Patricia White, page 22
"Your whore, and the wizard's cat, are dead, smashed to bits by fire and water, and soon, very soon, the women will join them in the grave. Is that what you want, Max?"
His face white beneath its mask of rain-streaked grime, Farrel shook his head. "You know it isn't. I never wanted anyone dead, or even vanished, I just didn't want to marry you, Cordelia. I didn't love you and I..." His voice caught and he took a deep breath before he even tried to continue, which he seemed unable to do.
Will put his hand on the rancher's shoulder, giving the other man all the support he had to offer.
"But," she said, "I loved you, Farrel, and the world knows I made you an honest proposal of marriage. You gave me nothing in return but scorn. Whatever has happened, whoever dies, it's your fault."
"No, ma'am, it ain't," the marshal said slowly, coming over to stand on the other side of Farrel. "If you be doing the doing, then the fault be yours for the deed. That's what the law be saying, and the law don't be a-caring if you be a wizard or something else. You be taking the women. Now, you be admitting to killing a woman and the wizard's familiar, I do be a-thinking, you must rightly be a-paying for them crimes."
Waving her hand, almost absently, she spoke three words in the language of magic, smiling as a sheet of crackling orange destruction shot across the hollow, mowing down men, unicorns, a marshal, and another wizard. Or at least that's what it was designed to do before Will, drawing on the last energy he possessed, did a little hand-waving and magic-talking on his own. He changed the orange to the green of growing and health, which gave each creature it touched the equivalent of a good night's sleep and warm breakfast.
Every creature except Will. All it gave him was lifeless legs and even more pain in his head. Both of his hands were gripping the outside of his skull when he went down, feet plowing forward, body sliding down the side of the boulder, ending in a limp huddle on the cold, rain-wet earth. The pain in his head was almost all-devouring, but he managed, somehow, to stay conscious, to listen to what the other wizard was saying. Not that it made him feel any better, or lessened his fear for Maggie and the rest of the women.
It certainly didn't do that.
"Love," she spat out the word as if it were bitter in her mouth. "I loved you, Max, and I would have given you the world, all the worlds, if you had wanted them, but you didn't even want me. You didn't love me. So, if I asked you again, would you tell me yes? Would you say, 'Cordelia, I love only you?' Would you become my dear husband?"
Max didn't answer, he just stood there, like a man stricken dumb and looked at the dainty wizard. Will, even in the midst of his pain, knew the rancher wanted to say yes, wanted to save the other women, even if he had to do it with a lie, but couldn't force the words out of his mouth.
The silence was not entire, the screeing of the frightened unicorns and the distant howling of the storm-runners made sure of that. No one in the camp spoke until Max finally found his voice, finally managed to say, "If that's what you want, Cordelia, then I am willing to give it to you."
He hesitated for a moment before he added, "But, you have to know that I have lodged a formal complaint against you at Wizardholm and I did not act alone. Stealing humans is not lawful, neither is the interdict you placed around The Great Northwest."
"Poor, poor Maxie," she cooed. "All this because I killed your skinny whore?"
"I have no whore, Cordelia," Farrel said, sounding far more dignified that she did. "The woman you killed was an off-worlder, brought here by your spite, and whatever she was, she wasn't a whore. And I would be gravely remiss if I neglected to tell you that Jane Murdock was far more of a honest and giving woman than you'll ever be."
"Paaah!" Cordelia's screech of fury almost stampeded the unicorns. But, after a single outcry, she laughed. "I have decided to refuse your offer of a loveless marriage, Max, and go ahead with my other plans. As to the old boys at Wizardholm, they can do nothing. They have no power to equal mine."
She made a few passes in the air and slowly faded from sight. "Look, Max Farrel, and you, too, little wizard. See what you have ordained, watch and know your true guilt."
A huge window opened in the cloud-choked sky and every man in camp, including Will, had to look, had to see the horror Cordelia was showing them. Had to see the captive women, huddled together for warmth, exposed to wind and rain, gaunt with hunger, eyes swollen from countless tears. They looked until the sky-vision faded, and perhaps only Will saw Maggie's face, perhaps only Will heard her say, "Please, don't give up hope. Will will save us. I know he will."
But everyone heard Cordelia's parting words, heard her laugh, and say, "Will can do nothing. His cat is dead, Maggie, and so are all of you. Dead of Max Farrel's scorn."
The woman's mad laughter was still assaulting Will's aching head when the marshal came to where he had fallen and hauled him to his feet. "We do be in your debt, wizard, and we do be doing the paying. You and Farrel get some grub down your gullets while we break camp. We'll be riding at first light. We'll be getting you to the ranch in right smart time, wizard, and we do be doing anything else we have to stop her from killing the women. Iffen that's what you be wanting."
Still weak from the magical backlash, Will nodded. He would save Maggie and the rest if it took his last breath, or so he told himself.
And he reminded himself of that again when he tried to mount one of the unicorns, failed, and told the watching posse. "Flop me over the 'corn's back and tie me on like a sack of meal if you have to, but get me to Farrel's before sundown. If I can't reach Wizardholm by spell and scry, then the women are truly lost."
Farrel and the marshal gave each other a quick, worried look. Will saw nothing but truth in their eyes when they nodded and the marshal said, his voice both grave and determined, "We do be getting you there, boy, or we do be dying in the trying."
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Five
The fire leaped high, bounced light off the mica-flecked ceiling and walls, revealing, in shadowy clarity, the less than overwhelming fruit of Jane's day of hard physical labor. The tree limbs, chunks of silvery driftwood, and a few more bits and pieces from the remains of Will's splintered wagon were stacked in an untidy, slightly tipsy pile well away from the watch fire. A much smaller pile of combustibles she was closer to the firepit, making it handy fuel for the night fire.
Icy rain, holding a good admixture of snow, had fallen all day, but she had toiled from first light to twilight, scouring the canyon for every available cache of any kind of burning material. The resultant pile was neither high nor wide. It would last three nights at the most, and then...
If he had been a man at the moment, Sojourner would have shaken his head. He didn't know what came after the and then. It was there his worry was the greatest. He didn't have to draw in the night scents to know what was coming, to know a storm was approaching fast, a storm of mammoth proportions. One she would never survive in the canyon, or possibly not out of it either.
Sojourner could hear her moving around behind him, but he didn't turn to look. When the light started to fail, Jane had come in with a final load of wood and tossed it on the stockpile before she knelt and began to coax a new watch fire into existence. It had taken a lot of coaxing, and since Jane was not a patient woman, a lot of fiery language, to bring it into being.
But now, the fire, after its feeble beginnings, burned bright and hot, warming a goodly space around it. Beyond that circle of heat, the cave still held areas of chill in its many nooks and fissures, but that hadn't dissuaded Jane from the course she had chosen.
"I'm soaked to the skin," she had said, the cold and wet of the day adding hoarseness to her tired voice, "and I have to get dry and warm, but I'm so dirty I can't think. I'm going to take a bath even if it's only a small one, all most a pretend..."
Shivering, she had spread the dripping quilt she had worn for a cloak on some rocks, making sure it was just beyond the fire's reach. Then she had stood there a moment, watching the steam come up from the quilt and from the clothes covering her own tall, lean body. She sighed and fetched a kettle of water from the small spring at the back of the cave and sat it in the coals.
While her bath water heated, Jane had set about doing other chores that had been left undone. Sojourner, a cat to even his own seeing, had been helpless to give her aid during the day. And, even if he could have done the small domestic jobs, he probably wouldn't have had the strength to dig through the spellset food and trigger the packages into heating. Which she had done at intervals during the day, insisting the food, along with the pills she had given him, would give him back some of his strength.
He had done as she wished, but only to please her, to make her think she was aiding in his healing. He knew it was not true, knew neither food nor medicine would heal the malady that was his alone, his bane, his curse. Although he had eaten of the man food and had napped, off and on, the whole day, the wanderlust still tore at him like some bloodsucking worm, took his energy, his strength, and taunted him with the knowledge that all he had to do to regain what strength he had lost was to go a-wandering.
His eyes closed. He soaked up the warmth emanating from the fire, absorbing it into a body that was already burning hot. A small sound from the tunnel brought him instantly alert, even though he knew it was nothing threatening. Still, he tried to peer through the leap of flame, to be sure he wasn't mistaken. Caught securely in the heart of the fire, Jane's face stared back at him and he could look no farther. Sojourner knew it wasn't real, knew it was just a memory, a memory of another time, another place. He didn't want to live it again, not here, not now.
But, regardless of his wants, the memory played itself out, complete with Old Derna's voice giving him the prophecy. And another voice reciting the doom tacked at the end.
His muscles tensed. His lip lifted in a silent snarl. Sojourner's lean body readied itself for flight, to leap across the fire, and run out into the night, but he couldn't. He could do nothing but endure until the memory ran its full course.
First the face, the incredible face with midnight eyes, parted lips of rosy coral, ebon hair tipped in gold, high cheekbones bearing only the faintest blush, the face in the heart of the fiercely burning fire. Sojourner drank in the memory, knew the incredible wonder, the return to innocence and delight, fell in love all over again. He heard Old Derna say, her soft, sweet voice a chant, an invocation, "Woman who walks through time and space. Woman who wears love's true face. Woman of fire, woman of night, woman of dreams and perfect sight."
The old woman paused to take a breath.
And in that other time, a young Sojourner, blood pounding in his ears, leaned closer to the hearth fire, looked deep into the heart of the flame, his gaze tracing every contour of Love's beautiful face. And his voice was soft with first love, only love, when he asked, "What is her name, Derna? Where can I find her?"
Like one waking from a sleep, Old Derna rubbed her eyes, looked around the room before looking at Sojourner again, before she said, "I know not. I only know she is your destiny, your One True Love, and in time she will come to you and share your life. She will..."
"Break your heart."
The face in the flames, Jane's face, grew brighter and then began to fade. Sojourner watched until nothing of Love remained, and not even then did he turn to look at the new speaker, the doomsayer who had come into his bedroom unannounced.
Not that it mattered whether he acknowledged the speaker or not. Whatever he did, he still had to stay and listen to the prophecy, had to know what his future held. "She would never break my heart," the younger Sojourner said, not allowing any taint of doubt touch his voice.
"Oh, yes, she will. She will love you more than you can ever know, almost as much as you will love her. She will love you and her love, given without stint, will make you whole again. But the wholeness is only a sham, a promise that can never be kept. In the end, if she walks away, and she will because what you will become will give her no choice, you will be left alone to die of a broken heart."
Gray of beard, stooped with the weight of his years, the wizard, young Sojourner's teacher in matters arcane, shuffled closer, touched the boy on the shoulder with a gnarled hand, and said, "My vision is true, lad. Forget the woman conjured of fire and night and..."
"And if I cannot?"
The old wizard patted Sojourner's shoulder and sighed, "I will fast once more and cast the runes, perhaps you can change your destiny."
The outcome of the rune casting was something Sojourner never learned-- the old wizard died that night and the old woman disappeared out of the boy's life.
Those were sorrows long past, but never the less, he let out his pent breath in what was more than a sigh, less than a sob, and stared into the cave fire's empty heart. The old wizard had seen true. Sojourner had found his One True Love and their love was doomed, could never be. And when she left, went back to her own world, as surely she must, then he would, just as surely, know nothing but terrible loneliness and heartbreak beyond measure, heartbreak great enough to stay his seeking and bring his death.
"Sojourner? What is it? What's the matter? Are the dires out there already?"
Jane's voice came from behind him and the fear it held was more than enough reason for him to banish the memory, at least for that brief moment, and return to the problems the present held. "No dires," he said, "but it grows steadily colder without."
Knowing he was doing a foolish thing, one that would only add to his sorrow, knowing, too, her closeness would be a temptation, he still did what had to be done. "I would not ask it otherwise, but I think you must join our beds together this night and place them close to the fire. I have rested through the day and can keep the fire if you are touching near. I would have you sleep as much as you are able, for I fear we must leave this place and very soon, possibly on the morrow."
She didn't question him, just did as he asked. And when the mattresses were dragged nearer to the fire, the bed was made, and her kettle of water was steaming hot, Jane took it into the back of the cave and made her own preparations for the night. From the sounds she was making, Jane was also planning for the journey they must take as soon as possible.
He prayed, to all the old and forgotten gods, that they would go soon. He did not know how long he could keep to the path of rectitude, resist his fated love. But, he had to; and it was his own acts that had made it so, had made all love between them forbidden ground. They were acts so terrible that he could not bring himself to dredge the horror from his memory, had to go on bearing the guilt but not knowing the fullness of the deeds.
Cats don't feel guilt, he told himself. Perhaps they didn't, but men did; and Jane had returned his manhood to him, had made him whole once again. And it was the man who loved her, needed her, and adored her. The cat would live on, he knew that, knew, too, that it was the man who would die when she was gone.
But, as long as there was a shred of honor left in his soul, he would protect her and keep her safe-- even from himself. For her own sake, if not for his own, she had to return to her own world unsullied and unclaimed. But the destiny was there, declaring Jane was his One True Love.
Fevered, his mind in turmoil, Sojourner sat on the side of the bed nearest the fire and tried to find some solution, some plan that would allow her to stay, allow them to be together for all time. But there was none, and the future was nothing but bleak, empty, cold as the winter that was coming so rapidly.
He would take Jane back to Will, if he had the strength for the deed. Then he would vanish, bid her farewell and walk away, never allowing her to know the fate that waited for him, the heartbreak that would change him completely, take away all the man, leave only the cat. A wild and raging cat that knew nothing but pain.
Her bath scant but strangely satisfying. Jane, still shivering with cold and weariness, marveled at the smell of her skin, the silkiness of her hair, both washed with warm water and the partially melted bar of soap she had found in the treasure chest her purse had become. With more than a little longing, she remembered the luxury hotel where she had stayed in Seattle. A hotel that furnished shampoo, soap, and a host of other amenities. A few of which she wished she had at the moment; such as the bath robe of thick terry cloth and the thick towels.
"And the room service," she muttered as she dried herself on a petticoat and pulled on one of the thick, warm, high-necked, long-sleeved night gowns she had brought with her from the ranch. She saved the last of the clean drawers and one of Will's shirts for the next day's travels. She was icy cold, weary beyond the telling, but still she lingered, oddly reluctant to join Sojourner in their shared bed.
It wasn't the man she feared, or not exactly. She was too bone-tired to worry about or even to want the fulfillment of destiny. Not that it was ever going to be fulfilled. There was no future for them and they both were hurtingly aware of that fact.
On every level of her consciousness, she trusted him without doubt, with her life, and with her heart, but the dreams waited in the bed as well the man, a man only she could see and feel. And it was the dark knowing held in the dreams she wanted to avoid, to cringe away from, but knew she couldn't, knew she had to learn all they had to teach her.
And like bushwhackers in some western movie, the first of the nightmares ambushed her almost before she murmured a brief good-night, an order to wake her if he needed her and, snuggled down under the fire-warmed quilts.
"Sleep, love. You've earned your rest," he whispered, his fingers brushing a brief caress across her cheek. She slept, but there was no rest in it, only ugly images of a world torn apart by horror and betrayal, hate and death. Sojourner's world. A world that saw him cursed and cast out.
