The Story of Lamia & Pan

by C M Blackwood

  “Perhaps,” Lamia said softly.

  He stood for a while longer, still gazing at the sea; till finally he turned back and smiled grimly at his guests. “My queen’s vassals wish to kill you,” he said. “And it will be a hard thing to stop them, now that they’ve decided to do it.” He hesitated, and then asked, “Which of them came to you?”

  “Only two,” Pan answered. “Borrigan and Medruga.”

  “Ah,” said Moravian, “but that doesn’t mean they won’t all come together next time. We must be ready for anything.”

  Pulling his cloak around his shoulders – which was strangely dry, even after his ascent from the bottom of the sea – he started off up the sandy beach.

  “Come,” he said. “We will go to Eristhes.”

  Part Four:

  The Bedchamber

  Only moments after they departed Inisheera, they all came into the kingdom of Eristhes, having arrived there by the sheer force of Moravian’s will.

  The kingdom was vast, and fair, but was broken and ruined by the onslaught of Queen Esmé’s army.

  Moravian looked sadly at his castle, and sighed. “And so you see how Eristhes has fallen,” he said. “It was many years ago, now – but to me, it feels like only yesterday.”

  He led his three guests up the castle steps, and into the massive structure.

  “Welcome,” he said. “I hope you will make yourselves at home. I will return to you – but for now I must – I must . . .”

  He put a hand to his weary brow, and went slowly to the great staircase which wound up into the higher stories of the castle. He started up them, and climbed until he had disappeared.

  “Will he come back, do you think?” Brudo asked.

  Neither Lamia nor Pan answered him; so after a moment he frowned, stroked his chin, and added, “I certainly hope he comes back.”

  ~

  At this point, Brudo discovered that he was very hungry, so he went outside to scavenge for some fruit from the bushes all around the castle. He had noticed it on his way in, and said it looked like the “lovely red kind” – not the kind with “worms and spiders all hiding inside.”

  “Any fruit for you?” he asked the women.

  Pan had her hand to her face, and she was breathing shallowly.

  “Lamia?” Brudo said. “Pan?”

  “Oh,” Pan cried, “begone with you!”

  “Well, my goodness,” Brudo hissed. “If I had an apple for every time you’ve insulted me, I’d never go hungry again!”

  Here, though, he remembered that he actually was hungry; so he just harrumphed a little more, and then disappeared.

  Lamia and Pan wandered from the entrance hall, into a vast white drawing-room whose fair surfaces hardly seemed to have been soiled by the many years that had passed. Without, the kingdom was a broken tooth; an incomplete part of what had once been a mighty whole. But within, the castle of Eristhes was untainted; unbroken by Esmé’s wrath, and still just as it must have been, when Moravian first created it.

  The light was changing outside the tall windows. The sun was moving, and the day was passing onward. Pan noticed this with a sorrowful moan, and dropped down into a chair at a nearby table.

  Lamia looked sadly at Pan; and after a few moments, she went to join her at the table. But Pan was just sitting there in her chair, with her head hanging in her hands.

  “Pan,” Lamia said softly. “Look at me.”

  Pan wouldn’t look at her right away, because she wanted to hide her tears. But Lamia turned her face up anyway, kissing her mouth.

  “It will be all right,” she said firmly. “I am yours, and you are mine – and it shall be that way in the end. Will you believe me?”

  Pan looked at her with shadowed eyes, as if she could hardly bring herself to believe. But then, Lamia wrapped her arms around her, holding her to her breast.

  “We have loved too long,” she said. “You are too much a part of me for anyone to ever take you away from me. Though we may die, and our blood may flow freely into the earth – your soul and mine shall always be joined. There is no undoing it.”

  Pan looked desperately into her beautiful face, and kissed her with such power, the very ache in her heart could be felt in Lamia’s own soul. They had scarcely even looked around when they came into the drawing-room; but as if by some sort of second sense, they marked the appearance of a door at their right-hand: the door of a fair bedchamber.

  The windows of the room looked out onto a clear, wide lake, with waters of sparkling blue. The walls were white, and they seemed to shine with the sunlight, as if with thousands of diamonds. The bed was made up with white covers; and Lamia and Pan fell on top of them, dancing a familiar dance against their softness, each of them feeling the other’s strength, and gaining comfort from it.

  “Though this may be the last time,” Pan whispered to Lamia, “it is enough for me – just as long as you love me as much as you did yesterday.”

  Lamia tugged at Pan’s raiment with unshaking hands, breathing in her delicate fragrance, and nuzzling her face into her long, dark hair. “I love you more every day,” she murmured. “With every day that passes – until the end.”

  Every ounce of the lovers’ blood pumped through the other’s veins. As they moved against each other, they seemed to fall into each other, as they had done countless times before. But it was strong as it had always been; their passion gave them freedom from their worries, and made it so that nothing else existed. Each was the treasure of the other’s heart; each was the second half of the other’s soul.

  Their naked flesh was on fire. The danger that lay outside the room had vanished. In the back of her mind, there was some vague inkling of a coming battle, but right now, Pan wanted to be that soft putty in Lamia’s gentle hands.

  “Make love to me,” she whispered brokenly, laying her forehead against Lamia’s and closing her eyes.

  “Shhhhh,” Lamia murmured, cupping her smooth breast and kissing her lips. Pan moaned into her mouth, arching her back and shoving her aching pussy against Lamia’s hand.

  “I need you,” Pan said. “I need you inside me . . .”

  Lamia smiled against Pan’s wet mouth, taking her bottom lip between her teeth. Pan was trembling in her arms, clutching her right hand with shaking fingers as it reached between her legs.

  “Control me,” Pan whispered, her chest heaving as Lamia hooked three fingers inside her. “Put me under your spell.”

  Lamia kissed her fiercely, dragging her nearer on the hooks of her fingers. Pan moaned like a wounded beast, aching for release. She leaned down and bit Pan’s breast, then kissed the red mark she’d left behind. She unhooked her fingers in Pan’s opening, thrusting them hard, sliding down to lick her.

  Pan wrapped Lamia’s hair around her fingers, pulling it tight. She knew Lamia didn’t mind. She dragged her face against her throbbing sex, crying out towards the high ceiling as Lamia took her engorged floret between her teeth. She sucked it hard, then licked it, driving Pan mad with lust.

  There was an ancient wine bottle lying on its side on a nearby table. Lamia left Pan for a moment, making her scream with misery. She picked up the wine bottle and inspected it, but just like the other surfaces of the castle, somehow it was clean. “You’re wild, my love,” she said with a roguish smile. “You need to be fucked.”

  She came back to the bed, positioning her head near to Pan’s, circling an arm around her to kiss her hungrily. She slid the neck of the wine bottle into Pan’s pussy, making her whimper with pleasure. It moved easily in Pan’s fluids, gliding in and out quickly. It made a loud, wet sound that only seemed to excite Pan more, and she clutched Lamia tightly, kissing her ferociously, biting her lip.

  “Fuck me,” she pleaded. “Make me cum.”

  Lamia worked the bottle faster, knowing just how Pan liked it done. She forced it deep, making her lover gasp. Lamia felt a thick throbbing between her legs, and she felt as if the bottle were her own member, driving hard into Pan. They
were one.

  Pan pushed her fingers into Lamia, rubbing her inflamed nub, taking it between her fingers and twisting it deliciously. Lamia’s thighs quivered, and the muscles in her cunt began to tighten.

  They came at the same time, falling heavily against each other, the centuries-old wine bottle dropping to the floor to smash into thousands of dark red shards.

  They lay in each other’s arms, their hands in one another’s hair, each kissing the other’s lips, cheeks, forehead and throat. They were very tender with each other after episodes of lust. They treated one another like porcelain dolls, holding each other gently, kissing each other softly. Their bodies burned after the fuckings they’d received, and they needed soft, cool touches.

  Suddenly, reality rushed back to Pan, invading her mind like a deadly wind. Lamia’s eyes were closed, and she was breathing shallowly, so she leaned close and kissed her eyelids.

  “I will protect you,” she whispered, “until my last breath.”

  “And I you,” Lamia said, moving to catch Pan’s lips with her own. Then she closed her eyes again, and laid her head against Pan’s breast.

  Part Five:

  The Mystery Revealed

  Meanwhile, the six vassals of Queen Esmé were come together in the Hall of Sorrow.

  Borrigan was seated on her throne; and her two slaves moaned beneath it. Medruga sat off to the side in a large chair which she had fashioned from an ocean wave; and it rolled while she sat, picking at her blue fingernails. Caina was flitting this way and that through the cave, looking impatient, and clearly wondering why she had to be stuck in such a dreadful place. Malina looked a little lost for the lack of one of her prisoners to torture; Sylphona was sitting cross-legged on the floor, seemingly in a sort of strange trance; and Corella was hovering in midair, holding her wooden box, and sighing in the same miserable way she always did.

  “Why have you brought us to this awful place?” Caina demanded of Borrigan.

  “I have a favor to ask of all of you,” Borrigan replied.

  “A favor!” Caina exclaimed. “What do you think we are? Friends?”

  “Yes,” Malina said dryly. “Just because we once killed several thousand people together – that does not make us friends.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Borrigan said calmly. “And yet – we all despise Queen Esmé equally, do we not?”

  All of the elves save for Medruga looked round at each other in confusion. “Well – yes,” Caina answered. Then she grinned, and added: “Not that there’s much left to despise! Nothing but what’s left in Corella’s box, that is.”

  She laughed at the oblivious Corella, who was still merely hovering there, sighing over her box.

  “You may say that you hate her,” Sylphona said serenely, with her thumbs and forefingers touched together in a position of meditation. “But I loved her dearly.”

  “Did you, now!” Borrigan exclaimed with a grin. “Was it not you, Sylphona, who told us to cut off her breasts before we killed her – because you felt that would cause her the most pain?”

  Sylphona gave a slight twitch of discomfort, and said, “What about it? I was taken up in the moment – that’s all.”

  “Oh, bother you,” Borrigan muttered. Then she looked round at everyone else, and said: “Medruga and I have called you all here – because Esmé’s face has returned to Meridia.”

  Again, everyone but Medruga looked at her in astonishment.

  “What in the world are you talking about?” Malina demanded.

  “Seven years ago,” Borrigan said, “a human woman came to Meridia. Well, she said she was human – but it’s hard to believe, when her face is the same as our dead queen’s.”

  “A human woman?” Malina asked in bewilderment.

  “Yes, yes,” Borrigan said impatiently. “Lamia from the world of humans! She came to us seven years ago. She was so beautiful, perhaps we didn’t know what we were about at the time – but each of us asked her to stay with us. Don’t you remember?”

  “Well, I suppose,” Malina said stubbornly. “But what does it matter?”

  “Did you not notice,” Medruga said lightly, still examining her fingernails, “that she looked ever so much like our own dear Esmé?”

  All of the elves – even the dazed Corella – seemed to stop for a moment and think about what Medruga said.

  “Now that I think of it,” Caina said in consternation, “she is the spitting image of Esmé. Why – she could be her double!”

  “Then how can she be human?” Sylphona asked, finally lifting her eyes to the rest of the group, and putting aside her meditation for the moment.

  “I will admit that I don’t understand it,” Borrigan replied. “It is a mystery to me, but it shall not remain that way for long. We will all go to Gelbane – and we will work together to slay the queen’s double.”

  “We did give her the chance to leave, you know,” Medruga said absently. “It’s possible that she might have gone.”

  “She would never leave Pan,” Borrigan said. “I know that well enough now.”

  She looked hard at the others, and added: “So we must kill her.”

  Everyone still seemed lost in thought, but no one spoke a word in protest of the plan. So Borrigan folded her thin fingers beneath her chin and grinned wickedly.

  ~

  The six vassals went together to the boundary of Gelbane, to the exact spot where Borrigan and Medruga had gone that very morning. Borrigan went upon her horse of fire; and Medruga went upon her horse of water. Sylphona fashioned a steed very like Medruga’s, but with the waters of her river; and Malina took one of her own prisoners, and transformed it temporarily into a great wild boar with hideous tusks. Caina flew alongside them all, and Corella just glided wingless behind them, still holding her box and moaning.

  But when they came to the forest, calling for Lamia and Pan to show themselves, there was no response.

  “Perhaps they have gone,” Medruga said in that same absent tone.

  “They haven’t,” Borrigan snapped. “They are not here – but they are in Meridia.”

  Almost as if in response to this statement, a great host of thunderclouds appeared suddenly in the sky over their heads; and they looked up to see a fair, masculine face depicted upon the surface of the clouds.

  Thunder rumbled ferociously, and lightning streaked through the charcoal-grey sky.

  “You seek for Lamia and Pan,” the man said, his voice sounding loudly over the thunder. “But I have offered them my protection – and to get to them, first you must vanquish me.”

  “King Moravian,” Borrigan said dryly. “Tell me – was it very comfortable at the bottom of the sea?”

  Most of the vassals sniggered, at that – save for Corella, of course, who obviously wasn’t paying attention.

  Moravian didn’t answer; so Borrigan went on to say: “Strange of you to protect them, Moravian – when they so much resemble the ones who broke your heart.”

  Again, Moravian said nothing. He merely smiled that grim smile of his; and his face vanished from the clouds.

  “All right, then,” said Borrigan, whose face was set in steely determination. “We will go to Eristhes.”

  “To Eristhes?” Sylphona echoed in disdain. “But that’s such an awfully long way! Would it not be better, Borrigan, just to forget about the whole thing?”

  Borrigan looked at Sylphona fiercely; and she didn’t have the courage to say anything else.

  “We will go to Eristhes,” Borrigan repeated. “Come! Follow me.”

  And so, the six vassals turned north, and started towards the domain of King Moravian.

  ~

  While the vassals rode north, Moravian was staring fixedly from one of the high tower windows, watching for signs of approaching danger. Pan was with Lamia and Brudo in the drawing-room.

  “The sun has set,” Lamia observed, looking out at the sky. But her voice was not afraid. “There is nothing left but grey.”

  “A storm is co
ming,” Brudo said. “It will be here soon.”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning showed at the window. Perhaps they had followed after Moravian; or perhaps they merely wished to make a setting for the impending battle. Either way, they made a bleak and eerie picture of the evening without, and seemed to promise nothing but ill things.

  Finally, Moravian came down to meet his guests. He walked slowly into the drawing-room, still wearing that same grim smile.

  “The time is fast approaching,” he said. “Esmé’s servants will be here soon.”

  Lamia looked sadly at Pan and Brudo, and said, “I still don’t understand why they’re doing this. Is it really because I refused them?”

  Moravian looked at her in wonder, and said, “Do you mean to say, that you really don’t know?”

  “Know what?” Lamia asked.

  Moravian stepped nearer to her, and gazed at her for a long moment, before saying: “Your face, dear Lamia, is the same as my lost queen’s – the same as my Esmé’s.”

  Lamia’s brows knitted in confusion. “What are you saying?” she asked.

  “I hardly know,” Moravian answered honestly. “I only know, that you are like her in every way – except, perhaps, for the way you speak. Esmé was much less – polite. But in everything else, you are identical!”

  He looked at Pan with some measure of pain. He said: “And you are just like Rowena.”

  Pan looked at him with an astonished expression. “But,” she said slowly; “how can that be?”

  “Ah!” said Moravian. “The elder trees told you some of the story; but not all of it. You were born from Rowena’s twin-seed! You are like her in every respect, just as Lamia is like Esmé. Although –”

  Here, he knitted his brows in bewilderment, and added: “For Lamia I can think of no explanation. She is human; she is not an elf. And yet she looks just like Esmé – and she has fallen in love with you, Pan, who looks just like Rowena!”

  He frowned, and put a hand to his head, seemingly baffled. “Perhaps there is no explanation for it,” he said. “Perhaps it is only another mystery of the universe. Or perhaps –”