Darkwitch Rising (63 page)

Any
matter of the heart
.

This was not what I meant to achieve that night I first lay with Weyland. I had convinced myself (in the heat of the moment when possibly I was grasping for any excuse) that this was a matter of healing of an ancient wound. But the
sex
was not the healing. No, the healing of Asterion’s wounds was something infinitely more dangerous.

Those wounds needed true companionship. Those wounds needed trust. Those wounds needed love.

Over three thousand years I’d had a pitiful handful of lovers—Brutus and Coel (and then Coel again, as Harold), then Asterion, once, in his glamour of Silvius, and finally John Thornton—but Weyland made me forget them all. There was no pining for Brutus whenever I was with Weyland.

There was only Weyland.

One night we lay, sweaty, slightly out of breath, recovering from the heat of our passion. Weyland’s hand was slowly tracing its way up and down my back, sending delicious little thrills of pleasure
through my body. Then, on one downward sweep, his hand went much lower than it had previously, and it rubbed and bumped over the ridged scars left after that hateful imp had eaten its way out.

His hand jerked away, and he went very still.

“Why?” I said. “Why be so malicious? You didn’t need to cause us so much agony. You didn’t need to tear Jane and myself apart in order to impress Charles.”

Weyland kept his hand still for a long time, and did not move it again until he finally spoke. “I was fed hatred from the time of my birth. My mother, leaning over my cradle, spitting at me. King Minos devising the worst possible means to keep me caged. The population of Knossos, of
all
Crete, invoking my name to frighten their children.”

His hand was now running from the nape of my neck, down my back, over my scars, over my buttocks, slowly, caressingly, and then up again, travelling as leisurely on its return journey as it had on its journey thither. I was trembling, partly at what Weyland was saying, mostly at his hand.

“Hate became for me not merely a means of existence, but the very nature of existence. It became more than that. It became a vehicle, a means of achieving my ambitions, and it became a safe place to hide.”

A glib enough explanation on the face of it, but there was something about Weyland’s voice and the way his eyes wouldn’t meet mine, that made me realise he was telling me the way that it truly had been for him. For a man such as Weyland, this opening and sharing was painful and dangerous, and so I kissed his mouth, and stroked his face, and after a moment or two he continued.

“It is no excuse, not to such as you, but it was who I was.” He paused, and finally allowed his eyes to
meet with mine. “Hate is something too easy to fall into, Noah. It is…addictive. Safe. It demands nothing save that it be fed.”

“Do you still hate, Weyland?”

“Not here, not with you.”

I gave a soft, somewhat breathless laugh. “I am so very afraid of you, Weyland. Of what we are doing.”

Weyland, Weyland, what are we doing? How can we stop? How can we stop
?

“On some days,” he whispered, “I am nauseous with fear. All I want is to force you to get those bands for me, to force you to my will…and yet…”

“What is different about this life, Weyland? Why these doubts and hesitations now?”

“You,” he said. “I had no thought for Cornelia, she was merely a piece to be moved on the chessboard. I despised Caela. But you—”

“I have grown a little.”

“You have grown a great deal. But…” His thumb traced about the borders of my face, over my forehead, down my cheekbone, around my jaw. “Ah, Noah, I have never encountered such a jewel as you. Not in any life. Not in any place I have travelled.” His voice changed, became full of laughter. “You are still my concubine…but freely now. Not forced. That has been a strange lesson for me to learn—that I can achieve more through granting freedom than through forcing with fear.”

Aye, still his concubine. And more dangerously trapped now, than ever I was with his imp inside me.

We were quiet for a while after that, touching and stroking, kissing now and again, moving closer to lovemaking once more, but as yet too indolent to be bothered.

I eventually spoke, thinking to use the intimacy of this moment to ask something about one of my deepest fears. “Weyland, talk to me of the darkcraft.
I had thought you might try to apportion some of the blame for your actions on that. ‘See, I am consumed with dark power. I am its slave’.”

He laughed, rolling over on his back. “I wish I
had
thought of using it as an excuse. Would you have accepted it?”

“No. I would have loathed you for it.”

His smile died. “The darkcraft is but power, Noah. It imparts no moral values, and has no destination or objective of its own. What I have done, in all my lives, is my own burden to bear. Not that of the darkcraft.”

“So…darkcraft does not corrupt?” I held my breath, waiting for that response.

His mouth twisted slightly. “Not unless he who wields it is corruptible.”

I relaxed. I had the darkcraft quiescent within me.
It
would not corrupt me…not unless I was myself corruptible.

So, did I trust myself? Was I true?

And true to
what
?

Weyland was now watching me quizzically. “Why these questions? And why these emotions I see rolling over your face?”

I tried to distract him with humour. “I merely wanted to know precisely what I shared a bed with.”

Something in his face changed. “Well, my lady Noah, perhaps you should experience
precisely
what it is you share a bed with.”

Weyland’s hand touched me again, but this time it was as if a different man had touched me…no, as if a different
world
had touched me.

“Weyland!”

“You want to know what the darkcraft is, Noah? Then let it love you, let it lie with you, let it
inside
you.” His body was resting full-length and firm against mine now, his hands were at my back, my
shoulders, my breasts. “Let
all
of me make love to you, Noah.”

Thus began a journey, an experience, from which it took me days to recover and to regain my equilibrium. Weyland took me down the paths of the darkcraft, allowing it to envelop me, consume me, wash through my very soul.

It was the most frightening, exhilarating, joyous, dangerous, unbelievable encounter of all of my lives.

Initially I was terrified, for power such as I had never imagined swept through me.

Worse, I could feel that untried and unopened potential deep within myself respond to it, wanting to join with it. I dared not allow it, because then Weyland would realise I had kept critical knowledge from him and he would never trust me again (and why was that so important, eh?), but also because I knew instinctively that if I did allow it, Weyland and I would be joined by forces so powerful that I would never be able to break free from him again.

But as the moment passed, and I became a little more used to Weyland’s darkcraft washing through me, I realised that, first, I could keep my own potential quiescent without too much trouble, and that, second, I was enjoying this experience so much that, frankly, I did not want to put a halt to it. Ariadne was right, this
was
the greatest lover imaginable.

Warm, dark, caressing, safe.

Exciting. Stimulating. Erotic. Addictive.

Use it
, Weyland whispered in my mind,
to make love to me
.

And so I did. I growled, feeling his darkcraft bubbling through me, and I sank my teeth into his shoulder. He laughed, and began to do things to me
that, had I been told of them by another, would have shocked me to the core.

But now…now, oh, gods…now…

We did not so much make love, as we
revelled
.

On a later night, when we lay quiet, I asked Weyland why he had made the Idyll, and why in this house. It was a night of exploration, and, as neither of us could sleep, it was a good enough topic of conversation.

“I purchased this house years ago,” he said, “after hunting for many months. I found better houses than this, more spacious, grander, more solidly built, but this house…” He paused.

“I walked into this house,” he resumed softly, “and it called to me. I walked up the stairs, and entered the chamber at the very top of the house.” Again he paused, remembering. “It was as if it spoke to me, and offered me possibilities.”

“What kind of possibilities, Weyland?”

He was silent a long time, and I wondered what it could be that was so difficult for him to say.

“It offered me a home,” he finally said, so low I barely heard him. “Safety. Peace. Comfort.”

Tears sprang into my eyes. “Then I thank you for bringing me here,” I said.

I had my hand on his chest, and I felt his breathing slow, and deepen.

“This place was waiting for you,” he said.

I closed my eyes, unintentionally squeezing out two of those gathered tears.

“Do you know what this place is?” I asked. I doubted he did, for it had taken
me
weeks of climbing these stairs every night to realise the significance of both house and Idyll, and Weyland did not have the same understanding as I.

“What do you mean? This is the Idyll, sitting within my house in Idol Lane.”

“And where does this house sit?” I said. “Where does Idol Lane sit?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking me, Noah.”

Again I closed my eyes briefly, and wondered why I was about to speak.

Weyland, Weyland, what are we doing? How can we stop? How can we stop
?

“Weyland, this part of London covers Cornhill.”

“Yes?”

“In ancient times, in Llangarlian times, this was known as Mag’s Hill.”

His hand, which had been stroking my neck, suddenly ceased.

“The goddess hill,” I said, my voice now almost a whisper. “
My
hill. Idol Lane follows exactly the ancient mystery track to the summit. This house only sits close to the top of the hill, but the top floor, where we are now, is level with the summit. Weyland, you have built your Idyll figuratively, and almost literally, on the summit of the goddess hill. Every time you climb the stairs to the Idyll you metaphorically climb into the realm of the goddess. Yes, this place was waiting for me. I am what makes it complete.”

We did not speak for a long time.

Finally, just as I was drifting into sleep, I heard Weyland whisper, “Noah, Noah, what are we doing?”

There was a dark corner turned that night, but whether it was towards the light, or into greater darkness, I did not know. Even then, I think, I knew there was no going back for me.

L
ouis dreamed, but this was as no dream he’d ever experienced as a man, nor even as a soul waiting impatiently through hundreds of years for rebirth. He dreamed as if he were awake; that is, he existed as if in a dream, but he knew this was no dream.

This was enchantment and magic and power such as he’d never encountered previously, not even when he laid down the foundations of the Troy Game with Genvissa.

Louis ran the Ringwalk. He sometimes ran as a man, but more often he ran as something fourlegged, far more powerful and swifter than a man.

He ran as the white stag with the blood-red antlers, and he ran through dream and reality, through land and mist, through time past and time future, and he ran until his heart pounded frantically in his chest, and he ran
because
he had a heart to pound frantically
in
his chest.

And he was glad.

Sometimes Louis ran alone, but more often than not other faerie creatures ran beside him.

Sidlesaghes, in their thousands, sometimes singing, sometimes silent.

The Lord of the Faerie. Laughing, sharing laughter.

Sometimes his father, Silvius, and Louis did not know if Silvius accompanied him because Louis was his son, Brutus-reborn, or if because Louis was Silvius’ long-time companion, the stag, risen from his death.

As Louis ran the Ringwalk he learned, or rather, as Louis ran the Ringwalk he absorbed. He absorbed the memories of all those who had run as the Stag God previously, and he understood that somehow Noah had undergone the same process when she had become Eaving. He discovered he could remember back to the dawn of life, back to the primeval world, back to when he, the white stag with the blood-red antlers, was nothing more than an ambition, a dream, a needing.

He remembered that first day he’d taken form, slithering free of his mother’s birth canal, dropping to the forest floor—not on his side or belly, as other fawns, but on his four feet, running from the moment of birth.

Born for the Ringwalk.

He remembered those who had hunted him, and those who had protected him. The faerie folk who had been his friends and lovers, and the creatures who had hated him and who had tried to kill him: other gods, frantic druids, fearful Christian priests.

Of them all, only the Darkwitch, Genvissa, had almost succeeded, and from that the stag had learned—he had only one true enemy, and that was the Darkwitch.

Louis ran the Ringwalk, and as he ran, he changed.

Life in Idol Lane transformed. Jane, who had lived there almost all her present life, had known only humiliation, day after day, year in, year out. Now, something else replaced that humiliation. Tolerance. Amusement.

Friendliness.

Generosity.

Her reward, for teaching Noah the ways of the labyrinth.

She didn’t trust it, this new world of Idol Lane. She was terrified of what would happen when Weyland discovered that it was not her teaching Noah, but Ariadne. However, for the moment, for this brief time when Weyland relaxed and the house became bearable, almost likeable, Jane determined to enjoy it.

Where once Jane had been a prisoner of the house, allowed out only when Weyland sent her on some closely watched chore, now he tolerated her coming and going virtually as she wished.