“I have really missed you.” The words tumbled from my mouth as I looked up at the magnificent being who was my husband.
“And I you. I was born to love you.” He smiled as he came to me, dwarfing me with his size while he encompassed me within the love of his embrace. He held me gently in his massive arms, and looked into my eyes, saying simply, “I am not complete without you. It is good to be home.”
I had witnessed enough of this world’s magic to know that he spoke the truth. Through some wondrous twist of fate, my Goddess had fashioned him as my mate, even before I was a part of this world.
“Yes,” I repeated his words. “It is good to be home.”
“Come!” He swept me off my feet and up into his arms like I weighed no more than a child. (Uh, let me assure you, I weigh more than a child!)
“You know, I really can walk.” But my complaint was only halfhearted. I liked the safety I felt in his arms.
“Humor me. I have only just returned.”
He kicked the huge door, his hoof ringing dully against the oak like a living doorbell. My warriors immediately pulled it open for us. I noticed how they diverted their eyes from my towel-clad form. No doubt they were trying to avoid a scowl from my husband. But I made a point to wave gaily at them over ClanFintan’s shoulder, and was rewarded by their quick grins.
“You spoil them.”
“They’re adorable. And anyway, you know you have nothing to worry about. It’s that other Rhiannon who felt the need to sleep with all of her warriors, and then some.”
“I do not believe she did much sleeping.”
“You know what I mean.” I flicked his shoulder. “As you already are very well aware, I am a faithful wife. Shoot, my middle name’s Faithful!”
“I thought your middle name was merlot.” His laughter boomed at his own joke.
I blanched. “Don’t mention that word.” My new aversion to wine must be Epona’s way of making sure I didn’t pickle my unborn daughter. I supposed I should be grateful—and I would be, as soon as I was purged of this pathetic puking. (Pardon the pun. And the alliteration.)
My chamber had obviously been freshened since we had been gone. The down-filled marshmallow mattress that served as our bed had been made, and a small dinner for two had been set on the table in the alcove that sat before the velvet-curtained glass doors that led to my private garden. I sniffed the air suspiciously, afraid that any wafting aromas would set off my puke reflex. When I didn’t catch the scent of anything objectionable, I hesitantly approached the table. My husband’s attempt at smothering his chuckle caught my attention.
“What are you laughing at?” I asked.
“I never thought the day would come when you would approach a table of food with trepidation.”
My love of a good meal had been a constant source of amusement to my husband. Actually, more than once he has commented that I have the appetite of a centaur Huntress, which somehow is endearing to him.
To me it’s less endearing, and more like the reason I force myself to exercise regularly.
“Very funny. Keep in mind I’ve already puked on one centaur tonight.” When I got to the table I breathed a sigh of relief. Alanna’s delicate hand and unerring ability to manage me was evident. There was a steaming tureen filled with an almost clear broth that had a light, vaguely chicken-like aroma. A cloth-covered basket held thin pieces of toasted bread and sliced bananas. A pot of hot herbal tea waited invitingly for me to pour. For ClanFintan she had fixed a platter of cheese and cold chicken. Not a scrap of rice or anything that reeked of fried food, spices or (yeesh) dripping butter.
“Alanna is very wise,” ClanFintan said as he settled into his chaise and began to happily dig into his chicken.
I ladled myself some broth and nibbled hesitantly at the toast. “Knowing her, she’s probably already making baby clothes.” He and I smiled at each other.
I sipped the broth slowly, allowing time for my easy-to-upset stomach to accustom itself to food.
“So, you would say the trip was a success?” I asked as I blew at the hot tea.
“Laragon Castle was thriving when we departed. In the spring their fields will once again yield the healing crops and flowers they once did. The reinhabiting of Guardian Castle went well after the women settled in. The new warriors are vigilant.” He cleared his throat as if what he was about to say was lodged there uncomfortably. “As we had thought, there were signs that the prior inhabitants had been lax in their duties as watchers and defenders.”
It had been a shock when it was discovered that the demonic Fomorians, Partholon’s ancient enemy, had broken though the supposedly impenetrable Guardian Castle, which defended the only pass through the mountains. Much speculation had been gossiped about regarding how the invasion had begun. I gave him a curious raise of my eyebrows, prompting him to continue.
“Their weapons were rusted, broken and untended. Tournament fields were overgrown with weeds, proving that no practice in weaponry or those skills needed in warfare had been kept at ready.” His frown deepened. “But there was no shortage of wine and ale, and even before we unpacked the supplies brought with us, we found the kitchens were filled to overflowing with stored delicacies.”
“So, they ate and drank and that was about it?”
“We also found many disturbing paintings depicting…” His voice trailed off.
My curiosity was certainly piqued. My own temple was filled with bigger-than-life-size frescoes of my image clad in not much more than a slip, and that only from the waist down. Not to mention the zillions of cavorting maidens who frolicked seminude (in the paintings and around the temple). I couldn’t image what kind of images had shocked a centaur who was so used to the casual nudity and open sexuality of a clearly matriarchal world.
“Okay, give. What was in the pictures?”
“They enjoyed inflicting pain upon one another.” I guess my face didn’t register much shock (keep in mind, he’s never been exposed to MTV, as I, unfortunately, have been), so he continued. “They inflicted pain during sexual acts. And there was evidence that they had been dallying with a dark god.”
I had the unnerving feeling that maybe my question to Alanna earlier that day had been prompted by more than a random thought. I swallowed, not particularly liking where this might be taking me, but knowing that I had to follow my goddess-touched instincts. “A dark god? What do you mean?”
He looked as disgusted as he sounded. “Amidst the paintings of their perversions there were drawings that showed the Triple Face of Darkness.”
“Wait, I don’t understand what you mean. What’s a Triple Face of Darkness?”
He lowered his voice, which only heightened my feeling of unease. I mean, we were totally alone. Why was he lowering his voice?
“I do not like to speak of such things. One should not name a dark god without care—even if he is a High Shaman, or the Chosen of a Great Goddess. But as Epona’s Beloved you have the right to know exactly what the Fomorians, and the decadence of the Guardian Warriors, allowed to enter Partholon.”
“Tell me.” I sounded much braver than I felt.
“Pryderi is the Triple Face of Darkness. Ancient stories say that he was once a god, like Cernunnos, only he chose the mountains and the Northlands in which to reign. Legends also say that he was Epona’s consort and that she loved him. Then he began to lust for more power—power to subjugate Epona to his will.”
I felt the wrongness of Pryderi’s attempt to usurp Epona in the depths of my soul. Partholon was a matriarchal world. There were gods who were worshipped as consorts to the goddesses, but their place was definitely secondary. Men were not bullied or repressed in Partholon. They respected the Goddess as birth-giver and creator; therefore, they respected women. Anything else would ultimately destroy the beautiful balance that made Partholon such an incredible place.
“What did Epona do?” I asked, even though my heart already knew the answer.
“The Goddess’s anger and
hurt were terrible. She cast him from Partholon with such wrath that his aspect fragmented, much like a soul can be shattered if it is too traumatized, which is why the depictions of him show three faces.” ClanFintan looked away from me when he said this and I could tell he didn’t want to explain further, but I needed to know, so I prompted, “What do the faces look like?”
He sighed deeply. “One face has nothing but eyes. The mouth has been seared closed. The rest of it is featureless. Another has only a gaping, fanged maw, terrible to behold. The eyes of that face are hollow holes. The third is unbelievable in its beauty. That face is said to look exactly as he did before he betrayed Epona.”
I sipped my tea, trying not to notice that my hand was shaking. “And there are people in Partholon who worship him?”
“No. Or at least if there are they are only in the most obscure parts of the nation.”
“But Guardian Castle isn’t an obscure part of Partholon.”
“No, it’s not. But the people there had been corrupted, whether by the Fomorians or by greed and sloth before they infiltrated the castle—the sequence of events have never been entirely clear. What is apparent is that Pryderi had been influencing them for some time.” He touched my cheek reassuringly. “Don’t worry, love. People must be open to Pryderi’s poisonous whisperings for him to gain a hold on their souls, and Epona’s Partholon will not so easily open itself again to such darkness. We need not fear that the new Guardian Warriors will forget their duties.”
“Good.” Purposefully I shook off the creepy feeling discussing Pryderi had begun to give me. “So, you think my idea is going to work?”
He smiled. “Yes, your orders to make Guardian Castle a working school to train warriors resonated with its new inhabitants.”
“Vigilance and education—always an excellent mix.”
“It is certain that Guardian Castle will not fail Partholon again,” he said soberly.
“You don’t think enough Fomorians survived to attack us again, do you?” Those creatures were evil, vampiric beings that belonged in hell. Yes—the thought of them plotting to come back through the mountain pass Guardian Castle had been built to guard definitely made my skin crawl.
“I believe the pox and their losses in battle weakened them to the point of annihilation, but we must remain prepared for their resurgence.”
“You think they took pregnant women back over the pass with them?” I asked, horrified.
“I pray they did not.”
Which really didn’t seem like a positive answer to me.
“So we stay prepared and keep our eyes open.”
“Yes,” he acknowledged.
“Okay.” I yawned and his ears pricked (not literally).
“When your body tells you to rest, you must rest,” said the father-to-be.
“For a change, I won’t argue with you.” I stood, stretching like a cat. Even after the rather morbid dark god subject, the warm broth and tea, and the absence of worrying that I might have a fatal illness, had made me feel more than ready for a long night’s rest. Not to mention the wonderful orgasm.
“Perhaps your not arguing with me will be a nice side effect of your pregnancy,” he said as he followed me to our bed.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” I retorted through another yawn.
He folded himself down onto our mattress first, then I settled into a position curled comfortably against him. I realize it should be an awkward pairing, a being who was half horse, half man, sleeping with a human woman, but it wasn’t. No matter how I lay, one of his hands would find the small of my back, or the curve of my leg, and rub gentle circular patterns over my skin. His warm caress was like a sleeping pill. I loved that his touch could lull me to sleep. My eyes were already closed when his voice interrupted my foggy thoughts.
“It surprised me that you did not use the Magic Sleep to visit me.” He paused, then added, “Or did you come to me, and I failed to feel your presence?”
“No…” His question brought me fully awake. “I have not had the dream-thing since your battle with Nuada.”
Except for a quick grunt of acknowledgment, he stayed silent. I knew we were both thinking back to that terrible last battle when Nuada, the leader of the Fomorians, almost killed ClanFintan. I had been knocked unconscious, and my Goddess had called my spirit free from my body so that I could distract Nuada. ClanFintan had killed the creature, causing the Fomorians to react in confused panic, and the tide of the battle to turn in our favor. Before then, Epona had used my dreams to call me out of my body and send me on what amounted to spiritual reconnaissance trips to spy on our enemies and taunt them into falling into our traps.
But since the Fomorians had been vanquished, I had not been called by Epona to go on any nighttime spirit trips, even when I had tried to will myself on one after ClanFintan left. Nor had I heard the whisper of her voice, which I had become strangely accustomed to hearing, until today when she had breathed into my mind the words You are not playing, Beloved. It took hearing her voice again for me to realize how much her silence had bothered me.
“I tried to send my spirit out of my body to visit you, but it didn’t happen. I asked Epona to let me visit you. It was such an easy thing before—I even traveled so much that I got really tired of it.”
“Yes, I remember.” I felt him nod his head.
“And she hasn’t been talking to me, either,” I said in a small voice.
“Rhea, your Goddess would not leave you. You must believe that.”
“I don’t know, ClanFintan. I don’t really know anything about this Goddess Incarnate stuff. Remember, I’m not Rhiannon.”
“Yes, and I thank your Goddess daily that you are not.” His voice was firm. The truth was, no one had liked Rhiannon. Okay, more accurately, most people who had known her had loathed her, which was—at first—an almost constant source of irritation to me. Plus, it was confusing to look like someone who had evolved into such a different kind of person.
“Sometimes I wonder if I just imagined that I was meant to be Epona’s Chosen.”
“Do you think so little of Epona?” He didn’t sound angry, just questioning.
“No.” My answer came easily. “I’ve felt her presence and experienced her power.”
“Then it must be yourself of whom you think so little.”
I couldn’t answer that. I had always believed I was a strong woman with a healthy ego and excellent self-esteem. But maybe my husband was right. Maybe I needed to look inside myself for doubt and weakness, and not Epona.
Could that be part of why Rhiannon and I were so different? I knew self-doubt could be destructive and life altering, but wasn’t some self-reflection healthy? Had Rhiannon become so spoiled and willful that she was immune to any kind of self-questioning? Mix that with the power that went along with being Epona’s Beloved and maybe, like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, she had become “as a serpent’s egg which hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous.” Had Epona done what Brutus contemplated, and by switching me with Rhiannon, smashed her shell before her hatched evilness could destroy Partholon?
Or was I just letting the useless literature that tended to clutter my English teacher brain freak me out?
“Rest now.” Once again his hand began a hypnotic caress, and ClanFintan’s familiar touch helped to quiet my jabbering mind. “Your Goddess will answer your doubts.”
“I love you,” I murmured as a wave of weariness closed my eyelids and I fell softly into a deep sleep.
* * *
I was nibbling Godiva dark chocolates while I lounged on a downfilled, violet-colored divan, which was situated in the middle of a field of waving wheat. At the end of the divan sat Sean Connery (dressed in 007-era black tie). My feet were in his lap, and with one strong, firm hand he rubbed erotic swirls across my instep, and with the other he held open a book of poetry entitled Why I Love You. As he read to me in his sexy Scottish burr, he kept glancing at me with looks of undisguised adoration…
&nbs
p; …And I was suddenly sucked out of my fabulous dream and through the ceiling of Epona’s Temple.
“Whoa! Feeling sick!” My spirit voice held a familiar ghostly resonance and I gulped the night air. The rush of exhilaration I felt as I realized my Goddess was once again directing my spirit warred with the revolution in my stomach. My spirit hung over the middle of Epona’s Temple, remaining very still while I got my bearings and re-accustomed myself to the Magic Sleep—which wasn’t actually sleep at all, but the traveling of my soul, and was therefore exceptionally magical.
As my vertigo receded, I was able to relax and enjoy the incredible view. The moon was almost full, and its clean silver light kissed the walls of the temple until they seemed to come alive, glowing with an inner blush of illuminated marble.
Below me I could see that the feast must be coming to a close. Sleepy shapes moved in groups of twos, threes and fours, and were stumbling a little amidst good-natured jesting and merriment as they emerged from the front entrance of the temple, heading back to their neat homes outside the temple walls. I smiled as several of the pairs seemed to have a hard time moving out of the shadows, and when they did continue on their way home, their arms remained entwined suggestively around one another.
I guess my people had been inspired to emulate my condition.
As I continued to play spiritual voyeur, I noticed a centaur couple standing apart from the departing crowd, some way from the path taken by the other people. My body drifted in their direction, until I was hovering above the female’s back—far enough above her that my presence was not noticed, but not so far that I could not easily see that the two centaurs below me were my friends, Victoria and Dougal.
I could not see Victoria’s face, and I could not hear what was being said, but I could see that Dougal was speaking, and that his words held rapt the Huntress’s attention. (I realize I should not be eaves-watching, but, well, my spirit body wasn’t moving away—which gave me a great excuse to pry.) As I watched, Victoria held up one of her hands and pressed a finger against Dougal’s lips, stopping his speech. Then she stepped forward, and in one graceful movement, she rested her head against his shoulder and nodded once, yes.