“And I, you,” replied Lord Alexandras. “And I waited, hoping against hope, long after all my old comrades were wed. At last, bowing to familial pressure, I married. For twenty years was I wedded to Katrina and, though I got children upon her and the fondness of familiarity inevitably developed, I never loved her. It was ever you, my love, you who inhabited my dreams or fantasies, you whose name I called in sleep or delirium. Oh, why, why Mara? Why did you go away? Why did you never return to me?”
She took his old hand again, and stroked it as she answered him. “Because I could not, ’Lekos. You’ll never know how every fiber of my being wanted to stay with you. For years, each time I thought of you or heard of your exploits, I ached to be with you once more. But to have done so, ’Lekos, to have surrendered to my desires would have been wrong, terribly wrong.
“For one thing, ’Lekos, I could never have given you children…”
When he opened his mouth to retort, she gently placed her finger athwart his lips. “Wait, my love, hear me out
“The second thing is this: I could not have borne watching you grow old and finally die, while I remained as I am; and I could not have left you a second tune.”
Lord Alexandras’ eyes seemed to be bulging from their sockets. “No!” he gasped vehemently. ‘No, I'll not believe it! You? My Mara … one of the Cursed? No, there is nought of evil or devilishness in you. For some reason, you’re lying to me! Can’t be!—”
Mara shook her head. “Milo, give me your boot-dagger and come around here to restrain him, if necessary. I’m going to have to give him proof that he will believe.”
Before he rose, Milo drew his short-bladed sgain dubh and handed it to her, then came around the table to stand close behind Lord Alexandras’ chair. The old man was wonderingly glancing at first one then the other of them.
Mara handed the Ehleen the small knife. “’Lekos, assure yourself that this weapon is genuine, that it is sharply pointed and that the blade will not retreat into the hilt.” Then, she set about dragging over another of the heavy chairs and placing it so that she could sit facing him. That done she held out her hand to Lord Alexandras.
“The knife, please, ’Lekos.”
Taking the blade, she laid it on the chair-arm and began to undrape the upper portion of her torso, not ceasing until her entire left side—shoulder to waist—was exposed. Then she picked up the sgain dubh and tested its point on her fingertip.
“You are satisfied that the knife is genuine, ’Lekos?” she inquired.
All but frozen by what he suspected was to come, the white-haired man could only nod dumbly.
Mara used one hand to lift her brown-nippled left breast, then placed the needle-tip of the little dagger in the flesh just below the breast’s proud swell. Gritting her teeth and tightening her lips, she commenced to slowly push the short, broad blade into her chest.
“NO!” shouted Lord Alexandras, starting up. Only Milo’s powerful hands, gripping the elderly nobleman’s biceps, restrained him from his purpose.
When the guardless hilt was pressed against her skin, Mara said, “Dear ’Lekos, you were but twenty years of age when I fell in love with you; and at that time, I had lived over two hundred and fifty years already! Now, I am nearly three hundred.”
Gathering a handful of the stuff of her gown, she held it in readiness as she slowly withdrew the steel from her chest, being careful not to cut the sensitive breast in so doing. When she was sure that the Strahteegohs had gotten a good look at the wound, she pressed the bunched cloth against it, nodded at Milo to release his hold and started to speak again in a slow, gentle tone.
“’Lekos, I’ve no idea how that terrible myth originated—the ‘Curse of the Undying.’ For the only thing that makes our lives cursed is the unremitting persecution of us by those who believe that ancient fable. Fortunately, these Horseclansmen don’t share that murderous misbelief and, for the first time in more years than I care to remember, I’ve been able to relax, be myself, let down my guard and live at peace with others of my kind. The tribesmen all revere us, you see.
“’Lekos, now you see why I could not marry you, why it would’ve been so terribly wrong. I never married anyone until quite recently. When I did, it was to the god of these people, one like myself.” She extended her right hand to Milo, who took it and came to stand beside her.
“So,” Lord Alexandras nodded. “You did lie to me after all. You stated that you were not a ‘god.’”
Milo shook his head. “I am not a god, only a man like yourself. That I differ from you, hi some respects, is the norm, for in nature no two things or beings are or can be precisely similar. I did not ask to be what I am, nor did Mara, nor did little Aldora. Both of them were born as they are, perhaps I was, too, I don’t know; I was born nearly six hundred and fifty years ago, which makes it difficult, sometimes, to remember. Until about two hundred years ago, I had thought that persons like me were a by-product of that man-made catastrophe of over half a millenium ago, which came quite close to exterminating man. Now, I am not so sure but what we are a superior mutation of man. We have probably been cropping up, here and there, since long before the catastrophe of which I spoke. But in a world of several billions we were not so noticeable as we are and have been in the more recent past. Too, it is logical that a larger proportionate number of us should have survived, where most of the races of man did not, for—as is well known—we are much harder to kill than our non-mutant kindred—nature’s recompense, I suppose, for the fact that we are sterile.
“You state yourself to be one flesh with the people whom your house should, by right, be ruling. I can understand this, Lord Alexandras, for I am as one flesh with the kindred, my people, too. Hundreds of years ago—realizing that, hi the world as it was then, a nomadic existence offered my people’s ancestors the best chance of survival—I established among them the rudiments of their culture and way of life. Though rude and barbaric and cruel in some respects, it has been a good life for them. From a beginning of a few dozens of terrified, pre-adolescent children—the orphaned remnant, who were all that was left of a city which had died of all-consuming fire—the Kindred are become a strong, independent, self-reliant people.
“Because I knew that, without it, they had little chance even of life, I gave them the Law and taught them to reverence their gods. Although I was absent from them for over two hundred years, they never wavered in that reverence, and not even I could sway them from its path today.”
Lord Alexandras had regained his composure. Both Milo and Mara were surprised at the speed with which he had done so, considering the severity of the emotional shock he had just undergone. Keeping his eyes fixed on Milo’s face, he heard him out.
“You know, Lord Milos, strange as it may sound, I had never connected the ‘Undying God’ legends of the western barb … nomads with the well-known facts that certain persons existed who were all but invulnerable to most forms of death. Knowingly, I had never met one of you—your kind—and knew but little of you save what the priests say, ‘evil, unnatural, creatures of the Antichrist, agents of die Devil.’ Truly, I knew not what to believe. Had you alone confronted me with your … peculiarity, I should probably have bade you a courteous farewell, promised to think on this matter of an alliance, then gathered my mercenaries and marched against you to crush your evil before it could spread.
“But, with Mara, too … Husband or not, I’ll tell you, Lord Milos, that forty years agone, we were much in love and there was such between us that I know her as I know myself! No army of priests could ever convince me that there is aught evil or unnatural in her! So, by your leave, I’ll put my questions to her.”