His pride kept him from making application to the Purgatory front office for a legitimate concubine, because of the problem with Rapture. Thus he was caught without adequate service in this respect. That was what made Lila so infernally tempting, as well she knew.
"Alone yet again tonight?" she inquired dulcetly, appearing ahead of him as he passed the copulating statue. "Maybe you should bring your fiancé back here."
"Where she can be corrupted by your occidental notions of female suffrage!" Mym snapped. As always, he found pleasure in the ability to speak without stuttering, here.
"But Mym, she's a mortal," Lila said. "You brought her out of her oriental situation and planted her in the West. Things are different here. Women are supposed to have minds of their own."
"For what?" he demanded. "Rapture was already well versed in what she needed to know."
"For pleasing a man and bearing a son," she agreed. "But what about her own fulfillment?" She stretched her arms out and up, so that her gown opened in front to reveal the perfect globes of her breasts, lifting with her motion. She was very like a statue in contour.
"That is her own fulfillment!" he retorted.
"Not in this hemisphere," she said, coincidentally touching one of her own. "It would be grand for a creature like me, but not for a mortal like her. She needs to assert herself, to branch out, to explore her larger potential."
"So speaks a creature of Hell."
"I may be damned, Mym, but I'm not ignorant. I have learned common sense the hard way." She bent to adjust her fastenings, in the process exposing one leg up through the plush buttock.
"Not as I see it!" he said, and strode out of the garden. But alone in bed, he did curse himself for foolishness. Why should he allow the words of a Hell-slut to bother him? The opinions of women mattered little, and those of a pseudo-woman even less. Why hadn't he simply used her for her explicit purpose and not listened to her at all? Discussion, after all, was no necessary part of sexual fulfillment.
Of course he could return to the garden and do that now or simply summon Lila here to the castle. He could do anything he wanted with her and banish her without notice. That was the obvious and sensible course. That flesh she had arranged to show him—he knew that though she was of the spirit world, that body would feel completely solid and alive. She was, indeed, designed to satisfy the lust of a man.
But that would mean a kind of capitulation, and that he could not abide. So he suffered alone. He was Mars, an Incarnation, dedicated to settling the quarrels of mortals efficiently, yet he could not settle his own.
When Rapture showed up again, the change was more apparent. She was not satisfied to remain placidly in bed; she wanted to converse about unrelated things. She was full of detail about the students she was helping to educate and their interest in the quaint customs of the Orient, where science was little practiced. She now had classes at all levels, ranging from adult to juvenile. She loved the experience of independence, of being able to make decisions based purely on her own preferences. She was developing a confidence in herself and her individual worth she had never before experienced. She was acquiring an occidental wardrobe, so that she could avoid being taken for an Indian at times when she preferred to be herself. She even wore jeans in public.
"What?" Mym demanded.
"Trousers fashioned of denim material, blue in hue," she explained. "Very convenient and comfortable for—"
"For laborers!" he exclaimed in singsong. "Not for princesses!"
"I am no longer a princess," she reminded him, quite undisturbed by the demotion.
"I have seen the occidental women in those abominations!" he sang. "Their posteriors practically rip open the fabric!"
"Yes, that is one of the appealing aspects," she agreed.
"For every passing male to see!" he concluded indignantly.
"They don't object," she pointed out. "In fact, I have received some compliments."
"You are my woman!" he raged. "Only I should see such detail in you!"
She laughed. "Where do you think you we, Mym? In archaic India? In the western world, the wealth is shared."
"Are you sure you haven't been talking with the demoness?"
"Lila? No, I haven't seen her since I moved to the mortal realm. But I have been learning about the real world, Mym."
"I think you had better resign that job and return here."
"I will do no such thing!" she exclaimed. "I am supremely happy with my new life. For the first time, I feel genuinely independent and useful, and I know they need me at the museum."
"I need you here."
"Oh, pooh! You have everything you need without me."
"I do not! I spend too many nights alone."
"Alone? What happened to Lila?"
"I haven't touched her."
"Whyever not, Mym? She's your concubine."
"I don't want a concubine, I want you!"
She smiled. "That's sweet. But no need to go to extremes. When I'm not here, use the damned concubine."
Mym was shocked, at her language as much as her sentiment. He wasn't certain whether she was swearing in the occidental fashion, or referring to the status of a creature of Hell, or both.
"Well, let's get this over with," Rapture said, and moved her beautiful body against him.
Get this over with? What did that imply? But he realized that further dialogue might only result in his having to spend another night alone, so he let it pass.
The business of Mars became routine. Mym remained somewhat dissatisfied with the details of it and with the passions of the lesser Incarnations he had to associate with, but he was satisfied that, to an increasing extent, he was bringing war under control and permitting it to wreak less havoc among the mortals than would have been the case without his supervision. There were indeed causes that deserved promotion and that could achieve it only by violence. War, properly managed, was certainly better than the alternatives of oppression or dispossession. But how much better it would be if the causes of war did not exist! If mortal man could simply exist in peace and harmony and plenty, requiring no Incarnation to supervise his violence.
But the mortal realm was as it was, and human nature was intractable. Therefore the various Incarnations were required, and Mym was satisfied to perform this necessary office. It was not his job that bothered him, but his home life.
That proceeded from unsatisfying to disastrous, in a single step.
Rapture appeared and dropped it on him. "Mym, I'm leaving you," she said abruptly.
"W-w-w-what?"
"I have found a nice mortal man, and I'm going to move in with him."
"Y-y-y—" Mym remembered his singsong and invoked it. "You're marrying a mortal?"
"No. I am moving in with him. If it works out, then maybe I'll marry him, but there are no commitments yet."
"But you are my woman!" Mym protested.
"Not any more, Mym," she said. "We have grown apart, since you became Mars; you have your life, and I have found mine. It is best that we recognize this and take proper action now."
"I won't let you go!" he protested. "I love you!"
"What will you do—make war on me?" She smiled compassionately. "Mym, you never loved me; you loved my body and my complete dependence on you. I loved your appreciation of me. But I don't love your present position, and if I am to be a sex object, I prefer to be it as an independent agent. So it is better with John than it is with you, and I am simply recognizing that fact. I hope this parting of our ways can be amicable, but amicable or not, it is occurring."
If Rapture had been dependent, she was so no more! Mym was so angry at this betrayal that he could not even speak in singsong.
"Well, farewell," she said, and turned and walked away. Now Mym saw Thanatos in the adjacent chamber, ready to convey Rapture back to the realm of the mortals. She had come only to inform Mym of her decision.
Mym tasted blood in his mouth. In his rage he had bitten his tongue. Now that blood was trigger
ing a rage of a different nature. He would deal with this "John" others!
He grasped the Red Sword and willed himself to the mortal realm. He knew where Rapture worked and where she lived; from there he should be able to trace this mortal man John.
But then he paused. Was he, the Incarnation of War, to exert his power in a purely selfish, negative way? To hurt the one he loved, or had loved, or thought he had loved? How much of his ideal of peace would he be spreading that way? And this John—surely an innocent young man, for Rapture would not have told a mortal about her relation to an immortal. A man who liked Rapture very well, who probably needed her more than she needed him, and wanted to get to know her as well as he could.
Mym reversed his course. No, he had no need and no desire to hurt Rapture or her friend. He would set the example that he wished mortals would follow and accept the inevitable with what grace he could muster.
He returned to his castle and walked in the garden, severely out of sorts. It was true that he and Rapture had been growing apart, and her initiative had been valid. But he had discovered the joy of loving and being loved with Orb and rediscovered it with Rapture; he could no longer countenance being alone.
Orb. Where was she now?
Lila appeared. "So she dumped you," she said.
Damn her! Except that she was already damned. "No thanks to you, demoness," he said.
"She wasn't right for you anyway," Lila said. "Maybe she was when you were playing the Prince-Princess game among the mortals, but not for this situation. You need a woman who understands about Incarnations."
"True. I shall look for one."
She smiled, inhaling. She now wore one of her translucent outfits that were more maddeningly suggestive than full nudity would have been. "No mortal will do, Mym. You need one who is committed to the Afterlife."
"Thanatos seems to do well enough with a mortal."
"Thanatos has a quite remarkable mortal. There is not another like Luna."
"You err, demoness. There is her cousin Orb."
Lila shrugged eloquently. "That's right. You had an affair with her, didn't you! But that's long over, and you can't go back."
"I'm not so sure. I loved her before, and she loved me. I could love her again."
Lila paced in front of him, allowing her flesh to quiver provocatively. "You finished that relationship when you deserted her for another woman."
"That was not my choice!"
"Nevertheless, you left her in a rather difficult situation. You see, she was gravid."
"Gravid?"
"With child. It happens to mortals, you know."
"Pregnant? She couldn't have been!"
"Verify it in Fate's threads, Mym. She was carrying your baby girl and she bore her after you left and gave her up for adoption. That rather finished that aspect of your romance. I doubt very much that she would choose to go through that again."
"But she never said anything to me!"
"She didn't know it when you deserted her."
Mym was stricken. "If I had known!"
"Fortunately, creatures of the Afterlife don't get gravid. With them, it's all pleasure, no consequence. So why don't you become sensible and do what you have been longing to do for so long?" She shimmered, and her clothing dissolved into mist. She opened her arms. "I can be most accommodating, Mym, and I make no demands."
He looked at her. This creature of Hell seemed on the verge of victory at last. Her body was beautiful, but her nature demonic. He trusted her to serve her master, and her master was Satan.
He tasted the blood in his mouth again. This time he let the berserker reflex take over.
Abruptly he was moving. His great Red Sword was out and whistling. It lopped off her head. The head flew up, its face surprised; the body remained standing. There was no blood.
The Sword whistled back. It lopped off the upper arms and the top of the torso cleanly at the line of the breasts. The shoulders rose, and the neck and the tops of the two breasts, also bloodlessly. The nether sections of the breasts resembled two bowls filled precisely level with gray stuffing. Both sections of that bosom were expanding, for Lila had been inhaling at the moment of his attack.
Again the Sword passed through, severing the body at the slender waist. And again, at the genital region, and at the knees. Five swift cuts, and the body was tumbling in six major segments, which in turn were fragmenting as the separate arms and legs fell skew. In a moment there was simply a collection of items on the ground.
"In this manner, too, I am ready to serve you," the head said. It was lying to the side, where it had bounced and rolled. The truncated neck was up, the face inverted.
"I just want to be rid of you!" Mym gritted.
"Then stuff my parts in a trunk and ship it straight to Hell," the head said.
"I have no trunk." Mym was looking at his Sword and finding no blood on the blade. His berserker rage had faded, being replaced by bemusement. He had known that demons differed from people, but had not been quite prepared for this.
"Use the base of the statue."
Mym went to the copulating statue and hacked off its figures. The pedestal now manifested as a hollow chamber. He sheathed the Sword and wrestled this zip. It was indeed about the configuration of a coffin.
He picked up a piece of torso and dumped it in the chest. The piece was like warm wax, firm but slightly soft, the flat cut side no different from the exterior. Obviously Lila had had no digestive apparatus, no circulatory system, and no respiratory system. She was simply a shape formed of pseudo-flesh, a body without a person.
Yet she had walked and talked and seemed alive. She had sewn mischief with Rapture, and much of what she said made infernal sense. She was not a person, obviously—yet she was also not inanimate matter. What, then, was she?
He paused, with the upper and lower sections of a leg. He tried fitting them together. They fused, forming the full leg.
"You may put me together again if you wish," the head said. "One more section, and you will be reaching interesting territory."
Mym dropped the leg into the chest. He picked up the pieces of the other leg, and the arms. Then he got to the section of the torso from the waist to the mid-bosom. It was amazing how full and firm those half breasts were, as far as they went.
"Or you could reassemble just that portion of me you wish to use," the head suggested.
He dumped the half bust in. "I prefer a genuine woman."
"A genuine woman would dump you in favor of a mortal man," the head retorted. "Here in the Afterlife, you need a woman of the Afterlife."
There was that insidious logic of hers. What she said made more sense than he cared to accept. He had to try to refute it. "I am not of the Afterlife; I am a mortal in temporary residence. I need a woman in similar circumstance."
"That, too, can be provided," the head said. Mym finished dumping the rest of the body in the chest, but hesitated to pick up the head itself. So he talked to it a moment more. "How can such a thing be provided?"
"You could take up with a female Incarnation. The youngest aspect of Fate, called Clotho, is known to be obliging."
Mym visualized the young, pretty Oriental, Clotho. The notion appealed. But then he remembered the far more mature Lachesis, actually the same Incarnation in different form. Surely the minds of Fate were the same, though the body changed. In that sense, she was no better than the demoness. A young and innocent body with an experienced and cynical mind was not what a man really desired in a woman. Also, Fate surely had associations of her own and would not necessarily be eager to take up with a man like him.
"Then there's—but, of course, you wouldn't be interested in her," the head remarked.
An obvious ploy! But Mym still was not eager to pick up the talking head, so he accepted the ploy. "Who?"
"She's a damsel, a princess, locked in a castle of frozen mist, unable to escape because no one cares about her. But, of course, that's none of your business."
"Who is she?"
/>
"Her name's Ligeia. But—"
"Why was she put there?"
"It's her penalty for the mischief she did in life."
"Oh—she's another demoness."
"No. She's a damned soul."
"There's a distinction?"
The head laughed. "Certainly there is! Demons are creatures of Hell, who serve My Lord Satan implicitly. They are constructs of ether with no living processes, exactly as you see in my flesh here. Souls are the immortal essences of mortal beings; they share the consciousness, intellects, and feelings of mortals, but no longer have mortal existence."
"Like the staff of the Castle of War," Mym agreed. "But since they aren't mortals, they are hopelessly committed to the Afterlife and are no better for my purpose than are you demons."
"True. But Ligeia is a special case. She was improperly damned, and if she could only get a fair hearing, she might be reclassified."
"Why can't she get a hearing?"
"A fair hearing. There are hearings aplenty in Hell, but they aren't fair. Every time she tries to present her case, they laugh at her. She must be pretty upset by now. I think she'd really be appreciative if someone with some power were to take up her case. But of course, if she got her fair hearing, and won reprieve, she'd only go to Heaven, so that would be the end of that. There's no point in someone like you getting involved with her."