Sorcerer's Vendetta (The Secret of Zanalon) (13 page)

He saw the questions in her eyes. "You saw. Hafgan – that must have been he – defeated me. He... he no longer looks the same," he answered her, shaking his head slightly as he spoke. "His foul heart most certainly must have been consumed with coveting for all that I possessed."

Zanalon bit his lip, his brows drew together.

"He was towheaded, long curls, before. Now, black hair, straight... like mine."

He glanced at Rachel, sharing a look of puzzlement with her. A vague notion began to form in Rachel's mind, something to fit in his interpretation. She remembered long black hair in a photo, a face unseen. It could have been Rollin. But the way the redhead had behaved ...

Zanalon shook his head and continued, whatever it was fled before she could follow it, yet it still hovered, hesitantly, at the edge of her consciousness.

"I have not the slightest notion what was the nature of the spell that struck me. An he could take my very soul, he could have done no better." He paused, his eyes troubled. "'Twas very much like that."

He lowered his eyes. "But he appeared to be ... He seemed ..." Zanalon struggled with his words, ashamed at the extent of his defeat. Finally, he spat it out.  "He defeated me ... from a healing orb. Unconscious."

Now Rachel understood.

"Hafgan bested me without even trying. I could never have set up a spell of that power to be triggered without my attention." He stood, head down, brought his hands up to sink his fingers into his hair, sighing heavily.

"There is naught I can do. I have so little power left," His voice broke slightly, he turned to stare into the night again. "He wields a lifetime of power. My lifetime. Hafgan has won."

She shook her head, disbelieving.

"No.  No, you can rebuild your strength, can't you? You're young, even if it takes a while, you can come back ..."

He looked at her and her voice faded away. Suddenly she felt like a child.

"My lady," he said softly. "I am a hundred and fifty-four years old."

Rachel heard him as he continued as if from far away. "It is that lifetime of power he now bears against me. I count not the years of stone, though it is possible he had some of those to put to use."

She watched stars swim before her eyes as her gaze drifted, she found herself staring into nothing.

"A hundred and fifty ...?" she whispered.

Now, he touched at her arm. "Aye," he said, simply. She looked at his face and found a trace of a smile there, snapped her mouth shut. Her imagination gave her a snapshot of her stunned expression. No wonder he was amused. Glad she could make him smile, even in the face of his despair, she smiled back.

A look came into his eyes then, a spark of attraction. And deeper inside the blue, like a shimmer of rainbow in the depths of a river, she saw that he cared for her. Really cared. The moment before might have been confusion, lusty sensual exploration, but this was real.

"In that case, maybe you can't beat him," she said, with a half-smile. "Maybe you should just forget about him and just ... stay with me."

For an instant, she could have slapped herself. All her self-doubt rushed to reproach her.
He doesn't care
that
way, you idiot, he was only confused, before. You shouldn't have said that, maybe it's not too late to pass it off as a joke ...

Only for an instant.

In the next instant, she saw in his eyes how very much he wanted to stay. Wanted her. Slowly he brought his hand up to softly cradle the side of her face. His touch, strangely shy, belied the span of years he had admitted to.

"My Lady Rachel." He spoke her name like a prayer, a lost soul's last plea to Heaven. His eyes reflected the gloom of dusk.

"I must tell thee ... what I have not before," he whispered.  His voice caught slightly. "Hafgan took not only my knowledge and my power," he said, his blue eyes searching hers. Rachel felt an aching chill begin inside, dread of his next words.

"He took my life."

The cold inside her mirrored Zanalon's words, sinking deep as death.

"He struck me with poison. Special poison, that needs immense power to defeat it. My only chance was to find him and take my stolen mana back." Now she remembered his shaking hands at the door the night before, the sweat at his brow.

Rachel stood stunned but not numb. She could not be numb, knowing he was soon to die. She looked at him and saw again the haunted child inside him that needed so badly to be freed, accepted, and loved, to heal. She saw the passion that made his soul burn so brightly inside that he became a beacon in the otherworld, for beings of unknown power, though that same passion had drawn him into the firedance of hatred at the edge of beckoning darkness.

"How long ...?" she heard herself ask.

"For the poison perhaps five days. But there is more I must tell you. The witch who helped me ... 'Twas for a price. I made a pact with her to give her immortality. It requires a human sacrifice. I intended that it be Hafgan, but I promised her my own life an I failed. I gave her my soul name, to summon me. Apparently she realized that I would not be able to return, granting I survived the battle, if I lost. Or perhaps she simply did not trust me. The message on the pedestal was, 'I give thee until midnight, two days hence.'"

He watched her, as understanding began to sink in.

"She will return me to her time with or without Hafgan, exactly two days from the time I revived."

Rachel stared at him, bit her lip as she counted back the time they had spent together.

"That means you only have a few hours," she said, softly. His only answer was in his eyes, the burning brightness of a murdered man longing for a life that would never be.

There has to be a way. 
"There has to be something to help you ..." She clutched at the stone at his throat. "Use this! Use it to find what will save you!"

His eyes were sadly indulgent. "My lady, I could return to the keep, fight to the end with what power I have left. There is a chance I could take him, still I believe I possess greater experience, but I am no longer certain I should try. Methinks – "

Rachel didn't really hear him, all she heard was that he was giving up. "You have to try," she interrupted.

"My lady – " he protested, shaking his head.

"You have to try!" she insisted, desperate.

He looked down at her and slowly brought his hand up to the stone but the look in his eyes told her he did not believe it would help. His eyes went distant as he focused inward.

"Seek the power that will save me." With a sigh, he closed his eyes.

And then he opened them again, looking directly at Rachel. He took a step to the side, then to her right, never taking his eyes from her. She tensed as he paced behind her, slowly, and she could feel the intensity of his eyes as he came full circle, to stand before her.

He turned his head slightly, still focused on her, oblique, as if he suspected something.

"Dost thee tell me this woman holds the power to defeat Hafgan?" Zanalon asked the question in a flat tone, as if he knew the answer. Rachel knew he had it when he clenched his jaw, dropping his gaze.

"The stone grows cold," he told her.  Raising his eyes to meet hers again, he stroked the stone with his thumb, gently, as he spoke.

"I understand now what they mean for me to know. They have always been more concerned with my spirit than my life. There is something they want for me, that I have always ... denied."

He looked around, as if noticing the ancient trees, the soft undergrowth and the misty sunlight surrounding them for the first time. "This place we have been brought to. This safe place. It is very different, yet I know it to be a place where I met a woman once while riding in these woods. A Lady I shall ne'er forget."

Rachel nearly shuddered at an intense yearning that opened up inside her as he spoke.
Empathy?
she wondered.

"'Twas long ago, little more than half my life spent. She was the only one to whom I e'er gave my name, from sheer trust. 'Twas only that one time, here, that we spoke, but the moment I knew what she could mean to me, I turned away. I gave her my name, my trust, but then I turned away. Because I knew I could ne'er be the best an I divided myself. I gave everything,
everything
to the elementals. It seemed the only choice, at the time."

Rachel saw the regret in his eyes, before he turned away to place a hand against the tree, his head down.

"I could not risk the danger. My mother …" His voice died. But he didn't have to continue, Rachel understood. He had come to believe all the rumors, to believe that somehow his power, in birth had caused his mother's death. And if he chose to love a woman, have a child ...

He had believed, for him, love could kill the one he dared love.

Zanalon was silent for a moment, watching her eyes as understanding dawned.

"I took another path when I rode this way after that, a stone's throw through the woods. Still I could see her. Still her eyes follow me. She was always here but ne'er did we speak again. I watched the years pass on her, until the day she died. Alone."

Rachel could feel the pain inside him. He brought his other hand up against the solid trunk, as if he fought the ancient oak, as if by his very will he could defeat it. His body shook with strain as he struggled to bear the heavy shadow of Death.

"I know anon, I know. I know why my friends betrayed me. They have driven me back to this place." His voice was harsh, cut by a ragged gasp.  "They betray me to save me. They let me fall. Because an I win, an I defeat Hafgan, drag him to feed the eternal Night ... I lose." His voice broke, he shuddered, Death's weight crushing.

"I lose my soul."

She barely heard his next words, his voice fading, less than a whisper. “Leave me."

Rachel took a step toward him. Something tight in her chest broke bonds and her heart, held together only by its imprisonment, was shattering, melting.

"No." In spite of the turmoil inside her heart, her voice was firm. "Never."

He dropped one arm, turned slightly, stopped. His head was still down, his face hidden. "I ...
must
... die."

She said nothing, did not move away.  Somehow, a memory superimposed over her blurring vision, her feelings, then and now, blending into one. Moving through the trees, different then, different now, she saw a gray horse, a dark-cloaked rider. The man checked the horse's canter, paused, his face turned toward her. A glimpse of haunted, lonely blue eyes.

Come to me. Please, please, come to me ... Come ...

He did not. He turned, again, urged the horse on, away. Again.

Oh, no ... Merlin, please ... Leave me not again ...

Rachel/Niniene opened her eyes, not knowing she had closed them.

Now, he turned, and she saw a glistening in his eyes. She reached out to him; he stumbled, steadied himself, stance wide.

Then he reached out. Slowly, the extent of his reach.

Merlin took her hand.

An odd thought, at that electric touch,
Carl was right after all. Just the touch of a hand. But he couldn't have been more wrong.
All that she had felt before, so close to him, rushed back, throughout her, her body alive with something infinitely deeper than lust, burning fiercely with soul's passion. Just a touch.

"Ne'er ... have I ... loved ..." he said, his voice broken by every breath he struggled to take, as if his chest were bound in iron straps.

"I know. It's all right, now."

He stumbled, half-blind.

"Rachel, I ... I love thee." He lurched to his knees before her, pressed her hands to his lips, the warmth of his tears. "Save me, my Lady Rachel," he murmured, his deep voice rippling into her skin.

Rachel felt a painful tugging in the center of her self, as she looked through heat pressing at her eyes, down at his bowed head before her, this man of such power, such strength, now so vulnerable. She stroked his hair.

"Never push me away again." Her voice was rough with longing that survived Death, to return. "I have always loved thee, Merlin."

He looked up at her.  His eyes were piercing azure, widened slightly, more in recognition than surprise. His lips formed the name, spoken only with the breath of his soul.

“Niniene."

Then he pulled her to him, held her with the fierce passion of a life too long denied. He nuzzled into her body with a soft, mournful moan, kissing her stomach, tracing the hollow between her breasts as he pulled her down. Rachel sank into his arms like the surge of a wave falling back into the powerful ocean where it had always belonged and met him with kisses that melded their heat. She snuggled into his scent, wild and musky warmth, and his flesh was smooth, hard muscle under her hands. In his eyes burned the fire of all yearning, all desire, like the sun searing the sea, finally blazing through the mist of the lost day.

Even as it succumbed to the final night.

Chapter 9 SHIFTING

"Could'a sworn I 'ad it right.” She tugged at her scraggly, white hair, muttering to herself and to her prim cat, who followed with flagpole tail high and proud as if carrying the colors. Veering off the path, she pushed through the low scrub brush with a stick, hunting a plant that favored shade.