I love you, Miles wanted to cry out, but he could only grunt.
“I want to put my cock inside you, Miles,” Harry growled, pushing his fist in deep. “I want to spend myself inside you.”
Still unable to speak, Miles nodded.
There was a brief, agonizing moment when Harry withdrew—and then he was pushing inside Miles again, pressing in and down, stretching Miles again, burying himself until their chests were pressed together, flesh to flesh. For a moment they held like that, fully joined, straining, gasping. Then Harry reached between them, took Miles’s cock inside his fist, and began to move.
Miles shut his eyes and gave himself to his lover. But where the other time had been a fucking, a slaking, this time it was a union and a claiming. It was beautiful, a total surrender, Miles yielding, Harry thrusting, both of them giving to one another until there was no beginning and no end. And it was too much, too intense; despite the lingering before, neither of them could last now, and Miles bucked and spurted between their bodies just before Harry groaned and buried deep, filling Miles with his warm, thick seed.
Harry gasped, bucked once more, and collapsed into Miles’s willing arms.
“That was incredible.” Harry dragged a weary kiss against Miles’s throat. “You are incredible.”
Miles smiled and kissed him back. “Let’s rest a bit, and we’ll do it again.”
Harry laughed wickedly, drawing his hand down Miles’s side. Then, abruptly, he tensed. He withdrew and rose to his knees, his face white with fear.
“He’s here—no warning at all! I didn’t even feel him drawing close!” He gripped Miles’s arm. “You must go! Hide! Don’t let him find you!”
“I won’t leave you,” Miles said, as they scrambled to their feet. He looked around the room. “Murali—Terris! Help me!”
“You must go!” Harry cried again. “You must escape!”
There is no escape for either of you, a great voice boomed inside their heads. And there never will be.
The dungeon rushed with wind, then filled with bright, bright light and the sharp scent of summer night, and when the light faded, the Lord of Dreams stood in the center of the room, bearing down upon them.
Chapter Eleven
For if you leave me, lover, the truth I must face:
my life is just misery, just loss, just disgrace.
Please, lover! Please take me on wing or on sigh!
For if you do not claim me, then I will not die.
THE LORD OF Dreams filled the dungeon. He stood no taller than either Harry or Miles, but his glamour pressed against the room, dominating both the space and the minds within. I am the whole world, his mere presence declared, and it wasn’t a statement or a challenge: it was a truth. There was nothing outside the Lord of Dreams when you were within his sphere, and when he noticed you, you were helpless.
Right now he noticed Miles.
Miles had been able to cast his eyes down, but it was like averting his eyes from a furnace: the heat still burned him. He could feel the Lord of Dreams moving his gaze across him, sensing his existence but not able to see him properly because of the silver. If the Lord hadn’t been seeking him, Miles thought he might have escaped. But without Murali, without Terris, now that the Lord bore down on him, there was no way out, even with the silver.
“Who is this creature?” the Lord of Dreams demanded. “Who is this who is here but is not?” The intensity of his gaze shifted to Harry. “What magician have you brought into your lair, and from where did you get the arrogance to think you could so defy me?”
It took every ounce of Miles’s will to keep from calling out, from throwing himself at the Lord’s feet and confessing, not from fear, but by sheer compulsion. Which was why he was all the more impressed when Harry tipped his head back, looked the faerie straight in the face, and lied.
“There is no one here, My Lord. Someone came and cast a spell on me, but I did not see who they were, and they have already gone.”
“Liar!” the Lord of Dreams roared, making the dungeon shake.
Miles swayed on his feet and staggered to keep from falling over.
Harry swayed, too, but he moved with the faerie’s rhythm, and he stood fast. He said nothing.
“He’s filled you with silver, whoever he is,” the Lord snarled. “Not enough to hide you, but enough to make you belligerent. Well, human, you’ll sweat that out soon enough. Don’t get too smug in your sanity. You know it’s only harder on you when you have this far to fall.” His tone lightened a little, and he sounded almost pleased. “You haven’t been this whole, in fact, in a long, long time. I might start paying more attention to you again. You’re such an interesting diversion as you lose your mind.”
“As it pleases you, of course, My Lord.” Harry bowed.
Miles gritted his teeth and clenched his hands at his sides, but he kept his head down.
Even that, though, had been a mistake, he soon realized—the Lord of Dreams jerked to attention, a gesture Miles could not see but still felt. The awareness came upon him again.
“By the light—he’s still here! Entirely invisible, and he’s angry with me!” The Lord laughed. “Ooh, he’s furious with me—and terrified, all at the same time. How delicious. Ewart, you scamp! Are you harboring a human?”
“I harbor no one, My Lord,” Harry said, still preternaturally calm.
The Lord of Dreams snorted. “You always did enjoy a loophole. Well, you’re already becoming boring again, I’m sorry to say. I think it’s time to pull Terris out of his stuffing, don’t you? It might be amusing to see what my fair faerie has to say about all this.”
Terris? Miles looked up as much as he dared, and saw the Lord of Dreams crossing the room toward a far wall, where Miles realized for the first time there was a door. Hardly realizing he was doing so, he drifted across the room after the faerie, slipping behind the door just in time before it closed. He stood motionless in the shadows, watching as the Lord of Dreams waved a hand and made gray, shadowy servants appear from thin air. They shuffled forward like wraiths, and with skeletal hands undid the iron bands that held the box together before they slid the heavy stone top aside.
“Don’t look,” said a mild, quiet voice beside his ear.
Miles turned and saw Terris there, but it was a faint, transparent Terris. He watched the box open with a closed, granite-like expression.
“I can’t take much of a form with him in the room,” Terris went on in the same tone, “but after hearing my tale, you should have already guessed that you won’t like what you see of my body in its prison. It will upset you, which will only give him more power over you. It’s bad enough that he was able to draw you into my room. Things will get black if you let him take this much further.”
Miles wondered if he could whisper without being heard.
Terris shrugged. “Hardly necessary, since I can hear everything you’re thinking. But yes, I think he’d hear you. You aren’t very guarded under normal circumstances. Silver can only do so much.”
I need more, Miles thought. So I can resist him.
“If I give you any more, you’ll resist breathing. I’m already using considerable force to prop you up as it is. You’re sweating silver, darling, you have so much inside you. It’s a shame we’re not near a mirror. You’re going to make a very handsome older man.”
Miles reached up and touched his hair self-consciously. Then, without meaning to, he turned back toward the center of the room just as the lid was lifted away. He thought he saw a pale gray foot, twitching.
Terris grabbed his face and wrenched it back. “You are so weak,” he snapped. “You let anyone into your mind just for tapping on your skull, don’t you?”
Did he? Miles tried to disprove this, to push everyone out in defiance, and the next thing he knew he was drifting, like a silver feather, to the ground.
“Idiot,” Terris hissed as he propped him back up again. “Don’t resist me. Resist him.”
“I’m trying,” M
iles whispered, then realized he’d said it out loud and glanced at the Lord of Dreams in alarm. And saw his face.
It was over. Completely, totally, forever—over.
There was a moment that he wasn’t enslaved, a little sliver of time where he saw it all and understood, in an academic way, that Terris had mimicked the Lord of Dreams all along, both in habit and in appearance, and that he had even been learning from his magical techniques. He understood the way and shape of all the illusions: Terris had never left his prison, but he had created a glamour of the mind in the same way that the Lord of Dreams created his glamour of a forest world. Miles suspected that above him he would find the same glittering castle through which Terris had led him, only the true palace would be bigger and grander and even more perfect. Terris had punctured that glamour, too, using silver he gathered sometimes from the very air around him to make a mirror, and he had used Harry as his bait, letting him out into leaky places in the world, to people who yearned for the sort of perfection faeries can provide. But this dungeon was real, not glamoured at all.
And neither was the Lord of Dreams.
That was his magic. Most faeries, including Terris, wore illusions, but the Lord of Dreams truly was this beautiful, this perfect. He was made, after all, out of the fantasies of mortals, of their wishes and yearnings, and he ruled them all, luring them into his land both in sleep and in their waking lives. To look him in the face was to see everything your heart hoped for, every secret longing fulfilled and reflected back to you. No human, no matter how much silver he carried, could turn away.
“Yes,” the Lord of Dreams said, his voice so beautiful, so perfect, spilling from those lips that Miles longed to kiss, to touch, to simply stare at for the rest of his life, because nothing else would ever be as good or wonderful as this. He sighed and reached for him, and the Lord of Dreams reached back. “Yes, my child. I cannot see you, but I can feel you. Human. Sweet human, full of dreams. Give them to me, all of them, and I will show you your pleasure. I will give you what you have longed for.”
Miles could see it. He could see all of it, and he smiled as he reached out to take the faerie’s hand, knowing that when he touched it he would feel the fire, and it would burn him so beautifully. He felt the silver melting away, out of his body, and he let it go, because he didn’t need it, not with Him. He didn’t need anything, and he never would, not ever again, if he could only touch that hand—
There was a flash before him, a silver light. For one second he saw Murali, smiling kindly at him. Then he saw nothing at all—nothing but himself. He drew back, and so did he, the image before him.
A mirror. He was looking into a mirror.
Terris was right—he was gray from head to toe. His hair glistened silver-white, and his skin had a metallic pallor, as did his lips, his nose, his teeth. He looked down at his hands and saw that his fingernails were silver, too, as if they had been painted.
There was a roar and a crash, and the mirror cracked.
It flew straight into Miles’s eyes.
It hurt. It hurt a lot, and Miles shrieked in pain, clawing at his eyes to get it out, but it buried itself deep, and after a few seconds, it barely hurt at all. He lifted his head, wiping the blood away from his face—silver blood, he saw, glancing at his wet hands—and he looked up again at the faerie.
This time he screamed and backed away.
Through the shards of mirror, the Lord of Dreams was not a vision, but a nightmare. He was not tall and handsome and perfect. He was slight and stooped and thin, gaunt, distended—terrible. He was cold, and he was helpless, uglier than anything Miles had ever dreamed could be. He was waste. He was absence living, a yawning horror of a creature. He was made of dreams, yes: empty, impossible dreams, the echoes that hearts knew they needed to discard but could not bring themselves to toss away. He ate those dregs up and spun them back into beauty, but he himself was empty. Now that Miles saw, he was horrified. The Lord of Dreams was a living terror, containing nothing, existing of nothing, able only to suck out souls.
Miles turned away.
Harry was here, too, looking not at the Lord, but at Miles, heartsick until he saw Miles’s face, and then he looked relieved. “Miles,” he whispered, then fell silent as the Lord of Dreams raised a hand and Harry fell into silence.
“There is someone here,” the faerie hissed. “Not Terris, and not my slave. Not the human. Someone is helping it. And when I find out who it is, I will show no mercy.”
Terris drifted up beside Miles, looking alarmed. “Mirrors in your eyes. You’ll never survive this.” He touched Miles’s silver skin and shook his head. “He’s poured it into you. Half the flute, at least. No—by the stars, he’s put it all in you! Murali’s run mad. What good is this going to do?”
Miles didn’t know, but he knew he was very, very dizzy. He staggered backward, shaking his head. “I feel funny,” he said. He sounded funny too. He sounded musical, like Murali. He looked across the room at Harry, who had gone still and quiet.
“The Lord of Dreams still has Ewart under his spell,” Terris said gently. “He has never been able to be what Ewart desires, but he can still control him, as he’s human.”
“Why?” Miles said. He braced against the stone box for support. He glanced around absently, wondering where the gray servants had gone. “Why can’t he be what Harry desires?”
“Because I put a spell on Ewart,” Terris said, a little tersely. “I gave him a mirror and showed him his beloved, his true heart. That’s all he’s ever wanted, ever since.”
Miles looked across the room at Harry, cowering calmly as the Lord of Dreams raged over him. “Is that me?” he asked quietly. “Am I his beloved?”
Terris snorted. “Everyone is his beloved. That’s the trick, you see? Ewart loves whoever he sees. It was supposed to be me. I wasn’t smart enough yet to realize it wouldn’t work on a faerie.”
“Oh.” Miles felt suddenly hollow. “So—so no one can save Harry?”
“No,” Terris said, distracted. “But he doesn’t matter. He’s no use to me.”
“He is to me,” Miles snapped. Then swayed.
“You’re getting sicker.” Terris flattened his lips and shook his head. “Damn you, Murali, this is a waste.”
“People are more than just useful.” Miles’s voice was growing faint. “We aren’t entertainment, and we aren’t vehicles of escape.”
“Says the man who spent a decade angry with the world for not behaving as he wanted it to. ‘I’m so much better than this.’ You looked at the world and all you saw was what it could give you, what it could do for you, and most of all, what it wasn’t giving you. It never occurred to you that you might be without because someone else needed something, or because you had something else instead. No, you were just like a fey, Miles. You looked at the world and knew it owed you, because you didn’t see anything but what it could do for you.”
“That’s not true,” Miles whispered, sick at heart because he knew that it was.
The Lord had stopped shouting at Harry and had come back over to the crypt. Miles gagged at the sight of the faerie lord, but the Lord of Dreams could not hear him now.
“I feel it,” the faerie said, reaching out for Miles with a gaunt hand. “I don’t know how it’s resisting me, but I’ll find it, and I’ll turn it into another beast. I’ll watch the pair of you rut together, then torture you to watch you howl. Just as soon as I find him—”
Miles staggered farther away, sliding farther down the box. Something brushed his hand, and he looked down.
“No!” Terris shouted, but it was too late. Miles had already seen.
There was a body in the stone box, but it could not be identified as a man. It was tortured and rotted, its flesh eaten away as if by acid, and where the iron stakes had been driven—which was pretty evenly every two to three inches—open wounds gushed black, sickly blood. It was a scene so gruesome it wouldn’t have been allowed in a horror film. The gore wasn’t the problem. It wasn�
�t even that the body was twitching in a constant, helpless spasm.
The mirrors in Miles’s eyes only further illuminated the despair, the pain, the stark suffering that the creature within experienced, would continue to know until the Lord of Dreams decided he’d had enough. Other faeries might have stopped it, but no one had come, and so it had not stopped. It had just gone on, and on, and on, a torture only a faerie could devise, and only a faerie could bear. But even on this creature for whom feelings were but dust on his clothing, the torture had begun to take its toll. The wraith standing beside Miles, the shard of Terris which had lured him here, which had flattered him and made love to him, which had seen so deeply into the heart of him—that part knew no pain.
The creature inside this box was now nothing but pain. And this creature was Terris too. The true Terris.
Something shifted inside Miles, a key turning in a lock. He felt Murali’s cool hands on his shoulders, then heard a faint, soft tune as Murali’s spell broke, unlocked by the gift of Miles’s soul.
Like a key borrowed and no longer needed, Murali gave it right back, and with it came all the pain, all the sorrow, all the ache—his own and Murali’s.
Miles was dimly aware that he sobbed, but mostly he knew he had to stop this, that what had been done to Terris was wrong beyond wrong. Reaching into the box, he dug his silver-coated fingers into the flesh and yanked out the iron stakes one by one. The gray servants reappeared, hissing, but Miles only shouted at them and knocked them back and went on with his work.
Terris stood beside him, watching impassively.
“This isn’t going to do any good,” he said, curling his lip in disgust as a bloody iron spike flew past his platinum head. “It’s not going to save your lover, and it doesn’t matter much to me.”
“It’s your body.” Miles pried out another stake.
The Lord of Dreams started and turned toward the box. Miles ignored him and continued to work.
“It’s a mess. This body is no good to me now. Even when it’s healed, it’s going to remember that pain. I can’t possibly live in it.”
Miles and the Magic Flute Page 17
