Lords of Rainbow (5 page)

Besides, he knew very well, silver was not a
color
.

Silver was the weight of coin.

His hands, nervous, slim-fingered, were clasped together in his lap. And then they moved almost of their own volition to take the other book, the book of ugly filth, and to open it at random upon a page of delicately inked drawings. The images were rendered in soft lines and depicted nude human bodies contorted and entwined in what he knew was the carnal act.

For a moment the images were no different, no more comprehensible than the words from the thick old tome of Divine Contemplations that he had set aside.

He gazed at them blind-eyed, and saw pale gray parchment, faded ink.

And then, unbidden, came one recollection. There was a woman here, at
Dirvan
, a woman of the aristocracy, who troubled his thoughts sometimes, who troubled him despite the rigorous discipline that men of his Order imposed upon themselves. Preinad was well aware that such weakness he must uproot completely, for it was intolerable.

The Order of the Bright Vision demanded, among other things, complete and absolute celibacy, in deed and thought, from its members. Wasteful sexual desire was to be channeled into other aspects of the soul’s being.

And yet, the woman disturbed him, since the first time he had seen her at
Dirvan
. Her name was Cyanolis. And she, this demonic one, was of the Family Vaeste.

The priest allowed himself to focus on the image drawn before him, on the graphic depiction of limbs normally hidden by clothing. The female knelt before the standing male, facing him, her waist deeply arched so that her rump was elevated to the level of her shoulders, and she was delivering the Pleasure of the Twins. The Pleasure consisted of her large pendulous breasts lifted and used to squeeze and stroke the male’s erect organ. The next image showed the male delivering his Culmination Gift past the barrier of her breasts into the female’s open mouth that was ready to receive the spurting fountain.

Preinad had been ordained since earliest youth. The decision was his alone. He was to be the lord of his Line, but he opposed the will of his Family, where every male was looked upon as a progenitor. The beautiful stern boy swore himself to a Deity and refused to honor his kin in regard to his future. And the Family Olvan mourned such an ending to the hopes of several powerful old aristocrats.

But Preinad did not mourn. He had long ago decided that he was made for more profound things than mere nobility. The particular Order he’d embraced was the most stoic of the major Orders of Priesthood.

Preinad wanted to break himself completely, and then to forge himself anew, under absolute personal control. His pledging to a godhead had only remotely to do with devotion.

And what better way to temper his control than this volume meant to incite the most bestial instinct.

He turned the page with steady fingers, and clinically observed a new image of the female straddling the man who now lay on his back. Monstrous in her capacity to receive, she had engulfed the man’s lower torso with her corpulent thighs, and his upright member was planted deep within her womb. She was leaning forward and granting her own Culmination Gift in the form of sharp wicked nipples that brushed against the man’s face. Both faces were contorted in the throes of Pleasure.

The priest looked at the Pleasure and felt a dryness in his mouth. His breath had grown faint and slow like the fluttering of a moth—his senses had not yet atrophied completely.

After fifteen years of serving the Order, Preinad Olvan was already considered incorruptible. The aristocracy marveled at him, and the brothers in his Order expected him to be the next Archmaster.

He could attend all gatherings at
Dirvan
, the most promiscuous private festivities, without danger of seduction. He was a cool observer at orgiastic feasts where wine and semen flowed upon silken sheets and cold marble. From the start he had never refused the mocking invitations from cynical courtiers, using such opportunities to strengthen his control. And eventually their mockery gave way to piqued curiosity.

It came to be that the Regents themselves would request his help in delicate matters, including chaperoning virgins of either sex, standing witness to unrepeatable ceremonies (ah, the things that went on at
Dirvan!
), and mediating between hostile parties.

It went quite beyond the normal duties that the Order of the Bright Vision would allow its members. But then, Preinad was already seen to be quite different, and his role was that of an androgynous diplomat.

And yet, there was this woman, Cyanolis.

Preinad ran his slender fingers over the delicate fibrous surface of the page, and absentmindedly began to crease one of the corners of this precious horrible book just along its tiny delicate flower border. And yet he could not allow himself not to look. And thus he was subjected to the image of the Pleasure of Honey and Navel on the next page, in which the male was suspended over the receptive female who lay on her back, his body parallel with hers to cover her, standing up by the force of his arms, and using muscle control of his lower torso alone to trace precise arcs of flower petals with the tip of his erect member around the center of her navel filled with honey, into which he dipped.

Dirvan
was such a honey navel, a Hole of Gold. Women and men there flirted with Preinad mercilessly, touched by the novelty and the sweet challenge of tainting the severe priest. Corrupting, after all, was such a satisfying manner of testing one’s mettle.

Admirers flocked regularly to the Shrine of the Order of the Bright Vision on such days when he was to lead the Ceremony. They came to hear his hypnotic baritone, to see his sensitive lips shape words of Sacrament. They drank in with their eyes the sight of the young priest raising sculptured hands in supplication before the Deity. And when he turned to them to pass on the Blessing, his expression shocked them with its purity, if only to elicit a pang of arousal.

Truth appeared to them in that instant seductive and potent. And they worshiped him.

But the young priest would permit no one to approach him after the Ceremony. He accepted no personal gifts of flowers or jewels or handkerchiefs soaked with sweet oil of roses and love sweat, that were showered upon him under the pretence of gifts to the Order. He allowed no hastily passed perfumed notes to touch his hands.

And it became apparent to all that not only was the stern name of Olvan to remain impeccable, but the young priest himself was above all temptation.

Yes, there had even been suicides afterwards. Indeed, of all things,
Dirvan
best loved melodramatic passion, especially such that involved pain or death.

Cyanolis Vaeste may have been like the others, secretly drawn to his aura of unattainable intensity. And she too may have been hypnotized by his charisma.

But unlike the others, Cyanolis did not show it.

Preinad noticed the novelty of indifference where he could easily ignore attention—pronounced indifference stood out. There it was, upon every chance encounter, and it began to be a guessing game of sorts for him. The priest knew that some used this one oldest guile to seduce, and it had failed to affect him, in all cases. Was this her subtle motive? Very likely it was, and yet he remained unsure. Thus, curiosity would not dissipate.

She was, of all ironies, not even beautiful. Diminutive fine-boned fleshiness. Somewhat like this female drawn in ink on parchment, with lewdly exaggerated portions of her female form.

But Cyanolis was real.

Real as warm flesh and soft skin. There was a sheen of softness about her that could never be conveyed in a figure traced on parchment. And her face was almost that of a child.

Cyanolis was young, with an unusually beautiful singing voice, as Preinad had a chance to discover for himself, for she had been invited to sing before the Regents, and made quite an impression.

When she sang, it seemed there was no emotion that her voice did not convey, if only for an instant. And quite possibly, it was the voice that had first affected Preinad. That, and the knowledge that this virgin sound of purity—purity he could never resist—issued out of a body of an already renowned
Dirvan
whore.

For, Cyanolis Vaeste had, as they called it, the “madness of the womb.” An insatiable sexual urge.

But with Cyanolis this passion did not at all correlate with the presence of natural sympathies. It was rumored that she could fulfill herself only with those toward whom she was indifferent. Those she held dear she could never envision in sexual terms.

And maybe that is what drew Preinad, this perverse paradox.

The priest had observed her, knew her reputation, knew of her insatiable need. The combination of facts puzzled him. Why must this child-woman gaze at them all with innocence and then go off into a
Dirvan
boudoir to couple with someone? And why must she be with everyone yet never offer him even a brief gaze? Surely not because of modesty or innocent infatuation. For she never looked into
his
eyes.

Unanswered questions plagued him and he contemplated her from the distance of his locked mind. He became unconsciously embroiled in her—in the scent of her, in the way her rotund lips pouted, the cherubic firmness of her cheeks. It enraged him to think that this innocent with the voice of a skylark regularly allowed old and young lechers to fondle her, and to stain her sweet intimate parts with their spilled seed.

It had become vivid in his imagination. He imagined her moving with other men—for yes, he, the stoic, had seen all there is to see of carnality, a thousand times more than what was locked away in the filthy pages of this
erotene
book. He had witnessed seasons of it in
Dirvan
, indifferent, clinical, an untouched outsider. And yet, after a while, he would come to see
himself
in their place, straining, fondling her silver softness. . . .

But no!

Preinad Olvan shut the heavy volume with a snap, his fingers trembling in anger. Unless the New Rainbow dawned, he would remain thus, like a rock, immovable. He was a virgin with the innards of ice. That would
persist
.

And yet, she, Cyanolis Vaeste, was always there, permeating his thoughts, chipping away at him.

Who would prevail?

* * *

“
R
ainbow, therefore,” said Nilmet Vallen, “is a state of mind. It is too intangible to be anything else.”

“
Uhm—well. I may not be able to express my arguments as finely as you, but I don’t agree. Besides, why do you always sound so sure, as if you know something? I mean, I can’t tell you why I think the way I do,” retorted Jirve Lan, the innkeeper, his voice warming with irritation. “Your move, by the way.”

Nilmet only shrugged, calmly, patiently, kind-eyed, and placed a small stone game piece upon the second of the eight cells on the board, next to the first,
Andelas
. It was
Dersenne
, the Radiant Tilirreh of
yellow
, oddly relevant to their discussion, for his were all things sacred; his, the realm of religion and spiritual philosophy. The figurine of a man with long flowing hair was finely carved, and yet the face was as smooth and blank as an egg. All of the game pieces were thus, faceless.

The board was circular, old polished oak. The cells, lined up in a ring dance along the perimeter, were round indentations in the wood, as if someone had taken a large
dahr
coin and pressed it hard into the board until it sank and left its outline in relief. The object of the game was to move all the pieces forward until all the Tilirr were on the board in order and the place of
Andelas
was occupied. It was a game for two, because each opponent moved pieces in the opposite direction, and eliminated the opponent’s pieces by blocking, surrounding, and then appropriating them.

Apparently this was a new game round, for there were only two pieces in the running, while the rest of the tiny stone Tilirr were still in their throne cells in the middle of the board.

The two men were sitting at an empty dinner table in the large common room of the White Roads Inn, bathed in
orange
glow.

“
. . . you must understand, there is a tact, a certain kind of tact, to cooking—” came from the back room, the large kitchen. “A true honest-to-goodness cook is in tune with the food, always! In tune with the smell and wetness of it, with the texture, and the amount of fire. Everything must be in perfect sensory balance, in absolute accordance to everything else—”

“
Now, that,” said Jirve Lan, lightening, “is our own house philosopher. You don’t need to know any fine theory, simply listen to her.”

And he moved
Andelas
to the next empty cell, away from
Dersenne
. The lord of
white
,
Andelas
, was beyond deity, beyond human conception.
White
completed and went beyond Rainbow. It stood outside the spectrum, and above it.
White
was even less a thing than a concept. This game piece could be moved as many cells as needed in either direction and was the only one allowed to jump over more than one other Tilirr.