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"And when of these impious jokes at length I tire,
My frail but mighty hands, around his breast entwined,
With nails, like harpies' nails, shall cunningly conspire
The hidden path unto his feeble heart to find."
— Charles Baudelaire, Benediction, The Flowers of Evil.
The guards had dragged him by the arms. From the dark and foul cells Haru had come to the rich corridors in the palace. His feeble feet were about to give in. Why had he come to Alamas? There was nothing for Haru in this desert city.
The desert travelers had said it was a city of peace and wealth, just such as Haru had kept in his memory. They had lied, he should have known.
The guardsmen had led him inside a darkened hall.
There they shoved him down on his knees, and pushed his head so low that his brow touched the cool marbled floor. The tiles were reflecting the light from the lamps, as if the ground were a pool of gold. Haru’s head rose shamelessly again. He heard the trickle of water before even his eyes adjusted to the shade. Colored curtains were barring the outside light and heat. The air carried a residue of incense.
Upon the throne sat the prince. From the silver basin on the table he was ladling water into his gilded cup, and dropping it back in. At his sides, serfs stood with metal buckets on their heads. That was the man Haru hated, the boy Haru had loved.
Haru’s brow and cheeks felt fevered. His eyes could not look anywhere else. Rin.
Tiny golden tassels embellished his bright kufiya, and his dark robe was slit at the front and open down to his girdled waist. His torso shone golden in the lamplight. His clothes were finely woven, his skin untanned. The prince who ruled a land of sun hid in the dark. Gold and stringed gems encircled his neck, his wrists and fingers. An ornate janbiya was hanging from his hips.
This was the image of the man who had administered pain and death in the name of an illusion. This was the man who had kept even the wealthy Alamas thirsty, under the burden of strict and costly water rations. This was the men who had hidden and barricaded every fountain.
This was the image of the same man who had once, a lifetime ago, held Haru by hand again and again, and sprayed Haru playfully with fountain water. He was the child who had torn Haru out of bed with whispers and orders, uncaring that Haru was also a prince among his people and would therefore not be ordered around. Rin had led Haru to the gardens. Under the moonlight they had drunk wine from the same cup, and Rin had said, “Now we are bound. Your destiny is tied to mine. You made a vow to me, and I to you.” His lips had pressed onto Haru’s. “It is what lovers do. Do not forget.”
Haru and the rest of the delegation from the Marid tribe had left the following evening. They had set for a long journey to the East, and when they had returned, everything had been changed.
Yet how had a child living in this peaceful palace become so malicious? He had not seen battles up close.
The prince looked at Haru with a smirk upon his lips.
His voice was that of a man now, the commanding tone of a ruler. “You trespassed onto the Sultan’s gardens and attempted to drink from the fountain. Do you not know the gravity of your offense?”
Inside Haru’s chest it burned as though a spark had flung right between his ribs and smoldered his skin and flesh. It scorched and scalded with each word the prince uttered. Perhaps the prince had not recognized him. Haru’s clothing had been exquisite once, yet now it was dirty and ragged. Only a few precious ornaments spoke of former riches and splendor. Who could recognize him?
“Since you did not drink,” said the prince, “the fitting sentence for trespassing was tree days in prison.”
Three days? To Haru it felt as though he had sat in the heat and without water, among rats and lamenting prisoners, for two moon cycles and a day. He had not been drinking from longer still.
His throat was parched. His mind was clouded.
There was a sword next to the prince’s seat. That red sheath… Haru instinctively fumbled at his side. The guards had taken his talwar when they had seized him by the fountain.
Calmly the prince took Haru’s talwar, and pulled the sheath off just enough to see the blade.
Then he held it against the light, and observed it from all angles. Surely he would recognize it? That sword had belonged to the prince, and the prince had given it to Haru, with the mutual promise that they would meet again. They’d meet again when their arms would be big and strong enough to wield a proper weapon.
Could it be? Had Haru’s legs mischievously led him here for this purpose, unbeknownst to his head?
The prince unsheathed the talwar and sheathed it again. “Why did you climb the walls?”
“I heard water…” Haru’s tongue moved slowly, as if swelled by thirst and the foul smells he had been taking in inside the cell. “The sound of running water.”
The prince glanced up and arched an eyebrow. “And?” said he. “All the water in Alamas belongs to the sultan.”
Which sultan? The one who had died years ago? The one who had not yet been crowned? Haru bit his lips.
Had Rin truly forgotten? Could he not recognize Haru anymore? It should not hurt. It did not hurt. Thirst and hunger and fever hurt. The loss of father chieftain hurt. The loss of mother shaman hurt. Thirst and hunger squeezed his throat, not whether a childish prince of Sarimah remembered to whom he had given one of his baubles. Anger and fever made everything in front of his eyes blurry.
“How did you do it? How did you get in?” said the prince.
Haru looked below, at his knees. He should not tell that a bostanji had let him in secretly, lest she would be punished too. How unusual she had been. In her red eyes Haru had recognized the ghost of someone else's gaze, and followed. Her voice had been as full of life and kindness as the voice of that child from Haru’s memories. The child who had beckoned, “Haru, Haru, come,” and dragged Haru up and down the palace at length.
Haru blinked. Of course. He should have noticed. The resemblance had been more than a hallucination of his thirsty, raving mind. The girl he had met was not a gardener; she was the princess herself. Had she recognized Haru?
“Do you repent?” said the prince. Displeasure was drawing hard lines into his face. His eyes narrowed, while his lips thinned. “Speak now.”
As a way of answer, Haru looked up and stared at the man on the seat. What had happened to that smiling, carefree child Haru knew? Had that child indeed become this bored, hostile man? This cruel coward?
The prince must have recognized him. Someone of his stature would not have called a prisoner to the imperial quarters over such a petty crime. Others could dispense justice in his name and in better suited environs.
“Well, then.” The prince took his gilded cup from the basin. He raised it up and turned it upside down. Water spilled on the floor.
Haru felt the muscles of his calves tense. He thought of running forward, kissing the floor, and drinking from it. All that water… What a waste it was. The prince’s eyes were intently fixed on Haru, gauging every Haru’s reaction.
“What is your name?” he said.
“Ahrun is my name,” said Haru.
“You lie.” With the cup still in his hand, the prince swished across the hall, and his slippers drifted above the marble with nary a sound. His gait carried the elegance of a shark in pursuit of its pray. His silken robes rustled like tender, cruel sea waves. And the water, the water splashed out of his cup to the beat of his steps. Pitter-patter on the floor. Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. Involuntarily Haru’s lips opened at the sound. Pitter-patter. Water, water.
The prince halted in front of Haru, lowered his back, and stared into Haru’s face. He tore Haru’s shawl away. Up close, the prince’s eyes were sharp and brilliant like polished rubies. Furrowing his brow, he pulled Haru’s dirtied turban down as well.
Haru could not, would not tear his gaze off, nor would he bow his head. The scent of orange blossom and myrrh filled his nostrils. It saturated every corner of his head. Haru could hear his own breathing. It was loud, shallow, and pitiful. He closed his mouth. ‘Stay still, my heart,’ he thought, ‘stay still, even if I die.’
“You lie,” the prince said. He barred his pointy teeth.
Again he stood.
His hand moved the cup in circles, stirring the water within. His nails were painted black, and each bore a decoration, a crisp white triangle. So like shark teeth they were.
The sharks and dolphins on the faraway coasts of Kasheen… Myrrh and spices… Haru remembered again that there had been a time when his people had been selling spices and myrrh, knowledge and secrets, blessings aplenty. They had been crossing the desert back and forth. Everything between the shores of Kasheen and the cities of Sarimah had been of the nomads to travel and trade.
As legends told, his people were descendants of marids, sea jinn, they were keepers of secrets and bringers of wealth. Their secrets enriched the lands. Kings and queens, merchants and warriors, scholars and potters, all had welcomed the people of Marid.
If they wished so, in sea water they turned into fish or dolphins, thus the legend said.
Not once had Haru been able to change into a fish, but he had known the mysteries of his tribe -draughts and potions and scriptures of water- by heart.
“What is your name?” repeated the prince.
Haru stared in front of himself, at the prince’s janbiya. He felt weak. Heat, hunger, and exhaustion cradled his head and trunk forward and back again.
“You’ll do well to remember who I am.” The prince gripped Haru’s chin and lifted it up. “Answer me.”
“I know who you are,” said Haru. The prince’s palm was refreshing on his chin and cheeks, like water from a deep desert well. “You are the Prince of Sarimah, heir to the throne, Rinaz III.”
The prince puffed loudly through his nostrils. His lips became an angry line. His face drew close to Haru’s. Had he wished for some other answer?
“You smell of camel hair and dung,” said the prince. “You stink of sweat.”
“And you smell of desert bones and blood,” said Haru.
The prince released him instantly. His eyes widened, and his bare chest heaved. He chewed on his lips. “You will tell everything I ask of you.”
“I am a man of the nomads, I am a man free. You cannot command me,” Haru said. “I bow to no one.”
A corner of the prince’s mouth shot up. “You are my prisoner, you are not free. No need to bow when you already kneel.”
Haru felt his chin go rigid. What a deplorable man. He would never admit his misdeeds, he would never ask forgiveness. This man was not Rin. Not anymore. For a moment Haru closed his eyes. A wretched man like this one deserved not even hate.
“Do you not wish to drink?” said the prince.
Haru’s eyes flung open.
The prince placed the cup on the floor. “Tell me how to make the siren flower of the Marid. No, you make it for me.”
Again with that. Was there no end to this insanity? For such reason the desert swallowed skeletons of women, men, and dolphins. For a flower of life men could never seize. How many more deaths? How much more blood? How much more loss to satisfy the city kings?
Haru cursed his fate that relegated him to the role of the Keeper. He wished to be older, old enough to pass his secrets to his successor. He wished to be free of this burden. Even if he had to be an old senile man. To be free. No sultan would mind him them, no prince would care.
Yet there was nobody, nobody who could take Haru’s place anymore.
The prince watched him unrepentant.
Haru eyed the dagger that dangled from the prince’s silken sash. If he jumped quickly… His hands felt sweaty. If the prince came half a foot closer… Haru did not hate the prince. He could kill him, but he would not hate him.
No. No, that was not right.
He hated the prince, but he could not kill him. That was the truth. He could never stand to see Rin bleed in front of him like his mother and father had bled. He could not listen to Rin wheeze out his last breath like his tribesmen had done. Even if he ever found the will, Haru did not have the strength, and he would not be quicker than the guards.
“I do not know of what you speak,” said Haru.
The prince grabbed Haru by the necklet, and jerked. Haru’s head wobbled forward.
“Don’t you? Then where did you get your jewels, little rat? Which one is your tribe? Speak already,” said the prince.
Haru pressed his lips closely together, for he would not give this man a single word more, and placed his hand on the prince’s. The prince’s eyes blinked rapidly. Haru tugged at the prince’s bent knuckles to open.
At the walls something shifted; guards prepared to act, no doubt.
The prince released the grip.
“You do not need water, then?” He placed the tips of his curly toed slippers against Haru's knees.
Then he dipped his hand in the cup and brought his wet fingers above Haru’s face. A drop fell close to Haru’s eye, like a tear. Another fell on his cheek. Haru opened his mouth without thinking,.
A droplet moistened the corner of his mouth. He poked at it with the tip of his tongue, but he was not sure if he felt anything at all. He sensed merely dry pain.
The prince wetted his fingers once more and held them over Haru’s face, right over Haru’s lips.
Small, miserly specs of water rolled onto Haru’s tongue. His lips smacked, kissing the wetness on the prince’s fingers, and sucking the fingertips inside his mouth.
Was this what water tasted like? Haru had almost forgotten. Was it water indeed? Rin might as well have poured rain drops onto the sun. Haru’s mouth remained dry. He could not swallow, thus he pushed his lips up those wet knuckles.
Then the blur in front of him crystallized into the white and red of the Prince’s eyes, which were riveted onto Haru’s.
‘What?’ though Haru, ‘What am I doing?’
He let go and pulled his head to the side as if to hide, just as the prince snatched his fingers away.
The prince took a step back. His mouth was hanging open. Blood had colored his cheeks with shame. He rubbed his fingers absently, as if he could not comprehend that someone, Haru, had touched them thus.
There was no breeze to cool Haru’s cheeks. The mute stillness clapped at his ears. Not even a guard coughed or moved.
After a while the prince broke the silence. “You’ll tell me what I ask. You will do what I bid you. You will do it for me. Otherwise I can never ascend. I can never become sultan. I need power if I am to rule. I will rule. I can’t live like a ghost in these halls. I need the siren flower. Give me the blessing of the water jinn.”
Haru found no strength to say anything in return. His tongue stuck to his palate when he tried to swallow. He wished to crawl to the floor and vanish. If he could do nothing else, at least he should be allowed to do that. Soreness had crept around every part of his body; around every vein and muscle and bone.
“Say something,” the prince said.
Haru inhaled hot wisps of air. Inhaled and exhaled. His mind could not focus. Perhaps this was a nightmare, or a desert mirage. Rin, Rin. Inhale. Exhale. In. Out. Breathe.
The prince picked up the cup, and Haru’s eyes followed. The prince drank slowly, deliberately. He lifted his chin. His throat bobbed rhythmically. With each gulp, as the liquid moved from the prince’s lips to his tongue and his throat, the sound of water was a slushy susurration of pleasure.
Droplets glided from the corners of his mouth down his chin and over the skin of his neck. One droplet hung on the Prince’s chin. It would fall. Such a waste. The prince wiped his face. There was still moisture above his upper lip.
Looking at Haru, the prince flung his empty cup on the marble. Cling, clang, clang.
“It’s stifling in here. I can’t stand the heat.” He walked back to his seat. “Pour water. I would refresh myself.”
The serfs tilted their buckets, and water splashed into the prince’s open palms, it spilled through his fingers on his chest and midriff, on his clothes, and over the marbled floor. Such a waste. The flowing water murmured and rumbled like a rivulet, and Haru whimpered to himself.
It refracted the lamplight like the fragments of a broken mirror, in bewitching ways, tracing a pattern as complex as the one on the magical carpet from stories and fairy tales. The reflections shone like white sunrays, like chunks of solid gold, like lucid tears, like the softest of skins, like the darkest of nights.
In the desert even tears were spared to save water, and here riches were spilled and squandered like worthless sand. Haru could barely breathe. Every breath was smoke inhaled. It squeezed and blistered in his throat. His lips were flaking with dry, dead skin. Why? Rin, Rin! Haru lifted one knee to get up, but a guard walked to him and poked him around the stomach with the blunt part of a spear. Haru’s body contracted in pain. He squeezed his palms in fists. Why?
Oblivious to everything, the prince tugged at his red kufiya and threw it at the feet of one serf. Water was drenching his hair. Water was pushing the robe off his shoulders, embracing his waist, plastering his sirwal to his legs, and licking every bit of his cheeks and lips. The prince laughed like a child. A child in his watery world. Haru was a few steps away, standing in a dusty wasteland in front of this expanse of brilliant, drinkable water. What a waste.
The prince shook his head, and drops flew around like pearls. He gave Haru a little smile, one of confidence and limitless power. His smile shone under his damp hair and dewy lashes, shone deep inside those eyes rimmed with black kohl. A smile of seductive cruelty.
Such a waste.
Soaked in water like saints in holy light, the prince walked toward Haru. Splosh, splosh, echoed his steps. Behind him a trail of water followed.
It dripped from the prince’s hair and sleeves. Lazy transparent gems oozed down his chin, and descended across his chest, laying glittery trails atop the prince’s body. His very skin was imbued with water.
“Where is your tribe?” The prince’s lips were moist, slick and shiny with water. Water, water. Water everywhere. For Haru not a drop.
The wish to lick and swallow water slashed Haru’s throat. He’d touch and drink any of it. He’d suck at the hems of the prince’s robes. With his tongue, he’d sweep the droplets from his open chest. He’d take water from the prince’s lips. He’d drink water even from the floor beneath the prince’s wet slippers.
No, he would do none of it.
In vain Haru tried to wet with his own lips with his dry tongue. Anger, fatigue, and despair held him in place like sturdy ropes. He felt as though someone had emptied him. Someone had scooped out Haru’s senses, thoughts, and will. He fixed his empty, defiant gaze upon the prince. “I am alone.”
“You did not cross the desert alone; you could have not.” The prince tilted his head, and another watery bead fell from his hair. “Where are your men?”
“I am alone,” said Haru once more. He could taste insanity at the tip of his tongue. It tasted of sand and burial incense. His tribe men and women were either dead or scattered to the seven winds. Of only few Haru still knew.
Makeen, kind and wise Makeen with eyes like summer leaves, and little Nagi were now helpers of a rich merchant in this white city of Alamas. Haru had seen them both at the bazaar stalls, and had made good care not to be seen by them. He had abandoned them both. He had abandoned Makeen, who would have rather remain athirst in order to give the water from his gourd to Haru. Haru’s heart sank at the memory. Makeen’d call him Haru when they had been alone, and always respectfully address him as Haruk Ah Bey in front of others. Yet Haru had betrayed his friendship. And Nagi, Haru had abandoned even little Nagi, who had had a grin and a reassuring word for every circumstance.
Were they happy? How were they going by? Haru could not tell. Alamas had been called paradise between the deserts, so where had the water gone? Why was the prince drowning his childish spite in water and leaving the city in dusts?
Rayn, the scholar among the Marids, had acted as a miralai and a tactician for one of the sheikhs, Haru knew, but then he must have fallen out of grace, perhaps during the battles of the Digra waters, where storms had sunken ships in dozens. Haru had seen him reduced to a simple guard of wealthy men. Haru had seen him loiter up and down with his musket.
Haru had seen him, and Rayn had seen Haru.
Incredulously Rayn had pulled down his spectacles, a gadget that he had fashioned himself in accordance to the Alhazen's Book of Optics. He had blinked and rubbed his eyes. By the time Rayn had put his eyeglasses back on, Haru had been long gone.
Why did Haru remember of it now? What use was there of chasing the times passed? The sand glass could be turned, but time could not. What use was of memories?
What use was of water one could not drink? What use was of a prince who spilled water and blood? Why was Rin painting his skin and halls with water, while the city withered, while Haru suffered?
A waterdrop swelled up at the bottom of the prince’s chin. Such waste. This time Haru would not let it drop.
He raised one hand and seized the prince’s wet sleeve. Though Haru felt no strength in his arm to pull, the prince’s face came closer. The fragrance was making Haru’s mind numb. Fresh water, scented with flowers. He inhaled it down into his lungs. Orange blossom, myrrh, and mint. The droplet was so near. It would fall. Anytime now. A waste. Haru half-closed his eyes and took the waterdrop between his lips. The prince twitched.
Ah, it was not enough even to wet Haru’s dry, scraped lips. A drop into the desert sand. Swiftly, of its own volition, Haru’s tongue followed up, grazing the prince’s mouth. He embraced the prince’s lips with his own to squeeze out the moisture.
The prince opened his lips like fish gasping in the nets. He pushed Haru away.
Haru fell and remained on the cold marble. His arms and legs lay powerless, unresponding. His head was spinning as if he had drunk too much wine, as if he had taken between his fingers the flower of the deadly nightshade, and pried inside the purple petals with the tip of his tongue. The poisonous nectar itched inside his mouth. His lips tingled. His tongue was heavy. The air he sucked into his lungs was scraping and searing his palate, and crawling like thorny vines down his throat. It set his bosom alight. In his stomach and lower still, it tickled as if invisible fingers were touching him and teasing him.
Behind him Haru heard the rattle of speared guards, heard their steps forward. They resounded like mighty, earsplitting clangs in his head, and at the same time as echoes somewhere far away.
The prince held out his white hand. “Out.” He sent every serf and guard out of the room with an angry motion. “Begone. All of you.”
Footsteps and rattle again, a brief intrusion of sharp sunlight, and the suffused shade reigned in the hall again.
“How is your skin unburned?” The prince crouched down and leaned over Haru. “Answer me. Why is it like ivory, white and sturdy? How can you live with so little water?” With a cold, wet finger, he traced Haru’s skin from the end of the short kameez down to the navel. Haru shuddered.
“It must be the power of the siren’s flower,” said the prince. “Where is it? Tell me. What am I searching for? What exactly is it? What is this magic I need? What is this miracle to make water in the desert? My city will die. Tell me.” His voice halted, and then continued in whispers. “I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know. Give your secrets to me. Give them to me. Let me live. Let me rule. I order you.”
The prince’s cool fingers caressed Haru’s cheeks and traced his chin, they slipped down his neck, and curved their path toward Haru’s shoulders. They wafted to the nape oh his neck, up into Haru’s dusty hair.
Without thought, Haru tilted his head and moved to the prince’s touch.
The prince's gaze was glued to Haru's flesh, as if to take and consume everything with the flare of his eyes, to incinerate everything down to the last fiber of Haru's body. Haru saw in those eyes the greed to take it all, to burn it all, and to drown it all.
That cool, soothing palm slid up Haru’s belly, toward the hollow where the ribs touched, the spot where something was scorching Haru’s skin from the inside.
The prince’s hand met the hem of Haru’s kameez, played with it for a moment, and then dug under. His fingers stretched over Haru’s heart.
Haru could feel that everything inside him was trembling. Why, oh why, was his heart rumbling loudly? The prince could feel it in his palm, no doubt.
He closed his eyes. It was true, Haru would never be free. As much as his legs may wander across deserts, his heart would remain steady in his ribcage, beating desperately for one person alone. This person in front of him.
The prince’s nails sank into Haru’s flesh like hungry teeth, as if to grip the heartbeat underneath, or Haru’s soul itself. From his mouth came a word as soft as a broken feather. “Haru.”
Haru swallowed back a sigh before it would escape his lips. He did not need to remember now. He did not need to hear the gentle ringing of his own name from those lips.
The red eyes, the gentleness; he did not need them.
Then why did he wish for them? Why had everything inside him lulled and waited impatiently for each scrap of kindness, like a dog for scraps of meat on the table?
Haru was a prince as well. He was Haruk Ah, Keeper of Secrets, descendant of jinn, successor to the Marids. He was also a man without a tribe, a vagrant with no possessions at all, safe for what he carried on himself. He owned nothing anymore, not even that last camel.
His misfortune was the prince’s doing, and that of the sultan before him.
“I knew you would return,” the prince said. “I knew you’d return to me.” The words sounded like a caress of desert sunlight, like hot water from the gourd.
The prince kneeled. He leaned on his hands and crept closer. His dagger grazed over Haru’s midriff.
Haru held in his breaths.
If not the thirst and hunger, the nearness of the prince was toxic to his will. If he ever wanted to escape, or snatch the janbiya and cut with it into the prince’s heart, now it was the time. Yet his limbs remained placid under the prince’s countenance. His mind repeated in a child’s voice, ‘We are bound. Do not forget.’
The prince shook his head, as if carrying a conversation inside his head. His lids half-covered his eyes.
Haru tried to swallow down, yet his mouth was parched.
‘It is what lovers do.’
Like a fresh wave from the sea the prince lay atop Haru. The touch of the cold, wet skin engulfed Haru’s senses, and reduced his body to shivers.
If only Haru could forget the past and the future, if he could forget thirst and pain, and could remain like this, feeling Rin’s weight and substance. It was not an illusion carried by the heated desert air.
‘To stay like this,’ though Haru. ‘To be a bird in the sky, a fish in the sea, the lover in your arms.’
Rin sunk his head onto Haru’s shoulder, and his hair tickled Haru’s cheek.
“Haru,” he said again.
At the sound, Haru turned his head toward Rin’s face, till he could feel the brush of wet hair and Rin’s ear on his lips. He seized them with his lips and teeth. He sucked at the strand of hair. It tasted of water and myrrh and Rin, tasted sweet and familiar. It tasted like intoxicating wine.
The prince’s breath hitched. His entire body went stiff. His teeth sank into Haru’s shoulder. Then his hips moved, his body slithered downward almost imperceptibly, and without breaking contact it pushed back up. His movements were like ripples, slowly growing broader and more distinct. His breathing resounded like sobs. He moved slowly, like the crashing of sea waves over Haru’s body, like a tide that pulled at Haru’s skin and then submerged him again.
Haru felt as though he was drowning in an oasis with bitter water. His conscience was drifting like air bubbles toward the water surface, light and free, or like sea foam on the waves, to and fro.
He was sinking like a pebble to the bottom under Rin’s weight. His breath rose like the voice of a man drowning, and a man soaring up the skies. To be a bird in the sky, a fish in the sea…
The prince pulled back without warning. He bowed his head, as if he could not meet Haru’s gaze. Haru lay listening to the prince’s shattered, shallow breaths. His body was a stream of tingles. He felt as though he had been deprived of air.
"Call me Rin." The prince’s voice sounded as petulant and demanding as it was timid and pleading.
Rin… What a nostalgic name… Haru had called him by that name time and time ago.
“Call me Rin. Now,” said the prince. His shoulders quivered.
Was Rin crying? Such a waste of water.
Haru moved his tongue, but no sound came out. He could not speak.
The prince stood, picked up the cup from the ground, and walked across the poodles of water. He scooped water from the silver basin. Then he rushed back to Haru, and offered him the drink.
Haru drank. Water soused his mouth and rushed down his throat. Refreshing, sweet, and intoxicating. He could think of little else.
The prince, Rin, was watching with his brow creased, his mouth barely open. His eyes were following every move of the cup against Haru’s lips. Before Haru counted three gulps, the prince tore the cup away, and gave him a quick look with narrowed eyes. His sharp teeth were gnawing on his own lips. Under the damp hair that was plastered on his brow, fiery irises were tracing the contours of Haru’s face. His lashes were still glued with water.
That prickling, burning sensation, like endless thirst and hunger, darted through Haru’s throat and dilated in his stomach.
Rin placed the cup close to Haru's lips again.
A taste but not further. A gulp but not more.
Haru tried to halt the withdrawing cup, and water splashed on his face. He licked his lips. The spilled water trickled down. He lay like inebriated. Haru knew, as all the desert people knew, that too much water would wreck a thirsting man from the inside. Yet he would drink everything, all the water in the world, if they let him.
The water that darkened Rin’s robes, the water that veiled Rin’s skin like a ghost, the water that crowned his hair; all that still lured his eyes and snared his every thought and sense. His thirst would never be quenched.
Rin grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up. “Come.” He kicked his wet slippers off his feet.
Haru could barely stand.
Rin kept tugging. They went out, into the bright corridors with white pillars and walls of stone lace.
Every few steps Rin halted. He shook the dark overgarment from his shoulder. He unfastened his sash, pulled the revealing kameez over his head, and stripped of everything he wore. He kept only his golden and beaded ornaments.
“Come, now.” He ran and dragged Haru behind him.
Weakly Haru treaded his steps, shifting his attention between the unsteady floor below and the shifting and creasing of the prince’s muscled back. He barely noticed the guardsmen at the walls. What was he doing?
The pace was too quick. He would need to rest and eat. He’d need to sleep. Most of all, he’d need to know Rin’s mind. If he had the strength, he’d pull the prince back, and ask, “What are you doing?” For too long Haru had been dragged and pushed around by this greedy man. For too long he had been lost. Too many skeletons lay in the desert sand.
And for what? For what?
The corridor opened into a walled garden, and sunrays beat into Haru’s eyes. There was a pool in the middle. Water glimmered across small tiles, reflecting the azure and gray of the skies.
The prince walked down the pool stairs and threw himself into the welcoming, watery image of the heavens.
Haru tugged at his own half shirt. The prince dunked in and swam. Water splashed.
Haru’s fingers reached down, opened his belt, and untied his sash.
The prince’s head peered out of the water. His mouth and nose remained underneath, making small air bubbles in the water. His eyes looked at Haru, narrowed. They were small and greedy like the eyes of sharks in the bays of Kasheen. Rin stretched one hand toward Haru, inviting him in.
Haru wrenched out of his clothes. Still in his loincloths and jewels, he waded into the fresh, crystalline water. The water licked Haru’s feet. Rin moved away from him with a hand still outstretched. Haru followed.
Water rose up Haru’s calves, his knees and thighs, and then his waist. Haru sighed. His body yielded to the water. The pool enclosed him in its embrace. It murmured around his ears. He was weightless. In the tranquility of the pool, Haru almost forgot that he ever needed food and rest. He could remain here for all eternities. All ailments and concerns dissolved in the water.
Rin pulled Haru’s foot down, and for a moment Haru forgot how to float. His body sank. Water covered his face and pushed down his nostrils. He had forgotten how this felt.
Rin grasped him, and they resurfaced together. The water was shallow enough to stand. Haru coughed. With one arm slung over Rin’s shoulder, he waded to the brink, and rested in the water, under the white sun. He leaned on the pool brink with his chest, laid his arms across the horizontal tiles, and observed the birds on the garden shrubs. Though Haru had been so feverish before, now his fingers felt cold even under the direct sun. The colors were now too bright, and now too pale. If he fell asleep like this, would it be all right? If he closed his eyes…
Rin remained by his side. After a bit he turned Haru around with force.
He spoke quickly, as if he had been biting down his words all this time. “You belong to me.” His undid Haru’s loincloth. “We are bound.”
He slid the fingers of one hand under Haru’s beaded necklace. Then he pulled until their noses almost touched.
His eyes were red and tempting as the heart of a pomegranate.
“You made a promise,” he said.
His other hand touched Haru’s abdomen, skimmed slightly lower, and went to rest on Haru’s hip. “Soothe the water jinn and open Alamas’ spring like your father did for mine. I need the siren’s flower.” Rin’s fingers glided to the back, toward Haru’s spine, and then down.
Haru forgot the cold. The distance between them closed in. Their bellies rubbed together.
“They complot to overthrow me,” Rin said in a low voice, feverishly. “And the Western cities might march against us again. I have no real power until I can secure the water under my control. I am not even sultan.” His fingers extended to grip Haru’s rear. “Do it for me.”
Haru drew a shallow breath.
A prickling sensation bubbled up his back. It jumped along his spine, like a dolphin in and out of water, and reemerged in the crevice inside his chest. Only then he noticed that was bucking his hips up. He stilled himself.
The tiles, glued to his shoulder blades, felt cool. Water gave him strength. Haru did not feel weak anymore.
He took hold of Rin’s hand and twisted it. “When will you grow up?”
He seized Rin’s waist with his other arm. Then he spun around, pushing and dragging Rin to follow the movement. They writhed and wrestled, and water slugged down their movements.
Haru shoved Rin against the tiles.
Finally he could breathe again.
He saw the whites of Rin’s eyes distend, as his eyelids flung wide apart. Rin’s his mouth clicked open and squeezed back into a puckered line.
“Do you not see what have you done?” said Haru. He stepped closer still, blocking Rin’s body with his. If he rested his weight on Rin, he would not fall.
Their skin touched everywhere. They touched like a river coursing into the sea, and like sea biting back into the river. “You would make a river flow backwards. You would turn a man into a child.”
It looked as though Rin would break. His lips loosened and wobbled without sound. Haru felt their warm breath. Rin’s lips. Rin’s lips were like dates, slit open and pitted and sugary, waiting for someone to probe into their flesh and suck into their sweetness.
“Why?” Haru said so low that Rin perhaps was not able to hear. “If I do as you bid, then you must also vow to me. You will amend for all your wrongdoings. You will atone for every drop of blood and every drop of water you spilled in vain. You will be just and merciful. Promise me. Vow on your soul, and your soul shall be mine. I shall offer it to the water jinn.”
Rin hung his head onto Haru’s shoulder, buried his face in, and whimpered and wept.
A foolish man was one who had undone his fortune and the fortune of others by overreaching, by usurping the gifts of gods. A foolish man.
“Don’t leave me again,” whispered Rin. “Don’t go where I cannot follow.” Sobs were shaking his shoulders. His arms dangled in the water. He trembled whole.
Since long Haru had eaten more sand than he had swallowed water. Since long he would not give his tears to the wind.
Since the cities of Muhriz had united and attacked Sarimah, the life of desert tribes had been flight, prosecution, and fear. Death and blood. One side would try to win the Marid tribe over, while the other would attack them. Then the other way around.
First the warriors of Muhriz had come, then the army of the sultan of Sarimah, and after his death, the army of the sultan's son. Neither army had been kinder than the other.
It was peace under the prince, peace since one year ago, when he began his trial by gods before his ascension, but as it turned, this peace was merely a warped and dry semblance of itself.
Yet Rin’s cry was hurting more. Haru’s heart opened like a thorny desert flower.
Rin’s sobs were tearing him asunder.
They had broken his heart open, and from pain and mourning, out poured sadness and tenderness and love. Everything he once had had, everything he had lost, was now returning like a waterfall under his skin. The moon always moved, yet it was always steady on its route. People died and were born. Cities fell to ruins and were rebuilt. Water dried up and sprung anew.
Life waned and rose with the ebbing of the moon and the stars. Now it was the time of growth.
Haru would perform a thousand rituals, if so needed. He would dig into the sand with his own hands. He would beg every spirit and jinni. Somehow he would do it. His friends, his people were waiting for him. They were not simple guards or merchants, nor accountants for the city dwellers. They were people of the Marids. Rayn knew of wells and irrigation systems and underwater currents, Nagi could find a hidden twist in the details that every other eye would miss. Makeen could lead a thousand men with gentle wisdom. And there were others. Haru knew secrets to combine and unite them all, to invoke the jinn’s blessing. Flower petals would scatter to the wind without the stem, the stem would hold them high and bound together.
Alamas would be paradise again. The Marids would stand proud once more. The lost souls of desert sands would be appeased.
‘You will have your siren flower. You’ll have my secrets. I’ll do anything you want. As long as you’ll be Rin and not Rinaz III, prince and heir of Sarimah, I will be Haru and not Haruk Ah, the prince and heir of the Marids.’ Those were the words glued to the tip of Haru’s tongue. He could not say them.
Slowly he lifted Rin’s chin. He kissed the tears on Rin’s eyes. “You must not squander water like this. You must not squander people’s hearts.”
In an instant Haru understood. Now or never. No time would be ever right. No time would be ever more right than this instant. If he wanted to be free, he would have to make the first step forward. The future fluxed in his hands. His destiny had carried him to this man, to Rin. His own legs had brought him here. He felt limitless power pulse into his every limb.
As in that fable, the more the prince ran from his destiny, the closer to it he was. It was time Haru stopped. Between him and Rin, one of them needed to stop running. No, they both needed to.
He was the Prince of the Marids, descendant of water jinn, it was his right to demand.
Rin would have to learn the unspoken words directly from Haru’s tongue, if he knew how to read.
Haru raised his hand and tangled his fingers in the hair at the nape of Rin’s neck. He leaned forward.
“Rin,” he said. He had not known it would sound so desperate.
The air from their mouths mingled. Rin’s face looked fresh, like the sea after storms. It looked childlike and yet completely adult. Rin folded his arms around Haru’s waist. At the touch, a rush of energy dilated down and up Haru’s torso. The pressure in his groin was pleasant.
Haru closed his eyes. He bit into Rin’s lips.
Rin, the water, and the sun.
From some faraway past a childlike voice echoed, ‘It is what lovers do.’
THE END
The story continues here: Sand (Ten Thousand Grains for a Drop of Water).