“It was time for a new Keeper to be born,” she explained, frowning down at the cooking pot. “And since the gift of Sight is always given to Mermaids, the Keeper must be the child of Mermaid and man.”
“The gift of sight?”
Patiently, she said, “The Keeper must be forewarned of any possible danger to the Unicorns. Surely you can understand that?”
Hunter wanted to tell her that nothing in this absurd conversation made the slightest sense to him, but he didn’t dare to interrupt the flow of information or set fire to her temper. “Of…course. How did your mother know it was time for another Keeper to be born?”
“The Keeper at that time was old,” Siri said briefly. “She died after my first Summer.”
“Then you aren’t ageless,” he murmured softly, finding and holding on to the one apparent hard fact she had revealed.
She looked at him, amused. “The legendary Keeper of ten thousand years again? No, of course we aren’t ageless. But it’s an understandable mistake, born of confusion more than anything else. We all have light hair and dark eyes, you see.”
“And each Keeper is a woman?”
“Yes. A girl-child is always the offspring of man and Mermaid.”
Hunter wished silently that she would stop using the word Mermaid. Like any word naming an impossibility, it became more familiar and reasonable with repetition. But that was one myth he had never believed in. Never.
Siri went on. “A woman must be Keeper; it’s one of the reasons Mermaids are responsible for bearing Keepers.”
Hesitating briefly, Hunter finally asked a blunt question. “And do Keepers ever—mate?”
She stiffened immediately and turned her head to stare at him. Impenetrable black was replacing the dreamy gray of her eyes. “No.”
“Is that a rule?” he asked with forced lightness. “Something taboo? Or just personal choice?”
“It doesn’t happen,” she said flatly. “Ever.”
The easy companionship of moments before was gone; Siri was on her guard and wary, and Hunter regretted that more than he was consciously aware of. He tried to make up lost ground but couldn’t seem to completely drop the subject.
“You mean you’re expected to live your entire life up here all alone except for the animals?”
“I was born for this.”
Anger grew within Hunter, an anger all the more unruly because it was based partly on selfishness. “You’re young, vital, beautiful,” he said harshly. “It’s a waste, Siri. A waste of life!”
Siri drew up to her full height and turned away from her cooking. She was abruptly a goddess of silver and ebony fire, an avenging spirit filled with a fury he had never seen in a human face. Very softly, intensely, she said, “I live each Summer with Unicorns. I protect and guard them, and I see them Dance. I heal them when they’re sick and fight for them so that blood will never taint their horns and their souls. I protect the seeds of myth from man’s unholy greed! And if you can’t see how worthwhile that is, I’ll stop wasting my time in trying to convince an insensitive, obsessed brute to find some shred of wisdom in his tiny mind!”
She left the cabin with the stride of a warrior.
Hunter rose and followed, halting at the open door, staring after her as she disappeared along the path into the woods. A jumble of thoughts and emotions skittered through his mind. No matter what he thought of her life, he had driven a knife into the very heart of what she was, and he wanted to go after her and apologize for that.
But what he had done could not so easily be put right; she was justifiably angry and quite possibly hurt, and neither emotion would be quickly forgotten. He also knew that an apology from his lips would not ring true, because he was suddenly aware that he hotly, fiercely resented the unicorns for their vitally important place in her life.
His final tearing realization was that he was helplessly, hopelessly in love with a woman who claimed to be the offspring of a man and a Mermaid, who claimed to be telepathic, and who had committed her very existence to the lonely preservation of a myth.
Hunter looked toward the lake to see the unicorns huddled in a restless, uneasy group and staring at him warily. Living dreams, symbols of ageless fantasy. And a symbol of hope for the dying world he loved.
They represented the fulfillment of a Quest that had taken years and had sent him to worlds scattered throughout the galaxy, a Quest that had begun as a means to a throne and had over the years become a man’s driven need to save his people.
Very quietly, he said, “I could learn to hate you.”
Chapter 5
“You’re going to see the sorceress again?”
Boran turned to stare at the Huntman. Pleasantly, he said, “That is hardly your affair.”
Con, chosen to speak for his fellows only because his fear of this place and this man lent him a certain courage, stiffened his narrow shoulders and tried to meet the man’s gaze. “You promised us wealth,” he said. “Days are passing, and we only sit and wait while you meet the sorceress. We have a right to—”
Casually, Boran dealt a backhand blow that sent Con staggering back. The green of his good eye was bright, and there was enjoyment in his twisted smile. “Your only right is to live while I allow it,” he said. “Obey me, and you will have your wealth. Disobey, and I will kill you. Is that understood?”
Con wiped the blood from his mouth, his gaze now fixed on his dirty boots. “Yes,” he whispered.
Boran glanced from man to man, using his mental powers to instill an even greater fear in each of them. He watched them cringe away from him, pleased. Then, dismissing them from his mind, he turned and left the camp.
His abilities were growing day by day, and his control over the sorceress was now virtually complete. Summoned to him, she came each day, friendly and happy to see him. He had worked carefully to blank her mind on each visit, so that while she was with him she had no memory at all of her charges or of Hunter healing in her cabin. And once she left him, she had no memory of the meeting.
Boran was pleased with the results, but he was surprised to find that his own interest in Siri was growing day by day as well. Cut away from her moorings of duty and responsibility, she seemed very young and eager. Fascinated, he searched the girl who came to him for the strengths of a warrior, the complexities of a Keeper. And he found strength in her, and intelligence; but more, he discovered a girl on the threshold of womanhood who looked at him with awakening eyes.
And because he willed it, she saw a man with the face of an angel, a man she was beginning to feel a hunger for.
They met deep in the forest, far from the grazing unicorns. Each time as she first turned to face him, there was a flickering instant of hesitation in her expression, a momentary confusion. He would feel a pleasant leap of his senses, and an increased concentration that was becoming automatic. And he enjoyed most of all his control over her.
“Boran!” Her face would brighten, confusion gone as he allowed her to remember their previous meetings.
She was lonely.
“Hello, princess!” He enjoyed that, too. His own private joke.
“I’m not a princess!” Always, the same laughing response.
“Then what are you?” He watched the confusion settle briefly over her features as he tested his control.
“I’m Siri.” Confident again.
Laughing quietly, the day’s game over, he sat down beside her on the fallen log. He always made certain she was on his right side and was careful never to touch her with his left hand; the mind control was solid, but he was aware that she would likely feel his petrified flesh if she touched his left cheek or hand. It was, he knew, far easier to control the mind than the physical senses.
“Who are you, Boran?” she asked today.
He mused over that for a moment. “I? I am a seeker, princess. A seeker after—justice.”
“Has someone wronged you?” she asked anxiously.
He smiled at her, aware that she was looking at t
he profile of an angel. “If so, it was long ago in the past and unimportant today.”
She was still disturbed. “Friends share pain, don’t they? Aren’t you my friend?”
“Of course I’m your friend, Siri,” he assured her. “And if there were pain, I’d share it.” He smiled through the lie. “What of your pain?”
“My pain?”
He kept his voice soft, almost hypnotic. “You must be so lonely.”
“I…” She frowned a little, purple eyes clouded. “I feel…alone. I dread the coming of Winter.” She shook her head. “Am I…alone in Winter? Will you go away?”
“I’m afraid so,” he murmured. “I’m just a visitor in your valley, princess, a traveler pausing to rest for a while.”
“I don’t want you to go.” She looked at him in entreaty. “The Winter is long and cold. Why do I stay here? Why don’t I leave this place?”
He looked on his creation with fascination. She was rootless, innocent, puzzled. No past, no future—except what he allowed her. In his control of her he found a taste of the power he craved, and it was addictive.
“Your roots are here,” he said finally.
“I may not leave, then?”
“Your roots are here,” he repeated. She looked so sad that he reached and took her left hand in his right one. “And I’m here for now,” he whispered, allowing his desire to creep unthreateningly into her mind. He was using his mental powers to create and nurture a physical response, and when her eyes darkened and her lips parted, he almost laughed aloud in triumph.
—
Siri left the forest and stood gazing out over her valley. She frowned a little as she absorbed the peace all around her. There was no danger; her patrol had revealed nothing threatening. But she felt unsettled. She looked down at her left hand, puzzled because she could almost feel the pressure of fingers around her own.
And that hand lifted to her breast as her frown deepened. Her breasts felt sore, heavy, the nipples erect, and she had an unnervingly sensual feeling of aching and dampness between her thighs. Disturbed, she mentally calculated, assuring herself that she was at the beginning of her Moon-cycle and would not bleed for two or three weeks yet.
She didn’t want to face the knowledge that Hunter was doing this to her, making her so often aware of her body and these new and troubling, dangerous feelings. But she had to face this truth, because she awoke too often in the night now and lay listening to his deep, even breathing, feeling the memory of the imprint of his mouth on hers, his big, hard body pressed to her own.
Useless to try and pretend to herself that this was not happening. Useless to deny what was. But the feelings bewildered and terrified her, because they were so often beyond her understanding and control.
She shook away the feelings, desperate. It was Hunter, she decided, preying on her mind. And the strained atmosphere between them heightened her senses painfully. He had tried to apologize to her, but she had simply refused to hear him. And she refused to see him. She left the cabin early each morning and returned late at night. She put out food and water for him, but ignored him otherwise. He was almost completely recovered now and quite able to take care of himself.
Silence had built an impassable wall between them.
Siri squared her shoulders and ignored the sudden feeling of loneliness. She could not alter what she was, but Hunter could. She would not allow that. Life in the valley went on, despite the presence of a man she refused to talk to.
Life went on.
—
Restless, at loose ends, and filled with the consuming anxiety and powerful desires of a man in love for the first time in his life, Hunter began exploring the valley more out of a hope of encountering Siri than from any real curiosity. And, though too troubled to have room in his heart for enchantment, he nonetheless felt a growing sense of awe at the increasing evidence that it was, indeed, an enchanted valley.
The weather was always perfect; if it rained at all, it was only a gentle predawn shower leaving sparkling moisture on greenery for the sun to use in creating minute rainbows. And the animals…
Giant pandas, snow leopards, white tigers, dodos, lyrebirds, peacocks, Albino wolves, eagles—each animal declared extinct by science for centuries. And there were animals with no place in history unless it was in the history of mythology, the mythology of human and nonhuman worlds: The sand cats of Marcos III with their multicolored fur, six-inch fangs, and ridiculously shy little growls; the gyres of Delta Omicron with their feathered bodies and almost-human faces; the apelike shrelots of Lotar…and a dragon.
Hunter had discovered supposed “dragons” on other worlds, finding them to be only reptiles representing a quirk in nature low on the evolutionary scale and far more timid than their legendary fire-breathing brethren. And he had finally been forced to accept the assertion of science that it just wasn’t possible for a living creature to breathe fire without artificial aid.
Until he was nearly roasted by a yawn.
Stepping back hurriedly from the mouth of the cave he had been about to explore, Hunter stood for a moment and eventually decided that hallucinations weren’t hot. He fought a purely instinctive urge to find a weapon and slay the beast, reminding himself that this valley was peaceful. He looked up at the blackness of The Reaper towering above him, then carefully peered around and into the cave opening.
The dragon was big. Huge. The cave entrance was three times Hunter’s height, and it looked like a tight squeeze for the dragon. The creature was a bright, shiny green, with purplish, wicked-looking spines running from its small pointed head down along a wide back and long, pointed tail. Its tail was neatly coiled around its large, cumbersome body and, as Hunter watched in astonishment, the dragon yawned another stream of fire, this one too small to shoot outward from the cave.
“You’re not possible,” Hunter said slowly.
The dragon made an abrupt snuffling sound and turned large, black, deceptively unthreatening eyes onto the intruder.
Hunter was too fascinated to draw back again. “You’d have to have a throat and mouth made of Pyroceram,” he said, arguing with reality.
As if it understood, the dragon opened its mouth in another tiny yawn, this one conjuring only a faint spark. But the small flash was enough to show Hunter that the dragon’s mouth was lined with something very like the material that shielded the nose cone of his ship.
Drawing back, Hunter stared blindly in front of him and decided very sanely that the line between reality and impossibility was becoming very fine indeed. He turned away, halting when he saw Siri.
She was standing a short distance from him, arms crossed and lips twitching with a smile she was trying hard to hide.
Completely forgetting the wall of silence, Hunter jerked a thumb toward the cave interior and asked, “Is that a dragon?”
Siri nodded mutely.
“You didn’t tell me there was a dragon,” he said accusatorily.
“I didn’t think you’d believe me,” she offered politely.
Hunter stared at her. “Dragons,” he said decisively, “aren’t possible.”
“Of course not.”
“They were created out of nightmares by fearful men who didn’t know what was over the horizon.”
“Yes.”
“They are an evolutionary and scientific impossibility.”
“So I’ve heard.”
He blinked. “You aren’t arguing with me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Siri gestured slightly. “If you’ll turn back around and look inside the cave, you’ll see why. Bundy presents a much more convincing argument than any I could offer.”
Hunter’s eyebrow rose. “Bundy?”
“Yes.”
“Who’d name a dragon Bundy?” he wondered.
“I don’t know. He’s always been Bundy.”
“Always?”
Very gently, Siri said, “Dragons are ageless.”
Hunter stared at h
er.
Siri began to laugh, a startling girlish giggle, and Hunter was fascinated by it. Seeking to hear more of that enchanting sound, he continued along the same lines.
“I didn’t believe Mermaids and now you toss in a dragon? Will I find a centaur lurking in the rocks? Hydra occupying another cave? Cyclops?”
She was smiling at him. “Only if you want to see them, and look with your heart.”
He grappled with that for a silent moment, then demanded, “Can I see Pegasus?”
“Sorry.”
He snorted. “Some enchanted valley this is.”
Siri began to laugh again.
Hunter bit back what he wanted to say then, knowing that the words would sound utterly fatuous. So he just thought about how lovely she looked when she laughed. But it wasn’t enough somehow, and unable to stop himself this time, he blurted, “I’ve missed the sound of your voice.”
She appeared to freeze, her eyes widening in the transitional shock of laughter to stiffness. Before she could turn away, as she showed every sign of doing, Hunter spoke huskily.
“Siri…I don’t like living in a desert.”
She was baffled by his words.
“Without your voice,” he said soberly, “without your company, this valley might as well be a desert.”
After a long moment, wary indecision and something that might have been longing flickering in her eyes, Siri turned away. “I have to go,” she murmured. “Teen’s foaling.”
Quickly falling into step beside her, Hunter fought to keep his voice grave and unthreatening. “She’s foaling now?”
“Yes. In the glade.”
Deciding that although Siri seemed a bit uncomfortable with his presence, at least she hadn’t asked him to leave her alone, Hunter silently vowed to tear down the wall between them even if he had to do it brick by brick. So he tightly reined the impatience of his body for hers, assuring himself that their time would come. Soon.
“Do you have to help her?” he asked, partly out of interest and partly out of his determination to keep her talking.
Siri shook her head. “No. And there are no Huntmen coming, so the glade doesn’t have to be guarded. But I like to be nearby, just in case.”