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"Can you get there by candlelight?" he murmurs.
"Yes, and back again."
He twitches.
"I've studied you, Martel. Turned from your great ladylove
Kryn, you did, to the words, to the dusty tapes of antiquity."
He pushes back his chair, puts both hands on the wide arm-
rests.
Emily raises a hand, and he feels a gentle force pushing him back into his
seat.
"You really are the bitch goddess. You really are."
"Did I say I wasn't?" She smiles.
Martel likes the smile, drinks it in, and doesn't trust it.
The candle on the table, dark green, square, winks out.
Martel relights it with a thought, lets it burn, lets the flame flare, and
squeezes it into a narrow column that flickers level with Emily's golden eyes,
and turns the flame black; He re-
laxes his hold, and the golden-green flame returns to normal.
"Very impressive for a nongod."
"Flame tricks, dear bitch goddess. What's happening on
Karnak?"
"You're the newsie. Tell me."
"You're the goddess. Tell me what's behind the news."
"Either an old, old god or a new god, and the gods them-
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selves don't know."
"So the gods are only gods. Is that it?"
Martel again turns the candle flame black, this time to stay
... at least until snuffed and relit.
"Why do you fight everything, Martel? You could be a god, and you fight that.
You could have light, and you fight that. You could have me, and you fight
that. Some things are meant to be."
He looks up at Emily. Even though she returns the study, her eyes open, they
are hooded. But her words ring true, like gold coins dropped on a stone table.
Martel stands, walks around the table, and eases back the heavy chair for her.
"Some things I don't fight Not forever. Shall we go?"
He reaches for her hand.
The fires crackle, black flames licking from his arms and white from hers,
twining in the space and instants before their fingers touch.
A plain gold flitter crouches at the end of the pier, empty.
They enter.
The hillside villa is small, five rooms in all, with limited access. The
cliffs to the back are impassable to any casual visitor, and the lawns and
gardens to the front stretch into what seems an endless forest, though he can
spot a trail sev-
eral kilos beneath the villa.
The master chamber opens to the south and to a vista in-
cluding Sybernal. Mattel takes another look at the sweeping emerald lawns that
drop toward the distant town, toward the pine forests that seem to guard the
grounds.
Emily, or Diana, reappears at his elbow, still wearing the thin white chiton
and antique necklace. She is barefoot, with-
out the white leather sandals.
"You're determined to waste all the time you have, aren't you?"
"Me?"
"You."
"Why did you find me?"
"Why not? Opposites attract."
"Oh. I'm mortal, and you're a goddess? I wear black, and you wear white?"
"Nothing that simple. You could be a god, but refuse. You could wear any
color, but chose black, which is all colors or none. You could have any woman,
but spurn them all."
"You make it sound so simple," growls Martel, refusing to look at her, knowing
that the minute he does he will want her.
"Nothing's simple."
"You, Martel, assume that everything is linked. I'm not asking for the future.
I want the now."
Her hand touches the back of his wrist. He can feel the electricity build in
him, holds it to himself, holds back from looking away from the view of
Sybernal.
"You find me unattractive? Or are you afraid?"
The oldest ploys in the universe.
Of course she's attractive. And of course you're afraid.
You're afraid of your own shadow, Martel, he thinks, not re-
alizing that he has projected his doubts.
Emily says nothing. Stands next to him, her fingers touch-
ing his hand, letting the breeze from the open vista wash over them.
Goddesses don't need sashes or sills, do they, the half-
thought strikes him, strikes him as he feels his body respond-
ing to the desire Emily projects. Not projects, just plain has.
She wants him.
Does he want her? Really want her? Does it matter? What about Rathe? Or Kryn?
"... Then love the one you're with," he murmurs, and turns toward Emily,
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golden Emily, gilded Diana, whose arms come around his neck, and whose lips
meet his.
Kryn, Rathe, Kryn ... he buries the names before they emerge as his hands
tighten on the bitch goddess he holds, as he drops into the depths and the
eternities she represents.
He should feel sleepy, but doesn't, as they lie next to each other, hands
touching, arms touching, legs touching.
"What was she like, Martel?" Emily's voice is softer than he'd imagined it
could be.
"Who?"
"Your lady Kryn."
"Bitch." His voice is flat.
"If you don't want to talk, you don't have to. Were you making love to me or
to her?"
"Suppose I say both and neither? Suppose I say her?"
"Suppose you did. You still wanted me."
"Yes."
"Then that's enough for now. Now is all you have, Martel.
Unless you stop fighting it, and become a god. Or recognize
that you are."
"Do you want me just because I'm stubborn?"
She laughs, and the silver bells ring in her voice and in his mind. "Touche.'
The pines outside the marble pillars sigh with the breeze.
Her hand leaves his, touches his bare shoulder, caresses the back of his neck.
"Martel?"
"Umm?"
"Don't waste any more time."
He rolls on his side to face her, lets his eyes run over her slender body,
over the high breasts of the huntress goddess, over the even golden skin ..,
The second time is gentler.
He awakes alone in the bed, scrambles to his feet
The villa is empty, except for the master chamber closet, where three
identical white chitons hang, with three sets of identical white sandals
beneath. In the bathing chamber, a heated bath steams as he opens the portal.
A thick black towel is laid out. His tunic and trousers, immaculately clean,
are hung next to the towel, with his boots beneath.
Next to his clothes hangs also a black cloak, with an at-
tached collar pin, a black thunderbolt that glistens.
He uses his perceptions to probe the cloak and pin, but they are what they
are, merely a cloak and a pin.
He steps into the bath.
Later, clad in his own clothes and the cloak he knows is a present from Emily,
he walks out to the landing stage where the golden flitter waits, empty and
door ajar.
Now ... he remembers where he has seen Emily.
On the I.D. cube at the CastCenter, on that single cube that had brought the
call of blasphemy and knocked poor Marta
Farell right out of bed.
Of course. The goddess in one of her playful moments, That is not quite right,
he knows, but he shivers, and glances back at the white villa for a last look
before he enters the flitter.
XXVII
A raven consider the bird.
Bulky, black-feathered, wings stubby for the size of its body, raw-voiced and
scratchy-toned, if you will, a scavenger, an overgrown crow. And yet a raven
is more than the sum of the description.
Consider the raven, who stands for the darkness and de-
struction, who embodies all the forebodings of those who cannot fly, and who
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brings the night to day.
Is then the eagle, who is also scavenger and predator, feathered and
screeching in broad daylight, whose sole supe-
riority over the raven is size, the better bird, the more mag-
nificent symbol?
Which would be the mightier were their sizes reversed?
Could we accept all that the raven is ... and grant him the wingspan of an
eagle?
Or is it that we who eat carrion do not like to be reminded of that and revere
the predator who tears bloody meat from just-killed corpses?
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