Rivka listened, obviously entranced and trembling slightly--
“Do you know where I might find that lady, and if she still feels as she did when she spoke intimately with her queen about me? Because, while I’d be perfectly content to ride with you and fight alongside you until the day I truly die, if that lady is willing, now that I’m free, I would beg of her the privilege of becoming her husband.”
Rivka’s voice rang out loud and clear down from the temple roof. “I know that lady, and she still loves you. She thought you were dead, but she never met a man worthy of succeeding you. She will absolutely marry you. There are things that fire cannot destroy.” Rivka paused. “Speaking of which, how are you alive?! I’m so glad to see you, but I’m completely fartumult!”
“I will show you. Behold--” And Isaac, raising his arms in the air, transformed back into the dragon form. The holy sisters scattered in awe and pointed and stared as he flew up to the rooftop to join his warrior bride.
As soon as he was safely on the roof, he returned to human form -- still in the cassock, Shulamit noted. She had to crane her head upward to look at him -- he was even taller than Rivka, even if by only a few inches, and his broadness and height were startling and majestic like a baobab tree. “So...” She put her finger to her jawline and tapped it a few times thoughtfully. “The dragon form is one of your magical abilities, and not part of the curse?”
“Exactly, Your Majesty. The curse robbed me of most of my abilities and even my humanity. The power to transform into a dragon was the only thing I had left -- and even that, they managed to weaken. You will find that my flight won’t tire now as it once did -- at least, not as easily.”
“Oh, Isaac,” was all Rivka could say, her breathing both deep and rapid.
“Why did they leave you with that?” asked Shulamit curiously.
“They’d nearly finished the curse when the attack began,” the wizard explained. “My Order -- my ex-Order, that is -- they didn’t want to get tangled up in the middle of the baron’s feuding. Leaving me as I was, they fled for the mountains. They, uh, had better things to do.”
“Just like Aviva!”
“So you flew out of the building before the second floor exploded?” Rivka’s eyes were moving back and forth, as if she were putting the pieces together.
“I saw you jump out the window,” said Isaac. “My intention was to fly over and join you, but after being drugged by the baron, my wings failed nearly instantly. I was a horse again before you came up for air, and then one of those paskudnyaks from Apple Valley was on my back.”
“The other wizards really thought you’d -- that you and I had--” Rivka flushed, and she wiped sweat from her face underneath the mask.
“The messenger mentioned you being there when he was taking down the baron’s words,” Isaac explained. “That was all it took, because honestly, they wouldn’t believe that the baron’s anger had nothing to do with anyone being seduced and deflowered. They knew what happened to your mother, and how it irritated the baron. When they woke me to berate me and cast me out, I protested that I never laid with you -- I never laid with anybody in my life -- and if we did anything against their arbitrary rules, they would have seen it, with all the enchantments watching over me. All they did was laugh and say I came up with a way to hide it from them. They stripped me, beat me up...”
“Horrible. I wish I’d known you were with me all along...”
“I had no way of telling you,” said Isaac sadly. “A real dragon’s mind can’t understand written language, so I couldn’t scratch it into the dirt with my claws, and when I was a mare, as part of the curse, I had a mare’s mind, which was even worse. Yet, somehow, even as a mare, I still knew that I loved you... I just didn’t know who you were, or what that meant.” Then he turned to face Shulamit. “Your Majesty, you are, without a doubt, one of the most intelligent young women I’ve ever been lucky enough to meet. You read encyclopedias for fun. Surely your great brain can think of a reason not to be up here right now?”
It has been said that sometimes the intellect and the common sense do not necessarily occupy the same skull at the same time. Shulamit grinned with shame, then nodded. “I’m sorry. I’ll go down to Aviva. Um,” she added as she started for the stairs, “nice to meet you.”
***
Rivka carefully sheathed her sword, unable to tear her eyes from the man before her. There were so many more questions she wanted to ask him; confidences to tell him; shared adventures to discuss. Three years of conversations they might have had burst forth from her mind at once, vying for fruition like dogs scrambling to be first on a bone. She gazed over those features she remembered so well. He was a ghost made real, a cherished memory now flesh that rose and fell with every breath, with eyes that blinked in the glare of the tropical sun and lips that twitched up subtly at the edges to smile at her, just as she’d remembered.
Now he was talking to her just as in her dreams, instead of his heavily accented Perachi. “I’m sorry I eavesdropped on your private conversations with the queen,” Isaac told Rivka in their native language. “Of course, it’s not as if I had a choice.”
“I need no privacy from you, Isaac,” said Rivka, her eyes growing heavy-lidded and her voice confident. “I want less privacy from you.”
Isaac smirked. “I should remind you that I’ve seen you bathing.”
“I saw you down in the courtyard.” Rivka was still digesting the fact that she’d gone from living in a reality where he had died years ago to seeing him naked within the span of forty-five seconds. Her body tingled, and the daylight felt even hotter than usual. “I never knew you could turn into a dragon.”
Isaac nodded. “Dragons and other general serpent-type creatures. I’ll explain it all later. The night the door stood between us, that’s how I was able to get through the passageways unmolested. Didn’t you wonder why you heard no footsteps as I approached? It was a lizard who wooed you that night. I stood on the door itself.”
“A lizard!” She pictured what he must have looked like, his red dewlap pushing in and out, and shook her head with the sheer unexpectedness of it all. “It’s still strange to hear you talk openly of wooing.”
“Would it be strange if I touched you?” His voice had turned to chocolate.
“Very strange. And very delicious.”
One of his hands took one of hers. Despite sleeping against him almost every night, this was the first time she had knowingly touched him. Her fingers grabbed at him hungrily, and she drew closer, eager for more.
“Mind yourself, Riv. You don’t want to shatter the carefully constructed conceit I concocted down there.”
“I’m glad you said those things,” said Rivka. “Not just to keep my secret, but also because I knew instantly that you were no mind-reading trick like the suits of armor in the sorcerer’s keep. Absolutely nothing in my own mind would have produced such sly cleverness. I’m far too straightforward for that.”
“You always have been. It’s one of the reasons I love you.” He moved closer, then quickly stopped and glanced down into the courtyard at the holy women. With a growl, he added, “Would that I had you alone.”
His tone was so unexpected that Rivka moaned out loud before she realized what she was doing. Then she turned her head quickly. “There’s the stairwell. The women are all occupied downstairs.”
“And if they come upon us?”
“We’re both warriors. We’ll know if anyone approaches.”
Bustling each other into the stairwell with the excitement of frolicking kittens, the warrior and the wizard disappeared from view.
From the moment his lips touched hers, her blood turned to wine and the wine into liquid fire. Both his hands were clasped firmly on her biceps, holding her body close to his. She wrapped every available limb around him, exploring wonderful unfamiliar territory with curious fingers. Now she was pressed against the wall, and he broke away from the kiss to nuzzle a trail with his mouth across her throat. Pushing a
side leather armor, he tasted the side of her neck.
In between gasps of pleasure, she murmured throatily, “Isaac... mind your sword!”
“Why, do you mind it?”
“Hardly.”
“That’s two of those. You said you weren’t -- ahhh! -- sly and clever. Maybe my sense of humor is rubbing off on you.”
Rivka gasped again, craving him with an intensity bordering on pain. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any more. You win.”
“What do I win?”
“Many adventure stories begin with a dragon who carries off a virgin.”
“Those same stories end with the dragon being conquered by a warrior.”
“Oh, if we’re not married soon I shall gnaw off my own head!”
“Marry me now.” He took both her hands in his. “Can’t Queen Shulamit help us?”
“What, really? Like in my dream?”
“In some countries the monarch has that power.”
“I’m going to go ask her.” Rivka broke away from him, but he pulled her back by one hand.
“One more kiss.”
“Oh....”
Eventually, Rivka managed to get downstairs and into the courtyard. Isaac followed her, so the holy women wouldn’t get nervous about having two strange men in the temple by themselves.
She found Shulamit seated next to Aviva, who was lying down on the ground being examined by the very woman whom Shulamit had first admired in statue form. “Riv! Guess what? It turns out that Keren is trained in healing arts. She’s going to take care of Aviva while we’re here and make sure she gets her strength back.”
Rivka smiled. “I know we just banished you,” she said in a low murmur, “but could you come back up to the roof for a moment? Isaac thinks you have... a certain privilege, as a head of state.”
Shulamit understood instantly, and one hand flew to her mouth with happy surprise. “Oh! I--I don’t know the words yet.”
“Do they matter?”
“I guess not.” She took Aviva’s hand. “I’ll be back. Queen stuff.”
Aviva smiled back at her and then returned to answering Keren’s questions about how each part of her body felt from the period of starvation and dehydration.
Shulamit and Rivka joined Isaac, who was waiting for them at the door to the temple. “She’ll do it,” said Rivka, “but she doesn’t know the words.”
“I won’t hold it against her. She’s got plenty of time to learn them later for other people.”
The three of them clambered back up the stairs to the roof.
“Wait! I know one thing!” Shulamit bent down and reached into the wreckage of the holy water basin to pluck out the now completely empty crystal vial that had held the curse blight. “For him to step on.”
She put it on the ground between herself and the impatient lovers, then stood straight up and blinked a few times. “Isaac of the Wizards and Rivka bat Beet-greens... oh, I’m so sorry, you should never have told me that. It stuck in my head, and now it came out because I’m flustered.”
“Forget it,” said Rivka, laughing. “I’m about to marry Isaac. Do you really think I care?”
Shulamit smiled with relief.
“It should be ‘daughter of Bitter-greens’, anyway,” Isaac suggested. “Isn’t your mother called Miriam?”
“Riv Maror,” Rivka mused. She lifted one eyebrow. “I like it!”
“I like it too -- I think it’s really clever,” Shulamit agreed. “If I had to think of a food that was bold and assertive like you are, horseradish is a good one! Anyway: Isaac and Rivka -- may God bless you both with a lifetime of shared love, and may He forgive me for improvising. Wait -- don’t we need a ketubah?”
“I promise to keep saving your life,” said Isaac directly to Rivka.
“I promise to keep giving you reasons to want to,” said Rivka back to him. They were both beaming.
“Since I can’t remember what else to say -- you’re married now. Have a good life together. Oh, and the glass!”
With one stomp of her boot, Rivka smashed the thing to powder.
Isaac lifted his pointed eyebrows and smiled his impish smile, and Shulamit burst into giggles.
“What’s going on up there?” called a voice from the courtyard. One of the sisters was looking up at them curiously.
“Your Majesty, please send the warrior down so that we may thank him!” called another. “He’s too shy. We must have a feast!”
“Though our fare is humble, we’re indeed grateful and wish to repay you both,” spoke a third. “We thought he was coming down to receive his honors, but then you both went back up to the roof.”
Isaac transformed back into a dragon and gave the two women a lift straight into the midst of the crowd.
Chapter 17: Sharing the Treasure
There was a great celebration, and the holy women played instruments and sang and danced for the four of them. When they knew the songs and dances, they joined in. Eventually, everybody wore themselves out and sat down on the ground to feast. Some of the women carried low, wooden tables out to the courtyard and spread the meal out across them. The food was simple, but there was enough to go around.
The two northerners spoke quietly in their own language while they ate. “The night when we were together and you were a lizard,” Rivka asked, “you still spoke as a man. Sang to me, even. When you were a dragon these past three years, couldn’t you speak and identify yourself?”
Isaac shook his head. “I was under too many curses. Sometimes it was hard to remember human language at all. That’s why my first words to you today were in their language.” He cocked his head toward the bevy of Perachis. “It’s all I’ve been hearing lately.”
“I wish you’d told me about your serpent powers,” said Rivka, “so I had a chance of guessing it was you all along.”
“I made a lot of decisions based on what I thought was best. One of them was not telling anyone more than I thought they needed to know -- even you. I’m so sorry about that.” He gazed deeply into her eyes. “Even befriending you was a decision made from arrogance -- I thought, with the celibacy vow, it wouldn’t matter if I was friends with a woman, because -- woman, man, everyone is the same if you’re chaste and not supposed to love any of them. And maybe it would have worked out that way -- if the woman had been anyone but you, Mighty One.” At these last words, his eyebrows reached for her and Rivka had to wipe sweat off her face beneath her cloth mask. She wanted to touch him so badly it made her rib cage ache, but she looked away and ate another mouthful of rice instead.
When everyone was finished with the main meal, some of the holy women produced mangoes and litchis. As they peeled fruit and relaxed in the shade of the palm trees, the women listened to Isaac and Riv’s stories of adventure and combat. They heard the story of the injury to Isaac’s right hand (during which Isaac managed to accidentally start a rumor that Riv’s cloth mask hid an even more grisly and disfiguring scar), and of their joint capture of the famous twin brothers who had robbed so many travelers in the lands just north of them. So raptly did the warriors’ tales hold their attention that nobody noticed when the sky grew silver and the air alive with dead leaves.
And so the rain started up too quickly to avoid, and many of them were drenched as they scurried about clearing away dishes and tables and gathering up the piles of pits and peels to throw away. By the time everyone had bustled everything safely inside the temple, a gloriously heavy shower was pelting the courtyard.
Tamar toddled toward Isaac and Rivka, holding a lit lamp. “My sons, you’ll be more comfortable drying off in our private meditation room. Come.” She led them down the hall, and Rivka shot a shocked look at Isaac, barely able to believe their luck.
“I’m sure she’s trying to keep our male eyes away from her holy women’s clinging wet robes,” Isaac murmured in barely audible northern tongue. Rivka smirked.
Tamar opened a big, heavy door at the end of a hallway and showed them inside a room decorated with
simple curtains designed to induce inner peace. “You’ll need this lamp -- there are no windows.” She set the lamp down on the floor and stepped back into the hallway. “Come out when you’ve dried off your clothes, and we’ll be waiting in the main hall. Thank you for all your stories. We enjoyed that so much!”
“And thank you for the food,” said Rivka.
“Don’t be alarmed if you hear heavy footsteps or thumping,” Isaac piped up. “We may spar to pass the time.”
Rivka stifled a laugh.
“Enjoy yourselves, my sons!” Tamar turned and started her slow walk back down the hallway.
Rivka closed the big wooden door and carefully made sure it was latched as sturdily as possible. Then she turned around, and burst into laughter as she beheld not Isaac the man, but a large python, as big around as her thigh in some places, slithering toward her. Its scales were a mottled yellow-and-cream color like rich pasture-fed butter, and its tongue flickered in and out of its mouth as it sniffed for her. Of course, at this point, she knew who he was.
She could also see Isaac’s wet cassock on the other side of the room draped over a stone bench.
The snake glided across the floor and then began to climb up her left leg. As its squeezing muscles wrapped around her, she couldn’t help quivering with pleasure, her back thrown against the door. “Stop showing off,” she commanded. “I know I married a traveling menagerie, but right now I want my husband as a human.”
“At once,” said Isaac’s voice from somewhere, and then the snake dropped in a coil on the floor in front of her. He rose up again in human form and seized her in his arms. She caressed the massive bulk of his back and shoulders, kissing him, lifting her chin as he breathed fire across her throat like the dragon he was. His good hand was underneath her soaked tunic fumbling at the cord between the legs of her trousers, opening them to the air, and then his fingers brushed her skin directly.
The Second Mango (The Mangoverse Book 1) Page 13