by Sarah Hoyt
The lady ran to the stones and then walked around, touching now this stone, now that, with the look of someone who is greeting old friends. “Strange,” she said. “That it is not on a mountain top, or at least a hilltop, as these circles often are.”
But before he could point out that they were in a small hollow atop a larger mountain, she frowned at him and smiled. “Doesn’t mean much, though, as they are a protective lock. These are, sometimes, when they are placed as protection; they are put where they are most needed.”
She walked around the circle, touching here and there again. D’Artagnan leaned against a standing rock, warm from the sun. The stone felt almost human there, behind him, as though it were supportive and calm, a friend or a relative. The lady certainly treated them as such, bowing to the one in the center, smiling at and touching the others.
She returned to him. “It will do. I don’t know what it is set to guard. The shielding here is too strong to feel whatever it is protecting us from.” She looked around and smiled a little. “But it is very alive and very good, and it is the ideal place for what I have to do.” She looked at him with defiance in her eyes, though he wasn’t sure what or whom she was defying. “Monsieur d’Artagnan,” she said. “We are threatened and besieged all around. I have some scant power that comes to me from my worship of the goddess, and from being her faithful servant. I will need all that power to extricate us from this situation and perhaps . . . ” she hesitated. “To help prevent the dark ones from unleashing the horror of more vampire wraiths upon the world.”
He took a deep breath. “Whatever you need of me, my lady.”
The defiance remained, but now her eyebrow lifted, and a brief, secretive smile trembled upon her lips. “As may be. But let me explain, first, as I know some have problems aiding with the rituals of another religion.”
He remembered Aramis’ words and couldn’t help smiling back at her. He sobered, though, as she said, “My power is of a particular kind. The goddess to whose worship I am devoted is a fertility goddess. Do you understand my meaning?”
He shook his head and she sighed. “My goddess derives her power from . . . . Her favored mode of worship is the . . . union of male and female, the . . . act,” she blushed deeply, “that can lead to the conception of a child. Are you willing to participate in this, to call her favor upon me so I can fight the evil of vampires?”
He could scarcely believe it, and when he believed it at last, he could scarcely take it in. These things did not happen to him or—he thought—to any male outside fevered dreams and fantasies. Perhaps he was dreaming. Perhaps he was still tied up in the carriage, surrounded by vampires, unable to escape except in dreams.
A deep breath, and he felt his fingers upon the rock, the rock rough beneath them, and he thought I am not dreaming.
He nodded once at her. “But you are married, Madame,” he said.
She smiled. “Ah, but I am married according to the rites of my religion, and when my husband cannot provide the necessary . . . ah, services, he has given me license to do what must be done. My estate in the mundane world requires the protection of marriage, but my estate in the sacred world requires that I be free.”
“I said I would do anything needed, lady, to help in the fight, and I meant it.” He inclined his head, almost afraid to see her expression; embarrassed and trembling and afraid she would say it was all an elaborate ruse.
Instead, even though her laughter rang in a merry peel, there was no derision in it. She led him by the hand and stood him by the biggest stone. In local lore, it represented the king. “Wait here, while I draw the circle that will keep us safe while we perform the ritual.”
He leaned back against the stone and watched, as she took from a pouch at her waist a small cup, a flask, a cloth bag, four candles, and a very small pottery container. From the boot of her male outfit she pulled a wicked-looking knife wrapped in leather and in silk. She unwrapped it, reverently.
It was hard to know exactly what she was doing, but the ritual and all the gestures involved looked as complex as what he had watched at mass for so many years. She poured water from flask to cup, then shook something white from the bag into the cup. She murmured some words under her breath, for all the world like the priest at mass. Walking around the outer circle of stones, she sprinkled water from the cup onto each stone, muttering something again. Then she came back, and taking the first candle she used the contents of the ceramic container to light its wick.—. Walking straight to the stone facing north, she intoned, “Power of the North, oh noble guardian, bestir yourself from your cold, wintry depths! Come stand by and protect us as we perform these, our necessary rituals.” Lighting another candle from the wick of the first, she set it down at the stone facing south, and then paced to those facing east and west, placing candles. She then brought out her knife.
She walked up to d’Artagnan. Her eyes were wild and, for a moment, d’Artagnan—remembering stories from classical times and the madness of the bacchantes—feared she would plunge that knife into his heart. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed his lips, momentarily. “I am now going to cut the circle out of the world,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?” he said, not quite believing what he’d heard.
She laughed again, a laugh that combined nervousness and amusement. “I am going to cut the circle we stand in out of the world, in a metaphysical sense. It doesn’t matter,” she said, seeing the lack of comprehension in his eyes. “It is all very complex and would take forever to explain, but for our ritual to succeed we need to avoid interruption, so I will now remove us in spirit, from the common world of humanity and onto another plane. We’ll still be here physically, but our spirits will not. It is very important that you understand,” she said, intently, “ this circle is sacred and drawn in my own energy. Once the ritual is completed you must wait until I’ve broken the circle with my knife before you step out. Do you understand?”
“Will it . . . kill me, if I do it wrong?” he asked. His life had been so strange these last few days that it was not beyond belief that a line drawn upon the ground by a knife could cause his death.
She shook her head. “No. Not physically. But it will render us both vulnerable. It will make the circle itself weaker, less able to keep the harmful forces at bay, perhaps even the ancient vampires . . . ” She sighed. “Do you know the story of Romulus and Remus, together, building the sacred wall within which Rome would one day stand?”
He nodded. “And then Romulus killed Remus,” he said, “so he would be king alone.”
“That’s one of the stories, but there’s an older one, which is told among those who believe as I do. The wall was a sacred circle, as is the one in which we stand now. My people say that Remus saw a bird flying by and, to catch it in his net, forgot about the ritual and stepped over the wall, breaking the circle before Romulus could break it properly. The pain of it drove Romulus insane, and he killed his twin with the sacred knife. He grieved afterwards, but he knew he had not been himself while caught in the throes of the broken circle.”
D’Artagnan warily eyed the sharp knife in her hand. .
“They were young men,” she said. “Raised rough and living rough, and violent by nature. I’m not threatening you with death. I’m simply saying that breaking the circle, unbidden, could have very bad consequences for both of us.”
He nodded solemnly, and she walked around the circle, drawing on the earth with the tip of her sharp, sharp knife. Then she stuck the knife in the ground in front of the king stone, and proclaimed, “I have cut us out of the plane of men, we now stand between the planes and everything is sacred.” And then she walked towards him.
The Power of the World
SHE kissed him again, brave and bold. Then her nimble fingers undid the ribbons that tied the doublet together. She removed it carefully, gently, as if d’Artagnan were either too old or too young to do this for himself. And, indeed, right then, his arms felt like running water and his legs littl
e better. The razor fell from his sleeve as she took his doublet; turning, she set the closed implement beside the garment on the grass, amid the stones.
He feared she’d think he was a fool for not acting, not helping, not doing anything, yet even more afraid of acting or doing something and being thought an even worse fool. Only one part of his anatomy was quite sure of itself—his arousal grew, and as she pressed her body against him, he thought she could feel it. In fact, he was sure she could feel it, and it changed the smile she gave him. It was more knowing, broader, secretive
She plunged her hands beneath his shirt and helped him remove it, then stepped back and removed—in swift and efficient movements—her own doublet and shirt, which she set nearby his. She danced close up to him again, her hands stroking down to the small of his back as she embraced him.
Her hands were not as soft as he expected. There was some callus there, the result of working with her hands he supposed, though he had no idea what type of manual labor her craft might involve. Nor did he want to stop to find out, as she caressed him from shoulders to waist, then back again.
Her firm breasts pressed against his bare chest, filling him with sensations remarkably akin to those from a raging fever. He went hot and cold, shivering uncontrollably.
His hands lifted, slowly, without real strength. Once they touched her skin and felt the rounded, swelling silk-softness of her bosom, he felt rejuvenated, and couldn’t have helped himself any more than he could have stopped his own heart with sheer willpower.
His mouth followed his hands, and then his hands were struggling with the ties to her breeches, pulling them down. She stopped him long enough to remove her boots, without which she would have become tangled in breeches and hose and boots..
As soon as she was nude, he undressed himself, a feat not so easily performed, since one of his hands was still busy on her shoulder, and rounding the curve of it to her arm, muscular and yet softer than any arm he’d ever felt.
Every portion of her fascinated him, and he wanted to feel it all, enjoy all of her. He freed himself of boots, breeches and hose, , and pulled her roughly against him. She had incongruously long legs for such a short woman, though her wide hips and broad breasts lent her silhouette more balance than he’d thought.
He kissed her lips, her eyes, the hollow of her throat, trailing down to follow the curve of her shoulder . . .
Their first coupling was brief and clumsy, tumbling upon the grassy ground, falling upon her and entering her almost all in one movement. The feeling of warmth and sweet confinement was too much, something he had only dreamed of before, and he spent in her almost immediately.
She waited, caressing all the while, and then she rolled him onto his back and sat astride him. His erection returned almost immediately. This time she guided him within and she controlled the movement, forcing a slow rhythm on his impatience, tormenting him with touches and kisses, as she led him up a seemingly endless slope of pleasure to a long-delayed and satisfying summit.
Waves of pleasure washed over him, each higher than the last. Heat or joy or perhaps music—all his senses being scrambled and mingled and impossible to tell apart—swirled about them, as the pleasure opened like an abyss and swallowed him, and he fell, headlong, into a joyous semblance of death or godhead.
They made love again and again, heedless of the time, lost in a world of their own and smiled upon by a benevolent divinity, in which neither hunger nor hurt intruded, .
When it was over, he lay on the grass on his back, surprised to see that it was early evening and the sunset sky a dark, dark red, like spilled blood.
Madame Bonacieux got up and bowed to him, a small, precise bow, “I thank you, Monsieur, for your help in worship.” A small smile played on her lips, but he couldn’t tell if it was pleasure, amusement or politeness, or a combination of all of those.
“Capture him!” The words, shouted by Rochefort dissipated the veil of satisfied pleasure and d’Artagnan bolted upright. Looking over his shoulder he saw a mass of the ancient vampires hurtling toward him.
It didn’t work, he thought, they are free! And, reaching for the razor blade from beside his doublet, he charged out of the circle, ready to defend his lady.
A twinge, like the feeling that makes one’s hair raise in the middle of a thunderstorm, told him he’d broken the circle and he heard Madame Bonacieux scream, “Stop!” But too late.
He turned around, ready to reenter, just in time to see her doubled in pain, but it was too late; he was swiftly overtaken by the writhing mass vampire wraiths. He slashed about him with his blade, but even as he thought his sword would have been ineffective against this multitude, his blade hit a bone and snapped in two.
He thought of Jean, being drained of life; his pause cost him any advantage he might have had. He was thrown onto the grass, held down by the wraith vampires .
His last vision as he was dragged backward was of the hoard of ancient vampires—a swarm of darkness—toppling one standing stone, and then another.
It is the end of the world.
That Fool Man
ATHOS relished riding for once, on this very strange trip. Throughout the last few days they’d been traveling during the day to avoid snares laid by vampires on the roadways they must use. In a previous village, where they had stopped to water their horses, they had been fortunate to find an abandoned racing gig that must have been some young man’s pride and joy before the vampires came. It was musty and disused and needed repair, but upon inspection, it became clear the top of the seat would come off, and if Athos lay inside it, with the seat covered by a scrap of tapestry, no light could penetrate.
Hiring four horses to pull the gig had been more difficult, as their own horses were not broken to harness. The horses they’d found were rather short in the back, but despite this they made excellent time.
Athos did not complain of the accommodations since, while in the seat, he slept deeply, with the somnolence that affected vampires in daylight.
But at the end of the today, they’d decided to press on, knowing they were near. They’d left the gig and the horses that pulled it with a farmer, taking to their own trusted mounts once again.
This had left Athos to ride again with his comrades, but without worry of sleeping near them. Tonight, his friends—being so close to d’Artagnan’s domain and having heard stories of a vampire carriage heading toward it—had decided to push on, ignoring their fatigue. They’d allowed the horses to rest a few hours, and they were now again bent on pursuit.
Whether staying in hostelries, or camping in the forest or by the roadside, he had always taken care to sleep away from his friends. He’d noticed, though, every time he woke, Grimaud woke too, as though he’d trained himself to wake when Athos stirred. Knowing Grimaud always had the sharpened stake at hand was an odd sort of comfort.
Since the awful night and the wolf pup, he’d taken great care to have broth by him as he slept. The horror of tasting it was usually enough to sober him from the dreams that were becoming, unfortunately, all too frequent.
But tonight, Athos would not think of stakes or of his horrible dreams. He was riding free under the stars, on Samson, his night black horse, hand reared by him from a colt.. He’d calmed and accepted that Athos presented no danger to him, so they had resumed their former good understanding, in which Samson moved as if controlled by Athos’ own thoughts.
Given their perfect coordination and the fact that Samson had been galloping without rider all day and was therefore far less tired than the other horses, they kept outdistancing the others and riding well ahead. Finally Athos remembered there might be dangers that needed all of them together. He reined in his mount enough for the others to catch up with him.
After riding Samson madly and freely through mountain roads, nearer to the edge of the precipice than Athos would trust any other mount, they’d found themselves in relatively open country, the road winding between trees on one side and a grassy plain on the other. Rein
ing in Samson, Athos, noticed there was an ancient circle of stones on one side and, in the distance, a lone bastide.. He also recognized his friends were getting just far enough behind that it might be dangerous should he encounter trouble first—or if trouble overtook them from behind.
The thought of trouble took his hand to his sword, as a tatterdemalion figure burst out of the stone circle, yelling, “That foolish man, foolish, idiot! You must do something!”
The creature looked all the more frightening because it wore a man’s clothes, but it had the long, flowing blond hair of a woman. It seemed too that it had dressed hastily, for it had breeches but no hose, and its doublet was pulled on askew and sideways.
Athos thought they were some sort of tramp, or worse; he imagined it was a lure thrown by the local Judas goats who perhaps found creatures of this type enticing.
But as the creature came closer, it said, in a voice full of female tears, “Monsieur Athos.”
He did not let go of his sword nor push it back in after pulling it out of its scabbard a palm or so, but he did frown and look closer at her. Under the tousled hair which formed an obscuring curtain in front of her face, and the clothes which he recognized for Grimaud’s own second best doublet and hose, he now saw Madame Bonacieux’ tear-stained face, her wild eyes.
She still wore her rose around her neck, he noted. Had she not, he’d have thought she was turned. But as it was, he said only, “Madame,” in a tone of shock, as she came very close and lay her hand on Samson’s mane and looked up at Athos with eyes that were so tear-filled and intent as to seem almost blind. “Monsieur Athos,” she said. “You must help that foolish man.”
“What man, Madame?” he said, recognizing depths to her speech that he couldn’t quite understand and that the word foolish conveyed an odd sort of affection, perhaps love. “Of whom do you speak?”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” she said, and started pouring out a wild tale of d’Artagnan dropping off a building, and other stories, stranger and darker. Something about a sleeping battalion of ancient ones, poised to take over the world, about someone who had almost lured d’Artagnan without a fight, about passages and secret rooms, and a primeval painted cave.