Lords of Rainbow (33 page)

And then, just as there was the beginning headrush, he heard her whisper: “Touch me again,
erotene
 . . . Touch me . . . I am not afraid. . . .”

His hands had taken on a life of their own. He moved, solid male animal fingers, to tug at the bindings of her halter at her back—while a sensuous fury began to rise in him—loosened it finally after several strong pulls, and then heard a small satisfying rip. The cotton gave in at last, and with sadistic joy, he caught his breath, reached forward below her breasts, and caught something heavy in two large ready palms, just as it came free from the tight restraint, just as it descended right into his fingers, yes—

A sound began forming low in his throat, but he never let it escape, never voiced anything, merely opened his lips in a straining silent Oh. For, even now he must not lose control, not yet, she was not quite ready yet. With both hands he massaged the newly freed breasts, feeling the points of her nipples, while she began to sway in rhythm against his chest, and to breathe out loud. He listened to her soft, regular moan-breaths, and without noticing it, moved himself against her, sliding back and forth from the bottom, just skimming the surface of the warm water and her round globular flesh . . . once . . . twice . . .

Enough
. He stopped, knowing that he was paused precariously on the edge, knowing the inevitable approach of a mad pattern that was about to take him away, unless he ceased now.

But her breathing, her terribly female, soft, rhythmic breathing, caught him by surprise, made him again marvel, and pause, and listen to her. And because he stopped, was caught off guard, allowed himself to be lulled by the very rhythm he had just awakened in her, he was suddenly swooning. . . .

The room abruptly faded in and out around him, while he—damn idiot—felt the familiar instant of blackout. In order not to fall, he reached out and clutched her roughly by the shoulders, and just stood there, leaning his forehead stupidly against the nape of her neck, letting his long hair sweep forward, stick to her skin in blond flax strands, while all his innards, his life force focused and convulsed with intensity, then burst through, and the hot liquid began to pump through him, squirted and spilled through the tip of him in creamy rivulets against the crevice of her damn oh-so-damn rump. . . .

As though she had sensed that something was different, something was happening to him, she had grown silent, still, once again beginning to tremble under his touch.

Bitch!
Now that he could think straight again, a wave of cold fury overwhelmed him, fury first at her, and then, more fairly at himself, because he had lost control—she had made him lose control. The fury and the involuntary pity moved in him simultaneously now, perversely coexisting, and he knew he had to finish what he started here with her, to conclude the game.

And so, because his mind was clear again, he straightened, and then—as though nothing had happened—gently slid his hands down her back, forcing her hips—still stained lightly with his pale excretion, though most of it had ran directly down into the water—down under the
mauve
water’s surface, where the astringent substance would promptly take care of any living seed. . . .

At this point, he would not be surprised if she realized he was not who she took him to be. For, no true
erotene
would do what he did, would lose control to that extent, before the act of intercourse even began. And yet, he hoped she was so innocent that she would never know.

He was wrong.

“
Who are you?” Her voice was a frightened whisper. At the same time, softly, she extricated herself from the touch of his hands at her hips, then waded deeper into the pool, up to her chest, holding her arms modestly crossed against her breasts, still with her back to him. He watched that braid of hers, first floating along the surface, then sinking, waterlogged, below the water, watched the fine moistened curls of her hair stick to her cheeks, the curve of her neck, her half-turned throat, pale below the old tan line. . . .

And something within him, something momentarily human, surfaced, and he wanted to reach out and touch her neck gently, simply, despite all. For a moment, he needed again to rest his forehead against her warm sweaty skin, and just to remain thus indefinitely. That same urge prompted him, in a pang of honesty, to say, “I did not mean to delude you this far—Ranhé. Truly, I regret it now.”

“
Then . . . you are no
erotene
.”

“
No.”

“
Then, who the hell are you?”

And because for some reason he wanted to regain from her a tiny portion of trust, he said, “The name, given to me by a woman who claimed to be my mother, is Elas.”

Hearing which, unbelievably, convulsively, she began to cry.

R
anhé felt the room spin about her, a blackness, a horror, and sobbed, with the utmost wrenching of her guts. Behind her, the man with the sun-hair stood in the
mauve
half-
light
of the chamber, and the
color
slid off his nude skin like liquid, drowning in the opaque surface of the pool, of which he, like a merman, was an extension.

She wept because it was the end of self-delusion, the end of many things, and she was only vaguely present within her own body. Something had burst within her, and she was being carried on the flotsam of the wild pain, like a child’s wooden doll.

Like someone else.

It was someone else’s skin, and she was locked inside, screaming silently to come out. Or else, she was not screaming, simply lingering in a vacant powerless, listless place where there was no hope, just being swept away, anchored by a remote alien dark.

She wept, because now she was faced with the truth, and there was to be no more self-denial.

Elas
. . . .

In her mind, the word rang like a monumental bell in the Temple of Alhveh, lord of Empty Skies, god of death.

Elas
 . . .
Elas
 . . .
Elas
.

And she was weak, impotent in the face of that. She had let go of the one thing within herself that allowed her to remain aside, aloof, free.

That thing was self-delusion.

What she felt for Elas, the one she knew as Elasand Vaeste, was like a wound now, a raw bleeding dark place. A place without fulfillment.

And now, this.

This man, who stood in this strange room with her, this warm-skinned beautiful alien, had taken a most intimate difficult piece of her trust, and spat it back at her, when she was already aching, pathetic and vulnerable.

She had walked with him, like a ewe to slaughter, knowing full well that something was not quite right. And yet, even here she allowed herself the luxury of self-delusion.

He was not
erotene
. . . . Then what? And what did it matter? She had wanted to believe that he was one, that he would do with her what she’d been unable to bring herself to do all these years, that he would use his Guild training and talent, and teach her the intimacy.

Teach her the damn intimacy! Her! As if she could still go on, deluding herself that because she was buying his time, she could also accept his services.

And yet, somewhere in the middle of it all, he had quite surprised her. He had a power, a hypnotic way, and a light touch which actually managed to seduce her . . . almost. For, of all things, she was vulnerable to a light touch.

When he had held her so closely, so warmly against his alienness, she had let go of herself willingly, would have let go all the way, if he took her there—for the events of the day had been leading up to this inevitable buildup.

But he broke his own spell. And then—what cruel twist of providence, what monster of a god had named him what it did?

Elas
.

He couldn’t have known. Couldn’t have known any of it, of what was inside her mind, chewing at her gut, burrowing into the fabric of her. Or did he? Was this not a twist of fate but a joke of human making? Did he know her more than she knew herself up to this instant?

Her weeping had subsided. Sobs of a five-year-old child had receded back into her soul’s past again, stuffed back into the primal recess of her origins. Ranhé stood shivering and drained of all feeling, submerged in the warmth, and yet cold like silence, while the warm soft vapor of the pool water rose above her shoulders in the
mauve
dreamscape around her.

She felt a delicate touch on her shoulder, at which she did not even start, only turned her dead face very slowly, and then turned her whole body, still submerged.

The man with the sun-hair looked at her face, only inches away. “I am sorry . . .” he repeated seriously, “I don’t quite understand your reaction.”

“
It is nothing. It is the name,” she replied in a wooden voice. “The name.”

“
My name?” He sounded puzzled for an instant. “Does it offend you? It is Elas, short for Elasirr. Most call me Elas however—”

And then, it must have dawned on him. Something—something dawned on him. For, he allowed his words to trail off, and his eyes looked intently, boring into hers for an instant, while all his former semblance of gentleness had fled.

“
I see . . .” he said. And then, there was a strange smile on his lips—thin, refined, sarcastic.

A killing smile.

For an instant, she saw indeed that this man was not at all what he seemed, that no
erotene
could smile like that, like the shadow of death.

And then, fearless Ranhé faced the terrifying smile head on.

“
What exactly do you see—
Elasirr?
” she said slowly, distinctly, stressing the full name, staring into the eyes of this man with her own pale winter gaze, more calm than she had been with him all evening. Calm, for suddenly the tables were turning, and there was no more threat of intimacy of any sort, no more vulnerability. Rather, she was back in a confrontational mode, back in the role in which she excelled.

Ranhé was feeling definitely herself again.

But so was the man facing her. No more
erotene
. No more pretense. And she knew it.

“
I see that you have certain feelings for the other Elas,” he said, taunting her, his eyes burning bright—wide like the serpent that he was—“the one you’d never dare call ‘Elas’ to his face. For, to you he would always remain ‘Lord Vaeste.’”

He surely expected her to react to this, to give certain things away.

He was wrong.

Ranhé’s expression remained blank, wooden, while she considered him. And he must have read eventually what was really in her face—a basic proud disdain.

Ranhé said nothing to him, then suddenly moved away, splashing through the warm water, past him, not caring at all any more that he saw the entirety of her nude body. She splashed up the stairs out of the pool, dripping water on the fine tiles. At the top stair of the pool, she paused for an instant, then bent to gather a palmful of water and washed her face.

He watched her as she washed off what was left of her tears.

And he looked at her strong large pale body, with all her imperfections, while she wrung the water out of her braid, then dripping, got all the way out of the pool, and began gathering up her clothes.

And all through this, she remained absolutely silent.

After she was fully clothed, and fully “daggered”—having stuck the tiny and big ones back into places on her person most people never dreamed possible (though he himself knew those places well)—Ranhé turned to him as though she had only now remembered he was still there.

Her gaze was intense, insolent, and just as sarcastic as his own. “I am sorry I dripped all over your floor,” she said. “But then, so will you, once you get out. No towels anywhere—not good, Elasirr, or whoever you are.”

And then, before he could say anything, she smiled. And that smile of hers, cold, proud, did something to his insides, something that not even her body had done.

It brought a pang of anger, surprise, admiration even.

“
Thank you for your time,” she said, taking up her cloak, and with it, her long elegant sword, which she no longer cared to hide, as she was attaching it to her waist. “By the way, cloaks are wonderful things, aren’t they?” she continued, nodding at his own velvet cloak and the concealed weapon on the floor. “They cover up everything. Even
irahi
steel.”

She couldn’t have known his sword’s style, not even by the sheath, unless she had been an expert.

And now he knew that she was.

For she had seen through the velvet.

And for that alone, he would respect her now, more than she would ever suspect.

“
Goodbye, Ranhé,” he said to her then, smiling like a demon in the
mauve
twilight of the room. “It has been a regretfully brief pleasure. Say hello to Elasand-re for me.”

She half-turned, her fingers on the door handle, and looked at him intensely. “I do believe I shall,” she said. “Though I doubt that Lord Vaeste would remember dealing with
vermin
.”

And with that she exited, slamming the door shut behind her.