Doctor D’Arco, Sorcerer of London

39. The Legend of Doctor D’Arco

Chapter 39

The Legend of Doctor D’Arco

If not for the candle burning low, I thought we might have stayed standing in each other’s embrace forever, Victor and I.

But in time we parted, and with a last admiring glance at the crystal rift and the churning roots, he took my hand again and led me back down to the lighted hallway before his chamber.

“You should rest,” he told me as he opened the door for me, slowly releasing my hand. “Sleep, if you can.”

“And you, sir? When do you rest, and where, if you continue to insist upon your bed being for my sole use?”

I looked up and into those dark eyes, in time to see the subtle warmth in them as they gazed down at me.

“I have matters to attend, for now,” he replied, “chief among them to secure you something suitable to eat and drink. If you will not sleep in the meantime, at least lie down for a while. Read, perhaps—there are some books in the corner.”

I thought that something shifted in his voice at that last, though I was not certain how, nor why.

“All right, sir,” I allowed. I had no wish to part from him—none at all—but I could not deny that I was tired: not the painful, unsettling weakness of the taint of Gremio’s poisonous art, but a more natural sensation of depleted strength after a taxing effort. “But what of your own health? I couldn’t help but notice the bandages, and the change in how you walk.”

“Healing.” I thought that I caught the hint of a smile alter the corner of that brooding mouth. “Do not concern yourself for now. All is well enough, or will be soon. I will not be long.”

I did not know quite what to do as we parted—whether to kiss or not to kiss, or how to touch, or what to say—and so I only bowed my head in a kind of nod, and was not surprised when my fingers carelessly brushed his as I took the candle from his hand and stepped into his chamber alone.

As he locked the door quietly behind me, I paused for a moment, taking in the sight of the room from this new angle. I had not, after all, seen it from this direction before: the first time I entered, I had been carried in, insensible in his muscular arms.

I saw now little that I had not seen already from the other side—there was the bed, the washstand, the wardrobe, the door to the washroom, the sturdy chair—save for it being lighted by candles rather than gas, it had all the features and practical advantages of a modern bedchamber, though in a heavy, solid style, as suited to centuries past as it was to today. It evidenced an eye to form and fashion, but with little concern for the fleeting vagaries of popular taste. And yet again, this was the room of neither a Spartan nor an ascetic monk: the fine pelts that made up the coverlet on the bed were an indulgence, after all, as were the few fur rugs on the floor, the small upholstered couch beside the bookshelf in the corner, and the large and rather distinguished hearth carved into one of the ore-streaked walls.

A hard man , I thought to myself, adjudging what I saw to speak to his character. A substantial man, with little use for frippery or ostentation, and yet a man who is not above the satisfaction of the senses.

The satisfaction of the senses. That latter notion lingered in my mind as I looked to the bed, the sheets and the fur coverlet still lying in languid disarray from when I rose to walk with him.

We would share that bed one evening soon, would we not?

I smiled at the thought, and at the little thrill of anticipation that slipped suddenly down my spine. The idea pleased me. The seeming inevitability of it warmed my skin.

And then, belatedly, the full portent of the moment struck me, and I felt my body tense beneath the ghostly touch of a second fleeting shiver: had the time already come? Had he meant for me to prepare for him—to partially undress, perhaps—and was that the true reason he left me to await his return?

But I ought in that moment to have laughed at myself for my eagerness, or shaken my head at my poor, enduring instinct of doubting him yet again. No, surely he left me to my rest, as he claimed; certainly he sensed my fatigue, and I imagined he remained in enough discomfort from his injuries to cause him to prefer another time. I would help him with his bandages, if he were to allow me, and we would wait until the time became right.

So sudden a change, I thought to myself, to think of him in such unabashedly intimate terms. Yet why would it be any other way, when we had already given our lives for each other, and sealed the exchange with so true a kiss?

And that is when, gazing at the bed yet, a curious detail caught my eye.

On the side toward the door—the one facing me now, less disrupted than the far side in which I had slept—there was something vaguely irregular in the way that the long edge of the coverlet rested on the rug. I thought it first a trick of the flickering candle I carried as I drew closer, and then I thought it a capricious predisposition of my mind: naturally, upon seeing the inward bend of one narrow section of the overhanging bedclothes, I would think of Victor sliding some secret possession under his bed to hide it—I would think of such a thing, because it was on my mind for my having done the same, when I hastily hid away my husband’s book and strongbox in my cold guest chamber.

No, I corrected myself, Victor—master of his own grand, cavernous domain beneath the earth, the extent of its vastness still unknown to me—Victor would not hide books beneath his bed. And surely not on the side of the hallway door, where the first pair of inquiring eyes to enter the chamber would find that subtle hint of subterfuge.

Perhaps it was my tired state that made me the correct balance of foolish and bold; perhaps the lingering euphoria of his kiss, his touch, his embrace had affected my mind; I cannot say, but I could not restrain my impulsive curiosity. Looking back to the door, I ascertained that the line of light beneath it was free of shadows; I listened for the strikes of his boots on stone, and hearing none, I crouched down and reached beneath the bed.

It was all I could do to keep the candle steady in my other hand as I started in surprise: immediately behind the long edge of the coverlet, my fingers touched a book.

How childish I felt—but that did not sate my prying interest. Gently, eagerly, I slid my surreptitious prize out over the hair of the rug and gathered it into my lap as I sat on the floor, somehow managing the presence of mind to arrange the bedding as I had found it before I began to study the volume that now rested on my thigh.

It was an old codex covered in dry, crackling brown leather, marked with neither author nor title; setting down my candle, I opened the book with care, and inside found vellum pages inscribed in black ink by a firm, bold hand.

Still no shadows at the door, I noted as my eyes rose to check again. Still no sharp, heavy footsteps. I thought uncomfortably of the memory of reading my husband’s book in my own small chamber, listening to Victor’s boots on Hargrave’s stairs—but I could not dwell on such things, I knew, and I allowed my eyes to fall back down to the tome in my hands.

This was Victor’s handwriting, surely. It was nearly as efficient, as forceful—almost brazen, yet not without a subtle sense of style—and if it were not an exact match, perhaps it had been only the circumstance of writing a book instead of letters, or of writing on vellum rather than paper, that caused the slight difference. Or perhaps, I thought, the passage of time had changed his style, though without his mask he did not look to be more than five and forty, and with a virile strength to exceed even that of younger men.

I wondered why he would have chosen to write in so old a book, and I wondered again at his choice of languages to use. The primary one in which he wrote was unknown to me, and largely unintelligible, yet something about it was familiar somehow: something like Italian, I thought, reminiscent of the words in the old water-stained grimoire that he read to me beneath the oak. Turning the pages, I found also lengthy passages written in an old style of German (I recognized this with greater certainty, though I could not understand more than a few words), and at last—I had to look at the sentences twice, disbelieving at first my own good fortune—a long run of pages in English.

Seated on the floor, albeit with a fur rug to soften the stone, I had meant to consider some more comfortable place to read, as I had meant to wonder whether he made a practice of hiding books beneath his bed after all, or whether (as I suspected) he placed it purposely where he expected me to find it; there was a time, not long ago, when I would have questioned if this were a test, and if so whether my intrepidity or my discretion were to be measured by my choices. But now I could not entertain such distraction and delay.

Victor’s book commanded my attention from the start.

His English was of a strangely archaic style, nothing like his (quite modern, if somewhat formal) speech or his letters; his sentences were occasionally ungrammatical in the manner of a foreigner new to the tongue. These both served to make me linger longer over every passage, and yet despite them his written voice was alive with the primeval stirrings of his familiar precision and force. When he so chose, his bare-bladed words still cut to the bone.

Yes, the more I read of that old volume, the more entirely certain I became that Victor was its author: for his handwriting, for his words, and for his heart—his restless, soul-wrung wrath—his implacable will in its full fury—the drowning depths of his desire to feel, and to be free, and to love.

I knew him. After our kiss, I could not mistake him. There could never have been two of such men in all of time, in all the world.

So engrossed did I become in his words that I wondered if some manner of spell had fallen over me, and whether I could tear myself away in time if he approached—but listening again for his footsteps as I read, I heard only my own breath, quickening with a voyeur’s taut urgency as his handwritten tale took so erotic a turn. Yet this was what he wished for me to read, if indeed he meant for me to find the book, and I give it here in only mild paraphrase, from its abrupt beginning to its bitter end:

“I came to hate the life of a courtier with every slackless fiber of my soul—my nerves stretched tighter at every fawning bow and curtsy, every shallow obsequity galled me, every performance of society twisted a knife—no! I should have relished, in my state, anything so sharp. This was a slow, dull death by stifling, and I wanted only to gasp for a breath of savage air, to feel at last alive.

“Should the academy life have been better? Should a Doctor of Divinity not scrape at least at the low-hanging dregs of Heaven? In that cold university I was freed of the numbing pleasantries of the court—the sun-ripe fruits I could no longer tell from stale bread crust, the simpering noblewomen who knew all of how to touch and tease and nothing of how to sate the soul, the machinations over molehills while somewhere, far beyond, the eternal sea still rolled—God! But He was nowhere in that very university which smiled so complacently in His name, and I was left again in the soft smug death-grip of community , cornered by the teeming horde of convention that crushes all who stand apart into the faceless false equivalence of the fellow-man.

“I was restless, and the more they smoothed and soothed and enriched me in their pat pleasantries, the wilder I grew under my skin—a creature of inviolate rage, held in check only by their thread-thin reins I still deigned to allow. I longed to snap them like strings, to throw back my head and howl into the grand fury of the true world—the world I sensed, obscurely, in every throb of my blood, in the sweat of my sleep as every night I dreamt of escape into the vastness of the dark, far away, until the sound of the sea overtook the knell of the matin-bell. I pined for the feeling of the turning of the earth as I yearned to pine for a lover; I desired something—anything—worthy of the unsounded depths of my desire, an expression of the fevered fire I felt burning in my veins. I was yet young, a man of few more than twenty years, and they had not yet blinded my senses to the power that rose within me. Power for what , I did not yet know.

“And so, one night under a swollen summer moon, hanging low and lurid—under the uncanny moonlight I seized from the sleeping library a particular forbidden volume and stole away into the shadows of the trees, and through them to the sea, drawing thirsty, heaving breaths of the salt-spray from the waves that surged and crashed on the rocks at the base of the cliff. Let this tumult be my sanctuary, let desire be my law—but let me feel, at last, alive! With this grimoire I would defy all that they had endeavored to teach me as a would-be Doctor of Divinity, break every chain in which they had sought to bind me, so that they could never lay claim nor name to me, and I would never be theirs. What I would become, I did not know—it did not matter—as long as I was myself.

“Alone in the grove of bent trees on the sea-cliff I threw off my cloak and robes, as I heard whispers that the witches of this land once did, and clothed only in the warm shadows of the summer moon I held the grimoire open, fixed my will upon it, and allowed its pages, in the salt sea-breeze, to turn and fall open where they may?—

“The last leaf turned as the wind died, and revealed upon the pages was the name and likeness of Helen of Troy.

“The notion thrilled me, moved me with a sense I had never known—the legendary test of sorcery, the summoning of the supposed most beautiful woman to ever walk the earth—my heart quickened to touch for the first time the great forbidden force of the world, to unleash myself, to burst the iron chains of all who presumed to restrain this surging of my soul.

“Helen of Troy! The face that launched a thousand ships, and burned the fabled towers of Ilium down! With the grimoire in one hand I took a fallen branch in the other, and carved into the sandy loam near my bare feet the signs to call her name through the underworld gates and the mists of time.

“The wind from the sea rose again, and I tasted its salt on my tongue as I read aloud from the old grimoire the spell to summon her; I felt the wind sharpen against my bare body and my face, and whip through my long black hair; the grimoire dropped from my hands, fluttered and snapped closed beside a tree trunk, in the lee of the wind—I saw this from the corner of my eye, but I knew that spell now by heart—and I crouched to touch the earth, the signs I had drawn into her cool fertile flesh, as I spoke the words of the spell again, again, again amidst the whispering of the twisted trees?—

“By some instinct I stood at once. There was nothing to be seen but sea mist, fog blown in on the night wind, yet I thought I saw it glow beneath the moonlight. I squinted my eyes against the sting of the salt breeze, though it stilled now, and before me at the edge of the trees, nearly the edge of the sea-cliff itself, the mist was gathering.

“Gathering into a figure.

“ Helen , I breathed: I knew her, though I had never seen her, though her likeness in the grimoire was a crude mockery of her true visage—I knew her, before even the moonlit fog resolved into a woman’s form.

“There was a flash of silver light, a sound of fabric rippling in the wind—though there was no wind, and the air had grown uncannily still—and I knew that she had let fall her robe, and was as naked as was I.

“ Vittorio , she spoke my name as she stepped towards me through the trees, no longer fog and sea-mist but a woman of impossible beauty, with skin the color of sand and hair darker than the sea, and I sensed already the faint, sweet musk of her desire. Heat rose in my veins. You summoned me, Vittorio?

“ I summoned you , I heard my own voice in my ears, so thick and deep with yearning it scarcely seemed my own, as I stalked slowly towards her in the shadows of the grove, every nerve aflame, the touch of the earth beneath my feet alive with the quiver of lightning; I watched her eyes drift down the expanse of my bare skin, and from the growing ache between my thighs I did not have to wonder what she saw.

“She smiled, beckoning to me. Kiss me, Vittorio. I want you .

“The shadows between us closed, and as my hands searched her body—her corporeal body, her living woman’s form, her warm, soft, glistening flesh—she pulled me down and into her, and in the last moments before my parted lips touched hers, I heard her whisper I want all of you . Something in her tone was ominous; a dark shiver slid down my spine, a touch of ice that penetrated to the bone—it thrilled me—I could not stop.

“Her sand-brown skin was fading, her black hair warming to a deep gold as the fistful of her straight tresses in my hand twisted into a bounty of waves, and I wondered if I had been mistaken—if this were the true Helen of Troy—yet if she were not, I wanted this woman of the sea-mist no less; I needed her, I burned for her; goaded by her touch I unleashed my desire upon her, kissing her deeper, deeper, drinking her in with the savage need of a man dying of thirst as she seemed to devour all my fury with an appreciative moan against my lips, sucking gently on my tongue, and I wondered at her self-control—I thought of the waves breaking on the rock cliff, spending their cresting wrath again and again against that implacable, invincible force—and then all thought was eradicated: the muscles of my abdomen clenched beneath her fingers as she slipped a hand down, down between my naked thighs as we kissed, and distracted by her hand I scarcely realized that something strong and silken was circling around my fingers that ran through her hair, a touch as light as a spider’s web trailing over my wrist and up my arm—it did not matter—I did not stop. Her hand trailed back up my thigh and closed around me, and she slid her thumb across my slick tip and rubbed me against her, and I scarcely cared, as I kneaded her full, ripe breasts and thrust instinctively into her hand, that something was constricting around my arms and legs as I kissed her—my muscles tensed in reflex—I lost my balance, and I felt myself fall?—

“I was on my bare back on the cool, damp earth, entangled in her hair, watching with a strange fascination as a ring of ghost-pale mushrooms erupted slowly through the loam in a circle closing around us—watching the golden strands of her lengthening locks curl inexorably around my shoulders and my wrists, soft to the touch and inhuman in their strength—my ankles were pinned to the ground by the grasping owl-talons of her feet—her tongue, as I watched her flick it teasingly at the muscles of my heaving chest, was forked like a snake’s—I arched my spine, straining up toward her as she lowered herself slowly down onto me, agonizingly slowly; I have always been a strong man, and surely I could have thrown her off of me, even now with her long hair twined around my body, but I had no desire to escape nor to stop her. None at all. I desired her, I wanted her, I wanted this, no matter who or what this woman was; as she slipped her serpentine tongue past my lips I kissed her, closing my eyes for the pleasure as I heard myself groan into her mouth, gripping her against me as she slowly sank down, enveloped me, overcame me—inside her heat I shuddered as I lost control, throbbing into her as she shivered and sighed with a smile against my lips.

“ Tell me , I listened to my own panting murmur as I felt my body relax, tell me your true name , and she chuckled softly, and the last thing I heard was her whispering voice as she leaned down to breathe a single word into my ear:

“ Lilith .”

“ So strong . Is that how you endured so long?

“ I heard her whispered words as if in a dream, before I realized I was awakening. Rain was falling, gathering and dripping from the leaves of the trees. The sea was still breaking against the rocks. She had a soft, deep, sibilant voice, and I became aware of the light touch of her fingers idly tracing the musculature of my abdomen and chest.

“ But more than this alone. There must be more. Perhaps you are some sort of sorcerer… perhaps. You are powerful in that art—the spirits attend you, dancing.

“I felt her stroke my neck, the side of my face, and as she touched the corner of my mouth I lightly bit into her finger.

“She hissed in surprise, and then laughed; and I smiled.

“I opened my eyes. It was night still—no, it was night again —the night was dark, nearly shadowless, and through the waving canopy of the trees and the veil of clouds I saw the waning moon. Even in the dimmest of moonlight she seemed nearly to glow, clothed now in a thin white dress; I was lying naked in the dark grass, my head resting in the warmth of her lap. The corpse-pale mushrooms, engorged with the dampness of the night, still encircled us in a perfect faerie ring.

“Still I heard the rain fall somewhere in the dark. I thought I should be cold and rain-soaked, but despite my efforts I sensed no chill nor damp, and the grass, crushed and fragrant, was dry against my skin. I lay still for a long while, my rage comfortably spent, breathing in the scent of her and listening to the sea and the rain, watching her fingers trail across the black hair of my chest.

“Memories drifted slowly back: the grimoire and my fury—the salt wind off the sea—my night with her— nights with her—it must have been—her body against mine, her enchanted hair twisting and tightening and binding me fast—it was not so now—my limbs were free, and her long hair that brushed my shoulder was the beautiful hair of a mortal woman, yet I knew that what I remembered was neither vision nor dream.

“How long had I lain here with her, bowered in a faerie ring under the sea-cliff trees? I touched the side of my jaw, expecting to find a growth of beard to match the time that must have passed—the changing of the moon—only to discover I had little more stubble than when we began.

“Into my deep, pleasurable languor crept an uncanny dread: a sense of vertigo, a dream-fall, as if the crashing waves were eroding the cliff beneath me in my half-sleep. I did not fear it—not precisely—it was as faint as it was profound, lingering at the edges of my nerves. A new stirring of life. A strange, sleeping power in the vastness of the night. I wondered at the change.

“I caught her hand gently as it touched mine. Am I dead?

“From the tone of her voice, she must have smiled. No… and there’s the surprise. You live yet. Her hand slipped down my wrist, massaging my forearm. You are a strong man, Vittorio, body and seed and soul. And now you are a father, many times over, with cause for a father’s pride. You have given me good, strong imps. Thank you.

“A father of imps, many times over; after all that had come to pass, it scarcely seemed strange—no cause for regret. Lilith , I sighed as I tried to sit up—she supported me from behind, helping me rise, and as she wrapped her arms around me I let myself lean back into her embrace. I watched a tendril of her hair snake over my shoulder and coil lightly, vine-like, around my bicep. You are Lilith. Aren’t you .

“ Yes , came her whisper in my ear from behind, her lips brushing the lobe. I am Lilith. And I am Helen of Troy —I heard her chuckle: a low, musical sound— because Helen of Troy is Lilith no less. That name was mine, many years ago; I walk the earth, sorcerer, now and again.

“ Why? If you are Lady Lilith, Queen of the Night ? —

“ Yes, sorcerer. Among my many titles.

“— What do you lack in your kingdom below? What do you seek here?

“ Love.

“Such a wistfulness was in that single word, such a naked longing I could hardly bear to hear; I leaned back onto her shoulder and kissed her, slowly, deeply. I loved her—I thought I truly loved her—let him cast aspersions who will, and say that she made a stallion of me, a sire for her imps—but I was never unwilling. Not for a moment. Not even then. I felt my nerves quicken as she ran her soft fingers over my chest again.

“But a sorcerer , had she thought me? The first time I had ever endeavored the arcane arts? Very well. I liked the title. It suited me.

“I would make it mine.

“ I suppose you want something of me, sorcerer, she sighed as our lips parted, to have summoned me thus. Most of them do, and do not last long enough to ask.

“ What happens to them?

“ They tire. The body of a mortal man can only endure pleasure for so many hours on end… for so many days.

“I knew the legends well enough to know not to ask what happened to them next—what was meant by her insinuation—what horror was left unsaid. I must have shuddered against her at the thought; a single strand of her hair crept lower down my arm like the filament of a spider’s ensnaring web, but she chuckled softly and stroked my skin, and I felt myself relax under her touch. I should have feared her, I imagine, knowing well what she was—what she had done—what we had done—but I felt only comfort: a warm, relaxed exhaustion, shot through with a dark and vital thrill.

“She made me feel alive.

“ How long have we been together?

She settled closer against me, the weight of her breasts pressing against my back. “ I don’t know, truly. Our time moves differently than yours. But we made love many times—do you remember?

“ Some. Just flashes—feelings. Sensations.

“I heard my own voice thicken at the last word, and she flicked her forked tongue at the side of my throat. What more do you need than that? Ah, Vittorio… but do not be humble with me: name your sorcerer’s price. You deserve it, and thrice over, for all you have given me. I desire to fulfill it: for you, most of all, and so that none may say Lilith is ungrateful.

“ Stay with me, Lilith . It was true, then—it was no mere flattery. I took her soft woman’s hand in mine, and she bent forward to rest her head on my shoulder with a quiet sigh, not quite a hiss, her shining hair drifting across my skin.

“ I cannot walk well in this form beneath the sun, but summon me by night, sorcerer, and I will come to you—and if you fail to summon me, I will haunt your dreams.

“ Promise me?

“ I have already. But this is no bargain—this is no price paid. My love and my lust are yours, but they cannot be bought. You must name another price.

“ Your magic.

“I felt her body tense against mine. My magic, Vittorio?

“ Teach me. I know that you bewitched the spores of the earth to raise a circle; have you never bewitched a man?

“ I did no such thing to you ? —

“ Shh , I breathed, smiling over my shoulder at her as I stroked her hand. Not to me. I accuse you of no wrong. She calmed at my touch, shifting her feet where she sat, and I felt the brush of an owl-talon against the skin of my leg. I only ask for you to teach me, so much as you can or will. That is my price.

“ It is faerie magic, sorcerer—I think that is what your kind call it. Demon magic, perhaps. The common arrangement is that you summon us—that is your magic—and we enact such of our magic as you wish ? —

“I turned myself around toward her, facing her, looking into her sea-mist eyes as I twisted a lock of her hair loosely around my finger. It constricted on its own. Lilith. I do not ask for the common arrangement.

“ I have never taught anyone, sorcerer, much less one of your kind. You ask much. But I would teach you, if I knew how to put words to an instinct.

“ Then how do you begin?

“ Begin? She looked at me in genuine confusion, then suspicion, as if it were absurd for the sorcerer who summoned her to ask so elementary a question.

“I pressed her nonetheless. You bewitched the faerie ring. How did you start?

“She closed her eyes, and I felt the light touch of a claw drifting across my leg as it curled and uncurled in thought. My magic begins from a sense , she whispered, opening her eyes and gazing deeply—too deeply—into mine. A feeling.

“I met that gaze fearlessly, gripping her shoulder in my hand. Then make me feel it.

“She smiled as she nodded—she was a beautiful woman, after all, her strong jaw and her bounty of golden hair and her young woman’s smile—and the dual tips of her tongue slid slowly across her lips. She laid back on the grass under me with a quiet, sibilant sigh, holding my gaze as she freed her breasts from the clinging white gauze of her dress.

“ Slowly, sorcerer , she breathed against my ear as I sucked at her nipples and then covered her body with mine, tasting the soft, sweet skin of her arching neck, my hand drawing aside the thin fabric of her skirt and parting her warm thighs.

“ Slowly now. Conserve your power. Listen to the rain.

“I listened as I kissed her again. The rain fell steadily, somewhere beyond her faerie ring in the deep blackness of the night, and I rubbed her with my fingers in a slow rhythm until she sighed into my lips and wrapped her legs around my back, pulling me into her—I pushed inexorably into her heat, the touch of her talons stiletto-sharp at the base of my spine, her hands massaging my flexing shoulders as strong strands of her hair coiled around my arms.

“ Listen to the rain, Vittorio.

“Yet as I listened, rocking into her in long, slow strokes, I heard her whispered voice in my ear, too quiet to make out the words for the sounds of the sea and the falling rain—but she repeated the same phrase once, twice?—

“My sense of the world slipped—I do not know how else to describe the sensation. The sound of the rain shifted, bent, and then reformed into something both familiar and uncanny—I thought again of the sensation of falling, the sliding of the sea-cliff into the thundering depths of the waves?—

“ Your spell , I managed, barely able to form the words, or hold the thought.

“ Once more , she whispered, stroking my back, her hips meeting my rhythm. Let it in deeper. Feel it. You are so close. Listen to the rain…

“The sound of the rain was more vivid now; for the moment each drop had its own music, but the notion dimmed, the feeling began to fade—I heard her voice again, the same whispered phrase repeated—once—twice—again?—

“That I shivered against her body for her spell, that I let go and pulsed deep into her was the least of it—pleasure, profound pleasure, but I was seized by something deeper still, as if all my rage surged back to me on the moonlit tide, and the thundering waves were mine, and the fertile rain was in my blood, and the rushing force of my soul exploded through the rock of the cliffs—I must have thrashed, cried out in the agony of my pleasure; her talons were in me, her arms and her hair around me?—

“And then I lay on the grass with Lilith in my arms, watching strange shadows dance in the dark at the edge of the faerie ring, their music and their unearthly voices falling in the rain.

“ What are they?

“ They?

“ The dancers.

“She sighed my name, kissing me as if she were truly happy, as if she loved me with a human heart. You see them, Vittorio. They are spirits of this land, I suppose, dwellers in hollow hills—but you see them. You see them now, as I hoped you would. They are drawn to you—I have not seen them before our first night. They have danced for us every time it rains.

“ What did you do to me?

“She looked at me with a tight, knowing smile. Scarcely anything, sorcerer. You did it yourself. A few more years, if that, and you would have come into your power on your own—but I suppose I saved you some time. How do you feel?

“ Changed . I waited for a while before I spoke again, closing my eyes, idly stroking her hair. The world was new: the touch of her skin, the pulse of my heart, the sound of the sea breeze in the bent trees. Some old human sense of mine wanted nearly to recoil from the spectral voices in the rain, the flickering shades of the dancers moving at the limit of my vision—I felt an unnatural twinge of nausea if I lingered on them too long, as if I were seeing now something which was never meant to be seen by mortal senses—and yet in that very thing was their fascination. No, let the elves of the hollow hills dance for me—for us—and long may they dance, as if to celebrate this new life: the eerie, the uncanny, the eldritch now were mine. Everything I once sensed dimly was now vivid, not for a fleeting moment, but for all time—the beauty and terror of the world, the sense of latent power flaring in my blood.

“ I feel free , I whispered to her, for the first time.

“ You walk in twilight, sorcerer; the places where your world and mine meet. You see the unseen. Find touch in the mist. A shadow walks with you now.

“ Your shadow?

“ No , she chuckled lightly, not mine—though I would claim it, if I could . Yours is quite beautiful—but it is yours, sorcerer. Yours alone. The twilight attends you now, emanates from you, but its touch is as distinct as your scent or your voice. It is young now, but it will grow and deepen with your power.

“ What is it for?

“ What is it for ? What are the stars for, ah, Vittorio? What are you and I for? Do not ask me such questions; I will give you poor answers. It is your magic, your will, your imprint, your illusion; some will see it, some will feel it, some will shudder in despair or desire and never know why, because they are nearly insensible to what you are. They see but do not See. They hear but do not Hear. But you, she smiled, tracing all the contours of my face with her light fingertips, as if to confirm with a swelling pride that I was still the same man, you are beyond them now forever—as ever you have been. But what once slept now lives. And now that you can See… Hear… Feel… Taste, she leaned in closer, sucking lightly on my lower lip, what would you have first?

“ You, I whispered, curling a loose fist around a rich golden handful of her treacherous hair, inhaling the warm earthy scent of her locks as the strands began to encircle my wrist, and then the world.

“ The world first, sorcerer—some of it, at least—or we shall never leave this bower for the next. She kissed me lightly on the side of the mouth, escaped me and stood up, smoothing her thin white gown—how it clung to her breasts and her soft hips, little more than a silver sheen of mist—and then reached down to clasp my hand. Come with me. Her gauzy skirts trailed softly on the fertile loam of earth, and I saw beside her feet the sigils I had drawn to summon her, her talons sickle-like and strangely elegant. Come with me, and walk the world in your new power.

“The dancers slowly vanished, fading along with their music as the rain failed, and Lilith and I stepped beyond the circle and walked together, hand in hand, she in her gown of mist and I in my dark robes. We bathed in streams still warm from the sunken sun, made love in the long seeding grasses while they hissed against our skin in the salt night breeze, and in the sandy sea-caves and the starlit groves of trees hung heavy with ripe fruit; sometimes she flew ahead of me in owl’s shape and returned on silent wings, perching on my shoulder and whispering in the back of my mind where to watch the ghosts pass through the fog, or touch the seams of the world, or see the night horses in the sea-foam on the wave crests.

“Now and again, when she walked with me in woman’s form, she said our children followed in procession behind us—the strong imps I had fathered for her, and she kissed me every time she said it, with a deep gratitude that even to this day I feel was true—but not to look at them too long or with astonishment, for imps are mischief, and take such things as weakness. I looked back only once, and briefly, and thought I saw a host of faerie creatures flickering in the sea grass between the shadows of the moon; the wind off the water was always at our backs, eddying at our sides in spirals of sand and leaves, no matter which way we walked with them. More and more I found that I could stir those eddies by my own will, or whip them higher; in time I could scatter leaves in a rush of wind or grow the grass of the clearings longer and greener, simply because I desired it to be so.

“And so for many moons—years, perhaps—I walked the world with her in peace, and grew my art of sorcery on the secret wonders of the night, and was never found.”

“ Vittorio , she whispered to me one afternoon, her hand tense against my chest. Awake, sorcerer.

“The sun was high, casting dappled light through even the deep shadows of the wood, shining on her golden hair as it spilled over my skin. She was bending over me in woman’s form by day. Something was not right.

“I sat up with a start, my senses alive for her defense as I gripped her to my bare chest—a strange instinct, this notion that I would protect her from danger, when I was a young sorcerer and she a goddess—but a mortal man’s natural instinct nonetheless.

“ I overheard them, Vittorio: men in robes like yours. They said there is a legend of a man who walks these lands alone, sometimes with an owl on his shoulder, and always darkness walks with him. I do not know how they have seen us—how they felt your shadow.

“ Are we in danger?

“ I suspect so, sorcerer. But they are in more danger than are we.

“She kissed my chest, settling into my arms, and I smiled.

“ They said that they wondered if the uncanny wanderer was Vittorio D’Arco: the man who stole a grimoire and disappeared into the night. They said— she chuckled softly— take it as a compliment, ah, Vittorio—they said they knew D’Arco to be an intractable scholar and headstrong, and wonder now if he was a true demon after all.

“ I’ll show them intractable. Where are they?

“ In the clearing now. Be careful, sorcerer. My power is diminished under so high a sun, and with no shadows but yours for relief. But I will stay with you, if you will have me.

“I felt the weight of her, the sense and scent of her dissipate before my eyes even sought her new form—and then I looked down to see a small black viper in my lap, the edges of her scales flashing golden in the dappled sun.

“ I’ll carry you . I took her gently in my hands and laid her about my bare shoulders, then hid her under my robes as I put them on. I felt smooth scales slide across my skin as she found a vantage point where my left shoulder met the base of my neck, slipping her head out of my robes to taste the air with her flickering tongue while still hidden in my hair.

“There was a tension in the earth as I walked, a sense of anticipation in the roots of the trees. It was not that eldritch sense, that sliding sea-cliff vertigo that had troubled me once, and was now as welcome and familiar as the pulse of my own blood—no. It was an irritant, an intrusion. A nail in the paw of a wolf.

“Three of them, standing in the sun. I recognized none of them—as if one could even expect to tell such generic faces and voices from the rest of their kind—but I listened to them silently for a while, standing where they could not see me beside the last great tree at the eaves of the wood.

“ A noble name, D’Arco. There was a D’Arco at the king’s court once.

“ Only a baron, I think. Some distant son of the old Counts of Arco, long ago in the far north. There is a small castle said to belong to one Baron D’Arco not far from this place, on a hill in the old part of Napoli.

“ The same man.

“ No, surely not. A titled and landed nobleman studying at the academy is fanciful enough. And now the same man goes from courtier, to scholar of divinity, to a common brigand of the woods?

“ If only that were all. No, neither of we two would have come to this place for a mere outlaw. If the tales hold even a grain of truth, he is likely worse.

“ Far worse. That’s why we’ve come prepared.

“ Do you sense him yet?

“ What do you take me for? Some accursed conjurer?

“ No. But they say his evil bleeds out into the very air. I’ve felt it. He haunts these woods like a ghost.

“ Or they haunt him. Does it matter which?

“ I don’t know what I sense. But I like nothing about this damned place—they could burn it all down, for all I care. I’d light the first torch.

“That was enough.

“ God in Heaven , I heard one of them gasp as I stepped from the cool shadows of the trees into the shining green grass of the clearing. They crossed themselves, their eyes wide and their bodies tense. Is it—is that—is it him? Look at him! God in Heaven…

“I paused, letting my eyes adjust to the light, feeling the heat of the high summer sun on my shoulders and hair. Beneath my robes, I felt Lilith in her snake’s shape coil softly, protectively, around the base of my neck.

“I had said nothing, made no gesture, taken not one more step forward, when the man on the left staggered back suddenly in fear, tripped on something in the grass and fell flat on his arse, then took to glaring at me in shock and terror from the ground. I broke my silence and my stillness to laugh at him as I approached them, watching him scramble to his feet.

“ I am Vittorio D’Arco, I intoned as I stopped before them, still chuckling grimly at the sniveling thing that could scarcely keep his feet underneath him in my presence. Some manner of reputation seems to precede me .

“ He cursed me, the man on the left sputtered, daring to dart his eyes away from me to the others as he grasped for some scrap of dignity. He cursed me! Did you see what he did to me? Tripped me up with the Devil’s rope!

“My eyes narrowed. In the back of my mind I felt Lilith hiss a warning—to him, or to the bitter heat of my gathering rage.

“ He is evil, this D’Arco. A corruption of a man. I thought the sun had darkened, but there are no clouds. If he did this to you ? —

“ This fine, brave gentleman , I grunted, interrupting, lost his nerve and tripped over his own damned feet. I could not have timed it better if I had tried.

“ Don’t trust him—don’t listen to him! He’s a ? —

“I needed only to step forward to silence them. They had woven their own spells of weakness around one another, swelling my power of will and command beyond even my own accustomed force. I allowed them no outward sign of how I reveled in the sensation: even in the heat of the sun I felt the memory of the eldritch mists of night quickening in the tips of my nerves, my shadow spreading like a tide across sand. Now. What do you three want? The grimoire? Take it, if you want it back. Everything I need from it I know now by heart.

“ No, D’Arco. I don’t need your book of lies. I came to advise you ? —

“ To advise me? I suspect I smiled.

“He tried to shuffle himself taller in his robes, clearing his throat. Yes, D’Arco, to advise you. To advise you that you are suspected of sorcery, and that your— he looked me up and down and back again, from my bare feet on the living earth to my unshaven face and long, free hair— that every damned thing about you is in defiance of the standards and tenets of a Doctor of Divinity. Have you engaged in the scholarly study of the divine, D’Arco, during this… sabbatical of yours?

“ I don’t need to study it. I’ve lived it. I feel it in my blood. Can you say the same?

“He flinched, opening his mouth as if to reply and closing it, saying nothing. The three of them gathered together, stealing glances in my direction while I caught the words, now and again, of their hurried, furtive talk: scarcely human anymore—dangerous—down to Hell—only choice—God protect us.

“The last one who spoke looked to me once more—steeled himself, drew a breath—and as his colleagues stood aside to guard him, he took a dagger from beneath his robes, knelt on the grass, and began to trace signs into the earth.

“ Arrow and bow , I heard him breathe, his dagger hand trembling as he drew it slowly in an arc across the ground before him, arms of the House of D’Arco, become thou the heart of the sigil for this rite…

“ It’s a seal! Lilith’s urgent whisper stabbed into the back of my skull, sharp and true, piercing through to the core of my consciousness like a viper’s fang. He’s banishing you, Vittorio—kill him, kill them now , before the seal is cast!

“In the sting of her voice came a vicious clarity, a thousand thoughts honed and sharpened into the stiletto point of an instant: they had devised a sigil, my sigil, as if I were a demon, and had come here to use it for a seal—to banish me to Hell and bar me from the world of the living, or to bind me to some tree or rock for all time—but would such a seal bind a mortal man in the same manner?

“Or would it kill him? Tear him apart, body from soul?

“And what would become of Lilith?

“I knew then no spell to articulate my desire, no triple incantation to shield myself from a banishing curse or break a sigil apart. But I knew rage, and indignation, and love, and I had above all a will to survive. I felt my shadow gathering into me, not in retreat but in power—felt it fill me, sift through my limbs, protect us like armor even as it stoked all my senses alight—and then I felt in the core of my viscera the shuddering rift in the air and the earth, the blinding heat of pure wrath, the surge of volcanic fury erupting through my blood?—

“There was a great cry of sudden horror—neither her voice, nor mine. A man’s voice—men’s voices—more than one, perhaps.

“I found myself on one knee in the grass, breathing hard, soaked in sweat, my fist to the ground to steady myself. I raised my bowed head, focusing my eyes to watch them try to run, the two of them struggling to carry away the limp body of the third. Soon they were gone.

“I do not know what became of them, nor whether the man they carried lived or died.

“But I lived yet.

“The ground around and before me was blasted as if scorched by a windswept fire, and as I rose to my feet I saw that the half-drawn sigil smoked: from the scar of every line scored into the earth rose long trails of black, smoldering mist, curling toward the summer sun.

“I regretted the stain on the green clearing.

“ It can be restored , she whispered—her lips brushed my ear, and I thought that her hands were on my chest?—

“ Lilith , I breathed, turning to kiss her parted lips. She had taken her woman’s shape for me, though her form and her touch were foggy and indistinct: she was little more than a ghost beneath the sun, scarcely corporeal enough to hold—but I embraced her and held her as I could, kissing her long and deep.

“ You were wonderful, sorcerer.

“ They took me for one of your people. I should be flattered.

“ Do not blame them for that part, Vittorio , she smiled. They have never met such a creature as you have become. Nor have I. A demon’s depth of desire, she ran her spectral fingers through my sweat-damp hair, smoothing it back from my forehead, and the lust for life of a mortal man. Quite intoxicating.

“ They seem to have been rather less delighted.

“ They fear what they cannot control. You are so nearly one of us now in spirit; you belong more to our world than to theirs. Yet even at that, sorcerer, they underestimated your art. Seldom have I seen such power in one of your kind—and never beneath the sun.

“Never beneath the sun—had I sensed a subtle shift in her voice? In her touch? Or was it merely an illusion of the summer sun itself, her faint image wavering in the distortion of the heat?

“ If only I could learn to focus it—to unite my instinct to my will.

“ I do not doubt at all that you will, sorcerer, in time. And when you do, you will be nearly impossible to stop.

“ And yet still Vittorio, and a man.

“ You speak in pride, sorcerer? Or in disappointment?

“I shrugged lightly, then stretched my shoulders: I found that I was stiff and sore, my muscles aching as though with long exertion, but my mind was clear and alive. I watched the dark smoke rise from the sigil in the ground. Some of each , I whispered to her as she stood at my side.

“ You would become more than a mortal man?

“I nodded slowly as I took her hand in mine. There is always more. The man who ceases to desire has already died.

“ Then I suggest you solve this sigil, if you can—if you are to walk the world in our fashion, this will not likely be the last time someone tries to banish you for the resemblance.

“ Solve it?

“She smiled enigmatically as we stepped to the edge of where the half-drawn sigil lay smoldering, her ghostly owl-talons leaving no imprint on the blackened earth. I heard a soft hint of conspiratorial sarcasm in her voice: Does the spell-book from their library say nothing of this?

“ Being a book written by a man, for mortal readers, it is unfortunately coy on the subject of how to break one’s own seal.

“ And how now, sorcerer?

“I kept my silence for a moment, studying the lines of the emblem scored into the ground before us: a crude mockery of the archer’s bow of the House of D’Arco, its arc and its arrow both broken; the eight wind-marks of a compass rose; the beginnings of a rayed circle that must have been the sun. The dagger that carved it was lying nearby in a patch of unburnt grass.

“I squeezed her hand and then let it go. I’ll show you .

“I took the dagger from the grass, spat on the blade to clean it of its former owner, and set slowly to my work. I could have slashed through the sigil, eradicated its form from the earth, and thereby broken whatever was left of its spell—but in doing so I would erase also this symbol of myself. No. I would not destroy it, but bend it to my purpose. I would take this thing and will it to become my own.

“With a single line cut into the ground I made the broken arrow whole. The bow too I restored, doubling the strength; the half-formed rayed sun I considered long, thinking at first to eclipse it entirely with the formidable blackness of a new moon. But in the heat of a summer’s day, in what should have been the blanching of my twilight power, I had triumphed. I set a waning crescent moon in the sigil’s center—an eclipse impending—but I kept also the sun, drawing out its rays in long strokes. The sun, too, was mine: my defiance and my power.

“ What have you done with it, Vittorio? she asked me as I rose to my feet. I watched her look to the sigil, watched her eyes grow wide.

“The black smoke was gone.

“Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the grass had begun to grow.”

“We returned that night to the same blasted field, silver in the bright moonlight, and made long, slow love in the sweet summer grass, that this place scourged by strife and my uncanny fire would grow in peace and fertile bounty again. And when we finished, and she lay resting in my arms in her soft woman’s shape, flesh and blood beneath the moon, I felt her breathe the words of a spell against the bare skin of my chest. She flicked her forked tongue at the sensitive flesh under the stubbled line of my jaw, chuckling at my faint grunt of indulgence—and, my attention successfully achieved, she nodded for me to look to the side of where we lay. She released her talons from around my ankles, and I felt the silken strands of her hair uncoil from the muscles of my arms; we sat up together, though I still held her close.

“We watched, she in satisfaction and I in wonder, as the pale deathcap mushrooms of her faerie ring swelled slowly from the earth around us, rising through the lush grass no longer scarred by fire. As the moon dimmed and rain began to fall beyond the circle, and the rain song and the shadowy dancers returned to the edge of my vision and my mind, I wondered how much of the restoration of the clearing was truly her magic, and how much was the power of my sigil and my spell alone—the emblem hidden now under the rich grass, soon to be muddied and erased by the rain—before she had even begun to cast her own.

“It would never have mattered before, and it should not have mattered now. But I could not help sensing that something, though subtly, had changed.

“I kissed her as I teased one of her bare breasts with a circling fingertip, pressing my tongue between her lips to stroke it against her own, desiring and willing my intuition to be wrong—for us to remain as we had always been.

“ Seldom have I seen such power in one of your kind, I remembered she had said, the words coming back to me even as we lay back down, my hands gripping the curve of her hips and her long locks encircling my wrists, and never beneath the sun. ”

“The fateful night was the blackest I have ever known.

“She had waited, bided her time, until that time grew to her greatest advantage. Somewhere beyond the canopy of our deep forest bower the sun sank, and that night even the moon and stars were extinguished: there was only darkness—and darkness was the universe.

“The sun that had so favored me had now long since set, or so she presumed; it was only by virtue of my sharpened sorcerer’s Sight that I could see anything at all. She was lying beside me in her woman’s shape on the cool bosom of the nighttime earth, her arms around me. I do not know if ever she truly slept, but that night, I could not sleep thus.

“It amazed me that ever I could.

“And so I lay awake, feigning sleep, wavering between mourning and vigilance. Mourning that it had come to this—a haunting premonition that slowly, surely, the moon would set on us. Foolish, I told myself; foolish—nothing has ended. What changes can change again. And even that which ends can be by desire restored.

“Can it not?

“Would there be no sorcery for our own restoration, when I knew now that the green earth would grow by my will, and that in mere hours I could restore a fallow field?

“But sorcery was the art that had cleaved us together, and the force that would cleave us apart. She had changed that day—the day I broke my would-be seal beneath the sun. Now she spoke of my power with a vague distance, a darkness; now every mention of my mortality or my prowess in my art came with a bitter chill at the edges of the words.

“She seemed, in a word, jealous.

“My greatest danger, I imagined, would likely be after we made love, if by some caprice she chose after all to resign me to that same fate (so the legend went) that awaited the men she had known before me: once her lover’s stamina was exhausted, or he displeased her, or she merely tired of him, after one last night of pleasure on earth she entwined him like a spider’s prey in her soft, constricting hair—so the tales said—and when one single golden strand wrapped around his throat, he became forever her bound servant in the infernal City of Dis.

“Vigilance. I had now to stay alive: to survive what I sensed, obscurely, was to come. Once I have survived, I thought to myself, then would there be time to mourn.

“In time, I felt her body shift—she awakened, if that is what it should be called—my hand, resting on her shoulder, was already entangled in her hair; she stroked my back slowly, her hand drifting up my spine as the twin tips of her tongue glided lightly across my lips.

“I allowed my lips to part at the feeling and her smooth forked tongue slipped in between, drawing me languidly into her kiss; I stretched my spine into her touch as if I had only now roused from sleep.

“ Good evening, sorcerer , she whispered as she slowly broke the kiss; I curled my hand possessively into her hair and smiled.

“ All is well, yes?

“ As ever , I lied. Whatever was to happen, I did not know—but I felt it coming, as keenly as I now could feel shifts in the weather.

“The coming of a storm.

“ So you say, she whispered, yet I feel the tension in your flesh. Her hand massaged my shoulder now, pulling deeply at the muscle with an uncanny strength that belied her graceful fingers. I could not deny how good it felt. Your body has changed… ever since that afternoon.

“ It seems still to please you.

“ Oh, yes. She smiled knowingly, her voice low and sibilant. Oh, yes. You need never doubt. But why such tension, ah, Vittorio?

“I let myself sigh: she was kneading my shoulders with both hands now, and I wondered, for the moment, if what I had foreseen was no more than the grim fantasy of a mind and body still recovering from the instinctive hellfire I had unleashed upon the world.

“ I have a strange melancholy , I said: that much was true. I moved to sit up, and she followed, sitting behind me with her full bosom pressed against my back.

“ You think on your mortality.

“I grunted softly. Perhaps.

“ Your twilight vexes you. You walk between two worlds, sorcerer: yours and mine. And when the sun and the moon draw you with equal strength, they begin to pull you apart.

“I let her work the muscles of my shoulders in the deep, sightless darkness of the nighttime wood. Such is the sorcerer’s road.

“She exhaled in a sibilant sigh, nearly a hiss. For a while. But that road comes now to a fork. A choice lies before you, Vittorio; but I will walk with you, always, whichever road you choose. One of the paths remains in this world. The other , her voice deepened, leads to mine.

“ I like this world, I replied, my voice quiet but firm.

“ What would you miss, if you left it?

“ The sea-cliffs. The woods and the clearings and the rain. The vastness of the mysteries of the earth. Your body by the light of this moon. I felt the warmth of her lips at the base of my neck; she planted a kiss where my shoulders met my spine.

“I knew what she awaited, the answer she anticipated, and I knew as well that my intuition was correct. My damned premonition was right after all. And I gave her that answer—not because she wanted it, but because it was true, and because I had my pride—as I waited in darkness for the fatal strands of golden hair to creep around me from behind and encircle not my arms or my legs, but my throat: My sorcery.

“She chuckled instead: a low, ominous sound, at once satisfied and bitter in its triumph. Ah, Vittorio. The name of your true love, revealed at last.

“ How dare you say ? —

“ Shh, Vittorio. Shh. Have you but one true love?

“ You. I turned to face her, grasping her upper arms in a sudden violence—unprepared for this, indignant that she would dare question my love. You alone! How dare you mock me? Her eyes went wide, and immediately I relented in my grip—and she smiled as I released her, and I knew that she had me fast. I gathered her into my arms then, and holding her deadly form against my heaving chest—was she not my lady, my love, whatever else she was and would become?—I pressed her hand to the bare skin. Do not pretend , I whispered between breaths, that you do not know my heart.

“ Then, if I am my Vittorio’s one true love, he will relinquish the other to remain with me, surely ? —

“ No, I interrupted, touching a finger to her lips to quiet her. Her eyes flashed as if with their own inner fire—there was no light to reflect—and more than ever I became acutely aware of my mortal peril. I will have both: my love and my art. So it shall be.

“ It cannot be.

“ Why?

“ Your power grows swiftly, greedily, beyond what I had foreseen.

“ Because I performed sorcery beneath the sun? What does it matter that you cannot?

“ To concede is not in my nature. Your power is great, sorcerer—but I can bow to no man. It would break me. Rob me of my own art.

“ I would no more rob you of your art than I would allow you rob me of mine.

“ Allow , she repeated, darkly amused. Allow, Vittorio? You have grown to love the gift more than the giver.

“I straightened, pulling away from her. She taunted me. Was it mere coincidence, or had she learned how to twist the knife into my soul as surely as she had learned the ways of my flesh? You have given me much, Lilith. I spoke with conviction, but not yet anger; my hand sought hers in the darkness. More than I could have dreamed. But my art was never yours to give.

“Her eyes flickered dangerously.

“ You said yourself you could not teach me. I pressed you to force the opening of my Sight, to arouse my power—I did not know then what it was called—and even when your spell broke through me, you said you did next to nothing. You said I would have come into my power on my own.

“ Don’t do this, ah, Vittorio… stay with me. I will answer your summons, always: that magic you may keep. I ask only that you abjure the rest ? —

“ —I will abjure nothing. You ask me to give up what makes me feel alive. I could sooner live without my blood.

“She closed the distance between us, and even in the blackness of the dark forest I felt the strange gravity of her deep gaze into my eyes, unwilling to turn away from their faint inhuman glow. In that case, she spoke softly as her hand stroked the side of my face, coming to rest on my neck and calming my wrath, there is the other path.

“ Your world.

“ Yes, sorcerer. I can bring you with me.

“ To Hell.

“ To my great City of Dis.

“ You would kill me?

“ That is the usual way. Some evening after we make love, when you are ready—satisfied—relaxed. It need not be unpleasant. Now her hair spread slowly across my skin—over my shoulders, gently around my throat beside the touch of her hand—at once a threat and a promise.

“ The legends say you are attended by a legion of a thousand men: your former lovers, bound for eternity to be your servants.

“ And you think I mean to make of you a mere servant , sorcerer? No. You are not like the rest; are you not my consort and beloved? Your throne on the high dais of the City shall be beside mine, only a little lower than my own. And you will not be tortured—I will see to that, and any who defy me I will tear apart. I felt her curl and uncurl her talons, flexing the sickle-like claws. In that world I am a Queen, and my word is law.

“ And I would keep my art?

“ You would need not abjure it.

“A silence crept between us in the darkness. Her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly against my throat as she looked into my eyes.

“ Is it like this world?

“ I will be there. There was a genuine warmth in her voice: an elation restrained, as if she dared not yet allow herself to believe in what she had so dearly wished. Our daughters and sons will be there, some fully grown. You will meet them in their truest forms. And you and I shall never be parted.

“ And outside the City itself? Are there places like this for us to walk?

“ There are wonders and horrors there, sorcerer, the likes of which even you could scarcely imagine—until you see them before your own eyes.

“ Forests as dark? Leaves and grass as green?

“She drew a deep breath and released it in a sigh. No… I cannot tell you falsely. That is why some of us come to your world, sorcerer: because we love such things, and do not have them. The twilight fields—this sea—the spirits of the earth, and the trees in the moonlight.

“ Yet if that world is so unlike the earth, how can my sorcery ? —

“No sooner had I spoken the word than her body tensed—all of her—and as her hand closed against my jugular I heard through the throb of my blood in my ears a thin, bitter hiss in the darkness. There was venom in it, a potency of vitriol I had never sensed in her until now.

“Now that she had come so close.

“Now that I knew her mind: in Hell, I would not need to give up my sorcery.

“Because, in Hell, all my art of the earth would be of no use.

“I wanted to grab her by the arm and tear her grip from my throat, throw her off of me in a surge of rage—how nearly I had died willingly in her arms; how furiously I grasped now for my art—my life!—but she had flinched back already at the change in my pulse as if singed by the touch of my skin, her fatal hand and hair loosening from around my neck as her grasp faltered in surprise.

“I stood, but with no pleasure; I took no satisfaction in the rejection of her touch—and then I heard her low, ominous chuckle in the blackness, and I saw the glowing flash of her eyes.

“ If this is no , Vittorio , she whispered, darkly amused: the sound of her voice was not close enough, not far enough away, you have forsaken much. An eternity ruling the greatest City at my side.

“ An eternity powerless, I grunted in reply, forever without my sorcery, now that I have felt how I can bend some part of this world to my will.

“ An eternity to learn again, sorcerer: who is to say that you could not learn to bend my world as well? High Prince D’Arco, Grand Sorcerer of Dis? You are yet young, ambitious—and you would have all the time in the world.

“ Here, Lilith. My voice sounded strange in my own ears: a low, commanding growl, yearning and somehow desperate. Stay here with me, and we shall be as we have always been. I found her hand in the dark by instinct, taking it in mine, pressing the back of it to my lips and breathing deeply of the scent of her skin.

“ But… if you will not abjure your magic… She touched my lips with a soft fingertip for the last time and then drew her hand slowly away, and all but the faint glow of her eyes was lost to me in the darkness.

“I did not pursue her, nor did I step away. I held my ground in the blind night, a mortal sorcerer standing before a Queen of Hell. I will not abjure.

“ You have the Devil’s pride , she breathed: a sad, smiling, admiring sigh. That is what we say in my City of all brave, noble, impossible things: games which must be lost but will not end; men who cannot win and will not stop. I would have taken you gently into my world—but that time has passed. You refuse me… you presume to stand before me as a rival… and so you leave me no choice, she drew out the last word into a sharp, venomous hiss: sssssorcerer .

“She began to cast. I knew it, not even so much by the sibilant sound of her whisper, or the unseen movement of those lips I once had longed to kiss, but by the movement of the earth—the trembling thrill in the air—the crushing terror of the very stars drawing down and the night pulling in. A tongue of white fire appeared between us, circling me once, twice, again; by its spectral light I watched the lines of a sigil begin to smolder through the ground before me, as if drawn by an invisible hand—the marks of the eight winds, then the broken bow and arrow?—

“My sigil. No, not my own—the one contrived by the damned academy.

“She was banishing me.

“I had a counterspell now, devised in the wake of that summer day, conceived in the mind but untested; now, its first trial might prove its last. Inch by inch the threefold circle she cast to entrap me drew in, its heatless ghost-flame burning ever closer; I closed my eyes, focusing all of my shadow and all of my will into an expanding power, defiant and undaunted, forcing outward against her faerie fire—I had to defend, endure, buy myself time—and with the vision of my true sigil, my redrawn sigil, held burning in my mind, I too began to cast—to speak?—

“The words never came.

“ Silence! she hissed, and as the force of her spell hit me in the mouth I coughed, choked, my concentration shattered; I would have doubled over for the sudden dull pain that thickened my throat, froze my tongue into an insensible clod of earth, but something held me: I opened my eyes, only to watch the encircling spectral fire snap in like a tripped trap, like a sudden snare around my neck.

“ What man dares cast his spell against mine? It was her hair—the choking circle of fire was her hair somehow, was always her hair—I grabbed at her golden garrote around my throat as more strands of her tresses lengthened and lashed around me from behind, constricting around my neck and my arms and my wrists; a long lock whipped and curled around my ankles?—

“ On your knees, sorcerer!

“I lurched forward, my legs jerked out from under me; the forest floor rushed up to meet me with the sudden shock of bone against earth: I fell onto my hands and knees before the smoking sigil, every muscle of my body straining futilely against her ensnaring hair as I began to gasp for breath, watching the last rays of the sign of the sun scar slowly into the ground, glowing with a dim ember light—it was almost complete—this sigil that would rip my soul from my body, and seal me forever in Hell. She was standing over me from behind; I could feel her, feel her gloating anticipation in the back of my mind as I felt the blood flow back to my throbbing hands—her constricting hair around my wrists loosened, and I could feel the golden strands drifting up my arms to join the rest in tightening around my burning throat, my rushing heartbeat quickening in my ears as the ground beneath me seemed to shudder and slip.

“ And now, she hissed, her voice the whisper of a serpent gathering herself for the kill, on your belly!

“My knees faltered—the ember light of the sigil, complete but for its final sun ray, began to darken before my eyes—I had seconds left—but my hands were free.

“My hands were free.

“The earth was cool against my shoulder and my cheek—I must have slumped down onto my side—but I had Lilith’s sigil throbbing in my mind, the sign I used to summon Helen of Troy—I fixed my mind on the memory of that page of the grimoire, and as her strangling hair choked the life from me, the last thing I remembered was the desperate thought of sealing her—banishing her back to Hell—and the feeling of my faltering fingers scratching her sigil into the earth.”

“I awakened fighting for breath, gorging myself on the very air of life and coughing as it surged into my lungs—hot air, reeking of sulfurous smoke. Had my eyes opened? They burned from the fumes, and I forced them shut.

“ Brimstone , I groaned aloud to myself as the coughing fit that seized my body dulled, my voice coming with a bitter chuckle that only made me cough again?—

“But I had a voice now, and breath, and use of my tongue. I was sore, but felt no golden hair binding my arms and ankles, no silken garrote around my neck.

“And I was in Hell.

“I could not feel her touch, could not discern her scent through the acrid smoke. She had won, strangling me to death and leaving me to awaken in Hell alone. I opened my eyes, awaiting my first sight of some wasteland of fire?—

“But there was only darkness. Deep darkness. I flexed my hand, testing my command of my body, and my fist closed on cool fallen leaves.

“I started at the strange thrill that shot through me, rising instantly to my knees, as awake now as if splashed with cold water. And then I focused with all my power, concentrating on the source of the brimstone smoke somewhere on the ground before me, willing my mortal eyes to peel black from black.

“Slowly two signs resolved in my vision, dim and indistinct but unmistakable. The first was my false sigil carved into the dirt, complete perhaps, or nearly so. The second was beside it, small and crudely traced. Smoke rose from this second sigil— from Lilith’s sigil, drawn in my desperation—hot smoke, faintly red, redolent of sulfur.

“The stench of Hell.

“I stared at her sigil, watching it smoke in silence in the deep darkness of our forest bower.

“I was alive.

“This was not Hell—not when my feet still touched the damp, bountiful earth.

“I flexed the muscles of my shoulders as I felt my strength return, the shadow of my art rushing back to me like a dark tide out of the night, quickening through my every fiber with a terrible shudder of triumph.

“I was alive, and I had banished her, and she was gone.

“She was gone.

“My hands tore at the dank leaf litter of the forest floor, searching for something to feel—something to hold—some scent of her left in the leaves—some single, fallen strand of her golden hair—but there was nothing, nothing left of her at all; my heart thundered in my heaving chest, and racked by a sudden agony of the soul I raised my head and howled into the blackness of the night. I had my life—my voice—my art, aroused to an exquisite fever in the core of my marrow—and my new anguish, gaping like a black chasm, a burning Hellmouth in my heart. I cried out her name; I cast every unsealing spell, every summoning spell I knew, expending such power that my exhausted mind swam with a hundred visions of her memory; I laid down onto the earth and let myself sleep, that I might walk with her in dreams.

“It was a restless, dreamless sleep, and in the dappled light of morning I awakened alone.

“The forest floor was cold without her. I wrapped myself in my robes. Summer was fading. Soon, autumn would come.

“But the birds sang, and I imagined for the moment that they sang for me. A faint breeze stirred the light in the highest canopy of the shadowy trees.

“Should I be pleased that I had won?

“Proud that my mortal sorcery had banished a Queen of Hell?

“ You have the Devil’s pride , she had said to me, and the memory of her words and her voice echoed in my mind as I buried our sigils in leaves—hers had cooled, and that was nearly worse than the smoke, that the place where last she stood should be now as cold as a tomb.

“ You have the Devil’s pride. I could not say that she was wrong. It was not forgiveness nor magnanimity that spurred my ache for her—no such fine charities of man—I did not forgive her, as she did not forgive me. Yet I wondered if ever there would come a time when the triumph would assuage the pain.

“I walked to our sea-cliff for the last time, listening to the breaking waves until I could bear it no longer. The air was cold. The faerie rings had faded. The salt air was bitter, and the sound of the sea had changed.

“I brushed the fallen leaves from my feet, put on my boots, and pulled my cloak close around me, and with the old rain-warped grimoire hidden under my arm I began my long walk north. I kept to the shadows of the trees by the narrow lanes, walking longest by the twilight and the dusk, alone but for now and again the familiar music of the late summer rain. The few travelers who passed me looked to those roadside shadows in vague terror, searching for something they did not know and could not find—their rattling cart wheels slowed and then picked up pace, drips of nervous foam from their horses falling from chattering metal bits into the dust.”

“Like the unnerved travelers on the road, the slow hours came to quicken as they passed: I turned the last bend of the flatland and watched through the split in the trees as the dark hulk of my castle rose before me on the hill ahead, silhouetted against the waxing moon.

“I arrived at the gate in the last grey light before the dawn, and knocked.

“And knocked.

“ Open my damned door, Iacomo, I commanded, or I’ll break it down.

“ My lord! A familiar voice from inside the walls—precisely the man I had hoped still occupied the place. My choice of tenant had proven correct, after all. My lord, is it really you?

“ I remain Baron D’Arco, I answered his Angevin French in my native Neapolitan, as was our way, and I remind you that this remains my castle. More than that, I could not myself say.

“ I assure you I had not forgotten, my good— Iacomo threw open the gate, but his rakish grin faded when he saw me, and an unaccustomed stutter broke into his voice. My—my lord. A courtier’s practiced bow. His forced, uncertain smile did not find his widening eyes. It’s been a long time.

“ Has it? My question was more sincere than he would ever know. I would have pushed past him into my courtyard, eager to be within the walls of my castle again, but there was no need: upon my first step forward Iacomo backed suddenly away, keeping his distance as he locked the gate behind us. I could feel his eyes on me as I watched the sun break over my battlements, throwing the day’s first shadows across us.

“ An early morning for you, Iacomo. I stared back at him—unexpectedly, perhaps, by the way he diverted his eyes—and I noted the familiarly sordid sight of his hastily-laced tunic, his disheveled hair half-hidden under a hat cocked fashionably to the side, his parti-colored hose somewhat askew on his legs. Or a particularly late night.

“ Your timing was —he paused, picking a woman’s long black hair from his tunic and letting it drift down to the flagstones beneath our feet— impeccable, my lord.

“I said nothing as I watched the strand of hair fall, increasingly aware of my shadow gathering around me like a second cloak. I did not know how much of it he could see, or feel, and for the moment I did not care: all I could imagine was the memory of what I had done.

“The scent of her hair.

“The sensation of it snaking around my throat and closing in.

“ You’re changed. Iacomo raised a brow, affecting nonchalance. Something different about you. Is this what the academy life makes of a man?

“ In a manner of speaking. Tell the servants to draw a bath for me and prepare my chamber.

“ Yes, my lord. Something to eat?

“ Not yet. We will fight later—if your blades have not rusted in my absence—and perhaps I will develop an appetite. In the meantime, see that I am not disturbed.

“ Not even by my women? You look like you could use a good ? —

“ No. Especially not by your women.

“I saw a mild terror in his eyes—the touch of my shadow as I interrupted him, perhaps—but it passed, and he shrugged with a crooked smile. As you wish. Suit yourself, my lord. He paused before he turned, as if to ensure I did not mean to follow or haunt him, then walked a few steps toward the servants’ quarters and looked back again. If you’re done at the academy , he said , then I should start calling you Doctor D’Arco, yes?

“Yes, Iacomo. I smiled faintly: the title pleased me somehow. You should call me Doctor D’Arco. ”

“I washed myself of the grime and sweat of the long, dusty road and then retired to my chamber in the bright morning sun. The place was stranger to me now than the time of day: I had grown accustomed to resting hidden from the sunlight and walking beneath the moon, but I was not used to the confinement of stone walls.

“To the luxury of rich fabrics and a soft bed.

“To sleeping without her.

“I shook my head with a deep growl of pain, as if I could free myself from the memory that closed around me. A demoness , I told myself silently, building my anguish into rage, a demoness who used you for your seed, and nearly dragged you down to Hell to rid you of your art. She never loved you. Forget her, and grow your art, and live. I wrenched my velvet curtains closed against the sunlight and felt my lip curl in new disdain: a hint of ladies’ perfume rose from the fabric.

“Iacomo.

“I indulged myself in the welcome distraction of cursing his name under my breath. He had entertained his little harem in my chamber while I was away, like a dog jumping into his absent master’s chair.

“We were still rivals, after all, we two who had been allies and enemies by turns at the royal court. The afternoon’s clash of swords with him would have a particular relish this time.

“And yet as I disrobed, slipped the water-stained grimoire under my pillow (I had not let it leave my sight) and settled into the unfamiliar comfort of my bed—a bed which, I thought to myself with a bitter chuckle, had scarcely been allowed to cool—I let my mind rest on the satisfaction that I had chosen correctly to preserve my property while I was away. Iacomo was not to be trusted—yet I could trust him with my castle, my castle alone, because that was the thing he had always envied and coveted most; I charged him dearly for the privilege of his tenancy, because I knew he cared too much for his money to damage anything for which he had paid so much of it.

“I smiled at myself for my mundane triumph, and when I awakened in the afternoon, I wondered if the nights on the sea-cliff and in the dark depths of the woods had been but a vivid dream.”

“ God’s blood, D’Arco! Iacomo spat to the side into the dust, wincing as he reached for his sword and dagger where both had clattered to the bare earth next to him. As I stood over him I reached down to give him my bloodied hand and pull him up, but he spat at that, too, so I cuffed him with it hard enough to put him on his back again.

“Doctor D’Arco , I grunted in some savage amusement as I stepped back and watched him work his way to his feet. Remember?

“ I don’t know what you did to me, Doctor D’Arco , Iacomo smirked, standing at the ready with his dagger in his left hand and his sword in his right, cocking his head for me to come at him , but I’ll be damned—my lord—if I let you do it again.

“ That can be arranged. I firmed my grip on my long left-hand dagger, wrapped my right index finger and thumb around the base of my narrow sword just above the curved hilt, and lunged for him; he parried with both of his blades, a foolish risk had he not been so swift on his feet—I have always been fast for my size, but he was wiry, and faster. Before I could close in with my dagger he managed to nick my hand again, raising his brows in false surprise as the blood soon welled and dripped, joining the rest of our red spatter in the dust. We were neither of us the kind to prefer the protection of gauntlets and sleeves. A little blood, a few scars—small price to pay for the satisfaction of inflicting the same on a long rival.

“We took our stances again, and I resolved to perform consciously this time what I had accomplished first in a moment of unfettered instinct: to employ my art to overwhelm him. To knock him down into the dirt without touch. As an experiment, a test of my power, it was necessary. As a sparring technique, it was admittedly a dirty trick.

“Iacomo, had he the ability, would not have hesitated to use it.

“After the accustomed tension and stand-off we came at each other, both at once. At the familiar clash of his dagger turning aside the thrust of my sword I stabbed my own dagger through his sword hilt, pinning us together by our tangled blades, and in his moment of hesitation I forced my shadow forward.

“He dropped his weapons and staggered back from me, a look of mingled confusion and sickness blurring his eyes before he steadied himself, swallowing hard.

“I raised my blades and took my stance, waiting for him as if nothing had changed. I had not managed the force of the first time—I had hoped to see him on his back again—but this was enough.

“ Enough , Iacomo mumbled as if echoing the thought.

“With a slow nod I sheathed my sword and dagger, casually crossing my bloodied arms over my chest.

“ They teach you that—whatever the Hell that was— he swallowed again, catching himself from retching— in the academy? ”

“We washed and staunched our wounds, and ate together, and said little. Between the uncanny ending of our duel, and the inevitable question of what was to become of his tenancy at my castle now that I had returned, there was little he would have found pleasant to say.

“I maintained my silence as I ate, chewing another piece of gnocchi.

“How long had it been since I had eaten such a thing? Not since the academy. She and I had seemed to subsist on no more than the sun-swollen fruit of the trees, when we had hungered for anything other than each other?—

“She and I.

“My exhalation was too easily mistaken for a sigh.

“ There’s a woman, my lord. Iacomo tapped his knife on the side of his plate for emphasis, a combination of smug triumph and mild sympathy on his face. Isn’t there. Explains a few things.

“I swallowed slowly, allowing no emotion. There was. ”

“That night, I could not sleep for all the world.

“I had grown unaccustomed, I told myself, to sleeping beneath the moon.

“I had slept too long this morning.

“It was the rich food, or the soft bed, the faint sting of the blade cuts from the duel.

“A hundred paltry reasons, and all of them false.

“The clouds must have parted: I watched in the darkness of my chamber as a sliver of silver-white brightened in the narrow gap between the velvet curtains, casting a finger of moonlight across the fringed carpet.

“The moon was full tonight.

“I rose and dressed, wrapping myself in a black cloak and pulling up the hood.

“Each of my guards, as I passed them in the halls and on the winding tower stairs, I advised to empty the parapets until I gave further word: not to look for me, not to watch nor follow me, no matter what he should imagine he sees or hears. I wished to be alone.

“And alone I was.

“There was a thin wind through the battlements, and I stood in an archer’s gap upon the seaward wall, my hands on the cold dark stone, imagining that across the miles of forest and city I could still smell the salt of the sea. The town at the foot of the castle hill slept, dark but for a flickering watchfire; the heart of Naples lay somewhere beyond in the silver of the night.

“I did not know what I sought.

“The moon was bright that night, throwing my shadow before me as the night wind billowed my cloak—my physical shadow, the image of my form cast across the gap in the parapet wall. The shadow of my art I sensed spreading from my core, expansive and strong, unfurling through the night by the glow of the moon.

“Were I to summon her, would she come to me?

“My will was potent. My art was alive in the wind and the moonlight, our moonlight, and as I breathed in the salt air my body shuddered and tensed for the thrill. Such sorcery throbbed through me that night I could have raised her a faerie ring out of the dead stone of the parapet, and swelled it into a grove of rising oaks to split the walls of this castle apart—I could have summoned her—in the strength of my art I could have broken through the gates of Hell itself?—

“But was I such a fool?

“The wind shifted, twisting in the black fabric of my cloak and throwing back my hood. A small, sharp movement in the silver light caught my eye—but it was only a few fallen leaves, among the first of autumn, crackling across the stonework in the long sea breeze.

“For better or for worse I did not doubt my art, not even so few hours after the mild disappointment of being unable to knock Iacomo down a second time. A strength far greater coursed through my flesh and bone and set my mind afire, and the touch of the wind at my right hand ignited a thousand new sensations through my skin.

“For the power of my art, for the feeling , for the sheer fury of life I cried out into the night, a feral sound to join the distant moaning of the wolves, and I whipped my head to the side and drew back my hand as the wind flew through my hair, and I felt the familiar vertigo of the slipping of the world—the shift in the earth and the air—the wind rushed to me at my command, the three fallen leaves into my right palm. I tightened my fist around them in triumph, watching thin white wisps of smoke trail from between my knuckles and into the night; when I released my grip they flashed into a silver spray of faerie fire, carried on the wind like falling stars.

“How could she have loved me, who would have severed me from this life, this art, this midnight of the world beneath the high, bright moon? No, there would be no summoning tonight. I breathed deeply of the night air, let it swell my lungs and remind me once more that I was alive.

“Yet even then, I could not help but think of the scent of sulfur.

“No sooner had I exhaled than the wind swirled before me, whirling another handful of dry leaves and the dust of the earth as a strange fog began to drift in over the battlements and between the archers’ gaps.

“I had not imagined the brimstone: the new mist smelt of it, faintly but unmistakably, as it thickened before me despite the whipping of the wind.

“I drew myself up as I watched, focusing deeply on the fog. I regretted having not worn my sword and dagger, at least, little help though I imagined they would be; I thought to cast protection, to speak a spell or draw a circle around myself, in the shifting air if nothing else, but I did not like to begin in defense before I even knew my peril.

“Not after I had banished the Queen of the City of Dis.

“It crossed my mind that now at midnight she was coming back to me, and that at any moment her vision would form in the condensation of the mist, as it had before me on the sea-cliff so many full moons ago—the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips, her moon-white dress and her deadly golden hair rippling in the wind—but I did not trust my fantasy: I could not feel her. I sensed nothing of her scent.

“The wind picked up, whistling now through the gaps in the battlements—an unearthly, lonesome sound, like the long cry of a ghost. I grabbed my hood where it flew behind me and pulled it back over my head, holding it with both fists, as if blinding myself like a draft horse to the left and right periphery would help me focus forward—would deepen somehow my Sight into the gathering fog, allow me to find form in the formless?—

“ Sorcerer!

“I felt my eyes widen, my breath catch at the suddenness of the sound: I could not tell whether the voice was before me in the fog, or burning in the back of my mind, but it was a man’s voice, deeper even than my own, snarling in a frothing bestial rage.

“ In the name of the Queen, you die tonight!

“In an instant I was trapped, held fast by a pair of strong hands gripping each of my arms; with a grunt of effort I lurched forward, wrenching my left arm free, and as I began a hurried incantation under my breath something hit me through the mouth, swelling and freezing my tongue so much like Lilith had, buying the captor on my left arm time to improve his hold.

“I coughed and then focused, drawing my shadow into me, gathering myself for another lunge forward into the mist—but the fog began to thin, and I froze in place. Before me was the sharpened head of an immense boar spear, leveled at my heart, the human teeth that hung on hair from its crossbar rattling in the wind. My eyes followed from the spearhead up the shaft, past the hands—rough, strong hands, the skin deep olive like mine—up the muscled arms, covered in bristling black hair, and into the face of the towering spearman.

“He grunted when I met his gaze, and a guttural growl rolled bear-like in the back of this throat as he gnashed his great hooked tusks with the sound of bone on bone. His eyes were a man’s eyes—intelligent, indignant, at once haunted and fiery—and he stood almost upright, arms and torso in a man’s shape, nearly Grecian in proportion if not for the arch of his broad back, the immensity of his form looming like a shadow across the moon. The rest of him was animal. His long snake-tail lashed as he pawed the stone beneath his feet with one of his heavy cloven hooves, hefting his spear to make the hanging strands of teeth chatter, but more remarkable even than his stature and physique was his head: a boar’s head, but nearly so broad and massive as a bull’s, with the black mane of a wolf, crowned with the curling horns of a ram.

“The wind shifted, blowing at my back, and the great nostrils of his swine-snout flared as if some scent intrigued him: my fear, most likely, though while I imagined this demon should be the death of me I felt little panic—I had met him before in some forgotten nightmare, surely, and that is why for all his terror he did not seem so unfamiliar.

“He pushed the spearpoint against my chest, but slowly; I needed not break my defiant lock on his eyes to feel the tip pierce my skin, damp warmth spreading into my black tunic in the cool night. But no sooner had he drawn blood than he stopped and sniffed the air again—the snuffling grunt of a rooting boar—lowering his immense head nearly to mine until I felt the heat of his sulfurous hog breath.

“Something changed in his human eyes.

“ You hesitate to spear him . Why? A new voice—another man’s voice, this one smoother in its vaguely sibilant arrogance—from whatever manner of creature held my left arm in his iron grip. I did not trust the boar-beast enough to turn away to see the others.

“The beast-man snorted, his gaze and his spear steady. The only movement was the wind in his black mane. Unhood him .

“A hand jerked back my hood, nearly ripping it from my cloak, and I wondered if in a last, desperate burst of power I had cast some instinctive spell: the hands on my arms slackened and released me as the boar-beast bellowed and stepped back, the battlements quaking with the strikes of his massive hooves on the stone; a string of saliva trailed from the base of a tusk as his mouth slackened in shock, his eyes wide with recognition.

“ It’s him . He threw down his spear; it clattered heavily against the castle roof, cracking a few of the hanging teeth, and I saw that the uttermost point was still red with my blood. Do you remember us , he spoke not to the other two now, but to me, his ram-horned hog’s head half-bowed , from many moons ago?

“The others put their hands on me again, but now it was not the same: I felt the palm of a clawed hand against my chest, then thick human fingers passed briefly across my throat without pain; before I could react I realized that my swollen tongue felt free again, and the wet warmth was gone from the flesh over my heart.

“They assembled before me, watching me with a strange anticipation: the great beast in the center, flanked by two well-formed young men in black robes blown nearly open by the wind, human in all but the details. The man on the left had an air of entire self-possession, shining golden hair, dark talons where his fingernails might have been; the one on the right was broader and taller, with a coarse beard and wild black hair, and as he broke his stern silence to speak I saw in his mouth the pointed tips of his canine teeth, sharp like a viper’s fangs.

“ We were imps when you saw us last , the man on the right said, no taller than the sea-grass waving on the sand. He had a commanding voice, forceful and articulate, but as he spoke it grew quieter, and a strange shadow of melancholy found his burning eyes. We were strong imps. We were your imps —he paused, and behind them the beast-man’s shining snake tail lashed restlessly in the moonlight.

“ Your sons.

“I froze in place, unable to imagine what to do or say as I listened to my blood thunder in my ears—yet the shock was tempered by the truth of his words as they sank into my heart. I had felt a familiarity somehow, a lack of fear, before even he had told me why—before I understood why myself—and now in my heart I knew this to be true.

“I looked at them again, and saw a man with Lilith’s golden hair, and something of her posture and the shape of her face—my chest and my arms, and my pride (this in all three of them)—while the man on the right had my hair, my stature, and my voice. The great beast’s dark eyes were not merely human—they were mine.

“ You walked with us in the twilight , I whispered, slowly; the man with the golden hair nodded his head. And now you’ve come to me ? —

“ To kill and torment the mortal sorcerer who banished our mother and Queen , he replied, one clawed hand flexing where it hung at his side. She placed a royal bounty on your head—all of Hell will be on your heels—but we were not given the name nor the face of our quarry. We did not know it was you whom we hunted. You who had cast so cruel a spell.

“ You are to be enchanted, then slain, the demon-beast continued after his brother, his voice edged in a low guttural growl, that your shade will ride as a wraith in the Burning Hunt, night and day across the graves and the wild, in pursuit of my Black Boar.

“ I can imagine worse , I replied, foolishly bold.

“The black-haired man bared his fangs in a wry, appreciative grin.

“The beast grunted, something like a bitter laugh. Then imagine this: every dusk, you will dismount to battle my Boar on foot with your blade. Every dusk, you will be gored through the groin to your death. And like Prometheus, whose liver every day is torn by the eagle, you will feel it every time, and know it, and remember every dusk that came before. And you will have no power to turn away.

“ If you can imagine worse, he snorted, you would be wise not to suggest it. I am not known for mercy; had any other man banished my mother and Queen, I would relish his death and damnation. But you, father—your death has no savor for me. He straightened his great arched back, looking side to side to his brothers as if daring each to challenge him. I have lost my will to do it.

“The black-haired man nodded, then looked to me. You loved her, father.

“ I did.

“ You regret.

“ I lost her, if ever she were mine at all.

“The three of them looked to me in disbelief, the golden-haired man tilting his head with an expression of utter incredulity and contempt. Are you insensible? Did you understand nothing of those nights with her? He paused, forked tongue flicking at the night air as he hissed a string of curses under his breath. Abject mortal beast! Incarnate son of earth, you broke her heart!

“He rushed me with his talons, and as I seized him by both wrists a hot force slammed through me to the bone, a shock to the core that staggered me like a heavy blow and nearly took my breath; I heard him snarl in reflex as his back crashed against the stone parapet, his wrists and my palms trailing smoke as he gathered himself back to his feet with what dignity he could salvage.

“The man with the wild hair chuckled grimly, pale fangs flashing in the moonlight. And there is the proof of paternity, if you like, and of his capacity for this deepest crime: his pride in his sorcery is not for nothing. His great art feels much like ours—his pride is our pride—and yet his heart is still human. He stepped forward, laying his strong hand on my broad shoulder. He was my height, in every way my equal in size, shape, and form, as if he were my brother rather than my son. The strangeness of it struck me at last: I was a man of some twenty years or more—after spending such time out of time after summoning her I was never again certain of my age—and my sons appeared no younger.

“ Father , he continued , his face and his voice now as humorless as the grave, Hell burns. Your legend grows. All of the great City of Dis seethes in rage to drink your blood. I will not kill you, yet after your crime most foul I cannot aid you, but for this: I will grant you the true answer to one question. Choose carefully, but quickly—we have little time to ? —

“ Did she ever truly love me? I needed no time at all.

“My son’s dark eyes gazed deeply into mine. With all her heart .

“No clash of unseen power could have so staggered my constitution; no spear blade could have pierced so deeply through my heart. My wild-haired son’s hand gripped my shoulder, and I laid a hand on his as I raised my eyes to the moon and then clenched them shut, groaning in a deep, aching anguish of the soul.

“An unearthly lamentation joined mine: the hollow, lowing howl of my beast-son, his horned head thrown back like a wolf’s, tusks glistening wet in the silver night.

“ Strong imps, she told you. Before even I opened my eyes I recognized that voice by its sibilance. We are but three. You gave her dozens—scores of strong daughters and sons; your seed satisfied for a while her insatiable womb, fertile and eternal as the living earth. One of the greatest and most prolific sires of our people: that is a high honor in itself.

“He paused, watching me with his sea-grey eyes and the proud half-curl of his lip, considering. Ask me one question, father. I will not be outdone by my brother.

“Again I required no time to decide. Were I to summon her ? —

“ She would kill you. His answer was swift and cold. Once her power heals, and grows again. She would see that you suffer, bind you to the Hunt herself, and watch with delight as you die anew every dusk. She has her pride , he smiled, as you know well. As you have yourself. Do not underestimate her taste for vengeance: no, she cannot love you again, but her vengeance is her love in the inverse. She hates you deeply now, because she loved you deeply then.

“ You are doomed, father , he sighed in a kind of solidarity, damned, as your kind would say. Hell hunts you. For all your days—however short, however long those may prove to be—you will bear in life this curse that others could not bear to dream.

“ And to redeem this curse they will have to catch me , I replied, and contend with my mortal sorcery.

“I watched as his tongue flicked at the night air, eyes narrowing as he looked at me with a new respect and a sly, triumphant pride. You think as do our people—and so after all you may have a chance, at least for a while. Long may you run, father, and power to your art. Perhaps we shall meet on this green earth again, beneath another moon.

“He drew away with a smooth grin and an incline of his head, as if in parting; the other man raised a palm in farewell and turned away; the beast reached down with his massive hand to pick up his hunting spear?—

“ Wait.

“They all three looked back to me, as if under my command.

“ Wait? My golden-haired son was intrigued, the mortal he had once attempted to kill now a source of amused curiosity. Wait for what? Your would-be slayers leave you alone to live, and you bid them stay longer?

“I raised my brows. Tradition would suggest I am due a third question.

“They laughed, a fiendish sound in the night, and I allowed myself the shadow of a smile: they were my sons, after all.

“ Then, Sorcerous Sire , the beast rumbled as he rested the shaft of his hunting spear against the long dark bristle of his shoulder, spearhead behind him in the air, the hanging trophies of human hair and teeth swinging in the wind, the third and final falls to me. Ask what you will.

“ Where can I find the nearest bound spirit?

“He flared his nostrils and snorted, his hot breath trailing streams of fog. Bound spirit? What is it to you, father?

“ My business is my own. I wish to find a site where one of your people remains bound to this world—entrapped in a tree, perhaps, or a stone—does such a thing exist?

“ I suspect your strategy, I heard my black-haired son whisper in the back of my mind, even as the beast shook his head to dismiss the notion as mere fable—a strange sensation, the similarity of our voices causing me to nearly mistake his for my own. There is a blasted oak northwest of here, perhaps a day’s ride, on the shoulder of the road to Rome. More than that I cannot say. Farewell to you, father. May your feet be fast, and your sorcery strong.

“I thanked him silently, wondering if he could hear the words I attempted to convey into his mind, watching the three of them fade into the fog, and the fog thin into the wind beneath the grey shadows of the moon.”

“By the time the sun broke over my battlements again, burning away the nightmares and the nighttime mist, I had already packed my saddlebags and called for my fastest and most fearless horse.

“ On the road again so soon, Doctor D’Arco?

“Iacomo was behind me; from the corner of my vision I caught him leaning against one of the courtyard trees. Are you as relieved, Iacomo, as you sound?

“ Depends. How far and how long will you be gone this time, my lord?

“ Neither far enough nor long enough for your comfort.

“I knew from the approaching rhythm of hooves beating the dry dirt that my groom had brought me the correct horse: my great bay stallion, saddled and prepared. I took the reins and mounted, and as I wheeled my steed around, I watched with some pleasure as Iacomo’s cocksure strut hitched in his approach, the scabbards of his sword and dagger clattering at his hip as he stopped and stared up at me.

“I did not have to guess what drew his gaze.

“I had been silenced twice by a demon’s art—the greater part of the power of my own sorcery stopped along with my capacity for spoken incantation—and as I set out to seek another spirit, to find what haunted the blasted oak along the road to Rome, I would not allow it to do the same.

“And so, on my way to that courtyard to meet my horse, as I took such weapons as I imagined I would need for my excursion, my suit of armor caught my eye where it rested on its stand. Impractical on the road alone—impossible to don and remove without aid. And yet—I extended a gloved hand, fingering the cool metal of a shoulder pauldron—was it not said, in that very grimoire I stowed away in one of my saddlebags, that the spirits of the lower worlds cannot abide the touch of iron? That all manner of iron and steel is thus a weapon against them, a corrupter of their spells, a defense against their power?

“My hand trailed up from the shoulder guard, reaching for the strap and latch at the side of the steel throat. For the most vital of my purposes, I did not require the entire panoply of armor. Only the single, most needful piece to protect my faculties of speech.

“It was not that I had no other means of sorcery; my banishment of the Queen of Dis was proof enough of that. Yet, this time, I would not so easily relinquish the advantage of my most powerful and efficient technique.

“So long as I could yet speak, I presumed to myself, I could remain in whatever battle might come.

“ A strange, grim look, my lord. Iacomo’s voice recalled me from my thoughts; he had managed to massage his fleeting look of fear into an artificial nonchalance. I watched his eyes as he took in my black hooded cloak, lingering on the piece of my armor I wore as a mask to cover my throat and the lower half of my face. Like a skull’s mouth. Some kind of protection? Can’t imagine you’re planning to find a new woman with that on your face.

“ No. My patience began to wane. I felt my shadow quicken. I am not.

“ Good thing. Makes it a little hard to kiss, never mind the rest of ? —

“He clapped a hand over his mouth as I willed a surge of my art forward; I watched him stagger behind a tree, listened to him groan and retch as I turned my horse toward the gate.

“ Then it suits me well , I said in parting: only that, and no more.

“The gate opened. It took little to urge on my eager mount; in moments the long shadows of the morning unfurled before me, shifting in that same accursed wind off the sea. I savored that scent of salt no longer.

“No more did I long for some single, fallen strand of strangling hair.

“Now I was free. I was alive.

“And if all of Hell were at my heels, as my sons had said, let them try to catch me. Let them try this art of mine that had survived and overcome their Queen herself.

“I pressed my boots into the great bay flanks below me, giving my stallion rein, letting him run until the speed whipped back my hood, and the wind was in my hair.

“I lived yet. All the wild of the world was before me, and I was alone again on the road.”