The musicians were already in place, running through a merry tune. The ballroom doors leading onto the garden had been thrown open letting in fresh air and the scent of flowers in bloom. Some would not approve, but Branwen didn’t intend to stick around long enough to find out.
In a small room adjoining the ballroom, a table had been laid out with refreshments. Lemonade and sweet, spicy negus would refresh parched throats. Muscadine and other exotic ices would cool. And for hungry stomachs, every delightful nibble including, of course, her cherished cupcakes.
“Milady, the first guests are arriving.”
“Thank you, Hastings.” Branwen nodded to the elderly butler.
Branwen eyed each of her male visitors carefully as they were announced, receiving them in the proper way. Not a single one was appropriate for poor Miss Talbot. Shaking her head in frustration, Branwen paired up a few couples and got the dancing started. She herself proved that her dancing days weren’t entirely over.
It was nearing eleven o’clock and most of her guests had long since arrived when there was a commotion near the ballroom door. Two gentlemen appeared in the doorway. Hurrying to take her place to receive the late comers, Branwen felt an odd stirring at the sight of a familiar figure.
“Lord Northington,” the butler intoned. “And Mr. Wentworth.”
As the impossibly handsome Lord Northington bowed his dark head, Branwen couldn’t help the sigh that escaped her lips. “Loki.”
* * *
A smile curved Loki’s luscious lips. His green eyes sparkled with both merriment and some naughtiness. “Good evening, Branwen. You’re looking well.” He kept his voice low, so his companion couldn’t overhear.
She simpered like an idiot, moving her figure just so in order that he might catch a glimpse of rounded hip and ample bosom. Loki always did like plumper ladies and he brought out the bimbo in her big time.
“Please let me introduce, Mr. Wentworth. We went to school together and have been fast friends ever since. Wentworth, this is my very dear friend, Mrs. Nash.”
Branwen was well aware that Loki had never spent a day of his life in school. She narrowed her gaze, searching his face. His green eyes danced with laughter, daring her. With a smile she turned to the younger man. “Mr. Wentworth. Lovely to make your acquaintance.”
“You are too kind, Mrs. Nash.”
After the necessary pleasantries, Loki turned to her with a smile. “I assured Wentworth that you would have at least one young lady here in need of a dancing partner.”
Ah, the devil. Loki was meddling in Branwen’s own meddling. “Why, Lord Northington, you know me too well. Please, gentlemen, come with me and I shall introduce you to my particular friend, Miss Talbot.”
She led the way through the crowd to where Miss Talbot was playing the wall flower near a potted plant. The girl glanced up as the trio approached, her cheeks immediately pinking as she spied the handsome Mr. Wentworth. Branwen shot Loki a scowl. He was looking entirely too smug.
“Miss Talbot,” she quickly took the young lady’s arm. “Please allow me to introduce my friend, Lord Northington, and Mr. Wentworth. Gentlemen, Miss Talbot.”
There was a flurry of curtseying and bowing and other assorted pleasantries, but it was clear that as far as the other two were concerned, Branwen and Loki didn’t even exist. It took no urging on Branwen’s part for Mr. Wentworth to quickly escort Miss Talbot onto the dance floor. Branwen didn’t need to scan the future, or witness the glares Mrs. Farrington shot in her direction from across the room, to hear wedding bells.
“You sneaky boy,” Branwen said under her breath.
Loki just grinned smugly. He’d be impossible for weeks.
“You got my message,” she said.
“But of course.” He held out his hand. “We’ll talk later. Wouldn’t want to interrupt your party. For now, may I have this dance?”
It was a waltz, of course. Slightly scandalous, still, but increasingly popular in Regency England. Loki and Branwen moved together as they had a thousand times before. The last time they’d danced like this had been over a century ago.
“It’s been too long.” Loki’s voice was a low rumble.
“You’re the one who locked yourself away on that ghastly island,” Branwen reminded him tartly.
He merely smiled and changed the subject. “What did you do to invoke Thor’s wrath this time?”
She snorted in a most unladylike fashion. “What does anyone need to do to earn Thor’s ire? Apparently he’s the only one who gets to muck around in the lives of humans. At last I improve them. He just gives them gonorrhea.”
It was Loki’s turn to snort. “Well, then, by all means, we must return you to your rightful place in history so that you can continue to annoy him properly.”
“I thought you might be able to help me with that. You’re the only one who can match Thor in power.”
Loki just smiled and held her a little closer than strictly proper. Give the village gossips something to talk about, no doubt. Especially Mrs. Farrington who was watching them like a hawk.
“Of course,” Branwen said, “he can always just send me back here to the Regency again.”
“No.” Loki shook his head as he maneuvered them between other dancers, his arm firm and muscular under her hand. “I think we shall have to fix that.”
“That will piss him off.”
“Oh, yes.” His eyes held barely repressed glee.
The thought cheered Branwen no end. She caught sight of Mr. Wentworth and Miss Talbot in the corner, heads together, speaking earnestly. A light scan of their minds and she was satisfied. “Well, there’s my job done.” She couldn’t help it if there was just a slight bit of smugness to her tone.
“I’d like to think I had some hand in it.”
She glanced up at him. “You surprise me, Loki.”
“Do I?”
“You are an expert in the art of meddling, but I think this is the first time you have used your powers purely for good.”
He chuckled. “Ah, Branwen, you will be my downfall.”
She smiled in a way that only the goddess of love and beauty can. “One can only hope.”
The End…
#
Shéa MacLeod really has been to England (though not actually during the Regency despite those nasty rumors). She also can be bribed with cupcakes.
Find her at her website sheamacleod.com or follow her on Facebook
Fearless
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Timestone
Greg James
The world has grown old, and the sun is a cracked black lantern hanging in the sky. Everywhere from horizon to horizon has become a desert of dried-out land, snowless mountains and ruins. There is precious little warmth to be found and, just as her sun has grown dim, the Earth has grown cold. The last human beings huddle close around feeble fires to tell old stories of The Time Before. For they know that there will not be a Time To Come. There will only be The Long Dark Night and when it falls over everything, it will consume them and the last vestiges of the Light.
The Wanderer came out of the desert, draggin
g his captive along by a length of hemp rope bound around her throat in a tight noose. Ahead rose a small mountain of blasted red stone and some other substance that shone and glittered in the eternal twilight cast by the shadowed sun.
His name was Khale and he was older than most of the things left alive on this dying Earth. His features were brutish and masked by a bearded mane of dirty grey streaked with occasional stripes of obsidian black. He was clad in rough leather armour overlaid by fur pelts to keep out the cold of the days and nights. There were no seasons anymore, only times of settled temperance and freezing winds that followed no measurable pattern. Khale could feel that a mild time was ending. In a few nights, he would need shelter to survive the tundra gales that would come surging across the land.
The girl he dragged behind him was M’taoi, daughter-priestess of Talor, the Living God. Though Talor was no longer alive, as Khale had slain him. Not that it had been a callous killing. M’taoi’s cultists had cast Khale into the pit where they kept their God, and he found a bovine, albino mutant shuffling about down there in the dark. It was sick and weak, having no desire to fight man or beast. Though from the scars on its torso, Khale could see it had been forced to do so any number of times. The creature’s haunches had been worn raw from the rusted chains it was bound with, and it had torn out its own eyes long ago as madness from infection set in. Khale had crushed the moaning creature’s throat into collapsed fibres with his bare hands. He was sure that he felt a sigh of relief escape the thing named Talor by the savages above. Casting a look of disgust towards the shadows clustered around the mouth of the pit, Khale had uttered the most bloodcurdling screams he could muster until he saw them cheer and then begin to drift away to their sleeping chambers.
Clambering out of the pit after nightfall, Khale crept through the shadows to the sleeping chamber of M’taoi and made off with her. Because the Cult of Talor knew one thing of importance among all of its broken gibberish and concocted fantasies.
They knew where the Timestone was buried.
A relic of the ancient world that would grant Khale his heart’s desire.
M’taoi was pale-skinned, dark-haired and clad in a fur cloak and oilskin boots that were far too big for her. Khale had dug them out from his bags. Though he cared not for her, he did need her to remain alive until they reached the mountain. Having her perish from being barefoot and clad only in her sleeping robes would gain him nothing. Though the idea of leaving her to die out here alone had held a certain appeal as she sobbed and wailed her way through their first days and nights together. He could not shake the miserable image of the beast she had called God from his mind. It was seared into his retina, waiting for him whenever he closed his eyes. Such pain she had caused that creature. She should be rewarded with the slow and painful death that wandering in the barren lands would provide. But that was not to be as Khale needed her and she was quieter now, bearable company though hardly stimulating. When she did talk, it was monotone religious doggerel.
“You shall be struck down for the wrongs you have done to me, Dark One. I will be avenged by the mighty Talor. He shall arise from his pit to tear the flesh from your bones.”
“You’re very tedious, you know that?”
She hawked and spat at him.
Khale shrugged.
He’d known worse insults and deeper wounds.
* * *
The mountain drew closer and M’taoi slowed her pace, her eyes widening as they crossed into its shadow. Khale listened to her muttering and chanting under her breath. More doggerel and superstition though her fear was well-founded, even if she did not know why or wherefrom it came. They reached the gateway into the mountain. A colossal door cut from the glittering, metallic substance that seemed to be fused with the rocks and stone of the mountain. M’taoi grovelled in the dirt before the gate, her forehead beating at the ground while Khale stood in sombre remembrance.
There were shadows guarding the gate, recorded by the cult of Talor as creatures that walked the night when the sun went down to snatch away the unwary and drink the blood of unbelieving fools. But Khale knew that they were merely after-images, burned into the red rock by an explosion thousands of years gone by. And now that he was close enough, he could see that the other substance that made up the mountain was a dark-toned metal that had fused with the stone. A curious by-product of the blast, perhaps. Or, something that had come from what was waiting for him inside the vaults of the mountain. Something created by the presence of the Timestone. He could also see that the gate was fused shut. There was no way in here.
He kicked M’taoi in the side, making her cry out.
“Get up.”
He yanked hard on the noose around her neck, feeling it bite into skin and muscle.
“I said, get up!”
“I shall not. It is profane and blasphemous to look upon the shadows when the sun is still high. They will drink my blood and carry me away into the Long Dark Night.”
“Listen, the only reason you are alive and not wandering around out there like scavenger-bait is because you know something I don’t.”
Still she would not get to her feet nor look at him.
“You know how to get inside that mountain. There is a way and you are taught it. It is as a part of all the shit you believe in, right?”
She said nothing. He pulled the noose tighter and leaned in so she could see his eyes. They were yellow eyes though not tinged with the gold of the wolf or the amber of the cat. This hue of yellow was one of plague, waste and disease. There was a taint inside him, something deeply rotten, that no balm or cure could ease.
“I have heard stories ... ” she began to say.
“The mark of the Death,” he said.
“None live who bear Her mark but one,” she went on, “and he is a man that walks alone. A Wanderer Eternal ... ”
Suddenly, she was grovelling to him instead of the shadows, tugging at his pelts and patched armour.
“Immortal lord, do not forsake me. Do not let me die here at the hands of the shadows.”
He jerked the noose hard, dragging her up onto her feet this time.
“I will not ... forsake you ... if you show me the way into the mountain and the iron labyrinth it houses.”
“As my immortal lord commands.”
Khale let her lead the way, a cold and amused smile on his lips. Maybe religion had a few things going for it after all.
* * *
M’taoi showed him the way inside. A small, unobstrusive passage a quarter of the way around the mountain’s circumference. There were guardians in the iron labyrinth but Khale had guessed as much and he was ready. M’taoi screamed until her throat was dry at the sight of the guardians but, in truth, they were even more pathetic than Talor had been.
Khale had met such beings before. Remnants of the old world. Necroforms of some sort. He was surprised to see that they had survived this long. Their skinless faces, seething maggot-ridden bodies and chattering teeth were unsettling to look upon as they shuddered out of their hiding places. But they were little more than walking sacs of fluid and pus that burst like overripe boils as he struck them down with his sword. Their bones were trembling stalks and the crusts of marrow that made up their skulls shattered with ridiculous ease. The only thing Khale found offensive about them was the rank smell that hung in the air after they had been reduced to so much pulp and slurry.
M’taoi whimpered and cried as they went deeper into the labyrinth that Khale was recognising more and more as a research facility. Clearly, the nuclear device detonated outside had been intended to sterilise the area. But it did not account for the strangeness of what he was seeing emerge around him. The rocky passages were inlaid with more than the weird dark metal; he could see outlines of fossilised human skulls and bones. A process that should have taken millions of years had been achieved in mere thousands. The cold smile was back on his face.
“It’s here. The Timestone is here!”
* * *
&n
bsp; They came to the heart of the labyrinth where it was waiting for them.
No, Khale thought, waiting for me.
The Timestone, pounding with the rhythm of a heart, gave off a hideous light bathing the circular chamber in luminous shades and colours that Khale could not name. The Timestone itself was a cuboid etched with eldritch lines and ornate markings resembling spirals and flickering flames. To look upon them for too long was to start to entertain the notion that they were moving of their own volition. Khale greeted the sick, twisting feeling the sight of them gave him. It meant that he had found what he was looking for.
M’taoi was on her knees again, beating her forehead against the ground. He was tempted to put his foot on her neck and grind the air from her lungs. He had no intention of letting her walk away from this alive.
But that pleasure could wait, he sheathed his sword and walked forward.
“No. You must not touch the Timestone, my lord. It will eat your soul.”
Khale looked back at her and felt something that was not good but pleasing inside, as she recoiled from the way the Timestone’s light illuminated, rather than darkening, his features and showed his immense age. Every line, every mark, every scar that he had borne since he left mortality behind. And his eyes were beginning to shine with the same light as the Timestone. He could feel it.
“I have no soul for it to feed upon, child.”
The trails of ancient tears were revealed on the Wanderer’s face as were the etched depths and hollows left behind by screams, his own and those of others he had known. The emptiness that echoed on and on inside him, behind his cursed eyes. No man or creature alive was nearer to the nature of Death itself than he was. Even Gods fell under his sword.
“God ...” M’taoi said, “My God ...”
She was crying, and then she was dying.
The light of the Timestone took her and Khale to pieces.
* * *
Khale opened his eyes and he was back where it had all begun for him.