'You do not answer me,' she said. 'Do I displease you?'
'My mind cannot encompass your beauty,' he said, in a voice that shook. 'There are no words that can describe even a tenth part of it.
Having looked upon it, I understand how it may burn a man to ash as though he were caught up in a raging forest fire. It terrifies me, but I am unable to resist it.'
She glided closer to him, and the perfume of sun lilies enveloped him. She stood over him until he was forced to turn his face up to hers.
She stooped slowly and placed her lips on his, warm and soft. Her curling kitten tongue slipped deep into his mouth. For a fleeting moment it twined round his own, and then it was gone, but the taste of her filled his mouth like the juice of some wondrous fruit.
She whirled away across the malachite tiles. Her translucent robe billowed round her as she arched her back and pirouetted until the back of her head almost touched the bulge of her buttocks, her hair brushing the tiles. Her feet danced until they blurred with speed. His eyes could not follow them. Then they stopped and she stood on tiptoe, still as a statue, only her hair swinging round her.
'There is more, my lord.' Her voice took on a deep, throbbing intensity he had not heard before. 'There is much more. Or have you seen enough?'
'If I gaze upon you for a thousand years, I will never see enough.'
With a toss of her head she threw her hair off her shoulders, and stared at him with those smouldering eyes. 'You stand on the lip of the volcano,' she warned him. 'Even at this late stage it is possible for you to draw back. Once you take the plunge there will be no return. For you the universe will change for ever. The price will be high - higher than you can imagine. Are you prepared to pay it?'
'I am ready.'
She slipped off the robe over one shoulder. Its curve was perfectly harmonious with that of the long, delicate neck. She let the robe fall lower, and one breast strained to be free. She released both. Round, full and womanly, they swung against each other. She let the robe drop until it caught on the curve of her hips. Her belly was as smooth as a field of newly fallen snow. A fiery ruby glowed in the pit of her navel.
She undulated her hips and the robe slipped down her slender thighs to garland her ankles.
She stepped out of it and came naked to him, with that long gliding stride. Once again she leant over him and put an arm round the back of his neck. With the other hand she cupped one of her breasts, drew his face towards her and eased the nipple into his mouth. 'Take suck, my lord,' she whispered in his ear.
As he drew on it like an infant, the nipple swelled between his lips and it began to exude a thick creamy fluid. Taita relished it, until she pushed his head away and drew it out from between his lips. 'Be not so greedy,' she admonished him. 'My body has many delights for you to savour. You must not satiate yourself too soon.'
She stepped back and ran both hands down her belly with a smoothing motion. His eyes followed them slavishly. She moved her feet apart and bent her knees, spreading her thighs. He watched her hand burrow between them, deep into the cloud of dark hair. Then she brought it out again and held up a forefinger. It was glossy with a pellucid dampness.
'See how I long for you,' she whispered huskily, as she touched the tip of her wet finger with her thumb. When she parted them, a gelatinous thread stretched between them. 'This is the true ambrosia that all men crave.' She came to him. 'Open your mouth, my lord.' She slid her finger between his lips, and the heady scent of her sex pervaded his senses.
She reached down with her free hand under the hem of his tunic and took hold of his manroot. Already it was as hard as ironstone, but in her cunning fingers it stretched harder and longer still.
He looked deep into her eyes and saw in them a stark, predatory hunger that had not been there a moment before. He knew that it was not for what she held in her hand but his very soul that she lusted. Now she placed both hands upon him, lifted him to his feet and led him to the couch. She knelt before him, loosened the straps of his sandals and slipped them off his feet. She lifted her head and nuzzled him, taking him between her lips and sucking voraciously. As she stood up again she lifted his tunic over his head, then pushed him back on to the couch.
She stepped over him with one leg as though she was mounting a steed, then crouched over him to guide him into her secret depths.
He uttered a deep groan as the pleasure became so intense it was transmuted into agony. She froze immobile over him. The muscles deep inside her pulsed and contracted, tightening as inexorably on him as the coils of a python round its prey. She locked him in a union so powerful that neither could break from it. Her eyes gazed into his, filled with the triumphant glare of a warrior about to make the killing stroke. 'You belong to me.' Her voice was the hiss of a serpent. 'Everything you are is mine.' No more dissembling, she had stripped off her disguise to reveal her true colours.
He felt her carnal invasion begin. It was as though a barbaric horde had besieged the citadel of his soul and was battering down the walls. He rallied all his powers to resist her, closing his gates to deny her entrance, hurling her back from the breach. The look in her eyes changed to consternation as she realized he had enticed her into an ambush. Then her expression became murderous, and she surged back into the attack.
They struggled against each other, at first evenly matched. He moved his body to one side, and when she threw her weight across to counter him, he rolled with her off the couch. Locked together they crashed on to the malachite floor, but she was under him and bore the brunt of his weight. Just for an instant the grip of the muscles deep within her slackened at the shock. He used the lapse to drive himself further inside, trying to reach her centre. She tightened instantly, holding him out.
I
I THE QUEST
They strained against each other silently, pitting all their forces, holding each other in precarious equilibrium.
He felt her summon her reserves and gathered his own in readiness.
Then she launched herself against him in a psychic avalanche. She was forcing a breach in his defences, breaking through into the secret places of his soul. He could feel his body yielding to her. Once again, gloating triumph lit her eyes. He reached down and closed his fist over the Periapt of Lostris that still hung at his throat. In his mind he conjugated the word of power: Mensaar! His manroot leapt with the impulse, and she cried out incoherently as she felt it. 'Kydash! Ncube!' he shouted. A bolt of psychic power flashed from the Periapt. Like a lightning strike, it flung Eos from the breach in his soul. Once again they held each other at bay, their strength evenly matched. Locked in each other's flesh they lay as still as figures carved in ivory.
The oil in the lamps burnt low, the flames guttered and went out. The only light in the chamber came through the shaft high in the roof above.
That light faded as the sun set behind the mountains, and left them in darkness to continue the battle. All through the night they were braced against each other in the hellish coupling, his manroot buried inside her, her muscles clamped on it remorselessly, no longer organs of procreation and pleasure but deadly weapons.
When the dawn light seeped through the shaft in the roof, it found them still locked together. As the light strengthened, he could see into her eyes. In their depths he discerned the first flutter of panic, like the wings of a trapped bird beating against the bars of its cage. She tried to shutter them from him, but he held her eyes as she held his sex. Both were far past the borders of exhaustion. There was nothing left in either but the will to hold out. She had locked her long legs round his hips, and her arms round his back. He clasped her buttocks in one hand, pulling them on to him. His right hand, still clutching the Periapt of Lostris, was clenched at the small of her back. Very carefully, so that he did not alert her, he eased open the lid of the locket with his thumbnail and the chip of red stone fell into his palm.