In Stone's Clasp (5 page)

The cool, crisp air tingled through his body when he stepped outside. Jareth gazed up at the stars, tiny dots in the enormous black sky, and when his feet took him down the path toward the recently harvested fields, he was not surprised. If he could not be with Taya, he wanted to be with the land, to sit on the cold soil, and help it prepare for winter. And, he had to admit, to glean what comfort he could from it.

His sure strides faltered. Someone was here before him, sitting quietly on a blanket, a cloak wrapped around her. The moon was bright, and he recognized the face that turned toward him.

“I thought you’d eventually come here tonight,” Taya said.

Jareth opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Taya patted the space beside her on the blanket and Jareth sat. He felt the warmth of her body where his knee touched hers. His mind raced, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“How is Vikka doing?” he finally managed.

“She’s fine,” Taya replied, chuckling a little. “Brags to all her little friends about how the Spring-Bringer rescued her.”

“I’m just glad I could help. The woods can be dangerous after nightfall.” He mentally kicked himself. What a foolish thing to say. Everyone knew that.

An awkward silence fell. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her, breathe in her scent of flowers and sunlight, see what her body looked like when it was clad only in the moon’s pale glow. But he couldn’t move.

Finally, she said, “I had hoped you would have occasion to return to Two Lakes before now.”

He turned to look at her, his heart beating even faster. “I had hoped so too,” he said. “Or that you might have cause to come to the valley.”

She turned toward him. Her face was a white oval in the moonlight. “I’m here now.”

Jareth was having trouble breathing. “Taya…”

“Do you like the blanket?”

He blinked. “What?”

“The blanket. I made it myself.” She hesitated, then said, “I made it for you. If you will accept it.”

She was offering a bride price. He suddenly recalled standing in front of the blazing bonfire a few hours ago, and tossing in his sheaf with the silent prayer of being free from doubt. Like a weight physically lifted from his shoulders, he felt all uncertainty vanish. He knew what he wanted…
who
he wanted.

“It’s lovely,” he said, with the words accepting her offer of marriage. “You honor me. Thank you.”

He reached for her hand and closed his fingers over it. Impulsively, he pressed it gently down into the earth, over the cool soil, the bits and pieces of harvested wheat.

“Do you feel anything?” he asked. He hoped…

She smiled. “Only your hand on mine,” she said. Then, intensely, she asked, “Jareth…what do
you
feel when you do this?”

Haltingly, he said, “I feel the earth. The living things it sustains. All of it, all at once. Like some great giant heartbeat.” The words sounded foolish in his ears, and yet at the same time they failed to capture even the smallest fragment of the sensations that coursed through him when he permitted himself to open to them.

Her hand was still beneath his, on the ground. Slowly, she lifted it and curled her fingers around his. She raised their entwined hands and placed them between her breasts.

“Now what do you feel?” she whispered.

“A heartbeat,” he said, his voice also dropping into a hushed tone. His lips were dry and he spread his fingers, trying to press his palm to her heart, feeling it fluttering in her tiny rib cage like a small bird. As he did so, he suddenly became aware of how dirty his hand was. Ashamed, he tried to pull back.

“I’m sorry, my hands—”

“No,” she whispered. “Your hands are beautiful. And mine are dirty, too.”

He wanted to look into her amazing eyes again, but the moon’s light only seemed to cast shadows on her face.

“I can’t feel what you feel,” she said, “but I know your ability means more to you than just controlling when the spring and autumn come. More than providing good crops. Do you know what’s in this pouch around my neck, Jareth?”

Blood hammered in his ears, raced through his body, made him ache for her. He shook his head.

“The flower you gave me this summer,” Taya said. “I saw you wince when you plucked it. I know you felt it die, yet you were willing to do that in order to give it to me. Of course I cherished it.”

She knew. She understood. She couldn’t share it with him—he now reluctantly realized that no one could—but she understood what this power meant to him.

“I fell in love with you at that moment,” she whispered, leaning in to him. Slowly, as if drawn, he bent forward. His hand still on her heart, their lips met.

He kissed her gently, tenderly, exploring, savoring. Her lips were as soft as the petals of the flower that had given up its life for her, as sweet as honey from the comb. He moved his hand from her heart to run his fingers through her hair, trail them along the back of her neck. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her into his lap.

“You’re so little,” he whispered, marveling. “I can hold all of you just like this.”

“Keep holding me,” Taya whispered, and reached up to touch his face. He pressed a kiss against her questing hand, then tangled his fingers in her long, soft blond hair and pulled her mouth to his. How long they stayed together, locked in that kiss, Jareth neither knew nor cared. When they broke apart, he was trembling and breathing heavily.

He could see her eyes now; they caught and held the moonlight, like twin lakes. She gazed up at him rapturously, one little hand reaching to stroke his cheek, his lips.

“You’re so beautiful,” Taya said, amazement in her voice.

Jareth chuckled. “I’m supposed to say that.”

“Then say it.”

Her finger ran across his lower lip. He opened his mouth and caught the finger, biting very gently. She gasped softly. He let it go.

“You
are
beautiful, Taya. Since the day we met, I’ve done nothing but think about you. Dream about you. I don’t want to be without you ever again.”

“You don’t have to.”

He reached for her and she closed her eyes, anticipating another kiss, but instead he removed the little pouch from around her neck. She had spoken truly; the flower, carefully preserved, was contained within. With gentle fingers he withdrew it. As he touched it, the brown, dried leaves uncurled and became green again, the petals swelling with new life.

“What are you—”

“Shhh,” he said, easing her down onto the blanket she had woven for him. Gently, he began to stroke her with the blossom, following each delicate brush of petal or leaf with a soft kiss. Taya closed her eyes and whimpered softly.

Taking his time, Jareth stroked and kissed her face, her ears, the hollow of her throat; her hands, the sensitive insides of her wrists and elbows; trailed flower and lips along ankle, calf and thigh, over covered belly and breasts. Gods, how he wanted this woman. Wanted her here, under the moon, on the good earth covered with the last of the wheat’s harvest. Wanted her in his bed, wrapped in the blanket she had made, their bodies warm and supple and heedless of the winter’s chill. Wanted her in the shadowed, scented forest, in the sunlit meadows.

Wanted her forever.

Abruptly she sat up, shocking him by removing her over-tunic, leaving only the soft, translucent underdress between them. He could see the dark circles of her nipples beneath the white fabric as she moved.

Before he could react, Taya surprised him again by leaning forward to tug off his shirt. Delighted by her boldness, Jareth assisted her. The autumnal night air ought to have been chill on his naked torso, but he burned with a heat that banished any cold. He gasped as she explored him. He let her take the lead, though his hands and lips ached to caress her. She put both hands on his chest and pushed lightly.

“Move off the blanket. Lie on the earth,” she said, her voice a husky growl. “Feel it. Take it into you, my love.”

The request moved him deeply. But before he obeyed, he leaned forward and pulled off Taya’s underdress. She sat proudly in front of him, her skin gleaming like a swan in the moonlight. She made no attempt to cover herself and his hands moved as if of their own will to cup her breasts, white and soft as down, the tips hard as pebbles against the palms of his hands. Her head fell back and she moaned, softly, sweetly, the sound inflaming him further.

Slowly, he lay on the cool soil, pulling her with him, crushing her small, perfect breasts to his chest and forcing her mouth open with his tongue. He felt the cold earth, the sharp pricks of dried and broken stalks stabbing into his back, the hardness of small stones, and the discomfort was exquisite pleasure. He let the essence of the earth fill him. His skin tingled and he felt more open, more exposed, more receptive and aroused than he had ever felt before.

Taya undulated against him, her movement delightful torment. Unable to wait any longer, Jareth slid a hand between their bodies and freed himself from the confinement of his breeches. Taya gasped as she felt him press against her and she pulled back for a brief moment. Cool air rushed to fill the space between them.

Jareth gritted his teeth. He had never wanted a woman as badly as he wanted this tiny slip of a girl, never felt as dizzy with desire as he did now, with the deep, endless support of the earth at his back and this woman in his arms. He forced himself to stay still, wanting Taya to make the ever so slight movement that would bring him fully inside her, fighting the urge to thrust upward into her wet warmth. She leaned down and her hair fell in a soft curtain on his chest. Shaking, he brushed it back with hands that seemed huge against her tiny face.

“Don’t leave me!” The words were raw, almost physically ripped from him, and he knew he was speaking to both Taya and the earth upon which he lay.

“Never,” Taya whispered against his mouth, and the earth echoed:
Never.
And Jareth believed them both.

“Do you feel it?”

Struck dumb again at her insight, he nodded. The power of his profound union with the earth was coursing through him and the sensations were almost overwhelming.

“Good,” Taya whispered. “Now,” she said, lifting her hips slightly and then slowly, sweetly, taking his hardness into her, “make love to me.”

They were married before the first snowfall.

Taya held her newborn son to her breast while Annu spun in the corner. The fire crackled, Altan sat beside it strumming his
kyndela
and humming, and Jareth stood looking out the window at the cool blue and white hues of snow. He didn’t think he had ever been quite so content.

Twenty springs had passed since he had felt the call that lured him down from his favorite tree to dig his fingers into icy soil and call forth the rebirth of life. And thirteen summers had blossomed and faded since he and his wife had first coupled passionately in the autumn field, the harvest moon shining upon them and the good earth blessing them. She had conceived, either that night or shortly thereafter, and had been with child by the time Paiva had formally wed them. Nine months later, as the song performed by the
huskaa
of Two Lakes had suggested might happen, lovely Annu had come into the world.

No father could have doted on a daughter more, and it was entirely due to her own innate good sense that Annu was not thoroughly spoiled. She had her mother’s beauty, level head, and sense of humor, and her father’s height and love for the natural world. Another blessing had come their way a few weeks ago, when Parvan had been born. Paiva was no longer with them to bring the little boy into the world; she had passed five years ago and now her former apprentice had that solemn yet joyful duty.

When Altan’s parents, too, had passed, he had all but become a part of Jareth’s family, coming for visits as short as half a day and sometimes as long as two or three days. Jareth already looked upon the
huskaa
as a baby brother. And who would not wish to have a
huskaa
on hand, willing and able to provide music soothing or merry as the occasion demanded? Besides, Annu was a young woman now, having celebrated her first blood moon. Taya thought that the two youngsters would be a natural and wonderful match, and encouraged the eighteen-year-old Altan to spend time with the girl. And most of the time Jareth agreed, although Altan was subject to occasional dark moods that rendered the normally pleasant youth sullen and brooding.

“He’s eighteen and he’s blessed with talent,” Taya said once. “Of course he’s moody.”

Jareth had burst into startled laughter, and even now the memory of the exchange made him smile. Jareth thought about his good life as the snow continued to fall.
It’s almost time.

“I will tell Ivo that it will be soon,” he said, turning to look over his shoulder at his family. “Five, perhaps six days. The land is ready to be awakened from its slumber.”

In truth the land was more than ready, but the headman always wanted a few days’ notice so he could send messengers to nearby villages. Jareth had long since resigned himself to the fact that when the
Kevat-aanta
brought spring, it was an occasion. Ivo noticed that when people came for the event, they tended to bring items to trade and make a celebration out of it, and who was Jareth to begrudge his fellow villagers some laughter and a chance to trade for baubles or foodstuffs?

He turned his attention back to the snow as it fell, and suddenly, for no reason he could discern, felt a shiver run down his spine. For the first time since the feel of Taya’s warm body pressing against his had banished his fear, he tasted the old, bitter tang of worry.

Five days later, dressed in a beautifully embroidered dark green cloak, leather boots and brown and gold breeches and shirt, Jareth stood ready to perform his most well-known seasonal transformation.

Taya’s eyes roamed over him approvingly. “The years have blessed you, my husband,” she said, stepping close to him and stroking his freshly shaven cheek. She had to reach up quite a bit, for as Jareth had predicted that long-ago summer, Taya’s head barely came to the center of his chest. He pressed the little hand to his lips.

“They have indeed, by seeing to it that you have only grown more beautiful.”

“I am still swollen from childbirth,” she laughed, “from foot to face!”

Jareth bent. “I love what I see,” he whispered, and captured her lips with his. He pulled back in time to see Annu rolling her eyes and Altan grinning.

“I don’t think there’s time for that, you two,” Altan said wryly. “Your people await you, Jareth. And I am longing to perform my new song!”

Jareth turned to his daughter. Annu was taller than her mother and her head came to his chin, making it convenient for him to plant a kiss on the top of the golden hair.

“The cloak is beautiful,” he said. “My favorite color, too. You have quite a talent for one so young.”

Again, Annu rolled her eyes. “I’m
twelve,
Father. I’m not a child anymore.”

He sighed, tousled her hair, and then turned toward the door, reaching for the staff he had made when he was thirteen. He opened the door to see the beaming headman, and forced himself to adopt a regal pose, smiling and nodding at the upturned, expectant faces in the crowd.

The parade of onlookers followed Jareth as he strode through the center of the village. Altan had contrived a way to carry his instrument and play it at the same time by attaching it to a sturdy leather strap hung over his shoulder—a first for a
kyndela
player as far as Jareth knew. But that was Altan, always breaking the traditions even as he personified the best the
huskaa
tradition had to offer. Grumpy or charming, sarcastic or pleasant, the boy was brilliant, no question about it, and Jareth was proud to be his friend.

The day had dawned clear, but now snow was starting to fall. That was all right with Jareth; it would turn to rain soon enough. The path he had trod for the past twenty years led through the forests that embraced the village and into a small clearing. The snow continued to fall, becoming heavier. Over the bright sound of Altan’s instrument, Jareth heard some concerned mutterings.

He reached and touched his old friend the oak, which had held him so supportively through many summers as a youth and even as an adult. A frown touched his lips. Usually he could feel at least something when he touched this mighty tree, no matter what the season. He forced his apprehension down. It had been a hard winter this year, despite his efforts to gentle the harshness; perhaps the tree was simply slumbering more deeply than usual.

Leaning his staff against the oak’s trunk, Jareth stepped into the clearing. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.

“I have been blessed by the gods, and I have heard the call,” he said, his voice resonant. “I am the protector and guardian of the earth’s seasons, summoning them and continuing the cycle of what was, and is, and ever shall be.”

He knelt. The snow seeped through his breeches almost immediately, but the woolen cloak on his back blocked most of the wind that now started to pick up. His fair hair was growing wet with the falling flakes. He flexed his fingers, readied himself, and plunged them into the snow.

It was so cold it felt almost hot to him, tingling and biting his unprotected flesh. His fingertips brushed frozen sod. He took another deep breath and forced his fingers down into the earth.

Nothing happened.

The wind increased, toying with his damp locks. Again he reached, trying to sense the earth, rouse it, melt the snow, summon spring. He heard confused voices, wondering what was going on.

He dug deeper, his hands aching with the cold.
Come, spring. It is time. For many months has the winter held sway over these lands, but now it is your turn.

There was no response. It was as if the earth was as dead to him now as it was to everyone else. Jareth felt sweat gather at his hairline, trickle down his face. The earth
always
heard him before when he tried to reach it. The stones spoke to him, the animals came when he called them, the trees bloomed and grew strong and tall….

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Taya gazing at him with love and concern. Her eyes widened as she read the fear in her husband’s face, understanding him as if he had spoken aloud.

His worst fears had materialized. His powers were gone.

The winter had lasted for six months now.

Three months had been natural; harsh, but part of the cycle that Jareth had learned to understand and which had become as much a part of him as breathing.

Three more months had been the unnatural winter, with snow that muffled sounds, blocked trade, and was slowly killing both plant and animal.

Unless the weather was so bad that the storm threatened to sweep in should the door be opened, Jareth had slogged every day through the ever-deepening snow toward the clearing. Sometimes grim-faced, sometimes ranting, he dug down until he reached the earth and tried desperately to waken it.

It was like touching a corpse. It felt familiar, but there was no hint of life within. Where there had once been voices, even songs, now there was only this ominous silence. Stones were cold to him, the trees quiet. From time to time, he wasn’t sure why or how, he could still summon animals. This pained him; it was as if the only power he had left was to bring death, even though the death of the beasts meant life for the people of Skalka Valley.

There had been near panic right after his first attempt, but Ivo had managed to calm the crowd. And even then, the assumption was that even if the Spring-Bringer brought spring no longer, the thaw would simply come on its own time, as it had before Jareth had begun to call it. But when that did not happen, and the winter continued, there were some that called for Jareth’s exile. Many, Jareth’s boyhood friend Larr chief among them, said loudly that the gods were angry with Jareth for usurping their powers, and were punishing Lamal.

A sort of sullen, simmering truce had evolved between the villagers and Jareth Vasalen, one that tormented him more than an outright attack. That, at least, he could defend himself against.

The only one who routinely made the trek from the cluster of houses to Jareth’s, set much closer to the forests and the hills, was Altan. Jareth welcomed the youth’s arrival, not for himself but for his family. As the wife and children of the
Kevat-aanta,
they were as shunned as he was.

“Jareth?” Taya’s voice held a note of fear and worry, as it always did now. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

“I’m not hungry.” He didn’t move from the window where he watched the snow continue to fall. He was growing to hate the fat flakes that wafted down to form more drifts, more winter.

A touch on his arm. He jerked away, shame flooding him as he saw Annu cringe as if he might strike her. Jareth had never laid a hand on any member of his family save in a caress, but he sickly admitted to himself that his demeanor over the past few months might make them think he would lash out at any moment.

“I’m sorry, Annu,” he said, softening his voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She smiled bravely. “You didn’t scare me, Father,” she lied, blinking away the tears in her eyes. “Come eat. Please, come eat something.”

So he permitted her to lead him to the center of the small house. He sat on a stool and spooned thin, tasteless soup into his mouth, and forced a smile for his wife, son, and daughter. And as he had every night for the last hundred nights, ever since his connection to the land had forsaken him, he turned his back to his wife and ignored her soft pleas for lovemaking, or even simply to be held.

He couldn’t do it. It was all he could do to be civil to her during the day. At night, to hold her, run his hands over her familiar, beloved hills and valleys—no. He wasn’t worthy of that, not anymore. Jareth had been the Spring-Bringer, the
Kevat-aanta,
who took care of his people. He had let them all down, and they were suffering badly now.

“Jareth?”

He did not answer. Perhaps if she thought him asleep…

“I know you’re awake.” Her hand reached out, ran tentatively along his shoulder and down his side. He shrank from her touch. “It’s going to be all right.”

He laughed harshly. “My powers have vanished. The gods are angry with me. Winter has lasted twice as long as it ever has before. I don’t think it’s going to be all right, not unless I can somehow stop this.”

Silence. “You know that none of us thinks any less of you—not Annu or Altan or I. We love you, and it doesn’t matter to us if you never get these powers back.”

He couldn’t take it anymore. “You didn’t fall in love with Jareth,” he spat angrily, trying and failing to keep his voice low so as not to disturb the others. “You fell in love with the
Kevat-aanta.
With the man who found your lost baby sister.”

He heard the rustle as she sat up. “You think I fell in love with you for what you could
do?
”

Jareth turned, furious. “Didn’t you? What if I hadn’t found Vikka? What if she’d died, lost in the forest?”

“Of course I was happy you found her, but—”

“And who rolled me off the blanket so I could feel the earth at my back as you rode me like a—”

He bit back the worst of the words, but it was already too late. He knew he had gone too far. She froze, then slowly sank back down on the bed. His impotent anger bled away as he turned to touch her, and this time it was Taya who refused her mate’s caress. Even in the dim light, he could see the sparkle of tears on her face.

“I loved you because you cared, Jareth,” Taya said thickly. “Not for what you did. I saw how much you wanted to find Vikka. I saw how you felt the pain of the dying flower. Don’t you realize how others would perceive this ability? Other men would set themselves up as all-powerful rulers, withholding spring or harvest to punish those who didn’t follow them. That never even entered your thoughts. You loved the earth and stones and flowers, and you felt their joy and their pain. You protected them even as you guided them through the seasons. You asked for them to yield their bounty, you never demanded it.
That’s
the man I fell in love with.”