by Joy Nash
The memory of the journey swirled on the surface of his mind’s eddy. Below it, submerged, floated dark eyes. Eyes like a mountain doe’s, flooded with terror. He had brought the sorceress to Zahta, hoping his grandmother could save the woman’s mind from destruction.
Zahta had given that task back to him.
Derrin flung a good-sized rock across the stream. It landed in the trees with a crack, loosing a swarm of sparkling ghilla bugs. He’d compelled an unwilling woman to the Na’tahar, the sacred joining of lovers. He’d felt her terror at his violation, and her shame that they had shared an erotic mental release. Guilt choked him, though he knew he’d had little choice. If he had realized the intimate Baha’Na bond could save the woman’s mind, he would have used it at once, while still in the Stronghold.
The last stone weighed heavily in his hand. Milky white, with veins of amber. Broken, sharp along one edge. Zahta had refused Derrin’s second request as well—to open her link to the Circle and call the web. She did not understand the twin threats of Madness and Blight, or, if she did, she chose not to acknowledge them. It fell to Derrin to return the woman to her home. He had an idea as to how he might find a path through the glittering strands without his grandmother’s assistance, but he couldn’t pursue it here in the wilderness.
A soft voice hailed him. Zahta. Of course, she would know where to find him. This place had been his boyhood sanctuary. He dropped the final stone into the stream and watched the ripples disappear into the flow of the water.
“What are you thinking, my son?”
Derrin guessed his grandmother already knew his thoughts. He met her gaze. “The Circle—”
“The Circle is empty. The web cannot be opened.”
He couldn’t stop himself from asking one more time. “If you would but try…”
“It is not our way. The Goddess has her own time.”
An old anger rose. He knew only too well how capricious the Goddess’ favor could be. He started to reply, then thought better of it. He nodded instead. “I’ll proceed without your help, then. At the sun’s rising, I leave for Galena. I dare not take the sorceress with me. Keep her safe here. I’ll leave a crystal for her protection.”
He hesitated, then asked the question foremost in his mind. “Have you told the woman why I drew her to the Na’tahar?”
“Yes, my son, but Gina did not believe me.”
A knot in Derrin’s stomach twisted. Guilt rose in a smothering wave. Gina. Hearing the woman’s name spoken aloud made her more real. More vulnerable.
“Derrin, you must not return to the Outside.”
He frowned, looking past his grandmother to the forest. “I can wait no longer. I must stop Balek’s folly before it’s too late. The Blight worsens daily. I fear it will spread even here, to the wilderness.”
“You will not conquer your fears by fighting on the Outside. I have need of you here. You must guide Gina to the Signs of the Goddess.”
His gaze snapped to hers. “The Signs? What are they to a woman from another world?”
She moved closer and placed a wrinkled hand on his arm. “The power of the Goddess knows not limits of this world. Gina must seek the Signs.”
“The Seventh as well?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Especially the Seventh.”
Derrin eyed his grandmother, his broodings forgotten in his amazement at this extraordinary request. He could think of a thousand reasons to ignore her petition and only one reason to grant it. Because she had asked.
Derrin may have lived among the Galenans for years, but not long enough to forget what it meant to be of the Baha’Na. The request of a Na’lara could not be denied. But why did Zahta think it necessary for an alien sorceress to seek the Signs? He could see no sense in it.
He shook off her arm. “Do not ask such a thing of me. I am no longer of the Baha’Na.”
“You were born a son of the Goddess, Derrin. So you remain, no matter where your choices have led.”
“Choices?” He spat out the word with a short, mirthless laugh. “When have I ever had a choice?” His rage flared, but it met only the deep calm of his grandmother’s eyes.
After a long moment, he looked away.
“In the visions of the night,” Zahta said, “I saw you and Gina journeying together, your fates entwined. You must guide her.”
Derrin muttered a curse. The dreams of a Na’lara were considered to be the will of the Goddess. Still, he had good reason to refuse. He began to explain again why such an undertaking would be impossible, then paused and reconsidered. Zahta had refused to open the web, but Zahta was not the only wise woman of the Baha’Na. Each clan honored its own Na’lara. There was a chance he might persuade one of the others to call the golden strands. If Derrin pursued his current plan—calling the web himself, with Balek’s webstone—his use of the unnatural crystal might well serve to amplify the plagues ravaging Galena.
“As you wish,” he said. “I will go.” After a moment’s pause, he added, “but the woman will not want to come with me.”
“Gina asks for you.”
The sorceress was asking for him, after the obscene union he’d forced on her? Either she was very brave, or very powerful. Derrin was glad she no longer had a crystal in her possession. The unusual pink stone from her gown nestled in a leather pouch with his own gems.
“Come,” Zahta said. Turning, she made her way up the narrow trail without a backward glance.
Derrin followed, the shadow of the boy he’d once been covering him like a shroud. In Galena, he could pass an entire season without a thought of the Baha’Na or the years before his manhood. Now he stood in the familiar landscape of his childhood, immersed in a world of aching beauty.
How had he ever found the strength to leave it?
He traced the flow of the sacred red river to its source. Gina sat near the entrance to the Wellspring cave, head tilted against the rock, eyes closed. Sunlight played on her face and on the cascade of her braids. Her firm breasts, molded by the doeskin of her dress, rose and fell in an even rhythm, merging with the song of a hidden bird. Her legs and feet were bare.
Derrin drew in a sharp breath as a jolt of raw desire shot straight to his cock. The sorceress from beyond the web no longer seemed so alien. He could all too easily imagine doing to her body what he had done to her mind.
Her eyes opened and he was falling, drowning. He’d been inside those eyes and beyond them. Dark eyes, nearly black. They had burned with shame as she’d shuddered with the pleasure of the Na’tahar.
The memory struck him like a kick in the gut and landed an even greater blow to his confidence. Gina scrambled to her feet. Derrin stared, unable to think of anything to say.
Zahta spoke. “Derrin has consented to be your guide, Gina. Will you seek the Signs with him?”
Derrin sensed turmoil coiling around Gina like a serpent. He felt her apprehension as a touch on his own mind. The sensation took him by surprise, though in truth he should have expected it. His spirit had been tuned to hers during the long heartbeats of the Na’tahar. Willing or not, she shared that bond with him now. A joining closer than any purely physical union. It was a tie that could not be easily broken.
Yes, he scented Gina’s fear as surely as the buck scented the doe, but when she lifted her chin he saw no sign of it on her face. She’d schooled her features into a cool mask, one Derrin recognized as courage.
“Yes,” she answered, speaking not to Zahta, but to him. “I’ll go with you.”
* * * * *
By the morning of her departure, Gina was doubting the wisdom of her vague escape plans. The thought of spending any amount of time with her abductor made her heart take on an uneven rhythm. He’d said little when she’d met with him, but his gray gaze had pierced her façade of false confidence far too easily. She had the most sickening suspicion he could read her thoughts and emotions with appalling accuracy.
He’d been inside her mind.
Rationally, she knew it was i
mpossible. Despite that fact, a sense of violation clung to her like a nightmare, try as she might to shake it off. And then there was another oddity to ponder—the lingering illusion that her kidnappers spoke a language other than English. A musical, lilting language she was sure she’d never heard before, but was able to understand nonetheless. She’d thought at first it was an effect of the drug, but it had been at least three days since the Wizards’ Ball. Nothing lasted that long.
Could the glittering web of light really have transported her to some other dimension? Her mind balked at the thought. No. This mountaintop clearly wasn’t New Jersey, but that didn’t mean it inhabited an alternate reality.
She drew a deep breath and picked up the small knife Tasa had given her earlier that morning. To use in the forest, the girl had said. It was only a bone handle fitted to a stone blade—obsidian, she thought—but its weight felt reassuring in her grip. Odd that her captors would give her a weapon, though—even a crude one. Gina ran her finger along the edge of the blade, then jerked her hand away and sucked the drop of blood oozing from her fingertip. With new respect for the primitive tool, she slid the knife into the rawhide sheath strapped to her thigh.
She tugged the hem of her doeskin dress back into place. She’d grown accustomed to the unusual fabric, but the lack of underwear left her feeling more than half naked. Kneeling, she tugged on her soft leather boots and tied the laces. At least Zahta’s salve had soothed the cuts on the soles of her feet. Incredibly, after only a day, they were fully healed.
She left the cavern. Outside, Derrin stood at Zahta’s side, half turned away, arms crossed and legs spread wide. Gina halted. In the glare of the morning sun, her kidnapper appeared even more disturbing than she remembered.
His head swung in her direction, causing the sunlight to dance on the glossy black fall of his hair. He’d exchanged his black tunic for a shirt made of deerskin. The golden fabric rippled across the muscles of his chest. A kilt of the same sinuous material pulled tight across his hips. His long thighs were bare, his feet and calves encased in high boots.
The costume did little to disguise the power of his body. His build wasn’t bulky, but Gina remembered the ease with which he’d aborted her escape attempt. She sensed his strength now as a force he kept under tight control, coiled like a spring and ready to be set loose.
A dark stranger. Your enemy. Had Madam Rose seen the future in the selenite crystal?
Derrin came to a halt an arm’s length in front of her. She gave him a cool look and lifted her brows. His jaw clenched and his gray eyes took on an inscrutable expression.
She turned to Zahta, unwilling to let her captor see her fear. “How far is it to the next Sign?”
“A journey of two days,” the old woman replied.
Gina eyed Derrin’s empty hands. “Two days? Won’t we need supplies? Food…water…something to sleep on?”
A flash of what could have been amusement lit his eyes. “You speak like an Outsider,” he said. “In Galena, a journey requires adequate provision. Here in the wilderness, the Baha’Na go empty-handed. We will travel as they do.”
Zahta raised her hand in a gesture of farewell. “The face of the Goddess shines on our parting, Gina.”
Without further comment, Derrin turned and started down the trail. Gina stared after him, battling an urge to run in the opposite direction.
A journey. Far from home. Few choices.
So far, Madam Rose was batting a thousand.
Chapter Three
Danat opened her eyes and stretched, cat-like, rolling over the blankets she’d spread on the floor of her attic room the night before. She stroked one finger along the jaw of the man beside her. With his face unmasked by sleep, Ariek resembled a small boy. She watched him for a time, savoring the deep, even rhythm of his breath.
Then the boy woke and the man pulled her into his arms.
“I love you,” he said, cupping her bare breast and toying with its hardened peak. He brushed a kiss over her lips. Danat’s hand closed on his cock, semi-hard from his slumber and growing more erect with each passing second. Ariek groaned and deepened his kiss, drinking deep, his hot tongue questing in her mouth. She opened more fully and drew him in.
His hands stroked down her torso and settled on her buttocks. With a swift, sure movement born of familiarity, he lifted her and set her astride his thighs. She ran a finger over the tip of his cock, spreading the moisture over his wide head before guiding him in to her slick cleft.
She sank down on him, letting him fill her completely, enjoying the sensation of his flesh deep inside her as he moved. Their joining never failed to take her breath away. It was as if they had been made to be one.
She arched her back, thrusting her breasts toward Ariek, and was rewarded by the flare of satisfaction in his eyes. He was so beautiful with his face shadowed in pleasure and the sculpted planes of his chest rising and falling beneath her. He caressed her breasts, circling his palms on her nipples until she thought she would go mad.
“Please,” she whispered.
He grasped her hips and moved her body in time with his thrusts, rocking her like a boat on the sea. Gradually, he increased the depth and tempo of the rhythm, expanding her bliss with each stroke. Danat’s climax broke in a long, exhilarating swell. Exquisite ripples pulsed through her body. She savored each one, willing it to last.
But in the end the final lap faded, leaving her bereft. She sagged against Ariek’s body and nestled her cheek in his chest. She breathed deeply of his scent and listened to the beat of his heart. She would remember these things always.
For he would soon be gone.
As if he sensed her desolation, his arms tightened around her. “I want to take you away from this place,” he said.
Danat gently disentangled herself from his embrace until she’d gained enough distance to meet his gaze. “Oh, Ariek. You know such a thing is not possible. I am the property of the temple.”
“Of the temple priests, you mean. That bastard Solk and his simpering acolytes.”
She pressed her lips to his, hoping he wouldn’t pursue the topic.
He responded briefly, then gripped her shoulders and pulled back, looking into her eyes. “I’m serious. I can’t stand to think of you here any longer. We’ll leave at night. I’ll take you to Sirth, or the Eastern Plains.”
A small spark of hope flickered, then died. She shook her head. “Ariek. I am the Bride of Lotark. No matter where I go, people will know me—if not by sight, then by the brand on my forehead.”
She held up one hand to stop his protest. “Wizards are required to live in Katrinth. What would you do if you left? Become a farmer, or a shepherd? I won’t ask it of you. After a time you would resent me for taking you from your life’s work.”
Ariek fell silent, and Danat knew her words hit upon a truth he didn’t want to admit. She sighed. Her lover was an idealist, the pampered youngest son of a rich aristocrat. He’d seen so little of the darker side of humanity. She’d seen so much of it.
“Let it go. Tell me more of Derrin.”
Ariek scowled. “Five nights have passed since he kidnapped the woman he claims is a sorceress. He said he would be back in three.”
“Have you no notion of where he has gone?”
His frown deepened. “No one can find Derrin when he doesn’t wish to be found. He wears a shadow crystal of incredible power.” He stood abruptly and began to pace the bare floor, his blond head almost brushing the rafters. “Danat, I’ve known Derrin for ten years. He’s not easily shaken, but he went wild when Maator brought that woman into the Stronghold. Within the hour he had me at my father’s stables, stealing a horse.”
“Where did she come from?”
Ariek ran one hand over his cropped hair as he walked the length of the narrow room. “I doubt you’ll believe me when I tell you my esteemed partner’s theory. It all started last Harvest. We were submerged in our research of the Blight. Derrin became convinced the sickness of the land
was connected to Balek, and to the Madness.”
Danat nodded. The Madness was now rare in Katrinth’s wealthier quadrants, but the disease still plagued the commoners who lived in the hovels of the Lower City. They had no hope of obtaining the antidote crystal Balek had created to treat the illness.
“Derrin began to spy on Balek. I told him he courted disaster, meddling with the affairs of a High Wizard.” Ariek drew up short at the far end of the attic room, where a fine netting hung behind the temple’s pediment. He peered through the intricate carving in the grillwork to the High Plaza below.
“I suggested his obsession was personal. Five years ago, Balek tried to bar Derrin’s acceptance to the Hierarchy. He’d been incensed when Master Niirtor accepted Derrin—who had no money or family name—as an apprentice.”
He shook his head and he resumed his trek across the chamber. “Derrin ignored my concerns. He continued to watch Balek, but said little. Then, a month ago, he told me what he’d seen. I still can’t believe it.”
“What did he say?”
“That Balek had created a crystal he calls the webstone—a five-sided crystal, with each face a perfect pentagram. Danat, such an object couldn’t exist! Yet Derrin insists Balek uses the stone to create common crystals of the highest purity. What’s more, he claims the webstone enables Balek to open a golden web at the edge of the world, a source of unimaginable power.”
He halted. “Derrin’s convinced Balek’s tampering with this web is the cause of the Madness and the Blight. He’s been saying since Year’s Beginning that Balek was searching for something within the web. But a sorceress from another world? It’s ludicrous! Yet it’s true the woman is not of Katrinth, or even Galena.”
“Do you believe she is truly from another world?”
Ariek spread his arms wide, palms up. “I don’t know what to believe. I saw her myself. Her clothing was obscene, and she wore a large crystal between her breasts. She could well be a sorceress. But if Balek wants her, he hides his desires well. He goes about his business as usual even though Derrin—”