VirtualDesire

by Ann Lawrence

  “I didn’t find it. My friend Maggie gave it to me, and I’ve been using it to open letters down in my office.”

  “And why did you not tell me you had it when I told you I sought it?” I have been betrayed, he thought bleakly, betrayed by my friend’s woman. Maggie had given the blade to Gwen—given away the key to his future.

  “To be honest, I thought you were a bit wacky.”

  “What is wacky?” He grasped the knife’s handle and pulled. Nothing happened.

  “Oh, not wrapped too tight. Mad. And why am I explaining myself to you? You’re the one who’s playing games.”

  “I do not play games—or not here. You are like so many other women I have known—unworthy of trust.”

  “I am not. This isn’t about trust.”

  He silenced her with a look. “It is to me.” Finally the handle shifted, then turned a mere hairsbreadth. “This blade means everything to me. It holds my future.”

  The handle suddenly turned, slid, pulled from the blade. Whatever the future might hold, he would know it now. He went to where a lamp gleamed in her bedchamber.

  He avoided the strange lamp on her table and stood at the foot of her lush bed to shake the blade handle. A small, rolled piece of paper dropped onto her blanket.

  He was gratified that his hands did not shake as he unrolled the paper. His vision blurred. It was not a map of a route through the ice fields.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful. It’s a map, isn’t it?”

  Gwen stood so close to examine the map, he could feel her breath on his hands. To distract himself, he studied the map. His gaze scanned the territory from the Sleeping Mountain known as Gog to the Ford of Ravens. Places far from the ice fields.

  A crash of thunder outside made her jump. He felt as if the thunder outside was loose in his chest.

  “Aye,” he said. “‘Tis a map—showing the way to Nilrem’s eight treasures.”

  Gwen could not change his mind about returning to Tolemac. Not that he could get there from here… He must still be taking his role seriously—or the practical joke wasn’t over. And at this exact moment, she was darned tired of it.

  After turning the game on, she trotted at his heels as he walked determinedly to the game booth. “Look,” she said, still playing along. “I know you think this map means the council tricked you, but maybe they were just wrong about what was in the knife.”

  “I will explain this one more time,” he said. With great deliberation, he folded his cloak on the floor by the control platform in the game booth. “I was brought before the council and accused with Kered, who had been my commander, of traitorous acts against Tolemac. Kered was believed to have left Tolemac with his slave woman and the knife. ‘Twas claimed that Kered knew the knife’s handle contained a map of the way through the ice fields.”

  “And why would they want to get past the ice fields?” She propped her elbow on the platform railing. Her head pounded from too little sleep and too much punch.

  “For what men have always craved—weapons. The best weapons. And the legends describe weapons of destruction beyond our imaginations—here, beyond the ice fields.” He lifted the game gun. “This is such a weapon. I have seen its like—once. And know of what it is capable.”

  With a look of contempt, he put the gun back on the control panel.

  “The last thing Tolemac or the Selaw need is a weapon of such potency. But my honor demanded I regain the dagger with the map. It was Samoht’s charge to me. The reward? My name restored to honor.”

  “Samoht’s the high councilor of Tolemac, isn’t he?” She rearranged the gun, next to the headset.

  Vad nodded. “He has a streak of evil…but he is not what matters here.”

  “So if you did what this Samoht asked and found your way here, why do they need a map?”

  “Many have set out on the journey to cross the ice fields; none have returned. A map would allow a legion to make the trek. And if the dagger had contained the route through the ice fields, then all they accused us of would have been true. They said Kered’s adoptive father, Leoh, was once enamored of a Selaw woman. It was through her Leoh obtained the map. He kept it hidden through the years in the knife’s handle. The council, and Samoht, claimed Leoh died before he could make use of the map. And Kered was said to know of its existence. Now I know it was all lies, lies to conceal the council’s real goal—the treasures. A lie to conceal simple greed.”

  “I have a headache.” With a yawn, she plopped down on his fur coat. Playing this game was getting tedious. Tomorrow Mr. Warrior God was out on his tight buns if he didn’t own up to who he really was. “So go on. The council’s greedy. What difference does it make which map you found?”

  A very convincing hauteur entered his voice. “Warriors do not seek treasure. The very idea is dishonorable. I was sent to bring back Kered and the dagger and prove our loyalty. It seems I was really sent to obtain a treasure map. If I had died doing so, they had lost only a man with a traitor’s name.” His voice dropped; his hand turned the dagger over and over. “They knew what it was they sought—something far more valuable than mere weapons. They lied to me.”

  “Maybe they didn’t know what was in the dagger either.” She might as well go along with him for a few more hours. It was almost dawn. Another yawn overcame her.

  He stepped off the platform and went down on one knee before her. “Gwen, I have allowed my anger to spill over on you a number of times. For that I am truly sorry. It is not my nature to be ill-mannered.”

  When he closed his fingers around hers, his heavy gold ring heated, and a tingle went down her spine. She pulled her hand away.

  “You said I arrived here by magic. How does this magic work?” He gestured to the platform and the keyboard.

  The ring on his outstretched hand was deeply incised with Celtic knotwork. She remembered seeing the pattern on one of the caldrons in her book of myths. The pattern had a name, but it eluded her. “The game should have warmed up by now. Hit the green button and then put on the headset. It’s automatic,” she murmured, trying to dredge the name from her memory.

  He tucked the headset under one arm and rested his long fingers on the keyboard. The familiar hum of the game filled the room.

  His expression was impassive, his voice filled with emotion. “You called me stupid. You were right.”

  “Vad, I didn’t mean it that way.” When was he going to give up this charade? “It’s just an expression.”

  “But still, ‘twas stupidity to think the council trusted me. Or that Kered would return.” A crooked smile twisted his mouth, pulling his wound, painting his face with pain.

  He put out his hand.

  Automatically she took it. His fingers tightened on hers; his ring bit into her hand. Heat whipped up her arm, across her shoulder, and down into her breast.

  A whisper of thunder rumbled outside.

  Flames of pain hammered her hand, her arm, her chest.

  “Vad,” she said in a gasp as he disappeared in a blinding white light.

  Chapter Seven

  The dream was wonderful. A fresh breeze kissed her cheeks, and the scent of damp earth filled her nostrils. A few wispy clouds scudded across the lavender sky.

  Lavender?

  Gwen groaned and sat up. She felt the full punishment of the spiked punch. Vad stood ten feet away, hands on hips, contemplating the landscape.

  Or lack of it.

  As far as Gwen could see, the world dropped off at his feet—a purple world. She rose to her knees and scrabbled backward. Her stomach lurched.

  Vad whipped around. “Ah, you are awake.” He strode to where she knelt, hooked a hand beneath her elbow, and hauled her upright.

  “No,” she cried and jerked back. The world did drop off. They stood on a cliff.

  “Be still,” Vad ordered.

  “No, I am not going to be still,” she said slowly and distinctly. “I am getting as far from here as possible.”

  She went nowhere. Vad’s g
rip could hold a tractor in place.

  “And where would you go?”

  The question confused her for a moment. She looked about. Behind her rose a steep mountain meadow, carpeted in emerald green and capped with fir trees. It could be any mountain in Pennsylvania or New York, but in front of her lay a vista as foreign as the moon. She knew it well, saw it every day when she or a customer played Tolemac Wars II.

  The rocky red ground before her was the same color as the huge red sun overhead. The barren landscape stretched for miles, and seemed miles below them. In the distance, their tops obscured by low white clouds, rose craggy mountains as forbidding as the highest Rockies.

  Yes, she recognized it all from the game; only when playing the game, she didn’t really have to cope with it.

  “How did this happen?” she asked, changing her mind about running away. She tucked herself against Vad’s warm side instead. He smelled like home—caramel popcorn and dryer sheets. “I won’t believe we’re where we are. I won’t. I’m dreaming. I’ll wake up soon. I drank too much punch—”

  “Enough.” The word was a command, but it was kindly spoken. He hugged her against his side and swept a hand out to the land before them. “We are home.”

  Gwen squeezed her eyes closed. “I’m not. I’m in a dream. My sky is blue. My cliffs are out west. Ocean City is flat. I like flat. I’ll wake up and be lying in my bed, hoping Liz did a huge layout on my ball for her magazine.”

  “We must go.”

  “It’s a cliff. I’m not going anywhere.” The sky darkened from lavender to nearly black; an angry buzz filled her ears. Her knees buckled.

  Vad scooped her into his arms. He hurried from the precipice’s edge to a patch of mountain meadow. Carefully he laid her on the long grass. Her face was as white as her gown, as white as the tiny star-shaped flowers that clustered about her like errant flakes of snow.

  He swallowed and shook off the temptation to kiss her awake. Kisses led to more problems, not fewer. He had kissed many a woman, but unlike those many kisses, the kiss Gwen had given him at the ball still remained on his lips. The sensations that had coursed through his body surged back if he let himself dwell too long on the feel of her in his arms. He would not think about how he’d stood like one of the beams holding up the Music Pier while she had taken control of his every sense.

  No woman should control a man. He never lost control to a woman. They were easily acquired and easily forgotten. At least until this little one.

  He went down on one knee and picked up her hand instead of kissing her. “Gwen. Wake up.” He chafed her wrist.

  In the next moment, she rolled over and emptied her stomach into the grass.

  “You are not very feminine,” he said. He withdrew to allow her privacy for her suffering. Perhaps if he could make her angry, she would forget her discomfort. Anger chased other emotions away, according to his awareness master.

  He had but a small ache behind his eyes from the strange journey, and whatever else he felt, the overwhelming feeling was exhilaration. He was home, in a place where all was familiar, where all made sense. Here—and nowhere else—he could reclaim his honor, his reason for being.

  Before him stretched the Scorched Plain, and his life would be as the land was, parched, useless, deadly, were he no longer a warrior. If he returned with the dagger and map, he would at least prove to the council and Samoht that he had obeyed their commands. Should they reward him with the return of his sword, his good name, all he had suffered would be as nothing.

  “I need a drink of water,” she called out to him.

  He turned around. She was sitting cross-legged, her gown tucked about her knees. Her face was almost its usual color. Wind riffled the short golden strands of hair on her forehead. She looked childlike and yet womanly at the same time.

  “Come.” He offered her his hand. She stared at it warily, then took it. He helped her rise, then steered her away from the cliff and up the mountain. “The wise man will have water, and perhaps a potion for your belly.”

  She trembled as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m feeling better, but my mouth tastes like I ate your fur coat.”

  He smiled. Her humor was returning. She would survive. Then he thought of his coat and the fortune stitched inside, lost because he had forgotten it—forgotten it because he wanted one last contact with her and, in truth, did not believe standing in the black room would send him anywhere.

  All the legends would need rewriting.

  She stumbled. He tightened his hold on her and looked down. Her tiny feet were bare.

  He lifted her into his arms.

  “What are you doing? I can walk. The grass is nice and soft.”

  “You may be able to walk, but your pace will slow me down.”

  “And here I thought you liked me,” she said.

  When she wrapped her arms about his neck, he grinned. How well she fit in his arms. Then he lost his smile. It was liking her that complicated everything…liking the taste of her mouth…

  “I like all women.” Her arms loosened their grip. “Your presence is a complication I can do without. Nilrem will see to your care and perhaps figure out a way to send you home.”

  Her body tensed in his arms. “You’re going to leave me here? What’s the point in that?”

  “I did not ask you to come.”

  She arched and twisted in his arms, breaking his hold. He almost dropped her. She shrieked and pushed. He let her go.

  “Are you mad, woman?” He rubbed his neck where her sculpted nails had scratched him.

  “Yes. I am mad. How dare you blame me for this? I didn’t want to come with you. You held my hand. It’s your fault I’m here.”

  Vad stared at her for a moment. He expelled a long breath. Like it or not, he was responsible for her safety.

  “We will not argue who is at fault. You should have stayed in your chamber; I should have pushed you away. Now let us proceed.” He held out his arms.

  “I’ll walk.” With her little nose pointed into the air, she stalked off through the meadow. “And I’m not staying with anyone named Nilrem,” she said over her shoul­der. “Nilrem!” She halted. “Oh, no.” She turned in a whirl of skirts that displayed an enticing amount of leg. “Vad, hurry up; catch up.”

  How like the ice woman she appeared in her flowing white gown, which fluttered in the rising wind. Was his vision of her on the ice fields a prophecy of this moment? And just as she had that time on the ice, she lifted her hand and beckoned to him.

  Unable to resist, he went to her. “What is wrong? Are you going to be ill again?”

  “No.” She trotted along at his side when he reached her. “Don’t you see? Your name, Vad, comes from Sandav. Nilrem is Merlin backward. He was a famous magical person of legend.”

  Vad heard the echo of his laugh across the hillside. “Magical? Nilrem may be wise, he may even be a bit backward, but he has no pretensions to magic.”

  “Okay,” she bit out, and it amused him to see the becoming flush tint her skin. “Forget I suggested it, but treasures like the Seat of Wishes sound pretty magical to me.”

  “As you wish; the magic insult is forgotten.”

  “Grrrr.” She stalked away, her arms straight and swinging. The funny little noise she made in her throat told him her anger was at a fever pitch. At least she would forget her discomfort.

  Within moments they had cleared the mountain meadow and entered the trees. Vad imagined her feet suffered for her pride, but he did not offer again to carry her.

  The trees opened into a small clearing. Before them stood Nilrem’s hut, but the sight made him frown—no smoke curled from the smoke hole.

  “It doesn’t look like he’s home,” she said. “Should we knock?”

  “Why? Do you think there is some magical knock we can use to conjure him up?” Her frown became a scowl, and he grinned at her as he pushed open the door to the wise man’s home. He inspected the hut and finally returned to where Gwen s
tood on the threshold.

  “The hearth is cold and the ashes swept away. There is no food on the shelf. He is gone, possibly for a long time, as his stick is gone as well.”

  “Stick? Is he really old? And maybe he just went out for more food.”

  “No one knows how old Nilrem is—ancient, some would say—but not magically so,” he hastened to add before she could interrupt him. “As for food, Nilrem wants for nothing. Many bring him offerings in payment for his help and his prophecies. I fear that if there is no food, it must be generally known he will be gone for a long time.”

  “What does that mean for us?”

  “For me, it means I will have no ancient wisdom to read the signs and portents before I make my decisions. For you…”

  “Oh, no, you’re not leaving me here. Not by myself. How would I eat? What if someone came?” She backed a few steps to the door.

  Vad forced himself to remain impassive. The last thing he had expected was Nilrem’s wandering off. “There is another place I can look for him. He often goes to a sacred cave for silent contemplation.”

  “You meant we, didn’t you? We can go look for him. I’m not staying here alone.”

  Vad opened his mouth and then closed it. “You are ill equipped to sustain yourself. Even the smallest child of Tolemac can snare food, choose the proper herbs, catch—”

  She held up her hand. “Enough. I get it. I’m incompetent to survive in the wilderness. So take me with you.”

  “We must deal with your feet before you can make even the shortest of journeys.” He retreated into the hut and went to a pile of blankets on a low frame. He rummaged beneath it.

  Gwen came closer and sidestepped the flurry of objects he tossed her way.

  “Ohhh.” She picked up a silvery trinket. It was a chain of large links that was too long to be necklace and might instead be a woman’s belt. Every other link contained what appeared to be a cabochon ruby. “This looks like it belongs in a museum—in the ancient-stuff collection. It’s beautiful.”