She undulated her hips and the robe slipped down her slender thighs to garland her ankles.
She stepped out of it and came naked to him, with that long gliding stride. Once again she leant over him and put an arm round the back of his neck. With the other hand she cupped one of her breasts, drew his face towards her and eased the nipple into his mouth. 'Take suck, my lord,' she whispered in his ear.
As he drew on it like an infant, the nipple swelled between his lips and it began to exude a thick creamy fluid. Taita relished it, until she pushed his head away and drew it out from between his lips. 'Be not so greedy,' she admonished him. 'My body has many delights for you to savour. You must not satiate yourself too soon.'
She stepped back and ran both hands down her belly with a smoothing motion. His eyes followed them slavishly. She moved her feet apart and bent her knees, spreading her thighs. He watched her hand burrow between them, deep into the cloud of dark hair. Then she brought it out again and held up a forefinger. It was glossy with a pellucid dampness.
'See how I long for you,' she whispered huskily, as she touched the tip of her wet finger with her thumb. When she parted them, a gelatinous thread stretched between them. 'This is the true ambrosia that all men crave.' She came to him. 'Open your mouth, my lord.' She slid her finger between his lips, and the heady scent of her sex pervaded his senses.
She reached down with her free hand under the hem of his tunic and took hold of his manroot. Already it was as hard as ironstone, but in her cunning fingers it stretched harder and longer still.
He looked deep into her eyes and saw in them a stark, predatory hunger that had not been there a moment before. He knew that it was not for what she held in her hand but his very soul that she lusted. Now she placed both hands upon him, lifted him to his feet and led him to the couch. She knelt before him, loosened the straps of his sandals and slipped them off his feet. She lifted her head and nuzzled him, taking him between her lips and sucking voraciously. As she stood up again she lifted his tunic over his head, then pushed him back on to the couch.
She stepped over him with one leg as though she was mounting a steed, then crouched over him to guide him into her secret depths.
He uttered a deep groan as the pleasure became so intense it was transmuted into agony. She froze immobile over him. The muscles deep inside her pulsed and contracted, tightening as inexorably on him as the coils of a python round its prey. She locked him in a union so powerful that neither could break from it. Her eyes gazed into his, filled with the triumphant glare of a warrior about to make the killing stroke. 'You belong to me.' Her voice was the hiss of a serpent. 'Everything you are is mine.' No more dissembling, she had stripped off her disguise to reveal her true colours.
He felt her carnal invasion begin. It was as though a barbaric horde had besieged the citadel of his soul and was battering down the walls. He rallied all his powers to resist her, closing his gates to deny her entrance, hurling her back from the breach. The look in her eyes changed to consternation as she realized he had enticed her into an ambush. Then her expression became murderous, and she surged back into the attack.
They struggled against each other, at first evenly matched. He moved his body to one side, and when she threw her weight across to counter him, he rolled with her off the couch. Locked together they crashed on to the malachite floor, but she was under him and bore the brunt of his weight. Just for an instant the grip of the muscles deep within her slackened at the shock. He used the lapse to drive himself further inside, trying to reach her centre. She tightened instantly, holding him out.
I
I THE QUEST
They strained against each other silently, pitting all their forces, holding each other in precarious equilibrium.
He felt her summon her reserves and gathered his own in readiness.
Then she launched herself against him in a psychic avalanche. She was forcing a breach in his defences, breaking through into the secret places of his soul. He could feel his body yielding to her. Once again, gloating triumph lit her eyes. He reached down and closed his fist over the Periapt of Lostris that still hung at his throat. In his mind he conjugated the word of power: Mensaar! His manroot leapt with the impulse, and she cried out incoherently as she felt it. 'Kydash! Ncube!' he shouted. A bolt of psychic power flashed from the Periapt. Like a lightning strike, it flung Eos from the breach in his soul. Once again they held each other at bay, their strength evenly matched. Locked in each other's flesh they lay as still as figures carved in ivory.
The oil in the lamps burnt low, the flames guttered and went out. The only light in the chamber came through the shaft high in the roof above.
That light faded as the sun set behind the mountains, and left them in darkness to continue the battle. All through the night they were braced against each other in the hellish coupling, his manroot buried inside her, her muscles clamped on it remorselessly, no longer organs of procreation and pleasure but deadly weapons.
When the dawn light seeped through the shaft in the roof, it found them still locked together. As the light strengthened, he could see into her eyes. In their depths he discerned the first flutter of panic, like the wings of a trapped bird beating against the bars of its cage. She tried to shutter them from him, but he held her eyes as she held his sex. Both were far past the borders of exhaustion. There was nothing left in either but the will to hold out. She had locked her long legs round his hips, and her arms round his back. He clasped her buttocks in one hand, pulling them on to him. His right hand, still clutching the Periapt of Lostris, was clenched at the small of her back. Very carefully, so that he did not alert her, he eased open the lid of the locket with his thumbnail and the chip of red stone fell into his palm.
He pressed the stone against her spine, and felt it grow hot as it turned its power back on to her. She screamed, a long despairing wail, and struggled weakly, pumping her sex like bellows in a desperate effort to expel him. He timed his thrusts to her spasms. Each time she relaxed he drove in deeper. He reached the final barrier and, with one last mighty effort, pierced it.
She collapsed under him, moaning and gibbering. He covered her
mouth with his own and thrust his tongue down her throat, stifling her cries. He rampaged through the inner sanctum of her being, tearing open the coffers in which her knowledge and power were locked away'and draining the contents. As he did so, his own strength flooded back, multiplied a hundredfold by what he took from her.
He stared into her unspeakably lovely face, into those magnificent eyes, and saw them change. Her mouth gaped, drooling silver ropes of saliva. Her eyes turned opaque and dull as pebbles. Like a lump of wax held close to a flame, her nose broadened and coarsened. Her glowing skin faded to sallow yellow, became desiccated and as rough as the scaly hide of a reptile. It puckered into deep creases at the corners of her lips and eyes. The vibrant
