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“No. If I stay, or if I try to go to Zedd, I will die. The prophecy doesn’t say that if I go with you I will live, but it does say that going with you is my only chance. End of discussion. If you make me stay, I will die. If you try to take me to Zedd, I will die. If you want me to have a chance to live, then you must take me with you. Choose, Prelate.”
Verna swallowed. As a Sister of the Light, a sorceress, she could tell by the distinctive murky cast to his eyes that
he was in the pain of a headache from the gift. She also knew that Warren would not lie to her about a prophecy. He might pull some trick to go with her, but he would not lie about a prophecy.
He was a prophet. Prophecy was his life. Maybe his death.
She took his hand up in hers. “Get some supplies together. Get two horses. I have to go tell Adie something, and then I must talk to my advisors, let them know what to do while we’re gone.”
Verna kissed his hand. “I won’t let you die, Warren. I love you too much. We’ll do this together. I’m not sleepy. Let’s not wait till morning. We can be on our way in an hour.”
Warren drew her to him in a thankful embrace.
24
From the solace of the shadows, he watched as the middle-aged man closed the door and stood in the dim hall a moment to tuck in his shirt over his potbelly. The man chortled to himself and then thumped off down the hall to disappear as he descended the stairs.
It was late. It would be several hours yet before the sun was up. With the walls painted red, the candles set before silvered reflectors at either end of the narrow hall were able to provide precious little useful light. He liked it that way—the way the comforting cloak of shadows in the pit of the night lent its mood to such nefarious needs.
Debauchery was best indulged in the night. In the darkness.
He stood awhile in the quiet obscurity of the hall, savoring his desire. It had been too long. He let his lust have rein, and felt its glorious, wanton ache fill him.
He closed his mouth and breathed through his nose to better experience the range of aromas, both transcendent and abiding. He put his shoulders back and used his abdominal muscles to draw slower, deeper breaths.
He counted a variety of scents, from the smells men carried in and took away with them back to their own lives, the smells of their work—horse, clay, grain dust, the lanolin soldiers used in the care of leather uniforms, and the oil they used for sharpening their weapons, to a redolent wisp of almond oil, and the stale dirt and wet wood of the building.
It was an afferent feast that was only just beginning.
He glanced the length of the hall again, checking. He heard no sounds of lust coming from any of the other rooms. It was late, even for an establishment like this. The fat, potbellied man was probably the last of them, except for himself.
He liked to be last. The evidence of the events before he arrived, and the lingering smells, gave him a rush of sensation. His senses were always heightened in his aroused state, and he valued all the details.
He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the throbbing of his need. She would help him. She would sate his desire; that was what they were here for. They offered themselves willingly.
Other men, like the potbellied man, simply threw themselves on a woman, grunted in a moment of satisfaction, and it was over. They never gave thought to what the woman was feeling, to what she needed, to giving her satisfaction. Those men were no more than rutting beasts, ignorant of all the details that could add to the climax for both. Their mind’s eye was too focused on the object of their lust; they didn’t see the integral parts of the wider setting that led to true satisfaction.
It was the fleeting, the ephemeral, that created a transcendent experience. Through uncommon perception, and his singular awareness, he could net such evanescent events and commemorate them forever in his memory, thus giving the transient nature of satisfaction permanence.
He felt fortunate that he could see such things, and that he, at least, could bring fulfillment to women.
At last, he took a settling breath and then advanced silently down the hall, marking the way the shadows and tiny rays of light mirrored off the silvered candle reflectors slipped across his body. He thought that if he was mindful, he might someday be able to feel the touch of the light, and of the dark.
Without knocking, he opened the door the potbellied man had come from and stepped into her room, gratified to see that it was nearly as dim as the hall. With a finger, he shut the door.
Behind the door, the woman was just pulling her panties up her legs. She spread her knees and squatted a bit, drawing them up tight against herself. When her sky-blue eyes finally turned up to look at him, her only reaction was to toss the sides of her robe together over the rest of her bare body and casually flip the silk belt together into a loose knot.
The air carried the odor of the hot coals in the warming pan under the bed, the weak but clean aroma of soap, the light fragrance of body powder, and the cloying scent of a sickly sweet perfume. But pervading it all, like the darkness that shaped shadows, was the lingering smack of lust, pointed with the arresting scent of semen.
The room had no windows. The bed, covered with stained, rumpled sheets, was pushed into the far corner. Even though it wasn’t large, the bed took up a good part of the room. Against the wall, beside the head of the bed, sat a small, simply made pine chest, probably for personal items. On the wall over the head of the bed hung an ink drawing of two people coupled in passion. It left nothing to the imagination.
A washbasin sat centered on a wobbly-looking cabinet beside her, behind the door. In its edge, the white washbasin had a stained, kidney-shaped chip, with a crack that looked like an artery coming from the kidney. The cloth hanging over the side of the basin still dripped. The milky water in the basin gently sloshed from side to side. She had just washed herself.
They each had their own habits. Some didn’t bother to wash, but they were usually the older, unattractive ones who were paid little, and cared little. He had noticed that the younger, prettier, more expensive women washed after each man. He preferred the ones who washed before he came to them, but in the end, his lust overrode such trivial matters.
He idly wondered if those he had been with who were not professionals ever gave thought to such things. Probably not. He doubted that others pondered such curious particulars. Others gave little thought to the texture of details.
Other women, women looking for love, satisfied him, but not in the same way. They always wanted to talk, and to be wooed. They wanted. He wanted. In the end, his want overrode what he would prefer, and he gave them some of what they wanted before his needs could be satisfied.
“I thought I was finished for the night,” she said. Her words came out silky smooth, with a pleasant, pert lilt, but bore no real interest at the prospect of another man this late.
“I think I’m the last,” he said, trying to sound apologetic so as not to anger her. It wasn’t as satisfying if they were angry. He liked nothing more than when they were eager to please.
She sighed. “All right, then.”
She showed no fear at having a man simply walk into her room without knocking, even though she was hardly wearing anything, nor did she make any demands for money. Silas Latherton, downstairs, with his cudgel and a long knife in his belt, made sure the women had nothing to fear. He also didn’t let anyone go up the stairs unless they paid in advance, so the women didn’t have to be bothered with the trouble of collecting money. It insured that he, rather than they, kept control of the income, and its distribution.
Her short, straight blond hair was disheveled, from mister potbelly, no doubt, but he found its disorder alluring. It was a suggestive indication of what she had just been doing. It lent her an erotic look—a look he very much liked.
Her body was shapely and firm, with long legs and wonderfully formed breasts, at least what he had seen of her body before she had thrown closed her robe. He would see it again, and could wait.
The anticipation added to his excitement. Unlike her other men, he was in no rush to have it over. Once it began, it would be over all too quickly. He could never stop himself, once it began. For the moment, he would relish all the little details, so that he could capture them in his memory for all time.
She was more than simply pretty, he decided. She was a creature possessed of features that would fire men’s minds with obsessive memories of her, and make them return time and time again
to try, if only for fleeting moments, to possess her. The confidence with which she carried her body told him that she knew this. The frequency with which men spent money to have her was a constant reinforcement of that confidence.
Those features, though, no matter their grace and haunting beauty, had an acidic edge to them, a harshness that betrayed her true character. No doubt other men saw only the sweet face and never noticed.
He noticed. He noticed such subtle things, and he had seen this detail often. It always looked the same. It was a baseness her fair features couldn’t hide from one such as himself.
“Are you new?” he asked, even though he knew she was.
“First day here,” she said. He knew that, too. “Aydindril is big enough to mean clients for me, but with a huge army here, it’s all the better. Blue eyes around here aren’t all that common; my blue eyes remind the D’Haran soldiers of girls from home. So many extra men mean women like me are in greater demand.”
“And it insures a better wage.”
She allowed herself a small, smug, knowing smile. “If you couldn’t afford it, you wouldn’t be up here, so cut the complaints.”
He had only meant to make an observation, and regretted the way she took it. Her voice betrayed an underlying, acerbic temperament. He sought to smooth away the ripple of her displeasure with him.
“Soldiers can sometimes get rough with a young woman as attractive as you.” The compliment didn’t register in her sky-blue eyes. She had probably heard it so often that she was numb to such praise. “I’m glad you came to Silas Latherton,” he went on. “He doesn’t let any of his clients rough up the young ladies. You’ll be safe, here, under his roof. I’m glad you came here.”
“Thanks.” Her tone carried no warmth, but the ripple, at least, had been smoothed. “I’m glad to hear his reputation is known to his clients. I got slammed around, once. I didn’t like it. Besides the pain, I couldn’t work for a month.”
“That must have been terrible. The pain, I mean.”
She tilted her head toward the bed. “You going to take off your clothes, or what?”
