The Call of Distant Shores Page 19

  He closed his own eyes, freeing them for a moment.

  "What turns you on?" she asked. He did not answer, only laid back against the cool porcelain and the warm water, drooping, letting himself slip down until he was all but immersed. He did not open his eyes.

  What turns you on?

  Nights came and went, and finally he slept. It was not good sleep. He tossed and turned in the throes of dreams that would dance out of his grasp, fleeing the confines of his memory each time he shook himself to groggy wakefulness, only to return if he let his mind slip back into the darkness. At last he gave it up, returning to his vigil in front of the monitor screen.

  What turns you on?

  He began:

  "There is pleasure, there is pain, and there is more. There are doorways within us that fade and reappear, windows that show glimpses of things that their panes, clearer and stronger than glass, prevent us from touching. There are veils, and there are barriers; none are permanent.

  What is necessary is to divert your mind from its purpose – your protection. If you want to know what is beyond the veil, you have to rip it aside. Man's most powerful instinct is survival; your body will not allow you to pass the veil. You need a key.

  Pain will work. Pleasure will work as well. In combination, they are more effective. There is another key, a truer key. That key is total release. Your mind protects you, your soul shies away from the truth. You must let it go, if you want to see...if you want to know."

  Toby stared at the screen for a long time. He had no idea where the words had come from, nor where they were heading. He had no urge to write more, not yet. It would come. He feared that it would come in an avalanche, burying him so deeply that he'd never claw his way free. He did not erase any of what he'd written; he also did not save it. He watched, and he waited.

  She came after six, small cartons of Chinese food she knew they'd never get to in a brown paper bag and an innocent smile with no depth painted across her lips. The scent of the food wafted across the room, itching at his starved body. He shut it out. He did not rise.

  She came to him then, sensing the difference, feeling the subtle changes in the air – in the ether. Kneeling, she read over his shoulder as he continued to stare at the screen, ignoring her.

  "What turns you on?" he asked. He didn't turn to her, nor did he move, just the words announcing his acknowledgement of her presence.

  She didn't answer. She moved in closer, sliding her arms around him from behind and letting her hands roam across the emaciated skin of his chest. She did not speak, not to question, not to answer. Her answer was her silence.

  He could feel his flesh responding – heat growing without fuel – burning out. He felt curiously detached. Something had clicked in his mind, drawing him sharply inward, distancing him from the moment.

  She wanted him. Not his body, exactly – not just his body. Not his love, certainly. She wanted his pain – this he knew. She wanted his pleasure, as well. The words slipped back from the screen to haunt him, turning ghost tumblers in the locks of his mind. She wanted him to find his answer, and she wanted to be there when he did. At that moment, when the veil parted and he truly saw, he knew her goal. She wanted to feed.

  He could feel her need, palpable, burning through her desire to singe his consciousness. "How do you know?" he asked her. "What makes you so certain that we will reach my threshold first, that it will be my vision? How do you know we won't find out what turns you on? I'd like to see that – would you?"

  As he spoke, he turned to face her, running his fingers down her face gently – like a blind man searching for something hidden in Braille. He dug in suddenly with his fingers, rending soft skin and feeling it roll back beneath his nails. She flinched, but she did not cry out. She did not pull away. Instead, when his fingers slowed their descent, when the pain should have stopped, she twisted her head slowly, dragging them onward – offering up her skin to his assault.

  He sought her eyes. They were the windows – the keys to her thoughts. She moved ahead of him, only enough to prevent contact, only enough to insure that he would continue to follow. Their bodies blended, blood mingling with blood, tongues and fingers tracing hotter and darker passions across one another's skin. He fought the sensations, fought to control them – to bend them to his own will.

  The veil would part if he could concentrate. His physical form, his conscious mind, both were linked to the sensations of the moment – to her sensations, her probing control. He needed to control that deeper place – that place where things not seen might coalesce. He needed to sidestep his self and cross the border. He needed to know she couldn't follow.

  He galvanized the decrepit frame of his body, pressed it into service beyond it's limits. He grabbed her firmly, pressed her back and took control. She was using the physical as a union, a joining – he needed that to belong to him as well. He needed to control her.

  She trembled beneath him, but she no longer struggled. Her eyes sought his, fought to grasp at him, to convey her need, to twist him from his focus. He ignored them, moving slowly toward his goal, roughly manipulating her flesh, dragging at her own control with the bite of his nails and the tearing of his teeth.

  As easily as she had controlled his body, he held hers. Every motion she made he countered, every assault she made on his flesh he ignored with the growing force of his will. She moved to the pain, not away from it, sought a path beneath his control – an entrance to his mind. He barred her way, concentrating.

  Moving quickly so she would not sense his intentions, he spun her over, straddling her and twisting the sleeves of her blouse around her like a straight jacket, pinning her arms to her sides and tying it off in a quick knot. Leaning very close and pulling her hair aside softly, he whispered his question into her ear, breathed it so that the breath would join with the rhythms of her own thoughts.

  "What turns you on?"

  He held her, and she struggled. Her power was in her flesh, and he had slipped the noose, removing her advantage. She squirmed, rubbing herself shamelessly against any bit of his skin she might reach, fighting to turn and meet his eyes, grasping at the control she'd lost.

  He watched her, rode his growing arousal, but only on a distant level. It was no longer the focus, no longer the point of control. It would not bridge their minds. He was able to hold her easily. Every struggle, every bid for freedom or control he was able to easily counter with a caress, a bite, or a slap. He watched, entranced, as white images of his hand appeared, then disappeared into a fading redness on her skin.

  He reveled in the moment – the discovery of control. He molded her movements, orchestrated the sounds that emanated from her throat. Her flesh was his tool. He would push her to the edge – the edge she'd been ready to cast him from such a short time before.

  She stretched herself, pressing her face into the carpet as he pressed her from behind, slamming back into him, then away again as he rode the swells. He could feel the climax that was building, about to burst from him in endless waves, but he did not release it. Not yet. He waited, forcing his tortured, weakened flesh to obey him, denying it completion.

  She cried out at last, the sound primal and soul-rending, erotic on levels he'd never dreamed existed, within or outside his mind. Still he held on. He gripped her tightly, twisting her head so that he could find and meet her eyes, diving within them fearlessly and digging for what he sought, digging for her answers.

  Gretchen shuddered against him, quivering with each spasm of release, gripping him with her body – arms and legs stretching up to confine him, to seek the control denied her, begging him to stop – and not to – all in one sound – one breath, begging for release. Still he held on.

  He searched her eyes, deeper than he'd ever ventured, and he saw a flicker of light – of something beyond the hollow pits they had been – something alive and vibrant – fleeing as he pursued. He dove deeper. Dimly he was aware that his grip on her face – his hold on her hair had tightened, but he
ignored it. The visions were coalescing, becoming clearer.

  He felt her movements becoming more heated, liquid. She slid over his flesh, collapsing so completely against him that her entire being seemed to give itself over to his control, to release its own tenuous hold on reality.

  He grasped again at the visions, pressing his advantage, diving deeper. Comprehension inflated within his consciousness like a balloon, nowhere to go – threatening to explode. Too late he felt the vacuum inside her, the horrible, gripping power. Too late he regretted his concentration on her flesh – on physical control.

  She wanted his mind.

  He came. His climax was beyond his ability to comprehend, beyond his failing body's ability to compensate. She drew him inward, her very supplication a trap, her pain a decoy. He felt himself releasing, a giant mind-fuck ejaculation, and he felt that release draining his essence, swirling down the twin drains of her eyes – stolen.

  He fell away from her, small tufts of hair still gripped in weak fingers, but his mind could not pull free. It was beyond the eyes now – she had her claws imbedded in his soul. There was no sound, no breath or beating of his heart, only her mind, slamming into place around him like the walls of a prison, trapping him within her as completely as if all prior existence had ceased to be. Then it was over.

  She rose. Toby rose. She pulled her arms free, draping her shirt haphazardly across her breasts and buttoning enough buttons to hold it in place. Then her pants. She moved slowly and deliberately, as if feeling the pain and the bruises for the first time, as if she had never, until that moment, been aware of the physical world that surrounded them, or the man she'd lain with.

  She turned to him for the briefest of moments, mocking him with new eyes, eyes filled with a shining light and intelligence, with creativity and wonder. They danced with promises he would never see fulfilled. Familiar promises. Toby turned away.

  As she took her things, retrieved her Chinese food, and left, he seated himself before the immobile cyclopic eye of his computer screen, staring into the void of his words. The hole she'd left was immense – a void beyond his capacity to fill. The words mocked him – the answer strobed with the cursor, and he ignored it.

  He sat there for a very long time.

  Charlene leaned back against Toby's chest with a purr. He was so – different. Every touch, every probing, sensuous movement of his tongue, drew desire from her like a vacuum. It was scary.

  He wound his arms about her from behind, fondling her nipples and distracting her from his words. "Why do you paint this stuff?" he asked.

  The Temple of Captured Gods

  or

  Let Sleeping Gods Lie

  Xenocydes stood high on the growing ramparts of the temple, watching impatiently as slaves dragged yet another huge slab of stone up the ramps, pulleys and chains relieving only a part of their burden, fear hanging heavy in the air. More than one of the stones had broken free, sliding back down the ramp with sickening speed and adding the bones and blood of those who pressed up from behind to the mortar that bound the walls. In each case, Xenocydes had put all survivors to death. Slaves were incidental, the stone was not. None labored carelessly on the Temple of Thylosson, but many met their doom on his altar.

  Xenocydes turned toward the inner court of the temple. Below him Dendra's minions scuttled about like vermin, bustling about the smaller walls of the containments. Their work was more critical, this day, as the first shipments would be arriving from far Xylac within the week. Xenocydes had questioned the wisdom of collecting so soon, but Dendra had been adamant, and the necromanceress was not one to be denied. Even Xenocydes shuddered at her approach, images and tales seeping from her history and his childhood to haunt his thoughts. Dendra assured him that each containment was a temple within itself, and that Thylosson watched over their efforts. Who was the king to deny this truth?

  One truth Dendra had spoken undeniably. There was no way to choreograph the collecting of Gods. War was constant, and the conquered waited only to be carted off. The first three containments were nearly prepared. Each was a stone cylinder, sides smoothed and carved with symbols Xenocydes could not begin to decipher, ring up on ring of cryptic incantations rendered in stone. Everywhere there were references to and images of Thylosson, The Captor, and on each there was a single space that remained un-blemished. The space whereon the name of that which would be contained would be carved. The names of the vanquished, the conquered. The captive Gods.

  That knowledge drenched the slaves in deeper fear, lent yet another layer of caution to already trembling hands. The temple was a wonder of perfection. One did not capture gods lightly. The people talked behind his back, but none ventured near. Even empty the temple frightened them. Thylosson frightened them. Most of all, Dendra, ancient Dendra, older than their grandparents and beautiful as the spring, dark as the tombs of legendary Tasuun, and a voice like crushed velvet...soft with hidden folds that held things best unknown, frightened them. She frightened Xenocydes, as well, but ancient as she was she called to his soul in ways he was foolish to acknowledge, and powerless to resist.

  Turning from the scene below, the king glanced a final time at the stone slab, inching its way to the top of the nearly completed wall, and turned away. Days, only, and the caravan would arrive. Days that if dwelled upon too closely would become measured in hours, and then in minutes, counted in heartbeats. He could hear in his mind the cries of the vanquished, the crumbling walls and the shouting of warriors, the screams of captured women and children without fathers – the priests crying out to those who had forsaken them. The sounds faded to the creaking of wagon wheels, and he knew they were coming. The visions had been with him since the first stone was placed. Dendra saw the visitations as a sign, Xenocydes as a curse. No matter if it were sign or curse, no moment's sleep was free of the rolling, creaking wheels, or the images of shrouded, shadowy shapes covered in soft cheesecloth and waxed tarp. They were coming. The king only hoped that he, and Dendra, were truly prepared.

  As He stepped down from the lowest of the stairs leading up to the walls of the temple, his foot striking soft earth, he whispered.

  "May Thylosson bless us."

  The caravan was making good time. Better time, in fact, than any such caravan Barsinious had ridden with. None wanted to tarry, or to camp early. None wanted to dally around the fires and drink toasts to women or adventure. The final wagon in the line trailed back several hundred feet from the rest. Not by the desire of the driver, a small, sallow fellow with rheumy eyes and a crazed aspect that did not speak of complete sanity, but by the wish of all others who traveled with them. The creaking of those wheels sounded to Barsinious like the whining dirge of an endless funeral procession.

  The wagon's cargo was somewhat of a mystery, but there were enough rumors floating up and down the line of horses and wagons to fill in many of the blanks. Whether the blanks were filled in properly, or with truth, made no difference.

  Idols. The wagon was said to be loaded with the most sacred idols of the temple of Sethran, blood hungry stealer of the strength of dark Klaa's enemies. Of course, Klaa had fallen, the temple lay in ruins. The idols were those of vanquished gods, and they were being transported to Xenocydes, and the temple of Thylosson, The Captor. None would bend their knee or prostrate themselves before the shadowed relics in that cart again. So it seemed. And yet....

  Barsinious turned away, an icy stab of fear lancing through his heart, but receding as his gaze swept out and over the bleak landscape. Days only, between himself and the release of his burden. He had not slept these past three days, halting the caravan only when begged by those who followed him, and up with the first hint of warmth, he'd gotten the wagons rolling before the sun had fully kissed the skyline. While riding he felt safer, felt the miles rolling away, and could feel that some end was in sight. It was the darkness, the time spent in front of his fire, staring into the dancing flames, that ate at his soul.

  He would find his gaze sliding off d
own the line of wagons, drawn to that damnable cart. He would hear whispered voices, chanting. If he spun too quickly back to the fire, figures danced in the flames. No matter that he pulled his cloak more tightly about himself, or closed his eyes. Always the shrouded forms would call to him. He feared to sleep. With his eyes wide, staring, he could be certain the dancing figures remained trapped in the flames, that the tarps did not slip free of their bundled captives, and that the voices did not become any clearer.

  As the huge walls of the temple of Thylosson slipped into sight over the horizon, Barsinious nearly wept from relief and exhaustion. They were still many miles distant. So huge was the edifice that it appeared as a small mountain from afar, whittled to the sharp, severe edges of the temple by the passing miles. So many years in the building, Barsinious thought...so many lives ground to dust in the construction. And what gods had those men worshiped? What powers called out for their revenge? Were their gods captured as they fell to Thylosson's temple, or were their souls chinks in the armor of the great monument?

  Barsinious found that even the coming dealings with Xenocydes and Dendra did not fill him with the same dread that had now latched onto his heels like a second shadow, leeching his strength. Gladly would he turn over the wagon, and its contents, and if they allowed it, he would remain until each of the idols had been contained. He would watch as Dendra and her minions swarmed around and over the pieces, securing them with stone and spell, incanting the cryptic prayers to Thylosson that would seal the nightmares from his mind. That would remove the dancers from the fire and the voices from his head. He would then leave an offering on Thylosson's altar, and depart. Forever. There were other trade routes, other cargoes. Thylosson would have to be content with a single offering, and a lifetime of fear. Calling out to the drivers, exhorting them to greater speed, he continued down the dreary road.