I’ll just flop you around a bit in the meantime.” Gilbert propped him up against the pillows, and he did nothing to help, just laughing silently all the while at the absurdity.
Finally, laughing, Gilbert had manoeuvred him in place so he rested on the pillows with Gilbert’s arm under his head.
“Done thinking?” Gilbert laughed.
“I am. The painter kneeled to me because he thought I– He must have sensed the darkness on me. I think it has been attached to me since I fled. But just not really able to reach me. And then…” Temple sat up in bed and Gilbert did the same, putting a hand on Temple’s arm gently. “When you said–”
“Go on,” Gilbert prompted calmingly when Temple faltered. “What did I say?”
“You said I love you, and I felt the same, but that made something snap back in place that should have never happened. And now you are in danger because I wanted to fight. I put you in danger. I didn’t give you a choice.”
Gilbert quickly reached out and held him close, tightening his grip. “Stop, stop squirming! I consent. To the whole thing. If I’m in danger, then so are you and we will fix it together. Temple!”
His name was shouted, a short, sharp command that made him freeze in Gilbert's grip.
“I don’t want you near it,” Temple exclaimed hotly. “Let me go. This is my problem.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” Gilbert still held him close and refused to budge, and now he studied Temple’s eyes thoroughly until Temple felt his cheeks heat and looked away. “I’m not going to let you handle this alone when I just told you I love you,” Gilbert said slowly. “…Frankly, you are very close to insulting me right now.”
Temple bit his lip and looked up again. “I don’t know how to do this…”
“I know. Me neither, but you didn’t get me into trouble. I’m already involved. I didn’t tell you about the High Merchant yet, so stop concluding all kinds of things without inviting me to the party.”
Temple laid still, regarding the Watcher in his bed carefully. “High Merchant?” he asked slowly.
“About five days ago, the High Merchant sent a representative to the palisade to give me a folder of papers on Rakkos. Or rather, the Eye of Greed. Can I tell you what I read?”
Temple nodded reluctantly. He didn’t want to hear it, but he had to. He had to know the extent of the damage.
“Rakkos was a young but powerful god, consort to Merea in the beginning, apparently. But he stole from her and, though she forgave him, he ended up stealing the goddess herself and plunging the living world and the godrealms into darkness after the Upheaval. The other powers united against him and freed Merea, but from then on, she banished him to some place called The Ethereal, where he supposedly floats around in grey nothingness, petrified and unable to do anything. …The stories of the gods are always a bit dim, but, well, Rakkos is a banished god of darkness and greed, only able to influence the living realms through people or priests who seek him out specifically,” Gilbert related.
It felt familiar, but the rage in the story was missing, the rage on behalf of the banished one who would wake and bring possession and strength to his faithful. Temple felt suddenly bone-weary and sad. It was too much. He didn’t know how to fight it all, and more knowledge just felt like extra weight when he had so deftly spent the last twenty-some years not carrying knowledge, memory, or connection to anything. “You are not done, are you?” he asked.
“No, not yet,” Gilbert said softly. “Apparently, there have been some priestesses of Merea who have worried that the god still has followers, and some mad theologian who has been dead for about a century wrote a sort of manual on how to wake an exiled god. Whatever magic they are doing, would it be completely crazy to suppose you were in the hands of some outdated cultists once, as a child?”
“Wait, so you think… that it was just something that happened back then? That it’s maybe just some remnant of an old spell or something?” Temple asked, halfway hopeful.
Gilbert pressed his lips together in a gesture Temple hadn’t seen before. But it looked to mean disappointment incoming because he shook his head. “I hope so. But honestly, it was about as fishy as it gets, the whole thing. There are many things I’ve been wondering about. The messenger who gave me this information asked me about a bridge,” he said, and Temple started and looked at him. “What was that reaction?” Gilbert asked. “Several of the lunatics have called me a bridge. I’ve gotten used to just considering it mad-speak for … I don’t know, some kind of insult.”
“It just felt—” Temple stopped himself.
Gilbert put a hand on Temple’s face and let his thumb caress him until Temple began to slowly melt, looking into his eyes. “I don’t think there is anything that should not be said in this conversation. If you felt something, please tell me. I think it’s about time we talked this through,” he said softly.
Temple sighed. “It was like a snap, just before I ran from you. It felt like a connection had finally formed that had been building for a long time. But it was just a feeling. I could have imagined it.”
“Maybe,” Gilbert said. “Do you believe that?”
“What did the man say about a bridge?” Temple asked, unwilling to answer.
“He asked if I would rather cross one of sorrow or love. And he asked it like it wasn’t an insane question. He also didn’t give his name and he disappeared from a room with four people in it without being seen. I have no idea what all this means, but he obviously wanted me to ask questions. Like what the hells is the High Merchant’s interest in all this?”
Temple sighed. “He should be busy playing with his new safe…” he mumbled and rubbed his face on Gilbert’s shoulder, which made him laugh.
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. I just heard the High Merchant had acquired a new safe that’s supposed to be uncrackable. That was the reason I procured the drawings for Spenbell Estate, to see if there might be some hints as to the easiest way in,” Temple shrugged tiredly. “That’s all I know about him.”
“Alright, so if we decide to shamelessly jump to conclusions for a moment, does that sound like …bait to you? How to catch a bored thief who wants to prove himself?”
“What? Why me?”
“Temple… they even bow to you.” Gilbert looked at him as if he were missing something obvious.
“No! Stop blaming me!”
“I’m not. But coincidences work to a certain point and then become a pattern. This is a pattern and I think you already know it. If they want you back, having you voluntarily go to a group of crazies who worship greed to rob them…”
“That’s mad.”
“Nope. Madness is what happens when you think writing poetry on the wall with your own shit is a good and sensible move; I’ve had to go to Margan Elfslayer’s Hospital on official business, so trust me on this. This is just something that happens. I understand that it’s …it’s terrifying. But it’s happening and we need to fight back a lot smarter before whatever they want happens.”
“We should find out, then. We could… You could introduce me to the High Merchant as a specialist to protect his properties better and we see what he does? If you are accompanied by a smattering of your people, they cannot just attack you. Us.”
“Possibly. What are you hoping to learn?”
“If he has any of those symbols? Whether he reacts to me. I don’t have any way of meeting him, other than sneaking in.”
“Alright, but we will plan this carefully.”
“Carefully? Really? Because getting the codes and magical defences and secret entrances for high-end thefts is usually just about kicking in the door and improvising…”
“Ohh, you have a sense of humour now?” Gilbert laughed.