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Thomas
Cross padded quietly into Ram's room, hoping not to wake her when he returned
from feeding and chores and letting the horses run out to pasture in the
sunny morning.
His plan to slip in beside her again was not to be. Ram was already awake, leaning back on her elbows staring at him as he snuck silently into the room. Damn. "Good morning, Ram," he called brightly. "Can I get you some breakfast?" "No," Ram answered. |
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Her tone rose as if implying there was something beside breakfast which Cross could do, but he heard all the darker harmonics and doubted it would be anything nearly as enjoyable as he had envisioned.
"But I could--?" he asked."You could come over here and sit down and listen to me," Ram ran her long fingers over the surface of the bed.
Thomas did not like the sound of that at all. Who was the Master here, anyway? Still he walked over and settled down at the foot of her bed. "Yes?"
"I know you think I am mad," she began.
"No, Ram, no I don't, just a little--"
"Off the beam?" She did not wait for his answer, "In any case, crazy or no, you do find me disturbed, at least by your measurement of such--"
"I find you sad, Ram," Thomas said.
"All right then, sad," she had a way of hissing the word which made it seem unimportant. "And were I someone, something, else, then that would be valid and your healing, your training, would be a good thing."
"Thank you," Thomas rushed to interrupt, to make her pause and think before she proceeded.
The smile on Ram's face apprised him immediately that she was not fooled by his attempt at a "half-halt." She waited for him to do something else rude or intrusive and when he did not, she continued. "Much as I am tempted to surrender to you, HorseMaster, as pleasant as it was to lie in your strong arms the whole night without your once pressing your more carnal intentions upon me, still this must end. I am a King. I have not the luxury of soulful insights and profound self pity. It does me no good whatsoever to agonize over truths which are immutable. Yes, I am the poorest excuse for maternal inclinations on the face of the planet. Yes, my life has been difficult, but in five thousand years, there were bound to be tragedies, sooner or later. I cannot allow the vagaries of Fate to keep me from going forward."
Thomas listened to the incredible strength in her assertions and he knew he was beaten. She was right, he was not the master for her. He doubted anyone alive would be.
"I am a warrior, Thomas. I cannot afford to appreciate either my pain or my sadness. I cannot be incapacitated for the sake of some ideal that you carry about certain sensitivities of the soul. Do not misunderstand me, Thomas. I am absolutely and ever grateful to you for what you have done with my son. And I will try, in your name, to refrain from cutting myself in the future. It is such a nasty habit, after all. But I cannot be soft and tender and gentle. My heart is made for glory and courage in the face of impossible adversities, but it is not made for loving, because it has not the grace or the temper for such."
"Then what use is such a heart," Thomas himself could not believe the hateful, angry sound he made.
"It is not for your use," Ram said softly, "or for mine either," she added.
"Whose then?" Thomas could hardly resist reaching out and smacking her, he was so angry. "You are king of nothing. All your people are dead and gone."
"Not all," Ram said, bowing her head in an unconscious genuflection. "I am the last surviving Guardian. I cannot fail. I cannot play at these games with you, Thomas."
Some horses were throwbacks to a time before domestication. Some very few would ever be feral as wolves. These were the ones who died in captivity rather than let themselves be civilized and cared for. He was beginning to think of Ram in these terms. He hadn't failed so badly in a very long time.
"I will leave you shortly," Ram announced, shaking Thomas out of his reverie.
Cross reached for her, but she drew away from him. "I promised to go to your club with you. That will be tonight, or not at all. Then I will leave. I am telling you this now, so that you will not move to prevent my going. I do have a certain fondness for you, HorseMaster. I would not want to be placed in a position where I had to end your life."
"You are too kind," Thomas sputtered.
Ram's smile mocked him, "You are very good, Thomas, but you are not perfect. How often do you consider your own situation? Do you ever turn that insightful illumination to shine upon your own soul? How long have you waited for your master to return? How many times have you let a well-trained project go away from you into the world and never heard a single sigh of gratitude for all that you have done?" Ram's words hit him as sharply and surely as if they were a whip. She was merciless.
"Who holds you when you weep, HorseMaster?" she asked.
Thomas Cross woke up sweating. It was a good reminder to him why he never took naps. They gave him nightmares. God had been a difficult practice today, partly because he missed Dr. Piersen and also because, with the competition coming up in four weeks, Thomas was pushing Duncan's stallion harder these days. The grooms had returned from Couver in early afternoon and Thomas had decided he needed a nap.
He'd dreamed about a print which hung in his lounge at the Drieg. He remembered it was called Allegory of Sculpture, but he couldn't remember who painted it--some Gothic artist or another. It depicted a Pygmalion scenario, a small dark sculptor and a tall, pale woman, draped in gold chains and holding a winged, black--something--in her hand.
Which should not have distressed him as dreams go, but he was the small gnomish sculptor with his head bowed over, and the woman was Ram, completely disregarding of his presence behind her, completely focused on the thing in her hand the winged thing holding the circle. There she was, coming to life out of the stone and still cold as the stone from which she was born.He had understood in that moment that he had punished the stallion because he could not punish Ram. That was the moment he woke up sweating and shaky. She was right. She could not stay. It would destroy him. Ram's leaving was going to be bad enough to bear as it was and she had been at the Estates for less than a week.
Thump. A stack of leather and cloth landed on top of the counterpane. "What?"
"As I might ask you," Ram spit. "If you think I am wearing this, this--" she waved her pale fists and never did find the proper derogatory expression.
"You will have to wear something, Ram," Thomas blinked and sat up, "At least until the festivities get rolling a bit. You are liable to scare some civilian on our way over there."
Dodging the high heeled boots, he added, "I had all of this made especially for you, Ram. It is the finest dyed kidskin, very comfortable. Exactly made to your measurements. It will be most becoming."
"Only if you wear it," Ram replied, "because it is going nowhere on me."
Thomas closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "It has been a long time since I was with anyone who made me quite this angry, Ram. You should feel complimented. I prize my excellent control, and you have all but shattered it. Do what you will about what you want to wear. If there is anything I can do to help, then please, feel free to ask. Other than that, I think we should stay as far from each other as is humanly possible until this evening when I drive us to town."
"Aren't you getting a little too precious though," Ram commented, but then she saw his brown eyes glint as he picked up the boots and she dashed out the door and closed it just as the boots hit.
Poor HorseMaster Cross. Must have had a tough go with the lessons this afternoon. Ah, well, he would be pleased enough with her performance tonight, or she would die trying. It was the least she could do to thank him for his many kindnesses to her---Oh, almost forgot. Ram turned and knocked on his door, "HorseMaster?" she called softly.
"What now?" he answered sleepily.
"This," a plain manilla envelope sailed in through the door and landed on his belly. "See you at six," she called, and padded off to the interior door to the catacombs, as she'd come to call the underground shelter of the Cross Estate.
Cross clicked on the bedside lamp, a Tiffany antique in sea shades, and opened the envelope. "God damn it!" he swore. How had she gotten through his security system into the "war room?" He had that bank of computers locked up like Fort Knox. Oh, well, she surely had, and here was the proof, printed on his own stationary, on his own laser printers. Oh, he leaned back against the headboard and read more carefully. By the fifth page he knew what this stack of papers was for. She'd written out a contract for his restoration of the HQ Central Network. That was the first portion, elegant and complete, but lean and direct.
Thomas Cross flipped hurriedly to the last pages, yes! She'd figured out the algorithms to retrieve the data which had been locked away for over a year. All the passes were cached in their printer buffers. What an ingenious trick. And how clever of her to have discovered it...if she hadn't been the one who thought of it in the first place.
And the last page was a shipping contract for a Friesian stallion, one Monstro Napoli, to be delivered from a farm in Texas to the Cross Estates two days from now.
Oh, Father of All Horses, he prayed, forget what I thought about her leaving. Thank you for bringing me this wondrous creature.
Where are you, Father? Does Ram know when she asks me who holds me that, two centuries later, it is still you?
Even if only in memory.
Tell us what you gonna do tonight, mama
There must be someplace you can go
In the middle of the tall drinks and the drama
There must be someone you knowGod knows you're lookin' good enough
But you're so smooth and the world's so rough
You might have somethin' to loseOh no, pretty mama
What you gonna do in those shoes?Got those pretty little straps around your ankles
Got those shiny little chains around you heart
You got to have your independence
But you don't know just where to startDesperation in the singles bar
All those jerk-offs in their fancy cars
You can't believe your reviews ..Oh no, you can't do that
Once you've started wearin' those shoesThey're lookin' at you, leanin' on you
Tell you anything you wanna hear
They give you tablets of loveThey're waitin' for you, got to score you
Handy with the shovel and so sincere
Ooooo, they got the kid glovesYou just want someone to talk to
They just wanna get their hands on you
You get whatever you chooseOh no, you can't do that
Once you've started wearin' those shoesOh no, you can't do that
Once you've started wearin' those shoes
Thomas Cross posed before his mirror and surveyed the effect: a little mahogany leather, tight against his sculpted thigh, a splash of moss green swordsman's shirt, open to the navel, and one bad-ass pair of high, black boots. Oh, he was fine, if he had to say so himself. like some Great Black Captain Blood, swashing and buckling from here to Taratuba. Oh, yes, he did love going to his club. Sometimes he wondered if, after the money, of course, he didn't really like sceneing the most because of the "dress-up" involved.
No, he had to admit, it was not the duds, though they were--have mercy!--fine, so fine. The Drieg offered him a tantalizing array of that occupation and preoccupation which fascinated him above all others, the herds of Man. People, Cross thought, he just loved people, loved finding out how they faced their fear and pain, where they got their courage, what piece of the grand design was their own.
Of course, Thomas could never enjoy the party once he got there, being a most conscientious host, but he always savored the anticipation. His enjoyments were more cerebral, less celebratory. And here came his very, very special escort for the evening--
Thomas nearly swallowed his tongue trying not to say anything. He could never take her like that. "It's interesting," Cross tried to sound complimentary.
"You hate it," Ram stood up absolutely straight, his exact height.
"Well," Cross threaded his way through the mines, "It certainly is shiny." And it was, some gold lamé strapless, or, off the shoulder shift, with a few strands of more gold looped out over each upper arm. "And it's really short," he added. The dress--more like a gold sequined shirt, or tube top--just grazed the tops of her thighs. "But you aren't wearing any shoes," he complained.
"You hate it," Ram repeated.
Cross gave up, "Yes, Ram. It's gaudy and it's silly and--it hasn't any back to it at all," he noted as she turned around slowly. The thing was cut so low in front, one deep breath and she'd be topless, so low in back, it reminded one of the good-ol-boy electrician cleavage that Lucille liked to joke about.
"But that's only because you don't appreciate its very special construction," Ram continued, as if the Master of the Cross Estates had not spoken at all.
"It's vulgar and crass," Thomas said.
"Oh, it's way more than that, HorseMaster," Ram said teasingly. She stood back a little way from him, her weight balanced evenly. She did not appear to move, but the effect she produced dropped Thomas' jaw open.
As Cross watched, the dress seemed to become transparent from her right shoulder to her right hip, as if a two inch swath of the material had suddenly been replaced with cellophane. Then the transparent layer moved from her right to her left, in a smooth wave of nakedness, the dress reassembling immediately behind the wave, so she was never entirely naked. It was absolutely, maddeningly, ingenious.
Thomas couldn't help himself, "Does it do that around the back as well?"
Ram smiled and demonstrated, this time doing a slow, gliding turn in the opposite direction of the wave. The whole thing, the motion, the teasing, the wave of gold and skin, all of it, was amazing.
"How?" Cross stepped towards her, reaching to touch the incredible garment.
Ram retreated a step. "You can't touch it until you know what it is," she said by way of explanation, which was no explanation at all. "It's simple, really, just a 'fall of small, gold chains, flat and shallower than wide. I found them in the crafts closet where the paints were, great rolls of chain links in different sizes, then I knew what I would wear tonight."
"You made this?" Thomas asked. "But I still don't see how--"
"The rest is just muscle control," Ram said brightly, "just turn the chains sideways and they're so thin they seem to disappear...that, and you tend to want to look past the chains anyway." She laughed lightly.
Thomas thought about this and his understanding came in a rush. That's why it didn't fall off! "I thought you promised--!"
"Piercing is not cutting," Ram proclaimed authoritatively.
Thomas couldn't believe what she had done to herself. So much for his attempt at weaning her from her tendency to self abuse. The two millimeter wide by one yard gold chains had been hung in pairs by opening a link at the middle of a six foot length, piercing it through the skin, and then closing it again, with the chain ends hanging from the piercing. She'd done this again and again, hundreds of times along the entire upper "hem" of the "dress," also hanging a dozen chain loops over her upper arms from the lateral- most piercings to make the loose "straps." All of the piercings had healed already and the effect was simply of a gold strapless dress cut low, short, and perfectly fit.
Cross thought he was going to be thoroughly ill as he followed her to the front door and out to the car. The point about the shoes never came up again.
Halfway to 'Couver, Ram apologized for making him angry. "I really did want to do something special for our last night together," she began. "You have no idea how hard it was to get that row across the back," she commented. "HorseMaster, you seem awfully squeamish for the proprietor of a leather bar. I thought it would be just the right amount of drama and shock and sex. Maybe I overdid. What do you think?"
Cross lifted his shoulders and shifted his too-rigid grip on the steering wheel. "I think the night is very young, Ram, and if I make it all the way to morning, I shall be pleasantly surprised."
Thomas Cross pulled into his special parking spot behind the enormous tower in the middle of the warehouse district north of the sea inlet wharf portion of 'Couver. The city lights were just starting to answer the darkening dusk, flashing gaudy blues and greens and reds in luminous ripples across the bay.
"Ram," he started to say something cautionary to his guest, but he knew it was both superfluous and useless at the same time. By whatever means, Ram always knew more than could be explained by her fine wit and sensitive ear--not that the knowledge did much to amend her actions, or so it seemed.
"I will do my best, Master Xavier," she addressed him by his club name. "But there are limits to my reserve."
Cross ached to answer her invitation to retort--as in, what reserve?--but he was nothing if not wise enough to know when he was swimming in the deep, windless waters, the bottomless black seas of Chaos. Now was not the time to thrash, or in any way waste whatever order and reason would buy him back to shore.
He waited and was not a little surprised as Ram opened her own door, after getting his nod of approval, and walked around to his side to hold his door for him. Cross had shown horses who were like this, the ones who knew more about the show ring than he did. They always made you look so good as a trainer, a rider, until that gut-ripping moment when they decided to improvise or to make some broad philosophical comment on the ridiculous nature of such endeavors. To be a truly good sub, or slave, or show pony, too much "smarts" was never an asset. Whence cometh, he thought, all those reverse pairs, where the slave was the master of the master, the topping-from-the-bottom folk, most of the truly talented mounts, or...
...wives, or...
...Ram. Cross almost never found himself in such an overwhelmed position, not since the days of his own true slavery, before The Father of All Horses came and set him free. That was the day Father had ridden into the field, lifted him up into the saddle as if he were a child and ridden like the wind out of that awful place, that awful life, into the sky itself. Cross still felt his heart quicken every time he set his legs against a horse and felt the muscles bunch beneath him. He might look like he was riding, but in no small way, he was flying away. Free.
And where would this wild woman fly him this night? he wondered. To what dark star are we bound, Ram? What lightless irresistible force will draw us away, and where? Well, Cross reminded himself, he could worry about that later, now to business. "Grant," he acknowledged the tall, impeccably dressed gentleman standing at the great oaken doors, the Drieg's main entrance. "Evening," he walked past his manager into the anteroom.
Ram padded in after the HorseMaster, under the disapproving glare of the Drieg Master of Arms, or whomever he fancied himself to be. He didn't like the dress either. Too bad for him.
"One hundred twenty three?" Cross glanced up from the polished wood clipboard at Grant. "An odd number?"
"Yes, sir," Grant replied. "Sweet Lucille canceled, sir." The ArmsMaster recited the rest of the list of guests, their requirements, the itinerary for the evening's entertainments, the menu for dinner and breakfast. Then he began a lengthy financial report as Cross reviewed the printout.
Grant's gaze wandered just a bit, taking in the impossible tramplet standing three feet behind his master, barefoot and plain, if trim of frame. The dress was terrible, gaudy and--.
Grant tripped over the next number and his attention shot back to Master Xavier as he apologized. His master nodded and Grant continued. Surely he had not seen what he thought--there! She did it again! First right shoulder to left, then left shoulder to right, the transparent wave had passed over her torso.
"Grant?" Cross pulled the ArmsMaster's attention back to the matters at hand.
"Yes, sir," Grant stammered as he plowed through the inventory, locking his eyes on the black man before him. "And, sir, Tony is coming in tonight to do the music."
"Really?" Cross asked incredulously. "Tony? At an open party?"
"He has just retired from the bench, sir. He--" Grant's granite jaw dropped open. His broad hands pointed behind Cross. "How is she doing that?"
"Ram," Cross whined, turning round just as the two waves, starting from each shoulder, crossed in the center of her "dress" and proceeded across to the opposite shoulders.
Ram's silver eyes blinked innocently, "Master?"
Thomas' own gold orbs rolled beneath their ebon lids. "Which reminds me. Grant, I need a soft collar. No, make that gold chain. We might as well stay with the main theme."
Grant produced a 24 karat chain, an inch wide, which might have been a simple choker except for the tiny padlock which connected the end links behind her neck, and which bore the distinctive cross- hatched engraving, marking her the property of Master Xavier.
Ram stood absolutely still as he collared her, never taking her eyes off the floor. It was a good imitation of submission, but while Cross was occupied locking the chain behind her, she did some triple pass maneuver with the dress that had Grant nearly biting through his lower lip trying to maintain his composure.
It was not the last time Cross suspected that this would be a long, long night.
With Chaos trailing soundlessly at his back, Master Xavier entered his domain, the magical stone tower of the Drieg. Stepping onto the musty flagstone floor, he never failed to feel he had stepped back in time, into the Donjon or Keep of a mythical castle wherein he was king. The ten story high loft of the original tower rose unobstructed to an enormous round window set on hydraulics to open and angle and direct light down into the well of the dark tower or set horizontally to frame the stars. Cross had designed a deep balcony to run the circumference of the tower at second floor height, building rooms off the walkway, set back in alcoves beyond lovely arches, like a circular ambulatory in a monastery. Two circular stone stairways led up to the balcony and a third led from the balcony to a narrower ledge which contained the master consoles where the sound and light systems were controlled, as were some of the security devices.
On the ground floor, another ring of archways led into the less removed venues for the more social revelers. These arches were wider, the rooms beyond more exposed to the central area, divided more by sheer drapes and washes of light and shadow, than by actual walls. Each room was essentially the same, though some were larger than others. All the floors were padded as if they were floored by gigantic bed mattresses, strewn with satins and velvets, afghans and furs, and pillows of every size and contour, at least fifty each room, twenty rooms in all on the ground floor, a dozen in the balcony level.
In the center of each room, mounted through the mattress to the floor, was a polished oval table. The walls were hung with tapestries and artwork, some with niches and sculptures. Two of the ground floor and one of the balcony rooms were tiled in pale green marble with sunken tubs and brightly lit fountains of warm shower water. They were lit so brightly, in fact, that anyone within the balnearies was rendered in silhouette to the central circle of the Drieg tower. There were also smaller facilities between each of the rooms for the less romantic, for some, purposes than bathing.
Across from the entryway was the largest arch leading into the kitchen. It was the only ground floor room behind a door, in this case two large carved sliding doors, now just slightly ajar at their center. Cross breathed in. Marinated brisket, fresh bread, garlic, butter, and an array of sumptuous smells that made him salivate. "Are you hungry?" he asked without looking back at Ram.
She did not answer.
"Would you like a drink, then?" Cross suggested, indicating the bar, set in an alcove adjacent the kitchen. "Ram? Answer me!"
"Yes, Master Xavier," her alto echoed eerily around the empty hall.
"Do you want anything?"
"Only that you know, I appreciate your many kindnesses during my stay with you. Even if we never did actually have sex together," she added. A transparent wave passed slowly around the dress.
"I can't tell if that is an invitation or not, Ram."
"I would pleasure you if you asked me to," she said more directly. "I would not want you to assume I thought less of you, just because--"
Cross smiled, "Ram, I may yet teach you something tonight which may serve you. Though I would have to admit I have been more student than teacher between the two of us. I may yet convince you to stay. Who knows?"
"You can only make my going more difficult, Master Xavier," Ram said solemnly.
"Humor me anyway, Ram," Cross said more shortly than he might have wished.
"I think it would be better if I did not speak at all," Ram smiled and sent three quick waves around the dress.
He led her to his own room, the largest in the Drieg, curtained in moss green sheers hung like a crystal tent, lit in curtains of pale blue lighting. Cross parked Ram there and signaled Grant to assemble the troops for a last minute review and then...
Showtime.
Ram knelt in the soft pillows, shoulders back, hands curled on her thighs, watching the celebrants gather, measuring them, remembering them for later, drinking in all the smells and sights of a party at the Drieg. They were a diverse and intriguingly varied lot, but there were some similarities. All the people were in incredibly good shape. They definitely worked at it, that much was clear. Every legal age was represented, every style and hue. The genders were about evenly divided, even as to slaves and masters, which Ram thought quite odd.
As the kitchen doors rolled aside and the servers came forward with the first remove, the first course, Ram reminded herself that this was not a reflection of the human condition, except as an inverse. Those who ruled often needed the luxury of relinquishing their power. Those who hurt needed a pain they could control--something she understood all too well. Those who fasted needed to gorge. Those who were lonely and apart needed to cleave to each other. All of this needed to be--even if it were only in fantasy, only in parody, only in play.
Ram declined the server's offer of fruit and cream and some light pastry she didn't recognize. She had already had her last meal many hours earlier, in a break between piercings. She watched the lights dance around the room and then focused at the center where some truly fine Egyptian dancers entertained the guests to lush rhythms of birth and sea and sex, accented with the star bright tingle of their cymbals and bells. Ram swayed softly with the music and tried to be settled about leaving the world.
"Ram?" Cross' voice called as if this were not the first time he'd said her name.
Ram found she'd drifted far away on the music and the smells and the general happy anticipations of the Drieg tower fare. She tucked her chin, "Yes, Master."
"Raise your eyes, Ram," Cross commanded. "I want you to meet someone who shares the same flavor of fantasy as you entertain."
Ram's brows crunched together quizzically over the prow of her prominent nose and she looked up.
"Ram, this is Dragon," Cross introduced the exotic, olive-skinned young man with dark eyes and an athlete's build, trim and cut, but all the musculature smooth and long. He towered over Cross by a good two hands as horses are measured.
Ram nodded her head uncertainly, "Dragon."
The man acknowledged her with a nod and went back to speaking with the Master of the Drieg. They were discussing something they planned for later in the eve, setting terms, or some such. Ram found her attention drifting again as she watched the dancers depart and the patrons occupy themselves with this and that between the courses. It was delightful to watch them loll and lounge and laugh, here a couple rolled in the corner while their dinner companions discussed some point or other with great passion around the table, there in the balneary another group had commandeered one of the tubs and fed each other while they rocked in the bubbles and a single silhouette stood beneath one of the fountain sprays washing the day away. Each of them searched for and found the ease which imbued this place with an air that was at once relaxing and exciting.
All of the patrons had walked in dressed in the most amazing plumage, but as the second remove came and went, more and more items of apparel left in the arms of the servers to be folded and kept in the front room until they were needed again. Ram could feel the tower settling into its own design as the guests found the room suited to them and each couple or group formed, reformed and stabilized into an orderly array.
Each course had entertainments and different lights and different melodies, all appropriate to each other and to the ascent, or descent, of the entire tower to a different level of intimacy and acquaintance. The main course arrived in flames and Dragon, who was evidently more than a guest, performed a fascinating show of fire breathing, more like fire dancing. Ram watched him, mesmerized, as he juggled the torches and spit kerosene in great gouts of luminous flares. He then did an entire, quite beautiful, dance with two candles in his palms, burning the whole while, dripping wax, incredible turning jumps and poses, something like the ballet classic, The Corsair, or Corsair flambe, in this case, Ram thought.
She still did not understand what Cross had meant by sharing fantasies, but doubtless it would be explained in time.
The Drieg Master, Xavier, was so busy seeing to his guests' needs that he did not return to his own supper until dessert had arrived. Ram rose as the spun caramel, ice cream, fudge, whipped cream confection arrived. She took the plate from the server and kneeled down beside Cross, waiting for him to ask the obvious.
"I am not hungry, Ram," Cross said, his gold-brown eyes never leaving the last group of entertainers, another group of dancers weaving silk waves of every color in long banners around the entire central hall.
Ram put the plate down on the table and laid her hands on his tight shoulders, where she began to knead out the knots of his perfectionism. Gradually, she coaxed his shoulders loose, uncrossed his arms, and loosened his back. All the while she hummed to him, some tune or praise, some crooning Cross could just barely perceive beneath the beat of the Drieg stones' harmonics and the gigantic sound system's and Tony's current selection--Misa Solemnis? Tony had a skill and taste that Thomas never questioned. The man hardly ever visited them, but when he did, the doings at the Drieg always had the exactly proper accompaniment. Proper, but eclectic beyond believing, from Bach to heavy metal and current musical pieces Thomas had heard on the radio. Still, the man had a sublime sensitivity to the tenor of the crowd and the music was always perfect to the moment.
Perhaps, now he'd bid goodby to his robes, Tony would be visiting more often. Cross hoped so.
Thomas settled into the mound of pillows that Ram had stacked behind him. She unwound his legs and set them out straight on the table in front of him. He obliged her by riding his boots off his ankles with the opposite foot and then waiting for her to remove them and place them by the door.
The music changed again to a staccato, biting piece, fiddles and drums, a reel of some sort, very odd. He wondered what was happening in the room to make Tony think of this, a tune both incredibly jolly and heartbreakingly sad, at one and the same time, as only a Celtic melody could be. Then he heard the hiss and snap across the hall in one of the larger rooms and he understood. Normally, Cross would go supervise, but just now Ram was washing his feet in the delicious warm scented water which a server had brought.
A warmed towel completed the washing and Ram, seated on the table, facing him, took both Cross' feet in her lap and began with the toes, rubbing at the bases, stretching them, oiling them, then on to the balls of each foot.
Cross pushed back into the pillows. Ram was as much a wonder as always. He would never have suspected her capable of such tenderness and nurturing, especially given her history with her son, but the feel of her sure and sensitive fingers against his feet was obscenely pleasurable, sedating and arousing. How she could do that and not elicit his ticklishness was marvelous, something with the pressure he thought, something...
She was talking to him, and he had not been listening at all. Now Ram was doing something in his throat, resonating the hum of her smoky alto there at the seat of his own voice, like Tony's harmonics which he sometimes used to shake the stones of the old tower.
"After I am gone," she was saying, "I will send you back a true gift, so that you will know, where ever I am, that I will think of you always with great fondness, for all your efforts on the part of myself and my son."
Thomas wished to tell her that he wanted for nothing, that he would miss her, nearly as much as he missed the Father of All Horses, but he said nothing at all. The hum, her hum, in his own throat was such a curious pleasure to him that he could not make himself chase it away with his own croaking.
"You know..." the "wah" of the second word swelled and died like a sighing wind and her angular face softened into a childish, teasing demeanor. "I never did get a riding lesson, all the while I stayed with you at the Estates..." There seemed to be many more s's than necessary and they tickled Thomas' throat with a buzzing, almost electric quality.
Cross heard her going on about girths and the proper mounting technique and how one approached a particularly skittish bay of her acquaintance. He knew perfectly well what she was up to, even before she put her words into action. He simply could not move or speak, nor did he care to. The curtain of chains that made up her dress settled with a soft chink and rustle across his bare chest as she settled onto him, warm and wet as the scented water and just as soothing. Surprisingly so, Cross thought. The expected heat and drive seemed absent though he was swollen and sensitive and swathed most wonderfully within her.
It had been no more bother than rolling over in bed on some sunny morning. So easily done, in fact, that all the usual cues and sensations went missing. Thomas fought to bring some attention to the moment, some element of intellect which refused to be summoned.
Ram seemed likewise distracted. Her head tipped slightly to the side and turned slowly on her elegant, long neck. She seemed to be listening intently to the tower. Her expression changed from a teeth-edged hiss to a gentle, warm smile to a sudden dissolution into the height of passionate gasping to the low, happy moaning of ascent to that look of benediction which was clearly afterglow.
Cross did not know how he understood, but he did. She was visiting the various rooms--or the guests therein--sampling their pleasures and their pains as if they were a smorgasbord.
"You will have to decide," she said cryptically.
Then Cross understood this too. She took him with her round the tower's varied wickedness and blessings and he drowned beneath the dark and windless waves. His back and buttocks flushed and stung under the soft leather flail, his proud flesh cooled under the practiced attentions of his favored slave, he felt the stretch and warmth as a lover entered him smoothly with an aching care which was almost unendurable. Again and again, the reaching and touching and joining, again and again the loss of self in the Two, in the One.
"Stop," he gasped finally, and the sensations consolidated into Ram's warm depths and her light hands brushing his face as she leaned over him.
"Did you decide?" she asked.
"What?" he whispered breathlessly.
"What you want?"
"Oh, Father of All Horses," he hissed, "just finish tormenting me, you terrible wench, or let me die."
"Torment, or death, or the Father of All Horses," Ram mused, beginning to move above him. "I should think that was an easy choice to make."
Then the concentration he could not seem to find before, came flooding back to him. Cross felt her thighs against his hips, urging him as he would himself press a horse forward in perfect balance. He arched up against her and watched her dissolve into boneless, sinuous desire, her head thrown back, her pale lips slightly parted and the silver eyes dilated and blinded by some inner light. Thomas cherished this in her son, and now in her, this ability to display in absolute abandon, the entirety of their pleasure in a way that was itself an aphrodisiac to any who beheld it.
Nor was he himself immune. Thomas felt the beginning tremors, heard it in the chains she wore, felt it in his entire being. His own flesh reciprocated of its own accord, shattering breakers over the deep dark main, bounding for sure. Hadn't he come here as a captain, or a pirate? Her thighs lost their strength, her frame slumped forward over him, lighter than he might have expected.
Cross held her like a sleeping child, letting the minor anguish wash by him as he melted out of her, the inevitable subsiding of even the most perfect moments.
Master Xavier, Thomas Cross, heard Grant snap his fingers beyond the drapes. He looked up just as a woman server entered. Grant kept his back to Cross' alcove as Thomas laid Ram gently on the furs and covered her with a soft quilt, padding the pillows around her. He smoothed her damp dark curls and arranging the chains so they would not pull on her while she slept. Then he laid back himself and let the servant tend him, cleaning him passionlessly, efficiently, like a stud in the breeding shed after the mounting. When he was more or less put back together, Cross dismissed the servant and answered Grant's silent waiting. "Yes?"
"A bit of difficulty with one of the new masters," Grant said quietly and pointed towards the opposite curve of the tower which had attracted a sizable knot of guests.
Halfway across the hall, Cross motioned to Dragon and directed him to watch over Ram. Then he brought his considerable will to bear and buried Thomas Cross beneath his second persona as Master of the Drieg. Xavier expected nothing for himself, thought nothing of himself, did nothing in his own interest. His entire concentration bore down upon his guests and their many complicated necessities.
As they neared the alcove in question, Xavier assessed the problem. Ah, yes, a familiar difficulty, especially with a technique so difficult as this in the hands of a overly confident master with too little experience who'd been spoiled by the presence of talented slaves. Xavier walked quietly up to the man with the flail and touched him lightly on the shoulder. "That is a promising beginning," he said to the man who was dripping sweat from his exertions and his failure.
A subtle whispering blew round the tower as more people gathered at the archway to watch the true Master perform. Xavier motion to one of the servers who brought him a salve with which he began to treat the back of the younger man. He checked the pulse in the wrists which were strapped to a ring set in the wall high above his head. Then he began to apply the salve to the stripes and abrasions that even a soft flail, roughly handled, may inflict. Xavier waited for the young man to stop tensing and flinching. Oh, this was badly done indeed.
Perhaps not irretrievable, though. Xavier leaned his body along the length of the man's side and he stopped flinching. He began to talk to him about inconsequential things mostly having to do with how late the night had gotten and how the dark, high globe of the sky had risen over the misty sea clouds of the bay and how the stars were blinking and dancing in the web of the highest sphere, speaking in their sleepy tones, the way of all creation.
The young man's muscles began to relax and he pushed against Xavier's healing hands. Xavier settled him with voice and touch and then began asking him questions, telling him secrets and lessons and ways to take the whip which would be entirely to his liking. Nor did any of this make any more sense to the young man than did the previous conversations about the night, but all of it connected at some level of the consciousness which would serve.
Then Xavier stepped across the room from the young man and reached out his hand to receive his favorite implement for such diversions. Grant handed him a buggy whip six feet long with a flexible eight foot tail and a four inch "popper" on the end. Everyone stepped back from Xavier--even Grant, even the neophyte master who had begun this mess, when he had insufficient skill to finish it.
Xavier let the tail roll out its full length on the floor beside him, rippling it with small flicks of his wrist, talking to the young man. Then he floated the whip, light as gossamer across the man's back, again and again, painlessly, and in a random fashion. The young man stopped reacting before each stroke and simply acted in the experience, in the moment. Then Xavier began interspersing cracks, more sound than strike, but loud as pistol shots and quite impressive to the gathered audience.
The last five cracks left tiny lacerations in a perfect pattern down the young man's upper back, bringing him to orgasm. Xavier pushed the new master towards his slave to take him down and helped him swaddle the tremulous young man in cool, light sheets. Xavier showed the master how to hold him and comfort him until he stopped shaking. Lastly, he told the new master to call him in the morning and they would talk about his continued welcome at the Drieg.
Xavier walked towards the bar, leaving his adoring audience and guests who congratulated his skill with the whip. He dismissed their compliments graciously and settled on a barstool where he had only to reach and his hand was filled with a crystal goblet of dry wine. What complicated services to provide for such a odd herd, he thought, sipping slowly, savoring. He sat there letting his own adrenaline rush fade. He wondered, yet again, at the extreme irony of this particular portion of his chosen career and how he'd gotten so very good with a whip. Not from wielding it, that much was certain. He had learned something as a slave those many years ago. A real slave, not the play which amused these pampered folk.
Ah, well, Father of All Horses would often sigh sympathetically and proclaim there was some good in every dark place, some tiny crack of light if you only looked from the right angle.
The Drieg crowd reassorted itself and moved into one last wave of earnest couplings and then, arms and sighs entwined, the pairs and groups snuggled in for the little of the night which remained before breakfast. Grant and the servers went round with pillows, robes, sweat suits, blankets, drinks, snacks, and massages, settling the tower in for the night.
Xavier returned to his own alcove to find Ram sleeping where he had left her and Dragon eating a cold brisket sandwich that one of the kitchen servers had saved back for him. Dragon had a way about him made you happy to go out of your way just to earn his gratitude. "Dragon," he acknowledged the man who had kept his place at Ram's side, while Cross shepherded the tower.
Dragon ducked his head and smiled. "She is sleeping so soundly, she hasn't even rolled, Master."
"So," Cross sat down beside him on the table, "you didn't have a chance to talk?"
"Maybe later, Master," Dragon suggested, his smoky, Mediterranean features clearly enjoying the late snack. "Can I get you something?"
Cross shook his head, "Dawn is in two and half hours. Wake me in two."
Dragon rose and bowed and departed with his sandwich to go thank the pretty kitchen wench who had been so thoughtful.
Ram stirred an hour later and left Cross sleeping to pad noiselessly to the bar and pour them both some coffee. Grant helped her bring the tray back, adding some aspirin and pastries to round out the provender. She thanked him with a nod and, at his request, one of the more intricate wave patterns of the odd apparel she'd made for her last night in the world. Grant just set down the tray and retreated shaking his head and laughing soundlessly.
He would be a good ArmsMaster after all, she thought, stirring the cream and the cocoa and the pinch of cinnamon which the HorseMaster liked in his coffee. Then she knelt quietly beside him and waited for him to wake, sipping her own coffee. She sternly reminded herself it was bad form to invade another's dreaming unbidden.
Ram had finished her own coffee and gone to refill Cross' cup with new, warm brew, when the Drieg began to stir. It was a distant rustle and creak at first as the stones adjusted in the predawn drop of temperature and the guests moved from one cycle of dreaming into another. She noticed that the Tony who had played the music all night long was still at it, tuning their sleep in light soft melodies of deep woods and light rain, rolling brooks and moonlit nights.
She took some coffee up to the third level and some of the pastries Grant had selected. "Good morning," she whispered to the silver-haired man with the earphone pressed against his right ear, running his fingers over the control board as if it were an old familiar lover.
Tony did not hear her enter, but he finally felt her presence behind him, took the tray and whispered his thank you.
Ram bobbed in an abbreviated curtsey and the dress added its kachink accent, like the rowels of a spur.
"Do I know you, Miss?" Tony asked softly.
"Oh, no, not really, Judge Stoner," Ram replied, "but you have done great justice to those beloved by me and I hope at some point to repay you, or at least show you a portion of the gratitude which you have so rightly earned."
"That bizarre custody hearing a couple of months back, right?" Stoner asked.
"The very one, Your Honor," Ram replied.
"Well, I am no Honor any more," Stoner sighed. Everytime he said this, it felt like stepping nearer his grave.
"I hope our hearing was not the cause--"
"No, not at all," he answered swiftly. "I was just too old to be of any more worth to the folks who appointed me. Believe me, I was glad to have that hearing as my swan song. It surely was one of my more interesting times in court."
"Well, then," Ram extended her hand to him.
The former Judge Stoner took it, turned it over, palm up, and kissed the heel of her hand.
"You sing most sweetly for a swan," Ram commented.
"Dying will do that for you," Tony said without a trace of sadness, only resignation.
"I know just what you mean," Ram said, with the same resignation.
Stoner's marvelous ear heard the harmonic resonance, bright and true, in the echo of her statement.
Ram returned to find Cross awake, speaking with Dragon in low tones. He rose as she entered and gave her what for.
"I only thought to--" she began in her own defense, but then gave it up as a waste of time and apologized.
That settled, Cross had her join them at the table for coffee. "I really should go now," Ram said.
"Sit," Cross commanded.
She sat down at the opposite side of the table, rattling her chains and fuming.
Just like her son, Cross thought. Aloud, he said, "At least you can admit one truth before you leave, Ram."
"Why do I think that will not be so easy as you make it sound?" the voice of the king escaped Ram's lush lips. "Master," she added, but it hardly made a difference.
"I said nothing about easy, Ram, but I did say Dragon here feels much the same way about his true nature as you do. Tell her, Dragon."
Dragon breathed deeply. He still smelled like the kerosene he used for his flame act. "There are many times when I feel as if I am transported out of this, this," he looked down at himself, shoulder-to- shoulder, "body of mine and I know it is not mine. Not really and truly what I am. You know?"
"No," Ram answered truthfully.
"I imagine sometimes that I am scaled and winged and that my thin little teeth have grown to great ivory fangs," Dragon went on. "That I am at once hideous and wondrous."
"You see, Ram?" Cross encouraged her agreement. Maybe if she did not think her delusion so odd.
"No, Cross," Ram lapsed finally, as she was bound to, not even trying to be slavely any more. "I do not see at all. What is this all about? Why should I empathize with this human?"
"Because you are also human, Ram!" Cross said too loudly for so early in the morning, the sun not even rising yet. "And just because your imaginings seem more real to you than they do to Dragon, does not make them any closer to the Truth. Just admit it. Is it so awful to admit to your humanity?"
Both men stared and waited for her answer, each with their own reasons to hear it.
"I thought I would fade off and engineer this over the next few months. There is that much time left. At least fifty days until they will be organized enough again to make their first move. But press me one more time on this, Cross," Ram leaned towards him, "And I will go forward now in a most destructive fashion and be done with this in a single hour. Believe me, you would not like that. Not at all," she warned in something very like a the spit and cough which precedes an ear-splitting roar.
Cross was not impressed. It was far too early in the morning to play these stupid games. He called her bluff, "Do your worst, Ram." Sometimes when a young horse, too fresh or fearful, kept trying to bolt with you, the only thing to do was let them run top speed until they got it out of their system. "Or admit to your humanity and stop this nonsense!"
By now, even though it was still shy of dawn, the Drieg was beginning to light up and wake up, and the row in Master Xavier's alcove drew them like a magnet, as if it were the morning's entertainment. They had never seen the Drieg Master bested, but this had all the makings of history in their midst. The odd slave in the trick gaudy dress was having very loud, very angry words with the Master.
"I admit nothing, your moron," Ram's volume and pitch rose with each word. "I cannot be held responsible for your abject lack of faith!"
"Just say it, Ram. Could it hurt you so much to just say, 'I am human.'"
Ram glanced at the gathering crowd of curious partiers. "I am human," she muttered.
"Say it loudly enough that we all can hear it," having won Ram's grudging surrender, Cross entirely misjudged her. But then, he had, through his faithlessness, done so from the beginning.
Ram stood up slowly. She was seething and the heat of her rage lifted off her body in waves against the morning chill of the stone tower. "You said you would try to make me stay. I said all you would be able to do was make my leaving more difficult. I did not say more difficult for whom."
With that she turned her back to him and plowed a wake through the patrons gathered at the archway. "Find your clothes, people," she said, "The party is definitely over!"
Once she had passed through the folks at the arch, the soft background night music stopped and there was a sudden stillness with only the slap of Ram's angry feet to sound through the hall. Then another sound, more subtle than the first, added a counterpoint as she made her way to the exact center of the Tower where the raised circular platform sat directly under the well and the window of the Drieg. The second sound was tiny, metallic, like a bell without a clapper, almost a slithering tone.
"Oh, my God," Thomas jumped up and started to follow her. He thought she must be tearing out the chains, but when he got past the crowd, he could see her hands never left her sides. She was merely shedding them as she walked, chink, ch-chink, as the links followed each other to the flagstone floor.
Tony caught the ch-chink, pause, ch-chink of her passing and punched up the volume on a song which Thomas did not at first recognize. It was a slow, stripper's beat, down and dirty with an impeccable guitar line at its core set with a reverb on a heavy, heavy, growling whine.
She strode forward to the daunting minor beat and thrum and mounted the central stage just as the song became recognizable--an Eagles' song from an earlier album. Something about shoes, sinister and nasty, way down, way dirty.
The crowd flowed over the flags like water and washed up at the margins of the platform. Odd, but bereft of all her chains, still Ram was not naked, but clothed in very large gild sequins over her entire body, the backs of her hands, and even up the sides of her face along the strong jaw line.
At first, she just swayed. Like a cobra, Thomas thought. She had the oddest look on her face. Some distortion of her eyes, as if they had suddenly dilated and the black had crowded out even the whites. Then she fanned her hands across her face, one over the other, the impossibly long fingers spread apart their limits. She rotated them as she extended her arms to her sides and then whipped them back in front of her face in full fan again in a sort of strobing affect. Again and again, with the sensuous beat of the music.
It was several passes before Thomas saw that with each pass her fingers grew longer, the webs filling between. He thought his heart would pound out of his chest and go flopping on the floor. Several more passes and the entire audience realized something was happening which was completely out of even their exotic ken. Ram was burnishing darker and darker gold and the muscles of her legs were thickening and knotting like stone sculpture, her feet elongating, onyx claws appearing to tear the cold stone of the step upon which she perched. For surely she no longer stood, as again and again the arms, now wings, folded in front of her and then wide, dropping them to the floor finally with their impossible width and sweep. Again and again, with the hypnotic beat, swaying the entire tower and all within.
Grant stepped silently in front of Cross and Dragon moved up to his left, just as Ram's neck began to climb out of her shoulders, now some twenty feet above them, even with the second balcony rooms, now emptied of their frightened occupants. Two more passes of the wings and Ram was entirely unrecognizable behind the masque and fangs and the fist-sized dark stars that were set in the gild orbits where her eyes had been.
The wyvern swayed, coiling its neck, catching them all in its horrific splendor and the bottomless wells of those endless eyes. No one could move.
Some began to cough and gasp on the thick, sulfurous air of the apotheosis. Then the round window opened and the tower aired enough that they could breathe again.
The song went onward to its last shimmering reverb bars and the wings folded yet another time over the front of the Beast, but this time they did not extend out sideways, but rather straight up the throat of the tower as it lifted its magnificent head, opened its great maw and keened so loudly and so long that the panes shattered and rained down like a crystalline cataract.
The keening stopped. The music ended and the ensuing stillness broke the Beast's spell. The Drieg Tower emptied as if it were on fire, and who knew it wouldn't soon be, with a dragon at it's center?
There was a scuffle for the entryway and their clothes, a melee at the front doors. Thomas started after them.
Stay. The wyvern settled down and furled its wings in something like a brooding hen position.
They are of no importance. They will go home and sleep. When they wake they will not remember what has happened here, Thomas.
Cross stopped. He had not heard her exactly, but she had definitely spoken, even if there was no sound.
Wait until all the rest have gone. The ones who remain are your army, Thomas.
Thomas Cross looked right. His bartender, Allen, had stayed. Grant and Dragon had never left him. Approaching the platform he could see three of his guests, two women and the young man from the scene-gone-wrong earlier in the evening. Neither of the women were masters. He would have to think about that some later time when this was over.
"We are eight, Ram," Thomas approached the dragon.
Nine, the Beast corrected him. And wyvern, not drake.
"Very well, Master Wyvern," Thomas bowed before the nightmare, "And will there be a war?"
You bet your buggy whip, Thomas.
"May I know the particulars?" he asked.
I will send you a Field General, the finest in all of history, all of creation. He will enlighten you.
"How can we agree if we don't know what for?" Thomas asked.
You are here. You have all agreed by remaining. There is no time to discuss this, Dear Thomas. I will bind you as I am bound to you and then you will return to your lives until you are summoned.
Thomas looked around. None of them changed their minds. Allen came around the bar and stood by Cross as did the three guests.
The Wyvern bowed its forehead down and rose up on one leg, shooting out its gigantic wings to balance. With the other leg bent upward its limit, the Beast gouged a deep rent down the middle of its forehead and then settled and furled again. At the base of the wound, dead center of the creature's skull lay a brilliant gem, as much light and color, as the eyes either side were lightless and absolutely black.
This is my own portion of the Crystal Covenant, the Wyvern said silently. God's Promise to His People. Come forward one by one and I will bind you and be bound. You will touch the Crystal Shard. That is the extent of the ritual, except that you must taste the blood that remains upon your hand.
"I alone am Immortal in this group," Thomas proclaimed.
Then wipe your paw on your sleeve for all I care, but quit chattering. This is a difficult form to hold for long periods of time, just so you can squawk about this or that minor risk. Stay or do not. Bond or do not. I have not the time to argue. I only offer. The rest is your decision.
One of the women came forward and touched the Crystal, then touched her lips. Her friend came forward and did so as well. The young man followed as if in a walking dream, giggling when he was done. The Wyvern grinned or snarled.
Your troops have shown you up, HorseMaster, the Wyvern chided him.
Thomas came forward and reached out over the large nostrils, the armored angle of muzzle and jaw. The Crystal was warm to the touch, as if it were alive. There was an instant of disorientation as his fingers made contact in the depth of the awful cut and then he withdrew his hand. That was that.
Grant followed next and then the bartender.
The Wyvern rose to its full height then and reached its long neck up to rest his chin on the third tier, waiting.
"Go away. I am too old," Stoner grumbled. "What use can I be to you?"
The great black eyes just stared and waited.
"Oh, bother," Stoner finally surrendered and touched the Crystal in the Wyvern's broad gild forehead. Then, because he remembered her comment on dying, he added, "Wherever you are going, be at peace."
He thought there was not so much ivory in all of Africa as the crop which his blessing uncovered in the more-than-impressive breadth of her smile. Stoner declined her offer to lift him down and opted instead for the stone stairs.
As he made his way down, the Beaste began to wilt or wither, to diminish in form. By the time Stoner reached the ground floor, the Wyvern was gone, a naked human form in its place, lying unconscious, face down on the central platform.
Thomas ushered them to the front room where they could dress and go home as the Beaste had suggested. He even dismissed Grant and Allen, promising he would see to their chores. Cross wouldn't even hear their arguments to the contrary.
He waved to them from the grand door and then closed it. It had not escaped him how they had all left in contented pairs: Stoner with one of the women, the young man with Allen, the other woman with Dragon. Only Grant left alone.
As I am left alone, Cross allowed himself some pity. With only this little space in time to say farewell to Ram, and then no one left for me. He could not think why this should distress him at just this particular moment. Could she possibly have spoiled him in one encounter? All he could think was, I want somebody to love who loves me, another HorseMaster who knows me and what I am about. Someone to--
"Horse?" a voice called behind Cross from somewhere deep in the main hall.
"Horse?" it called again, a phantom of his long ago life with the Father of All Horses. A sudden wash of sentimental longing came near to undoing him as he braced himself to face the strange woman lying at the tower's heart.
As Thomas Cross entered the darkened Drieg hall, he peered into wall of dust motes and light which surrounded the figure pushing up to kneeling and staring back at him, just as unbelieving.
Then Cross was off across the flags as fast as he could go, which was very.
"That is you, Horse," the voice said softly.
Thomas flung himself into the blond man's arms, straddling his knees. "Father, oh, Father," was all he could say, sob after sob of great gladness racking his entire being.
"Oh, Horse," Malak said, his own voice tear-damped, "It has been so long. I thought you might have forgotten."
"The day after I forget to breathe," Cross gulped back at him.
Malak held Cross as if he were the worth of the world, as indeed he was in that moment. "Ram gave me a message as we passed in the dark. I don't know exactly what it means, but let me say it before I forget."
"She says she has sent you a true gift of your own choosing, the desire of your heart. Oh, and she says she sends you the Field Marshall above all others in any time or any corner of Creation."
Thomas tried very hard to just breathe and stop shuddering and gulping.
"C'est mois, of course," Malak laughed.
And veiled in that laughter, shrouded in the pale arms, swaddled against the warm smooth chest, Cross received the gift which Ram had given him. In the blessed light of the Crystal he was made over into another one of its many bright facets.
