Page 79 of Beyond the Ruby River
Stone walls rose around him, their rocky scent filling his nose. A chilled room. Thick carpet beneath his naked toes. The sound of labored breathing. A man lay on his sickbed.
Mahu.
He looked the same and also entirely different. Shining onyx hair, silken and soft, haloed on the pillow around his head. His skin a shade lighter than Daka remembered, but still beautifully bronzed and flawless. Chiseled jawline, thick eyebrows, wide shoulders. He lay dreaming, his sleep fitful, Daka’s name on his lips.
Daka ran to him, if you could call it that, because he’d meant to run then suddenly appeared where he’d intended to go. He reached for Mahu, to gently take his hand and wake him from fevered dreams, but his fingers passed through Mahu’s flesh as if he weren’t there at all.
Daka tried again, but he couldn’t make contact. Sorrow made his soul heavy.
To see Mahu before him and not be able to touch was punishment fit for the worst of criminals. Daka’s heart couldn’t take it. He let out an anguished wail without thinking, then threw his hands over his mouth. Could others hear him in his spiritual form? Could Mahu? If someone came into the room, could they see Daka standing there, confused and terrified?
He looked down at himself. His body was clad in the white tunic of years past, of the sort he hadn’t worn since the turn of the century—the clothes Mahu would remember him in. But he knew good and well that back in Egypt his real body was nude.
His horns and tail were visible, unenchanted. He wrapped his tail around his torso for comfort. No one came rushing in. Outside Mahu’s door, the hall remained quiet. They must be in a castle. He’d never been inside a castle before.
Daka’s gaze returned to Mahu, drawn there like ants to sugar. Mahu’s lips moved in his sleep. Daka longed to kiss them. He’d been furious with Mahu for abandoning him, his anger rising and waning like the seasons over the long years that separated them, but he felt none of it now. Only a deep love that had never ceased. A longing that plagued him always, now fulfilled because Mahu was before him, yet also unfulfilled because by some stroke of cruelty, they couldn’t touch.
Mahu’s eyelids blinked open. Garnet jewels ringed in silver met Daka’s steady gaze.
Mahu’s perfect lips parted to whisper his name like a prayer. “Are you really here?”
Daka didn’t know how to explain it. “I am and I’m not.”
Mahu released a shuddering breath. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I, you.” Three words when Daka had written thousands. No amount would ever be enough. Faced with Mahu before him, he suddenly felt tongue-tied.
“Am I dying?”
Was he? The answer came like a punch to the gut. Daka wasn’t sure how he knew, only that he did. “You are.”
Breath rattled from Mahu’s throat. “I’m sorry.”
Daka reached for his hand out of reflex and was disappointed anew that he couldn’t feel Mahu’s flesh. “So am I.”
“Just your spirit is here, isn’t it? You look well, Dakarai. How are you?”
Daka somehow repressed the urge to roll his eyes. Of course he’d finally see Mahu again only to find him addled and dying. Only for him to ask after Daka when all Daka wanted to know was, well, Mahu’s entire life story, but mostly, what could be done to save him. He didn’t want to answer questions about himself, but the concerned expression on Mahu’s face was impossible to ignore.
“I’m all right, Mahu. As you see.” He’d left his body in the middle of a field where anyone could discover it, but that was beside the point. His sister would kill him herself if she knew. He was fine. Probably.
The visit was worth the risk.
Mahu lifted his arm, reaching fingers toward Daka’s face. “Your eyes are sad.” Just as Daka couldn’t touch Mahu, Mahu couldn’t make contact with his skin either. Torture.
“I’m often sad,” said Daka, gaze lingering on Mahu’s hand as it retreated. “Seeing you sick again is not how I imagined our reunion.”
“Nor I.” Mahu’s voice held sorrow.
Blinking, Daka tilted his head. “You imagined it?”
“Often.”
Daka stumble-stepped backward. “You could have come to me. You knew where to find me. You had centuries!”
The injustice of it all stung Daka like a fresh wound to the gut. All this time he’d had no way to reach Mahu, but had Mahu only made the journey, their reunion could have been a happy one. Maybe whatever was wrong with him now would never have happened had they been together in Egypt.
Mahu shook his head. “I couldn’t. Egypt held only pain for me. I had responsibilities here.”
