hill, climbing toward the Senate.
She thought momentarily of teleporting back to her chambers and was surprised at her own impatience. Chiding herself, she resolved to take the long way, walking the whole distance. The rays of the sun, spilling from straight overhead, now seemed harsh and unrelenting. The white columns along the facade of the grand structure sometimes reminded her of ghostly trees, yet now they seemed more like the bars of a dungeon, or the wall formed by some kind of gigantic fence.
She hadn’t taken a hundred steps when she saw Nistel coming down the path, and she forced herself to take a seat and smile in welcome as the gnome approached. Yet as he drew closer she quickly perceived that the friendly overtures passed unseen by her frowning, preoccupied assistant.
“Blinker-what’s wrong?” she asked, using the gnome’s nickname as he halted before her.
Stammering, he shifted his weight from one curl-toed boot to another. “My lady-it’s trouble! Real trouble!” he blurted.
Belynda’s stomach churned as she tried without success to imagine what could be causing his agitation.
“They’re talking about it in the Senate already, and I came to find you as soon as I heard! It’s Caranor-she was found by a centaur!”
“She’s fine, isn’t she? What was her news?” Belynda stammered the questions, dreading to hear what Nistel would say next. She remembered her sense of unease when she had been unable to reach the sage-enchantress earlier that day.
“She’s not fine,” the gnome said, with a grim shake of his head. “She’s not even alive anymore! And the centaur said she was killed by fire!”
N atac was acutely conscious of his erection, but only gradually did he realize that, somehow, his loincloth had been removed. Perhaps he wouldn’t need the garment in Mictlan. But, except for the pervasive darkness, this was nothing like the realm of death he had always imagined-or that the priests had invariably described.
Primarily, there was that female aura, a scent that seeped into his pores, that had brought him to this profound arousal. He tried to reach out, sought the touch of womanly flesh, but he felt no motion in his arms or legs-Indeed, it was hard to recall the reality of limbs, of sight or sound or other sensation.
There was only the compelling smell and a massive, pulsing desire.
“Warrior Natac…”
The words were a whisper through the darkness, a sound of pure beauty in a womanly voice that drew a groan of desire from his lips. And with the utterance he began to feel a measure of control over the muscles of his mouth and throat.
At the same time, he realized that she had spoken to him in a language that he had never heard-yet the words burned with clear meaning in his mind. To compound his wonder, he replied in the same tongue:
“Woman… I hear you… but where are you? Where am I?”
“Shhh… you must listen, warrior.”
“Speak-tell me!” Natac demanded, struggling again to move, to feel his arms and legs.
Gradually he perceived that he was standing, with his feet planted firmly on a smooth, hard floor. His fingers clenched in answer to his will, and then he could feel his arms. Immediately his hand went to his chest, where it seemed that only a moment ago the priest had ripped out his heart.
But his skin was whole. Too, he could feel the steady pumping of that vital muscle through the intact bones of his rib cage.
Only then did he begin to discern a faint illumination, a muted wash of light from several small clay lamps. He was surprised to see that, unlike the pottery found in even the most backward mountain village, these lamps were formed of simple curves, unadorned by the images of gods. They burned from niches in the stone walls, and the surfaces between the niches were lined with thick furs, the lush pelts of animals huger than any Natac had ever seen. He was looking at one side of a cozy chamber, and guessed that the woman must be behind him.
With that realization he tried to whirl around to seek her, but though his wish was clear in his mind, his flesh responded slowly. Almost as though mired in thick mud, his feet dragged across the floor, and even when he had turned, the woman came into view only gradually, an image emerging from a red, smoky haze.
First he saw her eyes: huge, wide, and so deep a purple that they might have been black. They stared at him with tenderness and affection-but in their depths lurked a haunting sadness that threatened to break the heart he had just rediscovered. Soft and liquid, her look drew him in until desire weakened his knees and brought another involuntary groan from his throat.
Very gradually he realized that those eyes were set into a face of breathtaking beauty. The woman’s skin of unblemished copper gleamed like gold in the soft lamplight, highlighted by a small, upturned nose, and lips that were full and wide, rouged to an exotic shade of bright crimson. That lush mouth smiled, softly, and once again Natac had an impression of a distant sadness, a shadow reflected in those violet eyes hinting at something regretful within this woman.
But he had no further thoughts about that.
Her hair was thick and black, straight and long enough to spread in a fan over her shoulders and torso. A flower, a bloodred poppy matching the shade of her lip rouge, was set above her ear, blooming in perfect complement to the triple petals of her high cheekbones and delicate chin.
“Who are you?” asked the Tlaxcalan, hesitantly giving voice to the words-as if he feared that any further sound might cause this exquisite apparition to disappear. Once more that strange language came from his mouth, as fluently as he had ever spoken Nahuatl.
“Call me Miradel, Warrior Natac.” Again he heard that deep, solid voice, and this time it seemed like a steadying thing, a promise that she was real, that she would not vanish in the blink of his eye.
“Miradel?” He had never heard a name like that, and it was music when it flowed from his lips. “By the Smoking Mirror-you’re beautiful!”
“My beauty is a gift for you, now, and here.”
He was stunned by her words, and desperate to have her. But he forced a moment’s hesitation with another question.
“Is this Mictlan… or what place?”
“There will be time, later, for that… for all of your questions.” She stood, and only then did Natac realize that she had been kneeling on a fur-lined pallet that was itself supported a short distance off the floor. A white mantle of soft cotton was draped over her shoulders, and her unbound breasts bounced slightly as she rose. When the garment swirled to the side, he saw the bare skin of her hip, and ached with the knowledge that she was naked underneath the filmy gauze of cloth.
Somehow he had forgotten his own uncovered state, but even with sudden recollection he felt no discomfort, none of the modesty that should have inhibited him in the presence of this unknown woman.
“The time now is for us,” Miradel concluded, coming to him, taking his hardness in her hand. “You need me, warrior-and you must make love to me with all your heart, all your being.”
“Yes, my lady-I will!” he whispered, once again fearful that a strong breath of his voice might whisk her away.
Natac had enjoyed many women during his life. His beloved wife had been a splendid lover until age had dimmed her interest. And he had not infrequently availed himself of the young concubines who were always ready to serve the pleasure of honored warriors. But he had never felt desire, a consuming lust, such as now pounded in his chest.
Slowly, reverently, he reached to embrace her, then chilled as his arms moved through her with ghostly ease. He leaned into her, feeling the warmth of her flesh-but no other sensations, nothing in his own skin.
“You must let me touch you,” she whispered. “At least in the beginning…”
Seeing the fire in her dark eyes, Natac guessed that Miradel’s passion was as profound as his own. Her hand squeezed, and his lust surged beneath the pressure of her fingers. Then he felt her lips against his bare shoulder, smelled the cool fullness of her hair sweetened by the blossom.
They moved toward the pallet, she backward and he following like a shadow. Miradel sank down, curling her knees onto the soft fur. And then her mouth took him in, surrounding him with bliss. For timeless moments he knew only pleasure, and a building sense of imminent explosion. Her hands reached around him, pulling him against her face, and he erupted with shuddering force. Natac still stood, swaying almost drunkenly as the pure onslaught of sensation melted into soft satisfaction.
