Authors: Vera Nazarian
“
That door had been left open for you,” replied Elasirr. “For, my Palace eyes had also seen the flash of
violet
very nearby. Good work, Elas—though a little too dramatic.”
Ranhé’s brow arose, but she said nothing to that.
“
Now then,” said Elasirr. “We must hurry. Come along with me, for obviously the two of you have nowhere to go now. Your Villa, Elasand-re, has been surrounded and thoroughly searched. It remains occupied.”
“
Gods!” exclaimed Elasand. “What of the Beis Villa—”
“
Your aunt the Dame Beis is safely within the Inner City,” replied Elasirr with a brief smile. “And I’ve spent the day talking convincingly with a number of other Guildmasters that are still at large. Aren’t you going to ask me how that went? But—let’s start moving, we can talk on the way.”
With that, he motioned for them to follow, and started out walking in the small pitch-black street, to cross a square to the building that Ranhé had recognized correctly to be the Lyceum.
No one was out and about at this time, especially in the Academic Quarter, where most business closed before sundown.
At the walls of the Lyceum structure, Elasirr disappeared around a corner, and when they followed, he stood before another secret open doorway. They dove inside, and were once again swallowed by pitch black. Elasirr shut the door tight behind them, and suddenly there was a bright flash, and a ball of
blue
fire appeared, floating steadily in midair, and effectively illuminating the dim corridor for many feet all around.
“
Ah, what a relief to be able to do that freely when one needs light,” said Elasirr almost cheerfully, glancing sideways at Ranhé, while the ball of light floated ahead of them, illuminating their way. “You wouldn’t believe how much I’d wanted to do that when we were out there in the forest. But then, you didn’t know any of this. And neither did I know if you were to be trusted.”
“
Oh,” said Ranhé, walking alongside the two of them. “And am I to be trusted now, Lord Guildmaster?”
He only glanced at her in answer, then continued walking ahead through the catacombs. At his side, Elasand strode with a deathly tired expression. He was truly on his last reserves.
Aware of Vaeste’s condition, Elasirr attempted to lighten the mood a little. “To your left,” he said casually, as they rounded a corner, “behind this very wall, is the City Treasury. Yes, that mysterious elusive place where all the valuables of this government are effectively stored.”
“
Ah, at this point I’d rather it were a bathroom,” said Ranhé through her teeth. “I’d give all treasures for that. I’m dying, my lords.”
At which Elasirr chuckled, and the echoes took up his deep voice and carried it far in the darkness ahead.
I
n the Inner City, which they had once again reached through the underground, they were taken to some living quarters and given a good meal.
“
Go to sleep, Elas!” Elasirr said to the Lord Vaeste, and for once the other did not argue, took to bed, and was asleep within minutes.
It turned out that the large chamber was Elasirr’s own personal sleeping quarters, and Elasand now occupied his own bed.
“
And you, freewoman,” said Elasirr. “I would let you rest also, but first there are some people you must meet.”
“
Must I?” said Ranhé. “And do
you
yourself ever sleep, my lord—Elasirr?”
He looked at her closely, than seeing that she was only half-jesting, he told her to follow him into a room next door.
It was a smaller chamber, but it also was comfortably furnished and contained a bed and several couches.
“
Here,” said he, pointing to the bed. “You sleep here. And I will rest also, so that all meetings will be postponed till the new day. Tomorrow you’ll meet them, the Masters who work with
color
light and who will work with you.”
“
We have taken up all your beds . . .” she said, somewhat embarrassed. “Where will you sleep?”
“
This couch is as good as any,” replied Elasirr. “I will move it into the other room, if my being here makes you uncomfortable—freewoman.”
There was a pale
green
orb lit in the corner. Bathed in its vivid light, Ranhé stared back at him undaunted, saying, “Look, you don’t bother me. Haven’t we shared enough nights in the forest, lord?”
“
Ah, but this is not the forest,” he replied, while a sudden deviously charming smile illuminated his face, a different kind of smile, quite unlike his usual. His sun-hair, clean and brushed back, streamed radiant about his shoulders. And for a moment, just for a moment, she did feel a surge of something uncomfortable, an odd sense pass through her.
“
All right,” said Ranhé. “Just tell me where the bathroom is.”
When she had come back from the lavatory, he had lain down already, on the couch farthest to the wall, on his back, hands tucked under his head, and the
green
monochrome was burning low, just enough to illuminate her way.
Except for her boots, Ranhé did not bother undressing, and lay down on the bed stiffly, turning her back to him, and drawing a light blanket about herself.
A minute of silence, while she tried to calm her somehow loudly beating temples, and to slow her breathing.
And then, “Good night, Ranhé,” came his soft voice, while at the same time the
green
orb was extinguished into utter darkness.
“
Good night,” she replied.
And then, in the velvet soft darkness, she remained as damnedly awake as she could be. From afar, she could hear remote living sounds of the Guild at work. She could hear her own temples pound softly. The creaking of the bed. The rustling of her pillow. All, microscopic unreal irrelevant sounds.
From across the room, she could hear his steady even breathing.
She lay, still as death, forcing this stillness upon herself, afraid to turn, to stretch, to make the least sound. At some point her thigh itched, but she was afraid to move and scratch the place. She heard his own couch creak several times as he moved. And once there was a sigh, a yawn, as he breathed deeply, tiredly.
Then, as the minutes passed, the night deepened, and she remained obsessed with her own breathing, his breathing, she noticed a difference in him. The sound of his breath had slowed, grown light and regular, and she knew that he slept at last.
For some reason that awareness also served to relax her, to ease her tensed muscles, so that she too could start breathing lightly, and eventually let go, no longer concerned that he would hear her.
She lay, her eyelids pressed shut lightly, and soon, as soothing groggy warmth began to gather, she thought she saw pricklings of tiny dots of pure sweet
yellow
, while the insides of her eyelids were illuminated with a familiar soothing sky.
Images tumbled then, in succession, and she knew she was dreaming then, for she thought she lay beneath a great open
dandelion
sky, she was the very grass growing in a
golden
field. There was a moon glowing bright overhead, and then—no, it was the middle of day, or rather, a bright dawn, and the sun floated high overhead, a
yellow
sun with two intimate eyes.
The man-in-the-sun turned to look down upon her with an exuberant smile, while
his
hair streamed forth to inflame the whole sky with burning tongues of fire.
And then, glorious,
he
began to fall, sweeping down upon her like a bird whose wings spanned the universe. And as the god fell, the sky rushed down with
him
, thousands of pulses of
yellow
brightness.
Dersenne!
she cried, drawing her arms open wide to receive
him
, and then, as mad joy came to overflow in her, to hold
him
tight with her own strong arms, to hold the fire, the very sun in her embrace, to look upon
his
face only inches away from her own.
The world turned upside down, and it was
he
, the god, that now lay upon the
golden
grass, gazing enraptured up at her, while she leaned over
him
, her hair loosened from its braid falling down in darker richness to mingle with
his
scalding honey fire,
his
river of
yellow
hair, her face pressing down upon
his
sweet cheek, touching
his
lips, then drawing her lips down lower to caress
his
strong pale warm throat with its rising pulse-beat. Her fingers danced upon
his
living flesh, and rose higher again to sweep
his
face, to touch the strong darkness of
his
brows, so perfectly straight, the somehow imperfect line of his slightly upturned nose, the soft fine lips, while he moaned—
The dream rushed away from her, as Ranhé found herself awake, and overwhelmingly within her own body, in a dark room. But somehow, unbelievably, there was something different, wrong.
There was another body beneath her, strong, male, warm. For, she was no longer in her own bed but had somehow sleepwalked across the room, and was lying on top of him, embracing the man with the sun-hair—not
Dersenne
, but the other one, the one who she’d never thought she’d touch again, the one who’d called her “ugly” and who’d deceived her once with his
erotene
touch—
Horror, embarrassment filled her, but somehow, she was beyond that. She was burning, could not stop, was already too far gone from the sensuous madness of the dream. And so she pinned him down madly, no longer caring, digging her strong hands into his long silken locks of sun-hair—
E
lasirr awoke sharply from a touch in the darkness. Disoriented from a muddle of dream, he did not know, at first, and then, remembering, recognized her outline in the dark with his night-sensitive eyes.
“
Ranhé?” he whispered sleepily, beginning to sit up. “Is something wrong?”
But she did not answer.
Instead, there was something strange about her dim outline, a slowness with which she moved, with which she suddenly leaned down over him, so that for a moment he felt a twinge of worry, and tried to remember where he had left his sword. . . .
“
Ranhé . . .” he whispered again. “What’s wrong? What are you doing—”
But then, like a shock, a bolt of electricity, he felt her soft strong hands against his shoulder and cheek, and then, felt the ultimate surprise of a warm moist touch of lips upon his throat, as she had leaned forward, and then lay over him, pressing her warm body against his.
Something happened to him then, at that touch. Weakened by sleep, by the night, by the very surprise of her, he felt himself swooning back against the pillow, simultaneously pierced with a pang of hot awareness, as his own body suddenly refused to obey him, and he melted downward, while a burning instant fierceness surged in his loins.
Breath escaped his lips in a helpless moan, and he threw his head back then, rising up uncontrollably toward her touch, her lips like a sweet vampire’s upon his neck. And then her fingers were in his hair, pulling him to her, and his own hands came alive, wildly, as he grabbed hold of her with a grip like a vise, a sudden unexpected sweet prey fallen into his very own grasp.
“
Dersenne
. . .” she whispered lightly then, and he realized with a stab of unbelieving regret that she was actually asleep, that it was not him she thought she was embracing. . . .
But it no longer mattered.
He was aflame, and he held her now, of her own free will, as she had come to him. He held her feverishly and caressed her, fingers pulling at her braid, undoing it fiercely at last—ah, he had always wanted to feel her hair loose—and was working her jacket off her body, then her shirt, and then that ridiculous wrap that she used to bind her breasts whose fullness he now crushed. . . .
All the meanwhile, she gasped suddenly, fingers still digging into his long hair, and went still.
Apparently, she had wakened.
But obviously, it did not matter either. Because suddenly, furiously, she was again upon him, her lips coming down on his own, while with shuddering breath he crushed her body to him, primal in the night, and his own clothes were being torn off, and he was wallowing against her soft hot skin, no longer considering the situation, no longer capable of thought, no longer aware of anything but this sweet mad struggling fierce woman in his arms.
CHAPTER 17
S
harp icy nascent dawn. Glow, like milk and ashes, seeped in from a tiny window.
Elasirr awoke with a shudder, feeling the chill crawl along his bare skin, the side of him, along his strong curve of spine. Lying face forward, entangled in his own soft long strands of flax hair, face and lips puffy with sleep, with something else—
The memory slammed upon him, and he was awake like a wild animal, sharp, acute, aware with every cell of his being.
His right hand reached to the side, searching for—
Not there.
She
was not there.