C. S. Friedman - Magister 01, page 42
And then she appeared.
Her cap had fallen off and her red hair spread out like a fiery corona, despite the rain. She walked amid the fallen thieves as if they did not even exist, and when one of them tried to strike out at her, the sharp crack of breaking bone was so loud that Andovan could hear it from where he stood. The man cried out and fell back, clutching his arm in agony. Unexpectedly, Andovan felt her witchery in his own gut, as if a red-hot knife had rent open his stomach at the same moment. For a moment he doubled over, and the world rushed dizzily around him as he struggled not to vomit. Was her power so strong that it was affecting more than her targets? Fighting to focus upon the scene before him, Andovan saw that the black-haired man had summoned his power, which swirled like a maelstrom about his fingertips, and was about to strike—
—and her eyes burned as she raised her hand, reaching upward toward the stormy skies as if directing some greater power to assist—
—and lightning crashed down into the clearing with deafening force, throwing Andovan back upon the muddy earth. The whole of the world blazed white-hot for an instant, and the ground shook beneath him as he discovered he could no longer move; the last of his strength had finally left him. For one brief and terrible moment images flashed before him, seared into his brain: the brigands’ witch reduced to a pile of charred flesh. Lianna’s eyes fixed upon him with a terrible intensity. Netando’s men rushing forward, swords drawn, to finish the job they had started.
But the feeling faded from his limbs even as the light faded from his eyes, and despite his best efforts to hold onto consciousness, he could sense the world losing substance about him and a cold, nameless darkness taking its place. What if this was the last time? What if he never awakened?
Lianna!
“Bring him over here.”
The guard who was carrying Talesin down the hill almost lost his footing in the blood-slicked mud, but Kamala did not use her power to help him. She stood like a statue, watching in silence. She would not use sorcery again until she was sure what had just happened.
A chill ran down her spine as she remembered the look in Talesin’s eyes. The way his strength had left his body at the exact moment she had drawn upon her power. Surely she was wrong about what had caused it. Surely it was… something else.
“Is that all of them?” Netando asked her. The guards had been hunting down the last of the thieves; bodies were being piled up beside the road.
She nodded without looking, not wishing to be distracted. Let him assume that she had divined the answer, as opposed to merely guessing. They were still awed by the magnitude of power she had unleashed on their behalf, and not likely to question her. Foolish morati! The lightning had already been in the making, thanks to the weather; the only “witchery” required was to attune one man to it, so that the coming bolt chose him for a target.
Darkness flickered about the boundaries of her soul as she remembered Talesin’s collapse. She recognized that darkness from her dreams, and the blood ran cold in her veins. It was the touch of the abyss. Hungry for her, as it was for all Magisters. Waiting to devour her the moment she doubted her chosen path.
You should help search for any thieves who escaped this trap. Focus on the future. Let him die.
But she was only guessing what had felled him. She needed to know for sure. Even if that brought her to the very edge of the abyss, even if it threatened to push her over the edge… she needed to know.
“I see no blood on him,” said one of the guards. The whole of Talesin’s body was dripping with mud, but there was but no red in it that Kamala could see either. “But he’s out cold, that’s for sure.”
“I will see to him,” Kamala said. She looked around for a place to have him put the body down, so that she could inspect it. But there was nothing surrounding her except a chaos of men cleaning their weapons, tending to the wounded, stripping the enemy dead. No private corner in which to seek enlightenment.
“Over there.” It was Ursti. “You can use the last wagon, there’s some room in it.”
She looked to where he was pointing, then nodded lor the guard carrying Talesin to follow her. The wagon was far down the line, indistinguishable from half a dozen others piled high with Ursti’s trade goods. She loosened the back of the oilcloth cover and lifted it up, revealing an open channel between tightly bound stacks of wooden crates. The smell of saffron and cassia was strong in the confined space.
“Put him in there,” she said. It was a narrow area, but large enough to shelter two people so long as no one tried to stand up. She watched as the guard slid Talesin’s body gently inside, between the crates, then climbed in after him, affixing the oilcloth cover back in place so that the rain would not splash in on them. There was little light coming in once she had done that… but the Sight she needed now did not depend on earthly light.
There were no visible wounds on him, not anywhere. She felt in his mud-soaked hair for the warmth of flowing blood and found none. His limbs were whole and uninjured. No matter how she searched, she could find no sign of what had struck him down.
Only one thing was possible.
She remembered him standing there, when she had summoned the lightning. He’d been watching her. She remembered the look on his face as the color had drained from him suddenly, as his eyes went blank and then fell shut… as the very life in his veins had been squeezed out of him by some giant fist, and then what was left had crumpled to the ground, an empty shell.
Carefully, fearfully, she summoned her sorcerous senses again, begrudging herself the power it took to do even that much. Then she looked inside him: past his blood, past his flesh, past all the organs that were laboring to sustain his life… into the heart of his soul. The place where his spirit should be blazing. The core of his mortal strength.
Dying embers.
Darkness swirled about her soul as she saw the truth before her. She took a moment to still her heart, to catch her breath, to try to think. He is a consort, she told herself. That does not mean he is necessarily my consort.
But no words could make the truth go away. She had seen the life go out of him when she had conjured her power. She knew.
Tentatively, fearfully, she looked within him again. The soulfire that was barely strong enough to sustain a morati life was still hot to her sorcerous touch, and it drew her in like a fire drew in fresh fuel. His living heat flowed into her… and she knew in that moment that if she wished to devour him, if she wished to drink in every last bit of his heat in one vast, indulgent, bloody feast, that nothing could stop her. She had that power.
“Lianna?”
His eyes were open now, and fixed on her with an intensity that made her shiver. “What happened?” His voice was a whisper, hardly louder than the pattering of rain on the oilcloth overhead. “Are we… did we…”
“They’re all dead. No casualties on our side, though a few were wounded. Netando’s men are cleaning up now.”
He tried to sit up. He was weak, very weak. But there was no visible cause for such weakness.
No cause, save that for a short while I drew upon more of his strength than he could spare.
He looked about the small space, a puzzled expression on his face.
“Ursti’s wagon,” she said.
“Ah. I should have guessed from the smell.” He looked up at her again. “Am I wounded?” He said it as if he feared to hear the answer.
Slowly she shook her head. “No.” Not wounded, not by mortal weapons.
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The answer did not seem to comfort him. He laid back his head with a sigh of resignation. “I am sorry,” he whispered. “I should have told you——-“
She said nothing. It seemed she could hear his heart pounding… or perhaps that was her own.
“I suppose I should have told Netando, too, back at the Third Moon… but then he would not have let me come with you.” He sighed again. “You should know the truth, Lianna, since you saved me. The reason I fell—”
She put a finger to his lips to silence him. “Quiet,” she whispered. “Do not say it. I know.”
His lips were warm to her touch, so very warm. Was that because of the living soulfire inside him, or did he simply seem warm in contrast to the chill of the abyss that had taken root in her own soul? One wrong thought, one moment of regret over his dying, and she would plummet down into that darkness forever. A terrifying thought.
Her heart was pounding. His life fueled every beat. She could feel it inside her, his strength rushing through her veins, warming her flesh, supporting each breath. She could feel it inside him as well.
His reached up to take her hand from his lips, and whispered, “Were you a woman to the others, as well?”
For a moment she did not realize what he meant. Then she glanced down and saw that the wrappings which normally constrained her breasts had come loose during the battle. The neck of her doublet was open, and as she leaned down over him the natural curves of her body were undisguised. “It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “I use spells…”
… born of your life force. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
He reached with his free hand to the edge of her doublet, and ran a finger along the inner curve of her breast. His rain-drenched touch was cold against the warmth of her skin… but that was surely not why she shivered. “Yet you use no spells with me.”
“No,” she whispered. Mesmerized by his voice, his touch. “Not with you.”
His hand slipped inside the neck of her doublet, stroking the fullness of her breast. She should have protested—wanted to protest—but she couldn’t. It was his heat rushing through her veins now. His desire making her legs feel weak. His hand caressed her lightly, suggestively, and then, when she offered no resistance, more firmly; he slid his other arm around her and pulled her close to him.
And then he kissed her. She had never allowed a man that liberty before. With all the indignities she had suffered to satisfy male passions, all the manners of degrading services she had sold at various prices, she had never given any man that. How could she explain what such an intimacy meant to her, or why she guarded it so fiercely? For a moment, as his lips touched hers, she stiffened, and she almost drew back from him… but then she heard him sigh softly in pleasure, and she tasted the sweat and the sweetness on his lips, and she knew that this was different than anything which men had asked of her before.
“Netando,” she breathed. “He will come looking for us—”
“Let him look,” he whispered, and he kissed her again. There was an urgency to his touch that could not be denied. Little wonder. He had faced death tonight, and needed to reinforce his ties to life. She could taste the need in him, as powerful a driving force as the hunger to survive. It flowed into her veins as well, along with his athra. Energizing. Intoxicating.
Together they slid down onto the floor of the wagon, until they lay in the narrow crevice between the close-packed crates of spices and perfumes. A fine dust of some red substance, whose crate had been damaged by the rigors of the road, trickled down the back of her neck. Part of her knew that what she was doing was madness; Magisters did not become intimate with their consorts. But the words were empty things, drowned out by the pounding of her heart, and by the growing spark of her own desire.
Slowly, she peeled the sodden cloth of his shirt back from his torso, and ran her fingers over the smoothly muscled flesh beneath. There were scars that cut across his chest, parallel ridges long since healed; touching her lips to them, she tasted the memories they contained. The joy of freedom. The exhilaration of the hunt. The rush of hot blood as a great beast comes close, too close, but even that pain is a kind of pleasure, an act of communion with one’s prey. It seemed that memories from his entire life shimmered along his skin, and flowed into her as if they were her own when she touched him. Heady memories, which she savored as she ran her tongue slowly along his wounds, drinking in their energy like a fine wine.
Ah, my prince… would we have this pleasure to share if you did not belong to me?
Men’s voices sounded near the wagon suddenly. For a moment she thought of using her sorcery to make sure no one tried to look in on them, but that would be a poor answer to his passion. Let it be enough that every breath she took was stolen from him, that every heartbeat which resounded in her chest meant one less beat would sound in his, that the very heat in her loins was drawn from his own hunger. She would take no more from him than that. Not now.
The owners passed by on their own and the sounds faded. Kamala had not realized until that moment that she’d been holding her breath. Talesin caressed her lips softly as she exhaled and then kissed her again.
“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered.
They think I am a boy … they cannot find us like this… Then his hand slid between her thighs, his touch leaving rivers of hunger flowing across her skin. She moaned despite herself and shut her eyes, transported by the sensation. Let the rest of the world be damned. She would drink in this moment for what it was worth, and worry later about the consequences.
Sliding his hands up to her waist, he tried to untie the cords that held her leggings in place. It was a difficult task in such cramped quarters, but boy’s wear did not allow the kind of freedom a woman required for love-making, and so they must be taken off. For perhaps the first time in her life Kamala found she regretted not wearing women’s clothing; the thought was so unexpected that she laughed softly at herself. Talesin looked up in concern, but she smiled and put a finger to his lips and then followed it with her own kiss, turning his attention back to more pressing issues.
And then the ties at her waist finally came loose, and with trembling hands he slid the leggings down over her hips, over her thighs, free of her legs entirely. She slipped loose the closure of his own breeches, drawing him free from the confining cloth as she parted her thighs to receive him. And then he was quickly inside her, not only his flesh but his spirit as well, his athra surging through her veins anew with every thrust. The sensation was so intense that she almost cried out, but she did not; instead she bit down on her lip so hard that it bled, determined not to make any noise that might draw other people to their hiding place.
And then all those other people ceased to exist, and so did the world they inhabited. And for a short while there was only hunger, and fire, and a pleasure so forbidden it did not even have a name.
Peace.
It was a rare and precious thing in his life. A brief time when struggles and fears could be set aside, forgotten. A moment to savor the simple here-and-now of human passion, and drink in the peace that came at the end of it.
The witch Lianna rested against his side, her hand on his chest, breathing in time with his heartbeat as if there was nothing wrong in the world. As if he was not soon to die.
For that one precious moment, he could almost believe it himself.
Thank you, he thought to her. Not knowing how to say the words aloud without feeling foolish. Thank you for giving me this.
Voices rose in the distance. He could not say what about them made him suddenly come alert, but Lianna was startled as well. This was not just a few random speakers who happened to be heading in their direction, like before. Some kind of argument was going on, and it was rapidly coming closer.
Quickly he helped her back into her clothing. It wasn’t easy in the small space. As they struggled to get her leggings tied back on the voices came closer; with a sinking heart he realized the speakers were heading right towards their wagon. There was no time to restore her disguise, or do anything other than avoid total indecency; if she wanted to convince the men outside she was not a woman she would have to rely upon her witchery for it, for her clothes would no longer serve. Not in their current state.
They will see me coming out of this wagon with a half-dressed boy, he mused, as he pulled his own shirt and breeches back into order. It was darkly amusing.
He didn’t loosen the oilcloth cover, but simply slipped out the small opening that Kamala had left. She did the same. Outside, the companies of both merchants seemed to be circling around some new arrival, like nervous hounds that wanted a sniff of a strange new dog but were afraid to get too close. That didn’t bother Talesin. Taking her hand, he led her through the outer ranks of the group until they were close enough to see the man about whom the circle had formed. He was tall and slender, with the olive skin and almond eyes of the eastern races. His black clothes were dry despite the rain, as was his long, jet-black hair, and when Andovan looked closely he could see that the rain was not falling in the place where he stood. Everywhere else on the road, but not there. It was the kind of display of power that left no doubt as to what he was, and how dangerous he might be to any man that chose to cross him.
The newcomer’s eyes fell upon Andovan then, and it was clear that everyone else in the circle had ceased to be of interest to him. “Ah, you are here after all. These fools insisted you were not.”
It took him a minute to find his voice. “Colivar? What are you doing here?”
The Magister glanced at Lianna. It was clear from his expression that he was seeing right through whatever witchery she used to disguise herself, and that didn’t leave much question about what had been going on between them. He raised a thin eyebrow but said nothing, asked nothing, merely turned his attention to Andovan once more.
“We need to speak,” he said quietly. “In private.”
He nodded toward Netando’s coach. If Netando had any objections to a Magister commandeering his vehicle, he did not voice them. Smart man.
