Heart of Light by Sarah A. Hoyt Page B

room.
    Within, the dinner hour wound down. Outside, the night surrounded them—warm and deep and dark. Palm trees stretched into the distance, and bushes for which Nigel lacked names blanketed the reddish soil. From somewhere deep within the garden came a strange shrieking sound that might be a bird or an insect, but sounded like a lost soul begging for release. Occasionally fireflies flickered in the night. Here and there, something golden glimmered at brush level—probably animal eyes.
    The Turkish cigarettes smelled minty and sweet, like tobacco crossed with an exotic confection. They left a honeyed, sickly taste in the mouth, similar to what followed a great fever or debilitating illness.
    Smoke drifted in clouds around the two men, making Peter appear to Nigel as an illusion—magic-called. Nigel closed his eyes partly and wondered from where the ethereal feel came. Peter did not look immaterial in the least, with his British, rugged good looks, his curling black hair. He had grown up just as Nigel expected—a dark Englishman, broad shouldered and blunt featured, a credit to the empire, a notable example of British youth.
    So what was Peter doing here, alone and unattached to any governmental outfit, any outreaching arm of the queen's might? Not a man given to profound studies of character, still Nigel felt that men like Peter were dangerous when their passions were not attached to a safe cause.
    Nigel filled his mouth with aromatic smoke and exhaled forcefully, blowing more clouds of blue smoke into the air.
    The breeze whispered through the leaves and the wicker chairs creaked beneath the Englishmen's weight. The fragrance of plants and wild growth mingled with the scents of curry and cooking from within the restaurant. And though Nigel knew there was no jungle close to Cairo, he knew he was in Africa and imagined the jungle like a green animal, stretching over the continent.
    They were alone in the smoke-wreathed calm outside. The tourists and the locals within the restaurant could not hear them. The exotic city of Cairo beyond the hotel's garden might as well have been in a different world. Alone with Peter, Nigel was conscious of the uneasiness between them, as palpable as the dry heat that surrounded them.
    Once they'd had no secrets from each other. Of course, they'd been boys and innocent, their secrets few and mostly pertaining to illegal pets and filched biscuits. Now they might still be friends but a barrier had fallen between them. Peter was not living the life he should be living.
    “I thought you'd be in the army by now, old chap,” Nigel said. “The army or the diplomatic corps. Why didn't either suit you?”
    Peter slanted his eyes and looked sideways, like a lizard spying his way out of a tight corner. His eyes seemed to flicker, yellow-green, as if he'd blinked an invisible inner eyelid.
    Nigel could not define in words the exact shading of evasion in Peter's face. But he knew that something about Peter's career bothered him, or hurt him, like an old wound still raw to the touch. Something more than Nigel's expectations had been disappointed.
    Peter scuffed at the ground with thick armylike boots, quite out of keeping with the refined lines of his suit. He stretched his legs, an obvious attempt to look relaxed and casual. “Oh,” he drawled, his voice forcing itself to a slow and contemplative cadence, “you know, old bean, I was never one to fit the mold. I was no Carew.”
    It was Nigel's turn to narrow his eyes in suspicion. Perhaps not. Perhaps Peter had never fit in, which was why they'd become friends. So that the two, outcasts in different ways, had made a pact against the blustering flange of unruly English schoolboys.
    And yet, for all his strange ways, Peter had the ability to not do exactly what he'd been asked and yet achieve what the masters desired all the same. He'd been the owner of his own destiny, only conforming enough to be left in peace. But this should not have stopped now