“Very well.”
She looked up at him. “And I still want your promise.”
“You want me to let you die.”
“If you must, in order to live, yes. Promise me.”
“You do not know what you ask of me,” he said.
“It is the only way we can one day be together and have a family. Once you are no longer mortal, that will be lost.”
“I would go mad with grief.”
“I will return to you in a new life.”
He kissed the top of her head. “I will consider it. Now I must bathe and sleep.”
Bane rose and went into the washroom. A flare of blue light came from it as he created a tub of hot water, and she joined him as he stripped off and stepped into it.
A persistent buzzing woke Bane, and he sat up and rubbed his face. After his bath, Mirra had left to find something to eat, and he had lain down on the bed. His hair was still damp, so he had not slept for long. The rest had revived him a little, but he remained weak and a bit shaky. His torn, bloody clothes were on the chair beside the bed, and he could not create new apparel without power.
The buzzing came from the cabin door, and he rose and donned his trousers, which were only a little blood-stained, before waving a hand at the door. It opened to reveal Nikira, twisting a lock of hair. She lowered her hand and composed her apprehensive expression, raising her chin. Her eyes roamed over him, lingering on the rune scars for a moment before she averted them. Her uniform looked freshly laundered, and the rent in the midriff from her close encounter with the executioner’s blade was repaired with what appeared to be a strip of adhesive tape. Her hair was brushed in a becoming style, and a faint scent of soap told him that she had bathed, too.
He frowned, irritated. He was not in the mood for questions or pleas. “What do you want?”
She appeared a little taken aback by his testy tone. “To speak to you, Lord. May I come in?”
He shrugged and gestured to the sofa. She went over to settle on it and study her hands. Bane sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. “Speak then, I am tired.”
She looked up. “I… I want to apologise for what happened... when you came to dinner.”
“Nothing happened.”
“No but… I didn’t mean to offend you, Lord.”
He yawned. “You did not.”
“Or embarrass you.”
“You did not. Is there a point to this?”
“Please don’t leave me in Drevarin’s world.” The words came out in a rush, as if she barely had the courage to speak them. “I know you’re doing it to help me, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done, it’s just…. If you let me stay with you, I’ll do whatever I can to help you, and I can be useful.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I do not have to explain myself to you.”
“No, no, of course not.” She looked down at her twisting hands again. “I could take command of Retribution again, with your help, of course, or Miraculous, and take you wherever you want to go.”
“No.”
“But....” Nikira hesitated, her breath catching. “I know I don’t deserve to stay with you, after what I did to you, but… I thought maybe you’d prefer to continue your journey in comfort, in a ship.” She rose and approached him, forcing him to look up at her when she stopped in front of him. “I would do anything for you, Lord. I’ll be whatever you need me to be. Please… just let me stay with you.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Her voice shook a little, and he had the impression that she clung to her dignity with a great deal of effort. To his amazement, she sat on the bed beside him, close enough to touch him. He watched her, fascinated by her boldness.
“If you let me help you, Lord,” she went on, “you won’t have to walk through the Wastes; you and your friends and family will be safe and comfortable aboard a ship. You’ll sleep in soft beds every night, eat good food, have all the benefits a modern ship can give you. After everything you’ve done, saving my world, and me, I want to do something for you.”
He looked away from her pleading eyes. “No.”
Nikira edged closer, her thigh almost touching his, and raised a hand to caress his arm. “I also want the chance to make amends for what I did to you. Is that too much to ask?”
Bane turned his head to study her. “You are bold.”
She snatched her hand back and clasped them in her lap once more. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to -”
“Go back to your room.”
Nikira’s eyes grew bright with tears. “I don’t think I could bear it if you left me behind in Drevarin’s world.” She gulped. “I love you.”
“Then you are a fool.”
“Why?”
“Because I am sworn to my wife, and I will never betray her.” His voice dropped to a husky murmur. “You have no idea what you are trying to meddle with, do you? Do you think you are the first to try this? You are not. Your attempts at seduction insult me, since you obviously assume that I will sink to your level of immorality, or you would not persist. You have no concept of true love. Even when death separates Mirra and me, I will await her rebirth, even after I lose my mortality. Return to your room. Now.”
She stared at him with anguished eyes, and then jumped up and fled.
As the door closed behind her, he sensed another presence and glanced around. Mirra stood in the bathroom doorway, gazing at the cabin door through which Nikira had just vanished. Evidently she had returned while he slept and had been using the bathroom when Nikira had arrived.
He groaned and rubbed his face. “You heard that?”
“Every word.”
“Why is it that humans always judge me by their own standards?”
Mirra came over, pushed him back on the bed and climbed on top of him. “You are human too, and you must be doing something to make all these women fall in love with you.”
He raised his brows. “‘All these women’?”
“Yes; first Tarris and Shevra, then Ethra and Sarrin, and now poor Nikira.” She tilted her head. “And that is just about all the women you have met since we left Myrthran.”
“What? Ethra is a child, and Sarrin an old priestess. As for Tarris…” He shook his head. “You are wrong.”
“I am never wrong.”
Bane studied her serious expression, puzzled and uncertain, and then noticed the twinkle in her eyes. He smiled. “I cannot hide anything from you, can I? I seduced them all, of course. It only took a wink and a smile, and -” She punched his arm, and he grunted and clutched it. “Ah! I think you have opened a wound...”
“Nonsense, Drevarin healed you. You are not supposed to lie to me, remember? It was one of your wedding vows.”
He grinned. “Unless you lie to me first.”
“I did not!”
“I must be doing something? You know full well I am not.”
“You are such a monster, Bane. Those poor women do not have a hope of resisting you. I will wager you wish you were single. Imagine how much fun you could have.”
He chuckled and pulled her close. “I know. Marry in haste and repent at leisure.” She tried to push him away, but he held her tighter. “Uh-uh, be nice.”
“I should put you over my knee,” she growled.
He gave a bark of laughter. “Promise?”
“You are incorrigible!”
“You married a dark… thing, what did you expect?”
“A dark thing all of my own.”
“A prize indeed.”
Mirra snuggled up to him, and he held her until his eyes grew heavy with fatigue again, then rose, shed his trousers and climbed into the narrow bed. She joined him, and he drew her close and closed his eyes. A few moments later, she murmured, “What you said...”
“Hush. Go to sleep.”
“Could you ever be tempted?”
“No.”
“Even by a goddess?”
“Only if the goddess was you.”
She shivered. “I would not want to be a goddess.”
Later, when her even breaths told him that she slept, he opened his eyes to gaze at the dappled white ceiling, his heart heavy.
In the cabin she had been assigned, Nikira poured a stiff drink and reviewed her disastrous encounter with Bane, her mind a quagmire of despair and pain. She had thought that offering her services as a stealth ship commander would persuade him to allow her to remain with him. She did not want to be dumped in a strange world where she would have no friends, no family, and no history. Much as she revered Drevarin, she could never worship him; she loved Bane too much. She had not meant to touch him, but once again she had been unable to keep her hands off him. She had not intended to reveal her feelings, either, but the words had trotted off her tongue without her permission, and she cursed herself. Sitting on the couch, she gulped the drink and gasped as it stung her throat.
Seeing Bane again had thrilled and uplifted her, although his near-fatal encounter with one of the dra’voren dismayed her. The fact that a stealth ship had helped him filled her with pride, and she longed to know more of what had happened while she had been waiting beyond Minto Peak. She would have to visit Sarjan to find out, although he would not know the whole story. Clearly not everything had gone according to plan, contributing to Bane’s filthy mood when she had visited him. She had always had bad timing, but she had been afraid he would pull another disappearing act before she could ask him if she did not do it right away. Now she wished she had waited a few days, until he recovered. Trust her to go rushing in like a fool.
Draining her glass, she rose and refilled it, remembering his words. What must it be like, to be the wife of a god? To be so loved by him, so cherished, so irreplaceable, that he would love her even after she was dead? No one had ever loved her like that. Her married lovers had spoken sweet words and given her expensive gifts, but none had loved her. Even her unmarried lovers had left her in the end. What was it about Mirra that made Bane love her so? She was just a girl, no more than eighteen years old and no stunning beauty.
Bane’s words had shattered her dreams, and she struggled to come to terms with their destruction. She now knew that trying to seduce him again was hopeless, but she could not stop dreaming about it, hoping and wishing that he might return her feelings. She drained her glass again and sighed. She still longed to be close to him, to share his adventures and love him from afar. It would be better than never seeing him again. Maybe a vestige of hope remained, if he considered her offer and decided that a stealth ship would be useful to take him on his journey, he might still ask her to command it.
Returning to the bottle, she filled her glass once more. She somehow doubted that Sarjan would offer his services; he had a wife and two children in Bayona. Judging by the poor state Bane and his charges had been in when she had captured him, they had had a tough time of it in the Wastes. Even though he had Kayos with him now, the Wastes was a dangerous place to travel through on foot. In her years of commanding a stealth ship, some of the horrors she had seen in the deep regions had been the stuff of nightmares.
Nikira was sure most of her crewmembers would accept her as their commander again, and be prepared to go along for the adventure, as well as the opportunity to study the creators and Bane. They were a brave, adventurous bunch, as any stealth ship’s crew had to be.
Governor Predoran glared at Major Ranjal, who met his eyes unflinching. Predoran was tired of the constant failure. Everything he tried turned into a disaster, and now this.
“So let me get this straight,” Predoran said, “our ships failed to capture any of those damned dra’voren worshippers, and two shiny flying people appeared and protected them, then Miraculous pitched up and took them all aboard? And a destroyer and two frigates couldn’t stop her?”
“Yes sir. The warships took vidimages of the strange people, and the news stations have been showing them in Bayona. Some scientists are talking about them possibly being creators. Miraculous left the valley after three hours and returned to Cloud World. She’s still there, and appears to be damaged, but we don’t know what happened to her. It’s a mystery, sir, as is the speed with which she arrived at Minto Peak. There are reports of a stealth ship being seen in Bayona, and it sounds like it was Miraculous, but she was at Minto Peak just a few minutes later. How she got to Bayona is also a mystery.”
Predoran tapped his fingers on his desk. “At least our attempt to capture those people forced the dra’voren to reopen the Great Gate. And now we know we’re dealing with more than one, three at least, maybe four. They’re not creators, Ranjal, they’re dra’voren. I’m sure they can make themselves glow if they want.” He paused, frowning. “This shield the warships saw around Miraculous, do we have any idea what generated it?”
“No, sir, although, according to Senior SciTech Drontar’s report about his experience aboard Retribution, it’s the same as the one the dra’voren used to protect the ship out in the Wastes.”
“Interesting. Have we been in contact with Miraculous?”
Ranjal shook his head. “No, sir, and President Randoman has denied authorising the mission, as Commander Sarjan claimed, so either he’s in league with the dra’voren now, or their prisoner.”
“Or the dra’voren was in charge, and Sarjan did it to save his ship.”
“But the warships couldn’t harm her.”
Predoran sat back with a sigh. “Maybe he didn’t know that. I refuse to believe that another stealth ship commander has lost his wits. Sarjan is a thirty-year veteran. There’s no way he fell for their lies like Nikira did.”
“If these are dra’voren we’re dealing with, Governor, I’m sure they can easily twist a person’s mind and make them do anything they want.”
“Perhaps. That’s a scary thought, though. If that’s the case, why don’t they just take over Randoman’s mind?”
“Maybe they haven’t thought of it yet.”
The governor leant forward again. “You know what’s really interesting? President Parsimon has vanished, and his people claim he was abducted from his office in a flash of blue light. It sounds like one of our stealth ships did it, and it could only have been Miraculous.”
Ranjal nodded. “She’s been out of contact for a while now.”
“Where’s Retribution?”
“She’s being overhauled. Her last mission was a bumpy one.”
“Well, Parsimon’s disappearance has had the fortunate effect of ending the war between Bayona and Vockroy, at least for now; which is just as well, since most of our fleet has been wiped out.” Predoran steepled his hands. “We have to find a way to keep the gate open. Now that it is, it should be easier. Those weapons point outwards, and there aren’t any inside, are there?”
“No sir. There’s no damage in Cloud World.”
“What do we have that could destroy the Great Gate?”
Ranjal hesitated, clearly uneasy. “If we try to blow it up again, those weapons will reactivate and it will close again.”
“Not if it’s rubble, and those weapons will hit the same areas as before, won’t they?”
“Yes, sir, as far as we can tell, they can’t change their trajectory, other than to fire further away from the gate.”
“So they’ve done all the damage they can to the city,” Predoran said. “Granted, a second attack might cause a few casualties, but we can evacuate the danger zones. You’ve heard the threats those damned dra’voren have made, to close the gate forever. We can’t allow that. We have to find a way to destroy it or jam it or something. It must stay open.”
“I’ll get some people on it, sir.”
The governor nodded. “And contact Miraculous. Find out what’s going on aboard her and where she is. Maybe we can send another stealth ship to shred those bloody dra’voren and put an end to this fiasco. Either that or we destroy the gate so they can’t keep closing the damned thing, but a shred would be preferred. When is Retribution’s overhaul going to be complete?”
“In a few days, sir.”
“Who’s commanding her now?”
“Commander Balen,” Ranjal said.
“Ah, he’s a good man; solid, dependable. Not the sort to be hoodwinked by a bunch of dra’voren. Send Retribution as soon as she’s ready. It’s a fitting mission for a ship with that name.”
“I would suggest also sending some warships, sir, in case Retribution fails to capture the dra’voren.”
“To destroy Miraculous? What about the shield?”
“If the warships stay out of scanner range, they might be able to take them by surprise. Retribution can find out if the shield’s in place. We just have to hope it’s not a permanent thing. It’s worth a try.”
“It’s a long shot.” Predoran frowned, but then shrugged. “I suppose no sacrifice is too great to get rid of those monsters. I’m sure Miraculous’ crewmen would agree, if they could. They’re probably under his control. Very well, do it.”
“Yes sir.”
Chapter Eight
Friendship
Bane strolled along a corridor towards number three mess hall, where Drevarin resided and most of the surviving refugees socialised. After three days of rest, some of Bane’s strength had returned, and someone had washed and repaired his clothes while he slept. The corridors were almost deserted, making him surmise that the survivors of Tolrar’s rampage rested, too. The crewmen he did encounter stepped out of his path, and a few ducked into doorways ahead to avoid him.
In the mess hall, the refugees sat around tables, drinking ale or tea, some eating, and the low hum of conversation ceased at his entry. Most of the refugees still regarded him with deep wariness, but several managed weak smiles and nodded, and a few stood up and bowed. Mirra sat with the other women, engrossed in a conversation. They looked around and smiled, as did Grem and Mithran, who played a card game with Artan and two other men. Drevarin, who reclined on his couch, gazing into an Eye, cast Bane a smile, and the buzz of voices resumed.
Mirra came over to hug and kiss him. “Come, sit with us. We shall have tea and biscuits.”
Demon Lord VII - Dark Domain Page 13
