Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 (19 page)

‘Shall we kiss and make up?’ he demanded, then forced her head back against the wall with a travesty of a kiss, bruising her lips with his own, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, unmoved by the sweetness he found there as he tore at the front of her dress. ‘Shall I touch you as well?’ he asked, groping her pale and perfect breasts. ‘Will that buy my passage home?’

The part of his mind that stood outside himself knew such action was madness. But Kert was beyond control. And Glimmer appeared to be beyond rational thought herself or she would have used her powers to stop him. Instead, she cried, ‘I
want
you to love me!’ her eyes as wild as his own. ‘Hurt me if that’s the only way you can do it.’

‘You don’t care who
you
hurt,’ Kert said, tearing at his own clothes now, still holding her by one shoulder though she was offering no resistance. Then he pushed between her legs.

‘I want you to do it,’ she said, more softly this time, and something in her tone eased past Kert’s anger to touch at his mind. As quickly as the fury had come upon him, it faltered, leaving stunned confusion in its wake.

His hand, intimately placed between her legs, fell away as he looked up into her eyes. Royal-hued eyes. He’d been about to steal the maidenhood of a princess royal. The Catalyst. His charge. Reason bled back into his mind, as though he had stopped being an observer and slid back into his own body, shocked to find it in the midst of such a heinous act.

‘I am your Champion,’ he whispered, and suddenly knew he did not deserve the title. Kert had waited all his life to be a royal champion, he knew the code as well as he knew his own breath: serve, honour, obey. Yet where was Kert’s honour now? Little wonder he had always hated Talis of the House of Guardians. Talis would never have done this, no matter the provocation.

‘I thought it was what I wanted,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps it’s all I deserve.’

Kert felt a wave of unexpected tenderness sweep over him, startling in the wake of his consuming anger. He forgot that Glimmer was the most powerful being on the Four Worlds and that he’d resented her for keeping him prisoner. Instead, he saw a young and frightened virgin gazing up into his eyes with a mixture of fear and the beginnings of a forgiveness he knew he did not deserve.

‘How can I recompense this …?’ he trailed off, and Glimmer closed her eyes. Two small tears slid from beneath her lashes and ran down her cheeks. It seemed the most natural thing for Kert to lean forward and touch his lips to those tears, offering her gentleness to soothe away the pain he had inflicted; but when she hiccupped a breath and her lips parted he found the innocent sweetness of her mouth overtaking his mind.

As irrational as his brutality had been, a sensual tenderness came to him of its own accord, and before he could think about the consequences, he tilted his head and his tongue forged a new kiss, slow and thorough, awakening her to the desire that throbbed through his own body where once only anger had lived. His hand, which had misused her breasts, now stroked one softly, his thumb gliding over her nipple as his tongue slid over her lips.

Glimmer sighed against his mouth, ‘Yes, this is what I want,’ and Kert transferred the kiss to her throat, then her breasts while he touched her intimately, gently and persuasively, until she was trembling for him and he carried her to the couch and lay over her, his lips returning to her own as he entered her, slowly, carefully.

Though Kert had made love to many women, he had never been so mindful of the pleasure of a partner, and whether that was in deference to Glimmer’s innocence or her sudden vulnerability he was unsure. Yet he knew there was a gentleness in his touch that he had never known before, even when he had been close to Lae. His actions were all of instinct and nothing of forethought, as though this single moment was the only one that existed, and no history or repercussions could intrude on it.

Glimmer wound her legs around his hips and clung to him, her arms about his neck, her hands in his hair as she kissed him back, meeting his rhythm, moaning softly as the pleasure rose in her. Then her head fell back and she panted. Kert kissed her delicate throat but still drove them both on to the reward they sought, his mouth restless on her shoulders, then her breasts, awed by the softness of her skin and the way its taste fired his senses.

Her expression grew wondering as she gazed at him with pleasure-dazed eyes. ‘This is love,’ she panted, as though it was a place they inhabited, rather than an emotion they could share. ‘
Love
,’ she gasped and closed her eyes. Her body began to tremble as Kert had hoped it would. His own explosion was close when she gasped, ‘
Oh!
Her eyes snapped open and a wave of brilliant white light emerged from her body, licking over his skin like a huge tingling tongue. Kert’s moment of glory was amplified beyond anything he had ever experienced, and the sudden roar of satisfaction that emerged from his throat was as unexpected as it was frightening. If he hadn’t been so in awe of what she had just given him, Kert would have been embarrassed.

As it was, he simply collapsed over her, panting, not knowing himself. Not knowing her. Not being able to think past the pleasure they had achieved together. His body palpitated in a strange new rhythm that said
Glim-mer, Glim-mer, Glim-mer.

She opened her eyes and looked straight into his. ‘I want that again,’ she said, but that was the moment Kert realised the shuddering had not stopped. If anything, it was increasing. The table laden with fruit beside them had begun to rock and glasses and plates toppled to the floor.

He tried to raise himself on trembling arms. ‘What’s happening?’

Glimmer continued to gaze at him with voracious eyes. ‘The child of the Serpent God escaped while I was distracted,’ she said, as if this was a matter of no consequence at all.

‘Should we … Should you go after it?’ Kert asked, yet even as he did so, his hands closed possessively over her shoulder, as though to hold her there.

‘It is on Atheyre.’

‘The Cliffdwellers and … Are they safe?’

‘It is not my destiny to save individuals.’

‘They are a whole race.’ But even as Kert said the words he knew they lacked conviction. Touching Glimmer had changed him. He was … bewitched, and care for anything past the two of them was dropping away into the silent recesses of his mind. ‘What should we do?’

‘What we just did.’

Kert returned her stare, then let his gaze travel down past her still-bruised lips, her pale throat, over her peaked nipples and delightfully trembling breasts to her small belly and then to the place where their bodies were joined, where his dark thick hair met her royal blonde curls.

‘I want more,’ she said, rolling him onto his back on the couch which had miraculously widened into a bed. Her lips explored his neck, the sensitive curves of his ears, then onto his chest. Her skin had begun to glow softly with the white light again, as though to announce her readiness for his love, and the tingling of it stirred him where it touched his body, giving him more pleasure in these beginning moments than his most skilled bed-partner had ever afforded him. ‘More of everything,’ she breathed.

Kert nodded. ‘Much more,’ he agreed and closed his eyes, the fate of the Serpent God’s child the furthest thing from his mind.

T
ulak stood in the disused dungeons of Be’uccdha, waiting for the Magoria weed he had consumed to overtake the hatred in his mind. Damn the new Dark for a fool! He had never failed in his tasks as Djahr’s Guard Captain. He had been faithful and … conscientious. Hmmm. Tulak smiled as the upswelling of bliss found him. He liked the way that word slid through his mind.
Conscientious.
Like a lover’s lips.

Only Tulak had no lover now. The cousin who had shared his bed and his Magoria weed left him the day of his demotion. Still, in his euphoric state that felt like providence. Now all the Magoria weed was his. Little though it was. His supply of the family’s secret crop had been reduced in line with his new status of lieutenant. The physician had told him he was lucky to have retained that rank, but Tulak was in no mood for condolence. His thoughts were all taken up with the necessities of his addiction.

Yesterday he had received his weekly allotment. Moments ago he had consumed the last of it. Tomorrow …

Tulak smiled, drug euphoria dulling his desperation. Tomorrow may not exist. But today existed. He would enjoy today. Thus, when he found his rubbery legs again he raised his brand, holding it high to light his way as he stumbled past silent empty cells that stunk of the urine and fear of long-forgotten prisoners. At the end of his trail was an abandoned section of the dungeon. The perfect place to have secreted the Cliffdweller girl.

The door stuck and he shoved against the creaking iron hinges, grunting at the effort, until at last it opened and he was in, kicking aside ancient straw to put his brand in the rusted holder, illuminating the small, fetid cell. The Cliffdweller girl hung from the wall where he’d left her, dress torn to rags, welts in various stages of healing across her thick muscular body. Her eyes were closed. Had she finally succumbed to his torture?

Clever Tulak, faking her death when they’d first arrived back at Be’uccdha with her. At the time, the physician had been busy tending the Verdan lord, Barrion, who yet lived despite losing his arms and legs to infection.

Many years earlier, this same barrel-chested lord of the north castle had visited Be’uccdha, and Tulak had been impressed with his intricate inventions and his brilliant battle strategies. Barrion of Verdan had been an important ally to the throne and a vital member of the King’s Council. But the ale-drinking giant of a man with the booming laugh was gone. In his place lay a limbless travesty of humanity the physician had struggled to keep alive until the new Dark returned.

Thus Tulak had been easily able to keep the Cliffdweller girl a secret. She had become his plaything, someone to punish for the absence of her people, shirking their duty and making Tulak’s life so much more difficult: scarce food, long hours trailing nets into the ocean, some of his men slipping in and drowning. He hated Cliffdwellers and this one had borne that anger in various forms.

Then Lae of Be’uccdha had returned as The Dark, full of queries about her childhood playmate — a Cliffdweller girl who could sign and understand language. How Tulak had rejoiced when he’d said the name
Hush
to his prisoner and had received a response. The Dark’s dearest friend was his captive.

The woman who had demoted and publicly demeaned him may never know of the insult and injury he continued to inflict upon her friend, but Tulak knew. And that knowledge was almost as potent as the drug he was addicted to.

‘Waken to pain, Cliffgroveller,’ he said and slapped Hush’s face, a hard cracking blow.

Her head spun and her cheek hit the wall behind her, then it rolled back and her chin came up, her wide golden eyes opening, dazed, uncomprehending. It was always like this. He could hurt her in any way his whims led him and she would always react with confusion. It was as though she wasn’t completely there. Only the mention of Lae’s name or her own caused her to react, as though searching out a memory she had lost.

‘Your friend has been here a week and already the people love her,’ Tulak said. He grabbed Hush’s chin and gazed into her dull eyes, hoping the madness in his own would frighten her. ‘But I hate her. As I hate you.’ He laughed then, a diabolical laugh, but the drug made it high and discordant and that sounded funnier still — the funniest thing he’d ever heard. He laughed until he felt sick and at last found himself on the floor propped against the door, his eyes wet with tears of mirth.

‘Oh, I am a better fool than that Sh’hale jester,’ he said and rose, then staggered forward and stopped in front of Hush, who still wore her habitual expression of confusion. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, wondering if he would ever feed her again. He had experimented with depriving her of water for days but her resilience had surprised him. Neither had she eaten in almost a week, yet when he pulled apart the scraps of her dress he could scarcely see her ribs under the thick muscles of her torso. No breasts to speak of, and the strange fur covering her maidenhood did not invite punishment of a more intimate nature.

‘Is that why our lady The Dark refuses the Guardian’s suit?’ he said, and ripped the rest of Hush’s dress away. ‘Does she prefer the pleasures she found with you … misshapen, travesty of a female.’ Tulak closed his eyes on an upswelling of nausea. Had he laughed too much? Or was the weed making him sick as his great-aunt had told him it eventually would? ‘Did you lie with your friend Lae and lave her skin with your coarse tongue?’ he asked, feeling sickened anew to think of The Dark, whom he already hated, moaning in the arms of this … creature. Tulak knew there had always been men who, out of curiosity or desperation, had forced themselves on Cliffdwellers, both male and female. And so placid were Hush’s race, they would not struggle against it, but Tulak had beaten his Guardsmen at the merest suspicion that they had debased themselves so.

‘Soon you will die,’ Tulak said, and knew there was truth behind the threat. Either his own anger at The Dark or fear of being discovered would see him end his daily visits to torment Hush. ‘Perhaps I will cut off your head and when it is dried I will “find” it and present it to your friend.’ He picked up her lolling head by its matted hair, which was stiff as a sea sponge, and pushed it back against the stone wall she hung from. ‘Do you think she will be pleased to see you again?’

Hush’s lips moved back and she bared her thick grinding teeth. Tulak was frowning at this when her body shot forward, stiffened and straining from the wall, her eyes so wide it appeared that her eyeballs would spring forth from their sockets, her mouth open in a hideous silent scream.

Tulak fell back a few steps and when he could find his voice, shouted, ‘Stop!’ But the Cliffdweller didn’t move. She somehow managed to hold her stiff pose, and as he watched, her eyes began to cloud. He stepped closer, his instinctive fear quelled by the strange transformation occurring. Her eyeballs were completely white now, as though the aging eye disease which had claimed his mother’s sight had suddenly claimed hers. But this whiteness moved, and even as Tulak stepped close enough to breathe on her face he saw that it was mist. Mist that cleared to reveal in both eyes a small figure of the Serpent of Haddash.

Tulak held his breath as the serpent reached a clawed hand into the mist below him and retrieved a sleeping Cliffdweller half his size. Either the Cliffdweller was huge, or the Serpent God Tulak had seen on the Plains with the Northmen had shrunk. He watched in silent horror as the serpent devoured the Cliffdweller, first his arms, then his legs, and last his head, before tossing the torso away and reaching into the mist for another.

‘What is this?’ Tulak whispered. Then, ‘Where is this?’

The small serpent, as though hearing his voice, turned in Tulak’s direction and opened his razor-toothed jaws, loosing a stream of fire that shot from the Cliffdweller girl’s eyes and scorched Tulak’s before he could think to move.

Aaaaargh!
he wailed and fell backwards, belatedly covering his face. But it was too late. His sight was gone. He did not see Hush collapse back against the wall, her eyelids closing as the last of her life left her body.

Neither could Tulak know that on the Airworld of Atheyre the small serpent had gone back to dining, working his way through the bodies of the Cliffdwellers and Magorian sea creatures he had found newly risen to Atheyre. Soon he would meet his progenitor, who had thought to save himself from the Maelstrom by hiding within the body of a White, sampling human pleasures like a puling mortal.

When father met son, then Kraal would know the true meaning of fear.

Soon.