Mystic Rider (43 page)

She had seen the soldiers — the National Guards — in Pouchay,
heard that angry villagers throughout Brittany had risen up in revolt against
them, but she had not yet seen an outbreak of the violence that she could feel
simmering across the land.

As they approached the village, she could see burned-out
shells of stone houses, their ancient thatching gone, their contents scorched
beyond repair. She was relieved she’d reached her journey’s end, but this
disaster crippled her hope that Murdoch had miraculously changed and thus
earned the regard of the gods.

Despite the temptation, she refused to turn back without personally
confronting her nemesis. Dreading the encounter, she picked at her cloak and
scanned the street in search of his familiar form.

“Do you know who I might talk to?” She glanced at the
two-story inn ahead. The fire hadn’t reached its tall roof, although the
whitewash on its lower walls was blackened with soot.

“You may need to offer coin for answers,” the driver said. “They
are isolated here and not likely to speak with strangers.”

She had exchanged her pearls for a purse of coins at a
moneylender’s, as she’d learned to do from Mariel. Using her Empathy to judge
the moneylender’s greed had resulted in a fair trade, but avoiding the thieves
who had followed her had been daunting. Aelynn law required she not cause harm
or display her supernatural abilities in this world. But just thinking that an
Olympus of Aelynn was reduced to
hiding
from
miscreants because of an irresponsible bastard like Murdoch deepened her anger
and resentment.

She produced the small silver coin Trystan had said would
buy almost anything. “Is this enough?”

The driver nodded curtly. “Do not display more than one. The
world is full of thieves.”

She shuddered, knowing the truth of that. In just two days,
she’d had thieves attack her for the coins she carried and seen the fire damage
caused by deserters. If deprivation drove people to such levels, what would
become of Aelynn should its crops continue to fail, or the volcano continue to
spew its deadly lava?

As they drew closer, she could see a man in a neat blue
uniform lounging at the tavern door, watching her arrival with suspicion,
reminding her that this village was not any safer than the port she’d left
behind. She had already discovered that uniforms did not mean security.

Also noticing the soldier, her driver spit on the ground and
guided his cart down an alley, out of sight of the main street. “There are
committees for everything these days. Here, they send the Committee of Public
Safety to conscript our men,” he explained with bitterness. “In the name of the
Revolution, they have been licensed with the power of life and death, but they
do naught except harass the innocent when they should be fighting for our country.
It does not matter who you are — they will ask for your documents. Do not go near
them if you’re alone.”

Having no documents to show, Lissandra found it far simpler
to travel unobtrusively and pray no one noticed her. It had worked thus far,
but it wouldn’t if she stayed in any one place for very long.

Her driver pointed to a row of attached stone houses covered
in soot and scorched in places, but relatively intact in comparison with those
on the main street. “The widow Girard is a respectable woman with a young son
she raises alone. Tell her Luc sent you.”

Lissandra handed him a coin and let him assist her from the
cart. Given that she had the strength to knock the driver over with a slap,
Lissandra found the custom quaint. But she had spent a lifetime disguising her
inner self while studying others. She was an adept student.

An Oracle must be cold
and harsh to be heeded,
she heard her mother say.
An Oracle must be superior to those she would lead.
And so with
discipline and hard work, Lissandra had made herself superior, which had put
her on a lonely pedestal. Now that she’d stepped down, it seemed practical to
be unassuming — provided she was offered no provocation to act otherwise.

The widow Girard was a small wren of a woman who checked the
alley before opening her door. “There are too many prying eyes these days,” she
whispered after Lissandra introduced herself. “They seek spies and traitors
around every corner. And the elders whisper of witches and demons.”

Lissandra had no understanding of the subject or any
interest in it, but she listened politely until she was offered an opportunity
to speak. “I seek the stranger that Luc tells me has recently arrived. I had
word my husband was ill along this road, and I hope the stranger might tell me
of his whereabouts.”

“The stranger is everywhere,” the widow claimed, with a
broad sweep of her hand. “He never rests. He is in the fields when we rise, and
hauling broom for thatch when we go to bed. He fights the fires that linger in
the peat fields.”

Lissandra found it hard to fathom a warrior like Murdoch
building instead of destroying, but she decided to reserve judgment. “Where
does he sleep?” Or,
when
does he
sleep? might be a better question if she was to believe one man could do all that
the widow claimed.

The woman shrugged. “No one knows. You might ask at the
church. The priest has been staying there to guard the statues from the
thieving deserters who hide in the woods.”

After obtaining directions to the church, Lissandra began
her search. She prayed that it was her smoke-filled surroundings and her need
to block the villagers’ belligerent emotions that prevented her from sensing
Murdoch clearly. If she let down her shields, the grief and hatred spilling
from an entire town would incapacitate her.

When she saw no one at the church, she set out along the
back ways into the countryside, following her meager Finding instinct. She’d
been warned that wolves and wild boars still roamed this wilderness, but she
sensed few creatures of any size except some men in the distance — where her instincts
told her she would find Murdoch.

Taking a deep breath to steady her ragged nerves now that
she was so close to her objective, she entered the edge of the woodland.

As if a fire-breathing dragon lurked in the shadows under
the trees, a cloud of smoke engulfed her, and she coughed. Curse the gods, but
this was worse than climbing the volcano’s slope. She could feel the heat
through the soles of her shoes.

A rabbit dashed across her foot. She tripped and caught her
balance on a tall standing stone. The rock was so hot, she quickly withdrew her
palm before it burned.

She dragged her gown up from where it tangled her feet, and
held the fabric in her hands, using her Aelynn strength to stride faster. She
doubted anyone could see her abnormal speed in this murk, and her lungs would
appreciate a hasty departure.

A geyser of fire flamed upward through the layers of
decaying vegetation on the side of the road. Startled, she halted. Was Murdoch
out there, warning her to leave?

The devil she would.

Determined, she marched on, coughing harder in the
thickening smoke. She would have this confrontation done with. The setting
might be ominous, but it was certainly fitting —

A demon shot through the smoke at inhuman speed. Lissandra
glimpsed only a blur of broad, filthy bare chest before iron arms tackled her
waist. She shrieked as the creature tore her heels from the ground and tumbled
with her into the ashes on the far side of the lane.

Another fiery geyser spewed into the air on the spot where
she’d just been standing.

Muttered curses assaulted her ears. With bare arms propped
on either side of her head and muscular thighs pinning her legs, the demon
prevented her escape. In shock, Lissandra closed her eyes and screamed at this
smothering male proximity. Her attacker covered her mouth with his hand.

Refusing to surrender, she locked her mental shields against
any emotional assault and shoved at broad — naked — shoulders, with the intent of
flinging her assailant into the air with her superior strength. Beneath her
palms she encountered the grit of soot and ash and the powerful play of
muscles, but no matter how much strength she applied, her attacker merely beat
the ground with his fist.

The ground trembled. She opened her eyes in terror.

And watched the geyser of fire die.

Cursing tonelessly in several languages with phrases so
vivid they scorched her ears, her attacker trapped her between his bulging
arms, glared down at her through the smoke, and, after only a moment’s
hesitation, covered her mouth with his.

Stunned by this invasion of her sacred person, Lissandra
grabbed the monster’s arms and tried to pry him away. She kicked and struggled,
but her screams were smothered by lips so commanding she almost forgot to
fight.

She
did
forget to
fight. Senselessly, she clung to the strong support of his arms and kissed him
back. Or maybe not so senselessly. This kiss lived inside her heart…

…and her memories. She had dreamed of this kiss so long.…

His mouth tasted of strong wine, his beard bristles chafed
her skin, and the heavy desire consuming them erased rational thought. She
parted her lips at her assailant’s insistence, drank his breath into her lungs,
mated her tongue with his, and almost burst into flames.

Only when all the alarms clamoring in the back of her mind
merged did sense return. With a cry of outrage, Lissandra summoned her strength
and brought up her knee.

The confounded skirts hindered her effectiveness. Before she
could emasculate the bastard, he rolled off her. Lying flat on his back, he stared
at the leaves above them, loudly repeating his curses of earlier.

Undeterred, Lissandra turned on her side and glared into the
piratical unshaven features she knew too well. Rising up on one arm, she
smashed her fist into his iron-hewn abdomen. He merely
oof
ed and grabbed her elbow, pulling her off-balance and across his
bare torso.

“By all the gods in this universe and the next,” he roared, “this
is the most asinine, ridiculous, inane, spectacularly stupid behavior I’ve yet
encountered! What the
devil
was Ian
thinking to send you here?”

Three more fiery geysers burst from the earth’s floor.

Lissandra had found Murdoch.

_______________

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by Patricia Rice

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