Chapter Sixteen – The Illness of Love

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Inevitably, he flew Northwest. It was unavoidable, he supposed, to confront the nexus of his queasy discomfort, the very eye of the storm which had thrown a dark pall over his entire life and existence. Anyway, T’oma the Hermit was wise, and would know what to do. He always did.

So, as Autumn drew to a close and the first winter snows began in the high passes above the Hermit’s house, Ja’kh’redd trudged up the little path once again as meekly as a djiddu, his heart pounding faster than a rabbit’s. He sweated, he feared, and he knew not why. It was a serious sickness, one that had ruined everything, and utterly confused the big male Vidos.

Thomas dropped his axe when he saw Jared round the last bend, and come into sight of the cabin. His jaw followed.

“JARED! What in… what… by Bri-Abal, what are you doing here?” he shouted, disturbed and shocked. “Did you lose the village?”

“No,” he sighed, walking through the crisp fallen leaves, which caught on his toe-claws. He stopped to kick them off in annoyance, and continued, feeling sour. “No, I won the village. But there is something very wrong, T’oma. I cannot mate.”

“Cannot… Oh by the God…” Thomas rubbed his hand over his face, feeling as if this wasn’t his year. First the girl, sighing every three minutes and wondering constantly about Jared, and now Jared returning, looking as if his best friend had died. He really didn’t need this, especially if his suspicions about Sarai were true. Especially then, by the God.

“Go home! Turn around right now, go back to your village, just winter it out there, you’ll be fine…” In the middle of his quick encouragement, the inevitable happened. Sarai heard Jared’s subsonic rumble from inside, threw down the book she was struggling to learn to read, leapt to her feet, and wincingly limped to the door to throw it open and stare, confounded.

“Jared!” She gasped.

The Vidos turned as if he’d been slapped by an ogre, to look at her.

“I really don’t need this. God, this really isn’t fair,” the hermit whimpered, desperately groping for anything that would stop this, any kind of wisdom that would crush this folly, the inevitable dismay to Nature that absolutely Must Not Happen.

But as he watched, helplessly from the side, it all seemed inescapable. It was not in his hands, and he very well knew it. Thomas could only stand by uselessly as Jared perked up visibly, smiled a little, and went for Sarai as if to kneel at her feet. The hermit rolled his eyes, and slapped his hand over his eyes, wondering what good it was to be a Hermit, if all the biggest problems in the universe had to come knocking on his doorway and living in his living room for two months, and now it looked, much longer.

“Kitten!” Jared said happily in his tongue, drifting to Sarai with the most wonderful feeling. It was as if the dark gray pall had just gone away, replaced by a happy sparkly white cloud upon which he now drifted without actually touching the ground.

She very nearly forgot herself to jump up and down like a child, but restrained. This was an older more wary Sarai than the little girl he’d rescued, and one with a very sore side. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, in a very Womanly voice of disapproval.

“Thank God,” Thomas mouthed, really and fervently praying that the girl would get some sense, and scare the male Vidos off.

“I… I…” Jared stammered, understanding her question perfectly without knowing her language. It was in her eyes. He turned to Thomas and entreated, “Please, tell her that I… I…” but he could think of no good excuse. He pulled on his horn, he scratched at his neck, he turned and paced, then finally said, “I came for help. I cannot find pleasure in my females, I cannot mate with them.”

Rueful and amused despite himself, Thomas translated that word for word.

Sarai blinked about four times in rapid succession, shocked, and stepped back. “Oh. Um. Why not?”

“They sicken me to look at them,” he said flatly.

Sarai stared at the porch floor, trying to use pure logic, be reasonable, and come up with some kind of solution, as women always thought they could. “What is sickening about them?”

“The way they… they…” he made faces. “The way they…” But this too was difficult, for they truly were lovely females, attractive and graceful, with long waving tails and slender necks. There was no reason not to want them. “I don’t know. I look at them, and I feel sick. I even want to mate, I feel the fire in my loins, I feel the fire in my blood, I turn to look, and then I feel sick. No matter how much the fire burns, no matter how hot the blood, the stomach is sick.”

“Eat some bandabas leaves!” Thomas blurted out in frustration. “Then you will vomit and feel better!”

He shook his head, pacing. “It’s not that sort of illness. They are disgusting. They make my heart disgusted, as if I am contemplating mating my… mother or something.” He shrugged, unable to entirely explain. “Not like that. But… it’s like… my body doesn’t… no, my body does want them. But the rest of me does not.”

“The rest of you?” Thomas cracked, unable to stop himself. “The rest of what? I thought all Vidos were merely one big body.”

Sarai was vibrating, worrying her hands together under her chin. She’d wanted to leap onto him from the moment she saw him, but had forced herself with womanly pragmatism to refrain with disapproval. Now, the urge was building pressure, like a steam boiler heading for an explosion. How her arms ached to touch that soft, Vidos leather skin, feel the profound solidity of him like strength incarnated. She’d missed her angel so much, especially with her only companionship being the grouchy old prickly hermit who liked to spend all day alone.

“I feel better here,” Jared admitted, looking around at the trees. He felt comfortable now, as if he was where he belonged. He wanted to look at kitten, but purposefully didn’t. He stared at tree-leaves, the clothes-line, the tanning racks.

The moment dragged on. And on.

Thomas sighed. It was up to him to send the boy away. “Ja’kh’redd,” he said gravely in the Vidos tongue, “no matter what odd things you feel, you belong not here. We are Men, this is a Man-house. Sarai is a Man-female. You cannot feel the Ashsia for a Man-female.”

“What?” Ja’kh’redd spun around, fascinated by the unknown word. “What was that? I have never heard that word before.”

“Not surprising. It is an ancient Vidos word, from the days of Bri-pan.”

Ja’kh’redd was properly impressed with the old doctor’s knowledge, which always bordered just on the verge of the supernatural in his mind. “What means this word?”

“Now that is difficult to explain. Ashia. Hmm.” Thomas rubbed his stubble. “It means to give oneself wholly to another, body, soul, mind, will. To give oneself for another’s happiness, I suppose.”

Ja’kh’redd’s heart thrilled at the thought, gazing at Sarai. She gazed back in wonder, knowing nothing of their speech, yet the two could communicate with the language of the eyes.

“But you cannot do this with a Man-female, since… since… your souls are different!” He surmised. “Man and Vidos are not the same. Vidos think of hunting and war, Men…”

“Men do not?” Ja’kh’redd cut him off sharply, his stern brow taking a lowered glower to glance at the male human.

At that point, Thomas grew frustrated. It was not in him to get between idiots and their problems, trying to stave off the inevitable dismay fools brought upon themselves. “Fine. If you won’t listen to reason, then let your actions be upon your own head!” He shouldered his axe with that curse, and just walked away. There was nothing that could be done from this point on, except go talk to God, which was what he was going off to do. He vanished into the woods on his mission, and left them to just get it over with.

As soon as Thomas was gone, it was as if a weight lifted between them. Shyly Jared glanced at Sarai, and she smiled a little. Easily, as simply as breathing, he took two strides to the porch and lifted her right off of it, and immediately forgot Koja’so, forgot the Village, forgot the Cheifdom, the cave, the females, and even Yisa. It was all vanished. He simply embraced her, gently, laying his angular head down next to hers, and felt her hug him back.

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