The First Stone Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, laughing. “I’m always with you.”
    Travis gripped the coin, and they embraced as a blue nimbus of light surrounded them. And that was how they came to Earth.
    Beltan opened a desk drawer and placed the letter gently inside. Then he headed to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes behind him. Hot showers were a luxury he did not know how he had ever survived without. How could he ever go back to bathing in a tub of lukewarm water or, worse yet, diving into a cold stream?
    I knew this world would make you soft
, he thought as he stepped under the water and grabbed the bar of soap. The sharp, clean scent of lavender rose on the steam. Ah, good—Travis had finally gone to The Body Shop as Beltan had been pestering him to.
    He washed away the day’s layer of car exhaust and sweat, then stepped out of the shower. Living on Earth hadn’t made him quite as soft as he had feared. Once it was clear he would not join the army, he had worried he would go all to flab like many warriors who traded their swords for cups. Then he had discovered a place down the street called a
gym
.
    At first he had taken the various mechanical contraptions inside for torture devices. Then a young man with large muscles had shown Beltan how to use them. He went to the gym often now, and he was happy to note that his ale belly was a bare wisp of its former self.
    He toweled off, then scraped his cheeks with a straight razor, preferring the blade to the buzzing device Travis had bought him one Midwinter’s Eve, leaving a patch of gold on his chin and a line above his mouth. His white-blond hair seemed determined to keep falling out, but a woman at a shop next to the gym had cut it short, and had given him a bottle of something called
mousse
. (That was another one of those confusing words.) The mousse made his hair stick up as if he had just gotten out of bed, but that seemed to be the fashion of this world. Besides, Travis said he liked it, and that was all that counted.
    He picked up his discarded clothes on the way to the bedroom, traded them for fresh jeans and a T-shirt, and appeared in the kitchen just in time to see Travis set dinner on the table.
    “It smells good,” Beltan said. “What is it?”
    “What do you think it is?” Travis asked with a pointed look.
    Beltan eyed the full bowls. “It looks like stew.”
    “Then let’s call it that.”
    Travis said he was a poor cook, but Beltan thought everything he made was excellent. Then again, Beltan thought any food that didn’t bite back was good, so maybe Travis had a point. Beltan ate three helpings, but he noticed Travis hardly touched his own food. He never seemed to eat much these days, but Beltan tried not to worry about it.
    “I don’t think I need food like I used to,” Travis had said once, and maybe it was true. Even without going to the gym, he looked healthy. He was leaner than when they first met, but well-knit and strong.
    All the same, sometimes Beltan did worry. A few times, after they had made love, Travis’s skin had been so hot Beltan could hardly touch him, and he had seemed to shine in the dark with a gold radiance. While Beltan didn’t like to admit it, those times made him think of the Necromancer Dakarreth, whose naked body in the baths beneath Spardis had been sleek and beautiful, gold and steaming.
    The blood of the south runs in his veins now, Beltan, just as it
did in the Necromancer’s.
    Beltan didn’t know what it meant—only that both he and Travis had been changed by blood. And maybe that was all right. Because, no matter what had been taken from them, if they could still love one another, then they had everything.
    “I’ll get the dishes,” Beltan said.
    “No,” Travis said with mock sternness, “you’re going to go watch TV while I clean up. Remember, I’m unemployed at the moment, and you’re the hard worker who’s bringing home the bacon.”
    Beltan frowned. “Was I supposed to stop at the butcher and get salt pork on the way