“Good night, Spearleader,” Garyll said. “My thanks as well.”
“Moji jan kerilak, may your bed warm be.” He smiled, and his stony skin folded in deep seams beside his eyes.
Tabitha looked around for Mulrano. He was the centre of an animated group of Lûk. A stout woman was showing him a system of hand-signals, among much disagreement and laughter from the cluster of Lûk men. He saw Tabitha and Garyll watching him and he waved them on with a big grin.
Sihkran’s daughter led them away from the central chamber along a gently sloping passageway. She gathered a glowing tumbler of purple liquid along the way, which she held high as they walked, casting a pool of hazy light that picked out the rough threads and reinforced ribs of the corridor ahead of them.
Tabitha reached for Garyll’s arm, and pulled him closer to her side. The sound of merriment floated after them, fading, until it was as soft as a murmur. They passed woven circles of colour, doorways into private rooms, she supposed. She hoped she would share a room with Garyll. She didn’t want to be parted from him tonight.
Their kott turned out to be a private space no bigger than standing room for the two of them, and an alcove hidden behind a patterned silk curtain with a steaming washing bowl. The bed was a tunnel, set at waist-height in the wall. A wide reed mat supported an arrangement of fluffy blankets of beautiful colours. A long roll of stuffed fabric formed a soft pillow. Tabitha wondered if all the Lûk slept in such cosy cubicles. They thanked Sihkran’s daughter and bade her good night.
The pale light, left in the corridor outside, did little more than throw a mauve colour upon the curtain. Inside, their room was almost dark, warm and scented. Garyll shed his heavy cloak, kicked off his boots, hesitated for a moment, then took off his belt as well. “You wash first. You’re the smelliest!”
“I am not!” But she knew she was just as ripe as the men. It had seemed to be Lukish culture to eat first and wash later. She began to undress, and her pulse thundered as she considered how far she would go in front of Garyll. She wanted to tease him; she wanted to watch him undress too. They were alone at last. She drew a shuddering breath and took her jersey off. She watched him watching her in her criss-crossed halter top and rough riding leathers. It was hot in the Lûk down. She stepped up to Garyll.
“Here, lose this funny headscarf,” said Tabitha. It was white with amber knots, just a pale shape now in the darkness. “It makes you look like the court fool.”
“A fool for your beauty,” he replied. “Your singing was special. It helped me to remember as well. This world is so…different, in many ways. It is good to know you haven’t changed.”
“Liar,” she teased, running her fingers through his hair. It was short now, it had been so ever since he’d cut his soldier’s tail off and set aside his great sword. “You’re enjoying watching me change.”
She pulled him down and kissed the corner of his mouth, where he was laughing.
He tasted faintly of the Lûk’s sweet nobki dessert, slightly spicy from their wine, but mostly like Garyll.
She stepped out of her trousers, letting them lie on the floor. She pulled him gently toward the bathing room then reached up and untied the braid which bound her hair. It cascaded over her shoulders.
He watched her for a delicious moment then lifted his tunic over his head. Tabitha’s heart raced. She knew they shouldn’t be together, but thinking about that only seemed to make it more exciting. There were rules to follow, especially since she was a lady now. Lady Tabitha.
Silly titles. Silly rules.
She reached out and touched his chest. His skin felt smooth under her fingers. They weren’t in Eyri anymore, they were far beyond it. She could live her life differently out here. She didn’t need rules to live her life by. The rules were empty things, she decided, it was her pounding heart that mattered most.
Her resistance slipped away as easily as her own halter top fell off her shoulders as she undid the knot.
The steam of the bathing bowl caressed her back. She reached back and dipped a cloth into the water, soaking it wet and warm. She explored her man with her hands as she washed him. His body was so much bigger than hers, his chest so wide—his arms so full and firm. Tabitha kissed him in the centre of his breastbone, where his muscles formed an indentation above the ridges of his stomach. He smelled of the soapberry the Lûk had dissolved in the water, a pungent scent, refreshing, like the juice of a burst orange.
She coaxed him further against the wall, letting him push against her, until his weight was wonderfully heavy against her hips, trapping her. He kissed her, and she gripped his head with her hands, pulling at him, wanting him, needing him. Garyll dragged a wet cloth up her back; the warmth washed her thighs. He drenched the cloth and soaked her shoulders and neck, turned her so the soapy water ran down her body, glistening like a statue in the summer rain. When he slipped his hand up her wet chest, the weight of passion felt heavy in her breasts. He brought his breath down upon her skin. Tabitha was aware of nothing except the way the skin tightened so eagerly in anticipation of his lips and his tongue upon her. A growing breathlessness spread through her like an intoxicating paralysis.
“We have to stop,” Garyll whispered.
“Ohhh,” she said, closing her eyes, shuddering against him. “We don’t have to, do we?”
“Yes, we have to.” Uncertainty choked his voice and he pushed her gently toward the bed. The passion hung in the air like smoke against a windless sunset, red and clustered upon itself. Garyll joined her under the covers. She still wanted him terribly, but he was holding back. She could feel the tension in his body. He wanted her too; the pressure of his need was fierce against her back when he held her.
“Why do you deny yourself what is offered?” she asked into the dark.
“It is not mine to take,” he answered in a low voice. “Only a weak man would take advantage of your innocence.”
“I would not offer myself to a weak man.”
“I am trying to be strong, Tabitha,” he said through gritted teeth. “It is harder than ever before. I don’t know why, but I feel the passion of ten men tonight. Please, I don’t want to fail you.”
“I’m scared of you Garyll, when you do that! It is not strength, it is punishment, as if you have done wrong by thinking of loving me. You cannot fail me by loving me. You hurt me when you spurn me so. Why do you do it? Why do you do it?”
Garyll was silent in the dark for what seemed like forever.
“I don’t deserve you, my beauty.”
“If not you, then who would be worthy? Who must I love? By the sun and the moon and the stars, Garyll! You are everything I want.”
His shoulders were firm against hers. “Maybe I am not ready to stop punishing myself.” Then there was a warm wetness upon her cheek, a tear fallen from his eyes. He whispered, his breath moved through her hair, his words soft against her ear.
The wildness of that gentle hand
The pain! Oh love! You do not see!
You reach within my stubborn heart
And touch me with your peace.
A violence done unto my soul
Fury, fire; sweet release.
Tabitha lay still. The beautiful words lingered in the dark. “What was that?” she asked in a quivering voice.
“A poem,” he said simply, kissing the edge of her ear.
“You wrote it?” The words were so powerful, so personal, heartfelt.
“I did,” he answered. She turned in his arms to look into his face, and he caressed her shoulder absently, running his hand down her arm, over her hips. “During the days in Levin,” he continued. “I couldn’t bring myself to show it to you. I don’t know why.”
Tabitha lay there, entranced by all of him. The poem was what she wanted, what she needed so much from him, access to the depths of his hidden soul—his trust. “It’s not much of a poem, but it’s the truth,” he said.
His words led the passion that surged through her body. She hoped feverishly that Garyll f
elt what he was doing to her.
“What truth?” she asked, breathless, wanting to feel the vibration of his deep voice again, that masculine resonance that made her shudder.
Something had changed in his eyes. A shadow had left from behind his gaze—that haunted aspect of his expression; it had been replaced by a furnace. His fingers touched her breast. Hot anticipation flooded through her, filling her mind, gathering her soul.
“That I love you,” Garyll said. “That I cannot live without you. That no matter what I believe of myself, I will always love you. I want to be your man, your protector, your strength.”
“Wanting me is enough,” Tabitha whispered. “All the rest just makes me love you more.”
“Help me to be strong,” he said. The way he kissed her showed her the depth of his desire. Their dammed-up passion broke. Their hands led the rush of their ardour, exploring the nakedness of their open fields, moving into channels denied, breaking through shallow walls of gentility, running through every vein and filling every crevice with the fertile flood. Currents of agonising delight twisted around them. She forgot duty, fear, wizardry, crowns and kingdoms. Everything was washed under in the flood of love.
It felt as if she was being dissolved in pure music.
Pain was drowned in pleasure. She did things she had never dreamt of before, but she knew she would dream of those things in nights to come. She would dream of him forever.
There was a moment when she felt broken and made whole again in the same moment, where she wept, utterly bereft, with tears of joy. She had become something…more.
She dreamt she sang the Lifesong, a single verse that was all the verses.
But maybe she hadn’t.
23. TELLING TAILS
“How tall a tale can a teller tell
When the truth must tie it tight?”—Zarost
The world had forgotten about Ashley Logán, it seemed. He was abandoned, in the high cave, huddled against the cold rock beside his dead fire, and he awoke to the squeals of a panicked horse. A strange rank smell filled the air. It was gloomy inside the cave and bitterly cold. He struggled to react, but his thoughts were scattered, like hailstones on a frozen lake. There had been a lake, hadn’t there? Swimming. Drowning, almost.
Where was he? He pushed himself up beside the ashes of a dead fire. He groaned. Why was he so very stiff? It felt as if a herd of horses had trampled his body all night.
The storm. He remembered the storm, its raging icy fury. They had flown, Princess and him. They had crashed. They had come to this place, this refuge, this dark and sheltered cavern. The winged horse clattered past him. The ground heaved, and the faint light from the mouth of the cave dimmed. He turned.
Something blocked the exit. Something very, very big.
He scrabbled to his feet.
A great head dipped into the mouth of the cavern, long and triangular, covered in hard black-veined scales. A shaft of morning light caught a ridge of spikes, which flashed, greenly brilliant. White teeth glistened like wet icicles in its jutting snout. Then the shaft of light was gone, blocked by the creature’s advancing bulk. Only the massive slit eyes were visible, green and glowing like sentient jade—hard, predatory and pitiless. The creature loosed a cry that was so loud it made Ashley’s teeth rattle. He fled with Princess deeper into the cavern, into the unknown blackness.
Princess slowed and neighed in fright ahead of him. She might kick backward if he pushed into her. Ashley was trapped between the two dangers in the dark. Instinctively he reached for Princess’ mind, to let her know he was there. Princess was so panicked that she didn’t know what she was doing, and kicked out anyway. Luckily she missed.
The rank smell washed over them from behind, and the great cry thundered in their bones again.
Closer ... it was so much closer.
Ashley ducked past Princess and scrabbled along the damp wall, pulling Princess after him by her mane. They went deeper and deeper into the cavern, through a narrow section, then a turn. After that Ashley couldn’t move freely anymore. He felt to the left, then to the right, but the walls drove into a tight wedge. They had gone as far as they could; they were trapped in the small chamber, a cave within the cavern. A breath, a rumble, a wind was coming from behind them.
Suddenly Princess thrashed beside him. He threw his arms around her neck and smothered her with reassuring thoughts. If he lost control of her now, he was sure she would trample him with a mad flurry of hooves. It took all of his concentration to keep a grip on Princess’s mind. She was panicked by the tight space, by the darkness, by what was approaching them with an impossibly heavy tread.
Little by little, he calmed her mind, and she stopped flailing, but she breathed in panicked snorts, and his own heart was hammering in his ears. A low, grumbling purr measured out the time, an endless rolling wheeze of the mighty creature in the cavern. Slowly Ashley’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. They had backed into a narrow cave guarded by a ragged crevice. The bulk of the creature filled the cavern outside. A big eye peered at Ashley. It was emerald green now, as clear as a jewel, and filled with a terrifying intelligence.
He was drawn closer by that eye, entranced by its magnetic beauty. He wondered why it glowed faintly.
COME A LITTLE CLOSER. I WANT TO EAT YOU.
A vast thought, it drove against him like a gale. The image had an unfamiliar scale and construction, a rhythm like language.
Ashley staggered back to the cold wall of the chamber.
WAIT UNTIL YOU RUN OUT, I WILL, I WILL, OR YOU’LL BE FIRED IN THERE WHERE I CAN’T GET YOU.
The thoughts were so large, so intimidating in their proportion, that he lost his balance and fell to the ground. He grappled for a mental purchase, fighting in the vast consciousness filling the cavern.
Fired? Where is the fire?
PATIENCE PAYS IN MEALS, IT ALWAYS DOES.
The eye withdrew. The great, snakelike snout thrust into their chamber instead. Teeth like giant swollen swords clashed against each other as its jaws closed in the air. But it could not reach them; the snout could push no more than a few yards through the crevice. Princess had run in through that crack, and yet the creature couldn’t get more than the first part of its head through it. Ashley began to fear how big the rest of it was—the bit they couldn’t see.
The creature snorted, and a terrible wash of hot foul air passed over them. A rank smell hit them; the stench of a hundred carcasses burnt on a pyre, or spoiled leather mixed with tar and ash. It stung his nostrils, making his eyes smart. The creature croaked an angry roar then pulled its snout free with a scraping of scales against rock. Pale light played in the rock dust in the gap, a hint of the impossible freedom of the morning outside the distant cavern mouth. Ashley wondered if he’d ever get to see the sun again. A slithering, shifting sound came from outside, and the clicking of rocks pushed aside, then silence.
Time passed slowly in the dark. Only a subdued rumbling hinted that the creature breathed nearby. Ashley reached out with his thoughts again, carefully, hesitantly, not wanting to be overwhelmed. He could sense its great mind and something of what it was doing. It had eased its great head down on its forepaws like a dog watching a rat-hole, prepared to lie there all day for something tasty to run out.
Princess grew restless again, tossing her head over and over. Her eyes were wild, showing too much white. She had taken on too much terror; she could bear it no longer. She broke out of his grip, rearing and pawed at the air.
“Princess, no!” he shouted. He knew what she was thinking.
No, wait here, no! He tried to lasso her with his thoughts, force her to halt the mad charge. It’s still out there, it’s just waiting for you. But her mind was closed tight on her panic. She galloped through the ragged gap, tearing her shoulder on the rock, smearing blood.
She leapt forward then, seeing the way open to the sunlight at the distant mouth of the cave. Toward the light she ran, in a panicked kicking of hooves that prevented Ashley from holding
her back.
No, no, no, thought Ashley in despair, not Princess, not after what she has endured for me. She cleared four strides, five. Princess galloped, her hooves a storm of stone chips. The brightness at the mouth of the great cavern highlighted her for a perfect moment, a winged horse in the moment of taking flight. Just a few beats of her wings, and she would be clear of the cavern.
He sensed the sudden alertness of the great mind, and he clenched his stomach. The floor of the cavern uncoiled. The terrible scaled head emerged. Its jaws were drawn wide, exposing the wicked teeth. Trails of fire spilled over the creature’s snout, lighting it to glistening iridescence. The great eye was intently focused. His precious Princess was going to die.
“No!” he shouted, wanting to run out from the crevice.
Stop! he tried to command the creature, but either it didn’t sense him, or it cared nothing at all for his puny mental effort. The creature launched its bulk from the floor with the practiced lunge of a predator. It was carried on mighty wings; it stretched its head forward upon a sinuous neck. All of its mass passed before Ashley in an instant, before a wild high squeal and a terrible crushing sound was heard. A great gout of flame burst forth, a flickering trail of bright golden fire that tore through the gloom.
Ashley looked away. He sensed her intense pain, her final moment of mortal terror. Then the life was snuffed out of her in one swift twist of the jaws upon her head.
“You big ugly bastard!” he cried, before he could think, but he backed away into the cave again, through the protective crevice that would keep the creature from reaching him. Already, as it devoured the winged horse, Ashley could sense waves of attention scouring the cavern, searching for him. It was too aware for him to risk bolting for the gap. Beside, what were his chances of surviving beyond the mouth of the cavern? The moment he got out there he’d just be searching for a crevice to back into again.
Princess was gone. Eaten.
He retreated in the darkness until his back thumped into the wall, then he hunched down and covered his ears. He couldn’t bear to listen to the crunching sounds which came to him from the main cavern. Sweet Princess, so trusting of his lead, so ravaged by the strange magic, so terrified by this strange new land. She could have run away before, when they had crashed into the trees in the forest, but she had stayed with him, she had been faithful to him, and he had led her here, to this place, to this predator’s lair, to be eaten.
Second Sight: Second Tale of the Lifesong Page 39
