VirtualHeaven (2 page)

“What about my necklace?”

“The necklace is perfect. It’s probably your best work. You
really expressed your Navajo background.”

“I won’t tell my Irish father you said that.” Maggie lifted
the pendant and stroked the delicate Celtic knot-work she’d designed into the
chain. “It’s hard to merge the two cultures.”

“Matches the Tolemac warrior’s eyes, too.” Gwen stepped from
the console. “Stand up here and let’s have a look at you.”

Maggie climbed the two steps to the raised platform. She
twirled about self-consciously. The screen before her remained blank; the
console Gwen had manipulated so expertly just resembled a typewriter missing
most of the essential keys.

“How did you turn it on?” Maggie did not admit to herself
that she wanted to see the warrior smile again.

Gwen joined Maggie at the console. “This is the gizmo that
controls your weapons when you play.” Maggie picked up a small gun-shaped
object, holding the thick stock in her hand and turning it about. “You hold it
like a pistol. You push these buttons when you want to fire��blue button stun,
red button kill. It’s super simple. The trick is, you must aim it like a real
gun and have pretty decent aim. You should be a crack shot. All that practice
out on the reservation with your brothers.”

“I hate guns, Gwen. We shot bottles, but I always hated the
feel of it, the power to hurt.”

“You only hurt the bad guys with this.” Gwen lifted a large,
doughnut-shaped plastic headpiece from the console and offered it to Maggie.
“Put this on. It puts you in the picture. If you turn your head, you’ll see to
the side, to the back, and so forth. It takes a little getting used to.” As
Maggie hesitated, Gwen pressed her point. “It’s really fun. Now, put it on.
I’ll talk you through the game.”

Maggie shook her hair out to free the strands catching on
her buttons. With the headpiece secured on her head, Maggie had the sensation
of being top-heavy. Her head wobbled on her neck.

“If you’re ready, say so.” Gwen placed the game gun in
Maggie’s hands, curling her fingers about the stock. “Don’t accidentally shoot
our stud muffin!”

As Gwen spoke, Maggie raised her head. She stood at the top
of a mountain in a strange world. The title rose in the sky before her and
dripped its familiar blood. The drops glistened and, involuntarily, Maggie
looked down to see if they splashed on the floor. Dizziness made her jerk her
head upright again.

“This is very weird,” Maggie said. Her voice sounded hollow
to her and far away. She experimented a moment, swinging her head about,
feeling dizzy again as grass and trees spun and lurched before her. Very
quickly, she took control and turned to the hill, facing the spot where the
warrior would appear, barely conscious of the boom of distant thunder.

“It’s so real.” Maggie gasped, her heart beating a little
faster, for she knew what came next. Her breath shortened as she waited for
him.

He did not disappoint her.

The Tolemac warrior climbed the rocky hill, each boot placed
deliberately. Only this time, Maggie heard the crunch of stones beneath his
soles, heard the sigh of the wind in the trees. A pebble dislodged and rolled,
audibly bouncing along behind him.

He came straight toward her.

A swift and heated surge swept her body as she waited
breathlessly, the gun clutched tightly in her hand. She wanted to know what he
would do when he met her on the hill, for she stood in his path, not leaning on
the console as Gwen had, but standing rigidly in the waning light of the
warrior’s world. She almost felt the heat of the burning sun, did hear the
eerie cry of a bird in the distance. The scrape of his boots echoed about her.
Her heart pounded in her ears. Her mouth felt dry.

Thunder rolled. It vibrated in her ears, magnified to ten
times its natural volume. Maggie raised her head in fear, looked from the path
to the distant mountain peaks. A blinding sheet of lightning streaked across
the heavens, setting the Tolemac warrior in sharp relief. The scent of ozone
filled her nostrils. She shivered. Then, as the warrior raised his head and
stared at her, the sky flashed a brilliant white. A sudden pain shot through
Maggie’s head—pulsed from one side of her skull to the other.

She moaned in agony, clasped the gun to her chest, and shut
her eyes against a dazzling flare of lightning. Her head rocked heavily on her
neck. She stumbled, slipping to her knees just as the white flash broke into a
thousand shards of color and pain.

“By the sword!” Kered swore, staggering blindly. He stumbled
over a tree root and nearly fell. The fierce white light slowly dissolved,
revealing a woman stretched out at his feet.

He bent over the supine woman, his vision still blurry in
the aftermath of the dazzling flash of lightning. He rubbed his eyes, making
them worse. Yes, he had stepped on her, not a tree root. Through the swimming
dots of color, he noted the rise and fall of the woman’s breast. Alive, but
badly injured.

“Kered!”

“Here, Nilrem,” he called to an old man easing his way down
the steep path.

“Are you hurt? Who is this?’’ Nilrem came to a halt at his
side, planting his walking stick inches from the woman.

“I thought you might know. I tripped over her.”

“Is she dead?” Nilrem’s ancient back did not allow bending
and stooping over damsels in distress.

“No, but whatever ails her, she is well gone from here.”
Kered ignored the stabbing flashes of color still plaguing his sight and picked
up the woman’s hand, seeking her pulse with his fingertips. It beat strongly.

“Do you see her pendant?” Nilrem whacked Kered on the arm
with his stick.

“Curious.” Kered lifted the bauble, then drew back, holding
it at arm’s length as he inspected it. Jewels held no interest for him, and he
placed it gently back on her breast. “Her breath labors. Perhaps we should get
her to shelter?’’ A long rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.

“Aye,” Nilrem agreed, shuffling about the tree roots. “The
winds will rise now; the conjunction begins.”

Kered tore his gaze from the woman, a difficult task, for
her exotic beauty and her deathly stillness held more allure than stellar
phenomena. The Tolemac moons, four small bluish-green orbs, moved into
alignment high in the eastern sky. He rose and scooped the woman into his arms.
She weighed nothing. His palms caressed the unusual fabric of her gown, and he
noted the supple flesh beneath. With difficulty, he forced himself to his task.

“Come, Nilrem. You may spout profundities to your heart’s
content when we have reached shelter.”

Following the slow, shambling progress of the old man, Kered
climbed a steep path another hundred yards and came out of the tall trees onto
a mountain meadow. Delicately scented flowers gleamed in the waning light,
bowing their heads to the stiffening breeze.

He ventured a glance over his shoulder to the heavens. The
conjunction was almost complete. The wind whistled through the trees, lifting
the boughs, moaning like some spectral beast. At the summit of the mountain
Kered turned, and holding the woman sheltered against his chest, he waited.

Nilrem raised his staff, mumbling an incantation. Kered
waited with the proper respect due a man of Nilrem’s age and wisdom. The wisdom
drew him, the prophesies did not.

Nilrem stood for many minutes watching the heavenly
conjunction before turning to Kered. “Your patience pleases me well. Come,” he
said. “Let us tend this slave.”

Kered had not noticed her lack of arm rings. It was unlike
him to be so unobservant. He blamed it on his fatigue and the remaining glitter
of color in his eyes. At Nilrem’s direction, he placed the woman on a
fur-mounded bed in the wise man’s crude hut. He went down on one knee and
smoothed back her unusual hair, searching for wounds, finding a lump at the
back of her head that might explain her deep sleep. Succumbing to an
uncontrollable urge, he drew a calloused finger along the delicate, white skin
of her bare upper arm. “A slave,” he murmured.

“Step aside. Let me tend her wounds.” Nilrem explored as
Kered had, grunted at the lump. He ran a hand over her body, touching her
everywhere.

Nilrem had no sense of modesty and touched the woman’s breasts
and belly with pleasurable abandon. Kered turned away in embarrassment. “You
are a wicked lecher, Nilrem.”

“Not often I get the opportunity!” he cackled back. “Let us
strip her and really see what we have found.”

“No. The head wound is all that ails her. Tend it. Keep your
bony fingers to the task while I see if her master is about.”

Kered searched the mountainside until the light failed and
the wind battered him with a relentless chill. The usual signs of the white
hart grazing on the meadow or crossing the wooded slopes were all he found.
There were no footprints, no broken twigs, nothing to indicate two people on
the mountaintop.

The woman left only one sign of her coming.

That he tucked into the waistband of his breeches,
concealing it beneath his tunic for later examination. He never allowed
curiosity to overtake caution. The night deepened to inky purple and he gave up
the search. The hut, ablaze with warm light, beckoned.

When he entered, Nilrem was crooning over the woman as he
tied a bandage about her head.

“What do you make of her?” Kered asked as he dragged a
three-legged stool across the dirt floor to the bedside. He lifted the woman’s
hand and held it. Her fingers were long and slim and strong. They fitted well
in his.

“Her appearance is an omen.”

Kered frowned at Nilrem. “Why?”

Nilrem shrugged. “The conjunction begins, there is a crash
of lightning, and she appears wearing a talisman.”

“The pendant?” Kered tried not to touch the woman’s breast
as he again lifted the necklace, holding it up for inspection. The dimming of
his vision was a painful malady he did his best to ignore—and hide from the
curiosity of others. “It is beautiful, but why do you think it a talisman?”

“It bears the symbols of the ancient time. If you were a
believer, I would say it means you should make the ancient quest. Let her rest.
When she awakens she will tell us her purpose on my mountain and all will be
clear.”

Kered raked his hair back from his face. “Will she awaken?”
He bent over her, adjusting the furs. Her skin was like new cream, her hair
glossy as a raven’s wing, her brows straight and patrician.

“Oh, aye, when she is ready.”

Because Nilrem said it with such confidence, Kered relaxed.
“Her master must have paid a fortune for her.”

“All pleasure slaves are costly.” Nilrem sighed.

“You think her a pleasure slave?” Kered turned over her
hand. “She bears calluses on her fingertips. Her arms are not soft; they show
strength.”

“Aye. She has not the soft roundness of a pleasure slave,
but where have you ever seen such coloring? I have seen hair from the palest
silver to the muddiest brown, but true black? Never.”

“Perhaps beyond the ice fields?” Kered thought of the subtle
fragrance that had teased his senses as he had carried her up the mountain. The
perfume alone should have told him she belonged in the pleasure realm. His
groin tightened. Her exotic beauty, her unusual coloring, and her strange, soft
garment served only to remind him that it had been many months since he had
taken any pleasure.

Nilrem seemed to read his mind. “If you found no sign of her
master, perhaps she is a runaway. Claim her. I can step outside for the length
of time it will take you to use her, or better yet, I could bear witness!”

“I need a lifemate, not another female slave. ‘Tis useless
to claim a woman who, by the most ancient of laws, may neither bear me heirs
nor bring me power.”

“‘Tis true she could never lifemate with you, but surely
there is always room in a household for another female with such pleasurable
attributes?”

“Perhaps in my kitchens?” Kered asked calmly. Nilrem loved
to goad him to anger. He would not be led. His purpose for visiting the wise
man could not be lost in side issues.

Nilrem patted his arm. “Your responsibilities have made you
sour. What brings you here?”

“The Tolemac border is again breached in two places. I must
earn a seat on the council and try to end this useless war.”

Suddenly, the woman moaned, her breasts heaving with anxious
gasps. Kered kept a tight hold on her hand, clasping it to reassure her as she
flailed about on the fur pallet. Her moans became cries.

“Soothe her.” Nilrem edged closer.

Kered obeyed, murmuring nonsense, stroking her hands,
suddenly recalling phrases his mother had used to calm him when he was a child.
Fear possessed her. When her eyes opened, they stared wildly about, flitting
over the two men.

A red flush bloomed on her cheeks. Kered leaned forward. He
watched in fascination as the red stain spread. He wished now he had stripped
her, for the color ran under the edge of her gown. His imagination painted it
across her small breasts.

An exotic from some distant land. Worth a fortune.

“Calm yourself, child,” Nilrem crooned. He shoved Kered
aside and made clumsy clucking sounds at her.

She struggled up on an elbow. Her eyes skipped over Nilrem
to focus on Kered. “Oh, my God!” she whispered.

Maggie stared as the poster came to life, the Tolemac
warrior rising abruptly to his feet. His head banged the rafters and he stooped
in annoyance.

An old man bent over her. Maggie pressed back into the bed.
Her stomach rolled, and she shivered, searching the room for something familiar
to anchor her senses. Either she was dreaming, or the game was more
frighteningly real than she had thought.

The game.

Maggie sat up, then swayed as dizziness assailed her. She
blinked and looked about the hut, holding her throbbing head. Her nose told her
the two men could use a bath. Her eyes told her that the warrior would poke his
head through the roof if he stood up straight. Right now, he slouched
menacingly behind a wrinkled person garbed in rough, brown wool with a straggly
gray beard that reached almost to the floor.

“W-who are you? Where am I?” she stammered.

The old man spoke. “I am Nilrem. You are on my mountain,
Hart Fell. Who owns you?” He held out a wooden cup.

Peeking into the cup, she sniffed. No smell. Water? Afraid
to drink despite a raging thirst, she stared up at the two men. The words
penetrated. “Who owns me? No one!”

“Her injury has made her forget,” Nilrem said sagely.

The younger man nodded. “It makes sense. Drink,” he ordered.

Maggie raised the cup. Somehow the warrior’s demeanor
brooked no disobedience. His voice boomed in the tiny hut. Sweet, cool water
caressed her tongue as she drank. Smoke from a fire in a corner hearth stung
her eyes and hung like a pall about the warrior’s head. Her headache battered
against her temples.

“Do you know your name?” the warrior asked.

“Please don’t shout.” Maggie held her head and probed the
bandage encircling it, causing herself greater pain. Her stomach felt none too
stable, either.

“Am I shouting?” He consulted the old man.

“A mite,” Nilrem agreed.

With a nod, the warrior lowered his voice. “Go contemplate
the conjunction.”

Nilrem pulled a face and scuffled from the hut.

The warrior dragged a stool near, then sat down, now eye to
eye with Maggie. “You belong to someone. Who?”

“I don’t belong to anyone!” Maggie insisted, a prickle of
fear creeping up her spine.

“Prove it,” he said softly, stroking a finger along her bare
upper arm, watching her as intently as a predator might watch his prey. “Free
women wear at least one arm ring. You have none.”

His tone added the silent word “idiot”, but Maggie did her
best to ignore it. Wouldn’t you know Mr. Warrior God would turn out to have a
nasty disposition. And where was his leather jerkin? His jeweled weapons? He
wore a faded woolen tunic, long-sleeved, rough, more peasant garb than warrior
finery.

“Arm ring? I…that is…what’s your name?” She stalled for
time. This nightmare must end, Gwen must pull the plug on the game, and soon.
She was going to be sick.

“I am called Kered. What is your name?”

“Maggie O’Brien.”

“You have two names?” He cocked his head to the side. “I
have never heard of such a thing.”

Maggie’s heart hesitated before taking a beat. The planes of
his face glowed golden in the flickering firelight. His skin stretched
flawlessly across strong bones. She searched for some blemish, some mark, but
found none. His long brown hair might be a tangled mass of knots, he might reek
of sweat and wood smoke, but his skin rivaled a newborn’s.

Kered snapped his fingers in Maggie’s face.

“Stop that!” she cried, then pressed her hands to her
cheeks. The pain in her head expanded and pounded.

“Forgive me. I had forgotten you were hurt.” He put his
hands to her shoulders and eased her back onto the pallet. “We will deal with
your crime another time. Rest now.”

“Crime?” Maggie struggled under his hold. He pinned her
down, leaning over her. His long, tangled hair tickled her bare shoulders and
brushed her face.

“Aye. To desert one’s master is a heinous crime. If you are
a pleasure slave, the penalty will be harsh.”

Maggie sputtered through indignation, disbelief and fear,
but Kered seemed not to notice. He leaned closer, his warm breath, scented with
ale, washing over her face. His fingers rose and caressed her hot cheeks. “It
would be a shame to mark you, to mar such a rare beauty.”

“M-m-mark?’’ she stuttered, more from the whisper-soft
caress of his fingers on her cheeks and the proximity of eyes like the rarest
turquoise than from his words.

“Aye. An angry master would open your cheeks with a knife,
slit your lips, remove your nipples, rendering you ugly to all.”

Maggie pressed back into the furs, her arms instinctively
crossing over her chest.

“You have appeared from out of nowhere at the height of a
conjunction. Speak now, name your master, or Nilrem will see a prophecy in
this. One may not deny a prophecy. Claim the safety of your master’s name, and
I will see you are not mutilated.”

Angry and afraid, Maggie sat up and tried to shove him away.
He didn’t budge. Inches separated them.