Page 48 of Inferno
For a split second, a look of undisguised panic shot across Stanley’s face. Then his gaze settled on Yorin, like he was a pile of horse shit that had got stuck to his boot. “Do you now?”
Yorin wondered how any of this was suddenly his fault. “Nerik told me this afternoon,” he replied, fully prepared to stand up for himself if Stanley had anything else to say about it. He hadn’t asked to be told, he hadn’t betrayed any information to other humans… but then it occurred to him to wonder how the hell Stanley knew about any of this. Was he one of the Chalandrians?
“He’s fine with it, and he’s not going to betray anyone,” Nerik said forcefully, eyes locked on Stanley’s.
Stanley wasn’t the slightest bit cowed. “Well, it’sallof our heads on the chopping block if you’re wrong, ain’t it? So let’s hope you’re right. And youwillbe taking this horse up the mountain tonight, because that’s what we do, remember?”
“May Alfrix shit on your house,” Nerik snarled at Stanley. “But while we’re here, we may as well… wait, what’s your name?” he said, eyes on the horse. A moment passed in silence, while Yorin glanced about, baffled, and then Nerik said, “Right. Thanks. Yorin, this is Alriamico-de-Sota. She’s-” He stopped suddenly, then his eyes grew wide and he gaped at the horse. “Really? Well, thank you. Thank you very much.” He turned back to Yorin. “She says it’s okay if we call her Mico. Which is a very unusual and specific privilege,” he added pointedly, and Yorin took note of it, resolving to treat the horse with the utmost respect… until an instant later, he realised the truth, just a split second before Nerik said it out loud.
“Mico is a unicorn.”
“I see,” Yorin said, filling in the blanks easily. Presumably, some sort of magic spell was disguising the creature’s horn, just like it disguised Nerik’s fire. And given the silent conversation, he assumed that unicorns were telepathic, just like fire-dogs. Or, if he was wrong about that, he was sure Nerik would explain it later. “And it’s your job to take them up the mountain to somewhere safe?” he asked Nerik.
“Exactly. They come through the gate, head for Stanley’s farm, and then he brings them to me.”
Stanley huffed out a disparaging sound. “Except when he’s gallivanting around trying to stick his dick in something new.”
“That is crude, even for you,” Yorin said, making a couple of fast assumptions about Stanley, based on the state of his clothes and his manner of speech. He wasn’t generally prone to stereotyping people, but if Stanley was going to be so utterly rude, then Yorin figured he could return the favour.
If anything, his rebuttal only made Stanley more angry. “I get my farm torn up a dozen times each cycle,” he snarled at Nerik, “and then I bust my ass lying to the warriors and luring them off to chase things that aren’t there, and now you want to laze about for the evening instead of saving people’s lives? Well, I’m not going to stand here and be lectured by your boyfriend when you should be scurrying your ass up that mountain to go and make more little fire babies with that harem you keep up there.”
A faint, hissing sound came from Nerik, and as Yorin watched, a thin column of smoke rose above his head. Watching on, Zandro whimpered a little and tucked his tail between his legs. “Get off my property,” Nerik told Stanley, through clenched teeth, and Yorin felt a rush of ice run through him as he realised that Nerik’s eyes had just turned red.
Even Stanley seemed to realise that he’d overstepped, and he backed up a little, glancing at Yorin, and then the unicorn. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then glanced at Nerik’s eyes again… and simply turned around and left.
Nerik was watching him leave, eyes still burning bright – literally – and Yorin looked over to Zandro, hoping the dog might have some idea as to what to do next. He felt the hairs all up the back of his neck stand up, and he had the fleeting thought that perhaps, given his current level of anger, Nerik might actually be a real threat to them all. There was so much he didn’t know about Nerik’s species, and about Chalandros as a whole. But unfortunately, Zandro seemed as baffled as Yorin was. He whined and wagged the very tip of his tail, but his ears were back and he was holding his body low – a typical display of submission, if fire-dog body language was anything like that of a domestic dog.
Mico simply looked confused – as far as Yorin could read an equine’s expression, at least – so he supposed it was up to him. Carefully and gently, he reached out, taking Nerik’s hand in his. “Nerik, it’s all right. It’s okay. I’m not upset. We can just… we can talk about this, okay?” He hadn’t missed the implications of what Stanley had said, but defusing the situation was currently more important than fretting over the details.
Nerik’s hand tightened a fraction around Yorin’s fingers. He stared blankly at the ground, but slowly, his eyes faded out to their usual blue. He seemed to be working very hard to regain control of himself.
“Would you like a cup of water?” Yorin offered. He knew very little about how Nerik’s fire worked, but he assumed it must have been raging hot inside him if it had managed to bypass the power of the glamour spell.
Nerik cleared his throat, still avoiding eye contact. “Yes. Please.”
Yorin ducked around him and scrambled up the steps into the cottage. He grabbed the first cup he could find and filled it from the barrel in the kitchen – still nearly empty, though now he understood why.
As an afterthought, he wiped the outside of the cup carefully on a dishcloth to make sure it wasn’t wet, then hurried back outside. Nerik was where he’d left him, staring at the ground. “Here you go,” Yorin said, holding out the cup. Nerik took it, his hand shaking slightly, and took a large sip. He seemed to be about to take a second one, but then changed his mind, holding the cup out.
“Can you take this, please?” he asked, his even tone a stark contrast to his expression of near-panic. Yorin took the cup and set it down on a nearby stump. A minute dragged by, while Yorin simply waited.
“There’s a colony of infernals up on the mountain,” Nerik began, unprompted; an answer to Yorin’s inevitable questions about what Stanley had said. “There are four of them. They’re the only adult female infernals who have ever crossed the gate, and I’m the only male. There are currently nine children. Or possibly ten. I’m not sure.” He looked up at Yorin, his face pale, his eyes pleading. “Infernals don’t have sex like humans do. It’s literally just for procreation. There’s no emotional attachment, or-”
“You need to reproduce with them in order to save your species,” Yorin interrupted him, once more catching on quickly. Great gods, he was getting used to this in an awful hurry – much faster than he’d expected himself to. “That’s quite the responsibility.”
“You can’t seriously be okay with that,” Nerik said, disbelief written all over him.
Yorin thought carefully before answering. “It’s not ideal, no. But there’s a great deal about your life and your world that I don’t understand. For goodness sake, you’re a person who’s made of fire! This time yesterday, that sentence would have been preposterous to me. But look how far we’ve come.” It was designed to coax a smile out of Nerik, and to a certain extent, it worked. “Go up the mountain. Take Mico to safety and do whatever else you need to do while you’re up there. And then, when you get back and we have some time to ourselves, you can explain it all, slowly and properly.”
Nerik stared at him, then stepped forward, opening his arms and pulling him into a tight hug. Yorin hugged him back, aware that he was only just beginning to understand the burden that sat on Nerik’s shoulders.
Finally, Nerik pulled back, though he seemed very reluctant about it. “This isn’t going to get any simpler,” he said, eyes apologetic, hands clinging to Yorin’s coat.
“No, I don’t imagine it would,” Yorin replied. He was acutely aware of Mico and Zandro watching them, both of them able to understand every word that was said. He resisted the urge to glance at them over his shoulder. “I still have a great deal to learn about all this. But give me a bit of time and I’m prepared to work on that.” Was he promising more than he could deliver? Yorin honestly wasn’t sure, with the way surprises seemed to just keep on popping out of the woodwork.
Abruptly, Nerik hugged him again. “I love you,” he blurted out, the words unadorned and unexpected. “I don’t want to fuck that up.”
Did Yorin love Nerik? He thought he did, but at the same time, there were far too many unknowns for him to be able to say it back just yet. “I know. I care about you a great deal,” he said instead, hoping it was enough. “Don’t worry about any of this for now. We’ll make some time to sort things out once you get back.”