Molly loved the top floor bathroom along the landing from her bedroom, at the back of the tall Victorian house.
It was hers by default, since all the other lodgers had left. Big and spacious, with a high ceiling, a trustworthy new lock to stop Steve accidentally blundering in when she was showering or bathing, and a fire escape door that she liked to wedge open to enjoy the splendid view out over London’s rooftops.
While the deep bathtub filled slowly and clouds of steam billowed into the air, she sat on the toilet and reread the second edition account of two young men meeting for the first time.
...
Tamass stalked the youth from midday until late afternoon, curious about someone who was so evidently out of place but showing such determination to keep going.
There wasn’t much more to him than skin and bone. He was nearly as tall as Tamass but only half his weight, and stooped with weariness. In his dirty sackcloth robe he looked like a human crow walking.
He wasn’t used to looking after himself. He stumbled over rocks and tussocks of grass and whatever else lay on the ground, his eyes bright with anxiety and darting everywhere excepting his own path underfoot.
There was no danger to him in this region, but he appeared not to know that.
Perhaps he brought his own danger, although Tamass saw no sign of anyone in pursuit of him.
The youth stopped beside a stream flowing through a stony valley when the sun sank beyond its western ridge. He paused to take his bearings in the sudden early dusk, and started searching for firewood.
Tamass watched him making camp for the night, then approached him from behind and got to within a sword strike of him before he jumped up and whirled around in alarm.
He was about twenty summers, as was Tamass. The skin of his face was red and raw in patches, and still bore the angry spots of boyhood in various stages of eruption. His eyes were as dark as his roughly cut shag of dull hair, and stared wide in fright, flickering twice to the heavy sword Tamass wore at his hip.
“I am Tamass.”
“I am Sted.” The youth’s voice was deeper than Tamass would have expected from his thin frame.
Tamass looked at the small fire Sted had been struggling to light. “May I share your camp for the night?”
Sted hesitated.
“I have food.” Tamass gave a piercing whistle, and his horse trotted into the valley.
Sted’s eyes widened again when Tamass opened his saddlebag and produced three buttered bread rolls and three thick slices of roasted beef. “Yes.”
Tamass got the fire going while his horse drank from the stream.
Sted sat on a flat rock beside the licking flames. He peeled off his thin-soled shoes and winced as he rubbed his filthy feet.
“Where are you headed?” Tamass held a bread roll in one hand and a slice of meat in the other, and didn’t quite offer it across the space between them.
Something moved behind Sted’s eyes. He was a private person, Tamass could see. But he was also hungry.
“South.”
“Anywhere in particular?”
He shrugged, and stared at the food. “Jebel.”
“Ah, so you’re off to see the world.”
“Yes.” He reached for the bread roll.
Tamass sat on a matching flat rock and withheld the food for one more question. “And where have you come from?”
Sted sighed. “Deracoom.”
As Tamass had thought: a runaway from the druid school. He handed over the bread and meat and watched Sted tear into it.
Deracoom was only a single day’s ride away, on up between the Twin Seas. It sat somewhere in the middle of the coast-to-coast Ko Forest, the nearest edge of which Tamass would see as a dark line on the northern horizon if he climbed back up to the ridge above their camp.
Sted had probably been walking for four days. Maybe five.
The druids would doubtless thank Tamass for returning one of their indentured youths to them. They might reward him with money, which he had little use for. Or possibly with a charm of some sort, which he might be more interested in. Or simply with good will, which he certainly wouldn’t decline.
He handed over another bread roll and slice of beef, and took the final portion for himself before Sted’s ravenous stare made him feel too mean to eat it. Then he filled a kettle with stream water and suspended it from a pair of forked sticks over the fire.
With the food and a cup of hot red wine inside him, Sted finally relaxed enough to stop flinching every time Tamass moved.
“So you don’t want to be a druid anymore, then?”
He shrugged. “It’s a long apprenticeship. Not everyone wants to be a slave for twenty-five years.”
Tamass whistled long and low. “Twenty-five years to become a druid?”
“Twenty-five years before they’ll even start teaching you the real secrets of the craft.”
“The magic.”
“Well, so people think. I’ve never seen any.”
“How long were you there?”
“Seven years.”
“Will they come after you?”
He gave a dismissive shake of the head. “I’m worth nothing to them. Just one more servant to keep the druids fed and warm.”
That might be true. Then again, it might not. Tamass tried to read his shadowed eyes.
“So what are you looking for out in the world.”
“What you said. Magic.”
“If that’s what you seek, why not stay and learn it from the druids? If it must take a long time, then so be it.”
“Druids aren’t magicians. They’re astronomers, mathematicians, and mapmakers. Some are herbal healers. They all think they’re philosophers. Not magicians.”
Tamass frowned.
Sted shook his head. “I know. Everyone believes druids know magic. Trust me. They don’t. It’s a lie going back thousands of years. They keep it going to command the respect of the common people.”
Tamass shrugged. He didn’t really care. He unpacked his bedroll and cleared stones from a flat space beside the fire, then stretched out on the ground and watched Sted copy his actions on the other side of the fire but without a bedroll of his own.
Pretended to watch Sted. For something new had caught his eye.
On the far ridge across the valley, two human heads had appeared while he and Sted were talking. Two people were spying on his camp.
...
Molly left Tamass the Fearless on the white bathroom cabinet and turned off the bath taps.
She lit three thick church candles and switched off the electric ceiling light, wedged the fire escape door wide open, and stepped into the lovely hot bath.
No bubbles or bath bombs or anything. They would hurt her skin. Just clear hot water, a bar of unscented soap, and a gentle frequent use shampoo.
The deep heat relief started the moment as she lowered herself in, and it softened all her damaged muscles while she shampooed and washed. By the time she laid back with only her face clear of the water and her long red hair floating around it on the surface, she was free of pain.
Nowadays, bath times were the only times in her life when that was one hundred per cent the case.
So. Back to young Tamass.
In the first edition, he and Sted had continued on their separate journeys the next morning, and they hadn’t met again until weeks later when Tamass walked into a tavern in Jebel and found Sted in trouble there.
In the second edition, the brief appearance of those two never-mentioned-again strangers watching the young runaway stirred Tamass’s curiosity, and maybe his protective instincts too, so he took Sted under his wing right there and then.
Molly was no closer to figuring out why Paul Best had added that scene. But, equally, nothing she’d just read disproved her hunch that the two observers had been dreamwatchers like her.
Thunder grumbled and growled somewhere over the city. It set off distant car alarms, and the rain got heavier suddenly as if someone had thrown a switch. Big fat raindrops bounced off the steel grill platform and railing of the fire escape.
It had been raining for days. The weather forecast said it would last another week, into the beginning of June. Another great British summer. She hoped it would dry up for Wimbledon, at least.
As long as there was no heat wave, please. Watching lovely tennis was no fun when she was sweating like an oil slick and even more exhausted than normal.
She levered herself higher to rest her neck on the bath’s rounded end, and to enjoy her view of the city at night.
It never lost its magic. Broad miles of darkness broken only by streetlamps here and there among the trees, then suddenly the city rose in great perpendicular slabs of light. With the Shard, always the Shard, drawing her eye like a magnet.
The fire escape handrail vibrated.
A line of drips fell from it like a pearl curtain cut loose.
Beyond it, London’s lights blurred out of focus as Molly stared at the thin steel bar vibrating, again and again.
Someone was climbing the fire escape ladder.
She should get out of the bath quickly and slam the fire escape door shut.
Except that after an hour in a hot bath she couldn’t move quickly, or even reliably and safely.
The vibrations got stronger. The pauses between them shorter. Whoever was climbing, was climbing faster. Running up the ladder.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t get caught naked, halfway between the bath and the door.
If it was Steve, she would scream blue bloody murder until either he left or Julie came to see what was happening.
If it wasn’t Steve—
She glanced around the room wildly. There was nothing she could grab to defend herself with. No way to summon help. She tried to fill her lungs ready to scream, but her fearful body betrayed her.
By the time the sound of the intruder’s heavy footsteps on the steel ladder reached her ears, she was panting and shaking so hard she didn’t think she could even stand up in the bath, never mind run anywhere.
The church candles flared. Two on the cabinet and the one beside her head on the little cork-topped stool, all three were burning brighter than before and leaning towards the open door as if straining to meet whoever was coming.
The footsteps stopped on the platform of steel grating right outside her bathroom. The fire escape was lit with a new red glow.
Molly tried to swallow her fear.
Her gulp sounded loud in the silence. The surface of her bathwater was trembling with her. The glow outside intensified, and shadows moved within it.
A man stepped in through the door.
A very tall man wearing a long coat, his eyes shining out of the darkness inside his hood like burning coals. Like hell looking right at her.
The man she’d seen from her bedroom window last night and had then forgotten all about. She remembered him now.
She couldn’t scream. Couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.
His burning gaze drew her in.
It calmed her.
Eased her fear.
Slowed her heart rate.
As if some membrane had broken, she could breathe again.
Calmly. Not panting or gasping. Breathing calmly, because there was nothing to fear. Nothing was going to hurt her.
“You’re hypnotising me.”
“I am.” His voice was deep, quiet, and melodious, like someone striking a big bronze bell softly with a felt-covered mallet.
It calmed her more than whatever he was doing with his eyes.
“Please stop.” She spoke as if in a dream. It took an effort to think sensibly. “I won’t scream.”
His eyes stopped burning.
The drawing-in effect eased to nothing.
She could blink again.
He pushed back his hood and revealed a normal-shaped face. A remarkably beautiful face, actually, even if it did have little flames licking constantly across its mottled blue-black skin. He was completely bald. No eyebrows, even. His eyes were bloodshot and his irises deep blue, like big round sapphires.
He stared down at her body.
Was he going to rape her?
No. She was far from certain that she was safe in the wider sense of the word, but she felt sure he wasn’t going to rape her.
He looked hungry. Ravenous. Starving.
Was he going to eat her?
“I won’t harm you in any way.”
She believed him. No evidence, but she believed him. “Who are you?”
“I am Lucien.”
She swallowed, unsure if her next question would make her any less safe. “What are you?”
“I’m a demon.”
Of course he was.
No, seriously, what else could he be? Who or what else in this or any other reality had eyes that burned like coals, for fuck’s sake?
A giggle tried to force its way out of her.
“You’re not offending me. Even if you were, I wouldn’t harm you. But it’s all right. You’re not.”
“Are you reading my mind?”
“Yes.”
“Please stop.”
“I don’t think I can. Sorry. It’s how things work.”
She was lying in the bath, talking to a demon. Exposed to his hungry gaze. It was all so terrifying at first and so utterly weird now that she hadn’t even thought to cover her tits and bits.
“I won’t harm you. And you should know that with regard to demons, immersed in water is always the safest place you can be.”
She slid down another inch. Three little bubbles of air escaped from between her legs and rose to the surface, where they burst silently.
Did he smile? Beneath the flames flickering across his face she was pretty sure he’d smiled.
It wasn’t a fart. It was air bubbles. But she had no intention of protesting that.
“You could try to focus all your concentration on a mental image. That might help to shield your thoughts.” His eyes shone brighter for a moment. “Think of water. A place of water you know well. That should do it.”
“Thank you. Is that your whole name? Lucien?”
“I am Lucien Alexis of Rake.”
“That sounds impressive.”
She was beginning to read his expressions, and for a moment he looked unhappy. As if to say: not really.
“Why are you here?”
“I was sent to watch you.”
“Oh.” If that wasn’t the most ominous thing anyone had ever said to her—
“Not to harm you. Just to watch and report on your movements. But I’ve got to know you, and now I want to guard you. Protect you, although I don’t know what from.”
“You’ve got to know me.” She heard the dull note of caution in her voice.
“From your dreams. They are beautiful.”
Her dream of Sted.
“Yes, I saw and heard that one. But the beautiful ones I’m talking about take place somewhere else. Somewhere I don’t know. In a deliciously thirst-quenching green country like nowhere I’ve ever seen before. Magnificent trees everywhere covered with luscious, juicy, glossy leaves.”
She didn’t remember dreaming about anywhere like that. “You make it sound beautiful.”
He definitely smiled. “That’s what I do. I paint with words.”
Did he mean he was a writer? A poet?
He smiled so broadly, his strong white teeth showed for the first time. “That’s it. I’m a poet.”
“What’s your world like?”
“Fire. Volcanoes. Rivers and lakes and oceans of burning, moving, living lava. Geysers of smoking hot oil. The sky on fire, bruised, glowing, glowering.”
He was animated with excitement, as if experiencing an intense desire to tell her everything about his world.
“Shimmering heat. Savage. Harsh, burning, constantly changing and moving beauty.”
He broke into a different language and continued talking forcefully with a rhythm and tempo that she was sure must be poetry. It sounded like melodious growling.
His sapphire eyes shone. Beneath his coat his body seemed to quiver.
The candle flames stretched ever longer towards him, and the flames on his face raced faster.
He ripped off his long hooded coat and dropped it to the floor. Beneath it, he was covered from his neck down to his thick rubber-soled iron boots in some sort of fine clinging mesh, like possibly the finest chainmail that had ever been created. “I’m sorry.”
“What for? Your world sounds terrible to me, but you still make it sound beautiful.”
“I’m sorry, not for my words but for my condition. I must—”
He peeled off the chain mail from his upper body and stood half naked, his broad chest and great shoulders heaving, blue-tipped flames flickering all over his skin.
Again, he stared hungrily at her.
“Not at you. Don’t be alarmed. It’s the water I’m drawn to.”
Oh!
“That’s what my poem is about. A river that I yearn for, but can never drink from or even touch. A love song to something that would kill me.”
“Can’t you drink?”
“We are always thirsty. We are born thirsty and we die thirsty. There is water in our world, but drinking it is instant death. Some choose to die that way. When one of us dies, we say his fire has gone out. Water quenches our fire as it quenches our thirst.”
“Don’t your bodies need moisture?”
“Yes. We get it from eating vegetables and leaves.”
His breathing was returning to normal, and the flames licking across his skin were less agitated than they’d been.
“In our world, plants tend to be dry and spiky. We need a lot of them to derive sufficient moisture for our bodies. That’s why the country you dreamed about was so delicious. Juicy green leaves everywhere.”
Without words, she watched his quite splendid body returning to its former state of calmness.
He was a poet. An honest, insightful, sensitive creature. A charming and interesting person, if you looked past the whole demon thing. But why was a demon poet watching her and recording her movements. Who for? Why?
“I can’t tell you why, because I don’t know. It isn’t my place to know. As to who, I’m doing it for Baron Rake.”
“Who’s he?”
“One of the great barons of our world.”
“You live in a feudal society?”
“I don’t know that word.”
“He’s your lord?”
“My family owes him a debt. He requires me to perform this duty as part payment of that debt.”
With an effort, he dragged his gaze away from Molly’s cooling bath water, only for his focus to fall on Sted’s book beside the candle on the cork-topped stool.
It wasn’t the first time he’d glanced at it.
“The magic in that book is what attracted Baron Rake’s attention to you.”
Sted!
“It isn’t about a person. It’s the magic itself. Something to do with portals, according to an exchange of words I overheard in the baron’s castle.”
That sort of made sense.
He put his slinky chainmail shirt back on. “We’ve been having some trouble. The constant rain in your world stops us tracking magic efficiently.”
Interesting.
He paused while stooping to pick up his coat. “I will never harm you.”
“I believe you.” Probably mad, but it was true.
“Good. I’ll return to my post now. I’m sorry I scared you. It means a lot to me that we understand each other.”
He shrugged on his big coat and pulled up the hood, effectively disappearing from view. “Goodnight, Molly Matthews.”
“Goodnight, Lucien Alexis of Rake.”