Colene, freed of the spell of immobility, got up and pursued the man. Now she looked like an even larger serpent, one whose gaping jaws could bite great chunks out of the flesh of a man. But to the queen, she looked like an ordinary bare girl—
Why did such illusion work against a man who was surely well experienced with all kinds of magic? Darius realized that it was because it was illusion infused with belief; the horse was projecting the certainty that this was real, and Naylor had no way to resist. Seqiro must have been concentrating on penetrating the man’s mind, so as to be able to do this.
Naylor fled. He charged down the hall, heedless of his nakedness. “Anima! Anima!” he cried.
The picture faded as the queen lost her concentration: “There was no anima!” she said, her thought plain despite her unfamiliar words.
It was time to try his magic. If it worked, Darius would have proved that he was of the animus. If it didn’t, he would let his supposed chastity spell make the point.
He concentrated on the figurine. “You are Colene,” he whispered to it.
He felt a tingle. The magic was working!
Now at last the queen was paying attention to him. She looked with surprise at the figurine.
“Watch,” Darius said. He leaned down to draw a square in the slight dust on the floor before the bed. “You are there, Colene,” he said to the figurine, setting it down inside the square. “In your chamber, having routed the rapist.” Then, through Seqiro, he thought: Be prepared, Colene; I am about to conjure you with my magic.
Fat chance! she thought back.
He lifted the figurine and set it carefully in his lap. “Now you are here.”
Suddenly Colene was sitting in his lap. She was naked and he was naked, but for once neither paid much attention. “You did it!” she exclaimed, amazed. Then she leaned over and vomited on the floor.
“Uh, conjurations can disturb a person’s equilibrium, resulting in a nervous stomach,” he said as he deactivated the icon with a negative thought. It was not safe to leave them activated, because then any careless treatment of the figurine affected the subject.
“Now he tells me!” she gasped. Then she sat up straight, twisted, and kissed him hard on the mouth.
Queen Glomerula, still beside him, laughed.
Colene became aware of her. “Shut up, bitch-cow, or I’ll kiss you too,” she snapped. “Even if it makes me upchuck again.”
Darius, wiping the spread vomit from his lips, had to smile. This was Colene, all right!
“And what are you doing with this slut naked on your bed?” Colene demanded of him.
“Demonstrating my magic,” he said. “I am of the animus: a magic-wielding man. You wish to make something of it?” That was a colloquialism he had learned from her; it was a kind of challenge to evince disapproval.
“Yeah,” she said. “But not in the same bed with Queen Nympho here!”
Darius turned to the queen. “I have decided to play with my own woman. You may go.”
The queen assessed the situation, picking up enough of his import to know that she was finished here. She shrugged; there would be another day. She stood, clothed herself again with illusion, and departed the chamber in good order. She had ascertained what she sought: Darius really did have strong magic, and was well able to protect his woman. He was animus.
“Okay, I’m here,” Colene said. “Play with me, you macho animus man.”
“You need to rest, and to eat something,” Darius said, sliding her off his lap.
“I’m not hungry, and I’m not ready to rest.”
He glanced at the vomit splattered on the floor, then took one of the larger quilts and used it to mop up the mess. “And put on some clothing,” he added.
“Oh, come on, I’ll do that,” she said. “It’s my mess.” She got down and nudged him aside.
He glanced at her naked body. “At least don a diaper.”
“A diaper!” she exclaimed. “I got sick, not incontinent.” Then she remembered. “Oh, that’s right—the women of your reality wear big diapers, so no one can see their stuff. But that’s when they’re in public. They take them off for sex, don’t they?”
“Yes. But that is not the case here.”
“Stop treating me like a child, Darius! I know what sex is. And by the look of you with that slut queen, you had it in mind! She bundled the quilt and carried it to the bathroom. Show him, Seqiro, her thought came back.
Immediately, Darius felt the heat of her love. Colene was raging with emotion, and desired him in a way which belied her youth.
He fought back his response, lest he be overwhelmed by his answering desire for her. “But you are a child,” he said. “You are fourteen, which by the standard of your culture is below the age of consent. It is not proper to indulge with you.”
She emerged from the bathroom, still defiantly naked. “Aren’t we in love, Darius?”
“Yes. That does not change your age.”
“But according to you, it’s all right for you to have sex with nympho queens, meanwhile?”
“Yes, if I choose. But I do not respect Glomerula, so sex with her is not an option.”
“If you did respect her, then you would have sex with her?”
“Yes, ordinarily. However—”
“And do you respect me?”
He hesitated, then answered. “Yes.”
“And you want me?”
“Yes.” He knew this was mischief. The queen’s challenge had been replaced by the girl’s challenge.
“So by your code, it is all right to have sex with women you don’t love, but not with the one you do.”
“It is an irony,” he agreed. “Now put on a diaper, or I will put one on you.”
“Oh, cut the hypocrisy,” she snapped. “You won’t have sex with me because you say it’s against my culture, but you want me to wear a diaper when you know that’s no part of my culture.”
He was taken aback. “That is true. I can not dictate your mode of dress.”
“You can’t dictate my mode of sex either!” she flared. “I had it with four men before I ever met you!”
Darius felt his jaw drop. Can this be true? he asked Seqiro.
It is true. And the horse opened up the memory to him: Colene at thirteen, on a date with a high school boy she hardly knew, who took her to a private party where they plied her with alcohol and then raped her. Unable to resist, she had gone along with it, and been too chagrined to tell. But she had felt unclean ever since, and carried a brooding, helpless anger. That episode had been a significant step toward her obsession with self-destruction. But along with the shame, she had developed a secondary fascination with sex: to flirt with it, to see how close she could come to it without getting caught again by it. As if a close escape somehow alleviated the disgust of the sex she had not escaped.
“So now you know,” she said, watching him as he assimilated the memory. “Why I cut myself, and why I risked having you rape me. Sex and death: they are allied. So you see, anything you are saving me for was lost before you ever met me. Do you hate me now?”
“No,” he said, appalled.
She stepped toward him. “So will you—?”
“No.”
“What is it with you? You know it’s pointless, when I’d much rather you did it with me than with some slut like the queen, and there’s no reason not to.”
“There is reason not to. I am not those men, and you are underage.”
“This damned idiotic moral code of yours! It doesn’t make sense!”