As she broke the surface, he spun her around facing away from him and tied a silk scarf over her eyes. “Shhh,” he whispered huskily, “let me…”
His hands were hot and skilled as he cupped her breasts from behind, his fingers working her nipples as he thrust himself against her, his hard penis riding the fissure between her buttocks. He began to undulate, grinding his body against her in the slippery water. When she reached to remove the silk blindfold, he spun her around facing him.
“Shhh,” he murmured, when she started to speak. He grabbed her hands and lifted them to his lips as she tried again to remove the scarf over her eyes. “Let me love you…”
His words were husky with desire as he crushed her close. He was holding her so tight against his erection, against the hard, roped torso, she could scarcely breathe. The air seemed thick of a sudden. The steam stung her nostrils. No…not steam—
smoke
! Where was it coming from?
Rhiannon resisted, pressing her open palms against his chest. “Wait, Gideon!” she cried. “I smell smoke…Something is burning!”
“Don’t touch my wings!” he gritted out as her hands groped for them.
She paid him no mind. Something was wrong. Her hands making wild circles in the air searched for his wings just the same, but there were none, and she tore at the blindfold until she’d ripped it off despite his strong hands fisted around her wrists trying to prevent her.
She screamed.
It wasn’t Gideon at all. It was
Ravelle,
his horned head thrown back in riotous laughter. He’d evidently meant to prolong the deception as long as possible, but he hadn’t fooled her. She was far too clever for that.
Across the way the pool chamber door was still latched, only now thick tufts of smoke were seeping in under the door sill. Rhiannon screamed again, calling Gideon at the top of her voice, but Ravelle’s blood-chilling laughter was her only answer. He was trying to drag her toward the deep end of the pool, where her terror of it would make her dependent upon him. He had nearly succeeded, when the water all around them began to roil and bubble, forming a vortex. When the swordfish leaped through the well of swirling water and stood dancing on its tail, menacing Ravelle, the demon let Rhiannon go just long enough for another figure to rise up from the whirlpool and seize her. It was Simeon, Lord of the Deep.
“Do not be frightened, my lady,” he said. “I am simply repaying an old debt.”
Rhiannon opened her mouth to scream again, but the sound froze in her throat for the suddenness of what was happening all around her. Thick smoke had all but obscured the swordfish jabbing at the demon with its long, razor-sharp sword as Simeon pulled her into the vortex.
“Hold tight!” he charged.
Rhiannon opened her mouth again to scream, for she was in mortal terror of the deep water that offered no safe bottom to her kicking and reaching feet, trying desperately to find it.
Simeon paid her no mind. Swooping down, he blew his warm, salty breath into her nose and mouth, as he plunged with her in a rush of silvery phosphorescence deep beneath the surface of the water, the swordfish spiraling triumphantly after them into the abyss.
E
nough!
a familiar voice shouted in Gideon’s mind.
I’ve yielded to you long enough. I’ll not stand by and wait till all hope is gone. He needs to know now, before it’s too late to help him.
The other speaker Gideon had come to know as the argumentative one sighed.
He is an entity to be reckoned with, your Lord of the Dark. I just want to be sure we aren’t offering something we will regret.
The first speaker grunted.
And what has she done, pray, that you would risk her life with the demons of Outer Darkness rather than bring him home?
The other snorted.
You know what invitation brings to bear,
he said.
Immortality is not something doled out lightly. He is larger than life, this fallen angel of the gods, and she…well…
You would rather see her damned to Outer Darkness than bring peace and comfort to this prince of the air? One more mortal in our midst can hardly signify, considering all those that have crossed over since time out of mind. I say again, enough! We need him, ’tis time!
They argued further, but Gideon couldn’t make out their speech. If only he knew what it all meant. There wasn’t time to think about it now. The rain had ceased, but a stiff wind had risen, and still the trees were silent. It was the strangest thing Gideon had ever seen. Trees that should be bent at the crotch, their branches sweeping the ground, stood motionless, while the howling gusts ruffled his long hair and narrowed his eyes to slits.
“What is it?” Marius said, as they moved through the forest. “I know that look. What ails you?”
“I do not know,” Gideon replied. “Voices…I hear them sometimes. They seem to be talking about me, but I cannot make out all that they say. What I can understand makes no sense, and yet…it seems so important that I hear it. Sometimes I think I’m going mad, and now that there is Rhiannon, it seems vital that I do hear their message. Then, there is
this
…this whatever it is that has driven the Ancient Ones in on themselves. I like it not.”
“It is a reckoning,” Marius said flatly. “We’ve seen it before, the silence of the trees. Ravelle caused the last one, too, and many were lost—burned alive in their ancient hosts, laid to waste at the whim of a demon from the depths of Outer Darkness. Sacrilege!”
“
Can
he be defeated?” Gideon asked, almost afraid of the answer, and with good cause judging from the expression upon the centaur’s face at the question.
“No, he is immortal, even as you and I, but he can be driven back and kept in his place. Please the gods we can manage that before this sanctuary is ravaged again.”
Gideon was about to reply when one of the voices in his mind spoke again—this time, it spoke to
him
. It had never done that before, and he stopped in his tracks and listened.
Gideon, Ruler of the Dark, Prince of the Air,
it thundered in his ears.
Get you back to the lodge! That is where it has begun, your reckoning….
There!
The voice said to the other.
Does that satisfy you? I will help him, but the choice will still be his.
Gideon didn’t wait for the other’s reply. His extraordinary sense of smell raised his head into the wind and he inhaled deeply.
“Smoke!”
he cried. “Marius…the lodge!”
The centaur pranced to a standstill. “Climb up!” he charged. Extending his arm, he pulled Gideon up on his back. “Hold on!”
Galloping among the motionless trees with the wind whipping tears in their eyes was an experience that chilled Gideon to the bone. Of all the enchantments the archipelago had to offer, this phenomenon was by far the most bizarre, and the most blood-chilling. He clung to the centaur’s back with both hands fisted in the coarse pelt and prayed they weren’t too late. He could reach the lodge in record speed if he was to take to the air, but the watchers were still hovering, and he dared not risk it. A bolt of lightning gone astray like they were often wont to do would be catastrophic should it hit the trees.
The smoke grew thicker the closer they came to the clearing. When it loomed up before them, the sight of the lodge engulfed in flames all but stopped Gideon’s heart.
“Rhiannon…!”
he cried, his voice trailing off on the wind. He slid off the centaur’s back and ran toward the writhing tower of flames, but a lightning bolt speared down in his path preventing him. In his haste to reach the lodge, he had forgotten about the watchers circling overhead. One was set to hurl another missile, when the whirr of an arrow in flight whizzed past Gideon’s ear on its way to its mark. It struck the watcher in the shoulder, catching him off balance as he hurled his missile down, and the bolt of deadly lightning spiraled off and missed its target striking a stile at the edge of the clearing instead.
Marius put himself in Gideon’s path as he reloaded his bow. “You can’t!” he thundered. “The lodge is gone, Gideon. You cannot save that! It’s too late!”
“But…Rhiannon!” Gideon cried. “I left her locked in the pool chamber. She didn’t want me to lock her in!”
“There is nothing you can do!” Marius insisted. “That blaze will consume you.” Another arrow left his bow so swiftly Gideon didn’t even see him load it, then another, and another, but still the watchers hovered.
Gideon raised both his fists to the heavens and let loose a string of blasphemies at the winged creatures that began hurling chain lightning down in all directions.
She is not there,
the voice shouted across Gideon’s beleaguered mind, for it was numb. Tears stung his eyes, and he spun in circles, pleading with the smoke-filled sky to give birth to the speaker.
“Who are you!” he demanded. “
What
are you? Show yourself, or I will let these vile henchmen of the gods have their way with me at last. I do not want to live without Rhiannon!”
“Gideon? Have you gone mad?” Marius hollered, his raised voice carried on the wind. “It’s only demon glamour. There is no one there!”
“No!” Gideon insisted, holding his reeling head as if he meant to keep it from spiraling off into the storm. “The voice I told you about…it says she isn’t here.” He spun around again, his wild eyes dilated like a madman’s, and yelled into the wind, “Where is she, then?” he insisted of the disembodied voice. “Help me…
tell me!
”
Seek her among the labyrinths of the deep
, said the speaker.
She is with Simeon.
“What is it?” Marius called out, clearly nonplussed. “Get hold of yourself! That fire is spreading. We must dig a trench to stop it or the forest is lost!”
“Simeon has her,” Gideon said.
“You don’t know that,” Marius insisted. “Ye gods! I do believe you have gone mad!”
Gideon reeled like a castaway lord. Ahead the lodge was nothing more than a fiery column reaching into the roiling clouds. Overhead, the watchers were closing in. He had never seen so many at one time dodging Marius’s arrows. The forest lord was right. The fire had to be stopped before it reached the Ancient Ones. Ravelle’s mocking laughter riding the wind underscored that. That they couldn’t see the demon by no means minimized the danger. Mere glamour or no, Ravelle was among them. He had to be driven back to Outer Darkness, and it had to be now, before more harm came to the isle.
He had to believe that the voice had told the truth, that Rhiannon was safe in Simeon’s care. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate, that her spirit had risen with the belching plumes of fire and ash spitting sparks into the noonday twilight called by the storm, lost to him forever.
Behind, a strange droning sound was coming from the forest. Had the trees found their voices? What did it mean? Overwhelmed, Gideon groaned. The wind whipping through his feathers had aroused him beyond the point of no return. His hard shaft strained against the seam of his eel-skin suit until he feared the seams would burst, and he loosed a cry he scarcely recognized as his own voice into the traitorous wind, as he came in involuntary spasms only to grow hard again as soon as the seed left his body.
Help comes
, the voice he’d been hearing called out over the din of frantic thoughts banging around in his brain.
Do what needs must, then go to her and bring her home….
Home
? Gideon groaned. He had no home. “Who
are
you?” he demanded.
There was a palpable silence before the voice came again.
Your savior,
it said, and said no more, though he called out to it again and again until his deep baritone voice broke, hoarse and breathless, and his heart felt as if it were about to burst through his chest.
“Gideon, look!” Marius said, bringing him back from the brink of what could only be sheer madness.
Dazed and disoriented, Gideon stared toward the forest, where a creature was emerging, one that he’d heard of but never seen, a huge white stag with eyes so human-like they were shocking in an animal—the
Great White Stag
, ruler of the Arcan astral, protector of all forests and the Ancient Ones that dwelled within them. It was said that only the righteous could look into its eyes, and yet Gideon was, meeting its enigmatic gaze relentlessly.
“Did you call it?” Marius asked.
“No…I don’t know…” Gideon stammered. Was this the help the voice had promised? “The voice I hear, it said that help would come.”
“Listen…listen to the trees. It may have saved them. You evidently have friends in high places.”
Gideon stared. The droning became louder. It was as if the trees heaved a collective sigh. One among them moved, not just to stretch and spread its branches. Its roots were not immersed in the ground. Instead, they trailed after it as it lumbered into the clearing, the huge white stag at its side.
Marius bent his centaur forelegs at the knee joint and genuflected before the two strange entities, whipped by the wind, approaching. “Pay homage!” Marius spat out in a hoarse whisper. “These are astral creatures—Otherworldly royalty…bow down!”
Gideon sketched a bow. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“I am not certain,” Marius said, rising from his bow. “This has never happened before. It appears that the mantra the trees were humming has brought their lord and mentor from the astral. See? Now
all
the trees move, Gideon!”
But they did not just move their boughs and branches. Their roots, too, came out of the ground and carried them back from the encroaching flames, for the fire was eating its way across the clearing before the risen wind.
Pandemonium had risen over the howl of the gale as Ravelle’s chilling laughter rose over the racket. His image danced in the flames approaching. “You cannot destroy me,” the demon tittered. “I am not here in the flesh, and even if I were, your pitiful magic has no dominion over me! Just look at what I’ve done with glamour alone!” He swept his fiery arms wide. “See what I have wrought, Lord of the Dark, and you, Marius, our day will come….”
The satyr’s laughter rang in Gideon’s ears, as the Great White Stag pranced forward, rocking him back on his heels as it entered the flames as well. Its red eyes shooting fire, the stag advancing backed the demon deeper into the writhing column of flames that consumed it, laughter and all, though the hideous sound echoed after it.
The stag then emerged from the flames unscathed and joined the great spreading oak that had led the other trees to safety. Seeming to sigh again collectively, the Ancient Ones returned their roots to the ground and settled into their new beds downwind of the flames that threatened no more, and Gideon took to the air, while Marius covered his ascent.
“Is it over?” Gideon called out over the wail of the wind.
“Not over,” Marius said, “postponed for now. Like Ravelle said, our day will come, his and mine, and it will be a reckoning like no other. Our issues are as old as eons. Thank you, my friend!”
“If you have this in hand, I must say good-bye, Lord of the Forest,” Gideon shouted. “I must find Rhiannon.” No matter what the disembodied voice proclaimed, he would not take an easy breath until he held her in his arms again.
“Hail and farewell, certainly, but never good-bye between friends, brother prince.”
Gideon smiled sadly. Conversing thus, while Marius’s arrows deflected the watchers’ thunderbolts was bizarre at best. “I may not come this way again,” he said. “But if you ever have need of me, somehow I will find a way….”
“The gods go with you!” Marius called after him.
Gideon laughed outright as he soared off into the clouds. “Do not wish that upon me!” he chided. “Else I have to take these loathsome harpies with me. Unless I miss my guess, where I am going they cannot follow. Farewell, old friend…until the fates decree we meet again…”