VirtualHeaven (10 page)

“You must believe in this very strongly,” Maggie said.

“If believing in a legend will bring peace, I will believe
in anything.”

His vehement reply told her the depth of his desire to
believe, yet she was skeptical. “Those aren’t very clear instructions. Can’t
you be more specific?” Maggie asked.

“It is not necessary to have a plan carved in stone. Any
good commander knows that one must make use of the local terrain, adjust to fit
the immediate circumstances. There are other signs more important than those
concerning the sword.”

“What could possibly be more important at this moment?”

“Watching to see if your blisters fester.”

Maggie froze. Her hand went to her throat. She wanted to see
his expression because his voice was neutral, but his head was bent, his hair a
concealing wall between them.

“Maybe I’ll heal as swiftly as you. Your skin is perfect
again,” she said, enviously. “I’ve never seen anything so marvelous.”

In answer he grunted a noncommittal, annoying sound.

Fear and anger mixed. She lost her temper, leaping to her
feet. “So, we’re going to just sit here and wait for me to rot?”

He tugged her gently down and placed his hand over hers,
curling his fingers over her tight fist. “There is little left of the salve.
You will bathe on the morrow and what is left, I will spread on the worst of
the sores.”

She jerked her hand away and jumped up again to pace back
and forth before the fire. His words gave her no sense of time, no idea of how
soon they might continue on and so eventually return to Nilrem’s mountain. She
desperately wanted to go home. Each day, her growing fascination with the
warrior made going on more difficult and made staying distant from him less
likely. Her desperation made her voice sharp. “The weather is deteriorating,
Ker. We must do something.”

“We must
wait
to see if your blisters fester.”

Maggie tried to be calm. Her skin felt cool and the itching
had vanished. He had acted quickly and loaded the salve on with a heavy hand—a
warm, caring hand. It was unfair to take out her anxieties and anger on him.
“You know, I’m wearing a sacred eight, too,” she pointed out. “Maybe this sword
will come to me.”

He laughed. The sound was rich and deep and even more
annoying than his inarticulate grunts.

“What’s so funny? If the sword is to return to someone with
your sacred number, why not me?”

“If I, a man at the seventh level of awareness, cannot call
forth the sword, then by all my ancestors’ graves, you will surely fail, too.
Ruhtra’s sword would not be called from the depths by a female slave. Only a
mighty and worthy warrior may command the waters,” he said, heartily amused,
shaking his head in disbelief.

“Hm, is that so?” she asked. “We’ll just see about that,
won’t we?”

Maggie ran to the water’s edge. She did not need to see him
to know he had come on silent feet to stand behind her. Like another sense, her
body knew when he was near.

Maggie looked about. The landscape was soothingly similar to
home with its rolling hills and silvery pool. Yet a red sun burned in a
lavender sky streaked with dark clouds. A giant horse cropped grass nearby. How
could it get any stranger? Could anything be more fantastic?

“A challenge, Maggie?” His words were soft and edged with
sarcasm.

“Sure. I’ve always loved a challenge.” She swept an arm out
in a grand gesture. “Command the waters.”

Kered grinned, then turned to face the pool. With a
reverence Maggie suspected was not feigned, he pressed his palm over the mark
on his chest and spoke. “I, the Esteemed Warrior Kered, command the sword from
the depths.” The water lay placid and unmoving.

Maggie laughed at the absurdity of the situation, holding
her pendant in her fist. “I, the Esteemed Metalsmith Maggie O’Brien, command
the sword from the depths.”

As if on cue, a wind rose. Maggie reached across the space
that separated them and gripped Kered’s fingers. They stared across the secretive
pool. A long rumble like the march of a phantom army rolled down the hills and
a shiver of fear raised goose bumps on Maggie’s arms. “What was that?” she
whispered.

Kered gathered Maggie against his chest, drawing his cloak
about her shoulders. “Just the herald of a storm. A helm wind. They come
quickly across the fells. Look.” He pointed to the hilltops where angry purple
clouds raced the wind to hide the sun.

Maggie shivered in his embrace. In time to the beat of his
heart beneath her cheek, the thunder rolled. The scent of him, his warmth, made
her burrow closer to him.

The sky opened and a torrent of rain lashed them. Windsong
rose on his hind legs, then pawed the dirt in a fevered protest, tugging on his
tether.

“The pool,” Kered cried, pulling away from her. Together
they turned and watched as the sudden hail of raindrops pelted the glassy
surface of the water, churning it into a seething, roiling mass, throwing waves
to lap their feet.

Maggie had to shout to be heard above the cacophony of
thunder. “What’s happening?”

Kered did not answer.

She had ceased to exist for him.

He withdrew his hand, his fingers sliding unfeeling from
hers. The rain plastered his hair to his head. He threw off his cloak and stood
bare-chested before the questing waves. The blue cloak disappeared, sucked
under the water and swept away.

The indigo clouds blackened the sky, blotting out the last
rays of the red sun, casting them into artificial night. Maggie shrieked as a
sudden bolt of lightning lit the hills, throwing Kered into sharp relief
against the silver pool. Her words stuck in her throat, for he looked like a
pagan god commanding the water. Without the strength of his hand, she felt
small and inconsequential. She grabbed her pendant to anchor herself. The
brilliant display of nature only underscored her puny stature in his world.

Waves rose and rushed to the shore, spewed foam across him,
and still he stood like a statue, unaware of nature’s fury.

“Ker! Kered!” She urgently cried his name. Great waves
swirled about his thighs and dragged at the hem of the shirt she wore. “You’ll
be killed,” she shrieked, wading to her armpits to save him somehow.

Another blue-white bolt struck a nearby tree, sending
Windsong into a screaming frenzy. A wall of water advanced. She squeezed the
pendant like a religious amulet and offered up a prayer. She dragged at Kered’s
waist.

When the wave hit, she lost her grip, her nails scraping
across his body.

She fell and tumbled backward. Like a child knocked from her
raft at the shore, she rolled with the wave, grazing her knees and scraping her
hands in an effort to stand in the water. Finally, exhausted, she collapsed on
the shore, gasping.

Something hard and cold dug into her side. She rolled over.
A wave slapped her in the face. She coughed and blinked to clear her sight.
There, lying beneath her, was a long sword, half-buried in the mud. She
straddled it, grasped the hilt, and dragged it above the frothing waves to make
sure it wasn’t again snatched to a watery grave.

In an instant the wind died. The water slipped to oily
smoothness. “Ker,” she called, turning back and wading to where he stood. When
he didn’t respond to his name, she slapped his arm, stinging her palm against
his rock-hard musculature.

Like a bear waking from hibernation, he turned and shook his
head. Water sluiced in silver streams down his half-naked body.

“Maggie,” he said, articulating her name as if his tongue
was thick in his mouth. “Maggie?”

She threw herself into his arms, hugging his cold, wet body.
“I found the sword!” She searched his face, seeing confusion in his eyes.

He raised a shaky hand and swept the wet tangles of hair
from her brow and cupped her face. “You found the sword?” he said, his voice
dazed.

“Come,” she said, tugging him along. He went like a sleepwalker,
stumbling after her. She knelt at his feet and stroked her fingers along the
sword’s long hilt. At the crosspiece, a hollow sphere was formed by eight
entwining strands of silver. Nestled in the center sat a brilliant turquoise
stone. “See, it’s just like my pendant.” She held her necklace up for his
approval, seeking some sign that he understood. His face was deeply etched with
uncertainty and anger.

“It cannot be,” he said, standing before the gleaming blade
that lay like a gift at the shore’s edge. “It cannot be.” He swept up the sword
and raised it high. The red sun burst from the clouds, bathing them in a cone
of light, unearthly and hot.

The light bounced off the blade as it had done in the
opening sequence of the
Tolemac Wars
game. Maggie choked back a cry of
fear. “The waves knocked me over. When I tried to get up, there it was, under
me.” She desperately tried to explain. “The legend is true,” she finished in
whisper.

“True?” he said in a deceptively calm voice. “The legend
said the sword would come to he who bore the sign.”

Maggie floundered for words. She saw the anger in his face
and heard it in his voice. “It did, it did,” she finally said. “It came to me.
I’m wearing the sign, don’t you see?”

His hand went to the mark on his chest and he rubbed his
palm there as if it itched. “I see what I see.” He thrust the sword deep into
the sand. The sun gleamed on the shining hilt as he stormed away.

Again and again she saw the gleaming blade rise, the tip cut
open his chest, the blood flow down his body. His torturer would use the sacred
sword. She struggled awake, cold and cramped, curled alone by a fire that
offered no comfort or warmth.

Kered stood by Windsong, readying the horse for the day’s
ride. Maggie struggled to her feet, pushing her hair from her eyes, panic
streaking through her. The words bubbled out of her mouth without restraint.
“Throw it back. Throw the sword back,” she begged.

Kered turned to her in astonishment. “You have obtained the
blade, where others have failed, generation after generation, and you wish that
I throw it back?”

“Yes,” she cried. “I had a dream. Someone will hurt you.
He’ll use the sword on you.” Her skin burned anew wherever he had applied the
salve.

He placed the sacred sword on the ground and grasped her
arms. Like a summer storm, his temper had blown up and then blown over. His
hands were gentle, his tone soothing. “Fear not. A dream is not reality.”

“It is!
It is.
I know it. You must throw it back.”

He captured her face in his hands. “Maggie. I do not know
from whence you have come, but hear me. I will not throw back the sword. Your
pendant, your appearance at the conjunction—it is fated. If I am to suffer from
the sword…then so be it.”

“My Gran—” Maggie began to cry.

“Gran?” He used his thumbs to smooth away her tears.

“Yes, my grandmother, from beyond the ice fields, she taught
me to respect a dream. Its meaning may not always be evident at first, but
still, we must respect it. Someone—” she choked on the words, “someone will
torture you with the sword.”

He drew her close into the circle of his warmth. “This
grandmother of yours sounds wise. But still, we may not alter the future. What
is meant to be, will be.”

Maggie pushed him away, refusing solace. “You’re wrong! We
can
alter the future. Destroy the sword. Fling it to the deepest part of the pool.”

He exerted his greater strength, forcing her to come close,
his hands soothing, sweeping back her hair, tracing the lines of her cheeks.

“Maggie, you must understand. If peace does not come to the
borders of Tolemac soon, many will die. Children will starve. How can I weigh a
danger to myself against sure death to others?” He released her and turned his
back, returning to the saddling of Windsong. “‘Tis the children I will not
betray. There are those who consider the children of Selaw expendable. The get
of vermin. Of no account in the calculation of power and control. Had Leoh not
taken me in, I might have been one of those children.

“When I bear the sword to the council, it will empower me with
Ruhtra’s legendary might. I can change the fate of the Selaw children. There is
no other path.” In a fluid movement of sinuous strength, he hoisted her into
the saddle. “You called the sword from the Sacred Pool. What is done, is done.”

Maggie gripped his strong hands, and tears flowed over her
cheeks and fell on his fingers. She shook her head. She was powerless to make
him understand and powerless, she knew deep inside, to change his mind or his
fate.

“What next?”

Her voice was dull, lacking inflection. It had been that way
now for hours. Kered pulled on the horse’s reins, then slipped from the saddle.
He offered her his hands, and she fell heavily into them.

“Come, we have ridden long and hard. Let us rest here.”

“Here?” she asked, but her voice told him she did not care.

He kept one eye on her as he built the fire. She chewed the
bread he offered her and drank from the water gourd. At one point, she rose and
went off into the darkness, and he half-stood to accompany her, fearful of what
she might meet in the night, but changed his mind. Perhaps she wanted to be
alone. They were in a peaceful heathland. Little except a stray sheep would
startle her.

When she returned, she came to him and curled in his arms.
It had become their custom for him to remain on guard, his back to a tree, and
for her to lie in his arms.

A bad habit. One to tempt the most resolute of men.

Her breasts now rested against his forearm, her breathing
slow and deep. He wondered what he could do to raise her spirits. This dream
she had described did not really trouble him. When his time came, it would
come. There was little to do about it. He was trained by the finest, knew his
strength, knew his abilities. Few could best him.

Maggie stretched and turned in his arms. He stroked her hair.
His lust rose to taunt him, regular as the rising of the moons. He stamped it
down just as often. Each time seemed to take more effort until finally, he
shifted her from his arms, placed her on his cloak, and turned his back to her.
Still she robbed him of concentration. She rolled against his back, hugging his
waist.

Better to keep watch from a distance. With great difficulty,
he disentangled himself from her arms without waking her, rose, and stood by
the fire. He noted the position of the moons, close to the horizon. The sun
rising was not far off. He hunkered down, poked the fire’s embers until they
glowed with renewed life, and began to plan their next day.

The cup of Liarg was said to lie in the depths of a cave on
the Isle of N’Olava. They had little hope of reaching the island or entering
the cave without combat. Maggie’s weapon would perhaps speed their way, yet she
had said it could not be brought back to power should it run out. He crouched
at her side, reached over, and pulled the gun from her belt.

Kered stroked the gun made of a substance he did not
recognize. He studied Maggie’s face—beauty and courage combined. She had not
run from the dragon. No, she had come to rescue him. She had made no comment
about her blisters after her first horrified reaction. She was not vain.

A sigh escaped her lips.
What lips.
He could still
taste their one kiss. He could still feel her tongue. When he wished to satisfy
his needs, he paid coin. Most often, he used the female slaves at a pleasure
house. The pleasure houses were costly in gold and time, but well worth the
expense. The slave and her attendance were merely one facet of a complete
sensual experience of food and wine and music.

To seek an independent fornitrix purely to relieve lust had
always seemed an empty experience. At least his one time had been so. The woman
had been lovely and quite adept at wringing a shattering climax from him. But
the exchange of coin from his hand to hers had tainted the moment. At a
pleasure house, the coin went to the proprietor and the illusion remained that
the female came willingly.

Kered touched Maggie’s hair. Perhaps she ran from a master
who beat her. No. Her skin was nigh unto perfect. No man had abused her in such
a way. But there were worse ways to abuse a woman. Words could flay the soul.
Leon had a rapier tongue. Samoht wounded with a glance and a word. Aye. Perhaps
Maggie ran from a master who abused her mind and heart.

His blood beat a tattoo in his groin, and he ceased fighting
it. He let his lust rise as he caressed the weight of her hair. He bunched it
in his fist and let the ebony strands arouse him. He no longer detected the
floral aura. Time, sweat, and his shirt’s odor had overpowered her womanly
scent. A cooling breeze lifted his own hair. He remembered the sensual
experience of Maggie tending his hair, remembered the stroke of the brush, the
nearness of her heat, the soft caress of her breath as she bent to the task.

He shook off her hair like a man wiping some noxious dirt
from his hand. He shot to his feet and left the circle of fire. Her master had
taught her to use her tongue to bring pleasure, something he had never
experienced before. An emotion he refused to recognize as jealousy smote
him—hard. If a pleasure house or common fornitrix used that exotic trick, he
would have heard tell of it. His desire leapt, and he thrust aside his
thoughts.

He kept his back to the fire—and Maggie—until his blood
slowed and his thoughts cooled.

“Ker?” Maggie stretched. He scowled at her over the glowing
coals. The harshly delineated planes of his cheeks and jaw were hard and
possibly cruel. The shadows painted on his face made him seem almost evil. She
shivered. Her hands shook a bit as she drew his fur cloak about her shoulders.
His fine shirt, wrinkled now, the gold of its embroidery not gleaming as it
had, stretched taut across his shoulders and chest. Surely, he must miss his
blue cloak. “Are you cold?” she asked.

“No.” He looked away from her.

“You’re angry.”

“No.”

She huddled in the heavy cloak, no longer noticing the scent
of it. It had become part of him, part of her world. The scent of his skin, of
his sweat, were now an amalgam of what made up her experiences, along with the
rich, earth scent beneath her and the sharp, smoky smell of the burning wood.
Windsong snorted in the darkness, close by.

“Tell me what made you angry,” she persisted.

“I am not angry.”

“Then what troubles you?”

“You. You have not eaten. You sleep for many hours. You do
not prick me with your taunts.”

“Ah, you miss my conversation.” She smiled.

He smiled in return. Dimples deepened, banishing his fierce
scowl and most of her worries.

“Aye. I miss your conversation, slave.”

“Please. My name is Maggie.”

“Your name has sharp edges. It is not feminine.”

“Say my name, Ker.”

“Maggie.”

The air hung heavy between them, filled with something
unspoken and expectant.

“You give it an accent that is pleasing to me.” She heard
his professorial cadence taking over her speech’s rhythm. “I like to hear you
say my name.”

He growled, his eyes narrowing.

“Do you make that noise in anger or from frustration?”

He didn’t respond to her question. They lapsed into silence.
The fire crackled and the wind blew sparks into the air, where they
disappeared, floating like miniature fireworks over their heads.

“We will soon reach the Isle of N’Olava where, by legend,
the cup of Liarg is said to be.”

“Is that why you’re so pensive?” Maggie sat up and threw the
cloak about her legs. It was much shorter than before, being the source of
boots and belts for her.

“Perhaps. How strong is the power of your weapon?”

She rested her chin on her knees. Of course, he thought only
of the quest and weapons. Planning strategy. Too much to hope that his throaty
noise signaled anything more. Her head felt heavy on her neck and her stomach
rumbled. For the first time in hours, she felt hungry. The lethargy that had
stolen her will and deadened her thoughts seemed to be seeping away in the
chill air. The dreams weren’t gone, just softened and stored, rationalized into
a compartment where she could deal with them. “I don’t have any idea of the
gun’s capacity to hold power. It could shoot one more time or a thousand.”

“Tell me of the ways in which your master used it.”

She bit her tongue on a sharp retort.
Obstinate male
.
“I never saw it used. I saw it demonstrated—once. I can’t help you.”

“So be it.”

She shot to her feet. “I hate that expression. It’s so
fatalistic. It tells me you just accept what comes. I hate it.”

“Sit, Maggie.”

He scowled up at her as she paced by the fire, the cloak
falling in a heap by the stones. She ignored his expression and stormed back
and forth, needing the movement to calm her agitation. “You can’t just say, ‘So
be it.’ You have to seek change, try to alter events, not wait for some
seventh-level thought to occur to you.”

“Sit!” he thundered.

Maggie jumped and then collapsed to the ground. Kered
flipped open his pack and drew out the ubiquitous heel of bread. The loaf
seemed ever fresh but, by now, boring. She accepted it with ill grace as her
stomach rumbled another protest.

“I have led an army since my twentieth conjunction. I am
renowned for my tactics. I do not excel on the battlefield because I jump at
every thought that crosses my mind. I think; I plan. I contemplate and consult
those wiser than I am. Perhaps a female would perceive this as wasting time,
but that is why men rule. They think first.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!”

“Do not swear!”

“Look who’s talking! You swear constantly, you swear a blue
streak—”

“I do not swear.”

Maggie began to laugh. She rolled to her side in hysterics.
“You do.” She gasped. She sat up and counted off her fingers. “Let’s
see…Nilrem’s beard—ever popular and number one. Nilrem’s knees—almost as
colorful, but definitely second. By the sword—dull and number three. Your
mighty ancestors—in order yet, back to the dawn of time—number four.” Her
laughter subsided into chuckles.

He unfolded his long frame and stepped directly over the
fire and swept her off the ground. He held her dangling from her underarms, her
feet flailing the air, their eyes level. When his mouth crushed down on hers
she shook to her toes and collapsed against him. He made no attempt to be
gentle. He conquered her slightest protest, his thumbs pressing painfully into
the sides of her breasts.

Maggie’s heart slammed frantically in her chest. She kept
her lips demurely together so as not to shock him again. A lightning bolt of
sensation streaked from her navel to her groin. She wriggled in his arms, her
body brushing his, his heavy belt buckle rubbing the juncture of her thighs.
Lying beside him, sleeping in his arms, she knew how his body felt and she
craved the hard length of him, arching in his hands to get closer. Her nipples,
chafed raw by his woolen shirt, burned at the contact. She cried out against
his mouth.

He dropped her to her feet. Maggie’s hands crept to her
breasts, pressing against her sore nipples. They stared at each other. His
hands opened and closed. His dark eyes reflected the dying flames of the fire
behind her.