Wolfblade (65 page)

Kali spluttered indignantly for a moment before halting her tirade and staring at Brak suspiciously. “Oh, I see. That was you trying to be funny, wasn’t it?”

Brak looked over Kali’s head at Wrayan. “You’d think with all that power at their beck and call, somebody might have thought to endow immortals with a sense of humour.”

“It’s very rude to mock the gods, Brak,” the goddess told him sternly.

“But so much fun,” Brak replied, unrepentantly.

Obviously deciding Brak was no longer worthy of her attention, Kalianah deliberately turned her back on him and fixed her attention on Wrayan instead. “Have you decided who you’ll honour me with this evening, Wrayan?”

“I’m still not even sure
how
I’m supposed to honour you tonight, Divine One.”

Kali rolled her eyes impatiently. “I’m the Goddess of
Love
, Wrayan. How do you
suppose
the Harshini honour me?”

Brak laughed as he saw the blank look on Wrayan’s face. “Oh, dear! They didn’t warn you, did they?”

“Warn me about what?” The young man thought for a moment and then blushed an interesting shade of crimson. “You mean the Harshini . . . they all . . .”

“Every one of them. You don’t think I come home every spring just for the food, do you?”

Wrayan stopped and lowered the little goddess to the ground. “What about me?”

“What about you?” Brak shrugged. “This is a chance not many humans get these days, Wrayan. Make the most of it.”

“But . . .”

“I think he’s shy!” Kali laughed delightedly.

“Kali, just go away for a while, would you?”

The goddess rolled her eyes. “Fine! I’ll go find somebody who
wants
to talk to me.”

She vanished almost before she’d finished speaking, leaving Brak and Wrayan alone on the path. Below them, Brak could already hear the Harshini orchestra tuning their instruments.

Wrayan looked at Brak desperately. “I don’t know what to
do
.”

“
How
old are you?” he asked with a raised brow.

“No! It’s not that! I mean, I
know
what to do . . . it’s just . . . Gods, Brak, how does this work? Do I approach someone? Do I wait until somebody finds me? Will I
survive
it?”

“You’re a guest here,” Brak advised. “Wait until you’re asked. And yes, you’ll survive it, although if you left behind a human lover in Greenharbour, you might find it difficult to look at her the same way after you’ve been with a Harshini. They’re fairly famous for ruining humans for any other lovers.”

“Well, if I left behind a lover, I don’t remember her,” Wrayan shrugged. “Suppose nobody asks me?”

“On the Feast of Kalianah? Not a chance.”

“Is it really everything they claim?” he asked curiously.

“And then some,” Brak agreed with a smile. “And you’ve got just enough magic in you to mindlink at the same time. Trust me, Wrayan. It’ll probably
take you several days before you can even speak coherently again.” He laughed at the young man’s expression and slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, we’d better get a move on or we won’t be able to find a seat at the concert and we’ll end up sitting with the demons.”

T
he music of the Harshini was an ethereal, unearthly sound. Even though Wrayan had heard their haunting music almost every evening for months now, it still caught him off-guard and tears welled in his eyes as the inhuman harmonies filled the valley, striking a resonant chord in the soul of every living creature who experienced it. At some point during the performance, two small demons appeared beside Wrayan and crawled into Brak’s lap, where they sat listening with rapt attention. Brak didn’t seem to notice his uninvited companions and made no move to dislodge them. Kalianah had reappeared at Lorandranek’s side further up the rows of tiered seating to listen to the music, although she fidgeted as if she was bored. Music was the province of Gimlorie, after all. Kali had little interest in music unless it was doing something to further the romance she craved.

Once the concert was finished, the stage was cleared and tables were set up, laden with food. Everyone mingled about, laughing and smiling, helping themselves to the abundance of perfectly grown fruit and vegetables, seasoned with spices Wrayan had never even dreamed of before coming to Sanctuary (confirming his suspicion that he hadn’t been a cook in his former life). The wine was sweet and heady with the faintest hint of pepper and left him feeling light-headed so quickly, he wondered if it had been spiked with something to enhance the mood of the evening. He lost track of Brak for a while and then found him again when the Halfbreed appeared with a stunning Harshini woman—was there any other kind?—on his arm.

“Wrayan, this is Andreanan, Sanctuary’s librarian.”

Andreanan had totally black eyes, like all the Harshini, flawless golden skin and a body that no librarian in Wrayan’s experience had ever been in possession of, which her thin white robe did little to disguise. Like most of the other women here, she looked no more than thirty but had probably
lived ten or twenty times that many years. She smiled at him warmly. “I’ve heard about our young human visitor. You must come and visit our library soon. There is much there we could teach you.”

“I’d like that very much.”

“Do you love me, Wrayan?”

“It seems I love everyone tonight, my lady.”

She laughed delightedly. “I hope you find much happiness, then.” She smiled at the Halfbreed and took his hand. “Come along, Brak. Lorandranek has returned us to real time so we actually
don’t
have forever.”

“I’ll catch up,” Brak promised. Unconcerned, Andreanan nodded and walked off toward the tables. Brak turned to Wrayan with a frown. It was probably the only frown in the whole of Sanctuary this night.

“One more bit of advice,” Brak said. “While you’re finding ‘much happiness’ tonight, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re in love.”

“What do you mean?”

“These are the Harshini, Wrayan, and they might look mostly human, but it’s the ‘mostly’ that sets them apart. They don’t love like humans. They’re not monogamous. They don’t understand jealousy or the concept of adultery. They have no grasp of faithfulness and think the human desire to remain with one partner for life to be ridiculous in the extreme. The woman you make love to in the next hour might be making love to me an hour after she’s done with you and another woman an hour after that. Don’t read more into this than really exists. You’re the only one who’ll be hurt because the Harshini will just think you’re crazy.”

Having delivered his dire warning, Brak headed off in the direction Andreanan had disappeared. Feeling even more confused than he had been before Brak offered his advice, Wrayan wandered among the food-laden tables, returning the smiles of the Harshini as they laughed and chatted to themselves in their own language. It had never really occurred to Wrayan until now that the Harshini didn’t speak Hythrun among themselves. They spoke his language when they addressed him, and were never rude enough to exclude him by falling into a conversation in another language when he could overhear, and, of course, speaking mind to mind involved no language as such, just feelings and pictures. But to hear their musical voices surrounding him, and not know what they were saying, left Wrayan feeling quite alone.

For the first time since waking up in this magical place, he felt like a foreigner.

Wrayan finished his wine with a gulp and was looking around for another when his glass magically refilled itself. Shrugging over this unexpected bounty, he wandered aimlessly through the party, smiling and returning greetings whenever he was offered them, being kissed into oblivion by a series of unbelievably beautiful women who then passed him over for their
own menfolk, but as the evening wore on, and his glass kept refilling itself, no stunning Harshini came forward to present herself to him for anything more than that; no vision of loveliness stepped across his path and did more than kiss him, smile and move on. Disappointed and more than a little drunk, Wrayan headed away from the tables. He staggered through the amphitheatre, his head spinning from the potent wine, and stumbled down the valley towards the waterfall that supplied Sanctuary with its water. At the edge of his senses he could feel something strange going on, something he couldn’t understand, but in his current inebriated state, he didn’t have the wit to figure it out.

The path to the pool beneath the waterfall was deserted, although a few times Wrayan passed couples in the bushes who had been heading for the pool perhaps, but had not made it that far before being overtaken by their desire to honour the Goddess of Love. Wrayan found their presence disturbing. It wasn’t that he was particularly prudish—he’d grown up in a society where
court’esa
were the norm—it was just that every couple, or trio (or whatever the Harshini found entertaining) he stumbled past reminded him that everyone in Sanctuary was honouring Kalianah this night but him.

It just didn’t seem fair.

By the time he reached the pool beneath the cascade, Wrayan was burning up. His skin was hot and dry and his head was spinning like one of those little fireworks they nailed to a wall and set alight on the Feast of Jashia, the God of Fire, back in Krakandar. He was starting to think he was sick. He didn’t even notice that he’d remembered something from his childhood that had, up until a moment ago, been lost to him.

Wrayan reached the pool and stripped off his robes, plunging naked into the cool water. The shock left him gasping, but he forced himself deeper into the crystalline water until his feet no longer touched the bottom. The water seemed to clear his head a little. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the sky, a narrow strip of star-sprinkled darkness far above the valley where Sanctuary was hidden. The cascade tumbled ceaselessly down the rocks above the pool from some three or four hundred feet above at the top of the valley. Floating on his back, Wrayan closed his eyes and let the calm water and the chilly spray from the waterfall cool his fevered body.

“It’s time, don’t you think, Wrayan Lightfinger,” a voice whispered seductively behind him, “that you and I got to know each other a little better?”

Wrayan turned around with a splash to find himself face to face with Shananara té Ortyn. She was treading water a mere hand-span from him, the crystal-clear droplets beading on her skin like condensation, her long hair floating out around her like a dark red cloud. The Harshini princess swam closer. She took his hand and raised it to her lips with a smile that promised a glimpse of paradise.

“Can you feel it?” she asked softly.

Wrayan was feeling a great deal, but he wasn’t sure if his . . .
feelings
were quite what the princess was enquiring about.

“Feel what, your highness?” he asked, a little nervously.

“Close your eyes,” she told him.

Wrayan did as she commanded, with the realisation that the cool water no longer seemed very cool at all. It seemed to have been warmed by the heat of their bodies.

“Your highness—”

“Shh,” Shananara whispered. “Feel.”

Wrayan wasn’t sure what she meant, but after a moment he became aware of the odd feeling that had followed him from the amphitheatre. It was bliss, ecstasy, rapture and delight all rolled into one. His skin began to burn hotter and hotter the more aware of it he became and he realised, with some alarm, that in addition to the heat, his body was reacting to the strange stimulus in a way that was impossible to hide in the crystal-clear water of the pool.

“What is it?” he asked in wonder, opening his eyes to look at her.

“Kalianah’s gift to the Harshini.” She smiled at his expression. Reaching out to him, she touched his face, wiping away the water drops that lined his upper lip with a feather-light touch of her thumb. “You can feel the Harshini, Wrayan. We’re linked to the same source. What you can feel is that joy being channelled. Humans can’t feel it normally. They’re aware of it, and it makes us seem irresistible to them, but they don’t understand what they’re feeling. Not consciously.”

“But I can feel it.”

“That’s because you’re part Harshini.”

And that, it seemed, was enough for Shananara. She slid her hands around his neck and pulled him to her. Wrayan was too stunned to object. Her mouth tasted like the cool water of the pool mixed with the headiest wine—the taste of all his wildest fantasies distilled into the essence of pure hunger and desire. And then she embraced him with her mind as well as her body, her magic keeping them afloat, and Wrayan thought he might die.

He quickly lost all sense of where he was, only the cold water caressing his inflamed skin and the hot touch of Shananara’s lithe and slender body against him seemed to register in the maelstrom of his befuddled mind. He felt her breasts against his chest as she wrapped her strong legs around him. He tried to pull her even closer, wishing there was some way to devour her whole. Wrayan had never experienced anything so intense or so consuming. This wasn’t just making love. This was much, much more. This was agony. It was bliss. This was where paradise and hell collided with each other.

The world blurred around Wrayan as her touch became flame on his already-burning skin. Desire was all he could think of, blended with the sheer rapture of all the other Harshini sharing their experiences as well; the
air crackled with lust, and joy, and a thousand other emotions that Wrayan was in no condition to identify.