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In order to decide where they go next, Shuthmili tosses the bones. Today, the number is four: four maze gates before they sleep. Csorwe steers their shabby cutter through the two gates in quick succession, but they are some time over a rippling expanse of briny sea and crumbling coral shores before they arrive at the third gate.
After that, they pass over a forest of sharp-tipped trees that shriek in the winds. Hail stings Csorwe's face. When she hears Shuthmili approach from below, Csorwe says, "We're almost there."
In the far distance, the next emerald gate winks, no larger than fingernail paring.
"You're shivering." Shuthmili hefts Csorwe's greatcoat onto her shoulders.
"Oh. Yes, I suppose I am." Csorwe bites her lip; it stretches over her tusks and pales in the process.
Shuthmili kisses Csorwe's temple, then tips her head against the rough wool of the coat. Several strands of dark hair have escaped the plaits wound around her head and she pushes them irritatedly back. "We could stop for the night."
Below them, the forest surges like a sea. To the northeast, a faint blocky shape suggests cliffs.
"But we said four gates," Csorwe says automatically before shaking her head. "Would you like that?"
They have passed over fading worlds, places where reality has frayed and pulled apart at the seams, other places where reality's husks blow and skitter in the void. They have put into bustling ports and near-deserted stations. When they've needed to, Csorwe has hired herself out, as bodyguard, muscle, or simple manual laborer. A few times, Shuthmili has disguised herself as a Tlaanthothian, glamoring points to her ears and some height to her spine, in order to work as a copyist or street magician.
They've eaten from canteen vats and hole-in-the-wall steam tables, bustling automated cafeterias and off-hours noodle stands and dumpling carts.
Tonight, however, Csorwe ties up their ship at the edge of the forest, where those indistinct blocks resolve into the shells of a dead city. Below deck, she prepares the rice and dried vegetable dish she first learned in Grey Hook, and tells Shuthmili about all the refinements she has made over the years to the recipe.
"Delicious," Shuthmili says, and then again when their bowls are empty and she is kneeling over Csorwe's lap to kiss her. Her breath is spicy and warm against Csorwe's face.
Csorwe could, and has, murmur no as she grips Shuthmili's waist and buries her face in the curve of Shuthmili's shoulder.
Instead, she tilts back her head and smiles. Shuthmili smiles back and grinds herself against Csorwe's thigh.
They may well be the puppet-playthings of gods with vast power and incomprehensible plans. They are also, of course, traitors and oath-breakers. But what they are most of all is each other's, twined together, tusks and plaits, groaning into the other's hot mouth, their pulses beating faster.