Lord of the Dark

by Dawn Thompson

  Walking around the pool, she looked into the water lit by torches in their brackets on the wall, seeking the shallow end, where the color would appear lighter and hopefully would allow her to see the bottom. She needn’t have bothered. When she reached it, the shallow end was marked by a pile of cushions and fluffy towels, which she assumed Marius had set there for her convenience. Kneeling down, she fingered the fabric and tested the softness. Eiderdown. Of course they would be plumped with the gleanings from local birds. Nature was represented everywhere on the Forest Isle kindly and reverently.

  The pool was inviting, but exhaustion won out. Rhiannon sank lower into the cushions and closed her eyes, listening to the soft lapping of the ripples on the breast of the water echoing musically. Sleep took her quickly, but it was a restless sleep fraught with strange murmurings and shadowy dreams that wouldn’t come clear except to project their eerie essence. She had no idea how long she had slept, or what wrenched her suddenly awake. Whatever it was, her breath was coming short and her heart was racing. Supposing it was due to the anxiety of worrying over what was happening in the forest, she swallowed her rapid heartbeat and struggled to a sitting position, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Beads of cold perspiration had broken out over her brow. It ran in rivulets between her breasts and down her spine. She was drenched in sweat, suffering strange recollections of Gideon’s hands upon her, petting her—arousing her.

  Rhiannon scrambled to her feet and padded around the circumference of the little pool to the door. Frantically, she tried the latch handle, but it wouldn’t budge. The door was still locked. Gideon hadn’t returned. She was hoping that the sultry dreams charging her sex hadn’t all been dreams, hoping that Gideon had returned after all.

  Still hopeful, she called out to him, but no answer came, and her posture collapsed as she returned to the shallow end of the pool, where writhing tufts of fragrant steam were rising from the water. She had slept, but she hadn’t rested. Her body ached from ordeal and exhaustion. How good it would feel to slip into that pool of silky water perfumed with pine tar and rosemary—scents of the wood, of the forest, heady and mysterious, so soothing to sore, tired flesh and aching muscles. Without giving it a second thought, she stripped off the wheat-colored homespun kirtle and stretched naked, like a lazy cat, at the edge of the pool. Then taking a deep breath, she submerged herself to the neck in the soothing flux of gentle ripples and drifting vapors in a desperate attempt to purge the stench of Outer Darkness from her nostrils.

  The weight of her long hair pulled her down in the water. Adrenaline surged and she quickly felt for the bottom. It was there, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she began to tread the smooth rocky floor, feeling for the drop off. Being natural, this pool was carved out of the reefs that formed the understructure of the islands just like the others. No two were alike. She could feel the pull from the deep end, where the water flowed on, eventually finding its way to other pools and air pockets and levels of existence beneath the sea.

  Mineral salt lines, ringing the inside edge of the pool, were visible where the rising and ebbing tide changed the level of the water. She was mindful of that in her explorations, judging from the residue that the tide must be rising now, and she swam back to the shallow end just to be sure. There, beside the cushions she found a shell holding a slab of soap that smelled of pine tar oil and a natural sea sponge. She raised the soap to her nose and inhaled deeply. It was a clean, crisp masculine scent, a testimony to the loneliness of the forest lord, whose bathing chamber she had invaded. No fripperies here, no feminine accessories or exotic oils, just subtle whispers of the forest, of the land, of Marius’s world. She took up the sponge and made a rich creamy lather with the soap that slid along her forearms as it burst into a profusion of tingling bubbles.

  Her tiny feet dancing on the floor of the pool, she began soaping herself in concentric circles starting at the base of her throat, then over her chest and full, round breasts. The gentle roughness of the sea sponge delivering the lather scraped her nipples, bringing them erect. The dusky rose nubbins grew hard as she lingered over them until the areolae puckered, making them taller still. The craters and crevices in the soapy sponge stimulating the sensitive buds set off a firestorm at the epicenter of her sex, calling warm pulsations to radiate throughout her belly and turgid thighs. Rhiannon moaned softly as she moved the sponge lower, following the contours of her torso, caressing her narrow waist and the curvaceous shape of her hips.

  Creating new lather, she soaped her belly, leisurely ringing the little hollow of her navel, as more riveting waves of sensation rippled through her sex. No crevice, no fissure would be left untouched by the wonderfully rich lather. Reaching behind, she concentrated upon the globes of her buttocks, gliding the sponge along the crease between, lingering over the dimples at the base of her spine. Soft murmurs leaked from her lips as she touched pleasure spots she’d all but forgotten, erogenous regions that Gideon had awakened for the first time, like the soft skin on the inside of her thighs, and the delicate creases behind her knees. Her toilette had become a sentient experience extraordinaire. She’d become totally enraptured. But why wouldn’t it chase the stench of Outer Darkness still clinging so stubbornly to her nostrils?

  All around her, a ring of soapsuds defined her shape in the water, nudging her in little caresses as she soaped the sponge again and slid it lower, squeezing the lather through the little thatch of pubic curls over her mound and uncovering the hardened bud beneath. Spreading her legs, she probed deeper, sliding the sponge the length of her nether lips seeking her folds, swollen with arousal, from steely clitoris to the tight pucker of her anus.

  The soap was rectangular in shape, a chunk evidently carved from a larger slab, its corners rounded from use. Rhiannon spread her nether lips and slipped it inside her, gripping it with the walls of her vagina, just as she had gripped Gideon’s penis when he was at the height of his climax. Again and again she tugged at it with her thickened folds, while sliding it in and out of her to the rhythmic demands of her need, until she lost her grip upon the slippery phallus it had become and drifted to the floor of the pool.

  She could still touch bottom, and she held her breath and dove beneath the surface to retrieve it, groping the pool floor. The soap escaped her twice before she captured it successfully. In the silt she’d stirred up at the bottom, she saw motion. The image wouldn’t come clear through the dark fog of underwater debris, but it looked like another pair of feet was padding toward her. Her heart leaped inside, and she surged upward. Had Gideon returned after all?

  As she broke the surface, he spun her around facing away from him and tied a silk scarf over her eyes. “Shhh,” he whispered huskily, “let me…”

  His hands were hot and skilled as he cupped her breasts from behind, his fingers working her nipples as he thrust himself against her, his hard penis riding the fissure between her buttocks. He began to undulate, grinding his body against her in the slippery water. When she reached to remove the silk blindfold, he spun her around facing him.

  “Shhh,” he murmured, when she started to speak. He grabbed her hands and lifted them to his lips as she tried again to remove the scarf over her eyes. “Let me love you…”

  His words were husky with desire as he crushed her close. He was holding her so tight against his erection, against the hard, roped torso, she could scarcely breathe. The air seemed thick of a sudden. The steam stung her nostrils. No…not steam—smoke! Where was it coming from?

  Rhiannon resisted, pressing her open palms against his chest. “Wait, Gideon!” she cried. “I smell smoke…Something is burning!”

  “Don’t touch my wings!” he gritted out as her hands groped for them.

  She paid him no mind. Something was wrong. Her hands making wild circles in the air searched for his wings just the same, but there were none, and she tore at the blindfold until she’d ripped it off despite his strong hands fisted around her wrists trying to prevent her.

  She screamed.
<
br />   It wasn’t Gideon at all. It was Ravelle, his horned head thrown back in riotous laughter. He’d evidently meant to prolong the deception as long as possible, but he hadn’t fooled her. She was far too clever for that.

  Across the way the pool chamber door was still latched, only now thick tufts of smoke were seeping in under the door sill. Rhiannon screamed again, calling Gideon at the top of her voice, but Ravelle’s blood-chilling laughter was her only answer. He was trying to drag her toward the deep end of the pool, where her terror of it would make her dependent upon him. He had nearly succeeded, when the water all around them began to roil and bubble, forming a vortex. When the swordfish leaped through the well of swirling water and stood dancing on its tail, menacing Ravelle, the demon let Rhiannon go just long enough for another figure to rise up from the whirlpool and seize her. It was Simeon, Lord of the Deep.

  “Do not be frightened, my lady,” he said. “I am simply repaying an old debt.”

  Rhiannon opened her mouth to scream again, but the sound froze in her throat for the suddenness of what was happening all around her. Thick smoke had all but obscured the swordfish jabbing at the demon with its long, razor-sharp sword as Simeon pulled her into the vortex.

  “Hold tight!” he charged.

  Rhiannon opened her mouth again to scream, for she was in mortal terror of the deep water that offered no safe bottom to her kicking and reaching feet, trying desperately to find it.

  Simeon paid her no mind. Swooping down, he blew his warm, salty breath into her nose and mouth, as he plunged with her in a rush of silvery phosphorescence deep beneath the surface of the water, the swordfish spiraling triumphantly after them into the abyss.

  26

  Enough! a familiar voice shouted in Gideon’s mind. I’ve yielded to you long enough. I’ll not stand by and wait till all hope is gone. He needs to know now, before it’s too late to help him.

  The other speaker Gideon had come to know as the argumentative one sighed. He is an entity to be reckoned with, your Lord of the Dark. I just want to be sure we aren’t offering something we will regret.

  The first speaker grunted. And what has she done, pray, that you would risk her life with the demons of Outer Darkness rather than bring him home?

  The other snorted. You know what invitation brings to bear, he said. Immortality is not something doled out lightly. He is larger than life, this fallen angel of the gods, and she…well…

  You would rather see her damned to Outer Darkness than bring peace and comfort to this prince of the air? One more mortal in our midst can hardly signify, considering all those that have crossed over since time out of mind. I say again, enough! We need him, ’tis time!

  They argued further, but Gideon couldn’t make out their speech. If only he knew what it all meant. There wasn’t time to think about it now. The rain had ceased, but a stiff wind had risen, and still the trees were silent. It was the strangest thing Gideon had ever seen. Trees that should be bent at the crotch, their branches sweeping the ground, stood motionless, while the howling gusts ruffled his long hair and narrowed his eyes to slits.

  “What is it?” Marius said, as they moved through the forest. “I know that look. What ails you?”

  “I do not know,” Gideon replied. “Voices…I hear them sometimes. They seem to be talking about me, but I cannot make out all that they say. What I can understand makes no sense, and yet…it seems so important that I hear it. Sometimes I think I’m going mad, and now that there is Rhiannon, it seems vital that I do hear their message. Then, there is this…this whatever it is that has driven the Ancient Ones in on themselves. I like it not.”

  “It is a reckoning,” Marius said flatly. “We’ve seen it before, the silence of the trees. Ravelle caused the last one, too, and many were lost—burned alive in their ancient hosts, laid to waste at the whim of a demon from the depths of Outer Darkness. Sacrilege!”

  “Can he be defeated?” Gideon asked, almost afraid of the answer, and with good cause judging from the expression upon the centaur’s face at the question.

  “No, he is immortal, even as you and I, but he can be driven back and kept in his place. Please the gods we can manage that before this sanctuary is ravaged again.”

  Gideon was about to reply when one of the voices in his mind spoke again—this time, it spoke to him. It had never done that before, and he stopped in his tracks and listened.

  Gideon, Ruler of the Dark, Prince of the Air, it thundered in his ears. Get you back to the lodge! That is where it has begun, your reckoning….

  There! The voice said to the other. Does that satisfy you? I will help him, but the choice will still be his.

  Gideon didn’t wait for the other’s reply. His extraordinary sense of smell raised his head into the wind and he inhaled deeply.

  “Smoke!” he cried. “Marius…the lodge!”

  The centaur pranced to a standstill. “Climb up!” he charged. Extending his arm, he pulled Gideon up on his back. “Hold on!”

  Galloping among the motionless trees with the wind whipping tears in their eyes was an experience that chilled Gideon to the bone. Of all the enchantments the archipelago had to offer, this phenomenon was by far the most bizarre, and the most blood-chilling. He clung to the centaur’s back with both hands fisted in the coarse pelt and prayed they weren’t too late. He could reach the lodge in record speed if he was to take to the air, but the watchers were still hovering, and he dared not risk it. A bolt of lightning gone astray like they were often wont to do would be catastrophic should it hit the trees.

  The smoke grew thicker the closer they came to the clearing. When it loomed up before them, the sight of the lodge engulfed in flames all but stopped Gideon’s heart.

  “Rhiannon…!” he cried, his voice trailing off on the wind. He slid off the centaur’s back and ran toward the writhing tower of flames, but a lightning bolt speared down in his path preventing him. In his haste to reach the lodge, he had forgotten about the watchers circling overhead. One was set to hurl another missile, when the whirr of an arrow in flight whizzed past Gideon’s ear on its way to its mark. It struck the watcher in the shoulder, catching him off balance as he hurled his missile down, and the bolt of deadly lightning spiraled off and missed its target striking a stile at the edge of the clearing instead.

  Marius put himself in Gideon’s path as he reloaded his bow. “You can’t!” he thundered. “The lodge is gone, Gideon. You cannot save that! It’s too late!”

  “But…Rhiannon!” Gideon cried. “I left her locked in the pool chamber. She didn’t want me to lock her in!”

  “There is nothing you can do!” Marius insisted. “That blaze will consume you.” Another arrow left his bow so swiftly Gideon didn’t even see him load it, then another, and another, but still the watchers hovered.

  Gideon raised both his fists to the heavens and let loose a string of blasphemies at the winged creatures that began hurling chain lightning down in all directions.

  She is not there, the voice shouted across Gideon’s beleaguered mind, for it was numb. Tears stung his eyes, and he spun in circles, pleading with the smoke-filled sky to give birth to the speaker.

  “Who are you!” he demanded. “What are you? Show yourself, or I will let these vile henchmen of the gods have their way with me at last. I do not want to live without Rhiannon!”

  “Gideon? Have you gone mad?” Marius hollered, his raised voice carried on the wind. “It’s only demon glamour. There is no one there!”

  “No!” Gideon insisted, holding his reeling head as if he meant to keep it from spiraling off into the storm. “The voice I told you about…it says she isn’t here.” He spun around again, his wild eyes dilated like a madman’s, and yelled into the wind, “Where is she, then?” he insisted of the disembodied voice. “Help me…tell me!”

  Seek her among the labyrinths of the deep, said the speaker. She is with Simeon.

  “What is it?” Marius called out, clearly nonplussed. “Get hold of yourself! That f
ire is spreading. We must dig a trench to stop it or the forest is lost!”

  “Simeon has her,” Gideon said.

  “You don’t know that,” Marius insisted. “Ye gods! I do believe you have gone mad!”

  Gideon reeled like a castaway lord. Ahead the lodge was nothing more than a fiery column reaching into the roiling clouds. Overhead, the watchers were closing in. He had never seen so many at one time dodging Marius’s arrows. The forest lord was right. The fire had to be stopped before it reached the Ancient Ones. Ravelle’s mocking laughter riding the wind underscored that. That they couldn’t see the demon by no means minimized the danger. Mere glamour or no, Ravelle was among them. He had to be driven back to Outer Darkness, and it had to be now, before more harm came to the isle.

  He had to believe that the voice had told the truth, that Rhiannon was safe in Simeon’s care. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate, that her spirit had risen with the belching plumes of fire and ash spitting sparks into the noonday twilight called by the storm, lost to him forever.

  Behind, a strange droning sound was coming from the forest. Had the trees found their voices? What did it mean? Overwhelmed, Gideon groaned. The wind whipping through his feathers had aroused him beyond the point of no return. His hard shaft strained against the seam of his eel-skin suit until he feared the seams would burst, and he loosed a cry he scarcely recognized as his own voice into the traitorous wind, as he came in involuntary spasms only to grow hard again as soon as the seed left his body.

  Help comes, the voice he’d been hearing called out over the din of frantic thoughts banging around in his brain. Do what needs must, then go to her and bring her home….

  Home? Gideon groaned. He had no home. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  There was a palpable silence before the voice came again. Your savior, it said, and said no more, though he called out to it again and again until his deep baritone voice broke, hoarse and breathless, and his heart felt as if it were about to burst through his chest.