The unfortunate thing about it was that he was tempted. Nona felt his desire as he gazed down on her fetching form. Her very helplessness was seductive. She was trying to make it seem that his victory gave him the right to breed, and though he knew better, and had seen how unhuman she could be, he did desire her now.
But he looked across at Nona, and that stiffened his resolve. “No. I will wait until the time has expired.”
Nona felt renewed guilt, denying him his desire. The mind-talk of the horse was giving her a new perspective, and now she understood why men sought women so avidly. Their passions were readily aroused by superficial appearances, but were very strong.
“Then let us be together for that time,” Keli pleaded. “Keep me tied, but lie here with me, so that I may at least enjoy your closeness.”
Nona realized that the duel was not yet over, and would not be over until the time ran out. Keli might yet manage to seduce Stave.
But the main action of the match was over. It was time for the next to become the focus.
That was Darius, against Null-Nona. This one interested Nona for a more personal reason. She wanted Darius to win, of course, but it required some mental adjustment to wish that the image of herself should lose. Despite that image’s desire to breed with him, which was not Nona’s desire.
Null-Nona advanced on Darius much as Keli had advanced on Stave: naked and inviting. If the creature succeeded in seducing him, would that make Nona herself culpable? Because it was her likeness that accomplished it? She wished the rabble woman had assumed some other form, or had abandoned this one.
Darius accepted the woman’s embrace. Nona marveled at that, because she knew that Darius did not have the power of illusion; he could not fool the woman into ignoring him, and he could not render himself effectively invisible. But she surely could extend her arms and legs the same way as Keli had, and could snare him with them. It was dangerous to embrace her. He surely knew that. So why did he do it?
Then Nona saw the doll in his hand. An icon! This was the mechanism of power for his magic. He had made several of them, which he kept with him at all times. This might be the one for Colene, which he could remake to address Null-Nona. More likely it was a new one. He needed to have the body, water, and air of a person for his icon, and he had to get close enough to obtain those things. He was preparing his defense, even as he seemed to yield to her blandishment.
Darius plucked a hair from Null-Nona’s head. Intent on him, she did not notice. She lifted her face to kiss him, while he used his fingers to apply the hair to the icon. There was the essence of the body.
Darius kissed her. It was a long, deep kiss, most passionate and moist. She thought he was being affected, but he was not. For when it broke, he lifted the icon and put his mouth to it touching it with her saliva. There was the water.
“Breed with me,” Null-Nona breathed ardently. But all Darius did was hold up the icon so that her breath bathed it. There was the air. He had completed his icon of her, and she did not know its significance. Nona herself would not have known it had she not had experience with his magic. The rabble woman was about to lose this duel, because she thought Darius was just another surface man. She thought his magic was illusion.
Darius put away the icon of her and brought out another. That must be his own. “Let me show you something,” he said, lifting his doll.
For the first time, the woman noticed the icon. She gazed at it with perplexity. A doll was the last thing she had expected to contend with here!
Darius gestured. He was making a designation: this is here, that is there. Then he moved the icon—and jumped himself, from here to there, away from the woman.
Null-Nona’s mouth dropped open. She turned to stare at Darius, who now stood across the dais from her. He waved. “Magic!” she said, in much the way Keli had, and there was a similar murmur from the audience. That seemed to be so rare a quality here in this nether world that it awed those who beheld it. All of them were desperate for some of that for their offspring, and Nona could not blame them. They believed that they were subhuman, and that only conventional magic would enable them to escape their status as well as their confinement. The truth was that they were bound mainly by their belief; they had little need to escape.
“Catch me if you can,” Darius told her.
She tried. She fetched the ribbon and stretched it out, advancing on him. She did not look strong enough to tie him, but the rabble, like the ribbon, might be stronger than their assumed forms looked.
Darius waited until the woman was almost in reach. Then he moved his icon again. Again he hurtled from one spot to another, leaving the woman gazing at nothing. She too seemed happy to tackle the challenge, for this was the kind of magic she wanted her offspring to have.
Null-Nona advanced on Darius again. This time he brought out his icon of her, and invoked it and moved it—and she found herself back across the dais. This surprised her anew; his magic worked on her. But it did not faze her. She simply resumed her advance from afar.
This time she threw a loop of ribbon, surprising Darius and managing to snare one of his arms. The ribbon had not seemed solid enough to hurl that way; the woman knew how to use it, so had won the advantage of surprise. Immediately, she hauled on it, tugging Darius off-balance, as she ran into him. In this manner she caught him in another embrace, and this time it was clear that she did not intend to let him go. In fact her arms were extending into bands that wrapped all the way around his body and clasped behind her own back, and her legs were doing the same.
Darius conjured himself away. But when he landed, the rabble woman was with him: he had in effect carried her along. So he conjured her away—and she carried him along. She had found a way to nullify his magic; he could use it, but it did not free him from her.
Yet merely clasping him was not enough; Nona had learned to her dismay how a man might rape a woman, but that did not seem feasible in reverse. For one thing, Darius was clothed. How was the rabble woman going to proceed?
That was already becoming clear. The woman locked her legs around him, and unlocked her arms enough to manipulate the ribbon. She was slowly tying him up, so as to be free to do whatever else she wished without letting him go. At the same time she was drawing off his tunic. She surely knew how to finish what she had started, now that she had him helpless.
Indeed, her effort was not limited to the physical aspect. “Whom do you love?” she demanded, her thought coming clearly through to Nona.
“I love Colene,” he replied. As he spoke, he formed a mental image of the girl, cute and with evident intelligence and drive. Perhaps he thought that this would discourage the woman. But it did not. Instead Null-Nona started to change to someone else. She did not release him.
But Darius was not yet defeated. He struggled to move his hands, and though he did not have a lot of leeway, he did manage to bring up the Null-Nona icon. How could that help? All he could do was move them both together, as he had already demonstrated.
He brought the doll figure to his other hand. Then he seemed to invoke it and touch one of its little arms. What was he doing?
Null-Nona had been busy tying him, ignoring the small motions of his hands. Now she stopped. Then, unwillingly, she began to unwind the ribbon. She was freeing him!
Then Nona understood. The icons had effect on the people they represented when they were invoked. Normally they were used for large movements, such as conjuring from one spot to another. But it seemed that they could be used for small movements too. He was moving her arms and hands, forcing her to do his will instead of her own. He had reversed the ploy.