Amaranth & Ash is coming out from Loose Id on Tuesday! I'm away this weekend, at Wiscon, and just gave a reading from it, which was a lot of fun. So I thought I'd share with those of you at home the section that I read. Here it is:
In a world where everyone has their place, Amaranth & Ash belong together.
Amaranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics, and a soul that can reach out and touch the souls of others in order to heal them. But a vasai’s services are only for the Elai, and they demand sexual satisfaction as well as healing from their beautiful servants. Frustrated with these constraints, Amaranth wants to use his talent to help those who really need it.
Ash is a chel. Considered devoid of souls, and thus without a place for the gods to enter and guide them, chel are the lowest of the low. Not content with his lot, Ash steals from the middle class pel. One night he’s caught and brutally punished. When Amaranth discovers him, the vasai takes him home and nurses him back to health, an act of rebellion that could cost both their lives.
Ash must have slept without realizing it, because he opened his eyes to discover the light had changed. The room, previously flooded with sunlight, was now shadowy, and the sky outside the window had the golden cast of afternoon. Amaranth had returned at some point. He sat on the couch, reading a book, which he now closed. “I don’t know your name,” she said, crossing to Ash’s bed and kneeling beside it.
“Ash,” he said, because really, what difference did it make if she...he...knew his name? And so long as they were exchanging personal information... “What are you, anyway? I mean I know you’re a vasai. But are you a boy or a girl?”
Amaranth smiled broadly, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement. “Yes.”
Ash shook his head, bewildered and grateful for the distraction. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Like all vasai, I have both female and male characteristics.”
Ash knew that, but... “What do I call you? He or she?”
“Traditionally, we are referred to with the gender-neutral pronouns, hir and sie, but the current fashion is to choose a gender of preference. I’m most comfortable with the male pronoun.”
Ash took that in and decided just to let it sit there for a while. He could examine it later -- sometime when his bladder wasn’t about to explode. He shifted, trying to ease the pressure, and winced as his muscles protested.
“Ash, do you need to go to the bathroom?”
Ash colored. Moving even that little bit hurt. He didn’t think he could stand. He’d have to crawl... He pushed himself up by his arms, biting his lips.
“Wait,” said Amaranth. “Don’t try to get up.”
Not needing much convincing, Ash collapsed on his side and lay staring as Amaranth turned back to the couch. Amaranth picked up a vase that sat on the floor. It was crystal, a beautiful thing. It caught the light from the window and cast a rainbow about the room. Ash was reminded of the glass figurines in Darien’s mother’s cabinet. What on earth did Amaranth intend with it?
That was answered soon enough. “You can use this,” Amaranth said, thrusting the vase toward him. “Just push the covers down and lean forward.”
“What? You want me to go in that?” Ash was pretty sure he could be executed for pissing in a crystal vase.
Amaranth looked at it critically. “Yes, I think it’s a good shape. The trick is to get you close enough to the edge of the bed. It will be easier if you let me help you. And I can steady you so you can concentrate on relieving yourself.”
Ash stared at him. “But it’s a crystal vase.”
“Yes. A client gave it to me once. I suppose it’s pretty, but I never really use it. I don’t care for cut flowers. They just die, you know?”
Ash tried to decide if he was up to this conversation. The answer was no, and his bladder, now promised relief, became insistent. Why worry about the vase? Just his being here was enough to get him killed. He nodded and started to sidle painfully toward the edge of the bed.
“I can lift you by the shoulders and position you closer to the edge if you’ll allow it,” Amaranth said.
The way he asked made it not so terrible to accept. “Okay.”
Amaranth’s arms came around him, warm and strong, and for a moment, Ash was enveloped in the smell of lilacs. One golden strand of hair fell down and brushed against his neck. Its silken touch so distracted Ash he barely noticed when Amaranth drew the covers down, exposing him.
* * * * *
Amaranth sat on the floor beside the bed again, peering at Ash intently. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Better than I should,” Ash admitted. “Are you giving me something for the pain?”
“In a manner of speaking, I am.”
Ash didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean? What are you giving me? Is it addictive? Am I going to --”
“No!” The shock in Amaranth’s voice mirrored the expression on his face. “Nothing like that. I’m not giving you anything, in the sense of a substance.” He smiled. “I’m a vasai, you know? I’m treating you. With my soul.”
All other thoughts abandoned Ash like the gods themselves. “With your soul?”
“Yes.” There was a new fire in Amaranth’s eyes.
Ash stared at him, trying to work out if he was getting this right. Surely not. “What-- Wait.” He shook his head. “I’m not following. What did you say again?”
“I’ve treated you three times now, and you’ve responded well. My soul’s not even out, and I can tell from here. You have a lot more healing to do before you’re really recovered, but your life is no longer in danger, and I can feel how strong you are. Given time and proper care, you’re going to be fine.”
Ash stared at him. Amaranth’s words seemed to hang in the air between them, just out of reach. What was he saying? You’re going to be fine, he heard, and treatment, but that didn’t make any sense. “But I’m a chel.”
There was that fire in Amaranth’s eyes again, and his mouth formed a firm line. “Yes.”
“You can’t treat a chel.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
Ash felt as if he were on a cliff and every word he spoke took him another step closer to the edge. But he couldn’t stop. “Vasai heal through soul-to-soul contact. Everyone knows that.”
“We do. It’s true. Soul to soul.”
They stared at one another, the silence thick.
At last Amaranth broke it. He took Ash’s hand and said, “For a long time I’ve known that the Elai lie when it suits them. But until two nights ago, when I felt your soul’s distress and followed it to that culvert, I didn’t know the full extent of their falsehoods.”
Ash trembled. He didn’t want to know this. He didn’t want it. A soul -- what good was it? “I’ve never felt a god enter me and guide me. If what you say is true, then chel souls must be too lowly for the gods dwell in. So what difference does it make?”
“It’s a funny thing about the gods,” said Amaranth. “My friend Grail knows that the Lovers reside in hir and guide hir every action. Myself, I’ve never felt the touch of divinity within. I think gods are a product of our imagination. Grail believes in them, so sie feels them; I don’t, so I live my life alone.”
He’s lonely, Ash thought, but what he said was, “You don’t believe in gods, but you do believe in souls.”
Amaranth squeezed his hand. “For me, a soul is not a thing to be taken on faith; it is as tangible as your hand in mine. I know souls exist, I feel them, and I touch them, and I know yours is no less sumptuous than that of any Elai.”
Ash tore his hand from Amaranth’s as if stung. He turned to face the wall, his face hot. As vividly as if he’d been transported in time, he saw Darien’s mother standing over him on his last day at Dartwood and saying, “Your pretense to feelings for my son is obscene. You have no soul. You are not capable of real love or friendship, only cunning.”
“I’m sorry,” said Amaranth, his voice bringing Ash back to the present. “This must be very difficult for you to take in. I understand. It’s no small thing.”
A laugh escaped Ash’s lips at the understatement. He turned to face Amaranth again. “You’re asking me to believe that everything my life is founded on is a lie. And you’re asking me to believe it based on the existence of something I can’t see or touch or feel. You say you don’t believe in gods. Why should I believe in souls?”
* * * * *
It was a fair question. Amaranth’s soul ached for Ash, for what this realization must be doing to him. It was all very well and good for Amaranth, who had known most of his life that the prelates of the Temple lie and that Elai lie.
But Ash was a chel. He’d probably never seen an Elai, let alone a prelate, and what was more -- Amaranth took in the thin face, the bony wrists -- the conditions of Ash’s life had all been predicated on the lie that chel had no souls. He’d suffered for that lie. It would not be easy for him to abandon it. Amaranth wondered if he should have kept the truth to himself and let Ash believe he was slipping him painkillers and antibiotics in his food.
But it was too late now. The very least he could do was make things less confusing for Ash where he could. “Would you like to feel your soul?”
Ash looked at him. Those piercing green eyes gleamed with unshed tears. “You can do that?”
“Yes.”
He watched Ash consider it. If he refused, he could cling to the lie and pretend that Amaranth was misguided or insane. But once he consented, once he felt his own soul, there’d be no more denying it.
“You don’t have to decide now,” Amaranth told him. “Any time you wish, I can show you.”
Ash heaved a great sigh. “There was no blood in my urine,” he said under his breath.
“What?”
Ash pinned him with his gaze. “The morning after you found me, when you helped me piss in your vase. There was no blood. I know I got kicked in the kidneys too hard for there to be no blood the next day unless something...unless you did something...” He looked away, shaking his head. He took another deep breath and then nodded. “Fine then. Show me. Show me my soul.”
* * * * *
Amaranth reached out and took Ash’s hand again, and Ash, spellbound, let him. He couldn’t take his eyes away from that long, slender hand, those graceful fingers. Amaranth’s hand was so beautiful he suddenly felt as if his heart were breaking. He stared at his own bony fingers against Amaranth’s perfection, and the image wavered. He had to close his eyes.
In the center of his body, somewhere just below his heart, warmth blossomed. It spread outward, bringing with it a feeling of euphoria and ease. Despite the circumstances, Ash relaxed. At length, he opened his eyes again and asked Amaranth, “What is that warm feeling?”
“That’s your soul, Ash. My soul touching your soul makes you feel that way.”
“No wonder the Elai want you all to themselves." said Ash. "Does it feel this way for you too?”
Amaranth stared at him. For a moment Ash thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he smiled, though it seemed a bit forced. “It does now,” he said, which wasn’t quite an answer to what Ash had asked him.
So this was what it felt like to have a soul. It was nice. Ash particularly liked the idea of Amaranth’s soul touching his, as he rather liked the idea of Amaranth touching him in general. But still, was it really worth all the fuss people made? “What else can I do with it?” he asked.
* * * * *
“Does it feel this way for you too?”
No one had ever asked Amaranth a question like that. Certainly no one he’d been treating as a vasai. But that was not the only astounding question Ash put to him. Now that he was recovered a little bit, his personality was emerging. Ash was intelligent, curious, cynical, and kind. He’d felt bad about the wound on Amaranth’s shoulder, and...and he’d asked Amaranth if what he was doing provided mutual pleasure. Ash slept now. Amaranth sat watching the light in the window over the bed fade, his heart still pounding from that one question over all the others.
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