"What are you doing, Earl? Looking for Earth?"
Turning, he looked at Iduna. She was no longer a child.
The door creaked a little as she closed it behind her to step into the chamber. Tall, smiling, hair a glinting mass of liquid ebon, the midnight tresses shot with sparkling white fire from trapped diamonds. Fire matched by the stones around her throat and wrists and narrow waist. Cold brilliance which sparkled from the brooch on the simple black gown which hugged prominent breasts as it fell to be caught at the narrow waist, to swell over the hips and thighs, to trail the floor. A gown slit down the side so as to reveal the alabaster whiteness of calf and knee and thigh, the delicate, high-arched feet nursed in sandals of diamond-studded ebon.
"My lady!"
Her regal stance earned the title but there was more. Her face, whiter than he remembered, was a vision of loveliness, the lips full, the cheeks shadowed with slight concavities, the bone prominent, the eyes wide and enigmatic beneath thin and slanting brows. Gone were the irresolution, the petulance, the immaturity. Standing before him was a woman.
"Earl!"
"My lady?" He had forgotten what she had said. A question?
"I asked if you were looking for Earth." Her voice was the music of the wind, the pulse of an organ. Bells chimed in distant cadences and her very breath scented the air. "Earth," she repeated. "Your home world or so you said. Don't you remember? Earl!"
He was standing staring like a stunned and bewildered boy.
With an effort he looked away, his eyes resting on the lamp, the table, the wide bed-it was impossible not to look at the woman. Closing his left hand he felt the bite of nails against his flesh and clenched the hand tighter.
"My home world, my lady, yes." He drew a deep breath. "It is far from here. I don't know where."
"It can be found." She was casual, the subject was already boring her. "My father could help you if necessary. He is fond of old things and puzzles and mysteries and problems. They help to occupy his time."
"Your father? Gustav-"
"I have only one father, Earl. Is it possible to have more than one?"
"No. I don't think it is."
"Then why ask stupid questions." The movement of a hand put an end to the discussion. "Now tell me how I look. You like the gown? The gems?"
"You are lovely, my lady. More than lovely. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met. The most beautiful there ever could be. Even to look at you makes me the happiest of men."
"You may be happy, Earl." She was gracious. "And because you have been so kind there is no need of formality. Your Queen permits you to address her as an equal. An honor given to few. Now you may kiss my hand."
Dumarest took it, bowing his head over it as he lifted the fingers to his lips, to touch the satin-soft whiteness, to taste the sweet effulgence, the breath, the exuded perfume. A scent which triggered a sudden, near-overwhelming desire so that he burned to take, to hold, to possess-he tasted blood as his teeth bit at the inner membranes of his cheek.
Was he mad to lust after a child?
Not a child. Never a child. Iduna was all woman and fully mature and her presence filled the chamber and stimulated his every cell with an aching need to take her and use her in the ancient ceremony of procreation. He wanted her more than life itself. To be apart from her was unthinkable. He felt like kneeling before her to kiss her feet, to cringe, to grovel, to beg.
What was happening to him?
"Earl!" Her laughter was sweet and echoed in a fading tintinnabulation. "You look so odd. So startled. And there is blood on your lips. What's the matter? Haven't you ever played this game before?"
Game?
Of course, what else would it be to her but a game? One played many times with figments of her imagination, men created to act a part, to move and talk and act as she directed. To be consumed with a burning passion and an undying love. To worship even as they lusted and the lust itself touched with gentle regard. Emotions which had no place in reality. A lover manufactured from the stuff of girlish dreams.
But he was no puppet and this was a game he had played many times before.
He said, "You're cheating again, Iduna. That perfume has aphrodisiacal qualities. Pheronomes?"
"What?" Her ignorance was genuine. "What are they?"
"Biological cues. Produced and emitted to gain a predicted response. Certain insects use them to attract mates." He watched her face as he spoke, the movements of her eyes. "Have you never heard of them?"
"No. Earl-you mustn't say I cheat. That is unkind and you must never be unkind." She stepped toward him, all darkness and flashing gleams of silver light, her perfume wafting before her like a herald announcing the approach of beauty. And she was beautiful. More than beautiful. "Earl! Earl, my love!"
He felt the touch of fingers on his hair and realized that he was on his knees before her, hands lifted to clasp her thighs, face pressed against the join of her limbs. A warm, soft and endearing merging of curves which radiated a sensual heat and caused his blood to thunder in his ears.
"Iduna!"
"My love. My darling. Earl, I need you." Her fingers burned like a sweet flame. "I want you, my darling. I want you."
Seduction, fined and honed and rendered irresistible, his own yearnings working against him to construct a creature which epitomized all loveliness and all beauty ever dreamed of by lonely men cringing in the cold hostility lurking between the stars. A woman who loved and cared and who wanted to give. And give in the way so dearly wanted and do it without instruction or hesitation or all the numbing preliminary rituals with which all such meetings were cursed. To he everything he had ever dreamed of.
"Earl!"
To fill his life, his universe, his brain and heart and body, to become his every thought, his every cell.
"Earl!"
To dominate him. To rule absolutely. To overwhelm utterly.
Yet to surrender held such sweet temptation.
"No!"
"Earl? What is wrong, my darling?"
"No!" He backed and forced himself to stand away from her. His head spun and he felt dizzy as the swirling hues of the lantern painted a cloud of drifting rainbows over stone and floor and roof and bed. A thought and it would steady-but it did not. A thought and the girl would vanish-but she remained. And that was wrong for in the Tau thoughts were master.
"No, Earl," she said and came toward him, smiling, tints of color against the smooth cascade of her hair. "This is my world. I made it and everything it contains obeys me. Everything, Earl."
He remembered the water which had not dried, the stars which hadn't moved-and suddenly his ears were filled with the thin, horrible screaming of the face he had seen in the mist. His face?
"Darling." Iduna was close now, her breasts touching his chest, her face warm before him, the perfume of her breath strong in his nostrils. "Shall we get on with the game?"
Chapter Ten
There had been headaches and fatigue and irritation and, later, a fever and aching of the joints but, thank God, it had not been hnaudifida.
"You are sure?" Gustav looked at the report in his hand, seeing the notations and knowing what they signified but wanting reassurance. "There is no doubt?"
"None." The technician was patient. "We've run treble checks, my lord, and there is no possibility of error. The Matriarch had a chill and a slight infection which has already responded to treatment. A short rest and she will be as fit as ever." She smiled at the relief on his face; it was good that a man should be concerned for his wife. "Would you care to see her?"
She sat propped in a wide bed, the air tainted with the odor of antiseptics slight but unmistakable beneath the perfume. Her favorite, he noted, the clear, crisp scent of pine which became her so well. The open suited her, the rolling plains and forests and mountains. A creature of the wild tamed and channeled but never wholly free of the spaces which called her their own. A fanciful impression but one he nurtured as compensation for the cramped life of the city.