Page 69 of Ascendent
The sun streamed down on the gathering, scattered rays of light through the swaying cypress and pine. Sweat prickled his shoulder blades. He was warm. Hot, even. He was baking in the sun, washing in light, in heat. He wasn’t cold at all.
Kilaqqi pulled him away after a few hours, as Sasha started to fidget and thoughts of Sergey and Moscow and home intruded more and more. He padded barefoot after Kilaqqi to his yurt. “I need to go home. But part of me wants to stay.”
“And the rest of you yearns for your other half. It is almost time for you to leave.” He picked up his radio, charging on a base next to his bedroll in the back of the yurt. A wire led outside, under the pelts and the canvas. There weren’t any generators in the camp. Kilaqqi must be using solar power.
He called Tura and spoke to a jovial man who answered. The Evenki flew quickly between them, mixed with laughs and barbs and what sounded like playful teasing between friends. Kilaqqi threw his head back and howled, then set the radio down. “A helicopter is on the way for you.”
“Thank you.” He didn’t know what to do next. How did he thank Kilaqqi, a man he barely knew, a man he’d stumbled blindly toward thanks to a blizzard and a dream? Had Kilaqqi been beside him through the entire spirit journey? Or was that another trick of his mind?
Kilaqqi had given him back a piece of himself he’d thought was gone forever. He’d saved him, in more ways than one. Soul sick, the airport worker had said. He’d been sick in his soul. He’d been sick for a very, very long time.
How did you thank a man for saving your soul? Your entire life?
Kilaqqi smiled, his toothy grin, his teeth rounded and yellowed. “Before you leave, I have something to offer you. Something for you to remember this journey.”
“How could I ever forget it?”
“Minds are small. Life rolls on. Memories get dull.” Kilaqqi raised one arm, ran his hand down his side, over his ribs. “I keep my eagle close, where his power rests within me, so I will never forget about my walks in the other worlds.” A hand-drawn eagle tattoo stretched over his rib cage, a simple outline of an eagle soaring in flight.
“You want to give me a tattoo?”
“I am offering you the gift of your spirit animal so that she always walks with you.”
Sasha swallowed. Tattoos in his world meant something very different. Tattoos meant criminals, meantBratva. Meant someone had done hard time in jail and wore their criminal rank and history on their chests and arms for all to see. They weren’t symbols of spirits, or reminders of sacred journeys.
But… already his memories of the worlds he’d walked were fading. The risen corpses he’d seen were mirages, fantasies. A dull haze on the endless horizon of the dead lands. Unspooled time over the lake of stars was a shimmer, a blur. He hadn’t been standing above the heavens, had he? He’d only been on an ice lake, looking at reflections of the night sky.
He still remembered his bear spirit erupting from him, though. The strength, the power, the conviction. The purity of his wrath as he’d lashed out at his sergeant, his attacker. He’d defended himself. He’d saved himself. He’d saved his soul.Never again.
“Da,” he grunted. “Please. Thank you.”
Kilaqqi had him lay on his bed roll. Kilaqqi’s scent, the woodsy, musky, smoky scent of the older man, filled him. Old sweat and leather, pine and honey tree sap. He breathed in deeply as Kilaqqi cleaned his stomach, adjusted his waistband. Pulled down his trousers so his arched hip bone was exposed.
“Your soul came home here.” Kilaqqi pointed to Sasha’s hips, his groin. “Your pain was rooted there. It returned to you where you cut it out.”
Sasha swallowed hard. He watched Kilaqqi take ash from the smoldering fire pit in the center of his yurt and pour it into a tin cup. He fished out a bottle of vodka, the label scuffed and the bottle covered in mud, from under a pile of furs at the foot of his bedroll. He winked, and then mixed a shot of vodka into the ash, swirled it around. “Completely burned ash, from the wood of the alder and the cypress and the elm tree. And, vodka to bind.” He stirred and stirred. “Alder forces us to face what we are in denial about. Elm is the guardian of the lands of the dead. Cypress extends through all the realms, from the land of the dead to the highest heaven. You climb the great cypress when you walk between worlds.”
Kilaqqi gave the cup to Sasha and told him to keep stirring. He rummaged in a trunk for a moment, then came back to Sasha’s side with a long iron spike, sharpened to a pinprick, and a squat tree branch, carved smooth. He stuck the iron point in the coals, burning the tip, and then doused the end with a splash of vodka. He turned to Sasha. “Ready?”
He nodded. Lay back.
Kilaqqi hummed as he worked, singing a song under his breath as he scratched the outline of a bear over Sasha’s hip. Bear walked on the ground, but his head was raised, looking upward. Sasha felt Kilaqqi etch a star into his flesh, a starburst of lines and rings. He dipped the iron point into the tin cup, into the homemade ink, and then lined it up over his scratching. “Hold still.”
Three taps of the hammer, and then he moved a micron, tapped again, dipped the point in the ink, and tapped again.Tap-tap-tap, dip,tap-tap-tap. The humming continued. Sasha watched for a while. He closed his eyes. It didn’t hurt. Felt more like a scratch. He let his mind wander, let himself drift away as Kilaqqi’s voice sang softly, soothing him into a slumber.
He dreamed of Sergey, of coming home to him. Of walking into Sergey’s apartment, into his arms. Seeing Sergey’s beaming smile. Smiling back at him, and kissing him. His cock stirred. He wanted to make love to Sergey. Wanted to take him to bed, strip him slowly, kiss him everywhere. Spend an hour between his legs, worshipping his cock with his mouth. Taste him. Slide himself into Sergey’s body. He wanted to come inside of him, imprint himself within Sergey. Something hummed beneath his skin, a hunger, a warmth. A need. He’d made love to Sergey’s soul in the world beyond.Do you know what you’ve done? Sex here is sacred.
He wanted to finish what he’d started. He wanted to bind himself to Sergey in this world, too. Show Sergey how much he loved him, how deeply.
He was ready. He wasn’t going to run. Not ever again. Now the voice inside his head whispered Sergey’s name, urged him to return home, race into his arms.Return. Not run.
Kilaqqi chuckled. He flicked at Sasha’s erection, straining his trousers, with his carved stick. The tap was gentle, but Sasha jolted, flew up and curled around himself.
“You are eager to get back.” Kilaqqi laughed. “I’m done. Let me wrap you.” He pushed Sasha, and his flagging erection, back down, and then laid a square of soft leather over his tattoo. Another long strip of leather wound around his hips three times before Kilaqqi tucked the end in a twisted tie down. “Now, Bear will always be with you.”
“Thank you.” It still seemed inadequate, just those two words. How could he ever repay Kilaqqi? How could he ever convey what Kilaqqi had given him, what it meant? He’d stumbled into Kilaqqi’s life twice, both times broken, and Kilaqqi had sent him back into the world with nothing but a smile. “I don’t know what to say, or what to do, to thank you…”
Kilaqqi waved him away. “You did right to come here. I’d been waiting for you. I called for you, but you have been very far away. Very lost. All you need to do now is live.”
