Unfortunately he had to carry the fat merchant out on his shoulders. Outside the banquet room he found a few rickshaw boys standing around a fire, huddled together, waiting for a customer so drunk he wouldn’t fear thieves or ghosts. He gave one of them a coin and told him to deliver Miran to the yacht.
“What about yourself, honored sir? Don’t you wish to ride home, too?”
“Later,” said Green, looking up past the fort and at the hills behind it. “I intend to take a walk to clear my head.”
Before the rickshaw men could question him further he plunged into the darkness and began striding swiftly toward the highest peak upon the island.
Two hours later he suddenly appeared in the moonlight-drenched windbreak, walked past the many vessels tied down for the night and crawled aboard his own yacht. A glance around the deck convinced him that everybody was sleeping. He stepped softly past the prostrate forms and lay down by Amra. Face up, his hands behind his head, he stared at the moon, a thoughtful expression upon his face.
Amra whispered, “Alan, I thought you were going to talk to me tonight.”
He stiffened but did not turn his head to look at her.
“I was, but the officers kept us up late. Didn’t Miran get here?”
“Yes, about five minutes before you did.”
He rose on one elbow and looked searchingly at her. “What?”
“Is there anything strange about that?”
“Only that he was so drunk he’d passed out and was snoring like a pig. The fat son of an izzot! He must have been faking! And he must have…”
“Must have what?”
Green shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He couldn’t tell her that Miran must have followed him up into the hills. And that if he had the fellow must have seen some very disturbing things.
He stood up and gazed intently at the dark forms stretched out here and there. Miran was sleeping upon a blanket behind the helm. Or was pretending to do so.
Should he kill him? If Miran turned him in to the authorities in Estorya…
He sat down again and fingered his dagger.
Amra must have guessed his thoughts, for she said, “Why do you want to kill him?”
“You know why. Because he could have me burned.”
She sucked her breath in with a hiss.
“Alan, it can’t be true! You can’t be a demon!”
To him the accusation was so ridiculous that he didn’t bother to answer. He should have known better, because he was well aware of how seriously these people took such things. However, he was thinking so furiously about what he could do to forestall Miran, that he completely forgot about her. Not until he heard her muffled sobs did he come out of his reverie. Surprised, he said, “Don’t worry. They’re not going to burn me.”
“No, they’re not,” she said, choking on every other word. “I don’t care if you are a demon. I love you, and I’d go to hell for you or with you!”
It took him a few seconds to understand that she did believe he was a demon and that it made no difference to her. Or, rather, she was determined to ignore the difference. What a sacrifice of her natural feelings she must have made for him! She, like everybody upon this world, had been trained from childhood to develop a fierce disgust and horror of devils and to be always upon her guard for them when they appeared in human form. What an abyss she had to cross in order to conquer her deep revulsion! In a way, her feat was greater than crossing the chasm between the stars.
“Amra,” he said, deeply touched, and he bent down to kiss her.
To his surprise she turned her face away.
“You know my lips don’t belch fire, like the devils’ in the legends,” he said, half-jestingly, half-pityingly. “Nor will I suck your soul into my mouth.”
“You have already done that,” she said, still not facing him.
“Oh, Amra!”
“Yes, you have! Else why should I follow you when you deserted me to run away on the Bird? And why should I still want to follow you, to be with you, even if those towers had turned out to be your what-do-you-call-’em? And you had sailed away into the skies on them? Why would any decent human woman want to do that? Tell me!”