Authors: Alice Borchardt
That was why he used an “intermediary.” She had not been the first. Nor had Ustane. There had been others, many others. They occupied the vast vault where Ustane slept when she was not wanted, each resting under their own effigy.
Ustane had been beautiful. Igrane had felt an almost wild jealousy when she first saw her. But a glance at what remained of Ustane wiped that away. And she had gotten used to Ustane’s help. Food, clothing, other amenities such as perfumed baths and books must be summoned from somewhere, and Ustane knew how to call them up.
Igrane stared out at the fiery sunset, feeling the sea breeze on her skin. The bedroom held only a bed and not much else. It stood on a platform in the center of the room. The coiled shell of ammonite, brilliant in opalescent mother-of-pearl and mounted in gold filigree, towered over Igrane. The bed was formed by the massive shell’s last chamber, where the tentacled predator of the open ocean once lived. Sleeping on it was like lying on air. The massive, deep mattress and comforter were filled with fragrant down. The sheets and pillowcases were a rich, dark-blue silk.
But the room, as the other rooms in the crystal cave, seemed to have almost no walls, only a haze of magic, which could be as substantial as a sheet of glass when a storm thrashed the rocky coast. But then it could turn into a whisper of obstruction when she wished to enjoy the sweet sea breeze, drink in the salt air, and gaze at the magnificent bulwark of the rocky coast as it was kissed by the ocean.
“I will not touch that horror graven into the evil heart of his place. Never. Never again.”
Ustane sighed. “What? Will you wait until he returns and leads you to it?”
“I can’t think Merlin will escape the dreadful King of Bade so easily. You forget, I saw the serpent spell that took him. That king—oh, he is not a man—is master of serpent spells. That was how he conveyed Arthur to his lands. I saw the sea witch sleep at Bade’s behest when Merlin cut off the serpent from her scalp and used it to send Arthur to the great sorcerer’s prison.”
“Then you yourself must find an intermediary,” Ustane said.
“You mean, I can do the same thing Merlin did?” Igrane exclaimed with delight.
The living sparks that formed the eyes in Ustane’s cadaver face glowed with an evil brightness.
“The idea intrigues you.” Ustane chuckled, a crackle of fine bones snapping.
Bird bones,
Igrane thought uneasily.
“Yes. How?” Igrane demanded. She pulled at the fur robe she was wearing. Obligingly, it lifted itself higher around her shoulders, raising a thick collar to protect her face and neck from the quickening night breeze.
Beyond the platform, out over the ocean, a distant storm was beginning to cast itself between the coast and the dying sun. The low-hanging clouds turned bloody, and the sweeping veils of rain burst forth into a thousand rainbows.
“See?” Ustane whispered. “The ruling spirit of this place approves your choice.”
“Meaningless. A mere matter of sea, sun, and sky,” Igrane said.
“Come, come, woman. Those who built this place took pains to make sure they could contemplate the visionary beauty of the natural world in all its untouched splendor. Do you think they did not derive wisdom from it? Do you not feel power rise in your own heart when you sleep in that bed and the sound of waves lulls you to sleep and the stars in their millions form a canopy over your head? Are you so dead to the glories of heaven and earth, of life itself, that you can, in your selfishness, ignore the beauty around you?”
Igrane closed her eyes and began to cry. “Here I am, uprooted from my royal past, my home, my women, my friends among the nobility. All the small comforts I took for granted. I would give anything to bathe in my own pool and give a state dinner in the hall of Tintigal.”
“Then return and do so,” Ustane snapped. “An easy matter for you now. You are in possession of the fortress. The cup that Merlin used to fetch you here? Its magic is independent of that scaly sorcerer. It will in fact convey you wherever you wish to go. But remember, if you yield up the enchantment of this place, the food you eat, air you breathe, you will begin to age and die like all others.”
Igrane burst into a storm of weeping. Ustane began laughing.
“Leave me alone!” Igrane screamed. “Much more and I will banish you to your tomb.”
Ustane only laughed louder, because two days ago, Igrane had done just that—returned Ustane to her grave after she flew into a fury when Ustane told her the only way to achieve final control over Merlin’s power was a painful visit to the symbol in the other room. But the rub was, Ustane wouldn’t return when she was summoned by a lonely, frightened, and even somewhat penitent Igrane. Instead, she terrified Igrane into submission by absenting herself for a while day and night, leaving Igrane to struggle ineptly with awesome forces she could neither understand nor control.
“I didn’t mean that,” Igrane said hurriedly.
“I know you didn’t,” Ustane replied. She didn’t tell Igrane that her deliberate absence had also cost her dearly. And it had. But she was determined to control and use this weak-willed creature, this nearly broken and discarded reed of Merlin’s.
It was almost dark now. The sun was only a deep, salmon glow on the horizon. The wind, the silence, and the starlight, coupled with the eternal and omnipresent ebb and flow of the waves, reduced Igrane to profound desolation.
Ustane began, calculatingly, to comfort her. “Hush now, my pretty. Don’t sob so. You will spoil your looks with weeping.”
“What good are my looks to me in here?” Igrane whimpered.
“The intermediary,” Ustane said.
Igrane lifted her head. “I had forgotten. But I’ll wager it isn’t easy. Otherwise, you would have mentioned it long ago.”
“It isn’t,” Ustane replied. “He or she—you can use either—must be a practitioner of the dark arts, and an able one. And then you must trick such an adept into assisting you. Not an easy task, nor a safe one. But a woman with your looks might ensnare even a very clever man against his better judgment. As indeed you ensnared Merlin.”
Being careful not to touch Igrane, Ustane handed her a napkin. Igrane dried her eyes and blew her nose.
“You must be hungry,” Ustane whispered as she gestured with one hand.
A table appeared, covered by a silken cloth, and the darkness was dispelled by one of those teardrop-shaped lamps such as Ustane carried with her. This time it arrived alone and hung in the air above the table at about the height of a candle, flame glowing.
“It’s still very dark,” Igrane said.
Obligingly, the lamp brightened, filling the bedroom with light. A chair, comfortably cushioned, appeared at the table.
“Before you dine, my lady, I think it’s time you had a look at your own face.”
“No!” Igrane cried out, and pulled up the fur robe to cover her face. “No! No! No! Please!”
“My lady.” Ustane spoke firmly. “Would you send a man into battle without allowing him to examine his own weapons? Would any ruler enter battle without knowing how well his forces could perform?”
“I haven’t seen a mirror since I came here,” Igrane said.
“I will have your servants fetch one.”
“No!” Igrane said. “Not another of those intimations of mortality. The sight of the last ones, bony fingers on the handles of a golden tray, almost destroyed my appetite for the day.”
Ustane laughed again. “There are some better-looking ones. I’ll send for them.”
A few moments later, four women glided into the room. They were all beautiful, all nude, and all carried eardrop-shaped, glowing lamps.
Fascinated, Igrane beckoned the first one closer to her. She came, and as she approached, it became clear to Igrane that these women were as dead as Ustane.
“How exquisite,” Igrane whispered.
And indeed, the girl was almost perfectly formed, with creamy skin, small, upright breasts, slender waist, ample hips and thighs, and long, graceful legs. Her skin was of an alabaster whiteness, too white. As she approached more closely, Igrane could see she was more or less bloodless, lips, eyelids, breast tips, and the ends of her fingers pale blue. Four narrow slices in her neck marked where she had been bled dry. Her wide blue stare was empty and fixed, and the lovely oval face void of expression. Before death, her nipples had been pierced, and a tassel of gold-black pearls and rubies hung from each one. Her pudenda had also been pierced, and longer tassels moved between her legs, enhancing, not concealing, her clean-shaven sex.
Igrane gave a gasp of mingled horror and delight.
“Merlin?” she asked.
“No,” Ustane said. “I found them. They have been here a long, long time.”
All four women had been treated the same way. The second was golden-skinned, with brown hair. The jewels dangling from her body were silver and topaz. She had been bled out at the groin. The third was red-haired, with creamy skin and decked in emeralds and white pearls. She had been bled at the wrists. The fourth was almost transparently pale, more so than the blonde but with long, ink-black hair, and even drained as she was, her vivid deep-blue eyes glowed in her livid face. She had a wound between her ribs and it was apparent her heart had been pierced.
“Good God!” Igrane said. “If not Merlin, then who?”
“Who, indeed?” Ustane replied. “They endured a rather long and apparently loving preparation for their final state. But somehow, I doubt if they enjoyed it.”
“No,” Igrane whispered.
They reminded her of a comb jelly Merlin had once shown her. He had taken it in his net as an ingredient for some spell. It was still living in the jar in which he’d placed it. It also moved as gracefully through the water as these girls moved gracefully through the air. It also glowed from within, as they did, with a faint, phosphorescent light. When she tried to touch it, the jellyfish had the same amorphous feel as the blond one’s hand, and the hand was as cold as that denizen of the deep ocean.
“They are of limited utility,” Ustane said. “They aren’t very strong and are rather slow, but they won’t disgust you and are actually good hairdressers.”
Ustane clapped her hands. “A mirror, my dears!”
Two of the ladies left and returned with a mirror. It was larger than a hand mirror, a square pier glass that showed Igrane her head and upper body. Sheer delight drove every other thought out of her mind.
“That can’t be me, but it is. Oh, my God! It is!”
She was young again and at the height of her powers. Beautiful as Aphrodite or Helen when she bared her breast to Menelaus and the sword fell from his hand.
“I believe . . .” she said, turning her face this way and that, “. . . I believe I am more beautiful than I was at sixteen. My skin has a glow to it that it didn’t have then. My lips are a bit fuller. The experience of life and love shows in my face but not in a bad way. I am innocence and seduction, both at once.”
Then her eyes closed and she waved her hand. “Take it away. The vision of my own beauty is too much to be borne. What? Oh, what must I do to keep this? Is it real? Would it endure in the world I came from?”
One of the beautiful ghostly women cupped one of Igrane’s breasts. She pushed her away and watched the woman’s arm fall into transparent tatters, then re-form itself again and play with her nipple.
“Ustane!” Igrane spoke insistently.
“I am here.” Ustane’s voice came from beyond the circle of light where Igrane was seated. Only her eyes glowed, sparks in the darkness.
“Then answer me,” Igrane said impatiently.
“I can’t,” Ustane said. “I don’t know the answers. I only know that Merlin’s little contretemps left you in an incredibly strong position.”
The mirror was gone. Igrane leaned back in the cushioned chair and gave herself over to the ministrations of the four wraiths. One of them pulled her robe aside. She was nude under it.
“I’ve been so tense.” Igrane sighed.
Two of the creatures devoted themselves to her breasts, one to her neck and ears; the fourth knelt between her legs and parted her knees gently.
“This should relax you,” Ustane said.
“I would do anything . . . anything to keep this,” Igrane whispered. “To keep this . . . power, this beauty, forever.”
“No one,” Ustane said insinuatingly, “would recognize you now. Not even your husband or your son.”
“Uther forsake my bed years ago . . . and Arthur is beyond my reach.”
“Nothing is beyond your reach now. Nor would that old fool husband of yours recognize you. And I’ll wager he wouldn’t turn away, either.”
“Voluptuous.” Igrane spoke musingly as one of the shadowy attendants lifted a cup of wine to her lips. “This is unalloyed pleasure. No fear, no guilt, no man to make demands. Trouble me with his importunities. And when I am done with these pretty things, I simply dismiss them and they return to the dark realms where they dwell.”
“Yes,” Ustane said.
Igrane’s body shook with a spasm of pleasure as the one between her legs tongued her in a practiced manner.
“How long can they keep this up?” she asked, even as she moved trembling into another spasm.
“As long as you like, my dear. Just as long as you like,” Ustane told her.
Black Leg slapped at the birds with his armored hand, and it destroyed them. He was thinking that, in this manifestation, they weren’t as strong as in the other. But as they died, the flying silver metal shards spattered into his skin. As if frightened by his ferocity, they drew back, and Black Leg felt the warm blood streaming down his chest and stomach.
The winged things weren’t really birds any longer, but spots of the kind looking too long at something bright leaves as an afterimage in the eye. The sun was blazing through the opening at the end of the chamber. They leaped toward the light as a flock and jumped into the sun rays, then turned to pounce, glittering like a thousand razor-edged knives.
“No!” Black Leg heard his own panicked scream.
Slap! He felt another armored glove cover his left hand, then a third wrap moistly around his whole torso. But the hell birds didn’t come straight in. They split into two groups. One went for his unprotected face, the other for his bare legs.