To the High Redoubt (16 page)

In spite of himself, he was intrigued. “It…isn't that, Surata. It's what you do.”

“You mean that we unite our bodies? Why does this vex you?” She held up one of her hands. “You needn't tell me.”

Arkady leaned back, saying rather dreamily under the wind's scream, “When I vowed to fight the Turks, I went to the church and did the Stations of the Cross. I said all the prayers, and promised God that I would be a worthy Christian soldier, so that He might favor us in battle. A woman like you…there's no way I can explain it. I've tried, and you don't understand. Every moment in the Stations, the Crowning with Thorns, the Driving of the Nails, I beseeched God to be the soldier He wanted me to be.”

“And why do you fear you are not?” Surata asked, uncrossing her legs and crawling toward him. “Couldn't it be possible that your God sent me to you so that you could battle more than Turks? Think of it, Arkady-immai. You can conjure and defeat dragons.” She touched him, seeking the place she had called the Center of the Heart. “Why not try, Arkady-champion? If your God disapproves, you will remain here to sense the storm. If your God does not mind, you will transcend to the other place and fight dragons.” She took his face in her hands, tracing his features. “Arkady-champion, I know many things, but I never learned how to fight. Without you to aid me, I will be lost to the Bundhi. With you, there is a chance. If you are so anxious to serve the Right Hand Path, aid me.”

He caught her hands in his. “Isn't there another way?”

She sighed. “No. You would need years of training and study, and even then, if we are to fight together, we would have to be together. That is where the strength of man and woman lies, Arkady-champion, in their unity, not in their separation.”

One corner of the blanket flapped free, snapping in the wind. Arkady reached over to secure it again. “I should refuse,” he said when he turned back to her. “I should not let you speak to me of any of this.”

“But you are listening,” she pointed out, her mouth turning up at the corners. “Arkady-champion, I am no different than you. I am far from my home and I am uncertain and lonely. But the Subtle Body is never away from its home, and there can be no loneliness when we are together.” She ran one hand along the hem of his brigandine. “Arkady-champion.”

The truth was, and he knew it, that he wanted her, and he welcomed her persuasions. He could convince himself that she was the one who desired their lovemaking, and that he had resisted until her presence overpowered him. He let her take his hand. “Dragons, you say?”

“Or anything else you can imagine. In that other place, everything is mutable. If you wish it to be, then it can be that way. And while I am with you, you are in no danger. You have…my word on that,” she said, the last words a perfect imitation of him.

He laughed aloud. “Well, I admit I would like to fight a dragon.” He remembered all the tales he had heard of Saint George of Armenia, who had been empowered by God Himself and the Archangel Michael with the strength to defeat the Devil in the form of a dragon. Was it the sin of vanity to want to emulate the great warrior-saint? He stared down at his large, blunt hands. Carefully he flexed his fingers and imagined his right hand closed around the hilt of a lance.

“Think, Arkady-champion,” Surata said to him, “you will be able to do what you wish, and you will not fail.” She had already unfastened her belt and opened her outer robe. “Arkady-champion, undress me.”

“A true dragon?” he persisted even as he reached for her.

“As true as anything in that place. This is not the realm of dreams, but another place. Your battles there are as real as your battles here, Arkady-immai.” She raised her arms so that he could take off her inner gown, shivering when she was naked.

“Oh, sweet Mother of God,” he said to himself as he put her garments aside. “You are so beautiful.”

“And you are beautiful, Arkady-champion,” she replied, her hand on his. “Take off your clothes so that I can…see for myself.”

He paused in unfastening his heavy belt. “Don't, Surata.”

“But Arkady-champion, I
do
see you. When we are in the other place, I can see you with more than eyes, and what I see is beautiful.” She took his belt from him and laid it aside. “Does that trouble you?”

“Of course not,” he muttered, feeling his face suffuse with embarrassment. He could not make himself take off his brigandine and acton, or remove his boots and leggings.

Very gently, Surata took his left foot in her hands and began to draw off his boot. “You can remove the rest, Arkady-champion.”

How he desired and dreaded her! He undressed without thinking, as if he were numb from fatigue and battle instead of stricken with lust. He did not try to stop her when she pulled off his other boot, or when she unfastened his leggings and codpiece. He folded his acton and brigandine as if his body belonged to someone else and what was happening had nothing to do with him.

But then she began to massage him again, triggering reactions that racked and delighted him. He was suddenly restless with his need of her; he reached out for her, all but dragging her across his body.

“Slowly, Arkady-champion,” she told him. “You know that.” Then she kissed him, her lips parted, her tongue just touching his.

He made a sound that was half moan, half sigh as he rolled on top of her, his whole body shivering for her as the blankets shivered in the wind. He felt her, supple and ardent, lift herself to him, and his head swam as if he were rapturously drunk
and the colors were all around him, vivid and intense as they shifted and changed, more beautiful than sunlight on the ocean
.

“Arkady my champion,” Surata said to him, “choose where you wish to be, and what you want to encounter.”

He could not speak to her, so all-consuming was his vision and his passion. There was a current running through him, inexorable as the tide. Surata filled the lights, her face transformed with ecstasy. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he felt himself say, wondering if he had spoken at all
.

“You want to battle dragons, Arkady my champion. Build a dragon from the light and make me your weapon.” Her voice was all around him, tangible in the brightness, and it touched him in ways that her hands could not
.

“I don't know how,” he whispered and knew that his response was part of the light
.

“Tell me what it is you wish, Arkady my champion, and it will be there. You thought of Saint…George, who defeated a dragon. What was the creature? Tell me.” She spoke in sounds more wonderful than music. “Tell me, Arkady my champion.”

They glowed in the light. “It was big, and clawed and scaled. It breathed fire, and it lived in a cave in the rocks, where it had piled up an enormous treasure, and where it brought the maidens it demanded in token…”

Around him the light coalesced into rocks, crags and canyons. Enormous, yawning darknesses punctuated these granite turrets, and in one of them, two chatoyant spots glowed. Arkady felt something in his hand and looked down to see a lance, so long and powerful that he was astonished he could control it more easily than his short sword. It fitted his hand and his arm so comfortably and lightly that he wondered how it could have the strength he knew it possessed
.

“I am your weapon, Arkady my champion,” Surata told him, her voice running up his arm. “I will not let anything hurt or harm you.”

He was about to question her, when a shuddering roar burst from the distant cave
.

Chapter 9

A dragon, twice the size of a horse, shambled into the brightness. Its scales flashed more than the sun off new snow, and when its spike-filled mouth gaped, ragged plumes of fire shone out. As he watched, Arkady marvelled at the beast and yearned for a horse to ride against such a monster, for surely, surely, he could not face it on foot with just his lance
.

“Make it a good horse, Arkady my champion,” Surata told him, her voice once more ringing in his flesh, moving up his arm like the strength of his muscles
.

Arkady shook his head, trying to imagine all the attributes he could wish in a warhorse. And then he felt himself rise, his legs bowed out by the enormous red sorrel with flaxen mane and tail that formed out of nothing. The stallion lifted a polished black hoof, showing flaxen feathering. He was the most perfect warhorse Arkady had ever seen. Every line of his body showed strength and stamina, his head, properly bowed over his arched neck, showed how totally he devoted himself to the will of his master. His saddle and bridle were of tooled leather and studded with silver and brass. Arkady almost grinned as he couched his lance
.

The dragon gave another roar, and smoke billowed out with the flames. It half rose on its hind legs and extended its talons toward Arkady, as if seeking to grasp him and rend him
.

“He is your dragon, Arkady my champion,” Surata said with the lance. “You have the right to defeat him.”

“Then I will,” Arkady promised, gathering up the reins in his left hand and preparing to spur his warhorse toward the monster
.

The dragon bounded with uncanny lightness to a nearer crag, where its shadow loomed over Arkady and his stallion. It lashed its huge tail and breathed out streams of fire. The light glinted off the scales so that the dragon was almost as blinding as the rising sun
.

Arkady's warhorse reared and pivoted on his hind legs, forehooves striking out toward the dragon. It whinnied out a challenge, unafraid of the hideous thing it confronted. Without effort, it sprang after the dragon as the enormous beast leaped to another promontory
.

“Follow it, Arkady my champion. Do not let it escape you,” Surata told him in the lance
.

He did not need her urging, for the audacity of conflict had got hold of him, and he felt the terrible jubilation that he had known at the start of battle. It was good to ride after the raging dragon, to scorn the risk of its claws and teeth and fire! He almost laughed as the chase went on
.

The dragon fled into a chasm, and Arkady hesitated only a moment, then spurred his horse, plunging down the rocky defile, lance poised for the fight to come
.

At last the dragon could go no further, and it turned on Arkady, fire pouring out of its gaping mouth, its eyes glowing like coals in its massive head
.

“Strike!” Surata called out to him
.

An instant later, the great red warhorse charged the dragon, and Arkady, after one heartbeat of paralyzing terror, steadied himself for the fray
.

The lance pierced the armored side of the beast, pressing deep into the monster's body, impaling its heart while the dragon writhed and howled, fire spurting from its mouth and nostrils
.

Dizzy with victory, Arkady tugged the lance out of the dying monster, reining his warhorse back from the creature
.

Gouts of vile-colored blood spattered from the dragon's wound, and where they touched, the earth sizzled. The dragon moaned and thrashed its head, growing steadily weaker
.

The lance in Arkady's hand faded and became a long, shining sword. “Cut off the head, Arkady my champion
.”

Arkady dismounted and walked carefully toward the dragon, which seemed to grow larger with every step he took toward it. Once a few drops of its blood struck his unprotected hand, and at once the weal of a burn appeared. Arkady grew more cautious. Though the dragon was almost dead, it was still capable of wounding or killing him
.

“I will not let that happen,” Surata told him from the sword in his hand. Of its own volition, the sword rose high over his head as he came near the dragon and remained poised there until Arkady brought it down to sever the monster's neck
.

At once the whole scene faded, leaving only the sword and the warhorse alone with Arkady in the many-colored darkness
.

“What now, Arkady my champion?”

“I…” He looked about in amazement, certain that the dragon was not far. “What…?”

“This place changes quickly,” Surata reminded him. “What do you want to battle now? A Turk? Another dragon?”

A forest sprung up around them, filled with massive trees rising high above them, blocking all but a few shafts of preternaturally bright sunlight from the path where Arkady stood beside his warhorse. The air was still, not even the call of birds disturbed them, and the sough of wind through the branches was softer than prayers for the dying. The scent of green things and the bark of trees was heavy on the quiet, very nearly palpable
.

The sword Arkady carried shifted in his hand, adjusting more perfectly to his grip. “What will you find here, Arkady my champion?”

“I don't know yet, but there must be something,” he said, feeling a coldness seep through him. There was something about this place that made him more uneasy than all the rocks where the dragon lurked could. Yet he had grown up near forests, and trees had been his playground for much of his childhood
.

“The root of your fear is in this place,” Surata told him gently. “You have come here to settle things once and for all.”

“But…I don't know what it is,” Arkady said slowly, reaching back for his horse's reins so that he could lead the splendid animal along the narrow path
.

“You will know it when you come upon it,” Surata said
.

Arkady did not respond. He gave his attention to the vastness of the forest and the strangeness of its silence. He went slowly, hearing the steady beat of his warhorse's hooves on the trail behind him
.

After a while, Surata asked, “Why don't you ride?”

“I don't know,” Arkady answered
.