The Hard Way (Box Set) (3 page)

“Science is important, Luster. If you would let me help you, we could set up…”

“No, Sinopee. It is science that created the Titans. It lends them their strength and is their greatest predictability. We will rely on what was gifted to us, magic and strategy.”

“But Luster --”

“No, Sinopee.” He smiled at me to alleviate some of the sting of his words, but they hurt nevertheless.

“Luster,” I began again, turning away from his great beauty. “Science is my gift.”

“But Sinopee, sweet Sinopee,” he sighed as he dropped to his knees beside me. “This is not your world, not your fight.”

“But I was brought here!” I protested, trying to keep the frustration and fear out of my voice. If anything happened to Luster, if anything happened to my lover…

“For me, Sinopee. You were brought here because I need you to be complete. Without you, I have no will to go on.”

“Just maybe I was brought here so that you could utilize my gifts,” I repeated sullenly.

Before Luster could answer, Glow returned.

“I have brought clothing, Sinopee,” he said. “And… an apology. I was out of line. This has been our fight for years, for as long as I can remember. I let my anger get in the way of my judgment. Neither you nor anyone else will make a difference in this battle. I fear it will be eternal.”

“Thank you, Glow,” I answered, trying desperately to think of something more to say. But what can you say to people who have known war, poverty, hunger, and desperation all their lives? I feared that if this war ever ended, the people would lapse into decline for lack of knowledge of anything else but war. “I appreciate the clothing and the apology.”

“We had best make haste.” He nodded in my direction, then turned to exit the tent.

Glow was a gorgeous man, as dark as Luster was pale and light. His onyx skin seemed to show off each muscle to perfection. His hair was straight and long, the black mass hanging below his waist, and he moved silently like the shadows. But it was his eyes, the pearlized white eyes with the even paler pupils that made Glow stand out. He was Luster’s right hand and the resistance would be lost without him.

But he was so pessimistic!

“Well, make haste, woman!” Luster laughed as he turned his purple eyes, happy once again, in my direction.

“But go where? We always spend our day in the tent, here. Next to the ancient rowan and the crystal clear stream.” I closed my eyes and listened for a moment, hearing the roar of the waterfall that fed the stream that I hailed near in my dreams.

“Yes, but now I will have to take you with me.”

“Where?” I wanted to know! In all the time I had been journeying through the mirror to these foreign lands, I had always found myself in the company of Luster and his people, here. I had been nowhere else. I knew of no other places. And what if I could not make it back here before the enchantment ended?

I shuddered, recalling the blank void of cold nothingness that separated these two places, my world and his.

“We go to the Citadel,” he said. He held up the garment that Glow had chosen.

It was very feminine, in a homespun kind of way. It was a long gown, in a light tan color that I knew would complement my complexion and my eyes. But I had never worn anything like it. My tunics were mass-produced by the government. Everyone wore the same shapeless thing, though the men’s tunics were a bit longer. But still, uniformity was kept. This was completely new to me.

“Get dressed,” he urged as he plopped the thing over my head.

It felt almost rough to the touch, but so light and… and feminine. I could almost picture myself running through the trees and picking flowers, something I had been only able to do here.

Shrugging and struggling to hide my delight, I slipped the garment on and stood, easing it down my bare legs.

But then I felt something else easing wet down my inner thigh. I blushed and looked up at him.

“What?”

“I need to use the… river,” I stammered, taking baby steps to the exit.

Laughing and understanding my predicament, Luster nodded. He called for Glow to help take down and pack the tent.

“Five minutes,” I heard him say as I gingerly made my way to the bushes that grew along the bank. “And then, to the Citadel.”

I let a smile break free as I reached the river and stripped off my new garment. After all these years, Lust was taking me to his home.

I smiled as I tromped through the tall green grasses, delighting at the feel of their dampness beneath my bare feet. I looked up, toward the heavens. Sunlight filtered down between the tall branches of stately trees. The air had never smelled so sweet, felt so fresh, been so important to me. I stifled a giggle, fighting the urge to race ahead, touching everything that I could, gathering nature to my chest, burying my face in the splendor that no one from my world had ever experienced.

“Slow down!” laughed Luster, who followed in my wake. “It is not as if you know the way.”

“But I am free, Lust! Free and I have never felt more alive!”

I twirled around, getting my hem caught on the odd bush, but even that was a joy.

“We don’t have trees where I come from. Only pictures.”

“Where do you come from?” Glow asked. Between the two of them, Luster and Glow had broken camp and had stashed the tent and the pillows behind the waterfall. Luster said that was where they kept special things, and I agreed. That tent was indeed special. Luster still carried my ancient box of letters, and both men carefully listened for any signs from the still unseen Glimmer.

“From the other side of the mirror,” I said as I fell back to march between the two warriors. “Where Thinkers rule and life is dull.”

“But where is that?” Glow would have made an excellent scientist, with all of his questions and queries.

“It is just there, Glow. And it’s so different from what is here. I mean, there is no grass and trees. Well, there is some grass at the University. They are trying to grow or create more. And the air is not as sweet. That is because of the lack of trees. There are some trees left, but the great wars killed off most of them.”

“That sounds… ugly,” Glow said as he held back a branch from a large tree for all of us to pass.

“It is very brown,” I decided, after a moment’s thought, and nodded my thanks as I walked past him. The land began to curve downward, and I almost slipped. “And the people, well, there are no people like you where I come from.”

“And what does that mean?” Glow asked as he tried to picture a world beyond his imagination.

“Well, we all kind of look like me.”

“Everyone?” he asked, incredulity in his voice. “That’s not possible! We are all born with certain gifts.”

“There is no magic where I come from, Glow,” I said, sighing in true regret. There hadn’t been magic back at home for a very long time. And for me, more so, since my parents had disappeared. “And just about everyone looks like me. There are no people with glowing eyes or translucent skin. We all are kind of… brown.”

“Like the land.” He shook his head, as if oddities like this were abominations.

“Like the land,” I assured him. “The land and the people are quite plain and brown.”

“But you are not plain, Sinopee.” Luster laughed. “You are full of wonder and energy. And you are mine.”

“As you are mine,” I agreed. “But I am plain and brown. The land is plain and brown. We kind of match.”

“But with magic…”

“There is no magic, Glow.” I sighed. “We have science. Only science. Science will help create a better world for our future generations. My parents died searching for a way, and I will carry out their work to find a way. Perhaps being here has inspired me, but for now, there is only science.”

“But I have heard you mention these weapons of war that destroyed your planet, your Earth.”

“Yes.” I sighed again as he marched onward. “We created the bombs and the chemicals that caused a lot of damage.”

“Then did your science, the science that you depend on now, not destroy your land?”

“People…”

“Same with magic,” Glow interrupted. “The people who control it shape the use, be it for bad or for good. But with magic, only certain people get certain gifts. There, anyone can use this science and create disasters. It is what made the Titans so powerful. Any one of their choosing can yield it, use it, and destroy with it. Magic is scarce. Those of us who possess it regulate others. We cannot hand it down to people who will follow. It is… sacred.”

“Good point, Glow,” I conceded as we began to leave the tree-studded forests and head for clearer land. “But look what science is doing here. Only a few have the magicians on the run. You need to even the battlefield, to regulate it.”

“The best way to defeat your enemy is to know your enemy,” Glow said, nodding in agreement.

“The best enemy is one who can make you think that he does not exist.”

Glow paused and turned to face me, his eyes… glowing. “The woman has some intelligence, Luster!”

Luster beamed. “And here I thought that she was just a good lay!”

“Hey!” I glared at Glow for his comments, but both he and Luster exploded in laughter.

“But it was not me, screaming like a cat in heat!” I sniffed. I walked ahead, grinning as Lust’s face exploded with embarrassment, and Glow’s hissing snickers filled the air.

I could take it, but I dished it better.

“Coming?” I called back. But as I turned to resume the trek, a whistling sound filled the air, and the land to my left exploded as though struck by lightning.

“Titans!”

“Move!”

Luster’s voice sounded in my ear a moment before his heavy body thrust me to the rocky ground.

“Where the hell is Glimmer?” Glow’s voice whispered and I realized that he was lying off to my right, close enough to protect Luster with his body if need be, but far enough away to give him room to maneuver.

“No time!” Luster hissed. He peeked over his shoulder, up the hill, I assumed to see how far we were away from the timberline. “Where did the blast come from?”

“Ahead,” Glow answered, cautiously rising up on his elbows.

I realized we were sheltered partially by an outcropping of stone that grew out of the earth. As I lifted my head a bit, I could see where the trees started again at the bottom of the hill. But I could also see the great distance we had to cover without any protection at all.

“Positive?” Luster asked as he dropped down and looked toward Glow again.

“Positive enough,” he hissed a moment before another blast tore up the ground a few feet away from us, the closest the blast could get with us behind our protective barrier.

Fear struck me numb, but also there was curiosity. Would I finally get to see what the feared Titans looked like, and would I live to tell the tale?

“Can you do it?” Lust asked Glow.

What? They had slipped into that damn code speak they sometimes used. I realized it was an efficient way of giving orders when time was short, but it kind of bugged me. Maybe it was my analytical mind; maybe it was because I was curious by nature. Or maybe it was because I hated being in the dark about anything. But I looked over at Glow, trying to see what it was that he was supposed to be able to do.

“No choice,” he hissed back, then he did something that I thought I would never see. Glow began to undress.

Peeking over the stone every few seconds, Glow mentally plotted some course of action while he divested himself of his garments. His gauntlets went first, the black leather sliding from his powerful forearms and fists. Next, he slid his tunic over and off his chest. Unlike the men that I had met previously, Glow was the only one who always wore a shirt. Now that the muscular planes of his chest were exposed to the dim light of the growing day, I wondered why.

Each muscle was perfect under his ebony skin. Each bulging with strength that could only come from hard work and practice. His massive shelf of a chest tapered into a neat triangle of muscle, a slim waist and a stomach that rippled with tightly drawn abdominals.

He unknotted the ties of his pants at one side and pulled the material down thick, tense thighs. He paused for a moment to ease his boots from his feet, before drawing the dark leather trousers away from his body.

I tried desperately not to look at what I wanted to see, but curiosity moved my eyes. As Glow leaned up to peek over the boulder again, I let my eyes roam over the very core of his body, to see if he measured up to Luster. Crass, I know, but under the circumstances, not knowing if I would live to see another year, I had to peek.

Even unaroused, Glow carried a formidable weapon. Just as dark as the rest of him, Glow’s manhood hung heavily between his muscular legs. It rested atop a pair of neat, rounded balls with its large flange of a head that was, strangely enough, circumcised.

For that matter, Luster was circumcised. For rebels who escaped and now lived in the underground protected by the forests, and who were immersed in magic, it seemed quite odd to me.

But Glow’s next words brought me swiftly out of my musings and back to reality.

“If you are done examining me, I will endeavor to explain what is happening.”

My face exploded in color and Luster chuckled from behind. Thank God he wasn’t upset by my lapse in manners, but Glow was worth a few glances.

“Not funny!” I hissed. “Besides, I wasn’t expecting a strip show. My people just don’t remove their clothing at a moment’s notice.”

“A pity. If they did, I am sure that you would find the thought of our impending death more attention-holding than a few bits of male flesh.”

I stuck my tongue out at Glow. Childish, I know, but it was the only thing I could think of at the time.

“No wonder you were screaming.” Glow had his eyes firmly on Luster as he delivered his words. “I bet that thing could wrap around you twice, it is so long.”

With all the dignity I could muster, I pulled my tongue back into my mouth and felt the burn as my embarrassment reached new heights.

“Nay!” Luster chuckled. “I am far too thick, but she can use her tongue in ways I never imagined.”