Warm, dark, caressing, safe.
Exciting. Stimulating. Erotic. Addictive.
Use it, Weyland whispered in my mind, to make love to me.
And so I did. I growled, feeling his darkcraft bubbling through me, and I sank my teeth into his shoulder. He laughed, and began to do things to me that, had I been told of them by another, would have shocked me to the core.
But now…now, oh, gods…now…
We did not so much make love, as we revelled.
On a later night, when we lay quiet, I asked Weyland why he had made the Idyll, and why in this house. It was a night of exploration, and, as neither of us could sleep, it was a good enough topic of conversation.
“I purchased this house years ago,” he said, “after hunting for many months. I found better houses than this, more spacious, grander, more solidly built, but this house…” He paused.
“I walked into this house,” he resumed softly, “and it called to me. I walked up the stairs, and entered the chamber at the very top of the house.” Again he paused, remembering. “It was as if it spoke to me, and offered me possibilities.”
“What kind of possibilities, Weyland?”
He was silent a long time, and I wondered what it could be that was so difficult for him to say.
“It offered me a home,” he finally said, so low I barely heard him. “Safety. Peace. Comfort.”
Tears sprang into my eyes. “Then I thank you for bringing me here,” I said.
I had my hand on his chest, and I felt his breathing slow, and deepen.
“This place was waiting for you,” he said.
I closed my eyes, unintentionally squeezing out two of those gathered tears.
“Do you know what this place is?” I asked. I doubted he did, for it had taken me weeks of climbing these stairs every night to realise the significance of both house and Idyll, and Weyland did not have the same understanding as I.
“What do you mean? This is the Idyll, sitting within my house in Idol Lane.”
“And where does this house sit?” I said. “Where does Idol Lane sit?”
“I don’t know what you’re asking me, Noah.”
Again I closed my eyes briefly, and wondered why I was about to speak.
Weyland, Weyland, what are we doing? How can we stop? How can we stop?
“Weyland, this part of London covers Cornhill.”
“Yes?”
“In ancient times, in Llangarlian times, this was known as Mag’s Hill.”
His hand, which had been stroking my neck, suddenly ceased.
“The goddess hill,” I said, my voice now almost a whisper. “My hill. Idol Lane follows exactly the ancient mystery track to the summit. This house only sits close to the top of the hill, but the top floor, where we are now, is level with the summit. Weyland, you have built your Idyll figuratively, and almost literally, on the summit of the goddess hill. Every time you climb the stairs to the Idyll you metaphorically climb into the realm of the goddess. Yes, this place was waiting for me. I am what makes it complete.”
We did not speak for a long time.
Finally, just as I was drifting into sleep, I heard Weyland whisper, “Noah, Noah, what are we doing?”
There was a dark corner turned that night, but whether it was towards the light, or into greater darkness, I did not know. Even then, I think, I knew there was no going back for me.
Twelve
The Realm of the Faerie, the Great Founding Labyrinth within the Tower of London, and Idol Lane, London
Louis dreamed, but this was as no dream he’d ever experienced as a man, nor even as a soul waiting impatiently through hundreds of years for rebirth. He dreamed as if he were awake; that is, he existed as if in a dream, but he knew this was no dream.
This was enchantment and magic and power such as he’d never encountered previously, not even when he laid down the foundations of the Troy Game with Genvissa.
Louis ran the Ringwalk. He sometimes ran as a man, but more often he ran as something fourlegged, far more powerful and swifter than a man.
He ran as the white stag with the blood-red antlers, and he ran through dream and reality, through land and mist, through time past and time future, and he ran until his heart pounded frantically in his chest, and he ran because he had a heart to pound frantically in his chest.
And he was glad.
Sometimes Louis ran alone, but more often than not other faerie creatures ran beside him.
Sidlesaghes, in their thousands, sometimes singing, sometimes silent.
The Lord of the Faerie. Laughing, sharing laughter.
Sometimes his father, Silvius, and Louis did not know if Silvius accompanied him because Louis was his son, Brutus-reborn, or if because Louis was Silvius’ long-time companion, the stag, risen from his death.
As Louis ran the Ringwalk he learned, or rather, as Louis ran the Ringwalk he absorbed. He absorbed the memories of all those who had run as the Stag God previously, and he understood that somehow Noah had undergone the same process when she had become Eaving. He discovered he could remember back to the dawn of life, back to the primeval world, back to when he, the white stag with the blood-red antlers, was nothing more than an ambition, a dream, a needing.
He remembered that first day he’d taken form, slithering free of his mother’s birth canal, dropping to the forest floor—not on his side or belly, as other fawns, but on his four feet, running from the moment of birth.
Born for the Ringwalk.
He remembered those who had hunted him, and those who had protected him. The faerie folk who had been his friends and lovers, and the creatures who had hated him and who had tried to kill him: other gods, frantic druids, fearful Christian priests.
Of them all, only the Darkwitch, Genvissa, had almost succeeded, and from that the stag had learned—he had only one true enemy, and that was the Darkwitch.
Louis ran the Ringwalk, and as he ran, he changed.
Life in Idol Lane transformed. Jane, who had lived there almost all her present life, had known only humiliation, day after day, year in, year out. Now, something else replaced that humiliation. Tolerance. Amusement.
Friendliness.
Generosity.
Her reward, for teaching Noah the ways of the labyrinth.
She didn’t trust it, this new world of Idol Lane. She was terrified of what would happen when Weyland discovered that it was not her teaching Noah, but Ariadne. However, for the moment, for this brief time when Weyland relaxed and the house became bearable, almost likeable, Jane determined to enjoy it.
Where once Jane had been a prisoner of the house, allowed out only when Weyland sent her on some closely watched chore, now he tolerated her coming and going virtually as she wished.
Noah did not often choose to leave the house on those days she did not go to the Tower to learn from Ariadne. Jane wondered if it was because she was fearful of meeting Catling somewhere in the streets, or if she just preferred to stay close to Weyland. Whatever the case, Jane took whatever chance she could to wander the byways and nooks of London. She rarely saw anyone she knew, and few people recognised her now that her face had healed and she walked with more pride than Jane the whore had ever managed.
Weyland largely left Jane alone. She’d been the butt of his viciousness all through the years when there was just her and him (until Elizabeth and Frances, the procession of broken girls through the house meant little to either Jane or Weyland). Now, Weyland had something else to amuse him—Noah. Jane wasn’t sure what Noah had done (had she slept with him? Jane puzzled over it, and then decided she didn’t truly care one way or the other. If she had then that was Noah’s damnation, and the woman could deal with it herself). On the evenings that they returned to the house from the Tower, Weyland would take Noah in his arms and kiss her, and taste the rise in her power, and would then smile and relax, well pleased. He was happy, he was sure of himself, and he left Jane alone.
Thus, there being no one to disturb her, Jane slipped deeper and deeper into her own world. Or, rather, she sank deeper and deeper into the world of the Lord of the Faerie. Somewhat like Weyland and Noah (had she known it), Jane existed in her own little realm of happiness. Jane spent most of her waking hours thinking of nothing but the Lord of the Faerie and what the faerie realm offered her. Release, freedom, a new life. And something else, something Jane hardly dared think about. She felt like a girl again, her heart thudding whenever she reflected on the Lord of the Faerie, her breath shortening whenever she remembered a way in which he had glanced at her, or the manner in which he had held her hand, and she would spend hours trying to interpret these tiny gestures in the best possible light.