Benefit of the doubt, benefit of the doubt, Archer repeated to himself. Roman and Heron came in arm and arm. Well, elven culture was quite tactile, and seelie elves that lived Underhill were inclined toward making gestures humans could easily misunderstand.
They were obviously buried deep in an obtuse discussion of magical theory. Archer picked out maybe one word in four. It made him think about Roman in a rather different way. At Scott House, Roman was mainly the ‘behind the scenes’ guy who kept the finances, taxes, visas, and records in order. It was a role he seemed to have sunk into out of necessity rather than to suit his own needs.
Archer wondered whether Roman’s heckling about getting an education and finding a better place for himself came partly from the elf’s own dissatisfactions. After all, he was a capable mage, with a meticulous mind and a love of teaching, stuck in a remote house with a small, entrenched group of individualists with no respect for organization and no desire to be instructed on anything.
Archer helped Bear and Wolfy with cooking pasta and rustling up salad and bread for an impromptu late afternoon meal. He picked out decent Kiwi wine that he knew Roman liked and consciously suppressed the tension Heron caused in him with every smarmy little gesture the elf made.
Archer pretty much achieved the peculiar state of feeling irritation, anger even, but floating over the top it. His trust in Roman was part of it, but the rest was Bear’s vote of confidence. So Archer kept his thoughts to himself and helped set out the meal almost amiably.
Roman came over to the dining table and leaned in to kiss Archer a casual greeting. “I didn’t mean to be so long, love. How are you holding up ... and have you been drinking wine?”
“I’m trying to figure out what you see in this stuff, and dude, I’m not there yet.” Archer poured another couple of glasses. “You keep our guest happy. I’ll have you to myself later on.”
Roman certainly didn’t miss the implication of that. He didn’t seem totally convinced by Archer’s suddenly benevolent mood, but he wasn’t questioning it, either.
Archer shooed him back to the other side of the room, where Heron had draped himself ever so artfully upon the beaten-up old sofa. He was looking at Archer rather like a hawk might look at a particularly shabby rodent. Roman settled by his old lover’s side as Heron accepted a wine glass with one hand and slipped the other casually behind Roman’s back.
Benefit of the doubt. Archer smiled broadly, bowed a slight nod of acknowledgement, and went back into the kitchen to fetch the tongs for serving the salad.
Wolfy went after him. “Those look a little blunt for gouging the pretty boy’s eyes out with,” she said of the Perspex tongs.
“Some of us are capable of rising above such petty and irrational feelings,” Archer said tersely.
Wolfy snorted as she opened the oven and fished out the garlic bread with her bare fingers. “This is not really something I’d thought I’d ever say ...” She tossed the bread in a bowl. “... but you’re a bigger man than me.”
She slapped Archer on the back on the way past. What made it funnier was that Wolfy would get the irony of the statement. As he went in to eat, Archer was actually in a fine mood.
During the course of the meal, Heron hung on Roman like a bad suit. Well, they were old friends, old elven friends. Roman shot a few looks Archer’s way, as if not sure whether to freeze up on old Heron, no matter how normal he might think this effusive behavior was. But Archer just imagined getting Roman up those stairs later that night and laying him flat on the bed and sucking his cock until he screamed for mercy. No point getting uptight about elves being elves. And fuck benefit of the doubt -- Roman was his in every important way, and he was just going to have to prove it to them both a little later on.
By the time he’d had a third glass of wine, he was giving what he wanted to do later some serious thought. He could blow Roman slow and wet and use his hand to keep him going while he sucked those delicate little ears and found out whether those delicate little elfy points were still there somewhere. That, and whether an elf could get off just on having his ears sucked.
Or maybe he would just slam the door, get a good handful of lube, rip Roman’s pants off, push him against the wall, and finger fuck him ’til he was begging for it. He would unzip his pants and push Roman facedown on the bed and fuck him hard from behind while slapping his hands down on that tight, small butt.
“What do you think, William?” Heron’s voice intruded into his thoughts like the snake in the apple barrow.
Archer looked across the cluttered table into the shot-silver eyes of the great mage, smiled, and said, “I am afraid I wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to what you were saying.”
Strangely, Heron baulked, that slight flush returned to his cheeks ... and he blinked. “Well, far be it from me to interrupt your thoughts,” he finally said.
Damn right. They were some pretty fine thoughts. Archer reached over for the bottle of wine, refilled Heron’s glass, and sat back.
“So,” Roman said. “Heron seemed to think that calling up that much fire actually caused an increase in your capacity. That properly managed, you might be able to contribute to the final destruction of the Irish ward.”
“Well, I didn’t mistake it for an ordinary case of heartburn, but I imagine rather more accomplished mages than I will have to come up with a few new tricks before that will happen.” Archer’s eyes flickered to Heron again. “After all, that would require a ward great enough to surround all Ireland while perfectly reflecting every tiny nuance in Patrick’s ward. Do you think that is even possible?”
“I shall do my humble best,” Heron said with what sounded to Archer like rather marked sarcasm, but perhaps he was being a little paranoid there.
Archer would have been more worried if it weren’t for one thing. He was totally sure that even if Heron made a ward the size of earth, Archer would have enough fire to burn it down. One thing this morning had showed him beyond doubt was that the fire didn’t really come from someplace inside him; it came through him from some other place, some other place that was fire incarnate forever and would never burn out. Maybe if he’d listened better to Roman over the years, he’d have already known that. But regardless, all Heron had done was open the door a little wider. And hell, if that white-haired prick wanted, he would rip the door right off its hinges. He’d show the sanctimonious bastard as much fire as he could bear to see.
He realized that the wine bottle he was toying with was all but empty and that everyone at the table was looking at him. He held up the bottle. “Shall I open another?”
* * * * *
All things considered, it was a reasonably pleasant afternoon, but by early evening Archer had pretty much had enough of being the bigger man. He had also worked his way through a mental catalog of sexual possibilities. Sex was, in general, an area where he was enthusiastic but not noticeably adventurous. Hell, he probably never would have even slept with a guy if the big magical bond thing hadn’t happened. And even then, Roman had needed to sort of talk him into it.
The entire company had adjourned to the sofas around the old oak coffee table. Wolfy was telling stories of her childhood, which seemed to have involved being constantly caught in places she really wasn’t meant to be. The room was starting to get a little blurry as Archer’s eyelids got progressively heavier. After all, he had heard the tale of getting found in the fairy queen’s en suite wearing nothing but a damp but still very much alive ferret at least twice before.
“An increase in capacity such as this morning’s exercise provoked will tend to result in some drain in the body’s resources,” Heron said.
Archer stared at him blankly for some time, working out that the comment was directed at him. “Yes, well --” A yawn interrupted any protest he might have made.
“The better part of a bottle of wine tends to dim things down a little, too,” Wolfy added sardonically.
“Seems like I haven’t done a hell of a lot but sleep
the last day or two,” Archer grumbled.
It would have been satisfying to ignore their hint and stay. However, the whole room was starting to slide into shades of sepia and gray. “Fine,” Archer said as he pushed away from the table. “Perhaps I’ll turn in. All the better to be up bright and early to ... well, perhaps the honored mage will provide something else that needs to be incinerated.”
He tried to shoot Roman a look that said he didn’t expect to spend too much time in the bedroom alone, but Heron somehow intersected his gaze. Perhaps it was the wine, but there really was no easy way to disregard an elf who looked like an angel crafted from alabaster, with eyes of platinum and ... well, enough of that. Heron also seemed to have stopped looking at him with unalloyed disdain.
Not that it was easy to interpret the expression he now wore. Archer gave it some thought as he traversed the library and foyer and mounted the stairs.
Arch-mage Heron had looked at him for the first time like one person looking at another person, actually seeing him -- openly, appraisingly. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what Bear was getting from that leucistic freak now.
By the time he got up to their room, Archer’s good mood was finally wearing off. He felt foggy, disoriented, and his neck was starting to itch like crazy. There must actually be some kind of insect bite back there; he could feel the slightly raised bump.
But while it took conscious effort to keep his eyes open and focused, he didn’t actually feel tired. What he felt, not to put too fine a point on it, was horny. He shouldn’t have let himself get distracted by Heron, and should have made sure he actually gave Roman the eye.
He paced the room, looked out the window at the darkening sky, sighed, threw himself onto the bed, stood up again. There was really no way he could troop back down there again to check up on Roman or give him a none-too-subtle hint that he was expected.
How could he pass a little time? On the best of days, books were a mass of shimmering, unruly words, and this was not the best of days. He flicked on the television and flashed impatiently through the channels for three full cycles.
Finally he sat down in front of the game console and started up a saved campaign. He didn’t try and get any further, but just wandered around the contrived world, seeing what he could find in out-of-the-way places. He checked the clock every two or three minutes as the night droned on. It was closing in on ten p.m. when his patience finally snapped.
Bigger man, my ass. Archer closed his eyes and honed in on the feeling, the flame, that was Roman. He was still in the library.
There was, technically, a door between the foyer and the library, but it hadn’t been closed in a very long time. It stood, by long custom, flung fully open and fastened in place by a small brass hook. So it was with no particular intention to eavesdrop that Archer approached the library. But the door was open and the voices within pitched just loud enough to carry in the very still and quiet confines of the house after most had gone to their beds.
“I’ll concede the young man is a little more than he first appears,” Heron purred. “But truly, if it were not for the subtle coercion of the great spell, do you really think you would have gone to such lengths to make him yours?”
“I’d heard that you’d begun to talk this way about the bonding. I wondered how anyone who had felt that connection could feel like that -- think that it is some kind of slavery.”
Roman’s voice had a soft burr to it from a little too much wine. Archer edged forward slowly, holding his breath.
“Do you think what you felt for Rachel was a lie?” Roman pressed.
“In the end, I did come to understand that the feelings I was experiencing were created by a spell to serve a function I am not sure I fully agree with. Roman, you have to understand some things that are happening in Underhill. Vavasour has seen where this intimate alliance with human kind is leading us.”
“Heron, it could be leading us straight to hell, and it wouldn’t change the slightest fraction of my feelings for Archer. They are real, no matter what prompted our meeting, or why.”
A single lamp illuminated the scene. Roman in one corner of the old leather sofa, Heron leaning companionably against his shoulder. Any moment now, one of them must notice him -- as soon as they took their eyes off each other.
Heron reached his delicate arm around the front of Roman’s body, resting his hand on Roman’s shoulder and moving it up slowly to his face. “Don’t you ever remember what it was like? The two of us together, so well matched in all of our skills. What love is it that imprisons you in this human guise, enslaves you in pointless mediocrity, paperwork? If you say that you, you of all people, are happy in this role, then you are lying even to yourself.”
Heron was inching closer. The two elves’ lips hovered so close, they must have been sharing the same breath.
“Don’t you remember, Roman, what it was like to truly be an elf -- with your own kind?”
There was a hesitant, stricken look on Roman’s face as Heron leaned in to kiss him.
Without any conscious thought, Archer stepped over the threshold, raising his hands with rigid fingers outstretched. The feelings he had struggled to suppress rushed forth and through him as the world exploded in furious light with a roar that deafened his ears. He made it real, tangible flame and, with it, scorching chaos and instant, incinerating heat.
Heron spun towards Archer, leaping to his feet as the wave of physical fire hit him. Roman grabbed Heron and threw him to the ground with a wordless shout. It all happened in a few traitorous, irreversible seconds.
The residual flame was extinguished, not by Archer, but by Roman’s efficient touch leaving nothing but the glow of ruddy ashes eddying on the wind that entered through the smashed window panes. By this meager light, Archer could barely see Roman crouching over Heron’s motionless body. The air smelt faintly of burnt paper and flesh, and thuds sounded above as the alarm spread.
“Archer, what the hell have you done?” Roman said hoarsely, pain apparent in his voice.
Archer backed from the room, collided with Bear’s solid form, and tore free and ran. With the swift flight of pure panic, he careened down the long hall and out the back door, his mind groping with the horror of what he had just done.
He ran across the uneven lawn, toward the trees. Roman was hurt. Heron, for all Archer knew, was dead. All it would take was a gasp, a lungful of fire. There was no explaining it, no excuse -- just the fact that his father must have been right all along. The boy’s no good. The boy’s no good, and no good will come of him.
At the very rear of the estate, he crashed into the small clearing at the back of the old chapel. He could just keep going now, on to the main road, hook up with one of his old drinking buddies, and cadge a loan. He could be on a sleeper train out of town before the sun came up.
He stumbled to a stop, knowing that was not what he would do. He had done a wrong too great to rectify, but he would not be hunted down by Tania’s soldiers. When justice came, he would be waiting for it without evasion, defiance, or excuse. What else could he do?
And there was one thing. One thing that he could do. If he could not trust his malformed soul not to strike out and hurt others, he could destroy the power that was in him to do it.
Every witch or mage or master could end their power as easily as an artist could claw out his eyes or a musician cut the fingers from his hand. Which was to say, it was not simple or painless or easy, really -- but it was most certainly possible if one could muster the resolve. A mage so wounded had their talent scarred over for life; in rare cases, they might use it one more time, but only at the cost of their life.
Archer reached into the dark pits of his inner soul and grasped his powers at the root, the pale shaft that sprouted from Gaea’s own recognition of her son. From that soil grew, shoot and leaf, the thriving tree of his power, the tree whose fruit was fire. With convulsive, thorough strength, he pulled it out, every living sinew, every tiny thread; with phantom fingers, he wrenched
the very essence of his once great talent from its substrate.
There would be no more fire.
Shaking, pallid, sweat drenching every part, he crawled towards the darkened chapel.
Part Two: Leave-taking
Chapter Six: The Broken Net
It didn’t hurt, exactly.
Archer lay upon his side and felt his body cooling. It hadn’t really occurred to him that cutting off the source of his power could be immediately fatal. The old stories never said as much, and it would hardly be fair to Roman. A bonded elf did not usually survive the loss of his lover. There was only one recorded case.
If only he had been in any position to give it some thought -- there was something terribly wrong about that single case, about arch-mage Heron. Something he had stumbled into with his eyes so completely shut.
The unadorned concrete floor warmed against his cheek, and his eyes stayed stubbornly open even after he willed them closed. It seemed like a very long time before he heard the sound of feet. Not someone who came here often, since he heard the dry scuff of a hand seeking the light switch and the lights hadn’t worked up here for years.
“He’s near,” Bear said. His normally warm voice sounded somehow thinner.
“I don’t feel him.” Roman’s voice was hollow. Archer knew he had blown a hole right through the middle of this place in more ways than one.
Bear’s broad hands settled on Archer. That rough, familiar voice rumbled on in a calming monologue. “Hey there, Archer. Let’s have a look at you, my boy. I won’t lie to you; it’s a hell of a fuss up at the house. Heron’s not in good shape, but he’s going to pull through this. Roman, here, really shouldn’t be out and about with burns like that on his arms.”
Archer made no move. The desire to act was totally gone. His body was nothing more than an inert lump though which he, by some arbitrary whim of fate, was consigned to perceive the world.
Maewyn's Prophecy: A Heart Aflame Page 5