Poor Misi! She had known by hearsay what effect the web would produce, but she could not have expected the manic strength it induced in me, or the insatiable violence of my reaction, or the long ordeal she would have to endure until the effects wore off. She must have believed that her greater size would let her remain in control, but no one could have resisted my frenzy. In my fruitless striving for release, my frantic quests for variety, my cataclysms of mindless ecstasy, I tossed her around as if she weighed nothing.
Oblivious to pain, I hurt myself also. Early in my madness, I ripped off my splints. Later we found the broken planks and snapped bindings. My knees were not ready for vigorous exercise. The half-healed bones were cracked, the weakened tendons strained, and any chance that I might walk properly again was lost. Yes, I hurt Misi, but fortunately I inflicted no broken bones or permanent injury on her, only innumerable bruises, and probably much terror.
Dear Misi! In spite of that terror, she never cried out or tried to disable or kill me. At least, I do not think she did; I probably would not have noticed if she had. She endured and even cooperated, not that she really had any choice.
According to Issirariss, a second peculiarity of the virgin’s web is that it will not provoke a general orgy. Once I had fixed on Misi as the victim of my lust, then the cab could have been invaded by an army of the world’s most desirable women and I should have ignored all but her. That, he wrote, is a greater danger for a woman who takes the potion, for no normal man can satisfy her need and she will go mad with frustration.
I was not frustrated. Once I started, Misi could not resist me and I was incapable of stopping until the madness wore off. Again and again I struggled to a climax, but the relief was momentary, being succeeded at once by even greater urgency. Driven by my frenzy, I could not have done otherwise than I did, so I feel little guilt, yet I regret most bitterly that I hurt her and frightened her. Eventually the effects waned or my strength gave out. After uncounted orgasms my arousal vanished as suddenly as it had come, and I collapsed into a deep coma-like sleep.
The virgin’s web had a third unique property, one I did not appreciate or comprehend until much later.
My unconsciousness probably did not last very long, for I awakened howling at the pain in my knees, which were black and hugely swollen. I was sprawled naked on the floor of the cab, surrounded by shreds of bedding, lit by a cruel sunlight streaming through a broken shutter, sweat-soaked and shivering in spasms of feverish reaction. Misi, equally bare, was trapped below me, battered and bruised and bloody, half-stunned still by her long ordeal.
After a few moments, I recalled how I had maltreated her. While I had been experiencing unending deliriums of rapture, she had been hurting. Then I forgot my own troubles. I wept. I stroked her cheek. I struggled to move out of the way so that she could rise, for we were crushed together in a very small space, and I was incapable of rising. Meanwhile I apologized a thousand times.
I told her over and over how sorry I was, and how much I loved her.
Oh, my beloved Misi!
For I did truly love her—beyond measure, beyond expression. I cherish her memory still. No other woman ever has, or ever can, mean to me what Misi Nada did and still does.
Issirariss called that the imprinting effect.
—3—
MY GUESS HAD BEEN CORRECT. Heaven had set up a roadblock at a natural narrowing of the borderlands in the east of January, middle of Thursday. The angels were still there when Misi and Pula and I returned, long after my experience with the virgin’s web. Now I could walk, after a fashion, keeping my knees straight. We had detoured very far back westward, waiting on my recovery.
That was a strange journey. Misi and Pula had to trade in little settlements for food and even do the cooking. They were appallingly horrible cooks, both of them, never having cooked before. I was in great pain at first and could do little to help, but the thought of taking over the cooking myself was a big incentive for me to heal.
We were fortunate that no unscrupulous men or hungry animals took advantage of us, two women and a cripple wandering defenseless in the borderlands. Yet I remember that long loop west and then back east again as the happiest time of my life. I was with Misi, and nothing else mattered. I would have joyfully journeyed at her side forever—even if that meant continuing to eat her cooking.
Where a great spur of mountain reached close to the wide river, we came within sight of an encampment of four tents and three angel chariots. The landscape was spotted with thickets of white-trunked trees amid glades of the greenest grass I had ever seen. A soft rain was falling.
As our hippos munched their lazy way along the narrow plain, a solitary long-legged angel came stalking through the woods to meet us. His stripes showed him to be Black-white-red. There must have been others around, staying out of sight.
I was sitting on the bench, just inside the front window, with my feet out on the platform. Misi was at my side, driving.
Black was well named, being as black as anyone I have ever met. Most of the forest races are short, but he was very tall and very lanky. He wore no hat and his frizzled crown of jet hair shone with diamond sparkles. I was looking down at him as he strolled alongside the cab, which is why I noticed his hair especially. His nose was broad, but the rest of him was as elongated as a fishing pole. He wore the fringed leathers of an angel, and he carried a long gun. He was very young.
So even the angels looked young to me now?
He studied me carefully, peering up with deep black eyes that seemed to brim with melancholy. “May good fortune attend you, trader,” he said formally.
“May Our Lady Sun shed her blessing on you also, sir. I am Nob Bil.” I did not introduce Misi.
I was very nervous, and the angel’s steady scrutiny was rapidly making me more so. I was also in pain, for although my legs were stretched out before me, I could not keep them completely straight without looking unnatural, and they were howling at the slight bend I had imposed on them. Agony and fear together were soaking me in sweat. I could only hope that the rain was disguising that.
“You are brave to travel alone, trader.”
“There are four other trains right behind us, sir.”
That statement was true so far as it went, but the others were not associated with us and might even be unaware that we were now ahead of them. We had followed their convoy eastward and then outrun it with our single, and almost empty, wagon.
“And your horses are with them, Nob Bil?”
“They are, sir. I have twisted my knee and cannot attend to them myself at the moment.”
Black frowned glumly at that tale. Misi had coached me well, but I decided to take the offensive in the hope of diverting more questions. “And what brings you gallant angels to these parts? Not danger, I hope?”
The angel’s eyes continued to examine me morosely. “We have been passing a warning to traders. Have you heard of it?”
“No sir.”
He sighed. “You traders are as bad as herdmen!”
“I am told that herdmen slaughter one another on sight,” I said reprovingly. But I was remembering one of Violet’s old jeers, that herdmen smelled different. I was a herdman half-breed—had this angel seen through my disguise already?
“True. I only meant that traders do not cooperate at all.”
“Give away information, you mean?” I tried to sound shocked. Despite my pain and the quiverings of my normal cowardice, I was starting to enjoy the game. I wished I dared look at Misi.