by Raven Li
“That is what they call me,” Elodan admitted, rising to his feet, seeming unabashed by his nakedness. Not that his lack of clothing mattered—Sasha couldn’t have torn her gaze from his false eyes if her life had depended upon it.
A terrible ache opened deep inside of her. Her ghost, whom she had befriended, whom she had trusted, was not a ghost at all. He was the Dark Mage, the terrible evil whose Downfall was being celebrated that very day.
A faint moan of denial tried to struggle up from a throat that suddenly felt too constricted for breath. Stunned, Sasha sank back, clutching the covers up over her body. He had tricked her, had lied to her, had used her. She felt unclean, dirty, violated. Arath was right—physical pleasure was a sin, only evil could come from it, and she was surely damned for what she had done.
“Sasha, please,” he said, reaching out. She flinched back, and he dropped his hand with a sigh. “I can’t imagine what is going through your mind right now. I can only guess what lies Arath has told about me in the last fifty years, while I was stuck helpless in limbo where he left me. If you’ll just give me the chance to explain—”
“No!” She surged to her feet, knocking him aside, and fled blindly from the bedroom. She didn’t know where she meant to go, particularly in such a state of undress, but she knew that she had to get away from the demon in man’s form who had tricked her. Most of the other mages would be in the great Gathering hall by now, listening to the story of the Downfall and celebrating Arath’s victory over the very monster that she had unwittingly unleashed onto the world. Surely they would help her.
Her bare feet skidded on the stairs as she ran down the spiral from her tower. It flickered through her mind that she should find something—anything—to cover herself, so that she wouldn’t appear before the assembled mages as she was, but she didn’t dare stop for even a moment lest the Dark Mage catch her. If she stopped, if he found her before she reached help...she was only an apprentice, and there was no way her magic could stand up to his. He would surely kill her.
Blind with panic, Sasha dashed around a tight corner—and collided with a solid, warm body. For a moment, she was convinced that the Dark Mage had found her, and a startled scream burst out of her throat.
“What the—by Osan!” exclaimed a familiar voice, and Sasha almost wept with relief. The flickering light of the torches along the walls showed her the Hieromancer’s face. What he was doing in a part of the castle that should have been deserted, rather than attending to Arath during the celebration, she didn’t know and didn’t care.
“Thank the God,” she gasped, grabbing at his wrist. “Please, my lord, I have done something terrible. You have to help me—”
“What is the meaning of this?” he snarled, tearing away from her. An odd light burned in his eyes as he raked his gaze over her naked form. “What do you think you’re doing? Wicked temptress!”
The venom in his words broke through her haze of confusion and fear. “You don’t understand—we are all in terrible danger,” she began.
“What I understand is that you have rejected the Light of Osan by appearing before me thus!”
“But I—”
“Silence! There is no excuse for this!” The Hieromancer’s eyes narrowed suddenly, and an odd little smile curved his mouth. “You women think you’re above it all, pretending to be pure while all the time thinking impure things. You’re all nothing but minions of the Hag, aren’t you, sent by her to tempt men.”
To her shock, he raised one hand and spoke a string of spell words. Light bloomed around his fingers as his will tore struggling fire elementals from their own world, forcing them to his service. Then he brought down his hand in a sudden, swift move, and a loud crack filled the air, accompanied by the smell of something burning.
Pain exploded in Sasha’s shoulder, and she cried out, collapsing against the cold stone wall. Shock robbed her of her will, and she could do nothing but lay in a crumpled heap, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The Hieromancer let out a high-pitched giggle at the sight of her pain, and she saw an erection tenting the front of his robe. Then he raised his hand a second time.
“You will stop this immediately,” said a cold, beautiful voice.
A tall, lean figure glided out of the shadows towards them. Ebony hair swirled around his face in an invisible wind, and the torchlight gleamed off obsidian eyes. He had conjured clothing from somewhere, Sasha noticed distractedly. A tight pair of black pants, that fit like a second skin, clung to his legs, emphasizing the bulge of his crotch. His black shirt was looser, but hung open to the waist, revealing pale skin over lean but well-defined muscles. Knee-high black boots tapped softly on the cold stone floor.
The Hieromancer’s eyes widened in an expression of horror. “You—it isn’t possible!”
“Hello, Farius,” Elodan said malevolently. “I see that the last fifty years have not been kind to you. Or perhaps you have not been kind to them?”
The Hieromancer made a strangled noise, then attempted to fling the captive fire elementals at Elodan’s face, screaming out the command for them to attack. Elodan countered swiftly: bluish elementals of a kind that Sasha had never seen before swarmed out of the air and eagerly attacked the Hieromancer’s minions, extinguishing them in little puffs of smoke.
Those can’t be water elementals, Sasha thought. Only elementals of fire and air could be conjured and coerced. To draw upon water or earth was strictly forbidden. Of course—he’s the Dark Mage. What other powers would he use?
“I do not have time to play with you, Farius,” Elodan said harshly. “Be warned, however—you have earned my wrath by harming this woman, and I will return to repay you.”
The Hieromancer’s face went pale, and he desperately began another spell. Before he could finish his conjuring, Elodan barked out a single, guttural word. The Hieromancer’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed limply to the floor.
Silence fell over the corridor. Sasha sat pressed against the wall, staring blankly at the still form only a few feet from her. “You killed him,” she said numbly.
“He only sleeps. You can check for yourself if you would like.” Elodan crossed the space between them and knelt down by her. One hand touched her wounded shoulder tenderly. “Your injury is what concerns me now. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“N-no,” she replied, trying not to look at him. So close, she could feel the heat of his body, could smell his masculine scent. The clothing he had conjured flattered his form in every possible way and sent warmth through her blood, so that she ached for him all over again.
“Good.” His fingers were gentle on her shoulder. Coolness touched her burned skin, soothing it, and a moment later the pain was gone. Startled, she twisted her head around to see unblemished skin where before there had been an ugly burn.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
A slight frown marred his features. “What do you mean? I healed you.”
“With—with magic?”
“Yes. What else did you expect?”
“Our healers—that is, they use herbs, but nothing like this.”
His frown deepened. “Healing is a gift of the Goddess given to her servants. You do not know this?”
“The Goddess? You mean the Hag?”
He stared at her a moment, clearly shocked. Then he closed his eyes and bowed his head, as if in sorrow. “Ah, lady, what have they done to you?” he murmured. She didn’t know if he spoke to her or to his Goddess.
Sasha shifted slightly, uncertain whether she should take his moment of distraction as a chance to flee again. Her eyes went uncontrollably to the Hieromancer’s slumped form. His attack had been so unexpected...but not as unexpected as her rescue.
“What do you want with me?” she asked uncertainly.
The Dark Mage sighed and rose to his feet. Clothing appeared in his hands, and he held it out to her. Startled, she took it. Even in the dim light, she could see that it consisted of a brightly-colored skirt and blous
e, both far more revealing than anything she had ever worn. “I can’t put this on!”
It was impossible to read the glassy orbs that took the place of Elodan’s eyes, but his tone was one of patience. “You must. It is what peasants wear—I conjured the clothes from the house of a washerwoman only a few miles from here. They will allow us to blend in once we are free of the castle.”
“What? Are you insane? I’m not leaving with you!”
“You cannot remain here,” Elodan said, infuriatingly reasonable. “The Hieromancer saw you with me. My spell won’t last for long once I am gone from the castle—as soon as he awakes, he will tell everyone that I have returned and that you are my ally.”
“I’m not your ally!”
Something that might have been disappointment or even pain flashed over his features. “As you say,” he agreed neutrally. “But who will listen to your word against his?”
Sasha’s heart sank. Elodan might have lied to her and betrayed her, but he was right about this. Everyone would think that she had willingly let the Dark Mage back into the world. She would be cast out of the Order at best. At worst...she had no idea what they would consider just punishment for such a crime.
She pulled on her clothes without responding, then accepted a pair of low boots that he conjured for her. As she took them, their fingers brushed together, and she found herself staring into his face. Hunger awoke in her; she longed to feel his lips bruising hers with kisses, longed to feel his hands on her breasts, his cock impaling her.
The Dark Mage had always been portrayed as a monster, a heartless creature who sought only the destruction of all that was good and holy. It seemed impossible to reconcile that image of a ravening fiend with the quiet man in front of her now. The man who had saved her from further harm at the hands of one of her own. The man who had given her such pleasure.
The man who had, for all intents and purposes, ruined her life.
“I’ll leave the castle with you,” she said slowly, uncertainly. “Because you saved me from the Hieromancer. After that you’re on your own.”
He only nodded and gestured for her to lead the way. Feeling half-naked in her new clothing, Sasha crept down a series of hallways and stairs, avoiding any that led to the main hall where the Gathering would be held. As they walked, the Dark Mage stared about him with a sad expression.
“I remember when this was a place of beauty,” he said wistfully. “There were paintings on the walls, colorful rugs underfoot, statues and vases in the nooks. Now it has been stripped bare, made cold and ugly.”
“The things you speak of—paintings and such—they’re just another sensual distraction,” Sasha replied absently. “The God forbids them.”
“That isn’t true, and you know it.”
Annoyed by his assumption, she shot him a glare over her shoulder. “I do not know any such thing, Dark Mage.”
“Of course you do. Deep inside. In your heart.” He reached out and ran his hand along her shoulders and back, sending sparks of lust through her blood. “You have a passionate and sensual nature, Sasha. Why should you deny it? It is how the God and Goddess made you, after all.”
“You speak as if Osan and the Hag are equals.”
Elodan’s mouth twitched into a frown, but it was not aimed at her. “You think that Arath’s ways have been our ways for all time. That is not so. I was raised in this castle from childhood, young one. At that time, the God and Goddess were worshipped as they should be—as husband and wife. Osan ruled the day and Nyx the night, but they were parents to everything in the world they created.
“I followed the Goddess more closely than Osan, for that is where my heart led me, although I gave them both their due respect and devotion. But Arath has no love in his heart for any woman, mortal or Goddess. He succeeded in banishing me, and now that I have returned, I find that he has tried to turn the Goddess into a Hag, and has recast Osan in his own sick image!”
Sasha’s heart beat faster, whether from fear of his heresy or some other reason she didn’t know. “You lie!”
“I would never lie to you.”
“That isn’t true—you lied to me already. You told me that you were nothing but a ghost, not the shade of the Dark Mage waiting to be released back into the world!”
Elodan stopped walking. They stood together in a shadowy corner on the lowest level of the castle, near the side entrance that Sasha intended to lead him to. “I allowed you to assume,” he admitted. “If that was wrong of me, then I ask your forgiveness. You must understand how desperate I was. Fifty years ago, Arath and I fought. I was weak, and he was able to use his power to push me into another dimension. It didn’t work—he only did it half-right. Arath was always careless when it came to anything other than himself.
“Instead of finding myself in another world, I was trapped between dimensions, in a sort of limbo. I had a physical body of a sort, but although my body did not age, it also did not feel. I tried to get free at first, but at length I realized that I could not do it myself—it would take a powerful Summoner to release me. So I fell into a sort of stasis and slept away the decades, waiting for the one who would call me. You.”
He reached out and took her hands, raising them to his lips, then pressing them against his chest. She could feel his heart beating strongly beneath his warm skin. “It was your own longing, your own secret desires that woke me, Sasha. Yet I couldn’t take the chance that you would still refuse the both of us, if you knew who I was. I am sorry—it was selfish of me. I swear by the Goddess that I will never lie to you again, even by a lie of omission.”
Despite herself, she felt her anger melting away. How awful it would be to be trapped in limbo like that, she thought. But surely Arath hadn’t known—surely a great man like the First wouldn’t leave even an enemy in such a cruel state.
Uncertain what to do about her conflicted emotions, she turned from him and started off. “This way. Or have things changed so much that you’ve forgotten?”
“Many things have changed,” he said regretfully.
At last they reached a small door that let out into the orchards on one side of the castle. Even as they approached the door, Sasha realized her mistake and came to an abrupt halt. “I forgot. You’ll have to go on without me after all.”
He looked at her in surprise. “What has made you change your mind?”
“I wasn’t thinking—I forgot that it’s night out there.”
A faint smile touched his sensual lips. “That it is.”
“Humans can’t go outside at night without protection. If the moon doesn’t drive us mad, the Hag will send her servants to rend us to pieces!”
A scowl of annoyance creased his brow. “I understand that your head has been filled with lies of every sort, but you will not refer to the Goddess thus in my presence.”
Although she sensed no real threat in the words, Sasha took a step back. A look of resignation passed over his face, and Elodan held out his hand to her. “People have walked in the night for thousands of years without hurt,” he said wearily. “Dangerous things stalk in it, but that is just as true of the day. Trust me, Sasha. I would never do anything that might bring you harm.”
She hesitated, torn between logic that said she couldn’t face the darkness outside, and instinct that urged her to trust this man. What do I have to lose? she asked herself. I’ll never be welcome among the Order again, so I can’t stay here. In the space of less than a week, my life has been reduced to shambles. Might as well add a walk in the moonlight to make the evening perfect. At least I’ll find out whether it really does drive you mad.
He smiled when she took his hand, and the expression startled her with its sweetness. Strong fingers closed tightly over hers, and the pad of his thumb caressed her palm, sending a little erotic shiver through her. Without hesitation, he opened the door and led her out into the darkness.
The moon shone overhead, shedding its silver light over the landscape. Stars blazed with their own fire, like a milli
on diamonds sewn into a black scarf. The cool air smelled of damp earth, and the branches of the trees whispered to one another in the breeze. Strange insects sang their mating songs, accompanied by the raucous croaking of frogs. The white flowers decorating the orchard looked like snow in the dim light, as if they had been transported to some enchanted winter.
Sasha turned and looked behind her as the Dark Mage led her deeper into the orchard. Moon- and starlight frosted the gray castle, transforming it from the structure she knew into something strange and magical. The shutters were pulled tight on every window, but the light of night candles seeped through the cracks around them. A sudden pang of grief touched her—she had spent most of her life preparing to come here, ever since her magical talents had been discovered as a child, and now she was leaving after less than a year of study. It didn’t seem fair.
Elodan’s hand tightened slightly on her own, as if he sensed her thoughts. “Don’t you see, Sasha?” he asked softly. He tilted his head back, letting the breeze brush his long hair from his face. The blank glass of his eyes reflected the moonlight eerily. “The night is beautiful, magic, enchanting. There is nothing to fear.”
At first, Sasha didn’t reply. But when hordes of bloodthirsty goblins failed to appear, and she didn’t run mad from the moonlight, and none of the other terrifying things she had been told haunted the night materialized, she gradually began to relax. Petals fell from the trees around them, reminding her again of drifting snow. Several settled in Elodan’s dark hair, and the sight brought an involuntary smile to her lips. It was getting harder and harder to remember that she was supposed to be afraid of him, she realized. Harder and harder to remember that he was her enemy.
“It is beautiful,” she agreed reluctantly.
He smiled and turned towards her. They stood beneath one of the oldest trees, the perfume of its flowers all around them. His long-fingered hands closed around her shoulders, pulling her to him, so that the tips of her breasts pressed against his firm chest. His erection pressed against her belly, hard and hot as it strained against the thin material of his trousers.
