The Penwyth Curse

  “He likes tricks,” the prince said, stretched, and looked about the immense hall. “At least he won’t try to seduce you, I am very sure of that. I will not lie to you, Brecia—you are very ugly.”

  “You are not one to complain of my ugliness, you scrawny old sot. Don’t speak too loudly. Look, one of the women might have heard you.”

  “You’re right,” the prince said, looked directly into the woman’s eyes, wide with questions, and very slowly nodded his head once, then twice. The woman blinked, smiled, and patted the broad head of one of the wolfhounds lolling beside her. “Bring me some ale,” she called out. The prince wondered if she was ordering him, but almost immediately another old sot was moving as quickly as he could to get the woman a wooden goblet.

  “None of them recognize us,” he said to Brecia.

  “Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you,” Brecia said. “Now, let us go to his chamber, to clean it.”

  “Aye, I want to see what he’s created for himself. Do you have any idea where we’ll find this vision cask?”

  “One old ghost told me that he saw it once, the key in its lock. He said it was a very old chest, no larger than the length of my forearm, as high as my stretched fingers. It is supposedly made of gold and studded with precious gems. It is probably well hidden, so attune yourself to it.”

  “Hard to hide anything,” the prince said, “particularly from such as I,” and he followed Brecia up the wooden steps to the upper floor of the fortress.

  “Remember to walk slowly and shuffle,” she said over her bent old shoulder, her long, narrow nose quivering as she felt a ruffling of the air around her. It was from him, she knew, and smiled. So he wanted her, did he? She added another crooked line to her wrinkled old face, turned, and gave him a fat smile showing her remaining four teeth.

  No more thoughts of lust for him, she thought, and smiled.

  Suddenly there was a great wrenching sound, as if stones were being jerked from the very walls, as if the mortar binding them together was being gouged out and thrown aside.

  Brecia froze on the wide wooden steps, feeling them shudder beneath her feet.

  29

  Present

  BISHOP COULDN’T BELIEVE she’d picked up her skirts and run from him. Surely she wasn’t afraid of him. He ran out the mouth of the cave, only to have her jump on his back.

  She was laughing. Merryn was actually laughing. He felt her kissing his ear, tugging on his hair. His heart was pounding so hard and fast he thought it would burst from his chest. She released him, and he turned to take her in his arms. “I’ve got to have you.” He was panting so hard she could scarce make out his words.

  “I know,” she said. “I know.” Oddly, she understood his urgency, his frenzy. It was the curse, and it was pushing and prodding him. And she really didn’t mind it at all. She pressed herself against him. “Bishop,” she said, grabbing his face between her palms. “Bishop, I’ve got to have you, too. Don’t rip my clothes. Here.” She pulled his tunic over his head, saw his violent, heaving breaths, knew he was trying to control himself. Well, it didn’t matter. Merryn leaned forward and kissed his chest. He became still as a rock.

  “Come inside the cave.”

  As he walked her inside, she kept kissing his chest, nipping at his shoulders, breathing in the taste of him, licking his warm flesh.

  She realized the air was warmer, softer, even as she pulled down his trousers. His sex was hard, ready. He was in bad shape, she realized that—she, the girl who’d had no experience at all before twenty-four hours ago. It was amazing. There were so many things she didn’t yet understand, but none of these things mattered a whit to her now. “It’s all right,” she said, and watched him kick away his trousers.

  “Merryn,” he said, and he was on her, pulling her onto her back, jerking up her gown, looking down at her, and then his hands were on the insides of her thighs, stroking her, feeling her flesh, and he closed his eyes, his head back, whilst he felt her, and his fingers went higher and higher, to touch her, and he nearly spilled his seed at the feel of her warm woman’s flesh. By all the saints’ faint hearts, he hurt, hurt so much that he clenched his teeth against taking her violently. Merryn lay there on her back, smiling up at him, trusting him. He moved his fingers over her, stroking her and soon, so very soon, she lurched up at the intense sing of her blood roaring through her. It was lust, and it was on her as well as on Bishop. How very odd it all was. She let herself sink with the weight of her own need. She raised her hips, let him cup her in his big hands, and she said his name. He came deeply into her.

  Knowing he was again inside her body made her want to cry with the wonder of it. Then it made her wild; she accepted it, reveled in it and wanted more. She clasped her legs around his flanks and jerked him down to her.

  He was pushing, deep, deeper, then withdrawing. He was in control again, finally, and he looked down at her face and smiled. “This is beyond what a man could imagine. Just a moment, Merryn, just give me another moment,” and he was gone from her, his head thrown back, and he yelled to the cave ceiling, and it reverberated off the walls and echoed to the depths of the cave, echoed into time itself.

  She felt a humming deep inside her, knew it was something different, apart from her, but she still felt it, that odd humming, and feelings leapt about, stirring her, and she felt an incredible desire to rear up and bite his chin, his earlobe. She began kissing him again, her need suddenly as great as his had been. She shoved upward, taking him off guard, and he fell backward. “No, don’t move,” she said, her voice as fierce and as mad as his had been. She splayed her hands on his chest as she looked down at him, wanting, wanting, and she brought him even deeper. He was hard again, filling her, just like that, or maybe he had never left her, even for a moment. She grabbed his hand and placed it against her, felt his fingers stroking her, and it was her turn to throw her head back and yell. He was with her, and his cry came together with hers, echoing in the warm air. The strange humming softened inside her, flattened to become nothing but the soft air she was sucking in. She lay there on top of him, hearing the echoes of voices—or maybe they weren’t voices at all, but the sound of her heart singing. It didn’t matter.

  Bishop felt the ground move, shift hard beneath them. It didn’t stop, it became more intense. He held Merryn tightly against him. By all the saints’ crooked teeth, was the earth was going to break apart with its violent tremors? Then, suddenly, all the shuddering and shaking seemed far away, not really touching them now, even though he knew it was happening.

  What?

  The soft humming he’d heard in his ear—Merryn humming in her pleasure—stopped. Everything stilled. Merryn settled her face in the crook of his neck, her heart pounding against his. He breathed her in.

  When at last she could breathe, when she could at last find words again, Merryn said, “Bishop, this is beyond what should be, isn’t it?”

  “Yes”—the only word he could get out of his mouth. In truth, he didn’t care, but she was right. And here she was, talking. It amazed him. He still wondered if another breath would fill his chest—it was so hard to suck in the air. He stroked his hands over her back, wished her gown were on the floor beside her. He wanted desperately to feel her flesh, to feel her breasts, to feel her heart against his, to give her his mouth.

  He managed it, somehow managed to get the gown off her. And then they were together as they were meant to be. “Sleep, Merryn,” he said against her ear. “Sleep.”

  “The humming,” she said, her breath warm on his neck. “The humming.”

  Aye, the humming, her humming against his ear. “It was very fine,” he said, kissed her hair, closed his eyes, and slept, his breathing deep, finally slowing.

  Sometime Else

  The prince laughed. “Did you like that, Brecia? It is my lust that is shaking the very fortress beneath your weathered old feet.”

  “Stop it, you mad prince. Just behave yourself. We have to find that chest.”

/>   “Do you know,” he said, looking up at her as the violent quivers settled once again, “I want you even though you are so ugly it makes my eyes burn to look at you.”

  “You are so ugly I would have to pull a sack over your head to bring myself even to kiss you.”

  “But how could you kiss me if I had a sack over my head?”

  “I could pretend it was a beautiful wizard beneath that sack, and surely that would be more pleasant.”

  Suddenly there was an old sack over his head and she heard him laughing, muffled. “It’s true, Brecia. I want you. Now. Kiss me, witch.”

  It was a short kiss because Brecia knew they didn’t have much time. But then the prince followed that kiss with many more kisses. Soon his hands were everywhere, and he didn’t stop.

  The afternoon sun was slowly lowering when at last Brecia and the prince stood in the center of Mawdoor’s vast chamber. Both of those very ugly old beings were smiling, memories of pleasure still tingling in their blood.

  “There isn’t much sunlight coming through those windows,” she said. “I wonder why.”

  “Mawdoor is more at ease hovering in the shadows, letting the darkness cover him, don’t you think?” He stroked his ancient, sagging jaw. “I can also see him squating under big rocks.”

  “You’re just angry because he wants you dead and he wants to wed me.”

  “Aye, that is at the bottom of it. I’ve always known, deep inside, that there would be a final battle between us. It’s near, I feel it. Now, let’s find that chest.”

  It wasn’t in his big, gloomy chamber, with its brooding shadows that filled the corners and cast dim light onto the old wooden floors, bare and worn. Brecia looked at his bed, a huge thing that was covered with an incredible white cloth. She touched it. It felt just like her white woolen gowns.

  “We must work quickly.”

  “Yes,” she said, walked beside him to the door, then turned to look about the chamber. She spoke very quietly, waved her hand in a half circle. The room was still shadowed and dim. She said, “Ah, a wonderful job. The room is clean now, although there wasn’t much dirt to begin with to sweep into the courtyard.”

  Three hours later, they still hadn’t found the chest.

  “Mayhap it doesn’t exist,” the prince said, and scratched his armpit. “It could just be a ghost tale.”

  “But you’d heard of it too.”

  He nodded.

  “The ghosts were very certain about the chest. His demon father gave it to him, told him it was his decision whether or not to accept it. It would give him greater powers, but if he lost it or if it was taken from him, it would suck him in, destroy him.”

  “So mayhap he decided not to take the risk. Mayhap he destroyed it. Mayhap the ghosts were wrong about him keeping it.”

  Brecia was shaking her head. “Think about Mawdoor. Think of what he is like. He would scoop up all the power he could get, no matter the risk. Aye, he has the cask, and he’s hidden it well, because his very being is bound up in it.”

  “His very being, Brecia? That makes no sense,” the prince said.

  “Your father isn’t a demon. They are a different matter, prince. Demons hiss and brood and find wrongness in every corner of their world, and this wrongness is all directed at them, and thus to survive, to flourish, they must destroy anything they perceive to be a threat to them. This vision chest or cask, the ghosts also said that it could, if he were careless, draw Mawdoor into it and hold him there forever.”

  “Yes,” the prince said. “You told me that. How to get him into the cask?”

  She frowned, and rubbed her very narrow, very long nose. “Maybe if you squeeze my head I’ll think of something.”

  He laughed, said, “By all the gods, you’re ugly. I must tell you, Brecia, when we were on the steps before—I had to close my eyes so I could find my pleasure in you. It was difficult, but I wished to prove my constancy to you. Did you realize my eyes were closed? Did you comprehend and appreciate my constancy?”

  She laughed. She hadn’t laughed as much in the past year as she had in the past two days. “Constancy, from a wizard?”

  “Aye, Brecia, from a wizard. You wound me.”

  “I did notice that your balance wasn’t very good since you had your eyes closed. As for me, I had no problem since you had that sack over your head.”

  Even with the jests, she felt something move deep inside her. Warm and true, those feelings that were filling her now. She touched his ugly old face, smiled. “Let’s find that wretched chest.”

  “I prefer to think of it as a cask.”

  Late that night, when the fortress slept, all the old people stacked like cords of wood around the great central hall in the fortress, snores filling the air, Brecia pictured the cookhouse in her mind’s eye, saw some succulent roasted boar and some well-milled white bread. She brought it to them with one shake of her right fist.

  “If we don’t find the chest,” he said between bites, “then we must have another plan.”

  “I have one,” she said, and sank her teeth into the very nicely roasted boar.

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re a witch. A witch always has plans for this, for that, but I don’t believe many of them work. You know the chest is hidden, well hidden. We’ve searched the fortress. What is your plan?”

  “We must raise our power to find it.”

  “Aye, and if we do that, Mawdoor will realize something is very wrong. I don’t want to escape from his damned bubble again. I don’t want your hands burned again. It was bad, Brecia, your pain.”

  “It was. Now, listen. I saw him take one of the women upstairs, and there were carnal thoughts in the wizard’s mind. He is distracted. Soon he will sleep soundly.”

  “It’s good that you don’t wish to marry him. He is not worthy of you. He has proven that he has no constancy, taking another woman with you close by.”

  She laughed, heard an old man jerk away not far away, and smothered the laugh behind her hand. “I also put a sleeping potion in the wine the woman is giving to him. They will sleep like babes until morning.”

  “Ah, now you smirk with your cleverness. You want me to search this damned fortress all night?”

  “You are a wizard. You can go days without resting.”

  He tore off another bite of boar meat, closed his eyes at the wonderful taste, and leaned back against a wall. “All right, we will meld our powers and prowl the fortress.”

  It was nearly dawn when Brecia’s hand started vibrating. She was standing near the jakes, where an old man was sitting, his frayed old leggings down around his knees, speaking to another old man who was waiting his turn.

  “Aye,” the old man was saying, “ ’twas I who brought the maid some warm bread dripping with butter and honey. But what is her gratitude? She goes off with Lord Mawdoor, a skip in her walk, the faithless maid.”

  “If she went off with you, what would you do?”

  “I would think of something between journeys to the jakes.”

  The old men laughed.

  She moved her hand a bit to the right and it vibrated more. Then she moved her palm a bit to the left. Her hand vibrated so hard it flew up. “Ah,” she said, and smiled. Slowly, very slowly, she moved her fingers over the surface of the wood until she found something that shouldn’t be there. It was a small button. She pressed it. The wooden planks slid to the side. Inside was a space not much larger than her head, and shaped just about the same, long and narrow. And there was the vision chest that had belonged to Mawdoor’s demon father.

  She was suddenly very afraid. She thought what she’d found to the prince, witch’s mind to wizard’s. In the next instant, he was standing beside her, looking at that strange gold chest.

  “There are incredible diamonds here,” he said. “Call off your powers, Brecia. No reason to take any more chances now that we’ve found the chest.” He stared down at it, then very slowly, he stretched out his fingers and lightly tapped them against the top of the c
hest.

  It was as cold as an ice floe in the northern seas.

  He jerked his hand back.

  Brecia touched her fingers to it as well. She blinked as she jerked her hand away from the gleaming metal lid. No, not just metal—it was solid gold.

  “The key is in the lock.”

  “Aye,” he said, “just as it should be. Just as the ghosts told you. Once we have the key, once it opens, we will have him.”

  Suddenly the key jerked out of the lock and vanished in the next heartbeat. “Oh, no,” Brecia said, whirling about. “Mawdoor built in a protection. We weren’t fast enough.”

  They heard a mighty roar. They knew it was Mawdoor and that the key had gone to him, but the noise sounded like a thousand hungry lions, very angry, very hungry lions, and they were loose in the castle, headed for the jakes.

  “He can’t realize it’s us,” Brecia said, grabbing the prince’s sleeve.

  “He would be beyond stupid if he didn’t suspect.”

  The cask began to glow, growing larger and larger until it burst out of the hidey-hole.

  “By all the gods’ mortal sacrifices, it’s a wondrous spell Mawdoor has placed upon it.” He raised his wand and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Sostram Denesici avrat.”

  The damned cask just kept growing larger and larger.

  The prince looked shocked.

  Brecia shook his sleeve. “Leave it be. Come, quickly.” In the next instant, they were pressed against the backs of two very old snoring men. They settled in and began snoring themselves. When the old men jerked up at the awful noise, they jerked up as well.

  Mawdoor stood over them. He held his wand in his left hand, and he was raising it high.

  30

  Present

  BISHOP CLOSED HIS EYES a moment, and felt again Merryn’s mouth on his mouth, her tongue licking his chest, his belly, until at last she brought him to her mouth and licked him. He’d nearly heaved off the ground. He shuddered, opened his eyes to see her looking at him. He said, “When you ran away from me, it was like a blow to my belly. I couldn’t bear it, Merryn. Then you jumped on my back and brought me down.”