Guardians - Birth Of Rivalry Part 5

Dragging himself out of the bed, he padded over to the fireplace. Picking up the pitcher of water, kept warm in the ashes near the banked coals, he filled the wooden bowl on the washstand. Bending, he splashed warm water onto his face, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes with rough palms.

Grabbing a rag from beside the bowl, he dried his eyes and opened them. He started back, yelping. Diamante's sardonic gaze peered out at him from the water.

"h.e.l.lo, Pan." Her lips curled into a hungry smile, the tip of her forked tongue peeking out from one corner.

Pan grasped the top of the washstand.

"A fortnight has pa.s.sed, Pandolfo." Diamante's mahogany eyes glowed bright red, and despite himself, Pan flinched. "You have a single fortnight left in which to decide."

She tossed her head, the sleek black hair in her reflection rippling, and Pan stepped back as water splashed over the bowl's edge. When she looked at him again, her eyes were black as a starless night, and Pan struggled to breathe as he drowned in their dark depths. "Do you still believe the curse is not real?"

He shook his head, unable to speak.

"I am the only one who can save you, Pan," Diamante whispered. "The Guardian is immortal. As long as he walks this earth, you are cursed."

"Is... is there no way to destroy him?"

Dia chuckled. "There is always a way, Pan. The question is who will help you?" She raised her eyebrows.

Pan glanced at the bed. "Ysa... she is not mine to give."

"She will be."

Pan's heart beat painfully at this p.r.o.nouncement. To have her, finally and completely...

"Become mine, Pan, and you will have everything your heart desires." Dia's eyes gleamed. "Eventually."

Pan didn't even register the qualification. "How?" he breathed.

Diamante's voice became a sibilant hiss. "I will transform you, Pandolfo. You, too, will be immortal. And other gifts shall be yours, if you submit to my will."

"What gifts?"

Diamante chuckled. "Silly boy. Those secrets are yours only if you submit." Her gaze became womanly again -- sultry, seductive. "I am the only one who can mitigate the curse, Pan. The only one who can offer you a chance to triumph in the end."

Her gaze bored into him. Wispy remembrances of the night's dreams drew together in Pan's mind, forming smoky gray tentacles that wrapped around his heart and filled him with icy fear. He knew this was Diamante's doing. She was using the remnants of his dreams to manipulate him. For all he knew, she'd sent them. Yet she was right. If Vitale was immortal, and Ysa's curse was real, he had no hope of overcoming either without the G.o.ds' a.s.sistance. He took a deep breath, then met her eyes boldly, consciously submitting to her will. "Done,Diavolo . I am yours."

Diamante's eyes blazed with triumph. "Again, Pan."

"I am yours, Diavolo."

"Again."

"I am yours!"

Pan gasped as his nose began to bleed, dripping into the clear water. The liquid began to spin, thick streamers of blood twisting into the depths of a matchless silver sea.

The red coalesced. Thickened. Became a writhing, slavering tongue that reached out of those depths and caressed Pan's cheek.

He screamed as his skin hissed, the forked tongue burning. Ysa stirred behind him, murmuring his name sleepily.

Excruciatingly slowly, the tongue slid away. Pan peered into a bowl of clear water again, clear save for Diamante's shadowy face. "You are Marked now, Pan. Mine. Forever."

Pan s.h.i.+vered. He had wanted so desperately to have help. Hope. Why did he now feel so desolate?

Her voice faded as the vision dissipated. "I will meet you in Sicily."

A fist pounded the door. "Pandolfo! Are you all right?" Heriberto shouted from outside. "Pandolfo!"

He hurried over and threw back the bolt, holding the door open so 'Berto could enter. When his brother saw him, his face paled. "What has happened?" He stared in horror at the mark on his cheek.

Pan winced. "When I set the pitcher down by the fire, I sent a stick buried in the embers flying into my face."

'Berto stepped forward to study the injury. "A strange mark for a stick to make, brother." His gaze took in the pitcher, still perched on the washstand beside the bowl, but he said no more. "I will send Savia up with a salve." He turned back to the door. "She will bring breakfast as well, and when you are finished, I will take you to Etuard."

Chapter 12: A Sense of Evil.

Vitale lived and breathed the city of Genoa.

And searched.

Often, he found darkness. The kind of darkness that lurks in the hearts of discontented men and women and starts them down the path of demons, but does not make them one... yet. He judged and punished three such men, when they accosted a young girl hurrying home down an alley in the dead of night.

Even before she screamed, he sensed their intentions and launched himself into the sky. Hovering above the alley, he hesitated for a moment, wondering if he truly had the right to intervene. The Lady's blessing -- a soft, silent sense of benediction, released him from his indecision. Landing among them, the reek of their soul's taint sharp in his nostrils, the urge to rip their groping hands from their bodies tempted him sorely. He could not bring himself to do it. Instead, he reached into their minds as they backed away. Burned an image within them of what their torment would be if they ever tried to take a woman again without her consent.

Wide-eyed, babbling, they stumbled back to the alley's mouth, then scattered like frightened rats. Vitale turned to the girl. She pushed herself up, her dress dirty, her hands smudged, but with no other damage. Trembling, she reached out a hand and touched his forearm tentatively. "Thank you," she whispered, her eyes huge in the moonlight.

Vitale strained to make his harsh, gravelly voice soft and low. "The kisses of your young man are not worth the possibility of losing yourself to such as those." He hoped he looked stern, but not frightening. "Promise me you will not sneak away to see him again in the night. You are betrothed. You will have many nights together, after you are wed."

The girl's eyes widened. "H-how did you know?"

Vitale had no idea what to say. Could he speak of himself to mortals? The Lady had not forbidden it, so he gave her the truth. "I am a Guardian. I watch over all who dwell in this city." He crouched a bit lower, looking deep into those eyes. "Promise."

The girl swallowed nervously. "I-I promise."

"Go." Vitale straightened, flexing his wings. "I will follow until you are home."

She nodded again and turned, scurrying down alleys and across streets until she reached the vine-covered trellis below her window. She hesitated just before climbing inside. "Are you a G.o.d?"

Vitale hovered above her. Shook his head. "I am a Guardian."

She considered that for a moment, her face very serious, then smiled. "I'm glad to know you are watching over me." Quick as a vole, she scampered up the trellis and slipped through the open window, waving as the wind lifted him toward the stars.

The next morning, he couldn't stop thinking about that girl. Though fair of face and skin, in thought and deed she reminded him of Ysa. With his spirit spread throughout the city, he had sensed dimly the moment the young woman sneaked away from her house, to meet her betrothed in a dark corner of his father's gardens. A great yearning dwelt within her -- an ember that threatened to burst into flame with each kiss, each forbidden touch from her young suitor. That flame burned in the boy, as well.

Had Ysa felt that way?

Vitale remembered her eager fingers, reaching into his breeches, fondling his swollen member. Remembered the surge of desire as her warm mouth enclosed him. Remembered shock, as well.

He had wanted her so badly. So many nights he had sat in his window, gazing out toward town, toward Ysa, as his hands stroked his body, relieving his dark needs. Could it have been that way for Ysa? Could she have begun to touch herself, wanting him? And, finding that such an empty pleasure, turned to Pan, who was willing to do for her that which Vitale refused?

Half the time, he pictured the clearing, Pan's c.o.c.k stroking in and out of Ysa's a.s.s, and hated her. At other times, his body filled with a raging need, with excitement, at the idea of taking her that way himself. Of finding out just what she might know about the ways of a man and a woman. Of having that eager, hungry gaze on him as he buried himself inside her.

Mentally, Vitale groaned. Even after she had begun making advances, he'd still thought of her as the sweet, innocent girl who had come to live with her uncle after her father died. There had always been a touch of wildness to her -- a wildness her gypsy grandmother approved of, even cultivated. But it had been an innocent kind of abandon. Ysa had seemed only an earthy, untamed kitten, eager to explore and discover, playing at life and love. It had never occurred to him that she felt the darker urges. That she might lie awake at night and ache for his touch the way he ached for hers.

He had failed her. As she said that day in his father's barn, he had listened only to the voices of propriety, of piety. He had not listened to the needs of the one person he loved above all others.

A small voice inside him asked why she hadn't been able to wait, as he had.

As he trembled there, on the cusp between love and condemnation, a...wrongness brushed against his far-flung senses. Preoccupied, he ignored the slight abrasion, his thoughts consumed by his struggle to come to terms with what Ysa had done. Yet as the darkness advanced into the city, it burned like hot oil and his senses turned, gathering around the invader like a pack of wolves.

Vitale abandoned his soul-searching and immersed his mind in the city of Genoa, following the slick evil to a tavern on the city's east side. The vision provided by his extended senses showed him a man carefully applying ointment to a strange burn on his face, wreathed by tendrils of the darkest mire -- the thickest strand of which wrapped tightly around his heart.

In the next moment, if Vitale had still possessed a heart of his own in the human sense of the word, its beating would have stilled, for the focus of this clinging evil was Pan, and the woman lying in the tousled bed behind him was Ysa. And the air around her swarmed with the same dark threads -- probing, scratching, trying to claw their way in, to grasp her heart the way they had his cousin's.

His focus shattered, and pain ripped through him, his awareness snapping back to his frozen body so abruptly that it felt as though he had become blind, deaf, and dumb all at once.

He cast about, panicked, seeking to touch the minds, the heart, of the city he had come to feel was a part of him. His disorganized thoughts slipped and slithered past their targets, like fingers suddenly turned to limp noodles. He fought his panic. Turning in upon himself, he sought the calm center within him, the place where he felt closest to the G.o.ddess.

The pain subsided. Sunlight warmed his stone body, renewing his strength. A state of calm pervaded his limbs. He rested and renewed, absorbing the sun's energy. In the recesses of his mind, a whisper urged him to contact the Lady. He quelled the persistent voice. He would do so... eventually. After he removed Ysa from harm's way.

Vitale marked the pa.s.sing of the sun. As the last finger of light disappeared from the horizon, he launched himself into the sky, hovering above the city as he searched for her.

They were gone.

Vitale cursed. Circling in the air, he flung out his senses.

There. The taint upon his cousin's soul left its mark on the earth below him. Vitale veered, his powerful wings bearing him purposefully to the south.

Outside of town, the dense air that bore him up failed, and he plummeted toward the ground. Just before he hit the earth, the air thickened once more, depositing him gently on a thick carpet of rotting leaves.

"Vitale."

His eyes searched the clearing, found the faint mist flowing in, drawing up into a column. When the figure finally coalesced, it was the Crone's dark eyes that glared at him from deep within her wrinkled face. Her voice rang out. "Where are you going, Guardian?"

Vitale looked away.

"Something has happened," she hissed. "Tell me."

How could he tell her the darkness she sought resided in his cousin, and encircled Ysa hungrily? He cast about vaguely, searching for a reasonable explanation for his sudden abandonment of Genoa.

"Tell me." No longer a request, the command vibrated throughout Vitale's being. His mouth opened, and the story was dragged from him word by halting word -- everything he'd seen and felt.

When he was done, the G.o.ddess appeared agitated, her form wavering. Maiden, Mother, Crone, Mother, she finally settled into the Maiden. "Abaddon."

Vitale stared, puzzled. "Abaddon?"

"The Destroyer," she murmured. "Diavolo."

"Pan?" Vitale stammered. "Pan is the devil?"

The Maiden's temper flared. "Not Pan, you fool!" She closed her eyes, visibly calming herself. "I am sorry." She stared through him, her gaze troubled, as though looking upon some distant tragedy. "For the Dark One to act directly..." Her gaze returned to Vitale. "The evil you sensed,that was Abaddon.

Diavolo. The devil, as you humans name him. It appears he has made a bargain. Pan has become a vessel for his power." She shook her head. "I did not know he was involved. I fear I have brought you into something for which neither of us is prepared."

Abruptly, she became the Crone again. "Very well," she cackled. "The battle lines are drawn. The others must be informed and given a chance to choose."

She fixed Vitale with her piercing stare, as though searching the depths of his soul once more. Her sharp eyes seemed to see everything, even the dark needs he kept wrapped so tightly within him. "I think your young woman is the first battle. She may still be saved." She nodded. "You must go to Messina, in Sicily. Await her there. When she arrives, you may speak to her. If you still believe her love is true, you may bind her to you."

"Bind her?"

"If she allows you to drink of her blood -- freely, expecting nothing in return but your love -- then you will be flesh and blood when the moon holds sway, and the witch will be forever bound to you. You will be life-mates, heart-mates, for as long as you walk this earth. She will be immortal, as you are, a source of comfort and respite during the long task that lies ahead of you."

A sharp excitement filled him at the prospect of spending an immortal lifetime in the service of the G.o.ddess with Ysa by his side. "Am I truly immortal? Can nothing harm me?"

The G.o.ddess frowned. "Your new body is very difficult to harm, but not impossible. And the gift of healing I have granted to you will not cure all things. Even so, you will serve us a long, long time."

"But the witch must not know that. You must not tell her that she will remain young and beautiful forever. She must love you enough to enter into the pact blindly, not knowing what to expect, what she will become." Her shrewd gaze searched Vitale's face.

"I understand."

"And know this -- once you have bound her, you must not be parted for more than a day and a night.

While you are only stone, you are fully mine, fully immortal. Once you are flesh again, you are somewherebetween . You will still have my other gifts, but you must drink of her blood every night, or die. And this is for her, as well. The touch of your tongue, the mingling of those fluids with her blood, it is that which will keep her alive and young after the binding." She gave a crooked smile. "It is awkward, I know, but there are limits even to what the G.o.ds may do."

She stiffened abruptly, her eyes becoming unfocused as she seemed to turn toward something in the distance. Her form began to dissipate. "Go to Messina. Watch for Abaddon. I will know when you have found him."

"Yes, G.o.ddess." Vitale bowed, and when he looked up again, he was alone.

Tentatively, he leaped into the air, relieved to find that his weight was supported once more. The knowledge that the G.o.ddess, should he displease her, could send him cras.h.i.+ng to the ground reminded him that her blessing might just as easily become a curse. He might not die again from such a fall, but he had no doubt that the G.o.ddess would be perfectly willing to punish him if he made a habit out of disobeying her wishes.

That thought birthed another, even more sobering. No matter how pleased he was to be living, to be fulfilling what seemed to be a n.o.ble purpose, he no longer ruled his own destiny. For the first time, he saw what it meant to be a p.a.w.n in a game of G.o.ds, and though he felt he was on the side of right, only time would tell.

Chapter 13: Vitale's Offer.

In the days that followed, balanced on a spire of the Church of Santa Maria Alemanna in Messina, Vitale savored the sights, sounds, and feel of the fascinating portside city. In comparison, Orphieto seemed small, isolated, even more of a peasant village than Pan had always said it was. So many people, from so many places! He found that if he listened to someone speak an unfamiliar language for only a short period of time, he would begin to understand them. This was not knowledge that stayed with him, for if he focused his attention elsewhere, he could not then remember how to say the words he had learned only moments before. Still, it was very useful, and he had a feeling that perhaps with more exposure, he would begin to absorb those languages. At times, he shuddered, both thrilled and frightened by the gifts of the triple G.o.ddess.