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Date Posted: 02:46:41 12/06/04 Mon
Author: Slally
Subject: "Blood Seduction" (**** NC-17 ****) - Chapter 62
In reply to: Slally 's message, ""Blood Seduction" - Chapter 61 (**** NC-17 ****)" on 21:35:30 10/29/04 Fri

I'm back. Sorry for the long, long delay. Blame it on sickness followed by vicious writer's block. This chapter is a departure from the rest of the story and was difficult for me to write. Please talk to the muse - feedback not flames spur the story onward. I'll try to update more frequently again. Enjoy...

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It was cold. Mists rose up from the earth like the ghosts of ancient conflagrations. She was close to the sea because she could smell it – just the slightest tang of salt and brine teasing her nostrils – but not so near that the shore was visible. She was in a cave. There was sand underfoot; rock above and around her. The meager light of a late winter afternoon glanced off smooth planes of stone and sparkling, sharp points of schist. This anemic illumination appeared to be emanating from a hole somewhere high above her, from some sort of natural skylight. It was a world with hard edges. In the life that was lived here, warmth and softness would be either nonexistent or in short supply.

With sudden, claustrophobic horror, Sara realized that she was not only seeing this scene from the objective perspective of an observer. At other moments, she was watching the action unfold from behind someone else’s eyes. That realization made her stomach roll queasily. Sara sensed that her host was oblivious to her presence. She? Yes, she. She did not know that Detective Sara Pezzini sat somewhere in the center of her forehead peering out from behind alien eyes. The sensation was decidedly eerie and fear skittered over her nerve endings with tiny, mouse feet. Where was she? Who was she? Her vantage point in this vision was completely different from anything that the Witchblade had shown her before. And where were Ian and Dev? Why couldn’t she feel them any longer? Before the Blade had transported her to this place, Sara had been draped over Devian like a second skin and Ian had still been sheathed deep within her. The last thing that she remembered was the stunning intensity of their conjoined orgasm; then, the world had disappeared and she had come back to herself here; wherever “here” was.

It was not apparent to her that their joint sexual energy – hers, Ian’s, and Devian’s – had created the psychic charge that had fueled this Witchblade journey. The Blade’s bloodthirstiness was well known, well recorded. But, as its latest Wielder, Sara had found that the Object of Power’s carnal appetite was also formidable. She suspected that this attribute was less remarked upon because of the moral squeamishness of many of the Watchers who wrote her bracelet’s history. Sara now accepted that the Nottingham brothers had been right. The Witchblade had engineered their unconventional sexual encounter alright. It had goaded them into a concupiscent triangle to generate the juice It had needed to create this experience. “Why?” she wondered, “To what purpose?” The majority of the visions that she had been shown either presented her with some historical fragment to help her comprehend the nature of the ancient weapon that she wielded; or they showed her a portent of the future to serve as a warning. Was this vision similar? Was it intended to show her the role of the Blade in some bygone age? Or, maybe It was trying to warn her about some future event?

With those thoughts still roiling in her brain, Sara dragged her focus back to the present. Her perspective had shifted again. She was looking down at a pair of strong, capable hands as they sharpened the blade of a short, scarred sword with a whetstone. Muted shockwaves rolled through her. Sara clearly recognized the ornament that adorned the right wrist of the hand honing the blade with steady skill. It was not her Blade nor was it an exact replica; for all of that, its design was similar enough that it was unmistakably the Witchblade. Her illusory breathing slowed as her heartbeat quickened. She was inside the body of a Wielder. That realization hit her like a splash of icy water in the face. Her awareness sharpened and she began to study her limited view of the surroundings with an almost preternatural calm. The Wielder’s head turned and Sara saw a couple come around a curved outcropping of rock at the other end of the cave. She idly mused that the entrance to the cave must be somewhere around that bulge of rock.

As her range of vision widened, Sara realized that there were several other people scattered around the large, stone chamber. The man and woman came toward her. When they stepped into the brighter light cast from the opening far above, Sara got another shock. The tall man bearing down on her reminded her strongly of Ian. It was not in the countenance – this man’s visage was far more crudely drawn than Ian’s chiseled features. This man was not handsome but he was arresting; he had a magnetism that would make you turn your head for another look after he had passed by. Rather, it was something in the way that he carried himself; an eerie sameness in the shifting of hard muscle under taut skin. There was a similarity that was both indescribable and undeniable. The sensation that it gave her was simultaneously compelling and unnerving. Then, her eyes met his and any remaining shred of doubt vanished. She recognized them instantly. Under raised, dark brows, they now studied her cautiously; they were wide, the color of rich, molten gold; framed with lush, black lashes. Those eyes were distinctive and unmistakable. It was not her Ian, but it was Ian.

Now, Sara’s attention shifted to his female companion. The top of her fair head barely rose above his broad shoulder. Her years as a detective had honed Sara’s ability to remember a face. She knew with absolute certainty that she had never seen this woman before. Still, there was something; a familiarity that tugged uncomfortably at the rim of her recollection. It was the sly coercion in the woman’s light eyes, an imperious tilt to her head that Sara found herself worrying like a mental hangnail. Her disquiet was so pervasive that it brought a frown to the face of the Wielder that she inhabited. The other woman’s eyes widened slightly in response to the Wielder’s obvious displeasure. Boldly simpering as if she had won a victory, the woman leaned closer to her tall companion. Her full breast pressed against his muscular bicep. Sara felt a quick rush of gratification when the big man remained oblivious to the smaller woman’s seductive overtures. With amusement, she observed the other woman’s clear frustration and annoyance when his focus remained on her; rather, on the Wielder. He did not appear to even notice the substantial bosom pressing into his arm.

Sara had noticed that the strong hands cleaning the sharp blade had grown more intense in their activity. She briefly wondered whether the Wielder secretly harbored the desire to dice the blonde who was rubbing against the tall, dark man. When he squatted down before her and looked directly into her eyes, Sara got another surprise. The vibrations between this man and the Wielder were both complex and electric. She knew the signs. There was no doubt in her mind that they were lovers. His voice was a low, pleasurable rumble that was simultaneously familiar and foreign to Sara. “All are waiting for you, Mistress of the Blade,” he murmured, looking frankly into her eyes, “The time for sparring practice has come and gone again. Why do you tarry here?” Sara felt an abrupt surge of emotion pique the woman whose body she shared. She lifted a nonexistent brow and tried to identify it unsuccessfully – annoyance? anger? Whatever it was, it was strong. “Did it require two of you to ask me that, Eion?” the Wielder asked. Her voice had an edge that was as sharp as the blade that she was readying. The big man stood abruptly, his brows furrowed. Now, he was annoyed. Sara felt a twinge of amusement. She suspected that the relationship between these two was highly volatile; she was inevitably reminded of her own relationship with Devian.

The light-haired woman placed a soft hand on Eion’s arm, as if she had to restrain him; which was, of course, ridiculous. Once again, he did not appear to notice her touch. His attention was focused entirely on the seated Wielder who had returned to assiduously sharpening her blade. The smaller woman looked from one protagonist to the other. Apparently, she was feeling superfluous. It was obviously not a position that she was either used to or enjoyed. She tightened her grip on the hard-muscled arm she still held and took a step forward. “Don’t blame Eion,” she challenged, “I offered to help him find you, Banrighinn. He did not ask for my company.” Sara felt Banrighinn’s eyes narrow. She easily recognized the emotion she now felt vicariously. The Wielder was royally pissed. Abruptly, the woman stopped sharpening her sword and stood in one coiled, fluid motion. Irrelevantly, Sara thought of a cobra swaying menacingly in a basket. Standing, the woman was even more impressive. She was almost equal in height to the tall man facing her and was as fit as he; though her muscular frame did nothing to detract from her femaleness. One would not call her feminine but she would certainly never be mistaken for a man.

Banrighinn seemed to dwarf the pale-haired woman, who took a careful step back. “I am not ‘blaming’ anyone, Coinneach,” the Mistress of the Blade replied sharply, “I was simply wondering why, of late, you always seem to be under foot.” Coinneach’s pale blue eyes flashed icy fire. “Under foot?” she hissed, taking offense at the blatantly demeaning observation. Losing patience, the tall warrior shook off Coinneach’s hand and stepped forward until a scant inch separated him from his lover. They were nearly eye to eye, and the flashing sparks were almost visible between them. “The others are waiting and the light is beginning to fail,” he growled, “Do we work with the Blade this day or not?” In a purely natural reaction, the Wielder’s gaze dropped to Eion’s right hand, curled in a loose fist at his side. This time, the stunning shock of revelation that Sara experienced forced an uncontrolled gasp out of Banrighinn’s mouth. Eion was also wearing a Witchblade! With a rigid act of will, Sara forced the Wielder’s eyes to look toward the right wrist of the smaller woman. Coinneach was wearing a Blade too! Sara found that she was having trouble getting her mind around this new knowledge being presented to her. The realization was almost beyond her comprehension. There was not a single Wielder; a chosen one. They were all Wielders, both men and women. How was that possible?

Noting the Wielder’s confusion, mixed with what must be an uncharacteristic touch of fear, Sara realized that Banrighinn was finally aware of her presence. What must this primitive woman think – that she was losing her mind; that she was possessed by a demon? Reacting to the Wielder’s shocked gasp, Eion asked with some concern, “What is it? Is something else amiss?” He was unused to the abrupt emotional shifts that were occurring in his normally tightly-controlled lover. Banrighinn blinked slowly several times, clenching and unclenching her fists as she struggled to get a firm grip on what she assumed was her traitorous imagination. Sara felt the woman’s thoughts searching again for the alien presence that she had sensed; like a tongue unable to stop exploring a painful cavity. Eventually, the Wielder let it go, taking a long, shaky breath to steady herself. Meeting her lover’s worried, golden eyes, Banrighinn reassured him, “No. Nothing is amiss. The others have been kept waiting too long. Come.” The tall man studied Banrighinn for a moment longer; then, he turned to the smaller woman and said, “Coinneach, go out and tell them that the Mistress of the Blade will be there soon.” For a heartbeat, Sara thought that the other woman would argue with him; so did Eion. He frowned. Whatever resistance Coinneach had been about to exert immediately dissolved at his displeasure. She smiled up at Eion seductively and replied, “I will do as you ask me, but only if we can resume our talk later.” The frown still evident, he shrugged. Taking that as acquiescence, Coinneach squeezed Eion’s arm again and left them.

When Eion turned back to the Wielder, she was frowning too. “What talk is that?” she asked. The tall man looked confused again for a moment before he understood her reference. When he did, he waved his hand in a quick, dismissive motion. “Forget Coinneach,” he rumbled, “She means nothing to me.” He paused for a long moment before he asked, in a softer, artlessly sensual voice, “Will you stay with me this night? It has been too long. It seems as if you have been drifting away from me. When we go abroad to forage or campaign of late, you are always with others, never with me. Is there something wrong between us?” Sara felt Banrighinn’s discomfort. “Must we speak of this now?” she asked, endeavoring to move past him. But he stood still, massive and impassable, another wall in the chamber of rock. Sara felt his compelling gaze resting on her; on the Wielder; Ian’s and Devian’s eyes, the Nottingham eyes. “Yes,” he grated, “We must speak of this now. You did not answer me. Will we be together this night?” Sara could feel the woman’s resistance to his request and, now, she too was curious. Probing a bit deeper, she found that the Wielder had been suspicious of the relationship between Eion and Coinneach for some time. The woman had found nothing concrete to cause her misgivings; it was more a disturbing nudge from her intuition. And, like Sara, Banrighinn was slow to give her trust to any man and quick to suspect him of abusing it.

The Mistress of the Blade cleared her throat and finally met Eion’s piercing stare directly. She had nothing solid upon which to base her suspicions, but the gods had best protect any man that sought her love, broke down her resistance to woo her, and then played her false. She would see him doomed to misery in the underworld and curse the issue of his profligate loins for all eternity. Shaking off these grim thoughts, Banrighinn could find no true reason to refuse the advances of her lover. Logically, she knew that such an attitude might itself be the wedge that would drive Eion into her rival’s arms. Sara was fascinated as she followed the woman’s train of thought; though untold decades and very different cultures separated them, her own reasoning process was eerily similar to that of the Wielder. Banrighinn gave her head a little shake and a lock of brown hair tumbled across her forehead. Eion’s tawny eyes softened a fraction as he stretched out a long, dirty finger to stroke the hair back into place with surprising tenderness. At that moment, the tall man with the craggy features reminded Sara so strongly of Ian that she too felt some hardness within her melt. A touch of warmth crept back into the Wielder’s wary, hazel eyes. “I will spend this night with you,” she agreed, her eyes locked with his, “But right now, we must go and join the others. Does that suit you?”

Eion gave her a quick, rakish grin. “Aye,” he affirmed, “It suits me well.” A second later, the tall woman suddenly grinned too; almost as if she couldn’t help but respond to him. Sara vividly felt the carnal heat flare between these two. It was as obvious to her as it apparently was to the Wielder that he was not speaking of sword play – at least not the form of it that they were now joining the others to practice. Banrighinn turned then and drew herself up to her full impressive height. Looking every inch the “Mistress of the Blade,” she strode past Eion without another word and around the outcropping of rock toward the unseen entrance to the cave. Without hesitation, Eion followed her. After they had gone, Coinneach crept stealthily from a shadowed enclave toward the front of the cave where she had hidden herself to watch what would transpire between the couple after she had been sent away. She stood still another moment, lost in thought, before she too turned and followed the route that the lovers had taken.

As she watched the pale-haired woman, Sara realized that her perspective had shifted again. She was outside the Wielder now; once again in the position of an objective observer. Except that she felt anything but objective. She was aware that she identified strongly with Banrighinn; that she still did not completely trust Eion; and that she actively disliked Coinneach. Sara was pondering the scene she had just witnessed, trying to figure out whether it had contained some lesson that she was supposed to learn, when the bottom abruptly dropped out of her stomach. Swirling mists clouded her vision and she suffered through the familiar fleeting nausea of another temporal shift courtesy of the Witchblade. When her lens crystallized again and the discomfort subsided, Sara had the impression that she was viewing the same general landscape and period; however, some time had passed and events had unfolded in the interim. Although she certainly would not classify herself as a student of history, Sara knew enough to get by and she had managed to pick up more through her association with Gabriel and Ian, who were both astute and learned students of Witchblade lore.

From the form of English she had heard spoken, the style of dress she had seen, and the primitive living conditions that she had witnessed, Sara guessed that she was being shown some early Celtic sect of Blade Wielders. What threw her was that she couldn’t remember either Gabe or Ian telling her of a time when there were both men and women concurrently acting as Wielders – a small army of them from what she had seen and heard. There was not a single Witchblade, but many. Were they all connected telepathically like some kind of hive? Were the bracelets linked telekinetically? If one of them morphed, did they all change? The possibilities were mind-boggling. A movement snagged her peripheral vision, interrupting this reverie. From a distance and even in the pervasive fog of a sodden night, Sara recognized the tall, angular form of the Mistress of the Blade. Barely revealed by the grudging light of an anemic, crescent moon, the woman moved slowly and stayed close to the towering wall of rock. She glided from one patch of inky shadow to the next like a wraith. Then, with a sudden shock like that of an unexpected slap, Sara was back behind the Wielder’s eyes. She was abruptly flooded with the maelstrom of emotions that the woman was barely controlling. The roiling, primal glut of them was disorienting; agonizing betrayal, sadness, pain, fury, fear, hatred, doubt. Vicariously, she tasted awful, dark things that she did not want to even begin to try to identify.

When she was able to breathe again and form a coherent thought of her own, Sara immediately realized that the woman’s vague suspicions of an illicit liaison between Eion and Coinneach must have proven true; or, at least, the Wielder believed that she was about to validate those pained imaginings. That must be where she was headed now, Sara thought; she intended to catch them in the act. If that was going to happen, the way this woman was feeling at the moment, she might quite literally tear the adulterous lovers limb from limb with her bare hands. Sara did not want to be inside Banrighinn if and when such an event occurred. Desperately, she began questing around to try and find a quick exit from her psychic prison. Sara was so intent on releasing herself that it took a moment for her to realize that the Wielder had stopped moving. Wrestling her consciousness back to the present, Sara took in what Banrighinn was seeing. The Wielder was pressed tight against the rock wall of a cave, blending into the blackness until she was just another shadow. This chamber was much smaller than the large, shared dwelling Sara had seen earlier. She suspected that its function was explicit. It provided a haven for those times when a couple wanted to separate themselves and be alone only with each other.

A low fire was burning in a corner of the narrow space to provide some heat; however, the pair nestled deep in the pile of furs were generating substantial heat of their own. In the eldritch light of the flames, the smooth play of shifting muscle on Eion’s broad, bare back was mesmerizing. As Sara watched his torso lift up and drop down with each deep thrust, she felt outrage begin to simmer low in her gut. The man reminded her so much of Ian that Banrighinn’s agonized betrayal resonated strongly within her. It felt personal. The betrayal of this man that she didn’t know, who had been dust countless centuries before she had been conceived, felt very, very personal. As Eion arched his long, hard body upward again, the pale woman lying beneath him was revealed. Her head was tilted backward, delicate chin pointed high, eyes closed. Her finely-drawn features were distorted with passion. Long, slender fingers with strangely clean nails dug into the muscled shoulders of Banrighinn’s lover; the man that had pledged his love to only her; the man that had lied to her. Coinneach moaned, a husky expression of both pleasure and need, and the ice-blue eyes opened wide. They fixed on the Mistress of the Blade where she crouched hidden in her patch of darkness across the cave. That gaze, bright with malice and triumph, burned her like a laser.

And, in that moment, Sara suddenly knew why the small woman seemed familiar; she knew those eyes. Those eyes that with just that arrogant and vicious cast had been fixed on her across the length of a Lance. Though she had no physical mass to support it, a crippling wave of nausea engulfed her. Sara was not sure whether she passed the sickness barreling through her like a rollercoaster on to her host or whether Banrighinn herself was the originator. It didn’t matter. In this response, they were one. The Mistress of the Blade lurched out of the narrow darkness of the small cave into the larger, all-embracing darkness of the night. In this primitive time and place, there were no cities, no civilization. There was nothing to diminish the primal lightlessness that surrounded them. The night felt huge. And the despair within Banrighinn was equal to that vastness; it was bottomless. Just beyond the hole that marked the entrance to the lovers’ lair, the Wielder dropped to her knees, bent forward, and vomited. Drained, shaking, the Mistress of the Blade slowly sat back on her haunches and wiped her mouth. She gathered herself, narrowing hazel eyes that now glittered with the flat brilliance of marbles. She filled the deep, empty space that she had just created with ripe, steaming rage.

In the time since she had become a Wielder, since the Witchblade had chosen her, Sara had had moments, sometimes whole episodic, though brief, spans of time, when the Blade had overcome her. Sara knew that she was a strong woman; what some had labeled as stubbornness, she called will. When she was motivated to do so, Sara believed that she knew how to exert that will. And, yet, she held vague memories of events she knew had never happened, recollections of bloodlust unleashed. Her sense memory knew what it felt like to become a weapon of pure destruction as she had after Danny had been murdered. She could feel the Blade slicing through tendons and sinew like a knife slipped through butter. Except that Danny was very much alive and she had never had a reason to avenge him. In her head, she heard Ian’s voice: “Bloodlust is a powerful thing. Desire for revenge. Desire for control. Can you control that desire? Or is it better unleashed? Are you having a hard time controlling the Witchblade, Sara?”

These were memories of things that had never happened, words that had never been spoken. For all of that, for all of the real or imagined intensity of remembered bloodlust when she had relinquished her will to the Blade, it was but a pale echo compared to the pure and deadly bloodlust now in Banrighinn. Perhaps the centuries of evolution and the sensibilities of increasingly civilized Wielders had muted both the Object of Power’s savagery and wantonness. What Sara was feeling now through her connection to the Mistress of the Blade, was the Witchblade’s bloodlust in its most raw and natural form. It was appalling and immense. It dwarfed the blackness of the night around them. Sara wanted to scream in both fear and warning but, of course, she had no voice of her own. Her voice was that of the current Wielder, and Banrighinn felt no fear and she had no use for any warning. Rather, as she stalked toward a steep mountain path, fists clenched, the Wielder heaped a soft, hissing string of curses on the head of her adulterous lover. Sara could see the scarlet stone in the sentient bracelet whenever the Wielder’s right hand swung into her line of vision. It pulsed with regular, blazing carmine flashes, like a wounded heart leaking blood with each desperate beat.

Sara Pezzini had courage, sometimes to the point of foolhardiness. It was one of the qualities that made her a worthy Wielder. But, now, at this moment, trapped inside the body and mind of an engine of destruction bent on revenge, she was afraid. She had no control over the situation and she could feel the careening approach of a disaster of immense proportions – and she was unable to do anything to stop it! She could only wait and watch the tragedy unfold. Banrighinn obviously knew where she was going. Since she had torn away from the trysting cave, she had been directed toward her destination like a bullet shot from a gun. Now, high on the path, almost at the crest of the mountain that housed the caves in its roots, the Wielder began to slow her headlong ascent. With a final, short scramble, Banrighinn reached the flat, craggy plateau that marked the summit of the mountain. The night in its star-filled immensity expanded above and everywhere. It was if the two Wielders, one seen and one unseen, were utterly alone in a vast and cold, but achingly beautiful, universe. The pitch darkness around them crackled with mystery. There was undeniably magic in the crisp, clear air; and, with it, great danger. Sara could feel the vast energy of possibility sizzling all around them. If her arms had had corporeality, every hair upon them would have been standing stiffly at attention.

Banrighinn turned slowly as if searching the dark mountaintop for some point of recognition. When she found it, the woman’s whole body went utterly still. An eerily quiet dignity and resolve settled upon the formerly frenzied Wielder that Sara found even more terrifying. The Mistress of the Blade slowly crossed the flat, open ground to stop before what looked like a small cairn. In the absence of all but scant moonlight, it was very hard to see; even with the Wielder’s catlike orbs. Sara assumed that Banrighinn must be guiding herself mainly through her memories of this place and with her sense of touch. Apparently at her destination, the Wielder dropped to her knees. Sara felt a quality of reverence emanating from the woman that she inhabited. It prickled at her non-existent nerve endings, rubbing them raw. It scared her. Banrighinn reached forward and dug about at the base of the cairn for a moment. She removed something; then, sat back on her bent legs and went to work with something that she now held in her sturdy hands. The woman’s motions were unfamiliar to her and it took Sara several minutes to identify what the Wielder was doing. She was using rocks and kindling to try to ignite a flame and start a fire. As that realization hit Sara, a spark flared by the Wielder’s busy hands and she had quickly transferred it to the dry kindling before her. The small blaze grew rapidly in a hollowed pit below the cairn and there was suddenly enough light to see why they had come to this place.

The roughly carved likeness of a woman rose above them. Or, more accurately, three women. It was a goddess – a goddess with three aspects: the aspect on the right held a fat, crying babe in each arm; the aspect in the center spread arms filled with an overflowing harvest of fruit; and the aspect on the left curved her arms around stacked, roughly-shaped loaves of bread. Even Sara, as far removed and as virtually agnostic as she was, could recognize a fertility goddess when she saw one. The vague sense of dread that she had been feeling deepened. She was startled when she heard Banrighinn’s voice. It was cracked and rusty, like she had been gargling with old razor blades. “Oh, Modron,” she rasped, “Mother of Life, please hear my plea and grant my desire.” The cold, night air seemed to grow still and heavy with waiting. Another frisson of warning blew across Sara’s nerves and she thought, “Oh, shit.” In the tense, listening quiet, Banrighinn continued, “I have been grievously wronged by one that I loved and trusted; one who had sworn faithfulness only to me. I ask for vengeance.” The bracelet on the Wielder’s wrist again came to life, as if echoing her request. It emitted brilliant laval beams that pierced the surrounding blackness like a bloody searchlight.

Then, Sara felt a presence; that was the only way that she could describe it. It was everywhere and nowhere; it was utterly alien and yet somehow familiar. As an enlightened woman of her time who believed in science and logic, as a pragmatist who still stubbornly disputed that magic could coexist with mundane reality, Sara recoiled in stark terror. Of course, she went nowhere. She was, after all, just observing this vision and was incapable of influencing its outcome. All of these events had already transpired many hundreds of years before she had even been born. That realization gave her the reassuring and calming distance that she had sorely needed. Her nerves slowly shifted from high to low gear. She had gained enough control not to jump out of her skin when a soft, very powerful, voice in the Wielder’s head hissed, “Speak! What do you ask of Me?” Sara felt the Wielder’s awe, felt her head drop lower in obeisance. It joined the other emotions jumbled together within her – the hurt, failed love, betrayal, damaged pride; and driving it all, stronger than the rest, the bright, burning rage; the desire to rip and tear and hurt.

Her voice tight with venom, Banrighinn whispered, “I want you to take away from Eion what he used to seduce me. I want you to take away from him his manhood. I want him to be incapable of giving a woman, any woman, pleasure. I want him to be unable to pass along his seed so that it will die with him, unrealized. I want him to suffer as he has made me suffer. That is what I ask of you, Mother of Life. I beg that you grant me, your faithful servant, this request. I give you my blood to seal the barter.” The Wielder pulled her short sword from its sheathe somewhere beneath the furs that she wore against the cold. With her eyes glittering hard and flat in the fey moonbeams, she drew the sharp blade in a long, shallow line down the inside of her right forearm. The track of the knife immediately turned crimson and, head bowed, Banrighinn held her slashed arm above the outstretched offerings of the goddess above her. Wide, rich drops of her blood slowly fell, staining the rock. The air all around them seemed to become more electric, more feral, as if the Wielder’s offering had opened a door, turned aside an invisible barrier. The voice, sly and curious, spoke again in the Wielder’s head. “Is this man so different then than all the other males of your tribe?” It asked, “Is his crime so unique, so special?”

Banrighinn’s rage consumed her and she replied, “No. You are right. He is no different. All men are pigs that rut only for their own pleasure. They do not feel love. They are not worthy of trust. Their only truth speaks to them from their loins.” There was a sound like a great sigh, as if the night had released a deep breath it had been holding. Banrighinn lifted her head. She turned her head, her skin testing the fabric of the night as a snake’s tongue collects scent. For the first time, some touch of rationality pushed back the torrent of her rage. That slight misgiving made her hesitate, frowning; but it was already too late. The die had been cast. In the Wielder’s head, the unearthly voice issued forth one more time, saying, “I grant your request, my faithful one. You shall have your wish.”

Yet again, the Blade’s temporal fog enveloped her and when the vision cleared, Sara knew immediately that many years had passed. She was still caught within the body of the Wielder, but that body had aged and sickened. Using Banrighinn’s failing eyes, Sara studied her surroundings. The Mistress of the Blade had traveled a great distance from her Celtic caves it seemed. She sat in a small courtyard under a hot, foreign sun. The low building behind her was a brilliant, white. A gnarled olive tree stretched above her and a small, dark-skinned girl sat at her feet. The child looked up at her from enormous, dark eyes. “Mistress?” she asked. Apparently, the child had asked the Wielder a question. Banrighinn appeared as bemused as she. Though you could tell that the tall, white-haired woman had once been powerful physically, she was now just a shell, a husk from which all but the remembrance of that mastery had slipped away. She gave her head a tiny shake and focused watery, hazel eyes on the little girl. “Forgive me, Myrene,” she murmured, “My mind was drifting. What did you ask?” The child smiled a bit indulgently at her elderly weapons mistress. The child was intelligent for her tender years and already touched with the arrogance of a natural leader.

“I asked what had happened to your own people?” the little girl said in her clear voice and careful enunciation, “Where are they? Why did you leave them?” The old warrior shut her eyes, as if in pain and expelled air in a deep sigh. With just a touch of exasperation, she replied, “You have asked me that before.” Myrene cocked her head to one side in a characteristic gesture. “I know,” the precocious child agreed, “But you have never answered me. I will keep asking in the hopes that you do, Mistress.” In spite of herself, Banrighinn was forced to laugh. Her mirth sounded rusty from lack of use. “Very well, Myrene,” she said, “I will speak of it this once and then we will never mention it again. Agreed?” The girl nodded solemnly and said, “Agreed.” The Wielder’s eyes dropped to the distinctive bracelet she still wore on her right wrist and the child’s eyes followed her gaze. From the first, Myrene had been drawn to the Blade as if it were a magnet and she were iron. It was one reason among many that Banrighinn had known that she had finally found the one who would carry on the legacy of her people.

“My people were cursed,” the Wielder began, “By a jealous fool who traded the future of her race for a moment of vengeance. I am the last of my people.” She had the child’s attention. “What happened to them?” Myrene asked again. Banrighinn’s features twisted briefly with pain before she regained control and her face cleared. “They became sterile, unable to procreate,” the Wielder answered, then asked, “Do you understand these terms?” The child frowned before she asked, “They couldn’t have babies?” The Mistress of the Blade responded with a sharp nod. The little girl was still frowning as if something still troubled her. “But weren’t there still children when your people were cursed?” she asked, “What happened to them? Why are you the last one left, Mistress?”
Banrighinn’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. That was another reason that the Wielder had chosen her; the child had a quick mind.

“Yes. There were children,” the Wielder acknowledged, “But from the moment that retribution was loosed against them, ill fate seemed to track my tribe like a tireless hunter. We were attacked again and again. And though all of my people were exceptional warriors, they were worn down by stronger tribes with greater numbers. Those that were left were struck down by disease. Between one thing and another, they dropped away. One day, only I was left to bury the last to die; a man who had once been very dear to me.” Myrene was silent a moment to honor the pain that she sensed in her teacher. Then, she asked. “So, then you left your land. Why?” Banrighinn shut her eyes and murmured, “There was nothing left for me there. I had inadvertently destroyed all that I held dear. In a moment of blind rage, my insight had failed me and I had forfeited the future of my people.” The little girl smiled a sly, secret smile that was too old for her. She stretched out one small finger to touch the center of the red stone in the seductive bracelet that her master always wore. “And you came here and became my weapons teacher,” she said. The Wielder nodded. “And I came here and became your weapons teacher,” she repeated.

The little girl’s eyes met the Wielder’s gaze guilelessly. With the brutal frankness of a child, she asked, “Will you leave your beautiful bracelet to me when you die?” Banrighinn studied Myrene, searching her eyes for the resolve and steel of a Wielder. She found it there. The old woman nodded and replied, “That is my intention. But, first, there are many things that I must teach you about my bracelet, which is called a Witchblade.” Myrene’s eyes sparkled avidly. “A Witchblade,” she breathed, stroking the magenta stone once more. The Blade warmed on Banrighinn’s wrist, flashing and swirling at the touch of the Gorgon Amazon child. The old woman nodded again and asked, “Shall we begin?” Myrene smiled, almost giddy with her desire to touch the seductive blade again. “Yes,” she answered, “Teach me, Mistress. Teach me all that there is to know about the Witchblade.”

The mists swirled again and Sara knew that this time the vision was ending. The lesson was over. And, caught in that temporal no-man’s-land that was somewhere between the Witchblade’s reality and the reality that she called “real life,” Sara received a final revelation. Feeling another presence that she immediately recognized, Sara suddenly knew that the vision, the lesson, had not been created for her at all; the Blade had begun to teach her children; It had begun to train them as Wielders. She felt their consciousness, frightening because it was already so advanced. She could even identify their individual touch, the unique personalities that were becoming clear. Magdalena – Maggie – the daughter who like her father, Devian, was brave, brash, and a bit rambunctious. Christian, Ian’s son, who was calm, steady, and deferred to his sister, letting her lead. The visions were to be their school and the Blade was their teacher. The fog cleared as the centuries dropped away. For just a moment, Sara saw her bedroom. She smelled the distinctive odor of recent sex. She lay now on her side between Ian and Dev in the big bed.

At some point, Ian must have pulled out of her and rolled off. He had fallen down to the mattress, pulling her with him; which, of course, was fortunate for Devian who had been at the bottom of their pile and would have been pressed flat beneath their combined dead weight. She was on her side facing Dev who still lay on his back beside her. Sara felt the close warmth of Ian pressed tight behind her. Neither man was moving and she could tell that they were not conscious yet. Her own awareness hung by a thread. Fleetingly, she thought that she might be as exhausted as she had ever been in her life. The deep darkness of sleep beckoned her enticingly and she yearned to just let go. But, first, she stretched out her mind again to touch her children, to assure herself that they were alright. Their soft reassurance came back to her immediately – first Maggie, then Christian. Comforted, Sara managed to drag the discarded sheet and blanket up over all three of them. Then, with Ian snuggled along her back, she cuddled forward into Dev; she slipped her leg between his muscled thighs, dropped her arm around his slender waist, and rested her head on his broad shoulder. The clone made a soft, purring sound in his sleep and she knew that he had moved seamlessly from unconsciousness to slumber. Finally giving in, she join him in the blessed blankness of sleep.

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