“P-Perhaps you should go,” stammered Miranda, her gaze darting from one man to the other.
“Not before we talk,” said Corwin. “You need to know what has happened here tonight, and why.”
Miranda clutched the satin lapels of her robe beneath her chin. “Is there really any need? It was simply one of those things that happen between men and women ...”
Darius gave a most ungentleman-like snort. “Put on a pair of breeches, Corwin. In this state, you’ll only make things more difficult for her.”
Corwin nodded. “Good idea.”
Miranda was willing to swear she did not even blink. One moment, Corwin was stark naked in front of her, and the next he was clad in a dressing gown of burgundy velvet trimmed with black satin. She could see a white shirt underneath the robe. A pair of furred slippers covered his feet.
Miranda staggered backward. “How ...”
“Stop it,” said Darius sternly behind her. “You knew well before this there was magic happening around you. Don’t turn fainting fool on us now.”
His words stung her pride and Miranda straightened her shoulders. “I am not a fool; neither am I prone to fainting,” she said, even though seeing Darius now dressed in a fashion similar to Corwin did nothing for her composure.
Darius nodded once. “Good.”
Corwin looked from one of them to the other, with something perilously close to amusement coloring his expression. Miranda frowned hard at him, and his face at once became a mask of perfect sobriety.
“Explain yourself,” she ordered.
Corwin raised his eyebrow a trifle, and the smile that played about his expressive mouth threatened to turn charmingly boyish. But Miranda refused to be moved by it, and continued to level at him the glare she had honed through years of public balls and supper dances.
Corwin bowed neatly from the waist, as if acknowledging her point. “The term most commonly applied to ones such as Darius and myself is ‘Sorcerer.’ ”
Miranda did not permit her glare to soften one bit. “And what exactly does that mean?”
“It means we are born with the capability of shaping and wielding the power of magic.”
A fresh wave of uncertainty swept through her, but Miranda forced herself to stand against it. “I would say there is no such thing, but that would contradict the evidence of my senses. So, I must accept it. You ... both of you”—she glanced at Darius, who was still staring out the window at the darkened lawn—“are Sorcerers. You are working magic spells. What has that to do with me, and what happened to me tonight?”
Darius opened his mouth, but Corwin raised his hand to cut him off.
“Are you familiar with the theory of electricity?” asked Corwin.
Miranda inclined her head. “My father was a man of science. He read me Dr. Franklin’s papers on the subject.”
Corwin’s brows shot up in genuine surprise this time. “Excellent. Then you are perhaps aware that the electricity may be both generated and stored.”
“I have heard something of it, yes.”
“It is rather the same with the power of magic. Like electricity, magic is a natural occurrence. A Sorcerer carries a store of it inside himself on which he may draw to work his art. But that store is small, and can be quickly depleted. Much larger supplies of magic exist in the natural world. Some places, indeed, are huge reservoirs of power.”
“Then why does not the Sorcerer draw on those?” Miranda asked.
“They do,” replied Corwin. “But tapping nature’s reservoirs can be difficult, and time-consuming. It takes great skill and sometimes many years to create the tools necessary to reach it.”
“You’re talking of magic wands and so forth?”
“I am.” Corwin nodded. “And such tools are not always reliable. They can channel too much magic into the wielder, or not enough, or the shape and nature of their making can warp the spell. So, most Sorcerers prefer to rely on their own inner stores of magic, or on a Catalyst.”
“And what, pray, is that?”
“A Catalyst is a person who can naturally attract and channel the magic of the world around them, as one of Dr. Franklin’s lightning rods channels the lightning.
“You, Miranda Prosper, are a Catalyst.”
Miranda hesitated, uncertain she could trust her voice. “Are you attempting to tell me I am not human?”
“No. You are as human as we ourselves.”
“You should perhaps have chosen a better example.”
Corwin glanced over to Darius with something like a plea for help. Darius just shrugged and waved his hand, both gestures plainly saying, “You got yourself into this; you can get yourself out.”
Corwin sighed with exaggerated patience. “You are perfectly human, Miranda. You are simply blessed with a particular talent. If you had been a born opera singer, or mathematician, it would be the same.”
“No, I don’t think it would.” Miranda knotted her fingers together. “Is that why you ... came to me? Because I am this thing, this ... Catalyst?”
For the first time since they had begun this strange conversation, Corwin stepped toward her. “I came to you, Miranda, because I was in need.” He reached out and took her hand, threading his fingers gently through hers. “I needed the strength I knew you could give me.”
His voice was soft, and all humor gone from it. His hand against hers reminded her of all the other touches, the ones that had awakened and inflamed her. She swallowed and made herself meet his dark gaze.
“Was the ... the ... sexual act ... necessary?”
“Not strictly,” Corwin admitted. “But it is the swiftest and surest means for the Catalyst to channel power to the Sorcerer. It is also, by far, the most pleasurable.”
His smile and touch remained gentle, but Miranda saw the fresh spark deep in his black eyes. He was remembering too—the way he had touched her and suckled her. Was he thinking of his cock thrusting inside her? She was, and of how very much she had enjoyed it.
She pulled her hand out of his.
“Why both of you?”
Corwin glanced at Darius, who lifted one eyebrow.
“Darius and I have been comrades in battle for a long time. He needed strength as much as I did.” Corwin smiled again. “And, I am not ashamed to admit, it was also because I enjoy it that way.”
“You do?” Miranda kept her gaze on Corwin. She did not think she could stand looking at Darius at that moment.
“Yes, very much. And I believe that you did as well.”
Two of them, their hands exploring her, arousing her, mouths against her lips, tongues teasing her hard nipples, her hot pussy. Their hard cocks, in her sheath and in her hand . . . Oh, yes, she had enjoyed every moment of it.
Miranda gripped the lapels of her dressing gown again.
“Which is neither here nor there,” interjected Darius sharply. “What you need to know, Miranda Prosper, is that you are an unusually powerful Catalyst.”
Corwin cut in. “When you were with us the first time, you should have drawn the magic from the blossoming plants, from the trees, and from the Earth even, and it should have channeled through you into Darius and myself. That is not what happened. Instead, you drew magic out of me, and you held it inside you.”
“Nearly killing yourself and him in the process,” finished Darius.
Miranda stared at the both of them. “Is that true?” she demanded of Corwin.
Corwin shot Darius a warning look. “It is true,” he said. “The fire you felt in you, the pain and illness and all the rest of it ... That was the effect of drinking down my magic. Because you did not know how to disperse it, it stayed in you, raw and uncontrolled, and yes, it would have killed you had we not found you.”
“And that I almost killed you? Is that true as well?”
“What nearly killed me was my own folly,” said Corwin. “I was too eager to make love with you to check the precautions I had made against such an eventuality, as rare as I believed it to be. I behaved like a reckless boy, and for that, I am sorry.”
Some of Miranda’s anger and fear subsided at this, but Darius folded both arms and resumed his pensive staring out the window.
“So, you are telling me I am some sort of succubus, then?”
“No. A succubus is a daemon. She drinks a man’s sexual energy to feed herself, and that will eventually kill him. What happened between us was an innocent mistake on your part, and a foolish one on ours.”
He said these last words to Darius, and Miranda turned to see Darius’s reaction. For a long moment, Darius stood still, his face grim. Then he nodded stiffly.
Miranda wrapped her arms across her breasts, hugging herself. She must think clearly. She must set aside her shock and disbelief, and all words like “perversion” and “insanity.” They would not serve her. She must analyze what Corwin and Darius said, and come to an understanding of it.
She took a deep breath. “You said you were in a battle. Against whom?”
“Ah.” Corwin sat down on the plush bench at the foot of the bed. “Now we come to the difficult matter.”
A laugh bubbled up inside Miranda and she pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “After all you have told me,
this
is difficult?”
“It is,” Corwin replied. “Because now I have to ask you—the daughter of a man of letters—to believe in fairies.”
“Fairies?” repeated Miranda. “Little winged girls that flit about the bottom of the garden?”
“Hardly,” said Darius. “Neither are they in the habit of granting wishes or riding cows dry or any other such trifling bits of mischief.”
“The Fae are a race of powerful magical beings,” continued Corwin. “They live in a world of their own, but in ancient times there were gates opened between our world and theirs.”
“Another world,” she said slowly. “How is that possible?”
Corwin spread his hands. “How is it possible that our world is here? Shakespeare was right, Miranda. There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in any one philosophy.”
Miranda found her mouth had gone dry. She moved to the washstand and poured herself a cup of water from the pitcher. Corwin and Darius watched her in silence as she drank. “Go on,” she murmured.
“Much of this history has been lost,” said Corwin. “But those who have studied it believe the gates were opened naively, by ancient Sorcerers who sought wisdom, and perhaps beauty, for the Fae can be astoundingly beautiful. By the time they realized their mistake, the whole Isle of Britain was in jeopardy, and they rushed to close the gates. But it is difficult to shut something that was never meant to be opened. Ever since that day, at times of great change, the gates shudder open again, and the Fae can slip through.
“The first great invasion came in the time of Camelot. It was Queen Guinevere who put an end to it, though it cost her dearly. She was not able to speak of the reasons for her actions, and so was cried out against as a traitor to her royal husband, though he himself never turned from her.
“The second came in the time of Queen Elizabeth. She and her Sorcerer, John Dee, were able to put paid to it then. He gathered to him the Sorcerers from all the nations of our island and they shut the gates again, it was thought for all time.”
“But they were wrong,” said Darius heavily. “And we are paying now for their mistake.”
“So ... you’ve been fighting an invasion? A ... a ... fairy army?” The words sounded ludicrous, but Miranda forced herself to squash her doubt. She had said and done so many impossible things since sunset, surely this was not too much more.
“I wish it was an army,” Darius muttered. “An army we might be able to beat, depleted as our numbers are. This is worse.”
It seemed to Miranda the room grew cold. All humor had vanished from the two men and their faces had both turned hard.
“The right king of the country has gone mad,” whispered Corwin. “The prince, his son, is prisoner to lust and dissipation. Invention, machinery and riot are changing the whole nation. How could so much chaos fail to breech the gates once more? We thought we were ready, but our enemy has grown clever, and cautious. This time, they have come through in ones and twos. They whisper promises into the ears of greedy, mortal Sorcerers, corrupting our already paltry numbers and turning us against one another. This time instead of an army, we are fighting assassins who can strike quickly and fade away. We are fighting men and women who know all our strengths and our weaknesses because they share them.”
“But why is it happening? What do these ... Fae want from us?”
“Our lives,” said Darius. “That spark of ourselves that is the soul. They have none themselves, so ours calls to them. They long to warm themselves by it, but end up only smothering it, and increasing their own hunger for it. They bring us glamour, power and beauty beyond description, and they kill us with it.”
Miranda looked to Corwin for confirmation and he nodded. “It is that simple, and that complex.”
“And there are people who are aiding them in this?”
Again, Corwin nodded. “Sorcerers are not immune to the promises made under glamour. If anything, we are more susceptible.”
“Why is that?”
“Power corrupts,” said Darius flatly. “And we are already powerful. Some of us believe we know what is best for ‘ordinary’ men and women. It is but a small step from there to convincing us we should rule, and that the lives of a few of those ordinary men and women are a small sacrifice for perfect peace and stability.”
“And for power,” added Corwin. “For ever more power.”
Miranda shuddered. “I find that difficult to comprehend.”
“Do you?” The corner of Darius’s mouth curled up. “So, what did it feel like when you held Corwin’s magic inside you?”
Miranda opened her mouth to say it had been hellish, but she stopped herself. That was not entirely true. At first, it had been amazing. She had been filled with strength and life. She was as great as the sky overhead, burning like a hundred stars. Nothing could touch or harm her, not her body, not her spirit. To feel so again, to feel so always ... that would be a true temptation.