The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong)

by Greg Hamerton

  It was more a moan than a cry of pain. Ashley’s knees buckled when he heard it. He wasn’t sure if the sound was part of Keegan’s enchantment, or if he had heard it with his own ears, for his mind was a confluence of wild currents, conflicting aspects warring for control. He tried to pull away. His stomach clenched tight. The woman’s low moan called to the memories of his most erotic dreams. He was pulled by the vision of a dark, sultry beauty, a black gown wrapped over her shoulders, breasts which thrust upwards from a bodice of pure black silk. Gabrielle. The dream was real.

  He ached to answer the urgency in her voice, the reward it offered. Her naked body, her parted lips, her hunger enveloping him. Another low moan came to him through the dark, urging him forwards. There was no illumination save the faintest glow of his Lightstone, but he knew the lay of the chamber from Keegan’s passing, and he backtracked along that course.

  Gabrielle’s husky voice filled his mind, the memory of her wild moan echoed through the corridor of his dream. Part of him knew that Keegan was further away. Part of him knew it was Keegan’s mind he was seeing the visions through, yet he pressed on. His lust thundered through his veins. Gabrielle. She was every man’s fantasy.

  The vortex of desire drew him deeper. He didn’t care about Father Keegan or the Lightgifters. He didn’t care about the pressing dark. All he could see in his mind was Gabrielle. He found a way through the blackness, stumbling in the places where his trailing hand missed the wall.

  Water trickled down the walls, filling the space with a strange dripping melody. The smell of moss and damp rock filled his nostrils. The air was fresh. The glow of a hidden fire spilled out over the rock floor through the outline of a narrow oval archway. Firelight flickered on the walls beyond the archway, calling to him, hinting at the warmth he would find if he ventured within. Ashley moved toward it. His knees shook. He was sucked onwards by the vortex spell of seduction.

  Ashley felt suddenly exposed when he stepped into the lit archway. The source of the fey power was here, a power too great to deny, too great to master. He knew he would be lost in it, should he take one more step. In a frantic moment of lucidity, he cast an eye around the room.

  A large fire was burning in a hearth on the far side of the room. The warmth wrapped around Ashley even where he stood on the threshold. A ruddy glow streaked the walls. They bore unfinished patterns like abandoned clay in a potter’s wheel. Ridges caught the red flickering light and created dark shadows, filling the walls with dizzy geometry. From a lowered roof, drapes of a translucent black satin enclosed a bed. The black drapes spilled across the floor, rippling gently over hidden irregularities.

  He drew in a sharp breath as he saw a figure move on the bed, her outline cast onto the delicate screen of the curtains. The unmistakable shape of a woman, all cascading hair and voluptuous curves. Desire set every one of his nerves afire. The figure turned toward the sound of his sudden inhalation.

  “Is that you, my love?” Gabrielle’s voice made his blood fizz. It was a voice more husky, more warm and more fulfilling than he had dreamed. It was a sound of molten chocolate, of mulled wine and honey, of yearning and desire blended with cream, a passionate kiss against his ear. The voice sent a shiver down Ashley’s spine, a shiver which turned at his toes and returned to his head. He gagged, unable to reply. Reason had been swept away into the vortex of enchantment once more. Gabrielle turned towards the fire, presenting her back to Ashley. She hadn’t revealed herself, but her power pulled Ashley ceaselessly forward.

  “Bring your Light.”

  His unsteady legs carried him toward the bed.

  I have no essence! The truth of that failure brought him to his senses with a jolt. This is madness.

  From the dark cavern through the archway at his back, came a deep, gruff voice chanting words he knew only too well. The Lightgifter’s spell for illumination, the Flicker. Keegan had returned with the price of his weakness, a prize Ashley could not match.

  Ashley was trapped. He backed away from the approaching sound, passed behind the bed where he was hidden by the sheer black curtains, and slipped into the shadows beside the wall. He prayed Gabrielle would leave the bed. He would hide, and escape at the first moment. As he backed across the slippery floor, the fabric of darkness swirled around his ankles. The cold touch told him all he needed to know. It was not silk. It was Dark essence.

  He sank to the floor anyway. The heat of the fire passed overhead. He became partly submerged in the Dark essence, his body all but invisible in the leaping shadows. He watched with a terrified mixture of horror and excitement.

  Father Keegan strode through the archway. His gaze was fervid. Keegan was surrounded by an aura of sprites which flared up to the spiralled roof, pulsing thickly, a Flicker spell the likes of which Ashley had never witnessed before. Keegan’s command would not hold for long—already beads of sweat glistened on his forehead from the concentration—but he was robed in almost all of the sprites the Gifters had brought from the Dovecote.

  The room was filled with light. Ashley panicked—he had lost his cover. But Keegan’s gaze did not waver from the bed.

  “Bring your Light, my love,” repeated Gabrielle.

  Ashley tried to retreat farther into his diminished patch of shadows, but the rock was already firmly against his back. He fought down a powerful impulse to squeak.

  “What took you so long? I have been slowly freezing in here,” Gabrielle reprimanded, her voice maintaining a seductive note despite its sting. All of Keegan’s possessed attention was focused on Gabrielle. He strode forward, and parted the curtains.

  “You should be used to that, Shadowcaster.”

  “You know less than you pretend of the Dark, then. Come to me, offer your power, I will show you the pleasure that can be yours, at last. You have led the Gifters well, now come.” Gabrielle’s attraction suffused the room, plucking at his body as if he was a harp, leaving him resonating with lust. Ashley knew that the enchantment was not directed at him, but he was still partly linked to Keegan’s mind, and he could feel the sensations that passed through the Father. He knew he shouldn’t be snooping, but he couldn’t help himself. He promised himself he would only sense what was happening. He didn’t need to see with Keegan’s eyes.

  Father Keegan drew a ragged breath. The shadowed outline revealed every curve as Gabrielle pulled a garment over her head. Keegan discarded his robe. A black undergarment fell to the floor. Keegan entered the bed, slipping behind the secretive curtain. Flames of Light burst through the canopy, spreading to the spiralled roof, until the sprites curled and flicked as far outwards as the walls. It looked like a giant flower held in a vase of darkness. The light outlined the two figures in the bed with startling clarity.

  Ashley tried to contain his own reactions enough to stay hidden, but it took all the willpower he had. The referred passion continued to erupt, threatening to arch his back or clench his stomach involuntarily. A hunger for the Dark wriggled into his core, like a weevil. It was repulsive.

  It was delicious. The pleasure! He dipped further into the pool of Keegan’s mind, and felt all the passions, experienced all that Keegan did. It was intoxicating, a wild ride into the forbidden. Irresistible excitement coursed through him. He was beginning to realise that he had the same weakness as Father Keegan. He suspected every man did.

  Gabrielle had conquered her prey. Her enchantment began to change, from mental to physical. Ashley felt the vortex within Keegan’s mind slow and fade, as it was overwhelmed by the surging passion. He was free to release his telepathic link with Keegan.

  It was his chance to escape. He knew he should try to run while the lovers were intent only on satisfying their desire. But the strange lust coursed through his blood, his own desire held him captive.

  He didn’t want to run. The call of passion was urgent, undeniable. Pleasure clawed at his will, begging abandon.

  The room became a swirling mass of confusion. The carpet of black satin rose from the floor, and the Flic
ker shattered into thousands of tiny sprites. The Light and Dark mixed in a sea of swirling particles. Wild currents spun through the room. A mote struck Ashley’s cheek, causing a sharp, cold pain. A sprite burned like a hot spark. Again and again he was struck, and he pulled the cowl of his robe up to protect his head. Raw elemental magic, summoned but not commanded in a spell. So much power contained in so small a space.

  The tempo of the lovemaking increased. Gabrielle threw her head backwards and mouthed silent words to the air. Father Keegan was locked in her arms. They formed the eye of the whirlpool. Chips of rock flew from the walls.

  Gabrielle’s words were clear and sharp, like the warning crack of ice before the avalanches of the high mountains.

  “Now, command your Light into the pattern of the Turning. You know the one I mean.”

  Keegan’s voice was thick with the agony of his crumbling resistance. “The twisted circle?”

  “Only you can do it. I need you, Keegan. Do it, for me.”

  “Creator have mercy on me,” the Father whispered. He was bonded to Gabrielle. Ashley supposed it was like the crazed compliance of a condemned man stretched on the rack—once you were tied, helpless, you would do whatever the torturer asked—except that here, Keegan was being tortured with pleasure, and it was his own lust that condemned him.

  “Command it! I need you!” whispered Gabrielle.

  Ashley didn’t need the telepathic link to know what caused Keegan’s back to arch. Keegan shouted words Ashley had never heard before, certainly never in the Dovecote. Nonsensical half-finished commands. The sprites encircled the bed guided by the pattern Keegan held in mind.

  As the sprites shimmered along in the current of essence, Ashley realised that the twisted circle had only one surface to it. Unlike a true ring, with an inside and an outside, a half-twist in the pattern meant that the two sides were linked into one. The pattern seemed simple, but it was impossible to concentrate on for too long. It must have two sides, but it had only one, no matter how he looked at it. It was fascinating. He almost forgot where he was.

  Then Gabrielle’s voice joined Keegan’s, and the half-formed commands became full words. “Hold the pattern, round and round, in the hidden turn, to the stronger will be bound.”

  Both Lightgifter and Shadowcaster were concentrating on the spell, that was clear from their sudden stillness. The only movement was the flowing Light essence, bound in its pattern. Then Dark bloomed amongst the sprites, replacing the sparkling essence like a blood-stain soaking through fabric. As the current swept on, the blemish spread, turning the sprites to motes, the Light to Dark.

  Ashley was stunned. Before his eyes, the essence was transformed. When all the Light had been turned, Keegan cried out and slumped to the bed. The slick Dark essence continued to flow in the pattern of the twisted circle, bound by Gabrielle’s will. The room became so dark Ashley could only see vague shapes in the gloom and the river of glistening motes where it blocked the ruddy glow of the hearth. He knew he should go, but feared moving more than anything now. The room was full of Dark essence, and the Shadowcaster commanded it all.

  “Now the essence is more useful to both of us,” Gabrielle purred, as she spread her hands. “Your reward, my lover! Now you become one with us, and reach the climax.” She gathered the motes, then cast them to the walls. A wave of Dark returned, drawing all of the motes in the room toward Gabrielle.

  “We shall gather the rest of the Gifters, turn them together. Then the Source, so we might at last create Darkness ourselves. Then we shall have the power to move on Stormhaven. The King shall fall, and our Master shall have all of Eyri. And we shall be granted great favours for our service.”

  Keegan grunted and groaned, driven by Gabrielle’s sudden movements on top of him. Motes swarmed around her, tightening in her hands, which she suddenly brought to Keegan’s Lightstone. She threw her head back, eyes to the roof, and began to chant, moving upon Keegan all the while.

  Ashley didn’t hesitate this time. He used the gap to run for the door.

  Keegan cried out.

  “I am the shadow and he is my master. He is the shadow and I am his caster!”

  There was a hiss, of fire plunged into water, and a cry, full of violence and ecstasy. The room became a maelstrom of Dark essence, thrown by two Shadowcasters in wild abandon.

  Ashley didn’t look back. Ice burned the back of his legs. He was propelled through the archway and out into the passage beyond. The darkness was lifted only a few shades by the faint illumination of his Lightstone.

  At least mine is still intact.

  Cold air drifted through the passage. Ashley took the turns which led against the breeze, hoping it would return him to the entrance he had used. He moved as fast as he dared. Having been released from Keegan’s mind and the fierce grip of the seductress, he felt empty and weak. The passages seemed to have no end, twisting, turning, branching out. He heard voices and shied from their source. He ran from sudden footsteps as silently as he could, shielding his Lightstone in his hand. He lost track of the time, and began to shiver from the cold.

  The labyrinth seemed to go on forever. But at last the breeze was more insistent. And there, at the end of a narrow straight, was an archway beyond which rain sluiced upon open ground. He didn’t hesitate, but scuttled into the night beyond. Escape was the only option worth considering.

  It was a raging storm outside. He was soaked the instant he stepped from the tunnel. Yet nobody would see him leaving the vale in the storm. He pulled the hood of his robe tight against his head. He had escaped the Keep, but somehow it didn’t feel as if he had escaped from Ravenscroft.

  * * *

  It took him the remaining hours of the night to find his way to the bridge, or at least to the place where the road had crossed the chasm. He lost his way often in the driving rain, and found himself in the arms of skeletal trees, or skidding downhill over wet stone. He became desperately cold. His teeth chattered by themselves.

  One thought kept him fighting, kept him moving against the mounting fatigue. If the Shadowcasters could turn the Source to release only Dark as Gabrielle had declared, they would have absolute power. The Light would be extinguished from Eyri. He held onto the thought of saving the Source, though he had no idea of how to achieve it. Only that it must be done.

  He had been prepared for the terror of crawling across the black surface of the bridge, slick with rain, buffeted by the dreadful gusts of the storm. He had not been prepared for what lay there when he reached it.

  The bridge was gone. The chasm yawned hungrily from below, swallowing sheets of cold rain into its turgid flood.

  He searched for a sign of the old bridge—a broken stone, a jagged edge, anything—but there was nothing. The road ended abruptly, the line was clean as if cut with a knife. Either he was in the wrong place, or the entire bridge had vanished. A bridge of black rock, rimed with ice. He stared into the rushing torrent far below, and thought about the power of the Dark essence, and what it could be used for.

  It was impossible. He was certain that the Shadowcasters could not cause rock to disappear. If they wielded such powerful magic, they would have ruled Eyri long ago.

  And yet, there was no bridge.

  His mind refused to work. A mist of exhaustion blurred the edges of his vision. He bit his knuckles to fight the advance of fatigue.

  Think.

  There was a deep channel of water that passed him on the landing. The rain caused it to overflow, but most of it streamed to the edge and feathered in the wind to spray.

  Why do they channel water to flow to waste in the chasm?

  He strained to see if there was a similar channel on the far side of the chasm, on the landing there. The thick clouds overhead and the driving rain yielded nothing of the dawn but a faded gloom. There was little detail in what he saw, but he thought he spied a frayed stream falling from the cliffs. Beside it, a red-robed figure, arms raised.

  The ragged probes of Dark essence which pushed
out from the figure’s hands left no doubt as to what kind of traveller he was. Ashley jumped for cover behind a boulder.

  The Shadowcaster worked erratically at his spell. It seemed to be a very complicated action, which required much dancing around, shouts and howls, sudden moments of inactivity, and short bursts of commanding the essence. Gradually, a transformation took place. The Dark essence was strung across the chasm, a thin line of motes which Ashley knew could bear no weight. The Shadowcaster shouted, but most of the words were torn away in the wind. He appeared to sit in the rain for a while, staring into the chasm, or at Ashley.

  He couldn’t have spied him from afar!

  The Shadowcaster commanded his essence with a harsh cry.

  Ice formed on the line that had been cast, right up to where Ashley hid. Black ice, assuming the colour of the essence within it. The spill from the channel collected in the ice runner. Water poured into the curved guide, and was carried out across the span. The Shadowcaster cried out again, and this time the wind did not tear the words apart.

  “Freeze.”

  The runner of black ice was a foot wide, then two. Rain collected in the construction, and the Shadowcaster used it to build his narrow bridge, warped and incomplete, but a bridge nonetheless. The Dark essence created the pattern upon which the ice grew.

  The Shadowcaster disappeared into the darkness against the distant cliffs. Ashley resigned himself to a wait. The bridge was not nearly wide enough for a safe crossing, yet once it could bear the Shadowcaster one way, it could bear him to freedom. He hoped that the Shadowcaster would not destroy the bridge the moment he’d crossed.

  The figure burst from the gloom, and dived headlong from the distant landing, his stomach to the bridge. He fired across the chasm like an arrow borne upon the ice. The bridge narrowed almost to nothing in the centre. The Shadowcaster avoided falling by twisting as he slid. Moments later, he had slid all the way the near landing, and was over the lip of it, rising from his knees within the ice and water.