For I need to arrange a bed for Lukas' dad first, it's getting cold and uncomfortable out there.' Tristan said: 'Sure, I promised Paul already I'd wait to discuss it, let me find him whilst you find the bed, and then we can talk after having moved Hermes. I think George is in the house.'
So I went into the house, having never been there before, and it seemed much larger and finer on the inside.
I was standing in a large hall with a imposing set of stairs leading up, and two halls on either side. It looked large enough to get lost in, so I asked the first servant I met where her master was.
She replied: 'He's putting young miss Bertha to bed, madam, she still likes to be tucked in even though she's already ten years old.
He'll be done soon, he never takes long. If you wait here, you'll be sure to meet him.'
I thanked her and waited a few moments, and to be sure, it wasn't long before George came into view, descending the stairs at a rapid pace.
'Melissa, are you waiting for me?' he asked. I said: 'I am, it's getting cold outside, and we need to get Hermes in a bed and under a roof.
Do you want to put him up or do you want us to take him with us?'
He looked at me seriously and said: 'I take it he is no danger to me and my family?'
I held his gaze and said: 'No George, he is in a pretty sorry state, if he tried to use magic he'd hurt himself more than anyone else. And he cannot even stand up to do physical harm.'
George now looked embarrassed and admitted: 'I want to make a fool of myself very much, he's so beautiful, I'd love to keep him here with me, we have plenty of spare rooms and Frances won't mind.
But you said something about it being dangerous for him to sleep on a node?'
I replied: 'It might be, his body gathers that kind of power all by itself, it's an unconscious process.
I think it's part of what makes him a god.
If he were to do that now, he would probably overload his nerves and suffer unimaginable pain, and become crippled or even comatose, he could very
well die. But you can shield him from it, can't you?'
George nodded, and said: 'Let's ask Paul and Tristan, I'm not objective, and they know as much about magic among the two of them.'
And he led me outside, finding the place where Tristan and Paul were waiting for me as if he knew where they would be.
The four of us walked to where Lukas was with his father, and there we sat down in the dark. Hermes was awake and quite lucid, the painkiller was clearly active again, and he was leaning into his son with obvious joy.
I could clearly see a family resemblance between them, the shape of the face, the chin, but Lukas' mouth was much more pronounced and he had a different nose.
Compared to the surreal beauty of his father, Lukas looked almost commonplace, even ungainly, but to me he was the truly beautiful person of the two, I had such a great love for him, and to me he seemed to be shining from the inside.
George asked Hermes: 'You need a decent bed to rest in, do you want to go home with your son, or do you want to stay with me?'
Hermes of course looked not understanding, and George repeated the whole in Greek. Hermes then spoke, and from Lukas' answer I could guess what he had said: 'I don't mind, father, you can stay wherever you would like best.
I know George wants you to stay with him, and if you want to, we need to discuss something among these three mages, in English. So please bear with us.'
His father answered, and George said to Tristan and Paul: 'Melissa says he will unconsciously fill up his reserves from the node if we don't make sure we shield him from it.
Does that make it too dangerous for him to sleep here with me?'
With great confidence, Tristan stated: 'Not if we use all three traditions, like we did with the seal. He couldn't break that even with god-like powers.'
'I agree,' was Paul's answer. But that worried me, for he had to get some power in: 'He needs access to a little power, to keep his life-processes going.
You can only stop the green stuff from coming in, he needs the red and the light red power.'
All three now turned towards Hermes and looked at him intently, and Tristan observed: 'Damned if she's not right, I can see it now, straight from Lukas to his father.
All right, George's shield seems to be working just fine, I'll emulate that exactly, and he could sit on that corrupted node and not feel a thing.'
And Paul said: 'I'm with you,' after which Lukas said to his father: 'Tristan, the large man, and Paul, the stunningly handsome one, are both mages in a different tradition from George, and they are going to put shields on you as well, to protect you from a source of power that is near.
And then you can stay with George if you want to. Of course I'll visit every day, and you can visit me when you're a bit better.'
Hermes nodded and said something, and Paul was the first to approach Hermes.
He had been keeping himself aloof from the god, and even in great pain, Lukas' father had noticed. When Paul approached, Hermes held out his hand to him, and when he accepted it, Paul was pulled into a loving embrace and Hermes spoke a lot of Greek to him.
And again I heard Paul's answer in my mind as clearly as if it was Lukas speaking: 'I do love Lukas a lot, and I'm glad you seem to be seeing eye-to-eye again.'
After that greeting, Paul shaped energy into a shield and guided it around Hermes, then shrank it as George had done. It didn't look any different.
Then it was Tristan's turn, and as Tristan did not speak Greek, Lukas introduced him: 'This is Tristan, he practices a kind of magic unknown to your world.
It's highly formalized, so he'll be chanting before he does anything.'
And indeed, Tristan made a few very grand movements over Hermes, then started to chant in a monotone, deep voice. The sound vibrated in my ears, and I could feel the power it raised quite clearly.
Then he also formed a shield and draped it about Hermes, shrinking it until it fit. I noticed his shield was purple, not blue. I'd ask Paul about that later.
Magics done, Tristan picked up Hermes easily by himself, and carried him into the house, up the stairs, and into the room George had designated for him.
There was a comfortable four-poster bed in the room, and it was very clear that lying in a soft, warm bed was one of the things Hermes needed very much right now.
Lukas kissed his father, and stroked his hair, and said: 'Father, we're leaving now, we need our sleep for we have work to do tomorrow, but I will visit.
George will stay with you. Good night!'
Paul and me would have gone with Lukas without any formalities, but Hermes very obviously wanted to say good night to us too, so Paul gave him a hug and a few kind words in Greek. He held out his arms to me, which disturbed me a bit, for a part of me wanted to be in those arms really badly, and I didn't want to indulge that part too much.
But I didn't want to hurt him by refusing either, so I embraced the beautiful god and tried not to smell his tempting scent. Hermes seemed to need love as much as Lukas did, I gathered that George might be in for an interesting night, and I was suddenly very happy he was not going home with us.
We left the room, leaving George behind, and we looked for Frances and thanked her for a lovely party and a lovely night.
She was especially nice to Lukas, realizing this must have been very hard on him. She promised him she would do whatever was needed for his father, and he assured her there was no danger from him.
Then we sat in the back garden for few more minutes, to talk over the corrupted node. I explained what I had seen, and Tristan agreed that breaking it might be the best option. We made an appointment for the next day, to see what we could do.
It needed to be done soon, for my account of the phosphorescent stuff still oozing out worried him. He said: 'Melissa, I cannot believe you are involved in magic for less than half a year. You see so much, and interpret everything you see so aptly.'
I was flattered by his compliments
of course, and Paul said: 'Could it be because she was an engineer before she even got into magic? I mean, magic seems to be as illogical as one can imagine, but under the surface it obeys all the rules of nature just like everything else.'
Tristan said: 'That could very well be part of it, but I also think it's the natural way in which you guardians practice magic. All the ritual involved in my kind of magic, and the differences in status between master and apprentice would have hindered these two talents.
Though of course some discipline is needed always to prevent accidents and misuse of power, they seem to have developed really well just doing the things they're good at.
My compliments to all of you. I will see you tomorrow, in the wasteland, hopefully soon to be a wasteland no more. I'm staying with Ilsa tonight, so no
lonely bed for me!' And with that he was off, back into the house.
Chapter 54
And then we said goodbye to Jonathan, who had stayed up just to be able to say goodbye to us, since he was leaving for his parents' house tomorrow morning.
We hugged, and we kissed, and I entreated him not to forget us.
He replied: 'I'm glad to be going home, but I'll be even gladder to return here, to be able to share what I see of the world that my parents and siblings cannot.'
And he hugged Lukas and Paul as well, then went to bed quickly, for it would be early days for him tomorrow.
Paul had fetched the elven statues to take them home with us, but they refused to come, speaking their mind very clearly to all three of us: 'You have to leave us here, somewhere in the living-room, so we can see what is going on with your pet-god. Who knows what he's up to, and George is totally infatuated, we won't get a sensible word out of him.'
They did have a point there, though Lukas sputtered: 'My father isn't going to do anything, you know that as well as I do, he's not up to any mischief.'
The voice in our minds said: 'Before you shielded us out, we caught some very interesting memories from the both of you, of your first days here Lukas. You were up to plenty of mischief, and your dad has the same meagre resources to heal himself with all his other power-sources cut off.'
Paul looked scandalized: 'You just want to spy on some hot love-making!'
Lukas and I looked at each other, and backed down: 'Well, maybe it is wise to know what is going on, there can be little harm in it. You will give us a detailed report, won't you?'
The statue grinned, and said: 'I knew you'd see it our way eventually. So we have a deal?' This scandalized Paul even more, and he exclaimed: 'You two are even worse than them, spying on your good friend and your father.'
Lukas defended himself: 'They're both really old and experienced, who knows what we might learn. And Paul, don't be a hypocrite, I remember you hanging on my lips when I told the two of you how I chased George and
caught him. You loved it!'
'All right, you are right, I want to know too, we'll leave them in the living-room,' Paul admitted. And he went back into the house and left the silver statues on the hearth together. They looked nice, they matched the interior perfectly. Then we were ready to leave.
George had arranged for us to be taken home with the carriage, and it was nice not to have to walk back, though I wouldn't have minded to cycle back.
I felt a bit guilty to spy on him and Hermes, after all he had done for us, but those cheeky little statues had had enough fun out of us. Someone else could entertain them for a while.
And who knew, Hermes might be up to something after all, and it would indeed be foolish to rely on George, as infatuated as he was.
It felt like ages since we had been home, but of course that wasn't true, we had left this morning and not even that early.
I didn't feel at all like new bride, about to spend her wedding night with her new husband, but of course that was not only due to living with two men for months before getting married, but also to the events of the day. The guys were even less aware of the value that was usually attached to the occasion, as Paul proved when he said to Lukas:
'Let's try to get some work done tomorrow morning after your run, and you can sit with your father the whole afternoon and evening if you like.'
Which Lukas agreed to: 'I'm really looking forward to working on our projects, we have been too busy with other things. If my father stayed here, I could just work all day.'
This remark caused me to stop musing about wedding-nights instantly:
'Lukas, think! What did you do when you weren't feeling well?' Lukas' face became really sweet and soft with the memory: 'We made love a lot, I still think of that sometimes.'
He was so cute, looking like that, and I said: 'I do too, love, but think, we made love a lot, right? So who'd your father make love to if he were staying here, not feeling well?'
Lukas' face fell, as he realized what might have happened, and he said: 'I'm sorry Melissa, I didn't think of that. I didn't think at all.'
I took his face in both my hands and kissed it, saying: 'I know, love, I only thought of it at the very last minute, when the guys put those shields on him.
I remember those first days, too. You were very sweet, and you still are, and
I'm eager to give you all the love you need, but I'm not sharing out to your family, and especially not to your sleek, slick daddy.'
Now Paul locked us both up in his arms, and observed with a certain thrill of horror: 'I didn't think of it either. I would have welcomed him to my house with open arms, but however much I love you, Lukas, I'm not going to make love to your father. No matter how sorry I feel for him, he is indeed very sleek and very slick. No, he's better off with George, who actually likes men.'
He kissed both of us, and asked: 'Do you want to turn in, or do we reflect a little, see if we can get a grip on our new reality?'
'The latter,' Lukas said, 'if I go to bed now, I'll have nightmares. We learned a lot today, didn't we?' 'We did,' Paul observed, 'even about my own mother and father. They mean well but they just don't know how to relate to someone unlike themselves. I blamed them for that, but now I see I could have tried a little harder myself, instead of pulling back more and more and finding people I could relate to.'
I said: 'That is how you've grown, next time we see them you can try it out.
We'll visit and work on it, whilst Lukas seduces your sister. Anything else?'
'Yes, I don't feel as if I've married just you today, ' Paul said, 'I feel as if we all married each other, and your dad accepted that so easily. What did you learn, Lukas?'
Lukas told us: 'I'm clearly the kind of person who finds his courage in the face of danger. I was so scared, and when my greatest fear came to pass, it just fell away from me and I could act. And you Melissa?'
'I need to really look at things more, for they keep revealing layer upon layer of information. We are a great team, aren't we? Though Paul could likely be more than just a power plant and an anchor, we need to find his role in the whole. He's the master after all. And my sisters are nicer than I thought, and I find your father way too attractive, Lukas. I'm afraid that if he shows an interest in me, I'll not be able to resist the temptation. I don't like that about myself.'
Strangely enough, Paul and Lukas were not shocked to hear me admit to that.
At my questioning look, Paul explained: 'He's spent centuries making himself as attractive as he could to women, and you're twenty years old and just discovering love.
He looks like someone you love, and he smells like someone you love, and you dreamt of him, and if anyone could best him at making him more
attractive still, it's those filthy minded elves. They know exactly what you like.
I'm not surprised, no. But I'm glad he's not staying here all the same.'
'Yes,' said Lukas, 'and don't forget, he was helpless and suffering, and you've always had a tender streak in you. That's why we love you so much, you're incredibly strong, but there is this amazingly tender girl hidden inside that strong woman.'
'So
now we've explained that it is completely normal for you to feel attracted to Hermes,' Paul asked, 'what do you want us to do? Keep him away from you, give you our blessing to have a go at him, nothing at all, let you sort it out for yourself? I'm sure you can.'
'I can challenge him to a duel,' Lukas said, 'if I'm quick I may have a chance.'
I felt a huge relief having confessed this, especially to myself, and I knew exactly what to do: 'I'll pretend nothing is wrong, and you two keep a close eye on me.'
We shook hands on it, and stayed up for another hour, talking about everything that happened, our families, how to improve our magic-skills, the blessing of having bicycles.
The next morning I woke up with Lukas preparing to go for his run. I asked him: 'Will you drop by the manor house to see how he's doing?'
Lukas replied: 'I was planning to, they're early risers. I'll be back soon anyhow, I'm really looking forward to working on our projects.' I spread my arms for a hug, and he let himself fall on top of me and he hugged me intensely. I got a few kisses as well.
'And now I'm off, you're turning me on, it'll be an hour later if we're not careful.' He pushed himself up and left quickly, I heard him running down the stairs, and then the front door slammed shut. I snuggled close to Paul and let myself drift back to sleep.
After a pretty relaxed morning with a bit of lazy loving, Paul and I got dressed just as the front door shut on Lukas.
Paul observed: 'Good, there is something about the new greenhouse I wanted to discuss with you, and now Lukas can have his say as well. Let's get ourselves some coffee!'
Going downstairs we met Lukas on the beautifully wrought landing, and he seemed in excellent spirits, his father must have lived through the night well.
'My father was much better,' Lukas said cheekily, 'I bet those statues will
have quite a story to tell! And I have news from your parents, Paul, and Jonathan went to his own parents this morning.
Mirror Bound Page 48
