She was crying then and finally, “I lived only because of my past. The other women died and still they raped the bodies. Then they left. Later our men who escaped came back and freed us. Jason and I were the only ones still alive and then barely. We returned and killed them all in their sleep but Felix escaped. We cut Merrick into ten pieces and each of us took two pieces to bury in a different country.
“Then Jason and I tried to save our relationship. I tried to explain to him my fears and needs. He agreed to allow me to bed an occasional woman and I promised to never be with another man, to never betray him again. We talked for days. Mostly him yelling and me trying to apologize but we tried.
“We were in Immersea and he was drunk. He got drunk a lot while we talked. I guess it made it easier for him to listen to me. I really loved him and wanted him to take me back. I’d, I’ll do anything to get him back. Then… I saw Felix through the window. I knew that as drunk as Jason was, as hurt as we both still were, Felix would easily kill us both but I didn’t care. I got up to chase him, to try to kill him but the Watch came in and took me. Felix had told them that we had robbed him and they were arresting us. I knew that with us in the goal, he’d be able to kill us at his leisure but if I chased Felix, they’d arrest Jason, hold him until he was sober and release him the next day when Felix didn’t return to press charges. So I set them on Jason, told them the woman they sought was using the chamber-pot and before they could think, I left and chased Felix.
“I left a message with the Inn-Keep and followed Felix but Jason never caught up with me. I’ve followed him for a year, always one step behind but I learned his plan. I need Jason to help stop Felix because we are the only ones left. If we fail, then Merrick will return from the dead. So I learned that Jason was here and came here to find him. You say that to him it’s been a century? To me I left only a year ago. Has he forgotten me?” She looked at us and laughed a bitter laugh, “Of course he has. He probably hates me and I’ll understand but Felix has to be stopped.”
Diane talked to Cass and Donna and they agreed to do something, “This is probably the adventure we hired Magda to find. I didn’t expect it to involve a former lover, especially one that still loves him but she did say there would be consequences.”
“We also said that he’d return to us so maybe this is safe.” Cassie added. “Dad is the most forgiving person ever. He’ll forgive her too if she is being honest and makes amends.” Cassie wanted her father to re-marry Diane who she loved more than her own mother and saw this Lyssandra as a threat to her plans.
“Ok, Lyssandra. We’ll take you to Jason but first we want you to talk to someone and hand me that sword and knife. I know how to use it so don’t cause trouble.” The girls led the visitor back to Magda’s, followed by the two guards who were always alert, knowing the consequences if anything happened to any of the three.
At Magda’s, Donna called and explained, “This is the adventure you spelled for us? It’s not exactly what we had in mind. But we need another task. I need to know of she’s telling the truth and if we can trust her with us and with Jason. She claims to speak Slavic, Serbian, Latin, Arabic and Turkish. So if you don’t understand her, how can you be certain that she is telling the truth?”
“Easily. Have her sit. I shall return shortly.” When she did, it was with a tea pot. Magda poured Lyssandra a cup and said, “drink.” When the cup was empty it was refilled and drained. A third cup was poured but Magda stopped her from drinking and said, “Now we wait for it to take effect. You question and listen and I will know if she lies even without knowing her language.” She set a black mirror on a stand before her and ignored the woman then nodded to Diane.
“Lyssandra, tell me your story again. And tell the truth.”
Lys talked, repeated essentially the same story but the facts were the same. When Diane looked at Magda, she nodded ‘yes’ and returned to her speculum. Diane thought for a moment and asked, “Do you mean harm to us or to Jason?”
“No,” her speech was slurring now so Magda had her drink more tea which seemed to wake her up a bit. “I know what this is. We have it in Kosovo. It makes me tell the truth and impossible to lie. Lawyers and the church hate this stuff. You don’t trust me.”
“Why are you here?” Diane ignored her comment.
“I want Felix dead. I want Merrick to remain dead. And I want Jason to take me back like we were.” She looked at the three again. “I don’t know if that’s possible.” She giggled in her trance and continued, “You are very beautiful. Do you like women? I know Jason likes to watch women together.”
“What if he won’t take you back? What if he’s changed?” The tea was making Lyssandra drunk and so volunteer information not asked for.
“Then I hope he is happy with you. Maybe he is. I’ll miss him. I still miss him. I was so horrible, how can I make it up to him? Seven years gone forever. All because I didn’t trust him.”
Diane turned to the girls, “She thinks I am his wife. She loves him and wants him to take her back but mostly she wants him happy and to kill these other men, this Felix and Merrick. I think that if they go off to this adventure, she’ll try to bed him to get him back but she might let him go when it’s over. I’m still not certain we should trust her but I think letting her talk to Jason wouldn’t hurt.”
Donna looked at Lyssandra and said to Diane, “When he goes off with you, you’re lovers again despite your failed marriage. This is not much different. She seems adamant about killing these men and father would want them dead too. I think that we need to let father find out why. We should take her to our home to watch her and send for Dad.”
“I agree. If we kill her and hide the body in the ocean, he’ll find out. Besides, we are getting what we wanted and if he runs off with her, at least we will get some rest.” Cass laughed as she said the last. Both knew that he’d always be there for him even though he wanted to take off with Diane so they were almost certain that nothing would keep him away for long. If they were wrong, they’d make accommodations. Or smother her in her sleep. Neither daughter had ever killed a person but if she threatened their father, they’d learn quickly.
Diane returned to Lys who was nodding off again. “We are going to take you home and call for Jason. If you cause trouble, remember that I was a good fighter long before Jason trained me and we were together for over five years. Also he has told us his side of the story so killing you won’t cause him to loose sleep. Now, are you armed?”
“Yes, a knife in my boot, another behind my back and one in my vest.”
“Lay them on the table slowly. Are you planning any ill to us?”
“No.”
“We will take you now to where you can sleep. You will be watched and if you cause trouble, we will kill you easily. If any of us are harmed, I believe Jason will make you wish we had killed you. Now get up and allow Cassie and Donna to take your arms.” Diane picked up her weapons and paid Magda more silver then with the girls holding Lys’ arms, they left with the guards following behind.
“You are bruising me,” she complained, half asleep and half drunk from the tea which caused her to say her mind.
“They are easily as strong as you are so be a good girl or we’ll tie you.”
Across the bridge and at the house, Diane said, “Lay her on the porch swing for now. She’ll wake up in an hour but watch her anyway. You two, keep watch and be certain that NOTHING happens to Cassie and Donna. I’ll go send a runner for Jason and there is something I want from home.” The archers nodded and promised that they’d die first. Diane knew that they meant that promise because all had seen what Jason did to people who failed to protect his loved ones.
Sending a runner was easy, finding one with a horse he could ride was not. But she got the message out and hoped it wouldn’t be too long before they returned. The man would be moving slow, mapping the river and marking potential hazards while
the runner would be moving fast and he’d be on the river and easily found. In the meantime, she wanted that Translator Amulet Jason had bought for her in Syria so many years ago.
Her house was a Rocker. This shell existed in Haven, another different shell in Los Angeles and the inside in both and neither which meant that she could enter the front door here, turn around and walk out the same door and be in Los Angeles. If anyone tried to break in, the inside of the house would vanish and they’d find an empty shell. When danger was over, it’d rock back. The technology was complicated and very expensive but worked perfectly, unlike the StarGates that sometimes messed up. And Rockers and StarGates ensured that any invading army would arrive not at Haven but inside a volcano or far out to sea. You either liked or disliked Jason but even his enemies trusted the man. And his friends often visited in a flying saucer sop he had the pick of technology... so long as it remained on haven.
She found her Amulet, packed a bag, collected her weapons and checked her machine for phone messages. Fi was enjoying the film shoot, she missed them all and would be back in a month or so. Normal and no hidden codes so Diane called back and left a brief message as to what was going on. When Fi had a break from her movie, she’d call but she was too far from any StarGate to get home easily. Sometimes Diane wished it were possible to tell people about the StarGates but those who needed them and would use them responsibly could find them. Criminals sometimes did as did politicians but these quickly were hunted down and killed. No one wanted to see an army from one time cross over with weapons from another world to conquer the past or future so the StarGates were jealously guarded. StarGate travel was a private enterprise used by a very few individuals and they liked it that way. One person wouldn’t change history, an army could and frankly, Diane liked the idea of Haven being exactly that, a Haven, safe from the pressure of any modern or ancient government.
***
Over the next two days it took for Jason to return, Lyssandra learned English and told her story. Wearing the Translator Amulet made by a Sufi in Syria, Diane chose English as the best common language. The kids were almost ignorant of any language save English and their father’s Gaelic so they couldn’t speak amongst themselves to discuss their guest in privacy. Lyssandra’s lessons were intensive and never ending but they worked and she was able to communicate to an extent by the time their father had returned. Diane had moved in and allowed the woman to think she was still married to Jason, Cassie encouraged that deception.
Both Cassie and Donna were shocked at her story, reading about these things but never knowing anyone who actually had suffered so. Diane had heard many such in her life and travels, and so was better prepared to accept it. And with very few exceptions, it was the same that Jason had told them over the years, only from a different viewpoint.
Lyssandra was the daughter of a prostitute in Kosovo in the late 15th Century. Her father probably a nameless Serb, her mother a Slav, and so she was outcast from the beginning and lived in poverty making her living in any way she could. Raped early in life and laughed at for ‘teasing the man’, she was cast out and beaten and so became what her mother was. When the Ottoman Turks had conquered the city, she had been tossed into the Caliph’s Harem and when the Turks were driven out, the Serbian soldiers took their pleasure with the girls and women in the harem. The Church ignored her, the government hated her and the people scorned her. She had three children, one died of starvation and disease soon after birth because no doctor would help her, a second died in one of the many invasions that tore at her nation and the third was taken away by his father, never to know his mother.
Finally she met Jason. Being a Witch, she and her coven had been captured by the local priest who was hunting them. Beaten, dragged back to Arabel to be burned alive, Jason and his Mercenary Company, newly hired to keep the peace, had ordered their release and in his typical manner, told the priest that if he ever tried such an act again, he’d nail the man to his own altar and burn the church down with all the worshippers barred inside. The Boyer and the Church hated Jason from that moment on and Jason was given the worst and most dangerous jobs and battles but he always won and even the Moslems who lived in Kosovo learned to respect his honesty. So he was called in to negotiate an occasional peace between Christian and Moslem because he was Pagan and foreign and so would give neither side any advantage.
Lyssandra gave up her profession for Jason, seeking his love and when he found her a new job with his company, she had a chance to hold her head up for the first time. Eventually he loved her and they were happy but a lifetime of abuse wasn’t easy to put aside. Every man she had known had raped her, bought her, beaten her, robbed her, used her and cast her into the alley and she wondered when Jason would do the same. The fact that he was constantly kind to her, faithful to her only proved that he was waiting and biding her time. No man could be as honest and kind as he.
So, she felt that if he was going to hurt her, she’d do it first so it wouldn’t be as painful. At first her affairs were with women for Lyssandra was bi-sexual. Why, she never questioned, for women were often more cruel than men. But with most women, she didn’t leave the bed sore and bruised and fearing pregnancy or disease. She was afraid to tell her Irish lover of her needs for the Moslems tended to stone lesbians as easily as did the Catholics and she had no idea of the Irish views. Then when she learned how easy it was, she expanded her lovers to men, always waiting for him to hurt her, and yet after seven years of virtual marriage, he was still as kind as in the beginning. So she began to trust him and severed all affairs save the occasional women that she needed.
But it was too late. They were sent after Merrick, a Serbian General who was raising an army to re-conquer Kosovo then the rest of the country. Felix and Jason had been sent to stop Merrick and they did. But as usual, military intelligence wasn’t the latter and the 100 Serbs the mercenaries were to face turned into 600 and outnumbered 3-to-1, the two companies were almost exterminated before they won. Merrick was in chains, his few surviving men with him and Felix became obsessed with talking to Merrick. That was their undoing. Merrick converted Felix to his side and while they slept, Felix released Merrick and his men and they easily overcame Jason and his men with only a few escaping.
Merrick and Felix had the women tied to the ground and Jason and the men crucified, forced to watch as Felix, Merrick and their men took turns raping the women to death before the eyes of Jason and his men. The worst part was when Felix told Jason how he and so many others had been with Lyssandra over the last seven years and he was too stupid to notice.
Eventually Jason and Lyssandra were rescued, both more dead than alive but revenge kept them going and Jason proved that as a guerilla fighter, he had no peer and soon every Serb was dead, including Merrick. But Felix had escaped.
The five Mercs left alive had dismembered Merrick, each taking two pieces and burying them in a different country to prevent his spirit from reaching heaven and then Lyssandra started the long and painful process of regaining Jason’s love and trust. It took weeks of healing physically and emotionally, weeks of him screaming at her, calling her every name she deserved and her taking it, trying to make amends, to atone for her crimes and to become a better wife.
Then Felix returned.
***
Both Cassie and Donna fell in love with the woman. It wasn’t sexual but they did sympathize with her story and past. And both had grown up with Jason and knew that he had been betrayed by many women, yet always managed to resist the urge to hate the gender. Lyssandra was attentive, helping care for the girls and speaking of her own lost children yet she tried to give the girls room despite Cassie’s inability to clean up after herself. Her sexual desire for Diane was clear but she never pushed and when she found that Diane was a past wife but now was just an occasional lover she relaxed more and opened up with her own past with the man.
It was obvious that even though Lyssandra had known Jason
over a century ago, he was still the same man today. Men never changed it seemed. It was also obvious that Lyssandra wanted to move in and take up her old life though it was also clear that she found Diane attractive and sexually desirable and would like to share. Donna even talked to Cassie when they were alone, “Can you imagine how terrible it was for dad to be forced to watch THAT? He’ll go just to kill the man.”
Cassie brushed a bit of the stubborn hair from her face and mused, “I also wonder what other secrets from his past our father has kept from us.”
“Do you really want to know?” her sister added.
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JASON ARRIVES
It was actually nice to get away from the girls for a change. Of course Jason worried about them which drove him crazy at first. “Let them go!” he told myself one morning. “They are NOT these frail children I think they are! I have taught them fighting skills that make them more than able to protect themselves. If Diane isn’t worried, then I shouldn’t be either.” He knew it made sense but still… But then Jason has been accused of living in the past and never letting things go so he knew that he had to try. So he focused on the trip. He knew he’d been suffocating them lately. But still… they were his only surviving children and he was terrified that they’d be killed like the others.
Lyssandra & The Return of Lyssandra Page 9
