Gar faced the goddess, whose laughter rose above the rest. “Where is she? What have you done with her?” he demanded.
“That is for you to find out, knight of the realm,” Analee triumphed. “Did you actually believe you could outwit me—me? You dream. Now then, surrender to me and I will set my sister free. Deny me, and she will rot in that cage, for though she can live quite long out of water, she needs to return to it to hunt for food, and caged she will surely die. That will happen even sooner if she sheds her skin and takes on human form.”
“She cannot die. Selkies are immortal!” Gar thrust at her.
“She will be dead to you, knight of the realm,” she purred, “for she will spend her eternity caged and hungry. Submit to me, I say! You cannot win. Surely you see that now.”
Gar glanced toward the sky again. The moon was sinking low. “Make it stop!” he thundered. “You, who have no truck with time, hold back the dawn, like you did before, and release the selkie. Do this and I will submit to you.”
“I think not,” the goddess drawled, sauntering nearer.
Gar clenched his hands in and out of white-knuckled fists at his sides. How he longed to clamp them around her neck and squeeze until her head burst like the grapes she’d crushed had done.
“I rather like the end to this that you have designed,” the goddess went on, undulating around him. “We shall let the dawn come. You will have until first light to find my selkie sister and free her from her cage yourself. Either way, I win, you see. You are mine already, you always were. I would have rather had you stay willingly. That is why I offered you my favors—few can resist me—but since that is not to be, I will settle for this game instead. Save the selkie if you can. You have until the dawn.”
“Wait!” Gar trumpeted, for he sensed that she was about to leave him. “I beg you, stop the moon’s descent as you did before and give me a fair chance to find her!”
The goddess shrugged. “I have kept my part of the bargain,” she said. “I promised you naught past the dawn, if you recall. It comes quickly now, knight of the realm. You were the one who begged me to make the moon descend a few of your precious mortal minutes ago, as I recall. This should teach you to be careful what you beg for in the Celtic Otherworld, Gar Trivelyan. You might just get your wish…”
Gar opened his mouth to speak, but the goddess had vanished before his very eyes. The centaur was gone, also. He stood naked and alone in the mist that had suddenly thickened around him.
6
G ar stood riveted to the spot. Gooseflesh attacked the cold sweat that had washed over his naked skin. He would go to his grave with the sight of the little selkie’s pleading eyes begging him to set her free. He would hear her mournful wail for the rest of his eternity in astral captivity. It had ripped a tear in his soul. He had to find her.
The conversation he’d overheard between Analee and the centaur came trickling back across his memory. She had asked the centaur if he had done as she asked, and he’d said he had, but that he didn’t hold with cages. So this was the cage they were speaking about. That meant the centaur knew where the selkie was. He was the one who had imprisoned her. If only he had his sword. If only he hadn’t sacrificed it to the angry sea!
There might be another way. The goddess would never tell him where the little seal was, but the centaur might if Gar could find him. The creature didn’t want him there any more than Gar wanted to be there. Could the centaur be a kindred spirit? It was worth a try to find out, but he wasn’t going to be able to do that standing in an empty field of beheaded wildflowers that had been severed from their stems before they’d even had a chance to open with the dawn.
Without a second thought, he stalked off in the direction he’d last seen the centaur. That course took him into another darker part of the forest, where ancient oaks and pines coexisted. Their long, sweeping branches groped him as he passed among them, for there was no path in this quarter. It seemed as if a thousand eyes were watching him. He had no doubt in his mind that Analee and the centaur’s eyes were among them. Of course they would monitor his progress, and hinder him if he came too close to finding the little selkie, at least the goddess would; he was certain of it. That didn’t matter then, nothing did but that he find the cage and set the little seal free.
Gar crashed through the undergrowth, a close eye upon the moon’s progress as he glimpsed it through the treetops. It was no longer a matter of saving himself. He considered his freedom lost. He would never escape from the Otherworld now, but there was hope for the little selkie, who had showed him naught but kindness and admiration in her innocence. All that remained was to find her and get her out of that cage.
Even when he closed his eyes he could see that adoring face, those huge limpid eyes, so human-like, with their long, dreamy lashes. He remembered how her whiskers tickled when she nuzzled him, and how she tilted her head when she explored his body with her gentle flipper. Something pinged in his loins as he recalled that gentle caress.
The scent of ambergris ghosted past his nostrils. Was the little seal near, or had his longing to see her again conjured the fragrance? It didn’t matter. It was his link to her, and it was somehow rooted in his world, not this dark and deceptive astral plane he trudged through now. True, she was a selkie, but it was her human side that bled through and struck a chord still thrumming in his heartstrings. If anything were to happen to her, he would never be able to bear it. The trouble was, the Goddess of the Dream Well had honed in on that deep recess of his private self, and she was using it against him.
Gar had taken Analee at her word. He had judged and trusted her by human standards; that was his mistake. One could not do that with the fay. He knew that now; he’d really always known it, but until the shipwreck, he’d had no encounters with Otherworldly creatures. He’d always thought such things were fantasy, nursery tales contrived for children. It had never occurred to him, a seasoned warrior in the very real world, that such things could be true.
When he tossed the bracelet into the well, he never imagined conjuring a goddess. It was a pleasant fiction, and his last hope, since his wound was deep and he had lost much blood. It was simply something to try. And then, the goddess appeared, and he believed her—trusted her. He should have remembered then that no fay could be trusted. The minute he accepted her favors, he was caught in her snare. The sad thing was, she hadn’t lied—she’d told him the truth, just not the whole truth. She had bewitched him, and he racked his brain, probing the cobwebs of his nursery days for the means to undo the spell she’d cast over him, but no answer came. He either hadn’t ever heard of a means to outwit the fay, or there wasn’t one.
Gar couldn’t dwell upon that then. He bitterly wished he hadn’t been so gullible, so easily beguiled, but there was no use lamenting that now. The little seal that had showed him naught but kindness, the gentle little creature that had saved his life, was in grave danger. It all came back to the same thing; he had to find her.
The trees were thinning, and the wood finally ended abruptly. Beyond, the mist thickened to a bleak gray fog that barely let the feeble moonlight through. Hesitating on the edge of it, Gar’s eyes snapped in all directions. Which way? How vast was the region the goddess ruled? Was she watching from somewhere hidden in the mist? A trickle of cold laughter replied to that thought as if she’d read his mind.
“Where are you?” he called. “Show yourself! I have served you well in our short time together. Show yourself, I say!”
“Too well, knight of the realm,” the goddess tittered, stepping out of the mist. “But for that, you would be safely home by now.” She sauntered close, circling him, and seized his penis, snuggling up to him while she stroked it. “If you were not such a skilled lover, the dawn would have come long ago. As it is now, I have possessed this fine cock of yours. See how it grows hard for me at the slightest touch?” She ran the tip of her finger over the sensitive head of his erect member and he shuddered. “See?” she said, sliding his cock between
her legs. “See how it lives for me?”
Thrusting her hips, Analee moved back and forth, rubbing her slit against his shaft until it hardened like granite between her thighs, until it had grown so long he could feel the pucker of her anus. Gripping his taut buttocks, she trapped him with her nether lips as he rode her slit deeper, until he could feel the hard bud of her clitoris, and the warm wet juices of her arousal laved him to the brink of climax without penetrating the hot, musky depths of her.
“Forget the little selkie,” she murmured in his ear. Her warm, moist breath riveted his body with cold chills. She had almost made him forget that he was on a desperate quest to find the little seal and free her. That was the hellish danger in her enchantment. The fay possessed the power to cloud men’s minds until they forgot all that linked them to their humanity.
Gar shook himself like a dog and shoved her away. Seizing his cock, he tried to soothe the aching, burning, throbbing need she’d ignited deep inside him. It was as if she’d set fire to his loins. It was no use. She had taken him beyond the point of no return, but he wouldn’t pleasure her with the engorged sex she’d hardened like steel. Instead, he gripped his shaft. Three rapid spiraling thrusts and he shut his eyes and groaned as his seed spurted over the pine needles, mulch, and ground-creeping vines that carpeted the forest floor.
The goddess beat her thighs with white-knuckled fists and stamped her foot, then lowered the flat of her open palm hard across Gar’s face. She’d caught him off guard, with his eyes closed, and he staggered back from the stinging blow.
All at once she began to spin in a circle, her motion lifting the loose matter beneath her feet in cyclonic whirls that rose around her like a great funnel. “You will regret this!” her voice boomed from the cyclone. He was almost glad he couldn’t see her face then. Her rage was palpable. “You had best resign yourself,” she raged on. “You will never leave the astral, knight of the realm. Give over searching for the selkie. You will never find her. You have just killed her, Gar Trivelyan!”
She was gone in a blink, her high-pitched shriek living after her, and Gar slumped against the trunk of a young ash tree. He cast his gaze toward the heavens. The moon had nearly run its course. Soon dawn would break, but that didn’t matter anymore. He was lost, a prisoner of the Otherworld. He had fought his last campaign. He would never see his beloved Cornwall again. He may as well have died in the shipwreck off the Land’s End shoals. All was lost to him the minute he accepted the goddess’s favors. He was convinced that it was what he deserved, but he could not conscience that the goddess would revenge herself upon the blameless little selkie. Why? There had to be a reason for her to treat the little seal so shamefully. Analee was jealous, yes, but it had to be something more that jealousy to prompt her to do murder.
Gar pushed himself off from the tree trunk. He didn’t matter anymore. He couldn’t let her harm the selkie. Nothing had changed. Somehow he had to find the little seal and free her despite the odds against it. Then he would resign himself to his fate, but not until, and he scanned the misty landscape ahead for some sense of direction, some clue—anything that would give him hope of helping the innocent little creature who had saved his life. With that obsession to drive him, he bolted toward what looked like open moors scarcely visible through the mist, only to be jerked back against the trunk of the young ash tree again.
One supple branch snaked its way around his waist, giving a sharp tug, while the other pointed its outermost twig on the opposing branch in another direction. Gar stared as a labyrinth took shape before his eyes. A wall of high hedges marking a narrow maze led into swarthy darkness. Was it showing him the way, or leading him on a fool’s errand?
“What?” he murmured. “Are you showing me the way?”
The tree made no verbal or mental reply. Instead, it seemed to hug him for a moment, then the branch that tethered him slithered away from his torso and shoved him toward the labyrinth. Gar turned and studied the tree; its branches were swaying in the wind, but there was no wind. It seemed to bow, its leaves rustling against each other. Of all the creatures he’d seen in the astral realm, the trees impressed him most. There was a silent majesty about them that commanded respect. He’d never given trees more than a passing thought in appreciation of the shelter they provided. He had never thought of them as entities in their own right, possessed of the power of thought and comprehension. Now, as he watched this tree’s performance, he understood why men erected shrines in the forests for passersby to leave a token for the ancient spirits who lived in tall silent columns of bark and moss and vine-laced branches. He had never practiced such devotions, but he made a secret vow to do so if he ever found his way back home. The strange exhibition continued. Captivated, Gar could do naught but stare. He had never seen a tree perform such a ritual. The ground beneath his feet began to vibrate as the tree’s roots beneath the ground began to shift and jig about as if it were dancing. Still Gar stared, and the branch nudged him toward the labyrinth again, harder this time.
He heard the cosmic crackle and hiss of the lightning bolt before he saw its blinding snake-like energy spear down and strike the young ash tree, severing the branch that had just nudged him. The severed limb struck the ground, trailing smoke. He heard the shriek of a female voice in pain. Did the tree scream? The sound turned his blood cold, but another sound turned it colder—a burst of the goddess’s laughter assailed his ears.
“Go!” she tittered. “Run! But it will serve you not, knight of the realm. It is already too late. Look to the east. See? That is first light breaking over the horizon. Your ‘little while’ is up!”
Gar needed no more proof of the ash tree’s intent. She, for the tree was female, swayed in pain, soothing her severed limb, and without a backward glance, he streaked off over the open field between and entered the dusky labyrinth.
Dawn may have broken elsewhere, but it was still as dark as night between the high hedge walls of the maze as Gar groped his way along like a blind man. The heady scent of rich fertile soil ghosted past his nostrils; it was earthy and evocative, bringing visions of home. He ran on, stirring the mist that his feet displaced, but all that met his eyes was deeper darkness, until the goddess’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“It is not too late to surrender to me willingly,” she said, her voice coming at him as if through an echo chamber. “You were mine from the start. You have only to accept it to have me for all eternity. If you had only eaten the food, there would have been no need of this. You would have submitted willingly. But you did not, and that has forced me to this. Remember how it was between us? It could be that way forever, as my consort, you—”
“You already have a consort, and a jealous one,” Gar interrupted. “What of Yan? How long do you suppose it would be before I took his arrow?”
“Yan controls nothing. I am goddess here!”
“I have no powers to protect me in your world, but Yan does,” he returned, praying that the centaur was within hearing distance. If ever he needed an ally it was now.
“You need no powers. You have me, knight of the realm. Yan has no dominion here.”
“I do not think he is aware of that,” Gar said through a guttural chuckle. “What? Do you mean to kill him as you plan to kill the selkie?”
“I am the Goddess of the Dream Well!” she shrilled. “I will decide who is to be my consort. Do you foolishly imagine that I haven’t the power to grant my own wishes?”
Gar felt a tremor in the darkness, a four-legged, heavy-hoofed tremor. He smelled the musk of horseflesh, and he went on speaking quickly with a rush of euphoria in his voice that he prayed the goddess was too enraged to detect.
“So you would kill him, then? How would you do it, with a lightning bolt, the way you tortured that poor defenseless tree just now?” She was still somewhere ahead in the darkness, by the sound of her voice, and though he searched the maze with narrowed eyes, he saw no sign of her.
“That is not your concern,” she replied. “
Do not delude yourself that Yan was my first lover, nor will he be my last, nor will you be for that matter. But for now, you will do quite well, quite well, indeed, Gar Trivelyan.”
“Still, I’m curious,” Gar persisted. “How do you mean to kill the centaur?”
There was silence. When she finally broke it, an audible breath preceded her words. “I sense your disapproval,” she said at last.
“You sense correctly,” Gar returned.
“Why? What has it to do with you how I dispose of a consort that I have grown tired of? Why should it concern you?”
Gar laughed in spite of himself. “That should be fairly obvious, my lady,” he said. “It concerns me because one day you will do the same to me!”
The mist began to drift away as the sky began to lighten, and the goddess stepped out of the darkness into the light. Gar’s heart sank. To his great disappointment, the centaur was at her side.
If he didn’t know it before, he knew he was on the right track now. The little seal was close by. The goddess hadn’t disposed of her yet. If she had, there would be no need for this confrontation. He was approaching a large break in the maze that offered a choice. He had passed by many such breaks, both narrow and wide, that led to other avenues along the way, but not this time. The goddess strolled closer and, almost without thinking, Gar sidestepped her advance and darted through the gap in the hedge, running on long, sinewy legs over the gravel path.
He hadn’t gone far when something shook the ground beneath his bare feet. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the centaur approaching at a gallop. The creature hadn’t loaded his longbow, but Gar took no comfort in that; the centaur was bearing down upon him with nostrils flared like a rampant bull.
The creature was gaining on him, though his legs were pumping as fast as he could make them. When the centaur reached out and seized his arm, Gar resisted. “Let go of me!” he demanded. “Let go I say!”
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