S Stirling - The Council of Shadows

Ellen Tarnowski ran through the darkness, darkness so thick that the jungle was merely shapes of a deeper black. Branches flogged at her naked body, ripping and stinging, stinging again as sweat ran down her body in the hot, airless night. Rocks cut at her feet, and mud clung. Breath rasped in and out through a mouth gone dry as old leather, though she struggled to keep it even, as years of cross-country running had taught her. Fear made her heart thunder between her ribs, and her hands were outstretched to keep her from running into a tree trunk. They did nothing when a foot came down on emptiness. With a scream she pitched forward and tumbled down the slope, clutching at bushes that cut her hands and wrenched loose strands of her long yellow hair.

Behind her came a high, racking snarl that built up into a great squalling feline screech. There was the rage of hunger in it, and killing-lust, and an appalling hint of laughter.

The tumble ended with a thump that knocked the breath out of her, in a little clearing of waist-high grass and flowers that showed like pale trumpets in the night. Clouds parted above, and great strange-colored stars shone like jewels around a pale moon. Ellen pushed herself backwards with hands and heels, her eyes going wider.

A tiger flowed down the slope and slunk into the open. It was nightshade itself, striped in black-on-black, its eyes pools of molten sulfur yellow. It snarled like an ivory-fanged saw as it came forward, placing its paws with slow precision. As the teeth showed a voice sounded in Ellen's mind, hatefully familiar, soft-toned and musical.

Hallo, cherie. ' Allo, my sweet tasty curvy little blond wonton dumpling of delight! Let's play now, shall we? Play-play-play!

It came closer, taunting in its sleek fluid grace. Then its muscles rippled beneath the midnight coat as it crouched to spring.

Now, how about a nice cozy scream? Fear first, mousy-girl. Then the agony. Then the blood, your lovely blood…

Ellen did scream as it leapt. Then another streak came through the darkness. The arcs met in midair, and the two huge cats went tumbling over in a blur of striking paws tipped with claws like knives, gleaming fangs and blazing yellow eyes. The newcomer was more massively built, as much like a bear as a cat, tawny colored, with heavy hulking forelimbs and seven-inch fangs that jutted saberlike below its jaws. The tumble ended with both rearing and hammering at each other in a blurring frenzy of paw strokes.

Ellen screamed again, this time in rage. A sword lay near her on the ground, its silvery curved blade marked with glyphs that blazed back the moonlight. She snatched it up, darted in and struck a long lashing blow with both hands on the hilt, as if it were a backhand smash in a game of tennis. The black hide of the tiger parted and blood spilled, the red nearly black itself in the night. She struck again and again and again, lost in the hate that possessed her And woke.

"Uhhh. Uhhhh. Uhhhh."

She gasped for breath, feeling her sweat soaking the sheet and suddenly turning cold and gelid, eyes blinking in the light of the bedside lamp. Adrian's hand closed on her arm, careful not to make her feel constrained as a hug might.

"You're awake, darling. You're awake. I'm here."

She grabbed him with a sudden convulsive movement, burrowing into the strength and warmth as his arms closed around her gently. The big room had the still darkness that comes an hour before dawn, and she could smell the sea and cool scents of dew and rock through the balcony windows. After a few moments she began to shiver in reaction, her skin turning to goose bumps. Adrian wrapped her in a blanket and pulled her back against him, rocking her slightly as her dry sobs wound down.

"That was a bad one," she said. "Adrian, was that sabertooth you?"

He nodded, his chin moving against her head. "Yes. I walked into that part of the dream."

Ellen felt dizzy with exhaustion. "Why didn't you kill her?"

"Too risky, my sweet one. That wasn't Adrienne. Adrienne is dead; what you saw in your dream was a memory, a projection, part of your own psyche. Only you could kill it safely. As you killed Adrienne herself. You were very brave, then and now."

Ellen sighed wearily. "I wish killing the memories were as easy," she said. "I just got around my childhood and then I get more trauma dumped on me. Dad goes, Adrienne steps into the all-powerful-nightmare-abuser slot."

"I am so sorry, my darling," Adrian said softly.

She thumped her fist against his back in weak anger. "Not your fault! You didn't do it!"

Then she was too tired to speak, but too shivering-taut to sleep. Adrian laid her down, stripped off the sopping sheets, and began kneading the muscles along her spine with strong, expert fingers. There were muted clicks as things adjusted and relaxed; then he covered her again and brought a glass.

"Drink," he said. "You need to hydrate and get your blood sugar up."

It was sweet lemonade; the landlady of the pensione kept a carafe of it in their rooms, squeezed each day from the grove that surrounded the building. She drank it gratefully and lay back in his embrace, cocooned in the blankets.

"Sleep, darling, sleep. I will watch over you."

"Urrgggh," she said.

Ellen knuckled at her eyes. Adrian waited until she'd blinked them clear before sitting down on the edge of the bed. Bright sunlight spilled through the louvers of the bedroom window, falling over the hatched tile floor and cream-colored stucco of the walls and the tumbled linen of the bedding. She sighed and leaned her head against the flat muscle of his shoulder, like hard living rubber under the soft fine-grained olive skin.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"I am sorry that you have the dreams," he said. "I'm glad that I can help."

"Oh, brother, do you ever!" she said, and sighed. "It can't be much fun, being on a honeymoon with someone who wakes up screaming every five or six days, and…well, you know, freezes up sometimes."

He chuckled. "Anyone else would be catatonic, or dead, or mad beyond help after six months as my sister's prisoner. You are a very strong person, my love."

Ellen laughed too, ruefully, stretching, aware that she smelled a little of stale fear-sweat.

"I'm sort of a stinky person right now. I'll go shower."

"And I will see to breakfast," he said.

God, he's tactful, she thought-right now she wasn't in the mood for a shower a deux, something they often enjoyed.

But then again, he's telepathic. Men keep saying women expect them to read their minds. It's a little odd being married to one who really can do it.

Adrian was usually fairly tactful about reading her actual thoughts, but apparently he couldn't help picking up her feelings. The really important thing was that he cared about them, too, but actually knowing for a fact what they were made him feel marvelously sensitive to her.

The hot water leached tension out of her muscles; she let it cascade over her face and sighed.

A new life, she thought. After a near-death experience…I don't really miss my old one. In the old one, I didn't have Adrian. But I do miss being normal, the way I was back in Santa Fe. Funky-artsy normal, at least. I wonder what's happening back there? Have they forgotten me already? How did they react when I just…vanished?

The Santa Fe Fire Department was turning off their hoses; dank steam rose into the night, and chilly water dripped from the buildings to either side where they'd sprayed to keep the flames from spreading; there was a blank wall across the street. It was high-desert winter, cold, dry, moonlight visible on the white peaks of the Sangres floating off to the north. No city stink, which he liked; there were only sixty thousand people in what passed for New Mexico's capital city.