She woke on the dark beach, before the dying fire, with his sleeping weight against her side. Her arms were wrapped around his right arm, her head cradled on the cup of his shoulder. Without moving her head, she could see his profile. And she knew there wasn’t any crystal in her soul. She could still give . . . and receive. For all she sang crystal, she still possessed that priceless human quality, annealed in the fire of his youth.
She’d been wrong to dismiss him for what was a mere chronological accident, irrelevant to the peace and solace he brought her. Her body was exultant, renewed.
Her stretching roused him to smile with unexpected sweetness into her eyes. He gathered her against him, the vibrant strength of his arms tempered to tenderness for her slight frame.
“You crazy woman,” he said, in a wondering voice as he lightly scrubbed her scalp with his long fingers and played with her fine hair. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“Not likely to again.” Please!
He grinned down at her, delighted by her arrogance.
“Do you travel much?” he asked.
“When the mood strikes me.”
“Don’t travel for awhile.”
“I’ll have to one day. I’ve got to go back to work, you know.”
“What work?”
“I’m a guild member.”
His grin broadened and he hugged her. “All right. I won’t pry.” His finger delicately traced the line of her jaw. “You can’t be as old as you make out,” he said for she’d been honest enough earlier to tell him they were not contemporary.
She answered him now with a laugh but his comment brought a chill to her.
It couldn’t have been an accident that he could relieve her, she thought, caressing his curving thigh. She panicked suddenly at the idea that, once tasted, she could not drink again and strained herself to him.
His arms tightened and his low laugh was loving to her ears. And their bodies fit together again as fully and sweetly in harmony as before. Yes, with Shad Tucker, she could dismiss all fear as baseless.
Their pairing-off was accepted by Shamus and Tir who had his ready credit now and was off to apply it to whatever end he’d had in mind. Only Biyanco searched her face and she’d shrugged and given the brewman a little reassuring smile. Then he’d peered closely at Shad and smiled back.
That was why he said nothing. As she’d known he wouldn’t. For Shad Tucker wasn’t ready to settle on one woman. Killashandra was an adventure to him, a willing companion for a man just finished a hard season’s work.
They spent the days together as well, exploring the coastline in both directions from Trefoil, for Shad had a mind to put his earnings in land or sea front. She had never felt so . . .so vital and alive. He had a guitar of his own that he’d bring, playing for hours little tunes he’d make up when they were becalmed and had to take shelter in the shade of the sail from Armagh’s biting noonday sun. She loved to look at him while he played; his absorption had the quality of an innocent boy discovering major Truths of Beauty, Music, and Love. Indeed, his face, when he caressed her to a fever pitch of love, retained that same youthful innocence and intent absorption. Because he was so strong, because his youth was so powerful, his delicate, restrained love-making was all the more surprising to her.
The days multiplied and became weeks but so deep was her contentment that the first twinge of uneasiness caught her unawares. She knew what it was, though: her body’s cry for crystal song.
“Did I hurt you?” asked Shad for she was in his arms.
She couldn’t answer so she shook her head. He began to kiss her slowly, leisurely, sure of himself. She felt the second brutal knock along her spine and twisted herself closer in his arms so he wouldn’t feel it and she could forget that it had happened.
“What’s wrong, Killashandra?”
“Nothing. Nothing that you can’t cure.”
So he did. But afterward, she couldn’t sleep and stared up at the spinning moons. She couldn’t leave Shad now. Time and again he’d worked his magic with her until she’d’ve sworn all crystal thought was purged. Until she’d even toyed with the notion of resigning from the guild. When crystal got too bad, she could tune sour crystal on Armagh. But she must stay with Shad. He held back fear, he brought her peace. She’d waited for a lover like Shad Tucker so long, she had the right to enjoy the relationship.
The next moment another spasm struck her, hard, sharp, fierce. She fought it though her body arched with pain. And she knew she couldn’t resign. That she was being inexorably drawn back. And she did not want to leave Shad Tucker.
To him, she was a novelty, a woman to make love to...now...when the lunk season had been good and man needed to relax. But Killashandra was not the sort of woman he’d build a home for on his acres of sea-front. For her, she loved him: for his youth, for his absurd gentleness and courtesy; because, in his arms, she was briefly ageless.
The profound cruelty of her situation was driven home to her mind as bitterly as the next hunger pain for crystal sound.
It isn’t fair, she cried piteously. It isn’t fair. I can’t love him. It isn’t fair. He’s too young. He‘ll forget me in other loves. And I. . . I’ll not be able to remember him. That was the cruelest part.
She began to cry, Killashandra who had foresworn tears for any man half a century before when the harmony between herself and Larsdahl had turned discordant. Her weeping, soft as it was, woke Shad. He comforted her, lovingly and complicated her feelings for him by asking no questions at all. Maybe, she thought with the desperation of fearful hope, he isn’t that young. He might want to remember me.
And, when her tears had dried on her face, he kissed her again, with an urgency that must be answered. And was, as fully and sweetly as ever.
The summons came two days later. Biyanco tracked them in the cove and told her only that she had an urgent message. She was grateful for that courtesy but she hated the brewman for bringing the message at all.
It was a guild summons all right; she had to go back and sing rose crystal. Implicit in the message was a guild warning: she’d been away too long from crystal. What crystal gave, it took away. She stared at her reflection in the glass panel of the message booth. Yes, crystal could take away her appearance of youthfulness. How long would Shad remember the old woman she would shortly become?
So she started out to say goodbye to him. Best have it done quickly and now! Then back to Ballybran and forgetfulness in the crystal song. She felt cold all over.
He was sitting by the lagoon, strumming his guitar, his face absorbed in a melody he’d composed for her. It was a pretty tune, one that stopped in the mind and woke you humming it the next day.
Killashandra caught back her breath: Shad had perfect pitch: he could come with her, to Ballybran. She’d train him herself to be a crystal singer.
“Don’t,” said Biyanco stepping to her side.
“Don’t what?” she asked coldly.
“If you really love him, Killashandra, don’t. He’ll remember you this way. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
It was, of course, because she wouldn’t. So she stood there, beside Biyanco, and listened to Shad sing, watched the boyish absorption on his beloved face and let cruelty wash hope out of her.
“It never works, does it, Killashandra?” Biyanco asked gently.
“No.” She had a fleeting recollection of Larsdahl. They’d met somewhere, off-world. Hadn’t they? They must have. Had she been lured to Ballybran by some ageless lover? Perhaps. Who knew? The difference was that now, she was old enough not to play the siren for crystal. Old enough to leave love while he was young, and still in love enough to remember her only as a woman.