Night of Fire.
by Vonna Harper.
Chapter One.
A fine mist drifted around the silent maiden and her companions. Like her, the other five wore simple gray gowns that skimmed their youthful bodies. They were all barefoot, and their hair hung to their waists. Except for the deep charcoal color of her hair, the only thing that made this maiden different from the other virgins was a singular brightness to her deep-set green eyes. Someone who took the time to study her would conclude that either this one was higher-born or more intelligent than the others; they would have been right on both accounts.
"She comes," a slightly pudgy maiden with small hands and feet whispered. "All night I prayed to the spring-spirits and simmered dried lavender to give The Lady strength."
The green-eyed virgin said nothing. If Kilee needed to believe that the spirits would heed the plea of an untested girl, so be it. As for her, she would simply wait.
The woman who"d been chosen by her knowledge of all things mystical to approach the Church"s angry, powerful priests, rode a white stallion with flowing mane and tail. The Lady"s own hair was as long as the stallion"s tail and nearly as pale. She"d draped it over her right shoulder, perhaps so she wouldn"t risk sitting on it, perhaps because only that covered her nakedness.
At the sight of The Lady"s unclothed state-proof that she"d failed at her mission- the virgins dropped to their knees on the wet, clover-coated earth. All sobbed except for the green-eyed one. She would have, too, except that her heart and head had already told her the priests would not listen to The Lady.
With each hoof beat, the green-eyed one felt, not the approaching horse, but an earth-drumbeat. The sound was as old as her grandmother"s, grandmother"s memory. Respect and submission called for her to drop her gaze from The Lady, but she continued to look up at the clan"s most beautiful and revered woman.
Although she was still exquisite, the green-eyed one noted fine lines around The Lady"s eyes and mouth and felt the sorrow and determination that permeated every inch of her being. When The Lady locked eyes with her, the green-eyed one returned her gaze.
"I do not wear the robes of my station," The Lady said. "Because my mission is incomplete."
"The priests-they have not decided?" someone asked hopefully.
"Oh, they have," The Lady said. "They hear only their own truth; it is beyond them to accept anything different." She shook her head. "I did not have to go into their cold, dark building to know what their words would be. Even now it is being written on parchment so their decision can be sent to each clan"s leaders." She took a deep breath as if gathering the strength to continue. "Our ancient rites to insure the return of spring have been declared heathen, the work of devils. They have been banished from the land."
"That cannot be!"
"Winter will never end."
"Plants will not grow anew; there will be no crops."
"No fertility dances? No sacred night unions? Without that there will be no babies."
The green-eyed one listened to her companions" wails but didn"t add her greatest concern, that if virgins didn"t make love in the fields, the earth would not be made fertile. Instead she waited until the wailing had faded away before getting to her feet and walking over to the woman she considered her Queen.
"You say that your mission is incomplete, my Lady," she said softly. "Why did you come to us, to virgins, when the leaders of all the clans wait to offer their advice?"
The Lady looked down at her, seemingly oblivious to the rain dripping from her temple down the sides of her neck. Was that a smile? "What is your name, child?"
"My-my mother named me Heather."
"Heather." The Lady leaned over her horse to draw Heather"s hair back from her face. "Green eyes," she said softly. "The color of the wood spirits."
"That-that is what my grandfather said when he first held me. I am the only one in my family with... "
"Tell me, child. Do you feel as if you are different from your brothers and sisters and from these, your companions?"
"I, ah, I am impatient. I want more than to plant gardens and tend sheep. I love to sit near the elders and listen to their wisdom. I... my grandfather taught me to read."
"Excellent. What do you think of our rites and ceremonies? Perhaps you believe the priests who came great distances to teach us their ways are right, that the setting of great fires by three times three men using wood from the sacred trees to celebrate the triumph of light over the dark half of the year is pagan. Perhaps you have read books that taught you it is foolish for the villagers to bring their animals to the highest place where the sacred fires burn so the animals can walk between them and thus be protected from disease and sterility."
"No, never!"
"Hm. Have you read the great black books the priests brought with them? Perhaps you have gone to Church to listen to them preach."
"I have gone," she admitted because the women in her family had taught her to never apologize for her thirst for knowledge and because she believed it was important to understand the newcomers" religion. "But I do not believe what they say."
"Why not?"
"Because my heart and soul believe that the way of my ancestors is the true one,"
she said, her voice strong. "The earth and sun which are our mother and father must be revered, not the Church"s G.o.d who I have never seen or heard."
The Lady slid weightlessly to the ground. One breast poked through the curtain of long hair. She held a strange gold, long-bladed dagger, but Heather had no fear of it. Instead, her own hand burned with the need to feel its weight.
"The spirits told me I would find you this morning," The Lady said.
"Me?" Her wet clothes should have had her shaking with cold, shouldn"t they? Instead, she felt hot.
"Maia, it is not for us to question or fully understand the earth-born forces that rule us. Our duty is to believe."
Maia?
"I do believe," she whispered. "From the time I was old enough to know what it meant to be a girl, I knew it was my duty to surrender my virginity on Bel-fire night so the seed spilled will nourish the land."
"And nourish you, Maia. Fill you with a child."
"If it is so willed."
"You are right. Not all girls and women become pregnant on Bel-fire night. Only those whose fruit is ripe."
Heather-or should she now call herself Maia?-felt no hesitancy in talking about her fertility. How could she when her entire life had been about that one thing-or it would have been if the dour priests and their soldiers who"d arrived in deepest winter hadn"t forbidden that most holy of celebrations.
"What do you want of me, My Lady?" she asked.
Another soft smile touched The Lady"s lips. "Good. I did not have to tell you why we are speaking; you knew."
"Am I now Maia?"
"You are. The first Maia was once a mountain nymph, but she became a G.o.ddess."
Maia had to struggle against the impulse to admit she had no desire to become a G.o.ddess. "Some say the first Maia was wife of Zeus," she said. "Mother of Hermes who is the G.o.d of magic, and that her parents were Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione."
"You are well-read."
"I am only a simple village maiden."
"Are you?" The Lady extended the dagger toward her and turned it so she could see a red jewel imbedded in the hilt just above where the blade began. There was another jewel, this one black, at the base of the hilt, but it didn"t interest her. "What is in there?" The Lady asked.
Maia wiped off the rain clinging to the irregular, polished red stone. Doing so heated her fingers, but she wasn"t afraid. The dagger and predominant jewel were beautiful, a combination of deadly strength and mystery. Although she knew the other virgins had gotten to their feet and were crowding around, she paid them no mind.
The more she concentrated on the exquisite jewel, the more she became aware of a heat between her legs, in the place where a man would place his seed-bearer.
"Fire," she whispered. She blinked and leaned closer. "I see fire. And people dancing. I hear drums. Drums that seem to come from the roots of the deepest tree, perhaps deeper. There is...a hill with a strange unfinished structure, and a woman who..."
"What about the woman?" The Lady pressed.
"She looks like you, only she wears a garment of many colors that flutter about her like b.u.t.terflies. Flowers hang from her hair and clothes; they are everywhere on her. She is not alone."
"What?" one of the other virgins asked. "I see nothing. What a strange dagger. The workmanship is the finest I have ever seen."
Ignoring them, The Lady wrapped her arm around Maia and drew her to her side. Maia felt her warm nakedness. "Who is with her?" The Lady asked.
"Handmaidens. They are all dressed in white, and there is a man in green and other men who are red even on their faces."
"Do you know where this place is?"
The Lady"s somber tone caught her attention, and she looked up at her. "No. My Queen, it does not seem to be of our time."
"No, it is not." The Lady squeezed Maia"s shoulder. "Look. Tell me everything."
For the first time since The Lady approached, Maia felt fear. Still, she did as she was ordered. "There is great activity and movement. So much drumming that I can hear nothing else. Now-now I am no longer looking at the flower woman. Many, many people are standing and watching. I see..."
"What do you see, Maia?"
Maia shivered, and yet she felt even hotter. She couldn"t get enough air into her lungs, and the fire between her legs threatened to overwhelm her.
"A man."
"Only one?"
Determined to answer her Queen as fully as possible, Maia brought her face even closer to the stone and waited for the fine mist to clear. There were many, many men, women, even children standing near the top of the hill where the dancers and fires were, but although she"d never seen clothes like they were wearing, it didn"t matter. Only that one man did.
"He is dark," she said. "Large. He stands alone."
"Dark?"
Maia"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s felt heavy, and it was all she could do not to press her hands between her legs to try to silence the energy there.
"Black hair. Eyes of the same color. He watches what is happening. Sometimes..."
"Go on."
"Sometimes I see him, the man. Sometimes he is a bull."
"It is him."
Alerted by the awe in The Lady"s voice, Maia continued to stare. "Who is he?"
"The man who must come to us. Taurus."
Maia didn"t know whether to turn and run or try to climb into the scene the jewel had revealed. If it wasn"t for The Lady"s body next to hers, she might not have been strong enough to stand.
"The bull Taurus," The Lady whispered. She stepped away from Maia and extended the dagger toward her. "Take this gift. It came to me, for me to pa.s.s onto you. Go home. Tell your family that you must leave. You do not know when you will return."
Without hesitation, Maia closed her fingers around the dagger. It felt heavy, warm, alive. "Where am I going?"
"To where the red stone has shown. To reach Taurus. Trust, Maia. Believe. Be true to who and what you are."
Chapter Two.
Taron Stanten woke as he always did, fully alert and with a hard-on. Even before he opened his eyes, he"d a.s.sessed his surroundings and knew he wasn"t in his San Francisco penthouse. That didn"t surprise him since business kept him out-of-town more than not, particularly now. He became aware of a not unpleasant smell, something earthy. Going by the cool air on his cheeks, he guessed that the window in whatever bedroom he was in was open.
Sitting up, he swung his feet over to the side of the unfamiliar bed and stared down at his naked body. Yep, his c.o.c.k was still in perfect operating condition, a little surprising given the stress of the last few months. The window was open, and through it he could hear a faint, not unpleasant sound-drumming, unless he was hung over.
He was never hung over. Even on those rare occasions when he drank with abandon, he"d been blessed with a cast-iron stomach. As a result, when the business a.s.sociates he wined and dined might wish they"d been shot and put out of their misery, he kicked any residual lethargy out of his system by going for a run.
When he walked over to the window and spotted the nearby hill with the unfinished Athenian acropolis at the top, the pieces fell together. He was in Edinburgh, Scotland and that was Calton Hill. He was here because his college roommate Paul Livingston now lived in Edinburgh and had invited him to stay for a couple of days before going onto London for a series of high-powered and high-stress meetings that would decide the future of the company he"d created.
Good idea, Paul," Taron muttered. "Nothing like going on vacation-the first vacation I"ve had in years-before turning back into the stubborn, bull-nosed b.a.s.t.a.r.d those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds think I am."
He was, d.a.m.n it! Wasn"t his company"s enviable position on the stock exchange and countless glowing articles in financial magazines proof of that? Unfortunately, his success had bred greed on the part of the compet.i.tion, which had led to the hostile takeover bid that now consumed him. Even with that weighing on him, he had to admit that for a bounced-around foster kid, he hadn"t turned out half bad-rich enough to be considered a multi-millionaire. His business was on the cutting edge of electronic technology. h.e.l.l, he"d even been an honored guest at the White House, twice.
Only from the looks of the goat staring back at him, oblivious to his straining c.o.c.k, not everyone was impressed.
The goat, Paul had told him that evening as the two men shared a beer, was part of some local spring festival that would be getting underway in a few minutes.
"The city fathers would just as soon keep animals out of the Beltane celebration," Paul explained. He lit a cigarette before continuing. "But local farmers are always dragging them in. That"s why I"m glad you could make it for this. My friend, Beltane is like nothing you"ve ever seen."
Taron groaned. "I thought we were going to relax."
"You don"t know the meaning of the word."
He couldn"t argue with that. At the same time, he didn"t feel up to telling Paul that the energy that had gotten his business to where it was, had changed focus from intellect and creativity, to finance and survival; if he did, the conversation might turn to the strategic meetings he"d set up, how vital they were, how high the risks. These days, just thinking of what was at stake drained him. Yes, he could still run rings around most people and had enough ideas to keep the company on the cutting edge for the rest of his life, and he"d sure as h.e.l.l never disappointed a woman between the sheets, but...