She was alone with the Lord of Fire.
“How did you get here?” she asked at last. “And how long where you watching?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know.”
That was not an answer to either of her questions. Screaming would be useless and might only provoke him. If he had a shred of nobility in him, he would not take advantage of her vulnerability—or his far superior strength.
“Go,” was all she said.
To her surprise, he did. She could not help glancing down as he passed by her on his way to the terrace door. Lord Vane’s breeches contained an immense erection. His balls were so large that they showed through the leather.
She hoped he was hurting. He slammed out, unseen by anyone but her. Simeon and Megaleen had seen fit to give her and Marius this secluded tower, for which they had been grateful.
Marius made love to her twice last night, with the surpassing gentleness he’d shown since he’d learned the details of her encounter with the demon. At last she had been able to comfort him in turn, caressing his strong arms and shoulders as he grieved wordlessly for his lost friend. The sexual release had brought a flood of emotions, and their sleep had been deep and dreamless.
Lord Vane must have been very drunk indeed to have scaled the tower in the night. She could not imagine how he could have done it in the daylight while she was bathing. He was a brawler and a fighter, not light on his feet.
No, he had fallen into a sot’s dream and risked his life to crawl up, thinking he was scaling a mountain. Her talking to the maid had woken him up. He looked like a disreputable inhabitant of some nameless hell, to be sure.
Lashings of dark stubble along his hard jaw. Dark eyes that still glowed, despite the aftereffects of disgusting kelp brandy. Hair that looked like the wind had combed it. And that body—ill-clothed but strong enough and skilled enough to climb a stone tower in the dark.
He didn’t seem to be able to put on a look of guilt. It would have been utterly out of character if he had. Linnea went inside the bedchamber and pulled up the covers over the hollow in the tangle of sheets where she and Marius had fallen into sleep in each other’s arms, bone-weary and troubled.
She sat down on the edge of the feather-stuffed mattress, plucking one that had come halfway out of the ticking and twirling it in her fingers. Ought she to tell him that Lord Vane had been behind the screen? What good would it do?
Marius and the other lords of Arcan had more than enough to worry about. Vane’s penchant for roistering was well-known to them, but he hadn’t harmed her or so much as set a finger on her. Nor had he said anything to upset her. He’d simply left without a backward look, standing tall and proud as ever, not slinking out.
Anybody could do something stupid when drunk.
She decided not to give him away.
Gideon, Simeon, and Marius were too deep in conversation at the table to look up when Vane traversed the wide hall. Nor did the maids, slopping the stone floors with rags, talking to each other. His steps were swift and soft, and he went out the small door set into the great one, ducking his head. Well-oiled because of the corrosive sea air, it didn’t even squeak. Vane hastened away.
With luck, there would be a boat on the shore and a man to row him back to the desolate Isle of Fire. The wind blew in gusts along the rocky shore, chilling him to the bone. He leaned into it, striding faster.
He would get a roaring blaze going in the fireplace in his bedchamber when he reached his island. With luck, Hella would appear. He needed her more than ever.
In the loneliest part of the Forest Isle…
R
avelle was sulking. His behind still ached from where Marius had kicked him, and it was bony to begin with, sagging in leathery wrinkles without any fat.
He lowered himself into a pool fed by a natural hot springs and groaned. Sitting down was next to impossible. No, he would stay lifted up with his arms and let his saggy behind float. He had more than one reason for taking a bath. His revenge upon Marius for that tremendous kick which had flung him into the sky had not been as easy. He still smelled of smoke, even though it had been days ago. Old Philonous had been full of resin and did not burn cleanly.
Soaking, he thought back upon the murder of the tree. He had not been quite sure Philonous
was
dead, but Ravelle had left him for dead, put it that way. He wished he hadn’t tried to terrify the willow even more by telling it he would plan to sell Marius to a particularly unsavory traveling circus where he would be exhibited as a freak to ordinary men. And embellished that by threatening to shackle the centaur after that to a giant millstone, blinded and beaten, once the world was bored with looking at him.
The old tree had shrieked with rage and Ravelle had had to do his worst too quickly and wing away. Who knew who might have come to Philonous’s aid?
In a little while, he felt somewhat better and eased himself up on the rock the same color as himself, stretching out to dry in the sun. A small bird flew over him and he waved it away, not wanting to be shat upon.
Next one, he vowed silently, would be grabbed out of the air and eaten raw. He was hungry too, which did not improve his mood.
Soon enough, another bird flew over him, a larger one. Black. Not a crow, though, he thought, squinting at it as it settled on a different rock, its back to him. Was he, Ravelle, camouflaged so well that he had not been noticed? He reached a long arm down into the water to splash the oblivious bird, and managed to do it, much to his malicious pleasure.
The bird was drenched, immediately preoccupied with getting rid of the water from its unexpected bath. Ravelle noticed with curiosity that the blackness was dripping off it. He saw white feathers stained with dye wearing off and some that were truly black. It was a magpie. Marius’s magpie? The one that had stabbed him in the back?
Oho. He would happily crunch Esau in his jaws alive. Ravelle rolled over and flattened himself like a creeping lizard, moving over the rock he was on like a shadow. Again he reached out a long hand and grasped the bird, which turned its head to look at him at last with beady eyes, its heart pounding frantically in its breast.
It was Esau. The bird gave a despairing croak.
“What brings you here?” Ravelle asked nastily. Then he opened his mouth and displayed sharp rows of teeth.
The bird trembled in his claws.
Ravelle opened his mouth wider. “Scared? The teeth in the back are even sharper. But I am not sure whether to eat you head first or tail first.”
As if in answer, Esau squirted a disgusting gray-white stream onto the demon’s belly.
“Fie!”
Ravelle flung the magpie away and Esau soared off.
Back to his master, no doubt, Ravelle thought with fury. He dove into the pool and came up flapping his wings, rising straight up, cloven hooves dangling as he flew after the bird. If he kept back far enough, he could follow the magpie through the air.
Flying, Esau could not look back to see if he was being pursued. It would be interesting to see where he went. The demon’s leathery wings creaked a little as he went higher. Marius’s stupid bird was a dot in the sky, disappearing fast.
Ravelle flew faster, dropping when the bird did but keeping his distance when Esau finally alighted on an outcropping of rock high above the treetops.
Of course. His hidden nest. A collection of magpie junk. Bright pebbles and feathers, glittering mica, sacred to the God of All but not to this wild bird, who helped himself to it. From where he’d landed, on an uncomfortable branch with lots of leaves to hide him, Ravelle saw gold.
The magpie had indiscriminate taste. There were pebbles, gold, jewelry he’d found or stolen. Ravelle would pick through it once the bird flew away.
Esau seemed to want to rest. He scratched at his miscellaneous collection and then sat down in the middle of it, basking in the strong sun. The bird put its head over one shoulder to preen itself, fluffing out its feathers to rid itself of the pond water the demon had flung at it.
Ravelle landed on a crooked branch, keeping vigil. If he sprang forth now, the bird would fly away and no doubt lead Marius back.
The demon was not ready to do battle again. Disgusted by the ease with which Marius had blasted their supposedly all-powerful master into the air, his ungrateful imps had deserted him, although a double-crosser among them had informed him before buzzing off that his legions in the Outer Darkness were threatening an uprising. A younger cousin of his was apparently plotting his demise.
He could not take on the powerful lords of Arcan by himself. Right now it seemed that all he could do was bide his time, and kill Marius over and over again in his bloody daydreams.
If he could really do it, then sweet Linnea might be truly his.
Ravelle settled into the crotch of the branch and chewed absently on a bitter leaf, thinking of her. She would never come to him willingly. She would have to be bound. He’d gotten off to a fine start with that before the stupid centaur showed up.
He smirked, remembering the scratch he’d given her. He was fairly sure Marius did not have the expertise to draw the slow-acting poison out of it. It might be another moon before it drove her raving mad and made her ready for to be—the demon liked to coin words—thoroughly ravelled.
A sexually insatiable madwoman, all his own. Ahh. She would never be satisfied, not by him, not by a legion of lesser demons. They would line up to fuck her, chained on all fours, screaming with rage, her mind gone forever. His three-eyed cock twitched and lengthened. The slit in the head opened and murmured obscene encouragement.
Ravelle heeded it, pumping vigorously. Aging like the rest of him, his member was not always so cooperative. A stinking spray squirted out from the leaves and fell with a patter like light rain falling from a high, passing cloud.
The dozing bird shifted at the sound and then got up. It walked about its higgledy-piggledy nest, turning over a few stones in a bored way, then looked to the far horizon. A trail of smoke from a distant fire rose into the air. Esau smoothed his dry feathers with his beak and flew off in that direction.
Resting from his masturbation, Ravelle didn’t notice any of it until he heard the flap of wings. He let go of his flaccid organ and pushed the concealing leaves aside. The magpie’s nest was empty.
He stood up on the branch and flapped his stiff wings to get them moving before he took to the air. Was he getting old? He had lived for millennia, expected to live for millennia to come. But even a demon had to die.
Hmph. Marius first. And to hell with the bird for the moment. Ravelle lifted off from the branch and hovered, his hooves dangling in midair. Then he flew the short distance to Esau’s nest.
It had been in use for some time, judging by the quantity of stones and pebbles and other things. Ravelle sat on the edge and folded up his legs, reaching in for a gold earring.
He used his claw to pierce his earlobe and stuck it in, not minding the dark blood that flowed over his claw. He didn’t mind pain, so long as he was the one inflicting it, on himself or someone else.
A flat shard of black volcanic glass gleamed in the strong sun. He could see his reflection in that. Ravelle picked it up. The earring next to his withered cheek looked anything but dashing. He
was
getting old.
Ravelle tore the earring out of his lobe and flung it back into the nest angrily. It clinked off a lump of ore and fell next to a smooth carved stone that was nearly buried.
What was that?
He scrabbled around it with his claw and picked it clean when he got it free. It had a hole at the top where a chain or a leather thong had once been. At first glance it looked like a horse, but then Ravelle saw it was a carving of a centaur. An amulet. The workmanship was incredibly fine.
As he held it in his palm, it felt warm. Then it began to glow.
Interesting. No doubt a god or a demi-god had dropped it from the clouds above. It might even have fallen from the divine court even higher in the sky, or been flung in the midst of a celestial brawl or orgy.
Ravelle found a chain in the mess of stuff eventually and threaded it through the hole in the amulet, fitting the two ends together with a bit of string. He didn’t bother to check his appearance in the glass shard. The amulet was interesting and he had always wanted to own something that had belonged to the gods, who were inclined to ignore him and his kind.
He put it on. Resting upon his chest, it grew warmer still. Ravelle shifted the amulet on the chain, moving it to a different spot under his collarbone. Then something else distracted him. The nest seemed to be growing smaller. Unless he was growing bigger. Ravelle looked down at his legs, expecting to see narrow goat’s hooves at the end of them.
He didn’t.
He saw the broad hooves of a draft horse. He ran his claws along the massive muscles that bulged where his lean shanks were supposed to be. It suddenly became impossible to sit in the nest.
Ravelle fell out, turning head over tail.
Not his own whiplike appendage, he noticed as he somersaulted through the air. A long, flowing, horse’s tail. He was becoming a centaur. Ravelle grabbed at the chain around his neck and snapped it, praying to the Lowest of the Low that he would revert to his natural shape in the remaining seconds before he hit the earth.
His thick tail got hung up in the treetops and his new centaur skin peeled off with it. Ravelle windmilled his arms and fell the rest of the way. Right on his bony ass.
He lay there, gasping. The amulet, which undoubtedly was of divine make and enchanted to boot, was gone. He had to find it. When he had recovered, Ravelle beat the bushes looking for it.
Such a transformation could be very useful. He had not been able to hold onto the shape of Marius as a man for very long; that of a centaur, never. With the amulet he could be Marius the centaur for as long as he liked.
Long enough to lure Linnea to ride on his back. Long enough to run away with her and imprison her where the real Marius could not find her. And long enough to face Marius as an equal and fight with him the way maddened stallions did: to the death.
He would have the advantage of surprise. At the moment, there was only one centaur on the Isle of the Forest and that was Marius. His brother, the seldom seen Darius, a mere man of the woods, had not been so cursed.
Thrash. Crack
. He broke branches and tore off leaves in his furious search through the undergrowth. Had his last chance been lost to him? Ravelle clenched his claws and screamed with rage.
He could not find the amulet.
The magpie landed on the beach, near the source of the fire that had summoned him. He looked around, uneasy without shelter. Esau was less bold than he used to be. His plucking at the merciless claws of Ravelle’s imps had made him acquainted with fear.
The bird was alone. He hopped a bit, then flapped his wings and flew up to a mangrove branch, hiding behind a wide leaf. The thin trail of smoke had nearly died down.
Marius had built it, Esau knew. He must need a messenger. In the meantime, the bird would take a nap.
He fluffed out his feathers and awoke a little while later when he heard Linnea’s voice, far down the beach. She and Marius were lugging a basket.
Whatever were they thinking? Had they summoned him to carry it? A small magpie could not. On the other hand, there might be something worth stealing in it. His thoughts were muddled. Esau was still rattled from his encounter with Ravelle. His escape had been a near thing.
Linnea was smiling, although she looked pale. The bird cocked its head and listened when she talked.
“Marius, this didn’t seem so heavy when I packed it. And do we dare eat out in the open like this?”
He took over the carrying of the basket from her before they reached the fire. “We cannot sit in Simeon’s stronghold indefinitely, you and I.”
“I suppose not.”
“Gideon and Simeon cannot seem to agree on the right course of action and I was weary of listening to them jawbone.”
Linnea thought of Lord Vane’s dangerous boldness. He might not do right, but he knew exactly what he wanted to do. She sighed. It was best not to mention him at all. Or even think of him. “Yes, Rhiannon and Megaleen couldn’t get in a word in edgewise.”
“That is why they went out for a sail—and why I commandeered that disreputable craft to get us here.” He looked over his shoulder at the tied-up boat. “We have a furlong’s walk ahead of us, but the destination is worth it. I miss the woods, Linnea.”
“So do I.”
“The solstice revels are long over. No outsiders will bother us and Ravelle has not shown his ugly face since I kicked him to the skies.”