Title: Brueghel's Icarus

Author: Lyrastar

Series: TOS

Codes: S/m, K/S themes

Rating: NC-17

Disclaimer: The characters and all things pertaining to Star Trek are the property of Paramount Viacom. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made. I needed the fine tools for my work; they would have been returned in the morning.

Archive: Pon Farr Online Fest; ASC*; my page www.geocities.com/lyrastarwatcher Others please ask first.

Summary: A Vulcan alone in Earth's past. Or almost.

Challenge: No familiar characters [well, one], no futuristic settings (okay), just everyday 2002 (or almost) [close enough]. Then one character reveals tha he is a Vulcan going into pon farr. How does the normal earthling react? How is the problem solved.

Author's Notes: Written for the Pon Farr Online Fest at http://www.geocities.com/ponfest/ and based on the challenge to set pon farr on modern day (or almost) earth. There is a good bit of historical background in here on the Navajo, or Dine, people of the Southwestern USA. This includes their legend of Twin Heroes, the children of the Sun. They are of the Holy People, and may be called upon to intercede between god and man. They are the aggressive, impulsive Monster-Slayer and the reserved, cautious Child-of-the-Water. Other than taking a few artistic liberties with the healing ritual of sandpainting, I have made a concerted effort to be sociologically accurate. Any aspects of Navajo culture or history depicted herein are based on published references, which I may have, unfortunately, misconstrued. Please forgive if I have stepped on any toes.

Betas: Many thanks to SAMK for the crash course on Navajo culture, and to jm for making me fix it up until she said it could be posted.

Feedback: Yes, please at [email protected]

*****
Captain Ploughman knew that flying would be the culmination of his life.  It would never get any better than this.  Flying was better than sex.  Better than liquor. Better than when Anna said she would marry him. Even better than holding his baby girl for the first time.  These things gave him happiness on earth; flying released him completely from all earthly cares. 

Cruising though the cloudless skies of the vast New Mexico desert, he felt the freedom sing through his body. The air buoyed him up by the wings; the strong summer sun beat through the windshield, warming his soul.  There was only the little voice somewhere in the back of his brain to remind him of his mission.

The fledgling National Intelligence Authority was antsy.  Someone had heard a rumor of an Indian uprising planned for this Independence Day and so the XF-12 had been sent out for aerial surveillance.

Soon he would go in for photographic runs as ordered.   Too soon he would have to return to Roswell Army Airbase and the confines of the world below.  As for right now, he was free at 12,000 feet. He reveled in every precious moment of it.

His reverie was interrupted by the voice of his copilot.  "Hey, Stu.  What's that?  Bearing 124."

Ploughman looked down.  There was a small cloud of smoky dust billowing up from the desert beneath them.  "Sandstorm, I guess," he said idly.

"Sandstorm?" the copilot echoed doubtfully.  "It's awfully localized."

"Well, what else could it be?" Ploughman answered irritably.  "There's nothing down there but snakes and cacti.  We're still  miles from the border.  Even the redskins aren't crazy enough to live out here in this wasteland."

"That's what I mean.  There isn't supposed to be anything down there.  Don't you think we ought to go in and take a look?"

Ploughman snapped, "Negative.  Our assignment is to recon the reservation only.  If a couple of wandering injuns want to arm-wrestle a snake to death in the middle of this godforsaken wasteland, I wish them the joy of it.  We have our orders."

And Captain Ploughman sailed off into the distance.

Below, the mid-summer sun mercilessly baked the arid desert floor.  The small cloud of dust slowly settled around the broken wreckage of the Starfleet shuttle Newton.  The sole inhabitant lay prostrate on the deck.  A pool of dark green blood pooled ominously around his head.  The autodistress beacon still pulsed its signal impotently.  It mattered little.  Even if it could escape the atmosphere at adequate intensity, there was nothing in this place or time sophisticated enough to recognize it. 

Up on a cliff a lone figure observed the crash with timeless wonder.  Kicking his horse in the flanks, he began to pick his way down the steep trail to investigate.

**************

Three months later found Spock standing atop a barren crag scanning the airwaves with his tricorder.  A small woven basket of squash and corn hung by his side.  His incompletely healed legs and pelvis still throbbed at the insult of being forced back to use so soon.  He paid them no heed.  

Instead, the tricorder held his full attention.  According to the radio waves, today on a dry lake bed not far from here, the X-1 rocket plane had broken the sound barrier to make history for this planet.   For the first time since emerging from the healing trance, Spock had a tangible goal in sight.  He sat down on the warm rock to replay the information.  He carefully considered the possibilities.

While earth technology was nowhere near what would be needed for Cochrane warp drive, Vulcan was already making periodic observations of the planet.  If he could modify the subspace beacon to a signal recognizable by current Vulcan sensors and place it outside the scatter of earth's atmosphere, it would eventually be found by a Vulcan scout.  From Vulcan, modifying a craft for time-travel should be eminently feasible. 

Adapting an X-1 rocket engine to reach beyond earth's atmosphere would be ridiculously easy.  Arranging to have his beacon deployed from it would be far more difficult.  Impossible missions such as that had always been Jim's forte. 

Jim.  With the passing thought, a sharp pain fell heavy within his breast.  It caught him unawares and shocked him with its acuity.  The sheer enormity of the sense of absence of the man pushed all other thoughts momently aside.  Confused by his own weakness, he swallowed and firmly banished such illogical thoughts to the hinterlands of his mind.

Hearing the click of hoofsteps on the trail below, he summoned himself back to the concrete.  He secured the tricorder within his basket and prepared to descend the rocks.   To his surprise the sun had already sunk below the horizon.  In its place the barest sliver of an almost new moon now hung, prepared to follow closely behind.  And once again, his stars were beginning to emerge.

Stiffly, Spock arose from the crag and eased back down the rocky path to the small vegetable garden that lay in its protection.  A small dribble of water leaked from a natural reservoir and exited low on the side of the rock face. 

Spock crossed the garden and stepped over the coarse gravel border to where the path to the homestead began.   The free strands of his shoulder-length hair blew casually around his ears.  Framed in ebony, his wan face glowed eerily in the twilight.

At the head of the path, Chiz Yazzie sat erect on a solid gray mare.  His unblemished black hair, carefully knotted at his nape, seemed to belie the long years that told in his lined face.  A pale yellow thong wrapped tightly around the bun of hair.  The two ends hung down the length of his back to end in heavy silver beads.

The horse snorted softly in greeting as Spock approached.  Casually Spock stroked her velveteen nose. "Welcome back.  You were successful?" Spock asked.  He gave a tacit nod to the several jackrabbits and prairie dogs strapped to the mare's back.

Chiz Yazzie patted his bulging medicine bundle.  "Of course.  Those that live in harmony with the land will receive its bounty in full measure.  And I see that you too have been successful during my absence. A Navajo would not have walked for six months or longer, much less climbed mesas. Your people heal at a remarkable rate."

"Yes.  When they are in the hands of a remarkable healer," said Spock with a slight declination of his head.

Even as he stood, Spock calculated the odds of his own survival from the crash to this date at less than 18,275:1  He had no logical explanation for his own continued existence.  Vulcan physiology could withstand much, but even it had its limits.

The flight had been fairly routine.  He had taken the Newton from the Enterprise to Earth to attend negotiations between the Federation and Romulus.  The political climate was tense and, as a security precaution, attendees had been asked to vent all plasma from warp engines before entering spacedock.  He had dropped into a leisurely orbit to collect some data while the engines vented.  Too late he had seen the stray pocket of kemacite. 

Before he had time to respond, the warp field plasma had reached the pocket and reacted violently.  Instantly he was caterwauling down through the space/time continuum to crash-land in the wild New Mexico desert of 1947.

Against all odds, Chiz Yazzie had entered the still smoking shipwreck, fought his way through the twisted maze of unknown technology and found Spock's broken body.  Against all odds, Chiz Yazzie had pulled the foundling to safety, hoisted him onto his horse and carried him away across the desert.  He had borne Spock through a hidden crack in the small mesa and into his own hogan. 

Against all odds, the old Navajo had kept him in sanctuary there through all the days and weeks of helicopters and trucks and searchers and investigators and press agents.

Against all odds, he had nursed the alien back to health.  Not unlike another healer Spock had known, the Navajo medicine man had cast aside all thoughts but that of a patient in need.  He had called upon all the knowledge he possessed, all the wisdom that had been passed down from those who had gone before, and all he knew of the ways of the world and the life force which ran through it. 

He had somehow sustained Spock not only though the initial coma, but during the weeks-long healing trance wherein his body used nutrition at an accelerated rate.  There were Starfleet physicians who could not have done as well.

Against all odds, Chiz Yazzie had become both savior and friend.

A plaintive howl was heard in the distance.  "Come," Chiz Yazzie said.  "Even healthy braves do not tackle coyotes by choice."   He turned the horse and set off down the trail to the homestead.  Spock limped painfully behind.

By the light of the cooking fire Chiz Yazzie expertly skinned the spoils of the hunt.  He skewered one prairie dog with a spit. The rest he packed out and over a hillock to where the smokehouse stood a short distance away. Spock pan fried the garden vegetables along with a modicum of corn meal.  He sat and pushed the food around with a spoon.

Chiz Yazzie returned and pulled the skewer off of the fire.  As always, he offered Spock the first serving.  As always, Spock declined.

Chiz Yazzie squatted down on his rock near the fire and tore into a leg joint with gusto.  An unexpected wave of bilious nausea hit Spock in the throat.  He choked it down and swallowed hard.  He must still be more ill than he had believed. 

Spock said, "It is illogical for a healer such as yourself to so casually kill and feed upon other animals."  The words sounded far harsher than he had intended.  Even as he heard them exit his mouth, he was dismayed at his display of impropriety towards his host. 

Chiz Yazzie seemed not to notice.  "And I am surprised that such a man as you would force a distinction between plant and animal life.  The Dine know that all life is precious; none is to be taken casually.  We are all of this world, and we compose the harmonic life force of it.  The Dine know that if one takes and uses only wisely, then the balance will remain forever.

"Or, at least we used to know this.  Now--" He shook his head and looked sadly off to the east where the blacktop highway lay beyond view.  The great scar the White man had cut through the heart of the desert.  The cut that bled the very life out of the nation he had known and loved.

"Now my people abandon the ways of our grandfathers for the ways of the White Man.  They turn their backs to the old ways, on what is sacred to me. The young ones do not care to learn the Songs.  So few can call upon the Holy Ones now.

"We are all Dine, but I no longer see anything of myself in our youth.  My family are all dead.  I cannot part from the Dine, but I fear that they grow too far apart from me.  The delicate balance, the hozho is in peril as the White Man's world infuses our people.  Perhaps I no longer know for certain what the Dine believe."

Spock stood suddenly and scraped his plate into the horse's trough.  She snorted appreciatively.  Chiz Yazzie gave him wry glance.

Chiz Yazzie said, "That was not my meaning.  The Dine idea is to grow and seek sustenance through all that may be around us, to give back in accord, and to be thankful.  One will not last long by choosing not to eat of any life at all."

"I am not hungry," Spock said simply.  Spock returned to the fire and sitting back down, steepled his fingers.

"Chiz Yazzie, there is something I must discuss with you.  I must attempt to get back to my nation."

"They will not come for you?"

"The more time that elapses from the point of my departure, the more improbable the arrival of my people becomes," said Spock.

"You came from a great distance.  Surely it will take time for them to follow you here."

Yes.  327.42 years thought Spock ruefully.  "My people do not travel as yours do.  There is an inverse relationship between the amount of time elapsed since you found me and the likelihood of their arrival.  I would now estimate the odds of my rescue at less than 5732:1.  It would seem that I must go to them."

Chiz Yazzie stared into the fire for a long moment. "You are not fit to travel.  You are welcome to make your home with me for as long as you wish."

Another wave pushed at Spock's throat.  It may have been nausea; he wasn't sure.  "And I thank you for your hospitality.  But I must leave tomorrow," said Spock.

"Where will you go?"

"Beyond the Western Mountain--Murdoc, California.  And you are correct.  I am not fit.  I will require your...assistance."

"If you wish, I will take you to the highway in the morning.  You should be able to get a ride from a White Man.  You may not look much like him, but as long as you don't look like us, they will take you."  Chiz Yazzie looked him over. 

"But, you may want to cut your hair." There was little humor in his voice.

"Then, again, I thank you."  He stood and looked up almost wistfully at the stars shining bright through the clear night sky.

His poorly healed hips protested at the chill in the October night air.  Nonetheless he moved awkwardly away from the fire and laboriously clambered back up to the rocky pinnacle.  For now, it was as close as he could get.

Even later when he limped back to the hogan, sleep was hard won.  And harder still to maintain.  For the first time since he had landed on Earth, he did not dream of the space.

Instead he dreamed of a mighty eagle with feathers of silver streaking through a jet-black sky.  The bird swung low over the red desert land and sailed easily amongst the rocky peaks.  There was the sound of a gong, the tintinnabulation of dozens of delicate bells, and then the silver bird was joined by another.

Together they swooped over the fiery sands and disappeared among the tall rocks.  T'Khut hovered round and full in the sky.  The sun rose, but it was not the sun at all.  Instead it was a face, a brilliant face with a smile so bright it was painful to behold.

And then he was being shaken awake.  With alarm, Spock realized that he was trembling.  The healer had one hand on his shoulder.  His body quivered against it sending tremors through his chest.  With great effort Spock willed his body to stillness and sat up to face his friend. 

He raised one eyebrow.  "You require something?"

Chiz Yazzie didn't balk.  "You are ill."  He raised a clay cup in his other hand.  "Drink this."

Spock glanced at the brew. He reached for his tricorder and scanned it briefly. "This contains peyote," he observed. 

"Among other things.  It will break the fever.  Drink it."

Spock took the cup, but instead of drinking, set it down on the earthen floor. "Hallucinogens are unwise for my people, particularly in this circumstance.  In any event, I am not ill.  My basal body temperature is significantly higher than yours.  I do not require your healing arts at this time."

Chiz Yazzie's face did not change.  "I have tended you through these many weeks.  I am familiar with your body's nature.  You burn.  If my skills are unwelcome, I will not bother you further.  But you do burn."

Spock regarded him.  It could matter very little now.  It was progressing much faster this time.  It would soon be beyond his ability to control. He would not make it home. He would die here.  If nothing else, he did owe this man the courtesy of the truth, any comfort that could be gained through the knowledge that it was not his skill that had failed.  And he could be trusted.  Spock's free and living presence was proof enough of that.

"You are essentially correct.  My temperature is elevated, but it is not an illness.  It is a biological function of my people.   We have a fertility cycle, of sorts.  I must return home to mate and complete the cycle."

"Or?"

"If the cycle is not completed, I will die.  So I must go."

"Home is a long way.  You do not have your vehicle. Will you arrive in time?"

No, thought Spock.  "The future is uncertain.  If you will take me to the highway, I will attend to the rest.  I would like to leave at first light."

The healer furrowed his brow and searched Spock's face.  "In that case, you should rest." He walked out of the hogan without looking back.

Spock did not return to sleep.  Chiz Yazzie did not return inside.  At dawn Spock emerged to find him sitting on a rock by the cold ashes of the cook-fire grinding wood embers between two smooth rocks.  A large woven basket sat by his feet.  From the vicinity of the smokehouse he could see that another fire sent a meandering stream of thick gray smoke up into the nearly cloudless sky.

"I am ready," Spock said.

The healer glanced up from his work. Spock's hair remained at his shoulders.  "You take no food or water?" Chiz Yazzie asked mildly.

Spock realized he had made an error. His mind was already untrustworthy.  He would not take needlessly of the valuable food supply, but if his ruse were to work, he would have to act as one preparing to cross the desert.   "I will fill a waterskin while you make the horse ready.  I require no food for the journey.  My people are well acclimated to desert travel with minimal provisions."

Chiz Yazzie kept his eyes on his task.  His voice was impassive. "You do not believe you can get home in time.   You no longer intend to go to California."

Spock simply could not lie to a man such as this. No Vulcan could.  He matched his tone.  "No."

"Do you have some other arrangement for completing the mating cycle?"  Chiz Yazzie's hands moved smoothly, never breaking the rhythm as they crushed the embers into smooth black powder.

Again, "No."

"Then there is no need for you to leave."  He continued to grind.

It was rumored that the Navajo had had a logical pragmatism that even a Vulcan could admire. It appeared to be true.

"I cannot stay," said Spock.  "As a rutting ram becomes wild and dangerous when unable to reach his mate, so do my people. "

Chiz Yazzie set down the stone grinder and walked to a nearby pinyon.  He broke off a branch and returned to his seat.  He carefully began to peel the long green needles into a neat pile.

"A rutting animal can be assuaged by other means.  A stallion will take another stallion, for example."  He finished stripping the branch and tossed it aside.  He placed a few needles into the makeshift stone mortar and began to grind. 

Spock felt himself beginning to tremble.  Although the night chill had not yet left the air, his face flushed hot.  He locked his hands behind his back and bit his fingers firmly into his own flesh.  He pressed his lips tight.  The silence seemed interminable. 

Chiz Yazzie finally asked, "Is it so with your people?" 

"Yes."  By rights he should have felt nothing.  But the single word fell in the pit of his stomach with a sickening thud.

"Then, again, you need not go."  He looked up and met Spock's eyes.  "I am a medicine man from a line of eight Dine medicine men before me.  It is my place in this world to give aid.  If for no other reason than that, you are welcome to stay."

Spock felt the quivering in his legs redouble.  He moved to sit on the neighboring rock.  He told himself it was logical action to spare his aching hips and legs, but it felt like surrender.

"You do not understand.  We...my people, like the wolf or the fox, mate for life."

Chiz Yazzie placed the pile of fine green powder to one side and picked up another handful of needles for the mortar. "And so it was once for me as well. But she is dead and circumstances change.   I would not have you die.  I would prefer not to return to being alone.  You have heard my voice.  The choice is yours."

Spock swallowed.  "There is more.  There is another for me."

"At home?" Chiz Yazzie asked.

"Yes.  The one I would be with for life."

"You can only join with her?"

Spock said, "No.  We are not yet joined.  It has not been decided."

"Why not?"

Why not, indeed.  Through all the years there had been so many reasons put forth by the both of them.  All so sound, all so consummately logical.  And not one of them seemed to matter now.  With all his powers of logic, how could he have failed to foresee this day, or one of the infinite variations of it?

He had little feeling about his own death, but this loss was almost too great to bear.  With him would pass all the wondrous possibilities that are given only unto truly mated souls.  All the glories that had been conceived in dreams would now die, still unborn, here on the barren desert floor.

Had he been the only one who had been so blind?  Or had there always been a cool reason behind all of Jim's gentle persistence?  For all Spock's precious logic, had he himself been the one to fail to see the truth? He labeled himself the worst kind of fool. 

"I have no answer for that," Spock said quietly.

"Then it is this discrepancy which destroys your hozho and causes your illness."

Spock considered briefly.  "That is essentially correct."

Chiz Yazzie said, "There is more than one force which can restore hozho.  If you cannot go to her, then it seems that the joining must be here.  For decades I sang the sacred songs and performed the rites to restore balance to many spirits fallen adrift.  It would be my privilege to do so once again."

Spock's heart flipped once and resumed.  He shook his head. "While I do not debate your wisdom, this land is not my land.  My answers, my...balance, if you will, lies at home.  It cannot be forced here."

"She would rather that you die than join with someone else?"

"No.  He would not," said Spock.  Chiz Yazzie looked up with some surprise. 

Spock continued, "But you would be joined to one whose heart is with another.  And this joining is for life.  It cannot be undone.  This is not a simple matter of ceremony or sexual congress.  It is a bond for life."

"Spock, bidden or unbidden, all spirits are joined for life.  There may be those that we treasure above others, but if a man's heart is with one spirit of the world, than it is with all spirits.  What you say does not frighten me; in fact, I welcome it."

He wiped his leathery hand across his chin in a most familiar gesture.  "More that 20 years ago, my wife died.  I loved her above all others and never thought to be as a man with another here on this earth.  Although I know she is still of this land, I can no longer feel her around me.  I can no longer even see her face.

"For so long I have felt alone in the world I used to love.  I had thought it would always be so.

"There is a certain irony that it took the arrival of one so different to reunite me with the truth of my world.  And there is a certain balance in finding my way back through him.

"There are, among my people, some so gifted as to see the world through both the eyes of man and the eyes of woman.  To these people are many more truths of existence revealed.  They make the best medicine men.

"Such a gift has not been granted to me.  Perhaps until now." 

A shudder ran the length of Spock's traitorous body at the tacit offer and all that it implied.   Spock said, "Regardless of any other occurrence, if I live, I still must attempt to make the journey back to my nation.  I do not know what effect that will have on you."

Chiz Yazzie replied, "If we are joined, I shall go with you."  Flawlessly logical.

"So one would think," Spock agreed.  "But the paradox is that you cannot.  Where I must go, you cannot go; your place is here.  Your people need the balance of one with both the knowledge of the past and the ability to change and grow in harmony with foreign ideas or foreign people.

"When the time comes for me to go, you may experience some...effects.  I cannot predict what they may be."

"Yes, the future is uncertain," Chiz Yazzie quoted.  "I will be well.  I have come through worse. 

"And you?  When you return to your nation already joined to another?  How will it be?"

With a gut wrenching shock, Spock realized they both spoke as though they had already made pact.  Try as he might, he could not identify the moment where his decision had reversed.  Fascinating.

Spock said, "It will not affect me...at home.  If I am able to return, what formed between us here will no longer exist. "

"You said it could be only broken by death."  There was no trace of concern in the old man's voice. 

Spock hesitated. "You will live out your natural life here, but where I go you cannot follow as you would cease to be there.  And so our bond will also cease to be."

"Because your love walks among the stars."

Spock all but gasped.  Had he been so very obvious? "Yes."

"And you also walked among the stars," said Chiz Yazzie

"Yes," said Spock.

"You bleed green, and yet you bleed and die as one of us."

Spock replied, "I am not a god.  I am not one of the Holy People. I am fully mortal." He paused for emphasis. "But I am not like you."

Like a thunderclap out of the clear blue sky, Chiz Yazzie grinned widely.   His parched face threatened to crack at the strain.  His eyes sparkled with an energy Spock had never seen before in the old man.  A sound that was perilously close to laughter came from his nose.  "That, my friend, may be the only thing you have said that I do not believe."

Composed again, the healer arose and swept the piles into several small skin pouches.  He placed them all into the basket.  He picked one small packet out of the basket and tucked it into his jerkin.  "As it seems that it is the normal ways of your people that caused the imbalance, I doubt that the answer lies there.  Perhaps you should try the ways of the Dine instead.  They have served you well so far.  Come," he said.  He picked up a bulky waterskin and strode off in the direction of the fire.

Spock hesitated.  To do what he was now contemplating was an abhorrence to the inherently monogamous Vulcan katra.   He did not even know if it was possible.  His body, everything that was not of the mind screamed for it, but the bonding center was intended to respond to one other alone.  His had already been primed for the one it had chosen.  There could no longer be any doubt as to that.  On Vulcan with a learned healer the pon farr could be survived without the selected mate, but he knew not whether a psi-null human and a hybrid half-Vulcan would stand a chance.

He looked across the broad expanse of the desert, rosy in the rays of the early morning sun.  It was strangely comforting, not so dissimilar to the sands of home.  Not such a bad end.  Aside from the horror of the plak tow.

He would never know if it was logic, friendship, or simple biology which lead him to the choice he made.  He did not know if it was the ultimate betrayal or the ultimate loyalty.   After a long moment, he followed the healer over the hill.

Near the smokehouse Chiz Yazzie was busy attending to the fire.  A pile of porous stones glowed red and black under a pile of burning cedar brushes.  A thick curl of gray smoke choked the air. 

At Spock's arrival Chiz Yazzie glanced up and gave a sidelong look of approval.  He passed the shovel to Spock.  "Pile the rocks against the north wall," he instructed.  He lifted a thick blanket to reveal a small doorway built into the hillside. 

Spock accepted the shovel and pushed aside the smoldering brush to reach the rough rocks.  He hefted one and noted it to be significantly less dense than the local stone.  Igneous, in all probability.

He shoveled the hot rocks down into the tiny space.  From the doorway, the floor was less than two meters below, roughly square, with a stone bin built against the right wall. It might hold three people uncomfortably. 

Task completed, Chiz Yazzie dropped the heavy blanket flap down over the entrance.  Under the bright morning sun, he began to divest himself of his clothing.  He motioned to Spock to do the same.

Spock raised an eyebrow and allowed himself the illogical wish that he had learned more of traditional Navajo mating customs.  Chiz Yazzie retrieved the small packet from a fold of his jerkin and turned to face Spock. Spock remained fully dressed.

Spock said uncomfortably, "Although the mating instinct is the driving force, at this time, perhaps it would be better--"

Chiz Yazzie's voice held a slight lilt of amusement.  "We must cleanse ourselves of impurities before approaching the spirits.  It is most difficult to bathe in clothing, but you may try if you wish."  So saying he picked up the water skin and slung it over his bare shoulder.  He hopped down into the lodge.

Raising an eyebrow, Spock followed his lead.  When he lifted the flap to enter, the heat blasted up against his naked skin with a fierce intensity he had not felt since leaving Vulcan.  He welcomed it and dropped into the dark chamber below.

Chiz Yazzie squatted against the opposite wall.  "Close the flap!" he hissed.   Spock secured the blanket behind him leaving them alone in the faint red glow of the superheated rocks.  His eyes began to accommodate to the dramatic change in light level, but for now he could see nothing but the rock furnace to his right. 

"Squat down.  Be careful not to burn your leg."

Spock squatted.  The earthen walls were still cool, a welcome contrast to the oppressive heat of the lodge air.  He leaned back into the chill. 

A warm hand touched his thigh.  He gasped involuntarily.  The hand moved upward.  His whole body tensed.  His penis jerked. No! Too soon! Not like this!

But the hand did not tarry.  It continued working its way up through the darkness until it found his chin.  "Hold out your tongue."

The touch of the healer caressed his face. The heat wrapped around the whole of his being, entering him, catalyzing some dreadful reaction already underway within.  A finger teased his nose.  A sweet smell of the earth and life and man wafted up. He couldn't argue.  He couldn't speak.  He could barely breathe.

Automatically his tongue extended, firm and wet.  In sympathy his penis began to do the same.  He made a token effort to subdue it, but he knew he must fail.  Breathing hard he waited in terrible anticipation. He felt the healer's exhalation of moist breath upon his face.

When the touch came, it was but two fingertips. They alit delicately on his tongue then fluttered away.  It was all Spock could manage not to groan in frustration.  He licked madly after them, but they had vanished into the darkness.

What they left behind was a honeyed flavor that spread itself even over his tongue and through his mouth.  With alarm he realized that this might well be peyote or some equally noxious drug, but his blind lust had rendered the matter moot.  It had already dissolved inside of him. 

"The sacred pollen," said Chiz Yazzie by way of explanation.  There was a hiss.  A cloud of steam arose from the bin of rocks.  A hauntingly familiar smell of sweat and pine filled his nostrils.  His head swam; he lowered it to his hands.  His thighs shook until he feared they would no longer support him.  He sank to a seated position on the floor.

Chiz Yazzie began to chant.  The rhythmic harmonics echoed in Spock's throbbing body.  He focused only on taking one breath and the one after that.  There was another hiss and a fresh blast of scalding steam.  His skin was on fire.  The chanting resumed.

Spock's mind drifted back to another ceremony.  The rolling cadence, the ritual words, the fire pit, the steam, an earnest face hovered before his, a name that he dare not say in dreams. So close to so right, but so all so wrong.  He thought his heart would burst.  He lowered his shields and sent out an anguished call for his t'hy'la in his time of need.  But the only possible answer was centuries away.

Another hiss.  A new scent now wafted in air of the lodge.  Pine, fragrant herbs, yes, but something more as well.  More, and building rapidly.  The strong male musk of the healer was carried on the cloud of steam and permeated through his being.  His penis jumped.  The smell grew stronger.  He drew in a long slow breath letting the scent linger in his nostrils.

Shocked at his own behavior his eyes flew open.  He could now see a little.  Chiz Yazzie squatted in front of him.  Their knees all but touched.  A sheen of sweat glistened off of his muscular body.  Rivulets ran down his chest to end in the matted thick triangle at his groin. Eyes closed, Chiz Yazzie rocked in time with the slow chant.  It was too much too watch. The blood fever surged hot and red.  If he stayed, he would certainly go mad.

Heedless of propriety, Spock interrupted.  "Chiz Yazzie, how much longer must this go on?"  His voice was barely recognizable.

"Though the sweat we remove the impurities of the body.  When they are gone, we are finished."

"I do not sweat," said Spock.

"At all?"  Chiz Yazzie asked. 

There was the confirmatory touch of slick palm upon his thigh.  This time the contact was so startling to both body and unshielded mind that he did cry out aloud.  As the hand again ran the curve of his hip, a fingertip accidentally brushed the side of his swollen penis.   Lightning shot though his brain, down the entire length of his body.  At once his whole being rebelled at the dissonance between the cravings of the flesh and the ideals of the mind.  He threw himself out of the doorway and rolled down the hill to lie shivering, face down in the sand.

The day was already warm but, after the heat of the bath, the sand lay cool against his skin.  The burning abated just a little.  He concentrated solely on the present.  Slowly he returned to himself.  Gradually his erection abated. 

He rolled onto his side and blinked in the bright sunlight.  To his surprise, Chiz Yazzie now sat beside him, sand in his hair, sand clinging to his chest.  The healer nodded with approval. 

"Exactly.  The sand will grind away remaining impurities." Chiz Yazzie picked up a handful and, starting at the arms, began to scour himself vigorously.

As the cool fresh air seemingly restored cooler thoughts, Spock stood.  With some consternation, he realized, abruptly, that he had no where to go.

Letting the sand sift from his fingers, Chiz Yazzie stood as well.  "Come," he said and started back up the hill.

"Where are we going?" Spock asked.

"Back to the lodge for the next session of blessing."  Chiz Yazzie extended a hand.

"Back!" Spock said in undisguised dismay. 

"Yes.  The cleansing is not complete.  Is that acceptable?"  Chiz Yazzie eyed him clinically.

Spock summoned himself.  "I will make every effort to complete the cleansing ritual, however, I believe it would be best if you would refrain from touching me at this time."

Chiz Yazzie nodded. His hand fell to his side and he disappeared underneath the blanket.

****

The last of the sessions completed, Spock again lay shivering in the sand.  He had begged the medicine man leave him to meditate.  That was acceptably close to the truth.  As his breathing slowed he backed up against the hill and let the desert permeate his body.  He thought of nothing, nothing at all.  After a shamefully long time this erection, too, abated. 

Hoping for enough control to return with dignity, Spock donned his clothes and clambered back over the hill to the hogan.

To his surprise, Chiz Yazzie was moving busily around inside. He had donned wristbands and a necklace of silver and deep turquoise and a deep turquoise.  His deerskin medicine bundle lay open on the earthen floor.  The large basket was beside it.

Although the day was warming rapidly, the medicine man had lit a small fire in the stone circle under the smoke-hole.  Across it he put an iron grate.  He returned to his medicine bundle and began to work with a purpose.

He pulled small sacks and clay jars out from the bundle and from the basket.  He lined them up systematically on the ground behind him.  The last pot he placed apart from the rest.

He retrieved Spock's untouched cup from the floor and placed it on top of the grate.  Spock interrupted, "I have said that I do not wish to--"

"It is not for you," the healer said curtly.  He reached into the basket and retrieved a cactus button.  Cutting it carefully into sections, he threw several more chunks into the cup to steep.  He added a sprinkling of small leaves from a branch lying on top of the basket, then he set the branch itself on top of the grate.  Soon a pleasant smell filled the air.

With a brush broom, the medicine man began to sweep an area of the earthen floor even smoother.  "Dine medicine men can invoke the Holy People though dry painting on the earth," Chiz Yazzie explained.

"Sandpainting," said Spock.  "I know of it."

Chiz Yazzie said, "Yes, sandpainting.  Through it, the Holy People can be called to our aid.  They are able to restore balance when it is lost.  They bring healing and all manner of good things to those who know how to ask.

"Sit near the center of the room," Chiz Yazzie ordered.

Spock obeyed.  The cloying heat from the fire beside him began to close in on his throat.  He swallowed hard.  His head began to buzz.  He pressed it between his palms and focused all his energy on drawing the next breath.  And the one after that. 

The medicine man began to sing in the language of his people.  The rhythm was agonizing slow, primal, even hypnotic.  Methodically he scattered the colored powders over the red dirt floor.  Eventually shapes and figures began to emerge in the sand.

The painting grew slowly.  First there was the sun in the east, then billowing clouds of pure gypsum appeared.  The great mountains grew around the edges and guardian spirits appeared to sit upon the mountains.  Sacred plants grew among the mountains; a monstrous lizard sat upon a cliff.  There were animals, and men with prayersticks who roamed over the mountains and through the vast space in between. 

And in the middle of the sandpainting were the twin heroes who had been granted dominance over all of this.  One was depicted in green and black.  The other, the Monster-Slayer, was painted in the burnished pinks and golds of sands painstakingly collected from the land of the Painted Cliffs. 

The healer ended the chant.  Spock forced his eyes to roll open, but still his head swam.  The room lurched.  First, he summoned all his will to focus upon the depiction in front of him.  And then he could not tear his eyes away for the face of the Monster-Slayer was unmistakable.

"How have you done this?" Spock asked.  His voice grated rough in his own ears.  He struggled to his feet.

Breathing hard, Chiz Yazzie removed his wristbands and necklace and secured them within the folds of the deerskin bundle. He reached back and tugged one set of the silver beads that swung from his hair tie.  The bun unfurled.  Thick tendrils of rich black hair spilled down his back to end in uneven wisps around his waist.  He threw the wrap across the bundle and turned to face his patient.

"I have not.  The gods act through me.  The painting tells of the Two Twin Heroes and how they were granted beneficent dominion over all creatures that reside between the Sacred Mountains.

"The painting is left through the day.  In the evening it will be destroyed.  If it is their will, the Holy Ones will act for us and restore health and balance."

Chiz Yazzie walked to the center of the hogan.  His cheeks were ripe and flush with blood.  His jerkin was unlaced; his smooth chest still heaved from the heat of the hogan and the exertion of the rite. 

"Come," he said, "we will wait until sunset for the Holy Ones."

Spock faltered, almost tripped over a stone from the fire circle.  The healer reached out and caught him by the shoulders.  Spock battled with his own body to straighten, to pull away.

"I cannot breathe," he gasped.  He tugged violently at the neck of his uniform shirts and ripped them both off in a single furious motion.  He could perhaps now breathe a little, but the air was still far too thick.  Much too thick with the heady scent of his intended.  Spock stood quivering, utterly unable to process anything but the drive of his own erection and the overwhelming presence of the man who channeled for the spirits.

Spock's lips moved wordlessly.  He fell helplessly to his knees, head bowed in concentration.  He clutched at a rock from the stone circle and squeezed compulsively.  Dark green blood began to drip from his palm.

Chiz Yazzie watched in fascination.  To all things there must be balance.

"I think, perhaps, even the gods will make an exception occasionally," Chiz Yazzie said, with the slightest raise of an eyebrow.   He reached for the clay cup of brewed medicine and downed it in one gulp.

With a grimace he abandoned the cup and moved to the pile of skins and blankets.  Choosing the largest skin, he laid it carefully out over the sandpainting.  He piled several others beside it.   Lastly, he went back for the one medicine jar he had not used, and placed it beside the skin.

He kicked off his boots, divested himself of his leggings and lay down on the soft skin.  He reached two fingers into the jar and pulled them back with a dollop of soft fat.  He anointed his burgeoning penis, perhaps more generously than he would for a woman. As an afterthought he reached between his legs and smeared the tender place between his cheeks as well.

"Come, Spock," he said softly.  This time, he extended a hand.

With some terrible fusion of movement, Spock moved towards the bedding.  With the first touch of their hands, he knew nothing further.

For Chiz Yazzie the world began to slow.  Some distant part of him had to be aware that Spock had mounted the front of him, but his mind could not process the enormity of it.  The impassioned touch of another's flesh on his was something he had too long been without.

He knew only parts for the whole.  The burning scrape of fingers as they raked across his shoulders.  The bruising pressure of a wiry knee as it pushed against the most tender flesh of his thigh.  The dizzying, exotic scent that suffused his nostrils as nothing ever had before in his life.  The weight of another man on his body.  The grip of muscles stronger than his own, pinning him firmly to the ground.  The sounds of fervent desperation rasping in his ear.  The sound of a frantic need that only he could answer.

And the heat.  The impossible heat that radiated from every part of him, scorching, searing, branding everywhere he touched.  Each new wave of hot, dry breath whispered in his ear like wind through dry grass and threatened to desiccate him completely.

The bulge of Spock's urgency pressed hard against the hollow of his hip as Spock ground into him in that most elemental instinctive rhythm. Through the slick synthetic fabric, the crest of the bony pelvis rubbed unrelentingly over his burgeoning erection and threatened to drive him insane.  He dug his fingers into Spock's lean back, clutching him more tightly against his body.

Spock arched his neck.  His eyes flew open wide and a strangled sound gurgled deep in his throat.  Chiz Yazzie tensed.  He waited in dreadful anticipation of the ravenous assault. 

But it never happened.  Instead Spock pressed his face firmly into the curve of his neck and resumed the measured thrusts of groin against hollow.

He groaned.  A wisp of Spock's hair tickled against his nose, driving him further to distraction.  He couldn't think, couldn't reason.  He knew only a single primal need.  He reached for the lacing of his jerkin, but found it caught in the crush of Spock's body. 

With one furious gesture he reached a hand down the neckline and tore.  The leather lacing tensed, then broke with a resounding pop.   The jerkin hung open leaving his torso bare and free.

Taut and ready, his penis thrust against the slick fabric of Spock's hip, but still it wasn't enough.

And then Spock shifted.  Spock's hand went to the naked penis.

And then Chiz Yazzie did cry out.  In one galvanic moment his world crashed in.  The intensity of the fever-hot hand that milked his sex was a threatened to drive him over the edge right there and then.

Automatically his hands went for the trousers.  He tugged frantically at the waistband to no avail.  Spock paid no heed.  Spock continued to pump in the same maddening meter, never faster, never slower.  Always too much and never enough.

In desperation he tore at the seat of the trousers.  With some work they rent down the middle.  He pulled the flaps farther to the side until the fabric concealed nothing and Spock's ready penis sprang free.

A musky odor climbed to his nose.  He groaned helplessly at the rich aroma of arousal.  He rocked his pelvis and their mirrored members met heat to heat with a shock that would have surely driven a lesser man into oblivion.

And still Spock continued in the same unchanging motion.  He tried fruitlessly to push Spock aside, to end this sweet torture with his own hand.  But one might as well try to move the Sacred Mountains.  With finality he relaxed his body and submitted himself to Spock's will.

As he surrendered to the inevitable, an unexpected sense of peace overcame him.  He was past the point of orgasm.  Past anything but the mingled measure of their joint need.

And still it wasn't enough.  He had to have Spock inside of him.  In vain he struggled against the resolute strength that pressed him to the ground.  He strove to turn, to bend, to offer himself in supplication.  But in his frenzy, Spock would not be moved. 

It was not too much to beg.   He choked, "Spock...behind me...now! Let me up!" 

But his words were lost in the howling tempest of the madness.  He remained pinned firmly by the scalding press of groin to groin.

And then, in desperation, he spread his legs.  He parted his thighs and pulled up his hips as a woman might.  Hoping against all hope, he willed Spock to understand his most elemental need.

Spock stopped.  He rose to his knees and grasped his ass with both hands.  It was more pain than pleasure as the fingers clamped the cheeks and pulled him firmly onto his swollen penis.  His head bumped the ground as he was suddenly pulled forward in the grip of Spock's passion. 

And then there was no room to think.  His ankles flew up over Spock's shoulders.  He was being hammered relentlessly by a force such as he had never known.  It was all he could do to find his own penis and squeeze out a few strokes to extinguish the fire within.  He pumped himself with all his might, aiming for the sweet annihilation that would put this to an end. 

When it finally came, it was more torture than release.  And still Spock never broke his rhythm.  Molten semen spewed over his belly, but he barely noticed.  Sobbing, he dropped his painfully sensitive penis and flailed his hands helplessly into the sand. He squeezed his eyes and prayed for the agony to end.  

His vision dimmed.  The ideal marbled with the concrete in one great liquid swirl before his eyes.  He saw his own body as if from a great distance.  He watched it roll and slam into Spock's hard groin with a mechanical precision. Spock's face bobbed before him, intent only on his own fulfillment.  And then it all shifted.

Then it was not Spock before him but Quinani.  His body relaxed as he drank in the solace of her face, so beautiful after all these years. 

And then he knew not who was in whom.  It was all the same.  The rhythm of the blessed friction reverberated through his being in a glorious harmonic thrill.  His balls contracted, his prostate threatened to burst, but still they rocked together as one.  His world was reduced to the lunge of hard penis, the slide of slick skin, the slap of flesh against flesh, and the ethereal image that moved with him in love.  Caught in the nether world between memory and reality, he wanted it to go on forever.  He needed it to end.  In blind desire he reached up to pull his mate down to him. 

But Spock moved instead. Holding the healer's ass with one hand, Spock slid the other up to the gnarled face.  Hot fingers forked around one curved ear and pushed through the long, loose hair.  Spock's fingers pressed hot into his face, hotter still into his mind.  And then Chiz Yazzie was coming again.

The dry orgasm was so unexpected it was painful. He body was shook with spasms that wracked him from head to toe.  With an inhumanly high pitched wail, Spock collapsed on top of him in a heavy heap.  Outside, the horse whinnied.  Slowly his world began to reform.

Somewhere in the back of his mind the waking echo of Quinani's face still beckoned. Just for a while, he thought.  Yes, just for a while I will go with you.

He didn't know how long he had slept.  When he awoke the light from the smokehole had migrated a little farther down the wall.  An urgent force billowed up in his chest.  He pushed Spock aside and sat bolt upright.  His head still swam with the visions that now seemed more real than did the past 20 years of his life.  His stomach churned demanding his attention most urgently. 

He crawled to the medicine bundle and dug for a sprig of dried juniper.  He leaned up against the stone wall and waited for his stomach to settle.  The feel of the cool stone was a blissful relief to his hot clammy skin, too badly over-stimulated. 

As he waited, he watched Spock rest.  The sunlight of mid-day streamed in through the smokehole and hit the austere angles of his body etching them in crisp chiaroscuro. 

He wondered how there ever could have been a time when he did not find this man beautiful. 

In rapt abandon, he crawled back to lie beside him once more.  He noted that the carefully constructed sandpainting was no longer recognizable.  The motion of their union had swirled the sands of the images inexorably one into the other.  The men, the animals, the mountains, the clouds, the sun--they had all mixed together. It was no longer possible to discern one part of the painted world from any other.  Only the border of muted rainbow bands remained largely undisturbed.

He lifted up the edge of the deerskin. The two central figures had been rolled together so thoroughly that they were utterly obliterated.  But it no longer mattered; the Heroes had done their work.

Chiz Yazzie lay on his side studying Spock in a new light.  His muscles roped beneath the skin, each one defined in the candid light.  Each vein stood full and high. His skin flushed a ripe olive, his chest heaved evenly.  His eyes were closed.  The skin above them was a rich teal blue, like no color he had ever seen before.  It spoke of distant seas and skies, a world he would never know.  But the eyes remained tightly shut; his aspect was focused intently on something within.

Gingerly he reached out to touch his chest.  Spock gasped, but did not pull away.  For all their exertions, the skin was still as dry as the very desert.  He moved his fingers through the forest of dark curly hair, and still Spock did not make a move.  Emboldened, he set out to learn that captivating face.

He started with the ears.  He swept a finger up to one tip, then down around the elegant curve.  He ran his finger repeatedly around the maze of ridges and whorls until Spock squirmed, incoherent under his ministrations.  His eyes flew open.  His mouth moved faintly, and yet no sound escaped.

And still Chiz Yazzie moved languidly, as one held in quicksand.  He traced the severe eyebrows and slowly massaged the tips, pressing into the taut muscles of the temple.  He felt them loosen just a little beneath his hand.  He traced the lines of the forehead wondering what stories they could tell of this stranger and his life that went before. He drew his fingers down the sharp nose and let them slip off to the sides.  He tracked the deep furrows of the nasolabial folds down to the corners of the mouth.

Lightly he dragged his finger across the thin lips. The skin was sere and cracked like the bed of any arroyo in summer.  He traced the length of the thin line between them.  Spock's breath came in more frequent pants, prickling the fine hairs of his forearm in a tantalizing dance.

On an impulse, he leaned down for a kiss.  Spock's ragged breath danced across his face, seemingly coating his very being. With a silent benediction he touched their lips, hot and parched.  The lips parted infinitesimally.  A puff of hot breath escaped into his mouth intoxicating him at first blush.  He smelt the heated copper and savored an alien essence that could not fill him enough.  Greedily he grabbed at the smooth black hair, clutched at the trembling mouth with his lips, with his teeth, urging it to let him in.

Spock shifted.  "No."  Spock's voice was strained, as if he were struggling back from a great distance. "No...please.  Even now, I can barely keep the madness at bay."

"Madness?  No, this is the first sanity I have known for a very long time." Decisively he buried his face in the curve of Spock's neck and ran his hands resolutely down his flanks.

"No," Spock said.  It was almost a whimper.

"Yes."  Chiz Yazzie reached down and took the ripe cock in his hand.  Spock made a soft sound in the back of his throat.  Chiz Yazzie curled his body protectively around Spock's groin.  His eyes never left Spock's face.  First tenderly, then with the escalating urgency of their joint need, he stroked Spock to orgasm and back.

In the languid warmth of the afterglow, Chiz Yazzie rested replete and content.  His head rose and fell with each even breath that Spock took.  Absently he pondered yet again how a man could live with out a heartbeat.  Perhaps not so strange, he thought.  For if I have survived with an empty heart, can it be so much harder with a silent one?

He circled his fingers through the coarse hair of Spock's chest, wondering not for the first time, what he might now be thinking.  He raised his eyes to meet Spock's face.  There he beheld such great loneliness as a man may only know when all passion is spent and he finds, to his dismay, that nothing more remains. 

For only the second time he leaned in for a kiss.   This kiss was soft as the cactus flower in the morning dew.   With quiet insistence he worked his lips and tongue in harmony together.  Spock's lips parted, and just for a moment, he let him in.  It was enough.  He fell away, and lay his head back down.

"Chiz Yazzie," said Spock softly, "we are experiencing a biological necessity of my people.  Although you are a dear friend and I owe you my life twice over, I cannot stay with you."

In his mind's eye the old man saw himself, once again young and strong.  He rode a silver horse; Quinani rode behind him, clinging tightly to his waist.  Her face was young and free and entirely without fear. 

Beside him, on a mighty golden stallion, rode his dark brother-in-arms.  Hair flying in the wind, together they raced across the great plateau and leapt wildly up and over the sacred mountain to spread out against the sky.

"I know," he replied sotto voce.  "And yet a part of you ever will."

*****
When Chiz Yazzie awoke, he was alone.  The fire had burned down to embers; the deerskin beside him had grown cold.  He feared it would always be so. 

Then, as his eyes accommodated to the darkness, he saw it.  The tricorder still stood against the wall, right next to his own hunting bow.  With a smile Chiz Yazzie rolled over and went back to sleep, his wife's face floating gently in his mind.

Outside Spock sat and stared at the stars.

*****

                     the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
          WH Auden