Four
Other officers had sworn by the tranquilizing potions of a seer named Tiresia. I’d resisted entering the cluttered slum along one of the city walls where she kept shop, but now I was desperate for an elixir that would temper my anger.
Made of stone blocks, all of its windows bricked up, the former inn was entered through a small portal leading to a long, cavernlike corridor built against the wall. I stumbled in the darkness past three or four cubicles toward a dull light. I found the wench staring into a mirror of polished metal, oil lamps glowing around her. She saw my reflection and smiled triumphantly.
“So, you’ve finally come, Lieutenant Victor Decimus. Welcome to my lair. Sit here.” She patted a stool next to her. She wasn’t the ancient hag I’d expected. She was not yet 40, her Ethiopian locks threaded with colored beads, her abundant bosom jiggling beneath her flowing robe with every movement she made.
“What, has another officer told you of me? Speak the truth, wench.” I continued watching her in the mirror.
“The truth!” She laughed from deep in her chest. “I know nothing else. Nothing. If you please, my lieutenant, advance.”
I approached the stool, removed my sword, and sat next to her.
“You’re a handsome man, Lieutenant. You’ve a strong jaw, strong shoulders. Your eyes … they’re bold, keen. You’re a model client.”
“I know what I look like. Enough of this prattle.” I turned to her, but she averted her face from me.
“Please, my lord. Keep your eyes to the glass. If you want to be satisfied. Look only to the glass.”
“If this is a game, I’ll rip you apart, woman.” I motioned to my sword and took a seat.
“You won’t be sorry, my lord.” Through the mirror, her heavy-lidded eyes again peered at me. She was a stunning beauty. “The remedy you seek, I have. I have something more, if you dare try it. However, it will stir up your passion rather than calm it.”
“You must be a second-rate sorceress. The last thing I need is more of a temper.”
“Ah, but what if you could be transported beyond the grounds of Pilate’s headquarters? What if you could take whomever you pleased with no ill consequences?”
“Stop talking in riddles.” I grabbed her arm, and she snapped her face away away from me.
“I promise, Lieutenant, I would not resort to tricks. What I offer is too grave for games. But you must not look at me.”
“Why? I doubt you’re afraid of a man’s eyes, from the looks of you. Why do you hide from the sunlight? Why is the shop as dark as a prison? Why do you cower here like a rat?”
“You must trust me, my Lord. There is no other way.” She continued to face the darkness.
“Proceed.” I released her arm and turned back to the mirror.
Without loss of poise she resumed her attitude before the glass. “What I have for you, you shall receive with no small pleasure. But again, you must trust me. I’ve waited long for you. I have seen you coming for an eternity. You’re the first in an age. Without you I would shrivel and die. Stop!” She raised her hand when she perceived my impatience. Rings of rubies and polished jade glistened on her fingers. “You will understand soon enough. First, drink this.” She reached for a silver ewer on a table and poured from it into a cup, which she handed me.
I sniffed it.
“There is nothing magical about it,” she said. “It’s merely a strong liquor to relax your resistance to my words. I speak the truth. Drink.”
I did as she bid and very soon breathed more easily. The flame of a lamp transfixed me and I felt as though I lay in the sun after a swimming race in the sea. She slipped off her robe to show me her black breasts, round and full as silky pouches of spring water, waiting to be tasted by a parched desert nomad. Then she stood and let her garment drop to the floor. Her ebony body gleamed. Her ringed fingers touched my cheeks, guided me to her belly, which smelled of musk and sweet oil.
“Ah, this is all, wench? You want me to hump you?” I pulled her to the dirt floor. She moaned when my swollen cock sank into her warm, moist cunt. She moaned more as I pumped her, first slow, then hard, then slow to heighten my pleasure. All the while she kept her face turned from me.
The ride affected me like the opium I’d once taken in Rome, producing a trancelike calm together with a keen, excited euphoria spreading from my loins through my body the way the heat of liquor in the stomach finally flushes the face.
She guided my mouth to her breast. My heart pounded as the brown nipple stiffened. At first I imagined that milk flowed from the breast, then I tasted something else, something warm and potent, something as rich and red as the wine of Capri, as exhilarating as a slash made by an opponent’s dagger. When the liquid streamed down my chin, when I saw the stained breasts of the seer, I swallowed greedily. There was no stopping. The euphoria mounted.
I felt myself soar over the walls of the city on a moonlit night, over wells and courtyards, over crumbling stone dwellings wedged together on filthy streets. Below, lithe girls beckoned to me. Fair boys called for me to mount them. Amid them stood Joshu.
“So you see me, Victor!” he called from a rooftop garden. “You’ve discovered the power. But I promise, it will only trap you on the wrong side of eternity.”
I soared round the roof, tried to light on its tiles, but could not descend. I was like a granule of chaff battling a whirlwind, while the palms below remained immobile in the silvered moonlight.
“You can’t approach me, Victor. Believe me. Turn from her!” Joshu was as clear and distinct as a crow on white sand. None of the haziness of dreams obscured him, and I felt no awareness—as we often do in dreams—that what I saw would vanish if I willed myself awake. I was there, with him.
“Don’t believe him, my lord.” The seer’s words burst into my mind, but I saw nothing of her as I soared, though the sensation of our coupling continued and I continued to taste blood in my mouth. “I am the way,” she said. “Remember that. I am the truth.”
“She mocks me. She mocks God,” Joshu called.
“I will have you,” I said. “I feel it. I feel it.”
“You feel her.”
“Enough for now, my lord.” She pushed my lips from her breast. “More later if you like.”
I was drenched with sweat, while she remained dry. The stain had disappeared from her breasts. I rolled off her to catch my breath.
“There’s more, my lord. Why worry about your rage? You can find him whenever you like. And you can have much more besides. Much more.” She propped her head on her elbow. In the shadows she had no need to turn her face away.
“What do you mean?”
“Come here again when you are ready to die.”
“Are you raving mad, sorceress bitch?” I reached over and grabbed her throat. “I could strangle you now and leave you in this pit.”
Suddenly a vise seemed to crush my hand, though I saw no culprit. I cried out in pain and tried, to no avail, to release myself.
“Remember what I’ve said, Lieutenant. I am the way. When you are willing to leave the world of the living I will take you to a place where you can be master of all. Even him.”
My hand was freed from the invisible grip. Tiresia stood and, without moving toward her garments, was clothed.
“I want to see him again.” I lay on the cold dirt, nursing my hand.
“You will not return here until you are prepared to stay.”
She seated herself once again before the mirror and watched me stand and grope my way back through the dark corridor.