Tulak let that go and simply swam in the earth, sliding over rocks as though they were waves, peeking out through cliffs, smiling at his cleverness in all of this, yet knowing the fade would come, the dulling that dragged him back to himself.
Inevitably the end came with a harmonious buzzing in the ears, and Tulak did not struggle for alertness or force his eyes open. He merely waited to return fully. Yet as he did, uneasiness settled on him like clogging dust and he found his breaths labouring in a heavy chest. Silence surrounded him, and though he was not fully returned, Tulak knew something was wrong.
He pushed at lax muscles and opened his eyes. The camp was deserted.
It had happened quickly, Tulak knew that. Though it seemed like hours, he had only been moments away from consciousness. Had someone been trailing them, waiting to strike? If so, why was he still alive?
He pulled his hands down from cradling his head and pushed on them to raise himself up. They felt rubbery, disconnected, as did his legs, but Tulak had no choice. He stood with arms outstretched for balance but there was nothing to see. No blood, no sign of a fight. He staggered a few steps and leant on a tree. The humming in his ears was quietening and he strained over it to hear any sounds.
Could his men have abandoned him? Cold fear shot through Tulak before he could discount the possibility. It would make no sense. If they had meant to mutiny against his leadership, they would have killed him. And they were too far from the boundary of the Forest of Desire for its siren call to have lured them.
Ssssssssss.
The sound came from Tulak’s right, and even as it worked its way into his consciousness and instilled fear, he turned towards it, setting his awkward feet in motion. Almost immediately he saw what his men must have seen: a young Plainsman, naked except for the dark hair that flowed sinuously around his shoulders, caressing them with no apparent help from the wind. His back was to Tulak but even at a distance of twenty paces he could see the youth’s skin appeared oddly attractive, as though once a gaze attached to it, it could not be dragged free.
Tulak stumbled forward, and soon saw his men standing in a group before the boy, hands limp at their sides, staring at him as though in a trance.
The boy turned then and Tulak’s attention was drawn to the pale finger of flesh sleeping between his legs. The thatch of hair on which it rested was moving, caressing, coaxing. His gaze rose slowly over the boy’s empty belly and the wide but not fully-fleshed chest of a man. It climbed the long neck and thin chin, slid past the solemn mouth and narrow Plainsman nose to finally reach his eyes. Then Tulak forgot to breathe.
His own eyes closed and he knew that what he had seen could not be anything other than the drug working on his mind. The boy’s eyes could not reach into his loins and awaken him to desire simply with a glance, yet Tulak had felt that. He turned away and looked at his men, thinking to rouse them from their stupor, yet below their vacant eyes he saw the proof of his suspicions in their straining trousers. The fronts of some were wet.
Clearly the boy was enchanted, and his glamour had woven a spell over them that would rival the Forest of Desire in claiming men’s souls. Before he too came under that spell, Tulak must act. With trembling fingers he untied his cloak and stepped towards the boy, keeping his head averted, the object of his attention in the periphery of his vision. ‘Remain still,’ he said and the boy obeyed as Tulak draped him in the cloak and pulled up the hood, his legs growing steadier as the drug wore off.
Only when he had the boy’s hands tied firmly, and the front of the hood secured did Tulak turn to his men. Alas, they were unmoving, and though he slapped them on the face and shouted, none could be roused. It was not the clean death of battle, but Tulak knew they were lost just the same.
He turned to the cloaked boy. ‘You will make a good weapon against our enemies.’
Left on the edges of a Northman camp, this boy would be most effective in rendering their enemies vulnerable to methodical assassination by a single warrior. And presuming the glamour did not wear off, he could be used many times.
‘The Forest has released me. I am yours now,’ the boy said in a voice that licked words and hung over pauses like the mouth of a lover. ‘Exploit me as you will.’ Again Tulak felt the pull deep in his loins and his breath came ragged in his chest. The drug was wearing off and he was suddenly afraid that he would not be able to resist the enchantment the boy exuded. Quickly then, before he could think otherwise, Tulak gagged him, tying a fabric strip over his hood, and then he stepped away.
He had never heard of anyone escaping the Forest of Desire and the idea of what had happened to the boy during his entrapment both enthralled and horrified him. His captive was completely covered, but Tulak’s ardour was yet to subside.
‘I will take you to My Lord,” he said, his voice shaking. ‘The Dark will know what to do with you,’ and he pulled on the cord that bound him to his captive and led him away towards Be’uccdha.
Behind them the glade grew silent as the warriors of Tulak’s scouting party stood silently, their hands limp at their sides, eyes staring ahead. One twitched and the front of his pants showed a stain, then he became still. Night was falling.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
‘You can’t keep doing this.’ Sarah hit the ‘save’ key on her computer as Pagan strode through reception, the child in his arms relaxed despite the lower half of her arm hanging at an odd angle. Broken. ‘What have you done to her this time?’ Snatching a clean tea towel out of the kitchenette, Sarah trailed him into the preparation room where a cloying disinfectant smell hung in the air.
‘Fear not that I am in pain,’ Glimmer said as Pagan laid her on the stainless steel table, but Sarah noticed her wince as he straightened her arm. ‘It is only a temporary discomfort.’
‘Lie still.’ Pagan told the child and softened his command with a smile. Then he looked up at Sarah, the smile fading. ‘Your concern is unwarranted.’ He glanced at the tea towel.
There was no blood this time but it was force of habit for Sarah to snatch something absorbent. She bunched the gingham rectangle into a ball. ‘Well pardon me for not knowing the difference between fatal and simply inconvenient. What were you doing this time? Teaching her to fall without a mat? Or have we moved past self-defence into —’
‘She must learn the ways of battle.’
‘Even if it makes me sick to the pit of my stomach every time I see her like this?’
‘I know you do not care to see her hurt —’
‘I don’t want anyone hurt.’ There was a vain wish.
‘But the child of The Light must not die,’ he said simply. ‘That above all else. Learning to deal with injury and pain is a necessary part of her training.’
‘You did this deliberately?’
Pagan held her gaze, said nothing.
Sarah decided she’d like to meet this Light who had placed her child in Pagan’s care, to give her a few home truths. Although, if Sarah was honest, the greater truth was that it wasn’t Pagan’s fault. Glimmer’s destiny was the problem. At first she hadn’t wanted to believe their story of a Maelstrom, but as the El Niño weather pattern spiralled out of control, fundamentalist churches across Australia prepared for Armageddon. Country-sized hurricanes tore across America and Europe, and Africa was flooded in the middle of its supposed dry season. Global warming couldn’t explain it and neither could sunspots. The religion of science was beginning to show cracks and the trend away from churches was being reversed. People wanted answers.
Sarah had answers. She just didn’t like them and that probably showed on her face.
Pagan turned back to Glimmer. ‘Come, it is time to heal your arm,’ he said. She nodded and he brushed a strand of pure white hair off her cherub cheek. One of her long plaits had started to unravel and for some reason looking at it intensified the ache in Sarah’s chest. One day they’d disappear, probably the same way they had appeared in her life, abruptly, allowing her no time to adjust. She’d told herself she
shouldn’t grieve before the event, but the idea that Pagan would leave without even having kissed her was so tragic it made Sarah want to weep.
Instead, she dragged her gaze away from them and backed silently out of the room to stand in the hallway, her back against the wall. Africa, she told herself because it made it easier to think of Pagan that way — deep, dark and mysterious. Melissa called him that to his face, flirting in her girlie let’s-pretend-I’m-not-married manner that was more embarrassing than threatening, and which simply made Pagan laugh. The only thing that dented his composure was the fear that Glimmer might be taken from him.
‘Sarah worries as a mother,’ Glimmer said softly from inside the room, her child voice at odds with the intelligence Sarah knew she possessed — frightening intelligence inside such an immature body. ‘And you fear that we will lose our sanctuary. That our differences will prove too great and Sarah will reject us. Yet though I am new to the world of men, I know her love will prove true.’
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut but couldn’t stop a pair of warm, fat tears sliding down her cheeks.
‘Your destiny lies not on this world,’ Pagan said. ‘Sarah’s attachment to you will only bring her pain.’
Glimmer sighed and Sarah could imagine the patient expression on her face, far wiser than her years should allow. ‘It is the nature of man to lose that which he loves,’ she said. ‘Sarah’s attachment is but a fulfilment of her own destiny. Fear not that her love will weaken me, for the opposite is true. Though I do not return the sentiment, her love strengthens me.’
Pagan made no reply to this so Glimmer asked him. ‘And what of your destiny?’
Sarah strained to hear their quiet voices.
‘I am your Champion. I will follow and protect you,’ Pagan replied.
There was a pause before Glimmer replied, ‘To aid my cause? Or to stand again in the presence of your betrothed?’
Sarah opened her damp eyelashes and the hallway swam in front of her. Was Pagan weakening? Would this be the moment Glimmer had foreshadowed?
‘I will marry Lae of Be’uccdha if she will have me.’
‘If she lives,’ Glimmer said.
Sarah swallowed back bitterness. Nothing had changed. He was still in love with the child-woman he had left on Ennae. Sarah stared at the pinstripe wallpaper opposite her and wondered whether Lae was dead by now. Hated herself for hoping that she was.
‘And what of Sarah?’ Glimmer said, her voice clear through the doorway.
Pagan’s was quieter, ‘I do that which is required of a man in her house,’ he said stiffly. ‘All the hard labour —’
‘There is more that a man can do for a woman than cut her firewood and trim her lawns,’ Glimmer said.
Sarah felt her cheeks go hot but there was no way she was leaving the door. Not until she’d heard Pagan’s reply, which was a long time coming.
‘Speak the rite of healing with me,’ he said.
Sarah heard Glimmer sigh, then both their voices joined:
‘Let Guardian wisdom guide my hand, a Guardian’s power wield, to mend together broken flesh and make a body healed.’
Sarah knew what was happening inside the preparation room. It was a scene she had witnessed many times before, a hand passing over Glimmer’s flesh and then, miraculously, healing. There was nothing religious or spiritual about it. No glowing lights or shifting shadows. Quite everyday really. Pagan had explained it as simply a talent, like painting. Something he was born with. Something Glimmer was apparently born with as well. The fact that their talent went against the laws of nature on Sarah’s world was unimportant to them.
‘A healing slumber would benefit you at this time,’ Pagan said, and Sarah struggled to drag her thoughts back to the present.
‘I am four, not one. I no longer take afternoon naps.’
She had to smile at that.
‘On this day you do.’ No arguing with that voice.
‘You want to be rid of me.’
‘When you behave like an argumentative shrew? Yes.’
‘Now you are going to tell me I am worse than Lae of Be’uccdha, daughter of The Dark.’
‘You are also a daughter of The Dark,’ Pagan reminded her. ‘Though fear not that your temperament is worse than Lae’s,’ he added with feeling.
Outside the room, Sarah frowned. Lae was the woman he wanted to marry. Did that mean he liked argumentative shrews? If so, why was she having so much trouble luring him into her bed?
‘Sleep,’ Pagan ordered, and two seconds later Glimmer was out the door closely followed by Pagan — well before Sarah had time to escape. Glimmer cast Sarah an interested glance and kept going. Pagan stopped. They looked at each other.
‘I wasn’t eavesdropping … intentionally,’ she said.
Pagan simply continued to gaze at her and Sarah gazed right back. Four years they’d lived in the same house, and each time she looked at him she felt the same jolt of shock. He was beautiful. No other word for it. Perfect olive skin, liquid black hair and dark, dark eyes, She should have felt like a pumpkin beside him, but she didn’t. Somehow the way he looked at her made her feel special, delicate, protected, even when she was angry enough to throttle him. Or even when she was desperately embarrassed, as she was now.
‘I did not mean to question your generosity,’ he said quietly.
Sarah had almost forgotten the beginning of the conversation she’d overheard. It took her a moment to regather her thoughts. ‘I promised to tell you when I’d had enough.’
He nodded. ‘I was wrong to doubt.’
Sarah swallowed in a rapidly drying throat. Pagan was close, and the exertion of his practice fight with Glimmer had raised a man smell that set all her hormones on alert. She cleared her throat. ‘It’s better to get things out in the open. Is there anything else you’re worried about?’
He glanced down at his hands, then returned his gaze to Sarah. ‘There is,’ he said, and she pointed to the front office. Pagan shook his head and took her arm.
Sarah let herself be led back to the house, past Glimmer’s closed door and into Pagan’s bedroom. She was tingling by then, and had to tell herself over and over that just because she was sitting on the edge of his bed didn’t mean there was the slightest chance she’d be lying on it. Her heart raced anyway.
She watched him shut the door and wondered if he had any idea that inviting her into his bedroom and shutting the door was a breach of propriety between two single people. Probably not. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him.
He came and sat on the bed beside her, his hands restless at his sides before he put them on his thighs. Sarah couldn’t help wishing she could put her hands there too. She watched him breathing, realised they were shallow breaths, then he raised his head.
They looked at each other for a moment and Sarah’s own breathing slowed. He was going to say something. Or ask her something. She could see it in his eyes. Something important.
She waited, her lungs empty, until finally he said, ‘Glimmer believes you are … lonely for …’ He swallowed and Sarah watched his Adam’s apple move up and down.
She put him out of his misery. ‘A man. Yes, I am.’
Pagan closed his own eyes briefly and Sarah wondered if Reg was right. If all the frantic physical activity Pagan indulged in every day was really to keep his libido at bay. ‘Yet you have not …’ He wasn’t meeting her gaze but Sarah couldn’t blame him. It was embarrassing. Still, she was determined to say her piece.
‘I want children of my own,’ she said baldly. Then, before she could censor herself, she added, ‘But people think you and I are … together. So other men don’t ask me out.’ That’s not to say that she couldn’t ask a man out herself, but a lot of Pagan’s attitudes were old-fashioned. He probably wouldn’t imagine a woman could do that.
To his credit, he met her gaze, the beginnings of desperation swimming behind his eyes. ‘You would have us leave?’
No. No. No. ‘I don’t know,’ she forced her
self to say. ‘You said yourself you’d be gone one day. I might be too old to start then. I’m thirty-two …’ And Pagan was now twenty-one. Any qualms she’d had about his youth were long gone.
Somehow he managed to keep his eyes locked onto hers and she felt sorry for him then. Sorry for what she was putting him through. But not sorry enough to give up.
‘It’s not that I want a husband,’ she assured him, ‘I just want to be pregnant.’
The word hung between them, along with its implication.
‘Even if the father should leave you to raise the child alone?’
Sarah nodded. They both knew they weren’t talking about her having a one-night stand with a local man. This was much closer to home.
‘Then you do not care for the love of a man,’ he said, ‘but only for the love of a child?’
Sarah swallowed tightly. ‘If that’s all I can have.’
Pagan reached across and took her hand. Even without looking down she knew her fingers would appear pale and delicate against his. The same way her tomboy body would look lying beneath him. She closed her eyes.
‘I will be that man if you will let me, Sarah,’ he said.
She tried to speak and found her lips were trembling. ‘Pagan …’ She should have been swamped with desire, maddened with lust at the thought of Pagan making love to her, but instead Sarah thought she might cry.
‘I am not the husband you would chose,’ he said, mistaking her hesitation for a refusal. ‘And though I would have named myself a renowned lover before I left my homeland, the years I have spent in service to The Light’s child have taught me humility. You have taught me humility, Sarah,’ he said.
She looked up at him, tried to smile. ‘You were an arrogant puppy.’
Daughter of the Dark: Shadow Through Time 2 Page 26
