by Tessa Candle
But there was a path right through the middle of the tents and servants—only it would lead them right past Orefados and his attendants. But no one had made any move to apprehend them, yet. Perhaps the madman might let them go, after all.
In any case it seemed like the only way. And if they were captured, Elizabeth was resolved that she should fight. She went straight down the middle of the encampment and dragged the petrified Lenore after her.
As she went, the tents seemed to recede from her, and Orefados drew closer. She turned this way and that to try to get around him, but somehow he remained always before her. Her course was always to him.
“Do you not see all that is opened to you?” came the voice in her ear. “Now you are married to the chorus, the houri, the yakshini, the apsara, the maenads. You are Ishtar, Hathar, Cybele, Sarpanit, Ninhursag, Demeter… The chorus fans out behind you like the veil of your mystery. Behold!”
Elizabeth did not turn to question Lenore again as to whether she heard this voice, for she could not tear her gaze from the spectacle that emerged before her.
A procession of beautiful women came forth as if streaming in from a vanishing point on the horizon. The pale golden skin of the ancient Greek beauties gleamed on one side, the polished ebony of the North Africans on the other, the tawny ivory faces of the orient here, and the chiselled alabaster features of Thule there.
Then from all directions came the wantons and temptresses of every realm. There was Jezebel. There was Salome. There was Messalina. There was Delilah. They walked, seductively swaying within an unending parade of others, whom Elizabeth could not name, their eyes heavy with dissipation and lust, their faces caked with white lead, stained with wine, lined with kohl, each of them proud of their conquest. And the smell of sex, stale myrrh and camp fire smoke steamed off of their barely-clad forms like the incense of triumph.
As they made their way toward her, she could see they were burdened with gifts. Cleopatra carried a chest full of bars of liquid myrrh resin and turquoise. Delilah hefted a jug of wine, spilling over with rubies from its discoloured neck. Deianira bore a basket of grapes and ivy, with golden beads glistening among the vines. And Calypso extended a tray of perfect oysters, each with a massive pearl gleaming invitingly amid the juicy flesh.
On and on they came, as each laid her gift at Elizabeth's feet, then walked away to join a fête in progress around them. The temptresses selected men from among the throng of revellers that had appeared, leading them away to open pavilions, or piles of cushions, or great profusions of soft moss. They plied their trade so that the air was filled with the sounds of wild congress. Deianira had three men in her pavilion, and she licked her lips as she looked out at Elizabeth, the whites of her eyes glistening around the dark pools at their centres.
The pile of gifts which amassed in front of Elizabeth did not engulf her view. Instead she found herself rising above it, so that the procession below became as a tiny train of ants, and the fornicators were mere clusters of rustling leaves.
Orefados was beside her now, and she gasped at her own weightlessness as he flew with her ever higher, to the top of the mountain to look out over the splendours of the world.
“I offer you all,” he said. His voice was like cool silk against her cheek. “You have seen me in the ascetic state of ritual. Long have I prepared for this. I have brought together the secret power of all the realms from Hyperborea to Agarthi, the heights of the Brocken to the depths of Dionysus' cavern. Now see me as I reap the spoils of my preparation. He extended his arms, his robes fell away, and he stood naked and glistening in perfect form, like a statue of David. At his waist was a chain of leaves, and beneath this simple ornament he sported two goat-legs. His manhood protruded rudely from a hide of fur.
“All the opulence, the fulfilment of every desire shall be yours, as you are mine.” He stepped closer, his member throbbing at her.
Elizabeth roused herself from her stupefaction and took a step away, teetering precariously on the edge of the mountain's slope. “No. I am Lord Canterbourne's and he is mine.”
“Canterbourne is a proxy. He is Silenus, Abzu, a mere vessel—a mere vassal—attending me. He also belongs to me, though he does not know it.”
“I care not what you think. I love him, and we shall marry. I am not your—whatever.”
“But you are already married.” He smiled. Though his teeth were now milky white, his grin was no less disturbing. “You joined with Miss Berger in blood and entered the tunnel of Belit, the lady of the mountain.”
“You are speaking nonsense. That is not a marriage.”
The man's gaze seemed to fix upon a spot behind her, somehow, although he looked her in the eye as he continued his annunciation, apparently oblivious to her objections. “And through Miss Berger you are married to the chorus, to the hosts, and to me. All of this I have kept within the divine ferment inside me. And now it is come forth, as I shall come forth in you, Shassuru.” He made to grab her then.
She turned to run and toppled off the mountain's edge, her arms flailing, desperate to catch at any arête or stone.
Chapter 52
Crawling through the tunnel was no more enjoyable on the way out, and now Canterbourne suffered the added unpleasantness of the stink wafting from his own arm. He was spared from smelling the two monks, as they were behind him. And at least, as they travelled downhill, the going was somewhat faster. Still, they had not caught up to Elizabeth, and Canterbourne was beginning to worry that she was too far ahead of him to catch.
What if Orefados got to her first? For when he disappeared from the sanctuary his intention was surely to find her and Lenore. It would be most logical for him to wait on the other side of the tunnel.
Slippery little coward. Canterbourne had grown increasingly frustrated chasing this poltroon. He stewed in anger. If Orefados touched Elizabeth, Canterbourne would catch him and slide his sword through the lily-livered devil's gut.
With a relief he saw the mouth of the tunnel before him and rushed to it. The rose bush top had been cast aside, and he emerged to see no one. Elizabeth was not there, waiting, as he had hoped.
Perhaps she had sought a hiding place, or returned to the carriage to wait. He consoled himself with the thought, but could not shake the cold fear that gripped him. What if Orefados had taken her and Miss Berger?
He heard Silverloo's bark some distance away. His hand went to his sword as he stepped forward for a better view down the driveway. Elizabeth was wandering along the road, meandering this way and that, looking stunned, almost as though she walked in her sleep. Miss Berger pulled at her sleeve, and Silverloo barked at her, jumping up to touch his nose to her fingers, but Elizabeth did not stop.
“Elizabeth!” he called out. Only Miss Berger turned to see him. She looked utterly confused, but gestured to him to hurry.
Something was very amiss. Canterbourne ran to Elizabeth, leaving Giuseppe and Martinus to find their own way out of the tunnel.
Suddenly Elizabeth stopped. She turned to the side, looking at something. Then she shook her head and spoke, as though she were conversing with an unseen person. Canterbourne looked about for Orefados, but did not see him. Perhaps she had been drugged again.
Then Elizabeth started and looked frightened. She took a step backwards. Silverloo growled and whined.
Canterbourne picked up speed. Something was wrong. He could not see the danger but he could sense it, even as Silverloo did. He arrived just as she fell backward, flailing her arms in the air. Her hand smacked him painfully in the face as he caught her.
She looked around frantically. “What happened? Where is the goat-man?!” Her pupils were dilated.
“You are here with me, Elizabeth.” Canterbourne set her upon her feet, but kept an arm around her waist. “You are safe. See, Miss Berger is here, too.”
Miss Berger took Elizabeth's hand and petted it with a concerned look.
“But he was transformed.” Her eyes were wild and glazed. “You would
never recognize him, now. He has become Pan—the Everygod. He will never let me go!” Her voice broke off in hopelessness.
“But no!” said Miss Berger. “I know what you feel now. I know how he can haunt the mind. It is not real, Elizabeth! You must come back to us. Push it away. It is his evil dream. It is false!”
“Lenore, oh Lenore! Did you not see him? Did you not see his naked form, standing on cloven hooves upon the high places of the earth?! He has tainted us both.” She turned to Canterbourne with a look of utter despair. “He said I cannot marry you, for I am already married to Lenore, and to his host, and to him. Something happened in there.” She gestured back to the tunnel. “And I am ruined for you now.”
“You are not ruined for me! Do not think it. I love you, and you shall be my wife, even as you are already my heart! Do not listen to his lies. It is, as Lenore says, all mad devilry. You must put it aside and come with me, for we must go now!”
Canterbourne took her hand and ushered her toward the place where they had left the carriage. When they reached it, Tonner emerged from the equipage, a gun in his hand. “My lord, I am so glad to see you.”
When Martinus and Giuseppe caught up to them, they loaded the two stinking monks up top with Tonner, who winced at the reek.
“Only drive fast, Tonner,” suggested Canterbourne. “It will smell less in a head wind.”
Then off to town they flew, as though they were pursued by the devil. And yet, Orefados did not chase them. Canterbourne wanted to rejoice that they had been successful in the mission, but he could not. He did not know why the mage was not pursuing them, but he allowed himself enough superstitious thinking to conclude that it was a very ill omen.
Elizabeth still seemed dazed. He pulled her closer to him on the carriage seat.
She turned away and wrinkled her nose. “You smell awful!”
He rejoiced at the comment, thanking God that she was returning to her senses. “My apologies. It is the hazard of rescuing monks from devilish dung heaps.” He laughed at the face she pulled. “I shall wash before our wedding, I promise.”
She looked sad, then, but he could see her making an effort to put forward a brave face. “Shall we still wed today?” she asked.
“It is all arranged. The priest is awaiting us. You have not let a little bad smell put you off of marrying me, I hope.”
“No, of course not.” She returned his smile, but he could see the troubled thoughts behind it.
Chapter 53
The church was brooding and shadowy, lit by only so many candles as was necessary to see. Canterbourne wished he could have filled the church with tapers and draped Elizabeth in the finest couture of silk and lace and pearls that money could buy, not this dowdy day dress that was all he could find in town. But there simply was not time for a proper wedding, or even a passingly acceptable one.
And yet she appeared happy, sort of. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at him, and his heart did a little dance. The horrors of this bizarre journey were all rendered moot when he looked at her. He was glad he had come to this wretched place and found his angel. She was a treasure worth any struggle and any voyage.
He was filled with admiration for the resolve and strength that had carried her through the madness of these past days and now kept her calm and collected, standing beside him in front of this altar.
Giuseppe had told him that the priest, Father Matteo Bandello, was a bit of a renegade. The locals called him the patron saint of forbidden matches, for he had married many a young couple behind the backs of their parents. His only requirement was that a couple’s motivation for marriage be pure. He would never assist a fortune hunter, for example.
The holy man displayed only a little scruple about marrying two persons who were not Catholic. But as they were both in the Church of England, which was almost as good, he was willing to convert them via a ceremony that Canterbourne found suspiciously hasty, and to marry them anyway. The priest even supplied local witnesses, who were apparently his regular accomplices in secret marriage schemes.
Canterbourne had to swallow the unseemly tawdriness of the whole cobbled together affair. He knew that it would be necessary to have a proper Church of England wedding back home, anyway, and he would welcome it. But, as they would be travelling together unescorted for a very long journey, they should be married. It would be better for them all if he and Elizabeth kept appearances up—no matter how naughty they had been along the way.
He doubted that this sanctification would in any way deter Lord Orefados. However, it eased Canterbourne's mind. It was a bit superstitious, but he felt that being properly married somehow cleansed them both of the taint they bore from their contact with that evil man.
Elizabeth gave Canterbourne a significant look, and he roused himself to make the appropriate reply to the priest. And then, just like that, the romantic old cleric was giving a benediction with a tear in his eye, and Canterbourne was kissing Elizabeth, his heart swelling until he thought it would burst.
She was finally his wife. How could he be so lucky? He whispered in her ear, “I will try my best to make every day of your life happier than the one before, dearest Elizabeth. I love you so.”
Her smile contained all the promise of joy he could hope for as she replied, “You make me giddy with the thought, Mill. I cannot imagine being happier than I am at this moment. My heart is so full.”
Just then, the door opened. A flood of evening sunlight exposed the sanctuary, bathing the faces of everyone inside in a deluge of blood red light.
An angry voice from a backlit form in the doorway said something in the local dialect, which seemed addressed to the renegade priest, who grinned and gestured to the young couple to follow him quickly. He ran for the small backdoor through which they had entered the church.
Neither Canterbourne nor Elizabeth could restrain their laughter as they emerged outside, wedded, but chased off like outlaws. Even the rogue priest was laughing, almost as though he took as much pleasure in being discovered and run out of the sanctuary, as he did in assisting true love to take the sacramental step of marriage.
Canterbourne took Elizabeth's hand and joyfully led her to the carriage. She would always be with him, his partner in life and in every shenanigan.
Orefados was the only storm cloud in the sunny sky over Canterbourne's brow. And Canterbourne hated the thought that, to protect Elizabeth and Lenore, he must slink out of town, when he would greatly prefer to confront the mad bastard and kill him in a duel.
“I wish you joy!” came the voice of his enemy, just as they reached the coach.
Canterbourne bristled, reaching for his sword, which was not at his side. One did not wear a sabre in church. He swung around to face the intrusive man, not knowing how the villain appeared so suddenly. “Joy? You know not the meaning of the word. You dare show your face to me? Is there some reason why I should not tie a beating on you right now?”
Orefados stood straight. His hands and face were cleaner than Canterbourne had ever seen them, and he seemed suddenly to be a young man, almost radiant with an implacable energy. His demeanour was less clandestine than before, and he more openly assumed an arrogant air of command. “For my part, I should be surprised to see you turn your hand against your lord.”
“I know not what rank you pretend to,” spat Canterbourne, “but you are not, nor shall you ever be, my lord, you self-important bounder.”
“It is written.” Orefados held out his open palm to reveal a small box. “Do you recognize this?”
“I imagine it is your bequest from my father. I want nothing to do with it.” But Canterbourne's eyes fixed upon it. He could not deny—at least not to himself—the curiosity it roused.
Orefados held up the index finger of his other hand and pointed it in the air officiously. “You cannot repudiate the legacy your father has left you.”
“He left it to you,” Canterbourne spat. “It is no legacy of mine.”
Orefados opened the box to reveal a large
egg. Then flicked his hand subtly so that the box disappeared and only the egg remained, gleaming a grey white in his palm.
“Now all you need is some muffin and you will have a fine repast,” Canterbourne mocked, but he could not look away from the surface of the ovoid. It looked like stone, but appeared so smooth that it almost glowed, too refined to be the product of even the finest lapidary's work.
“It is a swan egg fossil. Some say it is a cuckoo's egg, and the confusion pleases me more. The egg is a rarity, but less important than the spell within it.”
“More of your spells. I do not have time to indulge your madness.”
“Your father bound you to this spell, unknowingly. He received a wish from the transaction.” The mage's eyes glittered and his voice became unbearably smooth and calm. “And all he had to give up was his paternal bond to his firstborn child.”
Canterbourne wished to smash the man's face in, but instead said, “I am sure you tricked him in some way. For it is all of a piece with your low character and scheming.”
“Not at all. It was he who thought he was tricking me. Yet he managed only to trick himself.” A little goblin laugh spilled out, belying the grave demeanour Orefados affected. “He thought your mother barren, you see, so he gladly made the deal, not knowing she was, even then, with child.”
The line of talk angered Canterbourne, but he could not stop his ears against the story. The explanation of his father's abandonment could not but hold his fascination. It was the story that he had sought after his whole young life. “I know not your dealings with my father,” Canterbourne said without conviction, “but they have nothing to do with me.”
“They have everything to do with you. You are the dealing I had with your father.” With that, Orefados tapped the egg. It sprang open, as if by an invisible mechanism, to reveal a ring fused with the petrified interior.
