She leaned half an inch toward him and he again noticed the scent of violets. "You came here freely, to meet someone you had known only in your dreams. Was this not an act of commitment?"
"In a certain sense. You beguiled me with your beauty. I gladly succumbed. I yearned then as I do now, to take such fabulous beauty and such intelligence for my own. In coming here I made an implicit pledge, in the realm of love. In meeting me here, you also made the same implicit pledge."
"I spoke neither pledge nor promise."
"Nor did I. Now they must be spoken by both of us, so that all things may be justly weighed."
Melancthe laughed uncomfortably and moved on the bench. "The words will not come to my mouth. I cannot speak them. Somehow I am constrained."
"By your virtue?"
"Yes, if you must have it so."
Shimrod reached and took her hands in his. "If we are to be lovers, then virtue must stand aside."
"It is more than virtue alone. It is dread."
"Of what?"
"I find it too strange to talk about."
"Love need not be dreadful. We must relieve you of this fear."
Melancthe said softly: "You are holding my hands in yours."
"Yes."
"You are the first to hold me."
Shimrod looked into her face. Her mouth, rose-red on the pale olive of her face, was fascinating in its flexibility. He leaned forward and kissed her, though she might have turned her head to avoid him. He thought her mouth trembled under his.
She drew away. "That meant nothing!"
"It meant only that as lovers we kissed each other."
"Nothing truly happened!"
Shimrod shook his head in perplexity. "Who is seducing whom? If we are working to the same ends, there is no need for so many crosspurposes."
Melancthe groped for a reply. Shimrod pulled her close and would have kissed her again, but she pulled away. "First you must serve me."
"In what fashion?"
"It is simple enough. In the forest nearby a door opens into the otherwhere Irerly. One of us must go through this door and bring back thirteen gems of different colors, while the other guards the access."
"That would seem to be dangerous work. At least for whomever enters Irerly."
"That is why I came to you." Melancthe rose to her feet. "Come, I will show you."
"Now?"
"Why not? The door is yonder through the forest."
"Very well, then; lead the way."
Melancthe, hesitating, looked askance at Shimrod. His manner was altogether too easy. She had expected beseechments, protests, stipulations and attempts to force her into commitments which so far she felt she had evaded. "Come then."
She took him away from the meadow and along a faint trail into the forest. The trail led this way and that, through dappled shade, past logs supporting brackets and shelves of archaic fungus, beside clusters of celandines, anemones, monks-hood and harebells.
Sounds faded behind them and they were alone.
They came to a small glade shadowed under tall birch, alders and oaks. An outcrop of black gabbro edged up from among dozens of white amaryllis, to become a low crag with a single steep face.
Into this face of black rock an iron-bound door had been fitted.
Shimrod looked around the clearing. He listened. He searched sky and trees. Nothing could be seen or heard.
Melancthe went to the door. She pulled at a heavy iron latch, drew it ajar, to display a wall of blank rock.
Shimrod watched from a little distance with a polite if detached interest.
Melancthe looked at him from the corner of her eye. Shimrod's unconcern seemed most peculiar. From her cape Melancthe brought a curious hexagonal pattern, which she touched to the center of the stone, where it clung. After a moment the stone dissolved to become luminous mist. She stood back and turned to Shimrod. "There is the gap into Irerly."
"And a fine gap it is. There are questions I must ask if I am to guard effectively. First, how long will you be gone? I would not care to shiver here all night through."
Melancthe, turning, approached Shimrod and put her hands on his shoulders. The odor of violets came sweetly across the air.
"Shimrod, do you love me?"
"I am fascinated and obsessed." Shimrod put his arms around her waist and drew her close. "Today it is too late for Irerly. Come, we will return to the inn. Tonight you will share my chamber, and much else besides."
Melancthe, with her face three inches from his, said softly,
"Would you truly wish to learn how much I could love you?"
"That is exactly what I have in mind. Come! Irerly can wait."
"Shimrod, do this for me. Go into Irerly and bring me thirteen spangling jewels, each of a different color, and I will guard the passage."
"And then?"
"You will see."
Shimrod tried to take her to the turf. "Now."
"No, Shimrod! After!"
The two stared eye to eye, Shimrod thought, I dare press her no further; already I have forced her to a statement.
He closed his fingertips against an amulet and spoke between his teeth the syllables of a spell which had lain heavy in his mind, and time separated into seven strands. One strand of the seven lengthened and looped away at right angles, to create a temporal hiatus; along this strand moved Shimrod, while Melancthe, the clearing in the forest and all beyond remained static.
Chapter 14
MURGEN RESIDED AT SWER SMOD, a stone manse of fifty vast echoing chambers, high in the Teach tac Teach.
At the best speed of the feathered boots Shimrod flew, bounded and leapt along the East-West Road from Twitten's Corner to Oswy Undervale, then by a side trail to Swer Smod. Murgen's dreadful sentries allowed him to pass unchallenged.
The front door opened at Shimrod's approach. He entered to find Murgen awaiting him at a large table laid with a linen cloth and silver utensils.
"Be seated," said Murgen. "You will be both hungry and thirsty."
"I am both."
Servants brought tureens and platters; Shimrod satisfied his hunger while Murgen tasted trifles of this and that, and listened silently while Shimrod told of his dreams, of Melancthe and the opening into Irerly.
"I feel that she came to me under compulsion, otherwise her conduct can't be explained. At one moment she shows an almost childlike cordiality, the next she becomes totally cynical in her calculations. Purportedly she wants thirteen gems from Irerly, but I suspect that her motives are otherwise. She is so sure of my infatuation that she barely troubles to dissemble."
Murgen said: "The affair exudes the odor of Tamurello. If he defeats you he weakens me. Then, since he uses Melancthe, his agency cannot be proved. He toyed with the witch Desmei, then tired of her. For revenge she contrived two creatures of ideal beauty: Melancthe and Faude Carfilhiot. She intended that Melancthe, aloof and unattainable, should madden Tamurello. Alas for Desmei Tamurello preferred Faude Carfilhiot who is far from aloof; together they range the near and far shores of unnatural junction."
"How could Tamurello control Melancthe?"
"I have no inkling of how it might be, if indeed he is involved."
"So then—what should I do?"
"Yours is the passion; you must fulfill it as you choose."
"Well then, what of Irerly?"
"If you go there as you are now, you will never return; that is my guess."
Shimrod spoke sadly: "I find it hard to join such faithlessness with such beauty. She gambles a dangerous game, with her living self for her stake."
"No less do you, with your dead self as yours."
Shimrod, daunnted by the thought, sat back in his chair. "Worst of all she intends to win. And yet..."
Murgen waited. "'And yet?'"
"Only that."
"I see." Murgen poured wine into the two glasses. "She must not win, if for no other reason than to thwart Tamurello. Now and perhaps forever hence I am preoccupied with Doom. I saw the portent in the form of a tall sea-green wave. 1 must address myself to the problem and you may have my power perhaps before you are ready for it. Prepare yourself, Shimrod. But first: purge yourself of the infatuation, and there is but a single means to this end."