He paused, and then added: “Perhaps it is merely the way of love.”
He fell silent for a long moment, but then cleared his throat thickly, and looked pointedly at Pan. “Are you ready to fight?” he asked.
“Of course I am,” Pan answered, rising up from her place beside Lamia.
“I wonder, King Moravian,” Lamia said, with a small measure of irritation, “why you do not ask me?”
The king smiled kindly, and replied, “You are no creature for fighting, Lamia of the world of humans. Your power resides within your spirit – not within a sword.”
He looked with narrowed eyes at little Brudo, and added, “Perhaps you had best stay behind, as well.”
“Why,” Brudo cried in indignation, “how dare you? If anyone’s going to protect Lamia, you can be damned sure that –”
“Hush, Brudo,” Pan said with a soft smile. “Moravian is right. You must stay here – and you must look after Lamia while I’m gone.”
Brudo thought about it for a moment; then shoved his hands into his pockets and nodded stiffly.
Lamia leapt up from her seat, looking crossly at Pan. “I won’t let you go without me!” she cried.
“You needn’t let me do anything,” Pan answered, with a smile that was full of love. “After all – I’m going to lock you in.”
Pan and Moravian backed quickly out of the room, and Pan swung the doors shut. The lock clicked softly; and Lamia and Brudo were trapped.
Part Six:
The Siege of Eristhes
Soon afterward, Queen Esmé’s six vassals arrived at the gates of Eristhes. Borrigan blew them down with a wave of her hand; and then she and her small army passed into the city.
When they came to the castle, they found Pan and Moravian standing upon the steps. Pan held her hand against the hilt of her sword, and Moravian stared coolly at the approaching party.
“Ah!” Borrigan called, as she rode her fiery horse towards them. “How kind of you to deign to aid such a lowly elf, King Moravian! You know, after all, that our Pan is no queen? She is the self-proclaimed protector of the Forest of Gelbane – and that is all.”
“It is enough,” Moravian answered without pause.
“Is it!” Borrigan exclaimed. “Well – if you say so. You’re quite sure, then, that you want to stand with her? When she looks so much like Esmé’s whore?”
“Hold your tongue,” Moravian spat. “You know nothing.”
“Oh, ho!” Borrigan declared. “I have touched a nerve, it seems!”
She looked round at her comrades, and said to them, “What say you, my dears? Shall we begin?”
Medruga was gazing blankly towards Pan and Moravian, looking just as melancholy as always, and seeming as though she hardly cared when the bloodbath would start. Caina was looking on with a fearsome glint in her eye, and obviously pining for a head to twist from someone’s neck. Corella, however, was still hovering and sighing, and still paying hardly any attention. You’d think that the gravity of the situation might have brought just a little more focus into her bleary eyes; but alas, it did not. Sylphona, meanwhile, was looking doubtfully towards the castle steps, and seeming to regret her current position. Malina was simply frowning; and her thoughts were anything but clear.
“Have at them!” Borrigan cried, riding forth on her flaming horse. Medruga and Caina darted forward with her; but Corella, Sylphona and Malina failed to move.
“This seems rather like a mistake,” Sylphona said in a faltering voice. “I am not ready to die! Besides – if I die, I shall never again behold the beautiful sight of my own face, reflected to me in the surface of my river.”
“Quite right,” Malina said with a nod. “And if I die – why, I’ll never get to torture anyone again!”
She shuddered, and added: “The thought is too awful to consider! I must go! My regrets, Borrigan.”
And, with that, she charged off on her wild boar. Sylphona followed after her on her watery steed; but Borrigan sent two spears of flame after them, and sent them sprawling dead to the ground.
In that moment, the storm finally reached its climax; and beneath the thunder and the lightning, hard, cold rain began to fall.
“After them!” Borrigan cried, motioning to her comrades who remained, that they should charge at Pan and Moravian. Medruga and Caina started off again; but Corella just hovered there, moaning and sighing over her box.
Straightaway, Caina tried to go after Pan’s head; but Pan raised her sword, and cut off Caina’s head. It went rolling across the ground, leaving a gory trail in its wake.
Medruga fell to battling with Moravian, waving her black wand in all sorts of devious ways; and Borrigan went after Pan. Pan held her own for a long while, fighting fiercely against her fearsome opponent; but eventually she began to flag. Finally, she fell down to the ground.
It all looked very bad for Pan. But Lamia had been watching from the drawing-room window, and she saw Pan fall.
Brudo was standing beside Lamia. Lamia turned to him, snatching the dagger from his belt.
“Hey, now!” he cried. “What in the blazes are you doing?”
“Get me to her, Brudo,” Lamia pleaded. “I know she told you not to – but I’m begging you!”
She fell down on her knees before him, and buried her face in his small shoulder. “Please, Brudo,” she whispered. “Take me to her.”
With a hesitant expression, Brudo looked to the window; and there he saw Pan, lying prostrate beneath Borrigan’s lowering stone axe.
Brudo raised his little hand, and brought down a thundercloud from the stormy sky. He called a lightning bolt to break the window, then leapt with Lamia onto the cloud’s rumbling back. They rode it to the castle steps, where they jumped down to join the fray. Brudo sent the thundercloud spinning after Medruga; and it knocked her down the steps, all the way to the bottom, where her wand fell from her hand, and she lay motionless.
Lamia flew directly to Pan. She leapt onto Borrigan’s back; and with a mighty twist of strength that she hadn’t even known she possessed, she drove the dagger down, straight into Borrigan’s heart.
With a look of agony and rage, Borrigan turned around to face Lamia. There, she saw the face of her dead queen; but instead of striking out, she merely raised her hand in supplication. But it was too late. With a cry of pain, she fell backward, and died.
The rain stopped, and the thunder ceased its rumbling. Next moment, the sky began to clear, and the bright moon showed its silvery face.
Lamia fell down over Pan. “Oh, Pan,” she cried, kissing Pan’s face fifty times, and holding her close.
Down below the steps, Medruga was beginning to stir. Moravian looked down at her with a face of stone, and said: “Do you wish to surrender?”
Medruga looked round, and saw Caina’s and Borrigan’s lifeless bodies. Then she nodded listlessly and struggled up to her feet.
Moravian looked carefully into her face, and said: “You have an enchantment upon you. Esmé’s spell – cast so many years ago now. Are you ready to be free of it?”
Medruga looked at him blankly, but then nodded and burst into tears. So Moravian went to pass his hand over her – and a black cloud went out of her, floating away into the clear night sky.
Then Moravian went to Corella, and did the same for her. With a look rather like that of someone who has just woken from a long sleep, Corella set her feet down on the ground, and looked in confusion at her wooden box. Then, she dashed the box to the ground, looking at it in horror.
“Leave this place,” Moravian said to the two elves whose curse he had broken. “Go – and be free.”
Medruga and Corella nodded wonderingly; put their arms about each other’s shoulders; and began to stumble away.
~
And so, Queen Esmé’s curse was broken. Four of her vassals were dead; but two returned home, and lived free.
Moravian stayed in Eristhes, and made it new again. He resolved to live alone for the rest of his days; but one
day an elder seed fell to the ground before the castle, and grew into a woman who was called Amalia. She loved Moravian from the moment she saw him, and they remained together in Eristhes.
Lamia, Pan and Brudo freed Malina’s prisoners from the Shadow Forest, and they released the two elves beneath Borrigan’s throne. Then, they tried to return to Gelbane. But all of the tortured elves were faithful to Lamia and Pan for having saved them, and they insisted on making them their queens.
Lamia and Pan tried to refuse, but it was to no avail. Then, one day, all the elder trees began to drop their seeds, and these seeds grew into thousands upon thousands of elves, all of whom were seeking a home, and a leader.
The tortured elves, and the elder trees too, told these new elves the story of how Lamia and Pan’s love had freed Meridia. Therefore, the new elves also wished for these two lovers to be their queens. So Lamia and Pan set themselves up in the kingdom of Baranthor, and made it a fair place: a beautiful place.
“Will you make me a prince, then?” Brudo asked Pan.
“Ha!” said Pan. “You’d be the sorriest prince any land has ever had, no doubt.”
“Why, I ought to –”
“Now, now,” Lamia said with a sigh. “Why can’t Brudo be a prince?”
Pan frowned, and then said: “Oh – all right. I suppose so.”
And so, Baranthor had two beautiful queens, and one very small prince. The prince married a fair elf named Sia (who was much taller than he, and whom he had to stand upon a stool to kiss – but no matter.)
Lamia and Pan lived many, many years together – but with every year that passed, Lamia stayed the same, and the fear that Pan had once felt at expecting to lose her, began to drift away.
“Perhaps you are an elf,” Pan said to Lamia one day, while they walked beside the Moon River.
“Perhaps,” Lamia said. “Or perhaps I will die tomorrow. But what matter? No matter what – we will always be together.”
They stopped on the bank of the river, falling down to the ground. They kissed each other passionately; and Pan said: “Though this may be the last time, it is enough for me – just as long as you love me as much as you did yesterday.”
“I love you more every day,” Lamia whispered in her ear. “With every day that passes – until the end.”
She smiled, kissing Pan’s neck. Then she added: “And even after that.”
Pan began to slide off Lamia’s gown, kissing her smooth shoulder. “Your skin is so soft,” she murmured. “But it needs a firm touch. Tell my, my love – does the flesh require satisfaction?”
Lamia moaned lustily, throwing her head back in the sunlight and spreading her legs. “Make love to me,” she whispered. “I want to cum for you.”
Pan smiled against Lamia’s mouth, reaching under her gown to trace the lips of her delicate flower. Lamia shivered in her arms; and the two queens of Baranthor knew, that fate had tied them together for eternity.
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
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Twitter handle: @cm_blackwood
The Story of Lamia & Pan Page 4